Firing Ports tactical idea

WLBjork wrote:

Potato wrote:From the description of the sequence of events in AAC, it is not clear that the hatches were intentionally left open. Intolerant took heavy damage and was shedding armor and superstructure, and then a late hit came in through the pod bay. While it is said that the hit came in through the "gaping missile hatch," it is not clear if whether that was due to the doors being left open, or the previous battle damage had simply breached the armor.

I've always interpreted the use of the word "gaping" to indicate battle damage, in the same way a large wound is referred to as a "gaping wound".

That is, in fact, the way I structured the scene. The pod doors are the potential Achilles' heel for the SD(P)s for several reasons, only one of which has to do with their being caught in the "open" position. That can certainly happen, especially if there are multiple opponents pegging missiles at you so that you (in effect) don't have a "low" in which to roll pods, but that is the least likely threat scenario.

It's more likely that a hit will simply penetrate the doors' armor, despite its thickness, and the vulnerability in that case is due to the fact that the central bay containing the pods cannot be internally subdivided the way that the sick, cofferdammed armor covering the core hole from the sides can be. In other words, once they hit gets past the doors — whether it's because they're open or because they were breached by a hit — the effect of the damage cannot be as readily contained.

The situation can be worsened, as it was at Solon, when the nature of the damage effectively "blasts open" one or more of the doors' panels. Obviously, they are designed to make this difficult to do, but equally obviously, damage can affect a whole lot of systems and subsystems.

The bottom line is that Intolerant had been heavily hammered and that a hit had penetrated the pod bay, allowing damage which would have been contained and rendered far less serious had the same damage gotten through the outer layer of the ship's broadside armor system. The only path they hit could have taken to the pod bay without penetrating the broadside armor system (and being contained/lessened) was through the bay doors, be they open or closed.

Hello RunsForCelery!

Thank you very much!

Whenever you're able to respond is great!

I hope this means you've nearly finished HFQ or the rough draft and that Sharon and the kids are well.

Will Hell's Gate or the next honorverse be next?

Either one will be fantastic!

Reading this thread made me wonder about using drones just for extra wedge/sidewall protection.

It seems that weapons and defenses are going to progressively get further and further from the ship, whether from beamed or internal power; given you've shot down RD's with L-PDC's because they don't have enough power [at least for now] among other things which is why some LAC's were interspersed with the SD's etc at 2nd BoMA, but what about just using the wedge to supplement the sidewalls NTM the bow and stern walls, while still permitting the ships to maneuver under power?

The drone doesn't need to be fast; 10 km/sec acceleration at most since it just keeps formation on the ship, so all the rest of the power goes to the wedge and while it might be part of Lorelei, it would use its wedge to augment the ship's bow or stern walls and firing port and pod door port openings or any other weaknesses as needed, and they could be concentrated along the axis of the attack.

One advantage they might provide is the 'breather' damage control might need to fix or repair sidewalls, stern walls, etc.

I doubt an RD or these power surplus 'wedge barges' could carry even a couple of CM's or just one in the first place, let alone a PDC, which weighs more IIRC; but there does seem to be a gap between the CM's and the PDC's from around 75-160,000 km out that CM's are too slow to reach especially with the reload cycle of around 8 seconds, so I'm curious what might be in store to eventually deal with that concern when the GA again faces an enemy that can generate such frequent missile storms.

If you can spare the time?

L

runsforcelery wrote:**quote="WLBjork"**[quote="Potato"]From the description of the sequence of events in AAC, it is not clear that the hatches were intentionally left open. Intolerant took heavy damage and was shedding armor and superstructure, and then a late hit came in through the pod bay. While it is said that the hit came in through the "gaping missile hatch," it is not clear if whether that was due to the doors being left open, or the previous battle damage had simply breached the armor.**/quote**

I've always interpreted the use of the word "gaping" to indicate battle damage, in the same way a large wound is referred to as a "gaping wound".

That is, in fact, the way I structured the scene. The pod doors are the potential Achilles' heel for the SD(P)s for several reasons, only one of which has to do with their being caught in the "open" position. That can certainly happen, especially if there are multiple opponents pegging missiles at you so that you (in effect) don't have a "low" in which to roll pods, but that is the least likely threat scenario.

It's more likely that a hit will simply penetrate the doors' armor, despite its thickness, and the vulnerability in that case is due to the fact that the central bay containing the pods cannot be internally subdivided the way that the sick, cofferdammed armor covering the core hole from the sides can be. In other words, once they hit gets past the doors — whether it's because they're open or because they were breached by a hit — the effect of the damage cannot be as readily contained.

The situation can be worsened, as it was at Solon, when the nature of the damage effectively "blasts open" one or more of the doors' panels. Obviously, they are designed to make this difficult to do, but equally obviously, damage can affect a whole lot of systems and subsystems.

The bottom line is that Intolerant had been heavily hammered and that a hit had penetrated the pod bay, allowing damage which would have been contained and rendered far less serious had the same damage gotten through the outer layer of the ship's broadside armor system. The only path they hit could have taken to the pod bay without penetrating the broadside armor system (and being contained/lessened) was through the bay doors, be they open or closed.[/quote]

lyonheart wrote:there does seem to be a gap between the CM's and the PDC's from around 75-160,000 km out that CM's are too slow to reach especially with the reload cycle of around 8 seconds, so I'm curious what might be in store to eventually deal with that concern when the GA again faces an enemy that can generate such frequent missile storms.

Main battery energy weapons are effective in that range bracket and have been used for missile defense since before the series began (I suspect that they predate dedicated PD weapons). While Haven designs were more specialized for doing so due to the relatively poor performance of their CMs the Manties did it as well and I see absolutely no reason for them to stop doing so now that missile defense is so important (well maybe if the ship is fighting rolled as PDLCs are more effective in the sort of short engagement window that presents)

Quotes reordered to avoid the embedding limit.

Potato wrote:From the description of the sequence of events in AAC, it is not clear that the hatches were intentionally left open. Intolerant took heavy damage and was shedding armor and superstructure, and then a late hit came in through the pod bay. While it is said that the hit came in through the "gaping missile hatch," it is not clear if whether that was due to the doors being left open, or the previous battle damage had simply breached the armor.

WLBjork wrote:I've always interpreted the use of the word "gaping" to indicate battle damage, in the same way a large wound is referred to as a "gaping wound".

runsforcelery wrote:

That is, in fact, the way I structured the scene. The pod doors are the potential Achilles' heel for the SD(P)s for several reasons, only one of which has to do with their being caught in the "open" position. That can certainly happen, especially if there are multiple opponents pegging missiles at you so that you (in effect) don't have a "low" in which to roll pods, but that is the least likely threat scenario.

It's more likely that a hit will simply penetrate the doors' armor, despite its thickness, and the vulnerability in that case is due to the fact that the central bay containing the pods cannot be internally subdivided the way that the sick, cofferdammed armor covering the core hole from the sides can be. In other words, once they hit gets past the doors — whether it's because they're open or because they were breached by a hit — the effect of the damage cannot be as readily contained.

The situation can be worsened, as it was at Solon, when the nature of the damage effectively "blasts open" one or more of the doors' panels. Obviously, they are designed to make this difficult to do, but equally obviously, damage can affect a whole lot of systems and subsystems.

The bottom line is that Intolerant had been heavily hammered and that a hit had penetrated the pod bay, allowing damage which would have been contained and rendered far less serious had the same damage gotten through the outer layer of the ship's broadside armor system. The only path they hit could have taken to the pod bay without penetrating the broadside armor system (and being contained/lessened) was through the bay doors, be they open or closed.

After reading this, I think I have determined why the author has said there is and will be no true artificial intelligence in the Honorverse.

Imagine this:

runsforcelery: "Open the pod bay doors, HAL."
HAL: "I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that."