How powerful is a thermal detonator?

In some EU sources, the thermal detonator is a common grenade that does some damage and in others, it is rare and can blow up a building? Which detonator is the "real" one or are they two different kinds of grenades with the same name?

 

yep.

 

As GAJ said.. different classes.. think of them as miniturized nuclear weapons (fission based, so no fallout) that can be set or made to either completely go nuclear (big boom) or partially go (most normal nukes have that ability actually)

 

Uh, fission-based nukes have no fallout? Arent A-bombs, such as those deployed against Japan in WWII fission-based. And correct me if I'm wrong, did they not have fall-out?

 

The ROTJ novelization stated that the thermal detonator would have, in so many words, killed everyone in the room. To render the human body into calcified ashes requires 3,000 degrees F. I don't know how fast the body would turn to ashes when exposed to that kind of heat, but even a flash of that would kill you. Cremation uses approx 1,600 degrees F for about two hours, but this does not turn the bones to ash.

Napalm can generate temperatures of 800 degrees and can be boosted up to 1,500. Thermite can generate upwards of 4,500 degrees F, I have no idea if there has ever been a thermite grenade or napalm grenade. I'm pretty sure grenades can be peppered with such chemicals though.

 

Based on the general panic caused initially by Leia's thermal detonator in RotJ, I tend to fall on the side of 'very powerful'. Maybe not enough to flatten a building, but certainly enough to kill everyone in a large room.

I suppose that the disparity within the EU could simply be due to different manufacturers and different models of thermal detonators.

 

According to the EGtWaT, a Class-A thermal detonator (as seen in RotJ) can have a blast radius of over 20 meters, whereas some Imperial-issue TDs have a radius of 5 meters and some super-duper outlaw-built TDs can have up to 100 meter blast spheres.

 

The one Leia was holding in RotJ was the same grade as the one they used to destroy Xizor's castle in SotE. So it would have had to be pretty powerful. Also in SbS it says that the unique thing about thermals is when they explode evything in the blast radius is disintergrated but evrything outside is pretty much untouched. So I guess the class affects the blast radius more than anything

 

Everything just outside the blast radius is untouched, but everything inside is destroyed? Even in the pseudo-science of Star Wars that makes no sense at all. There would be nothing 'thermal' about that.

 

What it sounds like to me is some idiot coming up with this no damage beyond the blast radius and thinking it's cool or something. Pseudo-science or not Star wars is not some magic fairy land, thermal detonators are not D&D Speheres of Annihilation.

Perhaps there is some form of matter made to collapse that makes a black hole. A black hole that small would wink out fairly fast. How you make the components to make such a thing fit in the plam of your hand is even more ridiculous.

How about a thermal detanator makes a big KABLOWAH! with all the heat and air effects and damage of just a really big explosion of what is essentially a powerful hand grenade and try to have some sense out of it? Nooooooooo.

 

So in review, the TDs in the Battlefront series are just less powerful TDs then more powerful ones like in the KOTOR series?

 

Given that your leg isn't disintegrated when you get caught in a BF TD blast, I think either they aren't really TDs, or we have another "chalk it up to Game Mechanics" issue.

 

Given how Fi was able to contain the explosion of a thermal det in that Republic Commando short story, I'd guess that a det can't be too powerful.

Or the second explanation: it varies according to plot purposes, like plot device hyperspace.

 

I think it's not so much that everything else is untouched as that everything inside the radius gets vaporized; everything outside doesn't get vaporized (but would still naturally be subject to the laws of physics). The actual "blast" is contained within the radius. Anything else could experience heat and air movement, but wouldn't be vaporized.


*shrugs*

 

Well, the "untouched" would just be exaggeration to get the point across that at least it's not guaranteed vaporized.

 

Here's the explanation given in the Imperial Sourcebook: