Will the bolt vaporize? Will there be a flash of light? Would there be a deafening sonic crack from the rapid expansion of air? How wide would the vapor trail from a 4mm bolt be (ballpark)? How far will it fly before its energy is dispersed in the atmosphere? How near a miss would be dangerous to a human? Deadly? Anything else I should know?
This is going to be my sci-fi weapon, so I want to know how to describe what will happen. I know the energy requirements are enormous, but the Star Wars hand blaster *supposedly* has an average energy output around 8-10 megajoules, which I remember being about a 4mm X 2cm iron bolt at 125 kps.
*The marksman need not fall backward: recoil is absorbed by a heavy metal lug of carefully calculated mass, which moves back extremely quickly with each shot, and is replaced *relatively* slowly after each shot.
This also serves as the action bolt, whose movement allows the next projectile bolt to be pushed into the breech...
2006-10-26
12:38:56
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7 answers
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asked by
A Box of Signs
4
in
Physics