Honorverse ramblings and musings

Rakhmamort wrote:

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.

The Honorverse is based on the age of sail. Those ships weren't designed to go backwards either. Some of them had sixteen(or more) sails, which weren't exactly easy to turn around.

I figure the analogy is sail to node. Reversing an impeller drive would be like turning around the sails 180 degree on a 18th century first-rate ship of the line.

It would only help in a few, convoluted tactical situations in which a ship or fleet needs to make its escape by reversing course entirely. Most of the time, they go off to the side, because they still have velocity towards wherever they were going and it's easier to add side vee instead of coming to a full stop and then finally accelerating in the reverse direction.

The reversibility is utterly useless as long as it's more than a minute or two for the smallest vessels or more than 20 minutes for wallers. They can do 180 degree thruster turns in roughly those times.

edit: oops, missed that there was one more page and that munroburton already said much of this.

Rakhmamort wrote:

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.

I don't know. Why don't sailing ships or rockets have reverse gears? (And jet engines only barely do)

Sometimes the propulsion tech easily allows for it, and sometimes it doesn't.


Of course the real reason Honorverse ships don't have a reverse gear is that RFC wanted to model his early book combat along Napoleonic ship of the line battle -- to fit in with his French Revolutionary Haven. So wallers are relatively lumbering, mount their weapons in heavy broadsides behind gunports, and usually slug it out slowly broadside to broadside in line formation (well, wall formation; space is 3D after all). The in-universe tech explanations for why grav wedges won't reverse (whatever they all may be) all exist because RFC wanted that limitation so his ships fought the way he wanted.

So what's wrong with having ships that function as the author wants?
Cheers
John

[/quote]

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.
[/quote]I don't know. Why don't sailing ships or rockets have reverse gears? (And jet engines only barely do)

Sometimes the propulsion tech easily allows for it, and sometimes it doesn't.


Of course the real reason Honorverse ships don't have a reverse gear is that RFC wanted to model his early book combat along Napoleonic ship of the line battle -- to fit in with his French Revolutionary Haven. So wallers are relatively lumbering, mount their weapons in heavy broadsides behind gunports, and usually slug it out slowly broadside to broadside in line formation (well, wall formation; space is 3D after all). The in-universe tech explanations for why grav wedges won't reverse (whatever they all may be) all exist because RFC wanted that limitation so his ships fought the way he wanted.[/quote]

John Prigent wrote:So what's wrong with having ships that function as the author wants?
Cheers
John

Jonathan_S wrote:I don't know. Why don't sailing ships or rockets have reverse gears? (And jet engines only barely do)

Sometimes the propulsion tech easily allows for it, and sometimes it doesn't.


Of course the real reason Honorverse ships don't have a reverse gear is that RFC wanted to model his early book combat along Napoleonic ship of the line battle -- to fit in with his French Revolutionary Haven. So wallers are relatively lumbering, mount their weapons in heavy broadsides behind gunports, and usually slug it out slowly broadside to broadside in line formation (well, wall formation; space is 3D after all). The in-universe tech explanations for why grav wedges won't reverse (whatever they all may be) all exist because RFC wanted that limitation so his ships fought the way he wanted.

I don't think there's any problem with ships operating the way RFC wants.

The only reason I pointed out that his ship handling wishes drove the tech was because it therefore follows that it's unlikely that he'll will write in the ability for impellers to gain a 'reverse gear'.
(Whereas if he hadn't had a firm goal for how the ships maneuver he'd presumably be much more likely to let characters find breakthroughs that fundamentally changed how impeller drives worked - and then follow through with how that logically altered the tactical possibilities)

What has always struck me about RFC's 'Napoleonic War-style' ships is not the wall of battle instead of the line of battle, but that there's no manoeuvring for the wind gage.
Cheers
John

Jonathan_S wrote:I don't know. Why don't sailing ships or rockets have reverse gears? (And jet engines only barely do)

Sometimes the propulsion tech easily allows for it, and sometimes it doesn't.


