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Honorverse ramblings and musings

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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by Jonathan_S   » Tue Apr 07, 2015 12:29 pm

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n7axw wrote:Hi Cthia,

I doubt that there is any such thing as complete trust amongst governments. The old days of gentlemen not reading the mail of other gentlemen are long gone if they ever really existed in the first place.
I've read that the Henry Stimson quote you paraphrased wasn't really him objecting to the US Government running a crypto-breaking dept; not even one trying to break diplomatic message traffic. He was reportedly mostly objecting to the State Department being the one who did it.

(I guess he felt it undermined diplomatic relations for the department running the diplomats to also be the one trying to read the other side's instructions to their diplomats. Or at least it would have been if/when it went public)

/tangent
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by Jonathan_S   » Tue Apr 07, 2015 12:44 pm

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Rakhmamort wrote:[
No question when they would have the maximum effect. The point I am making is to try to overwhelm the enemy computers and give them problems. Not suggesting to have fake missiles all the time or even during the first salvo when the enemy computers are practically still having it easy. Fake a double or triple broadside maybe 3 or 4 launches into the fight, right when the 1st broadside is already giving the enemy problems.

Note: I am floating this 'tactic' if and only if the Dragon's Teeth module has the endurance to keep up the false images for a long long time. It is useless if the images can only last a couple of seconds (just enough to confuse the enemy during the terminal attack phase)
The LAC versions[1] of those missiles are a different story; but in the Mk16 or Mk23 the microfusion power plant might well have enough fuel to provide sufficient power to run the emitters for at least 5-6 minutes.

So the question becomes what's the operational lifespan on the grav emitters themselves? (The ones creating the fake grav signatures) Most likely they're designed so the mean time between failure is noticably greater than their normal operational endurance. But that normal 'max CM confusion' endurance is less than a minute. So who knows if they'd stand up to many minutes of continuous operation.

Also, we know of at least one type of grav generation (missile drive nodes) that are single use. That apparently makes them stronger and smaller - but shutting them down early causes burn-out. Given their normal operational use I wouldn't be at all surprised if the dragon's teeth decoy emitters would also have that same limitation. Even so you could potenitaly use one to fake a bigger missile launch - and it might even last through all <360 seconds of a Mk16's powered flight.

It wouldn't be the best use to decoy CMs - but in some situation an early use might less you pull off a temporary bluff...

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[1] LAC versions of Dazzlers and Dragon's Teeth can only operation in a burst mode because, without a micro-fusion power plant, they don't have the power for sustained operation. But that mode of operation was specifically contrasted against the 'normal' microfusion powered versions.
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by Kizarvexis   » Tue Apr 07, 2015 1:47 pm

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Rakhmamort wrote:
SWM wrote:No, they can't. The impeller rings are set up to create a particular arrangement of wedge. The fore impeller ring cannot act like the rear impeller ring, and vice versa.


Which is really weird. In Basilisk Station we saw nodes installed in telescoping arms/piston so we know they can be moved around. I don't see any reason why their physical placements (if that is what is required) cannot be changed.

If the fore and aft nodes are truly different from each other, then they shouldn't even all be called beta nodes. There should be a clear differentiation between front/back beta nodes.

We sure know that whatever it is these nodes do, their output can be adjusted. Battle damage to a node does not stop a ship completely so that means whatever field they are generating is still being generated albeit with a weaker/smaller effect.



I found some pearls with revelvant info. italics are the questions and bold is RFC's answer.


Pearls of Weber wrote:
6) If alpha and beta nodes cannot be armored themselves, can each of them be positioned inside an armored "ring" so the only angle an energy beam can come without hitting armor is from directly above them?

(6) No. The emitter head has to be a certain distance (which varies with the size and power of the node) from the hull and any other solid wall, bulkhead, armor, etc. That's why Sirius had to run her nodes out on rams to clear the hull before she could accelerate.


Variable geometry starships

The Handy-Dandy Folding Starship. This idea apparently stems from the observation/belief that missile combats are going to be short and very intensive, and that being able to throw the heaviest possible weight of missiles as quickly as possible is ultimately going to be decisive, or darned close to it, at any rate. So the theory here is that you build a ship which is basically a skeletal framework on which you mount only the essential systems -- fusion plants, impeller nodes, hyper generator, etc.. For all intents and purposes it would be an open girder-work construct around the maximum possible number of missile pods, and its sole function would be to transport the pods to the scene of combat and then to deploy its entire loadout as quickly as possible. Thereafter, it would literally "fold up" into a much smaller- dimension hull, which would use its smaller size and much decreased tonnage to permit it to attain higher acceleration rates as it ran rapidly away from the other side. I don't think the idea is for the ship itself to control the pods, only to get them into position as rapidly as possible for more capable units to control and target.




