How powerful would UC beam weapons realistically have to be

[Geoxile]

to do what they do, that is destroy several layers of super metal like Gundarium. Are the book stats even remotely accurate?

[Brave Fencer Kirby]

The "book stats" (assuming you're referring to the megawatt ratings for beam weapons) aren't actually a measurement of how powerful a given beam is, they're a measurement of how much power it takes to fire a beam. In UC, beam weapons work by fusing electrically-charged Minovsky particles (both positively and negatively charged) into electrically-neutral "mega particles" and then directing them out of the barrel with an i-field. Conventional mega particle cannons take their supply of Minovsky particles and electricity directly from the reactor, so it takes a large reactor to power beam weapons, which means they're primarily used in warships and mobile armors.

Beam rifles, on the other hand, use compressed, highly-energized Minovsky particles stored in an e-cap instead of taking them directly from their reactor. Since the Minovsky particles in an e-cap are pre-charged, it takes a relatively small amount of energy to convert them to mega particles and fire a beam. (The down side to this is that e-cap beam weapons have limited ammo -- once their supply of stored Minovsky particles is used up, they can't fire until it's restored.) The the rating we see for beam weapons is how much energy it takes to convert the Minovsky particles in an e-cap to a mega particle beam, not how much energy the beam itself contains.

So, to answer your question, we have no idea how much kinetic energy is actually contained in a beam. If you want to make a guess, your best bet would be to look at high-energy lasers from real-world sources and compare the effects of them to what we see in Gundam -- but then, we don't know how strong Gundarium is compared to, say, steel, so even that is only going to be a rough approximation.

[MythSearcher]

but then, we don't know how strong Gundarium is compared to, say, steel, so even that is only going to be a rough approximation.

About that, a more reasonable estimation will be using titanium, which is the base metal of gundarium alloy, and thus will be one of its main defining properties(if not its main).
Also, strength of the metal doesn't seem to matter that much, mega particle beams should be going at a few dozen thousand degrees, so the main thing we would be interested in will be the melting and boiling point and heat transfer rate.

[gunform1010]

but then, we don't know how strong Gundarium is compared to, say, steel, so even that is only going to be a rough approximation.

About that, a more reasonable estimation will be using titanium, which is the base metal of gundarium alloy, and thus will be one of its main defining properties(if not its main).
Also, strength of the metal doesn't seem to matter that much, mega particle beams should be going at a few dozen thousand degrees, so the main thing we would be interested in will be the melting and boiling point and heat transfer rate.

The beam's temperature has to be at least higher than 3034 degrees Fahrenheit. How do you create that much energy?

[Brave Fencer Kirby]

Also, strength of the metal doesn't seem to matter that much, mega particle beams should be going at a few dozen thousand degrees, so the main thing we would be interested in will be the melting and boiling point and heat transfer rate.

I can't recall the source, but I seem to remember hearing somewhere that UC beam weapons actually cause damage through kinetic impact, rather than heat transfer. In other words, the mega particles are grinding bits of the target away, rather than heating it up and making it melt. (Of course, that amount of friction would generate plenty of heat on its own, which explains why the edges of beam rifle damage look melted, but that's not the primary source of damage.) This makes sense if you consider anti-beam coating -- a coating that causes mega particles to slide off the target's surface rather than impacting directly makes more sense than one that somehow prevents heat transfer.

[gunform1010]

Also, strength of the metal doesn't seem to matter that much, mega particle beams should be going at a few dozen thousand degrees, so the main thing we would be interested in will be the melting and boiling point and heat transfer rate.

I can't recall the source, but I seem to remember hearing somewhere that UC beam weapons actually cause damage through kinetic impact, rather than heat transfer. In other words, the mega particles are grinding bits of the target away, rather than heating it up and making it melt. (Of course, that amount of friction would generate plenty of heat on its own, which explains why the edges of beam rifle damage look melted, but that's not the primary source of damage.) This makes sense if you consider anti-beam coating -- a coating that causes mega particles to slide off the target's surface rather than impacting directly makes more sense than one that somehow prevents heat transfer.

The sheer speed of the beam must be pretty damn fast then to damage extremely resilient metal.

