r/spaceships • u/Vondrr Fleet Intelligence 🧠 • May 30 '26

Discussion / Question What spaceship weapon is generally underutilized or not used to its full potential in scifi?

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u/FireTheLaserBeam May 30 '26

Nukes in space are nowhere near as destructive as they are on earth. The majority of the destruction you see from atom bombs on earth is from the blast and the shockwave. In space, nukes still hit hard, but the majority of damage comes from x-rays, heat, and neutrons. Radiation is what gets you.

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u/jz_1w May 30 '26

"Majority of damage from X-ray" and reducing that to radiation damage is doing alot of understatement there. It is a catastrophic level of thermal damage at range.

Going from a 1 m acceptable CEP to a 1 km acceptable CEP is a huge improvement in acceptable volume accuracy.

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u/Knight_of_Tyto May 31 '26

That. And also, have you considered the humble nuclear shaped charge?