Um, quick question for an ignorant non-engineer:
As part C destroys portions of part A (and, I assume, has portions of itself destroyed as well), we're not actually claiming that the matter is annihilated, are we? So the falling mass - though no longer in the form of a rigid structure - is actually growing versus what it started at as part C, yes?
I mean, say part C was 1000 units of mass, and part A was 10,000 units. As part C meets part A, 50 units of mass are destroyed from each as part of any rigid structure, but now there's part C at 950 units, part A as 9950 units, and 100 units of mass - even assuming portions have been ejected or some converted to energy, let's estimate and say 90 units of mass remain from the impact.
So now we have 1040 units of mass falling onto 9950 units of mass... or, in other words, the total falling mass includes whatever remains of part C plus the damaged debris from both C and A that isn't ejected or converted to energy.
Seems to me, then, that as mass increases and the lower portion destabilizes - for surely destroying portions of its mass is going to cause structural instability - the destruction should increase, relatively, as it falls.
But I'm utterly ignorant of such things - tell me, does the disassembled mass from C and A figure further into the destruction of A?