Note that in my post I mentioned Fluid instead of the word gas, but the same law applies to either example, yours or mine. If the containment is lost, for what ever reason, the contents evaporate or explode, depending on the energy density contained, but in either case, the total energy is either enormious and the power to run it astrinomical or insignificant to the bullets comming at it!

 

If the plasma is dence and hot, with very high energy, then the power to contain it is astrinomical and could power a small city? OR maby two? BUT IT WOULD STILL NOT HAVE ENOUGH TO MELT A HOWITZER SHELL PASSING THREW!

 

If on the other hand the power of the containment field is only as high as that generated by a gas turbine of say 40,000HP ~30MW, then the cubic meter of plasma it contains would not melt a .22 lead bullet from a pistol as it went threw! You really need to get a handle on the scale of things involved!

 

I think by my reference to a Quasar the most powerful objects in the known universe that I am aware of the scale involved. I was not thinking of suggesting actually using plasma as an armour for anything less than the output of a Dyson sphere. As you can see I was jumping the gun straight from "rifles" to interstellar weapons, I never said it was practical to use one with today?s power out.

You will find that a howitzer round, or for that matter any man object made to date, will not survive in an environment not to dissimilar to the core of the sun

how abou your hot desnse plasma, in a good old containment field, then let one end go.

you either got a pretty good rocket motor or some sort of plasma weapon.

maybe with an ionising laser pulse first to make a channl though the atmosphere to the targett

I'll think about it. There's so much info here.

true if you stack enuf make belive up. you can make anything

i'd just go with railguns

No, you have it all wrong!

Plasma pressure to dispers is a function of it's internal pressure and dencity! The pressure is related to the temperature and the density is controlled by the containment field strength!

 

So the higher the temp, the less dence it is!

 

Secondly, the dencer it is, the energy required to contain it goes up as the cube of the total energy of the plasma! So, increase the plasma's energy by 100% and the power required to drive the magnetic bottle goes up by 800%

 

So a 100MW containment field will hold 10-11KW of energy in the plasma. If one were to send a arty shell threw the plasma window at typical densities, it might take two hours for the one million degree plasma to heat the shell enough to cause the explosive in it to deflagrate! After all, there is only 1/10,000 of a gram of gas in the CUBIC METER of plasma so described and the shell Masses 48 kilograms!

You are correct! The speed of sound in a vacuume is 0! But while the plasma inside of any containment device we could actualy manufacture now or in the future is certain to be a near vacuume, there is still some small amount of ionised gass per cubic meter and the speed of sound in that near vacuume is still very high due to the heat contained in it.

 

You are confused with the differance between temperature and energy!

 

A 10 gram rifle bullet traveling at 1000M/S has 5000J of energy!

 

A 1,000,000 degree plasma, contained in a ONE MEGA WATT containment field might have a total energy content of only 1-10 joules in it ant any one instant!

 

The rate at which the containment field can add energy to the plasma is dependant on the equipment, but is certain to be less than the ability of a ten gram lead core bullet to absorb as it transits the cubic meter of plasma in the window! Now that we have the realive energy densities about right, think how long it would take to heat up a HOWITSER SHELL!

I wasn't going to comment on this since I believe Shooter2k must have meant something else.

Since heat in a vacuum is just electromagnetic radiation travelling at speed c (speed of light) it is impossible for objects with mass, such as ions, to travel at sped c unless they have infinite kinetic energy?which is impossible.

The window would not disperse just by being penetrated but small sections might, if the kinetic energy of the attacking object was great enough to overcome the repulsive force from the ions, be able to be pushed out.

Remember this is not a plasma "gun" or "explosion" this plasma is tightly confined to an area of space by an electromagnetic field.

The "Speed of Heat" is an expression used by fighter jocks to describe how fast they are going while in after burnner! IE really, really fast!

As to the density of lead, that would then imply that the containment field required billions of millions of Terra-watts of power to hold it in! If you had that much energy to waist, why not just reverse the polarity and let the plasma out at the righ time to stop the shell by impact with it's fuse? Sounds good to me?

It will be a trade off, the shielding will take up weight and space, which will either have to come out of the warhead or the propulsion system performance.  It will add sophistication which may be beyond anyone but a major power.

No, a simple chrome or aluminum mirror coating will probably not work.

 

And yes, a sufficiently large surprise saturation attack will always get some through.  But this does not seem a threat for when dealing with harassment fire in the Gaza Strip, Afghanistan, or Iraq.

What about laser guns, which could only paralzye your body or put you unconiscous?

Okay a taser type of weapon.

tasers have some pretty severe limitations because they need to pump electric current into you to have any effect.  the ones used now are based on shooting a pair of little needles into you and juicing you up.  they work like a hot damn if they work at all but they are quite short ranged as in a couple tens of feet and they are readily defeated by civilian clothing like leather jackets etc.  the odds of them punching through a soldiers kit to bare flesh are less than impressive considering soldiers routinely wear body armour as well as all the rest of the assorted junk.

 

tasers as battlefield weapons don't seem a candidate for the trekkian phaser type weapon you seem to be looking for.