1926 PD - Idaho Ascendant

Brigade XO wrote:A number of Manticore Merchant shipping were lost at Beowulf as they were part of the counter missile defense of the habitats and fabrication stations. Basically their wedges were giant shields but some of them took missile hits and, if not destroyed, would need a lot of repair work.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:I don't remember those being Manticore ships. They were merchants and tugs, but I thought they were Beowulfan. More importantly, because they were merchants and tugs, the missiles wouldn't have actively targeted them. The next time, they might, but for this first time the SLN planners hadn't thought of programming the missiles to attack the interposed wedges.

Theemile wrote:Early in the series, The defensive device of a Wedge Buoy was mentioned - it is a set of SD sized nodes with a fusion plant kept in the final state of wedge activation. A field of these is kept in formation near important facilities and will turn on their wedges like scale armor to defend the site.

I don't know why these disappeared and freighters needed to be used instead.

I do not remember that; perhaps it was an expedient, before spherical sidewall generators were added to the orbitals? But Beowulf might not have realized the need for something like wedge buoys (or sidewall generators), as they were not at war, until too late for any but an ad hoc solution.

tlb wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:A number of Manticore Merchant shipping were lost at Beowulf as they were part of the counter missile defense of the habitats and fabrication stations. Basically their wedges were giant shields but some of them took missile hits and, if not destroyed, would need a lot of repair work.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:I don't remember those being Manticore ships. They were merchants and tugs, but I thought they were Beowulfan. More importantly, because they were merchants and tugs, the missiles wouldn't have actively targeted them. The next time, they might, but for this first time the SLN planners hadn't thought of programming the missiles to attack the interposed wedges.

Theemile wrote:Early in the series, The defensive device of a Wedge Buoy was mentioned - it is a set of SD sized nodes with a fusion plant kept in the final state of wedge activation. A field of these is kept in formation near important facilities and will turn on their wedges like scale armor to defend the site.

I don't know why these disappeared and freighters needed to be used instead.

I do not remember that; perhaps it was an expedient, before spherical sidewall generators were added to the orbitals? But Beowulf might not have realized the need for something like wedge buoys (or sidewall generators), as they were not at war, until too late for any but an ad hoc solution.

Well...

1) Wedges are impenetrable, sidewalls are just very difficult to get beams through

2) We've seen Bubble Side walls that span about a 3 or 4 KM, not 200+Kms like would be needed to surround a large station - not saying it can't be done, just not observed

Theemile wrote:Well...

1) Wedges are impenetrable, sidewalls are just very difficult to get beams through

2) We've seen Bubble Side walls that span about a 3 or 4 KM, not 200+Kms like would be needed to surround a large station - not saying it can't be done, just not observed

Doesn't Hephaestus have spherical sidewalls? From Storm from the Shadows:

Chapter 12 wrote:Michelle could remember when Hephaestus had been little more than twenty kilometers in length, but those days were long gone. The ungainly, lumpy conglomeration of cargo platforms, personnel sections, heavy fabrication modules, and associated shipyards, all clustered around the station's central spine, now stretched for over a hundred and ten kilometers along its main axis.

From Mission of Honor:

Chapter 28 wrote:One moment, the Manticore Binary System was going about its routine business, peacefully and calmly. The next moment, eighteen powerful grasers ripped through Her Majesty's Space Station Hephaestus like demons. There was absolutely no warning. No time to bring up the station's spherical sidewall, or to evacuate, or don skinsuits, or set internal pressure security.

True, it's not 200+ km along the main axis, but I expect adding in all the branches will make up the difference.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:A number of Manticore Merchant shipping were lost at Beowulf as they were part of the counter missile defense of the habitats and fabrication stations. Basically their wedges were giant shields but some of them took missile hits and, if not destroyed, would need a lot of repair work.

I don't remember those being Manticore ships. They were merchants and tugs, but I thought they were Beowulfan. More importantly, because they were merchants and tugs, the missiles wouldn't have actively targeted them. The next time, they might, but for this first time the SLN planners hadn't thought of programming the missiles to attack the interposed wedges.

The merchant shipping might not have been targeted but they were - deliberately, tactically- between the SLN targeting and the Beowulf fabrication and related facilities. Probably also the habitats since Buccaneer had already started and what the SLN had been doing to those systems hit was known. Merchant wedges are still wedges and the incoming SLN missiles are coming in huge numbers. If a missile looses lock on its intended target, it will try to require. At that point, a merchant ship with a wedge up in the way of a missile could be targeted and ---there are unlikely to be counter missiles and last ditch energy defensive weapons to intercept missiles cossing beyond the wedge and firing the laser warhead at the ship it has just overflown. The fighter becomes a missile sponge----which is why the crews were evacuated as soon as the attack was picked up- because anything that was decoyed into trying to hit a merchant ship in that defensive location was something not continuing on at the fabrication facilities.

Brigade XO wrote:The merchant shipping might not have been targeted but they were - deliberately, tactically- between the SLN targeting and the Beowulf fabrication and related facilities. Probably also the habitats since Buccaneer had already started and what the SLN had been doing to those systems hit was known. Merchant wedges are still wedges and the incoming SLN missiles are coming in huge numbers. If a missile looses lock on its intended target, it will try to require. At that point, a merchant ship with a wedge up in the way of a missile could be targeted and ---there are unlikely to be counter missiles and last ditch energy defensive weapons to intercept missiles cossing beyond the wedge and firing the laser warhead at the ship it has just overflown. The fighter becomes a missile sponge----which is why the crews were evacuated as soon as the attack was picked up- because anything that was decoyed into trying to hit a merchant ship in that defensive location was something not continuing on at the fabrication facilities.

I'm not disputing that. I am saying that on this first attack run, the merchant shipping wouldn't have been deliberately targeted. A missile that didn't lose lock would try to dodge the wedge to continue going towards the intended targets. Missiles that did lose lock would try to reacquire the target profile and the profile of an industrial node is quite different from that of a merchant ship. Given what they were trying to attack, there's a good chance the missile would not lock on any ship at all, this time.

Another thing is that this was the first use of the Hasta and they were fired from very extreme range. The warheads would be travelling at high velocities, something the SLN missiles would be woefully incapable of dealing with at this time. The accuracy would suck. On one hand, it means it could lock onto anything. On the other, it means the missiles probably had little chance of targeting something inside of an interposed wedge.