Folding Starships. Not a good idea. This sounds like one of your war-gamers came up with it. (Don't tell me if I guessed right about that, by the way.) The tactical advantages in being able to drop that many pods into space in a single go aren't as great as they might appear on the surface. The total numbers of pods which can be controlled are limited by the capabilities built into the ships available to control them. There's nothing out there which would have sufficient redundant fire control to handle the sheer numbers of missile pods you seem to be talking about here. Basically, you'd have a huge traffic jam in the firing queues of the fleet which deployed them. At least, if I'm understanding the concept correctly, you would. Even leaving aside the question of "gunsmoke," you simply wouldn't have sufficient control links to handle that many pods without major degradation in accuracy -- far more degradation then would be necessary to offset the advantage of simply chucking that many missiles down-range in a single mighty flush. Even leaving aside the fact that the tactical utility of the concept strikes me as doubtful, there would be serious engineering difficulties involved in producing a ship which would basically reconfigure itself. Even freighters in the Honorverse are built with a structural strength which would make the Brooklyn Bridge look fragile by comparison, and for very good reasons. Not only that, but each ship's alpha and beta nodes are built to function in a very specific spatial relationship to one another. In other words, nodes are built and installed to produce a specific size and shape of impeller wedge and "sump" to feed the mounting ship's inertial compensator. You don't futz around with those relationships once they're established. That doesn't mean that you can't lose nodes and continue to produce a wedge, or to feed an inertial compensator's requirements, obviously. But even when you lose nodes out of a damaged impeller wedge, those nodes are still physically located where they always were, and that physical relationship has to be maintained. You could, in theory, I suppose, build your ship with two completely separate sets of nodes and inertial compensators. If you did that, then you could probably build a "folding" starship with the structural integrity for your proposal, and by providing it with one set of nodes for "unfolded" and a second set for "folded" operation, you could probably produce the effect you're after. You'd pay a fairly high price in terms of internal volume and tonnage, and the capability wouldn't be cheap in financial terms, but you could do it. Given the fact that I don't see it as providing any truly significant tactical advantage, however, I can't see any real point in plowing the money, effort, and resources into building what would essentially be the chief exhibit in the Interstellar Freaks and Rarees Show.


So the nodes are spaced and sized in a fixed relationship with each other. The reason Sirius had to run out the nodes was concealment from casual observation. Military SD nodes were bigger than the civilian nodes a ship that size wold carry. So they pulled them in when stopped to be the same size as a civilian node, so as to seem to be a harmless civilian ship stopping over for repairs. Based on the second question, if the forward and aft impeller rooms do not have close enough spacing to swap for each other, and since ships have to flip to decelerate we can safely guess they do not, then you can't flip the wedge without so serious engineering. The folding starship example above posits two impeller rooms. Here is some info on how big an impeller room is on a ship.


Pearls of Weber wrote:
Impeller rooms

Impeller rooms are cylindrical volumes located within the hull and centered fore-and-aft on the impeller ring they serve. The diameters of civilian impeller rooms are approximately 60% of the diameter of the impeller ring and approximately 1.2 times as long as they are across. They normally consist of a single, very large compartment crammed with the required generators and node support hardware. Military impeller rooms are approximately 85% as wide as the diameter of the impeller ring and approximately 1.6 times as long as they are broad. They are also subdivided — normally into quarters in smaller vessels (through CL), eighths (CA-BC), or twelfths (DN-SD) — with the individual compartments heavily bulkheaded and armored to localize and contain damage. Since the outbreak of the war, the RMN and GSN have begun dividing impeller rooms in ships of the wall into 16ths — one for each beta node. These individual compartments are arranged in clusters around the long axis of the ship with each forming a smaller cylinder, bundled together with their fellows within the volume of the overall "impeller room." Thus a modern RMN SD would refer to "Impeller One" or "Impeller Two" to indicate (respectively) the forward or aft impeller rooms, and then to "Impeller Eleven," "Impeller Twelve," or "Impeller Thirteen" to indicate the subcompartments within Impeller One. (That is, "Impeller 1.1" would be referred to as "Impeller Eleven," "Impeller 1.2" would be referred to as "Impeller Twelve," etc.)


But, just make the impeller room to be able to reconfigure it self you say. Here is some info on the power levels running though an impeller room.