[Raikoh]

I'm not sure about the "kinetic impact" thing, since whenever we see beam sabers thrust into something, it looks like it melts - this is especially true in Build Fighters, where you see all the gooey details of the melting Mobile Suit when it takes a beam saber, leaving a clean cut with a fairly obvious sense of heat (the point of impact is colored bright red/yellow), sometimes even with that wondrous "bubbling" sound effect (though take that one with a grain of salt, since they're made of plastic there - it might even be based on alternate universe canons). Also, there's hot spring scene in 08th MS Team, where they turn the beam saber onto its lowest power setting and that lets them melt snow and bring the water to a boil by holding the saber near the ground. I'm fairly certain that they also waited a while after heating the water to actually get into it (to give it time to cool off). Some official sources may say that the beams are kinetic weapons, but the actual series seem to suggest that they're heat-based.

[Brave Fencer Kirby]

Beam sabers are definitely heat-based -- beam sabers blades are made of plasma contained by an i-field, and do their "cutting" by melting through their targets. Beam rifles, though, fire beams of mega particles rather than plasma, so they work differently.

[Raikoh]

I suppose that beam rifles being kinetic sort of makes sense. Might explain why you see them splash outwards a little after hitting something instead of all of the beam piercing through, as well as how they can break rocks and stuff. But then how exactly do we explain the beam magnum, which does appear to melt things (and apparently fires rounds so hot that just being near one caused a Geara Zulu to explode)?

Can we chalk that one up to "Fukui doesn't understand, nor does he care to research, UC continuity"?

[MythSearcher]

but then, we don't know how strong Gundarium is compared to, say, steel, so even that is only going to be a rough approximation.

About that, a more reasonable estimation will be using titanium, which is the base metal of gundarium alloy, and thus will be one of its main defining properties(if not its main).
Also, strength of the metal doesn't seem to matter that much, mega particle beams should be going at a few dozen thousand degrees, so the main thing we would be interested in will be the melting and boiling point and heat transfer rate.

The beam's temperature has to be at least higher than 3034 degrees Fahrenheit. How do you create that much energy?

Well, from the RX-78 PG manual, we know that the temperature can go up to 10~20k degrees Celsius.
And about the energy, I don't see a problem here, the problem is not the amount of energy, is how much energy you put into how much mass.

Using a simple example, a bullet that can kill can carry something like 600J(the 9mm Parabellum), but if you put 600J into 600kg of fluffy cotton, KE=0.5mv^2, 600=0.5(600)v^2, v=1.4m/s, It is hardly lethal neglecting the secondary effects(like suffocating), and I must imagine it to be a much much more comfortable impact.

Heat will be similar, you can use 4kJ to heat a kg of water up by a degree K, or you can use the same energy to heat a 0.1g water droplet up by about 10k degree K.
And we are talking about MW class power source and possibly a media with much less heat capacity.

[MythSearcher]

Also, strength of the metal doesn't seem to matter that much, mega particle beams should be going at a few dozen thousand degrees, so the main thing we would be interested in will be the melting and boiling point and heat transfer rate.

I can't recall the source, but I seem to remember hearing somewhere that UC beam weapons actually cause damage through kinetic impact, rather than heat transfer. In other words, the mega particles are grinding bits of the target away, rather than heating it up and making it melt. (Of course, that amount of friction would generate plenty of heat on its own, which explains why the edges of beam rifle damage look melted, but that's not the primary source of damage.) This makes sense if you consider anti-beam coating -- a coating that causes mega particles to slide off the target's surface rather than impacting directly makes more sense than one that somehow prevents heat transfer.

In more appropiate physics terms, heat energy is just a type of kinetic energy, its the particles movement. Considering the speed will be much faster than the heat transfer rate, most of the energy will continue along the original path though.

ABC is a type of ablative armour, so it blocks heat transfer to the structural armour, thus defending against heat, not kinetic.

[bumsdeclaf]

If we are going to talk beam rifles realistically, then first thing to go are minovsky particles. That entire concept along with the concept of "mega particles" needs to be thrown out. From here on out we would have to say that a beam rifle, like a beam saber, is a plasma.

Plasma is a gas that has been ionized due to extreme temperatures. This is an over simplification I know but its close enough. Basically you take a gas and heat it up soo much that all the electrons in the molecules are stripped away and you are left with the positively charged protons and neutral neutrons, therefore giving plasma a positive charge. Because of this in normal conditions they are not stable because the positive charges repel each other which will cause the plasma to expand rapidly and cool are revert to normal gas.

