I made a 10mm gauss rifle that was built for the express purpose of taking out toasters. The size of the round 10x50 iirc might be more than capable of housing a miniature HPG. Of course the round itself was more than capable of destroying a LSP guard bot in a single shot so the electricity might just be overkill.
Derek Stanley
Sent from my iPhone...
> On Aug 25, 2016, at 11:04, [Traveller_TNE] <> wrote:
>
> On 25 Aug 2016 at 9:29, DED [Traveller wrote:
>
> > Given examples from other things Traveller capacitor tech should be
> > able to keep the bulk down even with the capacitors as part of the
> > "bomb".
> >
> > So depending on how good the tech is, you may have anything from
> > briefcase sized (sort of an EMP satchel charge) to grenade sized.
> >
> > ===============
> > Great! Didn't think it could be scaled down that small. Makes for a
> > better delivery system. ===============
>
> Well, the capacitors can be smaller (after all, k=look at what the
> capacitors a Black Globe* uses can store! Or "jump capacitors for
> those versions of Traveller that have them as part of the drive.
>
> But now that I think about it, the physical size of the coil in the
> EMP unoit is probably going to limit the strength of the field and
> thus the strength of the EMP effect.
>
> Remember, the basic design works like this:
>
> Have a coil that'll produce a strong magnetic field.
>
> Dump a *lot* of current into it fast.
>
> As the field strength peaks detonate an explosive charge that
> compresses the coil which spikes the field density even higher.
>
> High current requires thicker wires (for lower resistance). You can't
> use superconductors (even if they are available in your TU, because
> superconductors revert to being fairly lousty conductors when any of
> three things are exceeded:
>
> Critical temperature. Not only do they quit superconducting when the
> temp exceeds this, but since there's now a significant amount of
> resistance, you get termal runaway as the current makes it even
> hotter, which increases the resistance which makes it even hotter
> which...
>
> Can you say postive feedback loop?
>
> Critical current. Above a certain number of amps, supercondoctors
> revert as well. Again, you get a feedback loop as the now high
> resistance causes heating which leads to the critical temp problems.
>
> Critical field strength. If the ambient magnetic field strength gets
> too high, superconductors revert to high resistance. You may not get
> a feedback loop because the reversion won't affect the field
> strength.
>
> The values of critical temp, current and field strength will be
> different for different superconducting materials. But they seem to
> nbe an inherent part of the physics that makes superconductors work.
>
> Since a coil for an EMP uniot will be subjected to high current *and*
> high magnetic fields, superconductors are right out.
>
> So, with regular conductors, the thickness of the wires limits the
> current. Given that you only need them to handle it for a second or
> less, helps, but only so much.
>
> Field strength depends on three things. Number of turns in the coil,
> size of the coil, and what it is using for a "core".
>
> More turns is good. But "bigger" (length and width) are bad. But
> smaller coils mean fewr turns for the same size wire...
>
> So, with the same materials, in general a bigger coil will give you a
> bigger spike.
>
> Capacitors ability to store power depends opn size (all else being
> equal). So the bigger the capacitors the more current they can dump
> into the coil.
>
> So a briefcase sized unit can probably kill unshielded electronics
> within a dozen meters, but a grenade sized one may be lucky to do it
> to something a foot away.
>
> I'm guessing that "power" of the unit depends on volume, so a unit
> twice as big (ie 2 times as high, wide and deep) will be 8 times as
> strong.
>
> Size matters <eg>
>
> --
> Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
> shadow at shadowgard dot com
>
>
Derek Stanley
Sent from my iPhone...
> On Aug 25, 2016, at 11:04, [Traveller_TNE] <> wrote:
>
> On 25 Aug 2016 at 9:29, DED [Traveller wrote:
>
> > Given examples from other things Traveller capacitor tech should be
> > able to keep the bulk down even with the capacitors as part of the
> > "bomb".
> >
> > So depending on how good the tech is, you may have anything from
> > briefcase sized (sort of an EMP satchel charge) to grenade sized.
> >
> > ===============
> > Great! Didn't think it could be scaled down that small. Makes for a
> > better delivery system. ===============
>
> Well, the capacitors can be smaller (after all, k=look at what the
> capacitors a Black Globe* uses can store! Or "jump capacitors for
> those versions of Traveller that have them as part of the drive.
>
> But now that I think about it, the physical size of the coil in the
> EMP unoit is probably going to limit the strength of the field and
> thus the strength of the EMP effect.
>
> Remember, the basic design works like this:
>
> Have a coil that'll produce a strong magnetic field.
>
> Dump a *lot* of current into it fast.
>
> As the field strength peaks detonate an explosive charge that
> compresses the coil which spikes the field density even higher.
>
> High current requires thicker wires (for lower resistance). You can't
> use superconductors (even if they are available in your TU, because
> superconductors revert to being fairly lousty conductors when any of
> three things are exceeded:
>
> Critical temperature. Not only do they quit superconducting when the
> temp exceeds this, but since there's now a significant amount of
> resistance, you get termal runaway as the current makes it even
> hotter, which increases the resistance which makes it even hotter
> which...
>
> Can you say postive feedback loop?
>
> Critical current. Above a certain number of amps, supercondoctors
> revert as well. Again, you get a feedback loop as the now high
> resistance causes heating which leads to the critical temp problems.
>
> Critical field strength. If the ambient magnetic field strength gets
> too high, superconductors revert to high resistance. You may not get
> a feedback loop because the reversion won't affect the field
> strength.
>
> The values of critical temp, current and field strength will be
> different for different superconducting materials. But they seem to
> nbe an inherent part of the physics that makes superconductors work.
>
> Since a coil for an EMP uniot will be subjected to high current *and*
> high magnetic fields, superconductors are right out.
>
> So, with regular conductors, the thickness of the wires limits the
> current. Given that you only need them to handle it for a second or
> less, helps, but only so much.
>
> Field strength depends on three things. Number of turns in the coil,
> size of the coil, and what it is using for a "core".
>
> More turns is good. But "bigger" (length and width) are bad. But
> smaller coils mean fewr turns for the same size wire...
>
> So, with the same materials, in general a bigger coil will give you a
> bigger spike.
>
> Capacitors ability to store power depends opn size (all else being
> equal). So the bigger the capacitors the more current they can dump
> into the coil.
>
> So a briefcase sized unit can probably kill unshielded electronics
> within a dozen meters, but a grenade sized one may be lucky to do it
> to something a foot away.
>
> I'm guessing that "power" of the unit depends on volume, so a unit
> twice as big (ie 2 times as high, wide and deep) will be 8 times as
> strong.
>
> Size matters <eg>
>
> --
> Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
> shadow at shadowgard dot com
>
>