Pearls of Weber wrote:
Wedge interaction

What does happen when two wedges impact? Is it an all-or-nothing, with one wedge undamaged and the weaker destroyed? A case of complete mututal destruction, regardless of ship size, or at least within a fairly tight range of ship sizes? And if one wedge is destroyed outright, what happens to the wedge which survives? Does it take node damage, or is it completely unaffected?




When the impeller wedges of two impeller-drive vessels come into contact, wedge interference causes the nodes of the weaker vessel (or of both vessels, if the wedges are quite close together in the size and strength) to vaporize. The portion of the hull in which the nodes are mounted goes with it, and the capacitor rings associated with the nodes arc over and release all of their stored energy in the process. And if you think about the power levels routinely involved in Honorverse technology, I think you can see why this particular form of collision has a tendency to totally destroyed its victim at least as spectacularly as a breached fusion bottle.

The sole exception to the above occurs when one ship's impeller wedge is fully established, and the other ship's impeller wedge is not. There is a time period during the powering-up process for a wedge during which the wedge is actually "up" but not yet established at full power. In effect, there is an area around the ship in question in which there is a powerfully stressed gravity band which is readily observable and highly destructive to any material object in its area of effect, but which is vastly weaker than an all-up impeller wedge. You might think of it as the first stage of a multi-stage activation process. This field's existence is readily detectable, but a smaller vessel with a fully established impeller wedge could, if it entered the area of the "first-stage" field, knock out the impeller nodes producing it. Because the power levels involved are still orders of magnitude lower then those involved when the nodes go fully active and the wedge goes to full strength, the destruction is far less spectacular. Thus Honor was able to take out the nodes of the courier vessel in Basilisk without completely destroying the ship. And the fact that the courier boat's "first-stage" field had the same dimensions as its full- powered wedge would have had is why she was able to come close enough to take the field down without physically contacting the courier boat itself. Had the positions of the two vessels been reversed -- that is, had Fearless been bringing up her wedge and the skipper of the Peep courier boat had been able to maneuver his vessel, with fully established wedge, through the cruiser's "first- stage" field -- Fearless would have suffered effectively the same damage that the courier boat did.

Note that smaller and weaker impeller wedges come up faster than larger and stronger ones. This means that the courier boat's window vulnerability was actually narrower than Fearless' would have been. This also applies to missile impeller wedges, where the differences in the fundamental technology (see the answers to your second question above) also come into play. If it didn't, an impeller-drive missile would take so long to bring its wedge up from "standby" that it would be totally useless as a weapon system.


The impeller rooms have enough energy running through them to severly damage/destroy the ship, so you might not what to be moving those components around.
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by crewdude48   » Tue Apr 07, 2015 2:20 pm

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Basicly, think of it like the following; if you had to move the engine of your car from under the hood to in to the trunk in order to go in reverse, it would be easier to just turn the car around. If they could do it while under power, it may make sense, but considering the amount of energy flying around the impeller room, I would call that idea double plus ungood.

As for why it would be a liability in a military ship, any part that is designed to move is going to be more susceptible to damage than a static part of a similar mass and volume. You would be hugely increasing the number of failure points on not only the ships drive, but also its two primary passive defenses.
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by SWM   » Tue Apr 07, 2015 3:41 pm

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munroburton wrote:
SWM wrote:No, they can't. The impeller rings are set up to create a particular arrangement of wedge. The fore impeller ring cannot act like the rear impeller ring, and vice versa.


I figured it could be done, but nobody does because it would involve a cold shutdown and restart of the wedge, which takes ~45 minutes(or more). Given that a SD can complete a 180 degree turn in 25 or so minutes, you can see why it doesn't happen - NTM, no wedge means no protection, including sidewalls.

David has said it doesn't work that way. They have to turn around.
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by munroburton   » Tue Apr 07, 2015 4:36 pm

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SWM wrote:
munroburton wrote:I figured it could be done, but nobody does because it would involve a cold shutdown and restart of the wedge, which takes ~45 minutes(or more). Given that a SD can complete a 180 degree turn in 25 or so minutes, you can see why it doesn't happen - NTM, no wedge means no protection, including sidewalls.

David has said it doesn't work that way. They have to turn around.


He did say that it might be possible to construct a ship with two sets of impeller rings in the Pearls about variable geometry starships.

So it might be possible to build a ship with four impeller rings, with the second pair configured as a reverse gear, so to speak. But given that you can't even warm up a second drive field anywhere near the first without blowing up the weaker field's nodes, it does mean there'd be a window of vulnerability between switch-overs.