However if an electromagnetic field (in this case called an "I field") is introduced that is also positively charged then you could concentrate the plasma and its own positive charge repelling effect will keep it compressed and heated. This is how conventional industrial plasma cutters work. Using a positively charged field to focus a positively charged superheated gas called plasma.

So what a beam rifle is doing is projecting an electric magnetic field in the shape of a long shaft and then releasing the plasma which travels down the "shaft" and hits the target. There is no real "impact" as suggested by others but there will be an explosion for sure. The temperatures of typical plasma are so high that sustained contact with plasma wont just melt material but infact make it explode, simply by virtue of vaporizing it soo quickly that the vapor expands extremely fast and needs to go somewhere, hence the explosion. Typical plasma that we can experience on a regular basis is lightning. The temperatures of lightning are around 28000K or 27,726.85°C. By comparison the temperature on the surface of the sun is just 5,778K. The reason lightning doesnt devastate entirely what ever it hits is because there is no electromagnetic field or "i field" focusing it and its not sustained. We know that beam rifle shots are sustained for quite some time. Maybe a second or two. That's enough time to turn alot of titanium or steel to vapor or gas. For some perspective the boiling point of titanium is 3560K (3287°C). This is the temperature titanium will begin to turn to gas. We have established that we are way past this point with a plasma.

This also hints on how the I-field basically works in gundam. It essentially un-focuses the plasma allowing it to disperse and cool down or simply redirect it. Unicorn gundam illustrates this perfectly. It takes very large amounts of energy to produce plasma, but not as much as you think since we can generate it in industrial applications today. What we cannot do with current technology is focus it over long range. At least long enough to weaponize it.

Also E-caps in this case would simply contain the Gas itself that is to be turned into plasma and the rifle would have to draw energy from the MS or have its own generator to create the power needed to convert the gas to plasma and then generate the i-field.

As for how much energy required to generate this, we cannot be sure. How much energy does it take to generate the plasma? How much energy would it take to generate the field? You can see this will vary with the range of the attack.

[Geoxile]

According to my math, the power required to vaporize a 1 ton block of pure titanium in 1 second (calculated purely from the heat of vaporization) should be about 9GJ. Which sounds pretty high.

1ton = 1,000,000 g / 47.8 (molar mass, g/mol) x 425kJ (heat of vaporization, kJ/mol) / 1,000,000 (kJ to gigajoule). At least I think this should be right.

Beam weapons being kinetic weapons don't really coincide with some newer depictions, particularly that of Unicorn, with weapons like the beam magnum, funnels, etc. which all appear to be heat based.

[bumsdeclaf]

I looked into it and I came to around the similar figure(8,878Mj). But that is joules, we would really be interested in watts, since the few beam weapons given power ratings are usually in megawatts. Watts are essentially joules/sec so going by the scenario you suggested of 1 sec then we are still left with 8.878MW, which is a bit more than what most beam weapons are rated at in gundam. Zz gundam high mega cannon is rated at just 50 MW so it's safe to say that these ratings may be around what it actually takes.

[Evex]

The "book stats" (assuming you're referring to the megawatt ratings for beam weapons) aren't actually a measurement of how powerful a given beam is, they're a measurement of how much power it takes to fire a beam...

Wait that statement makes no sense. The reason I say this is that most mobile suit would shut down just from firing a single shot from there beam rifle. For example the Gundam MK-II has a generator output of 1930 kw. According to what you wrote a single shot from the Gundam MK-II beam rifle takes 2.6 mw or 2,600 kw of power to fire the rifle. This means to fire four shots the rifle takes 10,400 kw of power to fire. How do you explain the mobile suit not shutting down ? If what you say is true then we can apply the following statement: "The higher the power rating to fire the beam is the stronger the beam fired is."

[MythSearcher]

The "book stats" (assuming you're referring to the megawatt ratings for beam weapons) aren't actually a measurement of how powerful a given beam is, they're a measurement of how much power it takes to fire a beam...

