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How would you define a Proton Torpedo?

Please, try to make your definitions as if you are trying to describe how it would work in the real world.
(no SW conversions please)

you might want to be more specific. i assume we are speaking of the "Proton torpedo" warhead for Rifts LRM's, found on page 257 of RUE?

it's not nuclear, does about half the damage of rifts micro-nuke LRM's, buut is also the most powerful non-nuclear warhead.

personally i'd run it as a Thermobaric weapon. which in real life is a conventional explosive approach that can generate nearly the same destructive force as a real world micro nuke, but none of the secondary effects.

Not sure how I would technically define it but I always looked at it as the next evolution of the nuclear warhead that was super clean.

glitterboy2098 wrote:you might want to be more specific. i assume we are speaking of the "Proton torpedo" warhead for Rifts LRM's, found on page 257 of RUE?

and in the RMB, and other places. Yes.

just making sure we didn't slide into conversion territory through confusion.

i've posted my general thoughts above.

the proton torpedo made its way into rifts through Robotech, where in one episode Rick orders a flight of veritechs to "fire proton torpedoes".. apon which they lobbed some missiles of indeterminate size. so 'proton torpedo' made its way into the robotech missile chart, and from there onto the rifts missiles chart, which was just the old robotech one with "reflex" replaced by nuclear. the robotech scene doesn't show any special traits (it was just stock footage of missiles blowing away zentreadi mecha), and frankly anything from robotech isn't going to apply to rifts anyway.

It is also common in movies and TV shows. In star wars they used photon torpedoes and in Star treck as well. If I rember the star treck ones had radtion in the next genertion time line. Later replaced by more powerful quontom torpedo.
So to me it whould seam to be tied to space empire tech levels.

@Blue Lion - Trek used Photon Torpedoes Not proton.




As I recall the Proton Torpedo in RMB did more damage than Nuclear....I take that to mean the larger damaging Nukes in RUE are in reference to the "super" nukes of CS Navy but that's just me.

in the RMB, it did twice the damage, but RUE increased all the damage on nuclear LRM's by almost 10x, so instead of doing 2D6x10md a Nuclear (medium) does 1D4x100md. this is a carry over from CWC.
nuke LRM's have far smaller explosive radii than the SB4 city-killers, which for nukes indicates smaller yields. (beyond a certain point, nuclear weapons in real life surpass the ability to quantifiably measure the damage to things and can best be defined by how wide an area they inflict that damage over..)

well I am confused at why people think a proton bomb whould be none nucler or clean. Protons are used in radtion theorpy to fight cancer. There are part of a atom that is positivly charged so if you are using them then it whould be a nucler bomb, and whould have radion involved in it.

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:How would you define a Proton Torpedo?

Please, try to make your definitions as if you are trying to describe how it would work in the real world.
(no SW conversions please)

Single use version of a Wilk's Bee-Hive Laser Grenade (Rfits New West), only with particle beams instead of lasers and used as a missile/torpedo warhead instead of a grenade.

Using a deffinition that might make some kind of sense.

I see it has highly compressed hydrogen. Compressed to the point of creating metallic hydrogen. Because of how the electrons are distributed across the mass, the electrons are effectively "free", forming a mass of protons more or less.

Super dense hydrogen, ignite it in an atmosphere and KABOOM baby.

It would most certainly be more powerful than any conceivable chemical explosive.

azazel1024 wrote:Using a definition that might make some kind of sense.

I see it has highly compressed hydrogen. Compressed to the point of creating metallic hydrogen. Because of how the electrons are distributed across the mass, the electrons are effectively "free", forming a mass of protons more or less.

Super dense hydrogen, ignite it in an atmosphere and KABOOM baby.

It would most certainly be more powerful than any conceivable chemical explosive.

There are oxidation issues with your theory.

As a word construct it would sound fine to someone who has not watched any of the mythbusters' fuel air experiments. (bug bomb house bomb, methane port-a-potty, methane house bomb [Buorn movie myth test], sewer-gas explotion.)
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what I see happening is that it would be a compressed gas bomb....more likely comp.gas rocket.
scuba tank rocket is another of one of the MB's tests.