Unless that window can be squeezed down to less than a handful of minutes, there's no point as the only circumstances it'd be useful in is as a tactical maneuver.
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by n7axw   » Tue Apr 07, 2015 9:44 pm

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cthia wrote:
Now that's a point to chew on munroburton.

I may be able to trust you, but how can I know if I can trust the factions of your government that may overthrow or supersede you. Especially since you can't trust them either.

Damn good point! Critical point!

Now I say. Spy on the bastards! :oops: :mrgreen:

Because if you can see schit coming in time, you can turn on the fan?


Maybe it would be wiser to make sure that the fan stays turned off. Fecal matter doesn't spread as rapidly that way... :lol:

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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by Rakhmamort   » Wed Apr 08, 2015 12:01 am

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crewdude48 wrote:Basicly, think of it like the following; if you had to move the engine of your car from under the hood to in to the trunk in order to go in reverse, it would be easier to just turn the car around. If they could do it while under power, it may make sense, but considering the amount of energy flying around the impeller room, I would call that idea double plus ungood.


But a car can go backwards without needing to turn around! :D


As for why it would be a liability in a military ship, any part that is designed to move is going to be more susceptible to damage than a static part of a similar mass and volume. You would be hugely increasing the number of failure points on not only the ships drive, but also its two primary passive defenses.


If the mechanism gets stuck, you always have the option of flipping around. Not so big a problem but being able to decelerate without doing a complex manuever (especially in formation) is a big safety feature.

-------

Anyway, it is just a 'musing' about something that seems weird to me.

Another one related to this would be, are they using beta squared nodes for starships and not just LACs now?
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by crewdude48   » Wed Apr 08, 2015 2:42 am

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Rakhmamort wrote:
crewdude48 wrote:Basicly, think of it like the following; if you had to move the engine of your car from under the hood to in to the trunk in order to go in reverse, it would be easier to just turn the car around. If they could do it while under power, it may make sense, but considering the amount of energy flying around the impeller room, I would call that idea double plus ungood.


But a car can go backwards without needing to turn around! :D


Yes, but there is no equivalent of a transmission in an Honorverse ships. The engine and the wheals are both the wedge. In order to go backwards you would need to turn your engine around. Would you like to do that while it is running?

Rakhmamort wrote:
As for why it would be a liability in a military ship, any part that is designed to move is going to be more susceptible to damage than a static part of a similar mass and volume. You would be hugely increasing the number of failure points on not only the ships drive, but also its two primary passive defenses.


If the mechanism gets stuck, you always have the option of flipping around. Not so big a problem but being able to decelerate without doing a complex manuever (especially in formation) is a big safety feature.
[/quote]

And if it gets stuck halfway between the two points? Where it is useless for both arrangements?

Also the same amount of battle damage is more likely to move something that is designed to move than something that is not, and that is a big problem. Having your nodes out of alignment will, at the very least, reduce your acceleration, forcing you to leave the formation, making you a much easier target. At worst, it will cause your entire wedge to fail, taking with it the impenetrable shield that protects the top and bottom of the ship, and the sidewalls that tie into the wedge, leaving you naked to the world.

[quote="Rakhmamort"]
-------

Anyway, it is just a 'musing' about something that seems weird to me.

Another one related to this would be, are they using beta squared nodes for starships and not just LACs now?
[quote] Yes, the Rolands were built with them, and I think the BC(L)s.
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by Rakhmamort   » Thu Apr 09, 2015 1:08 am

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crewdude48 wrote:Yes, but there is no equivalent of a transmission in an Honorverse ships. The engine and the wheals are both the wedge. In order to go backwards you would need to turn your engine around. Would you like to do that while it is running?


Which is the reason for the question. If the capability is there for one of the most basic vehicles, then why is it not there for impeller drive ships? Hell, even wet navy ships can do it.

Looks to me the impeller drive developers looked at the problem and just gave up on it and said it was impossible and that was it. Maybe somebody is going to prove the 'current' knowledge is wrong and make some new developments just like what Manticore and the IAN has done.

And if it gets stuck halfway between the two points? Where it is useless for both arrangements?


Wouldn't you design them with back-up systems that would make it easy to get them back to a default position? I would. With manual cranks to boot!

Yes, the Rolands were built with them, and I think the BC(L)s.


Which just proves that not everything about impeller drives are known. What is impossible before might not be true in a couple of decades. There is no driving need to find a way to reconfigure the wedge generated by ships before, so nobody is doing anything about it. There was a need to miniaturize the nodes to improve ship performance so they were able to find a way to do that.
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