Wait that statement makes no sense. The reason I say this is that most mobile suit would shut down just from firing a single shot from there beam rifle. For example the Gundam MK-II has a generator output of 1930 kw. According to what you wrote a single shot from the Gundam MK-II beam rifle takes 2.6 mw or 2,600 kw of power to fire the rifle. This means to fire four shots the rifle takes 10,400 kw of power to fire. How do you explain the mobile suit not shutting down ? If what you say is true then we can apply the following statement: "The higher the power rating to fire the beam is the stronger the beam fired is."

1. The MSs have capacitors themselves for normal operation. If they don't it'd be a whole lot of wasted energy when they are using only minimal of it when they are not firing their weapons or even moving most of their limbs.
Realistic designs should have a relatively high volume capacitor(s) as a buffer, storing excessive energy the generator generates normally, and using it when you are firing your main weapon while still be able to fully utilitize all your other functions like your boosters(which in UC are also eating away generator power since they are thermonuclear, although I did do the math, and can tell you what they have listed there is far less[like 1/10 to 1/20 of what it should be] than what they need for thrusters so I guess that part of the power is not included in the number given.)
2. It seems like the power output rating is not the highest output, but a more sustainable and efficient output, they can pump quite a bit moreat short periods.
3. With E-cap, they can store high energy plasma state Minovsky particles, and the trigger energy can be somewhere like only 1/5~1/20 of what the weapon actual damaging energy.

[MythSearcher]

If we are going to talk beam rifles realistically, then first thing to go are minovsky particles. That entire concept along with the concept of "mega particles" needs to be thrown out. From here on out we would have to say that a beam rifle, like a beam saber, is a plasma.

Plasma is a gas that has been ionized due to extreme temperatures. This is an over simplification I know but its close enough. Basically you take a gas and heat it up soo much that all the electrons in the molecules are stripped away and you are left with the positively charged protons and neutral neutrons, therefore giving plasma a positive charge. Because of this in normal conditions they are not stable because the positive charges repel each other which will cause the plasma to expand rapidly and cool are revert to normal gas.

However if an electromagnetic field (in this case called an "I field") is introduced that is also positively charged then you could concentrate the plasma and its own positive charge repelling effect will keep it compressed and heated. This is how conventional industrial plasma cutters work. Using a positively charged field to focus a positively charged superheated gas called plasma.

So what a beam rifle is doing is projecting an electric magnetic field in the shape of a long shaft and then releasing the plasma which travels down the "shaft" and hits the target. There is no real "impact" as suggested by others but there will be an explosion for sure. The temperatures of typical plasma are so high that sustained contact with plasma wont just melt material but infact make it explode, simply by virtue of vaporizing it soo quickly that the vapor expands extremely fast and needs to go somewhere, hence the explosion. Typical plasma that we can experience on a regular basis is lightning. The temperatures of lightning are around 28000K or 27,726.85°C. By comparison the temperature on the surface of the sun is just 5,778K. The reason lightning doesnt devastate entirely what ever it hits is because there is no electromagnetic field or "i field" focusing it and its not sustained. We know that beam rifle shots are sustained for quite some time. Maybe a second or two. That's enough time to turn alot of titanium or steel to vapor or gas. For some perspective the boiling point of titanium is 3560K (3287°C). This is the temperature titanium will begin to turn to gas. We have established that we are way past this point with a plasma.

This also hints on how the I-field basically works in gundam. It essentially un-focuses the plasma allowing it to disperse and cool down or simply redirect it. Unicorn gundam illustrates this perfectly. It takes very large amounts of energy to produce plasma, but not as much as you think since we can generate it in industrial applications today. What we cannot do with current technology is focus it over long range. At least long enough to weaponize it.

Also E-caps in this case would simply contain the Gas itself that is to be turned into plasma and the rifle would have to draw energy from the MS or have its own generator to create the power needed to convert the gas to plasma and then generate the i-field.

As for how much energy required to generate this, we cannot be sure. How much energy does it take to generate the plasma? How much energy would it take to generate the field? You can see this will vary with the range of the attack.

Plasma should be treated like a neutral gas, not a postively charged cloud once it left the barrel.
In fact, it's properties are pretty close to an ideal gas.