Maybe the Proton Torpedo is Nuclear.

in this case, a micro-nuke-pumped X-ray laser.

I always thought of them as glowy balls that explode. I'm not really sure there's much more to go on then that.

Colt47 wrote:I always thought of them as glowy balls that explode. I'm not really sure there's much more to go on then that.

You could say that of Photon Torpedos also. Except in two of the movies all you see of them is a glowy thing then moves.

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:

azazel1024 wrote:Using a definition that might make some kind of sense.

I see it has highly compressed hydrogen. Compressed to the point of creating metallic hydrogen. Because of how the electrons are distributed across the mass, the electrons are effectively "free", forming a mass of protons more or less.

Super dense hydrogen, ignite it in an atmosphere and KABOOM baby.

It would most certainly be more powerful than any conceivable chemical explosive.

There are oxidation issues with your theory.

As a word construct it would sound fine to someone who has not watched any of the mythbusters' fuel air experiments. (bug bomb house bomb, methane port-a-potty, methane house bomb [Buorn movie myth test], sewer-gas explotion.)
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what I see happening is that it would be a compressed gas bomb....more likely comp.gas rocket.
scuba tank rocket is another of one of the MB's tests.

In what way? Just google FAE video and take a peak. The military has been using FAEs for a long time now. Compressed hydrogen can in theory be uased as an FAE as well. Considering its significantly higher energy density than hydrocarbons, you'd be able to pack a lot more punch with the same mass of liquid hydrogen (or metallic for that matter) than you ever could with something like gasoline used in an FAE.

Hydrogen is easier to ignite than any other flammable/explosive mixture with air, it also has one of the widest ranges for flammability in air, ranging from about 18-56% (methane is extremely narrow). Gasoline I believe is from 1.8-12%. Hydrogen is also relatively unique compared to most flammable gasses in that it is easy to introduce turbulance within a deflagration that will induce the mixture to detonate (all of the Mythbuster's FAE stuff showed ONLY deflagration. Real FAE explosions are detonations, which have massively higher brissance and somewhat higher overall energy and occur much more rapidly).

The reason why hydrogen is not used in FAEs today is because of the complexity needed to produce a warhead with higher energy per volume/overall mass and general cost. Also hydrogen will escape any realistic container at the rate of about 1% per day due to its extreme low atomic mass. It is a lot easier/cheaper to throw a couple of pounds of diesel in to a warhead container, an atomizing charge and a detonation charge and have at it. Now if you have a way to liquify hydrogen, keep it that way and prevent it from escaping its container (MDC materials?), you are in business. Better yet, if you know how to create metallic hydrogen, you are potentially in some SERIOUS business.

Mythbusters does some fun tests, but what they are doing is not constructing an actual FAE.

It was not that a Fuel Air Explosive is not a viable Warhead subject in itself.
1) it was the choice of fuel you chose.
2) they have to work in space
3) Countries like the CS and the USA have to be able to make them.


I'm thinking it will just end up to be a fancy nuke with better smartness then given by regular 'smart bomb' electronics package.

Unless someone can come up with a acronym for P.R.O.T.O.N.

Hydrogen is extremely viable for an FAE (and better than diesel), if you have the proper technology to store it cheaply, which 300yrs from now might be very doable.

To work in space all you need is a suitable amount of solid/liquid oxygen as oxidizer, which could be combined in the warhead to begin with, but would of course reduce yield per kilo significantly (but would still be a whooping power explosive).

CS could make them. It is certainly possible the US could make one now, it just wouldn't be terribly viable as a weapon of WAR, but you could make one. With a few decadeso of advancements in technology, it might be viable in the real world.

I don't recall when proton warhead missiles were required to work in space within the games.

azazel1024 wrote:
I don't recall when proton warhead missiles were required to work in space within the games.

The Milky Way Galaxy: Aliens Unlimited, AU:GG
The Three Galaxies: PW, PW SB, 3G, F3G, most of the minion war books, etc...

could be a sort of "super plasma warhead"?
i'm pretty sure that it wouldn't be nuclear, since palladium is pretty good about specifying nuclear and fusion based technologies. but things like plasma it doesn't always mention as specifically.

Hmmm, I missed proton torpedoes as described weapons in those books.

Alternately to go with the whole advanced nuclear weapon thingie, it could be an advanced fusion weapon that simply crushes pure hydrogen in an H-H->2He, which almost immediately breaks down by beta decay to dueterium + electron + extra energy for a stable by product.

You'd have the advantage of nothing more than prompt radiation (that radioactive decay of diproton/2He occurs in pico seconds or less after forming).

The energies required for hydrogen+hydrogen fusion are HUGE, but certainly possible. Could be advanced inertial confinement fusion (Rifts does have some pretty advanced lasers).

Just another alternate thought on why it is called a proton weapon.

azazel1024 wrote:Hmmm, I missed proton torpedoes as described weapons in those books.

Alternately to go with the whole advanced nuclear weapon thingie, it could be an advanced fusion weapon that simply crushes pure hydrogen in an H-H->2He, which almost immediately breaks down by beta decay to dueterium + electron + extra energy for a stable by product.

You'd have the advantage of nothing more than prompt radiation (that radioactive decay of diproton/2He occurs in pico seconds or less after forming).

The energies required for hydrogen+hydrogen fusion are HUGE, but certainly possible. Could be advanced inertial confinement fusion (Rifts does have some pretty advanced lasers).

Just another alternate thought on why it is called a proton weapon.

What you are described is an "Induced Fusion" warhead/bomb. These are nice because they are very scalable, from full Mega-Ton nukes, down to almost a Grenade type device.

Which is why I will be going with more advanced avionics, maybe using a proton beam as a targeting system, then having just another nuke by a different name.

and every time fusion or Atomic fission is used in rifts, it has the fusion or nuclear term in its title.

whereas proton torpedoes do not. indicating a non-nuclear, non-fusion warhead.

personally i'm still leaning towards either a thermobaric weapon, or some type of advanced 'plasma' weapon.

I like a proton bomb whould be in the same catagory as a neutron bomb. It is using a part of the atom able to deliver more fucused radtion than others but still carries it.

Including a desginator or lack there of may be the resualt of the staff at the orginal time in the what 80s not knowing every thing about it but using it and table not beeing upgraded. I do not see how part of a atom could be a over presure bomb or a thermal bomb.

the designation "proton torpedo" brings to mind more of a proper name (like "sidewinder missile") or knickname (like "Slammer" for the AIM-120 AMRAAM), not a descriptive designation the way the other missiles sound.

the 'proton torpedo' could be a type of warhead that people in rifts know better by a slang term or generalized proper name than by the correct descriptive description. (real life example: "Xerox" for all photocopies, or the way "Jeep" was originally a military designation G.P., then turned into a specific brand but came to be used to describe the majority of light 4wd offroad vehicles.)

the nickname may not have anything to do with how the warhead works, but instead be connected to the film weapon of the same name. given the high damage and relatively small blast radius, the weapon would often get used as a anti-emplacement or anti-ship weapon. bringing to mind the use of the film weapon. wouldn't take much for people in setting to start using the same name.

hmm.. using that approach, it could be a High Explosive Dual Purpose (HEDP) warhead.. basically a Armor Peircing shaped charge warhead surrounded by fragmentation warhead, giving the advantages of both. or a High Explosive Squash Head (HESH), which is designed to blow chunks of armor out of targets.

glitterboy2098 wrote:the designation "proton torpedo" brings to mind more of a proper name (like "sidewinder missile") or knickname (like "Slammer" for the AIM-120 AMRAAM), not a descriptive designation the way the other missiles sound.

the 'proton torpedo' could be a type of warhead that people in rifts know better by a slang term or generalized proper name than by the correct descriptive description. (real life example: "Xerox" for all photocopies, or the way "Jeep" was originally a military designation G.P., then turned into a specific brand but came to be used to describe the majority of light 4wd offroad vehicles.)

the nickname may not have anything to do with how the warhead works, but instead be connected to the film weapon of the same name. given the high damage and relatively small blast radius, the weapon would often get used as a anti-emplacement or anti-ship weapon. bringing to mind the use of the film weapon. wouldn't take much for people in setting to start using the same name.

hmm.. using that approach, it could be a High Explosive Dual Purpose (HEDP) warhead.. basically a Armor Peircing shaped charge warhead surrounded by fragmentation warhead, giving the advantages of both. or a High Explosive Squash Head (HESH), which is designed to blow chunks of armor out of targets.