Of course the real reason Honorverse ships don't have a reverse gear is that RFC wanted to model his early book combat along Napoleonic ship of the line battle -- to fit in with his French Revolutionary Haven. So wallers are relatively lumbering, mount their weapons in heavy broadsides behind gunports, and usually slug it out slowly broadside to broadside in line formation (well, wall formation; space is 3D after all). The in-universe tech explanations for why grav wedges won't reverse (whatever they all may be) all exist because RFC wanted that limitation so his ships fought the way he wanted.

[/quote]I don't think there's any problem with ships operating the way RFC wants.

The only reason I pointed out that his ship handling wishes drove the tech was because it therefore follows that it's unlikely that he'll will write in the ability for impellers to gain a 'reverse gear'.
(Whereas if he hadn't had a firm goal for how the ships maneuver he'd presumably be much more likely to let characters find breakthroughs that fundamentally changed how impeller drives worked - and then follow through with how that logically altered the tactical possibilities)[/quote]

Jonathan_S wrote:I don't know. Why don't sailing ships or rockets have reverse gears? (And jet engines only barely do)

Sometimes the propulsion tech easily allows for it, and sometimes it doesn't.

Because sailing ships do not have any control which way the wind will blow?

As for rocket engines, I do know they can be rotated while in operation.

Anyway, I already conceded it was just one of the weird things that came into my mind with regards to the honorverse tech. If David designed it that way to provide some limitations and thus add flavor to ship handling, then by all means, set away limits.

munroburton wrote:"cthia"]But you really can't miss the irony in having to treat one's allies the same way as one's potential enemy.

"Trust but verify," is what the US is doing to Iran regarding its nuclear enrichment program.

Glaring irony is all. Bipolar.

Such is how international diplomacy works.

And in any case, both Manticore and Haven's governments have shown capacity for rapid shifts. In the former's case, the High Ridge government went out as quickly as it came in and in the latter... well, not only did the governing system change three times in ten years, they've had multiple unsuccessful attempts at revolutions which caused changes.

It might be a good idea to monitor one's ally to make sure one isn't blindsided by another such surprise in future, however unlikely that seems now.[/quote]

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And here I thought International Relations was nations engaging in carnal relationships with each other (willingly or not) and Diplomacy as one nation telling another nation to commit unnatural acts with itself.

Silly Me.

-- Stewart

Since Saltash has come up quite a few times recently in threads on here, I thought I'd ask for opinions on why Adm Gold Peak didn't send one or two Sag-Cs instead of the five Rolands she did to Saltash.

Even if she had good justification for not expecting them to run into 4 BCs, the Sollies had interned those Manty freighters. Didn't she think marines might be useful? It also seems like the sort of flag-showing mission cruisers are famously sent on.

munroburton wrote:Since Saltash has come up quite a few times recently in threads on here, I thought I'd ask for opinions on why Adm Gold Peak didn't send one or two Sag-Cs instead of the five Rolands she did to Saltash.

... Didn't she think marines might be useful? It also seems like the sort of flag-showing mission cruisers are famously sent on.

I don't recall how many cruisers she had available, but she did have the rest of the Madras sector to liberate at the same time. Those missions may well have anticipated a greater need for ground troops than Salthash had need for a boarding action.

munroburton wrote:Since Saltash has come up quite a few times recently in threads on here, I thought I'd ask for opinions on why Adm Gold Peak didn't send one or two Sag-Cs instead of the five Rolands she did to Saltash.

Even if she had good justification for not expecting them to run into 4 BCs, the Sollies had interned those Manty freighters. Didn't she think marines might be useful? It also seems like the sort of flag-showing mission cruisers are famously sent on.

I think she was intentionally low-keying the event. This had all the trapping of what may become an international incident (Like there wasn't escallations already), but sending some destroyers to handle it "routinely" doesn't add fuel to the fire and seem as high handed. Sending 5 of the destroyers sends the message, "I'm concerned about this enough to send 5 where 1 could do", but not in the way acouple BCs say "Give me what I want or I own your orbitals".

Mike's politially savy enough to know the difference in message force levels give, and she was attempting to show strength without escallation.