Re: David Drake's WideWorld of Weapons George Herbert 02 Aug 2021 01:01 UTC

Batteries today are around 1/10 of the energy density of explosives.  Joule is watt-second; a watt-hour is 3,600 joules, and good batteries are 150 wh/kg now, or around 540,000 joules (540 kilojoules) though some batteries are passing 300 wh/kg.  Supercapacitors are less energy dense.

TNT is canonically 4.18 megajoules per kilogram.

Not that you can’t detonate things with electric pulses, but you need a larger energy bank than the equivalent high explosive.  That may still work under some circumstances, and you may be able to do the electrothermal-chemical reaction trick and boost it.

-George

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