And that is the main problem of using plasma as a weapon in real life space, shooting a jet of plasma out in space is like releasing gas into a vacuum, and you don't really have to guess what it does, it expands rapidly by diffusion, numbers I checked varies, but it is save to say that the expansion gives you a cloud with a diameter of at least a few hundred metres in a second from a beam, given the pressure you shoot it out is around 1 atm. If you are using a higher pressure, it is just going to expand even further.
Thus if your beam is travelling at 100Mm/s, you probably want it to hit a target at less than 5000km(1/20s away) if it is an MS sized target to have the beam just wide enough to cover the height(thus you have around 50% wasted beam)

This, however, is usually not how the Mega beam particle gun(Beam rifle) works.
Instead of submerging the target in a wide beam, they give really focused beams that hits and then turns back to Minovsky particles from Mega particles, giving not only a piercing damage, but also an explosive damage, from a focused small area.
Given the the beam rifle's range is also usually not very far(8~10km is pushing the limit in OYW), with a linear or exponetial expansion, it might not be that widespread, but the pressure used is much higher than 1 atm.(enough to degenerate M particles, whatever that pressure is, it will not be that low)
Using plasma as a model for Mega particles is also not very accurate, since M particles and Mega particles does have another force, the tau force, expelling them much faster.(Thus the beam sabre/guns that release M particle plasma have a VERY short range and only used in close combat)

[MythSearcher]

According to my math, the power required to vaporize a 1 ton block of pure titanium in 1 second (calculated purely from the heat of vaporization) should be about 9GJ. Which sounds pretty high.

1ton = 1,000,000 g / 47.8 (molar mass, g/mol) x 425kJ (heat of vaporization, kJ/mol) / 1,000,000 (kJ to gigajoule). At least I think this should be right.

Beam weapons being kinetic weapons don't really coincide with some newer depictions, particularly that of Unicorn, with weapons like the beam magnum, funnels, etc. which all appear to be heat based.

Don't really need that much if your aim is to destroy the target.
If somehow you can get a really focused beam, have it fired into the target, and cause whatever is inside vapourize instead of a ton of armour to vapourize, especially if you hit the propellant tank and those expands(explodes) much faster(for good propulsion reasons)

[bumsdeclaf]

The "book stats" (assuming you're referring to the megawatt ratings for beam weapons) aren't actually a measurement of how powerful a given beam is, they're a measurement of how much power it takes to fire a beam...

Wait that statement makes no sense. The reason I say this is that most mobile suit would shut down just from firing a single shot from there beam rifle. For example the Gundam MK-II has a generator output of 1930 kw. According to what you wrote a single shot from the Gundam MK-II beam rifle takes 2.6 mw or 2,600 kw of power to fire the rifle. This means to fire four shots the rifle takes 10,400 kw of power to fire. How do you explain the mobile suit not shutting down ? If what you say is true then we can apply the following statement: "The higher the power rating to fire the beam is the stronger the beam fired is."

1. The MSs have capacitors themselves for normal operation. If they don't it'd be a whole lot of wasted energy when they are using only minimal of it when they are not firing their weapons or even moving most of their limbs.
Realistic designs should have a relatively high volume capacitor(s) as a buffer, storing excessive energy the generator generates normally, and using it when you are firing your main weapon while still be able to fully utilitize all your other functions like your boosters(which in UC are also eating away generator power since they are thermonuclear, although I did do the math, and can tell you what they have listed there is far less[like 1/10 to 1/20 of what it should be] than what they need for thrusters so I guess that part of the power is not included in the number given.)
2. It seems like the power output rating is not the highest output, but a more sustainable and efficient output, they can pump quite a bit moreat short periods.
3. With E-cap, they can store high energy plasma state Minovsky particles, and the trigger energy can be somewhere like only 1/5~1/20 of what the weapon actual damaging energy.

the generator output of a ms is at any given time not total. Atleast thats how I interpret it. Like Hp for an engine, if an engine generates 400hp it doesnt mean its going to run out. its max output at any time is 400hp. So the generator output of the MS should be the same and could vary depending on what its doing but those ratings given should be their max while still being safe. There is also the possibility they could overclock the generators at the risk of overheating and potentially blow up like we saw in CCA.

[bumsdeclaf]

If we are going to talk beam rifles realistically, then first thing to go are minovsky particles. That entire concept along with the concept of "mega particles" needs to be thrown out. From here on out we would have to say that a beam rifle, like a beam saber, is a plasma.

