Question How big a Bang?

With the talk of people blowing themselves up with Fourth of July fireworks in my head, I was curious to see if the Cabal have a rough or even firm idea of how big a destructive bang a Jubilee knock off could produce depending on their Energizer rating.

From the She Beast stories, those sorts of things are measured in "sticks of dynamite."

I keep this open when I'm writing my Whateley story. Gives me a very rough idea of what kind of force is being tossed around.

1 MJ = 1 stick of dynamite
1 kg TNT= 4.1 MJ
0.74 kg C4 = 4 MJ
9MJ-11 MJ = 120mm MBT shot
35 MJ = Boeing 747 engine power
64 MJ = US Navy Railgun target power
360 MJ = 16 inch MK8 shell fired from Iowa Class BB
3000 MJ =Tomahawk Missile

Of course this is assuming ideal conditions.

Well, we know that for Kamuro it's 'about a small firecracker', but she's probably a 1 simply because the ratings don't go lower. Reportedly, that was the case for Sparkler, too, when she wasn't using her gauntlet boosts. Dunno how high it could get for, say, a 6, but given the 'sticks of dynamite' ratings, and Jadis' reaction when going over Brainstorm's psycho-blasts (which gave me the impression that 4 sticks is respectable but not really impressive) I'm guessing it can get pretty big.

Schol-R-LEA wrote: Well, we know that for Kamuro it's 'about a small firecracker', but she's probably a 1 simply because the ratings don't go lower. Reportedly, that was the case for Sparkler, too, when she wasn't using her gauntlet boosts. Dunno how high it could get for, say, a 6, but given the 'sticks of dynamite' ratings, and Jadis' reaction when going over Brainstorm's psycho-blasts (which gave me the impression that 4 sticks is respectable but not really impressive) I'm guessing it can get pretty big.

Remember the strongest Brick can only lift in the 20 ton range. So I think that four sticks is probaby halfway up the scale.

Lily, aka Wallflower is rated Energizer-3, and was able to 'tank' multiple shots from an Abrams main battle tank, which is equivalent to 9-11 'sticks' dynamite per shot. The thing is it's world of difference between a tank APFSDS round and 10 sticks of dynamite even if they are equivalent in force according to the math.

I use Wallflower because it's one of the few stories that gave me glimpse into how strong/powerful a set of abilities can be against real world force. It lets me know that a '3' power is in the range of a tank in terms of effect it can or cannot have. Of course there will be a fudge factor and some common/uncommon sense adjustments. In Wallflower's case since her force field is described as magnetic, maybe better with metallic objects worse with high temps?

Of course the power might have some extra bang, such lightning being better against robots, if you can effect an area that kind of thing, but that comes down to the writer and the plot.

Also how well can the mutant can use their power matters, a flame projector EN-2 might not be able to melt a tank, but if they can burn the power plant and melt the wires/hoses of the tank's engine they can still take it out. Or raise temp higher that the tank's AC can deal with until the crew passes out/dies to heatstroke.

Wallflower may have taken the shots, but her instructors where horified that she tried to do it.

There is at least some confusion about Wallflowers "power rating", it may not be the best one to use for working this out.

~Archangel~ wrote: 3000 MJ =Tomahawk Missile

What, you mean the fuel, the kinetic energy on impact, or one of the (at least) three different types of warheads it can carry?
Clearly you aren't talking about the nuclear-armed variant of the Tomahawk, the BGM-109G "Gryphon" -- it carried a W84 variable-yield warhead, with power dialable from 0.2 to 150 kilotons.

Btw, the 'Stick' unit of damage is strictly a layman's term, a general indicator of how powerful/dangerous a weapon or attack is

Speaking of Wallflower's stopping power, there's a quote from The Play's the Thing which has always bothered me.

After a moment of staring, I realized finally what all those big numbers I’d been typing meant. Each of the tank rounds my force field had stopped had generated six million nine hundred forty six thousand joules of energy. By comparison, a ton of TNT generated four billion (with a one hundred eighty four million joules. But my force bubble had stopped five projectiles; or thirty four billion seven hundred thirty million joules of energy, the equivalent of 8 tons of TNT. A little poking on the internet told me that the bomb that had leveled Hiroshima had equaled twenty thousand tons of TNT, but Mrs. Bohn’s paper had made her point for her.

Am I confused, or did Lily misplace a decimal point by three orders of magnitude in her calculation?

Phoenix Spiritus wrote: Wallflower may have taken the shots, but her instructors where horified that she tried to do it.

There is at least some confusion about Wallflowers "power rating", it may not be the best one to use for working this out.

True but as I've said it's few areas that we have a power rating (taken from the Wiki) and a real world amount of force. It's a lousy yardstick, but it's a yardstick. Maybe we don't know what the units are on the yardstick, it still let's us approximate things.

Sir Lee wrote:

~Archangel~ wrote: 3000 MJ =Tomahawk Missile

What, you mean the fuel, the kinetic energy on impact, or one of the (at least) three different types of warheads it can carry?
Clearly you aren't talking about the nuclear-armed variant of the Tomahawk, the BGM-109G "Gryphon" -- it carried a W84 variable-yield warhead, with power dialable from 0.2 to 150 kilotons.

Nope the good old fashioned BGM-109C, with 450kg warhead with some version of HMX. I save the nukes for those special friends.

Until Wallflower is re-tested with that incident in mind and has her ratings adjusted, I'm inclined to not use it as a scale at all. Especially given the repeated reminders that power ratings are far from perfect.

Ametros wrote: Until Wallflower is re-tested with that incident in mind and has her ratings adjusted, I'm inclined to not use it as a scale at all. Especially given the repeated reminders that power ratings are far from perfect.

I can understand that, however I prefer to have an idea of what is and is not a threat, or how much damage in a real world scale a character is putting out. For me it makes my fight scenes more...something...Consistent? Plausible?

Gives me an sense of scale I guess. Maybe I'm just too thinky when I write this stuff.

Arcanist Lupus wrote: Speaking of Wallflower's stopping power, there's a quote from The Play's the Thing which has always bothered me.

After a moment of staring, I realized finally what all those big numbers I’d been typing meant. Each of the tank rounds my force field had stopped had generated six million nine hundred forty six thousand joules of energy. By comparison, a ton of TNT generated four billion (with a one hundred eighty four million joules. But my force bubble had stopped five projectiles; or thirty four billion seven hundred thirty million joules of energy, the equivalent of 8 tons of TNT. A little poking on the internet told me that the bomb that had leveled Hiroshima had equaled twenty thousand tons of TNT, but Mrs. Bohn’s paper had made her point for her.

Am I confused, or did Lily misplace a decimal point by three orders of magnitude in her calculation?

Yeah, and I am not really sure where her 6946000 number came from. Using 1/2mv², with a 10 kg penetrator, and 1860 m/s velocity, I got 17298000 for the number of joules in each shot.

She is off by three orders of magnitude. Then again she doesn't take into account that a tank round is designed to penetrate what it hits. And I am not sure if adding them together is really correct too.

It's harder to tell the error, 'cause it's written out in words, instead of numbers...