# What weighs thousands of tons?



## Revenge of the Bjorn (Dec 31, 2003)

I just picked up mutants and Masterminds and was flipping through and saw the lifting capacity chart and...HOLY CRAP!  Seriously, though can someone help me figure out what weighs some of the more obscene amounts so I can picture it in tangible items rather than numbers?  A google search seems to imply a battleship weighs a couple thousand tons, but what's in the 100, 000 ton range?  Not small planets I checked that and it seems pluto is like 10^19 or 20 (I'm no math whiz and I'm not sure of the numbers I found) So any ideas?


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## Mordane76 (Dec 31, 2003)

Incredibly large buildings, mountains, mountain ranges, small towns (if they have a bedrock base underneath them, you COULD possibly pick them up)... you start to see the incredible-ness of this, don't you?


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## C. Baize (Dec 31, 2003)

Aircraft Carriers...
Oil Rigs.
Things like that.

I think I saw that one of the larger oil rigs was in the 70,000 ton range...


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## Breakstone (Dec 31, 2003)

Thousand-ton weights?

1000 Tons equal...

148 elephants

10 Blue Whales (plus or minus 100 tons)

28.5714285714285714285714285714286 Brontosauruses


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## d4 (Jan 1, 2004)

there was a thread recently on the M&M boards about this here.

there's not really anything listed for the 100,000-ton range. even the Eiffel Tower "only" weighs about 7,000 tons. the top things listed (at around 27-30,000 tons) are a loaded cargo freighter ship, a military cruiser, and a large metal bridge.


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## mmadsen (Jan 1, 2004)

Revenge of the Bjorn said:
			
		

> A google search seems to imply a battleship weighs a couple thousand tons, but what's in the 100,000 ton range?



A Nimitz-class aircraft carrier has a fully loaded displacement of ~97,000 tons.  Each _anchor_ weighs 30 tons.

Iowa-class battleships were designed to comply with a 45,000 ton limit set by treaty -- quite a bit more than "a couple thousand tons"...


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## WayneLigon (Jan 1, 2004)

At the upper end of things, you have fully loaded super-cargo ships. The things that can barely clear the Panama Canal because they're too wide. 

A Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) can hold up to 200,000 tons of oil. The ship itself will weight in the neighborhood of 200,000 tons. An Ultra Large Crude Carrier (ULCC) (It's about a quarter-mile long) can carry over 300,000 tons of oil and itself will weigh about 400,000 tons. That's Str 20 + PL 20 Super-Strength, plus 2 levels of Lifting to treat it as a Heavy Load. You could tow one of them at a much lower str level (pulling gives you five times your weight allowance). 

Golden Gate Bridge (8,981 feet long): 887,500 tons

Brooklyn Bridge (5900+ feet long, includes parts on land): 14,680 tons

Ben Franklin Bridge (9,573 feet length plus approaches): 720,000 tons

Boeing 747: roughly 375 tons

World Trade Center (both towers) 1.5 million tons


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## d4 (Jan 1, 2004)

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> Ben Franklin Bridge (9,573 feet length plus approaches): 720,000 tons



which Ben Franklin Bridge is this? the only one i know of is the one in Philadelphia, and i didn't think it was longer than the Golden Gate. (i've lived in both Philly and Frisco, so i have plenty of experience driving across both...  )


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## Dana_Jorgensen (Jan 2, 2004)

d4 said:
			
		

> which Ben Franklin Bridge is this? the only one i know of is the one in Philadelphia, and i didn't think it was longer than the Golden Gate. (i've lived in both Philly and Frisco, so i have plenty of experience driving across both...  )




Heh. I was about to say, driving over that bridge several times a week here in Philadelphia, to be that long, my trip across the bridge must usually occur at well over 100 mph, but the more I think about it, the more the number sounds about right. Remember, along with crossing the river, you get all the way up to 6th street on the Philly side before before you've got solid ground directly under the asphalt again, and those 6 blocks that easily covers at least another 1,800 feet of travel right there, thanks to the fact that the bridge isn't perpendicular to the streets running alongside it. The main span is over 3,500 feet between the two stone anchorage piers. The Camden side is even longer, running quite a way inland past the new minor league baseball stadium and parking before it passes its first street. Then you travel another 8 blocks into the city, including the curve before you hit dry land near the toll booths. 

So yeah, 9,500 feet doesn't seem too unreasonable.


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## Revenge of the Bjorn (Jan 2, 2004)

Alright.  Thaks for the help guys.


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