Plasma is a gas that has been ionized due to extreme temperatures. This is an over simplification I know but its close enough. Basically you take a gas and heat it up soo much that all the electrons in the molecules are stripped away and you are left with the positively charged protons and neutral neutrons, therefore giving plasma a positive charge. Because of this in normal conditions they are not stable because the positive charges repel each other which will cause the plasma to expand rapidly and cool are revert to normal gas.

However if an electromagnetic field (in this case called an "I field") is introduced that is also positively charged then you could concentrate the plasma and its own positive charge repelling effect will keep it compressed and heated. This is how conventional industrial plasma cutters work. Using a positively charged field to focus a positively charged superheated gas called plasma.

So what a beam rifle is doing is projecting an electric magnetic field in the shape of a long shaft and then releasing the plasma which travels down the "shaft" and hits the target. There is no real "impact" as suggested by others but there will be an explosion for sure. The temperatures of typical plasma are so high that sustained contact with plasma wont just melt material but infact make it explode, simply by virtue of vaporizing it soo quickly that the vapor expands extremely fast and needs to go somewhere, hence the explosion. Typical plasma that we can experience on a regular basis is lightning. The temperatures of lightning are around 28000K or 27,726.85°C. By comparison the temperature on the surface of the sun is just 5,778K. The reason lightning doesnt devastate entirely what ever it hits is because there is no electromagnetic field or "i field" focusing it and its not sustained. We know that beam rifle shots are sustained for quite some time. Maybe a second or two. That's enough time to turn alot of titanium or steel to vapor or gas. For some perspective the boiling point of titanium is 3560K (3287°C). This is the temperature titanium will begin to turn to gas. We have established that we are way past this point with a plasma.

This also hints on how the I-field basically works in gundam. It essentially un-focuses the plasma allowing it to disperse and cool down or simply redirect it. Unicorn gundam illustrates this perfectly. It takes very large amounts of energy to produce plasma, but not as much as you think since we can generate it in industrial applications today. What we cannot do with current technology is focus it over long range. At least long enough to weaponize it.

Also E-caps in this case would simply contain the Gas itself that is to be turned into plasma and the rifle would have to draw energy from the MS or have its own generator to create the power needed to convert the gas to plasma and then generate the i-field.

As for how much energy required to generate this, we cannot be sure. How much energy does it take to generate the plasma? How much energy would it take to generate the field? You can see this will vary with the range of the attack.

Plasma should be treated like a neutral gas, not a postively charged cloud once it left the barrel.
In fact, it's properties are pretty close to an ideal gas.

And that is the main problem of using plasma as a weapon in real life space, shooting a jet of plasma out in space is like releasing gas into a vacuum, and you don't really have to guess what it does, it expands rapidly by diffusion, numbers I checked varies, but it is save to say that the expansion gives you a cloud with a diameter of at least a few hundred metres in a second from a beam, given the pressure you shoot it out is around 1 atm. If you are using a higher pressure, it is just going to expand even further.
Thus if your beam is travelling at 100Mm/s, you probably want it to hit a target at less than 5000km(1/20s away) if it is an MS sized target to have the beam just wide enough to cover the height(thus you have around 50% wasted beam)

This, however, is usually not how the Mega beam particle gun(Beam rifle) works.
Instead of submerging the target in a wide beam, they give really focused beams that hits and then turns back to Minovsky particles from Mega particles, giving not only a piercing damage, but also an explosive damage, from a focused small area.
Given the the beam rifle's range is also usually not very far(8~10km is pushing the limit in OYW), with a linear or exponetial expansion, it might not be that widespread, but the pressure used is much higher than 1 atm.(enough to degenerate M particles, whatever that pressure is, it will not be that low)
Using plasma as a model for Mega particles is also not very accurate, since M particles and Mega particles does have another force, the tau force, expelling them much faster.(Thus the beam sabre/guns that release M particle plasma have a VERY short range and only used in close combat)

I knew my explanation was over simplified but we are trying to think of it in a realistic possibility point of view. There is no such thing as minovsky particles so any concept of beam generation by these means are not along the lines of what the main question of this thread is. For the concept as I depicted it to work it would be a non-neutral plasma. Examples of these are charged particle beams, in this case positively charged so that they can be manipulated by a positively charged electromagnetic field as I have described. Doing this allows the plasma to exist in a vacuum since its "held" together buy the polarizing effect of the electromagnetic field.