That is a good theory it whould makes its name out of place in the line up in rifts thou.

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:It was not that a Fuel Air Explosive is not a viable Warhead subject in itself.
1) it was the choice of fuel you chose.
2) they have to work in space
3) Countries like the CS and the USA have to be able to make them.


I'm thinking it will just end up to be a fancy nuke with better smartness then given by regular 'smart bomb' electronics package.

Unless someone can come up with a acronym for P.R.O.T.O.N.

Hmm, I'll take a whack at it...and since I was a big fan of The Kids Next Door cartoon, that kind of makes me an expert on producing acronyms.

How about

Phased-array, Redirected Osmium[sup]168[/sup] fusion, Teraton yield, Orbital trajectory Nuclear warhead



(Pseudo-Scientific Gobbledygook...it's faaaaaantastic!!)

azazel1024 wrote:I don't recall when proton warhead missiles were required to work in space within the games.

From what I have seen in Robotech they have to be functional in space and Glitterboy is right that is how it ended up in Rifts.

glitterboy2098 wrote:the proton torpedo made its way into rifts through Robotech, where in one episode Rick orders a flight of veritechs to "fire proton torpedoes".. apon which they lobbed some missiles of indeterminate size. so 'proton torpedo' made its way into the robotech missile chart, and from there onto the rifts missiles chart, which was just the old robotech one with "reflex" replaced by nuclear. the robotech scene doesn't show any special traits (it was just stock footage of missiles blowing away zentreadi mecha), and frankly anything from robotech isn't going to apply to rifts anyway.

I believe this scene was in space.

What do we know about them:
They are missile, solid warheads just like frag and AP.
They can be used by any LRM system without special optics or targeting.
They do NOT get special bonuses to strike over other missiles.

When I have played I have always treated them has overpowered plasma warheads.

What I have never done is treated them as fire for purposes of damage. If you are a dragon and you take 1/2 damage for Plasma, but I have treated Proton as full damage.

Does anyone treat this like plasma for purposes of damage reduction.

Warshield73 wrote:

When I have played I have always treated them has overpowered plasma warheads.

Plasma Warheads as per...
the RMB where it is some sort of super napalm?
the RUE where it just says it does a point source radiant heat damage?
nukes that create have an enhanced plasma burst damage?

I was rereading this topic and was wondering how/if a SLMH warhead would work.

I was thinking it would work much like a pressurized gas canister rupturing works, inducing an over-pressure wave.

It would be non-nuclear and non-chemical explosive (outside a breaching/destabilizing charge). And the hydrogen gas would displace what air o2 breathers use for a duration possibly.

cornholioprime wrote:

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:It was not that a Fuel Air Explosive is not a viable Warhead subject in itself.
1) it was the choice of fuel you chose.
2) they have to work in space
3) Countries like the CS and the USA have to be able to make them.


I'm thinking it will just end up to be a fancy nuke with better smartness then given by regular 'smart bomb' electronics package.

Unless someone can come up with a acronym for P.R.O.T.O.N.

Hmm, I'll take a whack at it...and since I was a big fan of The Kids Next Door cartoon, that kind of makes me an expert on producing acronyms.

How about

Phased-array, Redirected Osmium[sup]168[/sup] fusion, Teraton yield, Orbital trajectory Nuclear warhead



(Pseudo-Scientific Gobbledygook...it's faaaaaantastic!!)

Nah. KKND would have something like Parental Reorganization Operation To Overcome Neverland

Well if the particle beam weapons use protons then maybe the figured out a way to produce the same damage in a warhead.
There has to be 88 protons in a nucleus of an atom to be radioactive. So free protons shouldn't be, at least I have found no reference of protons being individually radioactive.

The major damage from real particle beams is near instantaneous catastrophic superheating of the surface. So maybe a heat bomb with no shockwave? Takes out equipment and people without producing fallout or fragmentation. Sure nothing in the blast radius should work well again but you don't have to worry about nuke issues.