>>10866765>ayysGoogle "Casaba Howitzer"
Project Orion was only one of several project that was interested in using nuclear shaped charges. Until we figured out high altitude nuclear detonations caused EMPs, they were considered the perfect anti-ICBM weapon.
You can take a 100kg weapon with a 10kt yield, with 85% of the yield directed through a 10 degree aperture covered with a 32 kg tungsten plate. Upon detonation, the plate is vaporized as its atoms are accelerated to 1000km/s. Aimed at a target 16km away, the particles arrive 16 milliseconds after detonation in a circle about 2.8km wide and can penetrate 5mm of aluminum off of anything in that zone. So you can see why the US was interested in using this as an anti-missile weapon: you don't have to have perfect aim.
You can also design this as like traditional armor-piercing explosives, vaporizing and accelerating a lance of material (also about 32kg) moving at 3% of c (if you can sneak up and touch the ship, this can be used as a nuclear HEAT round).
And then if you're really clever, you can make a one-two punch weapon: a single nuclear detonation driving a shaped charge jet, followed by a forged penetrator.
tl;dr - if the ayys don't have a good way to handle multiple relativistic impacts from all directions, we can fuck them up with 1960s technology.
