Zeon and Nuke

[Seto Kaiba]

You make a good argument about the drawbacks of the neutron radiation from a D-T warhead, but bear in mind that a D-He-3 warhead would also release a very significant amount of neutrons. While this amount would pale in comparison to that from a D-T warhead, it would have very similar consequences when it comes to cleaning up the aftermath or reclaiming damaged resources.

Yes, but if you intend to march troops through (or near) territory like that it helps to keep residual levels of neutron radiation to a minimum.

As a general rule of thumb, if you're interested in making use of something later, don't nuke it in the first place. D-T, D-He-3, doesn't make much difference, both are radiological catastrophes, it's merely a difference in scale (time, specifically).

One of the potential implications of the Minovsky reactor technology is that they may not need to use fuels that produce neutron radiation... they might be able to use Minovsky particle i-fields to produce the holy grail of nuclear weaponry: the pure fusion bomb. It wouldn't be as energetic as your garden variety fusion warhead, but with He3-He3 fusion they could get close and just scale accordingly.

Chobham armour is actually an real thing and from the discription on Wiki all zeta era and later suits seemed to have that type of armor standerd for the body the Alex style seciondary suit seemed to be more of an test application based on the existing FA pck of the RX-78-2 body and the new 0083 manga has an GP01 FA for when it's acting as gp02A's escort after the blast it can eject the armor like the alex did if it;s built the same way

Chobham armor is a real technology, yes... but it's not standard armor and it's certainly not that common. If the descriptions I've found are any indicator, it's not even the same technology as in the real world. It just shares the name because the British tank research center at Chobham Common was involved in its production. (Supposedly it's luna titanium plates wrapped in anti-ballistic nylon.)

There are only four mobile suits mentioned as using Chobham armor, and of those three use the Chobham armor only in a bolt-on external augmentation pack. The GM Cannon II Monsha uses in 0083 is the only one I could find that mentions Chobham armor as standard, and that's just using the bolt-on kind as a permanent attachment over its titanium ceramic composite armor.

This is why I love this forum. It's the only place you can come to read about giant robots and walk away with a little bit better understanding of nuclear physics.

You wanna learn about nucleosynthesis, get me started on Macross's thermonuclear reaction overtechnology...

The I-Field Lattice is formed by positively and negatively charged Minovsky Particles, and they form pseudo-molecules with the D and He3. By compressing the Lattice with an EM field, the D and He3 are also compressed together and at the right pressure(distance), fusion starts. The Lattice is expanded by the energy generated and fusioned matter escapes the Lattice, while new fuel is added in for the next fusion.

This takes care of all the D-He3 fusion problems you mentioned in the later paragraph.

Actually it doesn't... the i-field lattice inside the reactor just provides the compression force and some radioactive damping, it doesn't ensure a homogeneous mixture of the fuel... so you'll still inadvertently produce some D-D and He3-He3 side reactions, and thus some neutron radiation released by the D-D side reactions.

[Areku]

I should point out that D-injection designs (like what MythSearcher is describing) work in reactors, but make almost no difference in warheads. In a warhead, you simply have to fuse too many nuclei too quickly. Inject D at a slow enough rate to mitigate D-D side reactions, you don't get an explosion; inject it fast enough to get a useful explosion, and you get significant localized concentrations of D, producing a high ratio of D-D side reactions. The only way to find a middle ground is with an extremely complex (inefficient) fusion chamber with thousands (maybe millions) of precisely synchronized D injectors, resulting in a warhead significantly larger, heavier and much, much more expensive than a reactor with a comparable quantity of fuel, and even then, you'd still get 5% of the energy in the form of neutrons. Remember, you have to inject all of the D in the few milliseconds before the explosion destroys your apparatus, but without adding any concentrated quantities of D.

One of the potential implications of the Minovsky reactor technology is that they may not need to use fuels that produce neutron radiation... they might be able to use Minovsky particle i-fields to produce the holy grail of nuclear weaponry: the pure fusion bomb. It wouldn't be as energetic as your garden variety fusion warhead, but with He3-He3 fusion they could get close and just scale accordingly.

That would be quite a feat indeed! Unfortunately, we know that I-Fields become less and less effective at interacting with photons as their wavelength becomes shorter, and at the temperatures needed for He-3-He-3, the Bremsstrahlung radiation would be in the X-Ray band. That would be a lot of lost energy, as the I-Field would be insufficient at directing those photons back into the He-3; in stars, there's so much material that virtually all of the Bremsstrahlung radiation is "exchanged" among the fuel nuclei, but there's simply not enough material in UC reactors to prevent buckling-related losses without some sort of specialized apparatus, and we know that an I-Field won't cut it. Again, I'm much less proficient with fusion than fission, but the only way I can think of to achieve and maintain the required temperatures for He-3-He-3 with UC tech would be to surround the He-3 with smaller non-He-3-He-3 warheads, and that just defeats the purpose!

Edit: Technically, the term buckling only applies to neutrons regarding fission, but here I'm using it as shorthand for thermal losses in the form of Bremsstrahlung radiation, as that serves a very similar role in finding a practical use for He-3-He-3.

You wanna learn about nucleosynthesis, get me started on Macross's thermonuclear reaction overtechnology...

I've never really delved into Macross tech. Is there anything you'd really like to elaborate on, or can you just point me toward the good stuff?

[MythSearcher]

One of the potential implications of the Minovsky reactor technology is that they may not need to use fuels that produce neutron radiation... they might be able to use Minovsky particle i-fields to produce the holy grail of nuclear weaponry: the pure fusion bomb. It wouldn't be as energetic as your garden variety fusion warhead, but with He3-He3 fusion they could get close and just scale accordingly.
Actually it doesn't... the i-field lattice inside the reactor just provides the compression force and some radioactive damping, it doesn't ensure a homogeneous mixture of the fuel... so you'll still inadvertently produce some D-D and He3-He3 side reactions, and thus some neutron radiation released by the D-D side reactions.

Well, they are still using laser in Mk-82, so at least the holy grail was not obtained in 0083.

It does, the pseudo-molecules are formed with postive and negative minovsky particles respectively, and thus the D and He3 are lined up like NaCl in salt. The settings didn't clearly state whether D or He3 formed with the negative minovsky particle, but the drew it pretty clear that they are lined alternatively in a lattice.

How ideal is this case is up to speculation, YMMV, but the settings kinda make it sound really efficient and almost nothing is lost.

[Seto Kaiba]

That would be quite a feat indeed! Unfortunately, we know that I-Fields become less and less effective at interacting with photons as their wavelength becomes shorter, and at the temperatures needed for He-3-He-3, the Bremsstrahlung radiation would be in the X-Ray band. That would be a lot of lost energy, as the I-Field would be insufficient at directing those photons back into the He-3; in stars, there's so much material that virtually all of the Bremsstrahlung radiation is "exchanged" among the fuel nuclei, but there's simply not enough material in UC reactors to prevent buckling-related losses without some sort of specialized apparatus, and we know that an I-Field won't cut it. Again, I'm much less proficient with fusion than fission, but the only way I can think of to achieve and maintain the required temperatures for He-3-He-3 with UC tech would be to surround the He-3 with smaller non-He-3-He-3 warheads, and that just defeats the purpose!

While it's true that i-fields become less effective at interacting with electromagnetic radiation as the wavelength decreases, we're talking about concentrations so dense that the pressure induced by the i-field is sufficient to induce nuclear fusion. Presumably the only barrier to utilizing i-field systems for other types of fusion is ensuring sufficient Minovsky particle density to maintain the necessary temperature and pressure inside the reaction chamber.

You wanna learn about nucleosynthesis, get me started on Macross's thermonuclear reaction overtechnology...

I've never really delved into Macross tech. Is there anything you'd really like to elaborate on, or can you just point me toward the good stuff?

Believe me, I could elaborate until my fingers fall off... but the ultra-short version is that in the Macross universe, the thermonuclear reaction overtechnology used in reactors and engine systems for starships and mecha uses an artificial gravity controller to induce and moderate its fusion reaction. Where this gets interesting is that they use normal, everyday hydrogen as the preferred fuel (stored in slush form), and the artificial gravity system helps compensate for the hydrogen fusion reaction's low energy yield by sustaining pressures sufficient for proton-proton chain reactions (or possibly even the CNO cycle).

Essentially, they're nucleosynthesis reactors made possibly by technology tens of thousands of years more advanced than humanity's.

Well, they are still using laser in Mk-82, so at least the holy grail was not obtained in 0083.

Or was not available on a warhead small enough to fit into the GP02A's atomic bazooka.

[Mimeblade]

Speaking of Nukes, do we know if the nukes dug up from the Mountain Cycles of Turn A were any different from UC design?

[Seto Kaiba]

Speaking of Nukes, do we know if the nukes dug up from the Mountain Cycles of Turn A were any different from UC design?

That's an excellent question... all the line art I can find says is they're nuclear warheads. ^^;

[Mimeblade]

I wasn't expecting much but... really? That's disappointing.