On 11/30/2014 9:43 PM, Grimmund wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 30, 2014 at 1:48 AM, Tim<xxxxxx@little-possums.net>  wrote:
>> >On Sat, Nov 29, 2014 at 06:50:22PM -0500, Kurt Feltenberger wrote:
>>> >>Thanks for the reply! Currently the dimensions aren't quite what you
>>> >>have listed...the Mjolnir-A is 69.37m long by 7m in diameter, while
>>> >>the Mjolnir-B is 38.6m long by 3.5m in diameter.
>> >
>> >Yes, those are fine and covered by "arbitrarily larger".  So about
>> >50 000 tonnes for Mjolnir-A and 7000 tonnes for Mjolnir-B if made from
>> >solid tungsten.
> That seems kinda damn expensive for slugs.
>
> Is there some particular reason to not use nuclear weapons at that size?

There are a couple reasons.

First, getting the weapon to the target through what might be a very
effective integrated defensive system of small caliber kinetic and
missile defenses.  A nuke could go as fast, but once past a certain
velocity you'll have more energy released on impact than a similar
sized/mass nuke.

Second, they're clean with regards to radioactive fallout.

Third, they're easier to create.

Fourth, they make a very big hole in the ground and will pretty much
collapse must subsurface structures within 100+ km of the impact point.

At least that's the reasoning within the BSG universe as I've developed it.

--
Kurt Feltenberger
xxxxxx@thepaw.org/xxxxxx@yahoo.com
“Before today, I was scared to live, after today, I'm scared I'm not
living enough." - Me