The cheapest colonization plan thus far for Venus is basically floating aerostats: islands in the sky at around 1 atm of pressure or 50-80 km of altitude, carried by an interior oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere that would literally float in the Venerian CO
2-rich atmosphere (60% as efficient as helium at terrestrial sea level, for comparison). By floating them at around 1 atm external pressure, you eliminate the pressure differential that would make a rip a major deal, as well as easing the engineering issues of handling said pressure differential and giving you an, if not pleasant, than at least relatively Earthlike temperature outside (around 27-75° C). Airships would then become the preferred means of transit between these...well, technically, mega-airships. Basically, what Rolepgeek's scenario presupposes is that Venus has already been colonized, in which case the places for them to trade between are these aerostat colonies.
Any rate, because of the lack of pressure differential, loss of lifting force due to popping balloons would be a gradual phenomenon, and your lifting balloons are likely to be the primary living and cargo spaces for your airships as well. To some degree, it depends on the tech level. Chemical bombs could be a stylish sci-fi weapon, though I'm not sure about the practicality; the sulfuric acid present at these habitable altitudes has a strongly exothermic dehydrating reaction, which means that firing something like potassium chlorate (which would likely have been brought to Venus to be used to create oxygen, such as in oxygen candles) into the atmosphere will create a highly reactive combination of chloric acid and potassium sulfate, which will react strongly if in the presence of, say, common table sugar. Strong atmospheric winds will guarantee good mixing, but there may not actually be enough at these levels to ensure the weapons are actually effective, though. For comparison, consider firing potassium bombs to intent of causing it to react with rain on Earth to take down a helium airship - stylish, but probably not all that practical. It might be a useful trick for some McGuyver-type hero to play in saving the day in particular circumstances, though (imagine: attacked by pirates using a Venusian thunderstorm as cover, the crew of the valiant ship
Whatever loads their emergency oxygen candles inside boxes of sugar into an air-tight iron container, then fire it at the enemy; the box shatters from a combination of acidic degradation and the force of impact with the enemy's lifting balloon, and the oxygen candles immediately react with the sulfuric acid, release chloric acid into the sugar, and with a
fwoosh, a torrent of flame coats the front of the enemy ship, including viewports, with residual carbon and thermal damage).
More practical weapons are likely to be explosive shells and missiles; as pressure alone will not suffice, you want to rip big holes by area to sink your target. Ripping up the top of the balloon will also help that lifting force work to carry the atmosphere right out of the balloon. Since I brought up the idea of chemical delivery platforms, a hydrogen payload could release flammable (and likely ignited by the delivery itself) lifting gas inside the rocket that would naturally rise to the top. Disable and capture may be effected by the use of physical nets, of all things, as well as harpoon-mounted tethers that would fire into the envelope of the target and pin it in place, especially if the speeds of these ships are not all that large (which is a question, neglecting technology, of which wind conditions these things will be designed to fly through; I could see freighters and the settlements sticking to slower polar regions of 0-50 m/s winds or the hotter, thicker, and most importantly slower atmosphere below while flyboys and aces skim jet streams driven by Hadley circulation that can easily exceed average windspeeds of 140 m/s in very different, much more aggressively-designed airships; also flying down becomes a way to fly into the wind while flying up is a way to fly with it and pick up speed, while piracy creates the mental image of piranhas against whales, or perhaps if the importance of the wind gauge is taken into account, corvettes against galleons). If the airships take advantage of the strong Venusian prevailing winds to use a rudder-like sail system as well as powered engines, these could also be targeted for damage with the same explosive shells; crippling the enemy's ability to maneuver helps win the battle. Interestingly, floating aerial mines/barrage balloons may become a possibility to deter attacks on the colonies themselves, since said colonies will essentially themselves be very large airships as well; depending on the particulars, the difference between them and the largest freighters could easily be one of scale rather than of kind. Such balloons could be shifted into preplanned positions and, especially if tethered against winds, may create "fixed" positions to shift defenses away from the colonies themselves and establish defensive depth. Or, given how the mention of fireships, become defenses themselves; small balloons may act as mines.
NOTANEDIT: Ah, Rolepgeek posted the answer to "why" while I was working on the original question. I shall leave it, though, because I'm a bit tired to edit it out.
YESANEDIT: Good heavens, I spent over an hour working on that when I should be sleeping. Well, consider it a rather inspirational question. ^_^
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Topic: Theoretical weapons (Burn all the things!) and other ideas (Read 102601 times)