Since Babylon 5 second season, one of the staples of Centauri weapons has been the Ion Cannon. This weapon, featured on all Centauri warships, fires a dense bolt of ionized particles and is a step above the plasma cannons used by the Narn Regime and Earth Alliance. The following provides us with examples of the Centauri Ion Cannon and how powerful this weapon is.

In the Season Two episode "The Fall of Night" a Centauri warship fired on the Babylon 5 station, blowing off one of Babylon 5's forward docking mandibles. The Centauri Primus class Battlecruiser fired 18 bolts at the Babylon 5 station. Some missed their target harmlessly passing above or below the docking mandible, but nine of the eighteen bolts did indeed strike the mandible and succeeded in blowing it off. Dimensions of the area blown off were averaged 40z, 54y, 114x and 39z, 57y, 112x. This means the volume destroyed would have been 247,724.25 m^3. With an average density of 400 kg/m^3, the volume destroyed would have been 99,089,700 kg. Establishing the lower limit on the effectiveness of this weapon, we must examine its effect. The bolts appeared to both explode and burn through the mandible, some bolts passing through the mandible and continuing on their trajectory, vanishing off screen. This suggests that the bolts were vaporizing the target area upon impact, not just burning, boiling or disintegrating it. To finish establish this lower limit we will use iron as our base material. It takes 7,845,085.6 J/kg to vaporize iron. If vaporization did occur, at a density of 400 kg/m^3 at a total of 99,089,700 kg, the nine Centauri bolts would have struck with a total of 7.7*10^14 joule. Averaged out the figure per bolt and the weapons fire form the Ion Cannons comes to 8.6*10^13 joule. As the bolts, even the initial ones, actually passed through the mandible however, and given that with each following strike there was less and less for the new bolts to destroy, the output of the Centauri Ion Cannon is probably an order of magnitude greater than what is shown above. Rounding up, this gives the Centauri Ion Cannon a low-end output of 1.0*10^14 joule (100 Terajoules), per bolt. In the TV movie "In the Beginning" we saw a Centauri Vorchan jump out of Hyperspace and fire upon a Narn G'Quan class Heavy Cruiser. Said Vorchan fired a total of six volleys, each volley consisting of two Ion Cannon bolts. The Vorchan succeeded in destroying the Narn vessel before the Narns even had time to react, the Centauri attack being 1.2*10^15 joule or equivalent to a 285.7 kiloton nuclear strike. This is, of course, assuming that the Ion Cannon sported by the Vorchan is the same as those on the Primus, which we know they are not. Plus, the Centauri's fire struck the center globe on the G'Quan cruiser which is believed to be the location of their main reactor.

 

Starting from 150 Kelvin or 150 degrees above absolute zero to the melting point of iron. 1811 K is the melting point of iron, so 1811K - 150K = 1661 K 1661 K * 449 J/(K*kg) = 745,789 J/kg The heat of Fusion (melting) 13,800 J/mol  *  1 mol/55.847g = 247.1 J/g 247.1 J/g * 1000 g/1 kg = 247,100 J/kg The Boiling point 3134 K is the Boiling Point of iron. 3134 K -1811 K = 1323 K = 594,027J/kg The Heat of Boiling (Vaporization) 349,500 J/mol * 1 mol/55.847g = 6,258.1696 J/g 6,258.1696 J/g * 1000 g/1 kg = 6,258,169.6 J/kg The Total Energy required to Vaporize 1 kg of iron, equals "7,845,085.6 J/kg"

CONCLUSION - The total low-end output of what we assume to be a standard discharge from a Centauri Ion Cannon, comes to 1.0*10¹⁴ watts (100,000,000,000,000 watts - 100 Terawatts), or equal to a 23.8 kiloton bomb.

As we know that B5 armor is NOT comprised of iron, and the general consensus is that the armor is at least 20X stronger than our base matterial, the Centauri Ion Cannon must have an average output of at least 2.0*10¹⁵ watt (2,000,000,000,000,000 watt - 2,000 Terawatt), or equal to an 476.2 kiloton bomb.