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Attacking Darius:

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Re: Attacking Darius:
Post by Theemile   » Wed Dec 01, 2021 9:24 am

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Jonathan_S wrote:Edit: tlb beat me to one reference, but hopefully the wider results from my text searches will be a useful addition
cthia wrote:Actually I like the detail. Good.

It reminds me of questions I have had for a while about minelayers. The only time I have seen them is in movies where the crew were dumping them off of the back of a boat. At any rate, I recall researching it quite a while back and learned that destroyers were a common platform used to lay mines. What size ship are minelayers in the HV, and how are they deployed? A minelayer should be able to spit out mines at an alarming rate, if they are to be tactically effective. Otherwise, It appears to be a strategic defense only.

If mines can attack missiles like XO is suggesting, then an LD might be able to lay down covering fire as a layer of defense.

In wet navy terms there have also been mine laying submarines, like the RN's Grampus-class, and mine laying aircraft.

Historical digression - after WWII the US had a hell of a time clearing the air dropped pressure influence mines the USAAF had dropped around Japan during the late war Operation Starvation. (Weren't pulling any punches with that name :eek:) The US didn't actually have good minesweeping methods against that type of mine, and as I recall eventually ended up having to basically take old cargo ships, stuff them full of buoyant materials, rig up shock protection for the small US crew, and sail the things back and forth through the minefields simply sweeping by exhaustion - triggering all the mines and absorbing their blasts.



Anyway, Honorverse minelayers. We see them at Hancock at the start of the war (used as part of Sarnow's BC delaying tactics against the Peep). SVW tells us those were "Erebus-class minelayers" which "are fast-almost as fast as a battlecruiser-and they're configured for rapid, mass mine emplacement." but also notes "Minelayers don't have much in the way of point defense, and their sidewalls aren't much, either"

We also have a passing mention of them in IEH with "two fast minelayers-Yarnowski and Simmons-which have been reconfigured as freighters to provide logistical support" for Tourville's BC sweep.

And Honor ran into some old ones, apparently modified to deploy (though not control) pods, at Arthur in AAC. "The Havenites build their fast fleet minelayers on battlecruiser hulls". (And we see that same engagement from Michelle's point of view in SftS - which is what tlb quoted)





So at least the two navies we've seen the most built their minelayers on BC, or roughly BC-sized, hulls, and are giving them military grade drives, so they also have roughly BC acceleration. (Though, at least for the RMN and presumably for the Peeps, not any serious defenses and quite likely no missiles at all - devoting all that volume for carrying more mines).

Given how easily they can be repurposed for supply ships or evacuation transports (maybe a couple hours at most from dropping mines at Hancock to evacuating half the base's personnel) I'd guess that they don't need special racks or mine handling equipment filling their mine stowage, and likely have the mines stored on fairly normal decks that can also handle cargo containers or personnel. (Though I suppose it's not impossible that they do have holds full of mine handling gear but it's simply quick to remove for storage ashore, or in an emergency jettisoned) Their mine laying might literally be as simple as throwing cargo container sized pallets of mines out cargo hatches with tractor/pressor beams.

Their ability to evacuate folks at Hancock further suggests that the mine stowage decks aren't vast chasms, and can be pressurized and tied into life support (and that they apparently have enough spare life support to handle mass evacuations for at least a short trip between the stars)

But I think that's about all we know about Honorverse naval minelayers. They weren't significant enough to show up in Jaynes, SITS, or House of Steel.


There's also been a discussion of "heavy" minelayers, as opposed to "fast" minelayers. I don't remember if that was just Fans discussing or if it was official. Such a ship would be used defensively (to support the shoals of mines around the Junction, for example). Would such a ship be a special design, or just a job for a stock missile collier/ammo ship, I'm not certain.

As mentioned above everything from subs to planes to tramp freighters have been used in a minelaying role historically. Some ships, like subs, were built specifically with hardware to drop the mines, others had the mine handling hardware bolted on. So it's been more of a role, than a design type.
******
RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
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Re: Attacking Darius:
Post by Jonathan_S   » Wed Dec 01, 2021 10:32 am

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Theemile wrote:There's also been a discussion of "heavy" minelayers, as opposed to "fast" minelayers. I don't remember if that was just Fans discussing or if it was official. Such a ship would be used defensively (to support the shoals of mines around the Junction, for example). Would such a ship be a special design, or just a job for a stock missile collier/ammo ship, I'm not certain.

As mentioned above everything from subs to planes to tramp freighters have been used in a minelaying role historically. Some ships, like subs, were built specifically with hardware to drop the mines, others had the mine handling hardware bolted on. So it's been more of a role, than a design type.

Likely a fan discussion.
The only mention of "minelayer" in the books that I didn't mention was from SoS "according to this same source, Jessyk's sending in a flock of freighters configured as minelayers, as well. At Jessyk's cost, not Monica's." [though I don't have TeiF in a searchable format]

Skipped them since they weren't naval minelayers.

But yes, anything including freighters can lay mines. Whether speed, stealth, or disguise matters in your minelayer depends on where/how you want to lay the mines.
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Re: Attacking Darius:
Post by cthia   » Wed Dec 01, 2021 11:35 am

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Thanks for all of the input guys. I finally broke down and went running to Wikipedia. OMG, more questions, and some answers. For instance, when watching mines being dropped off the back of ships, I wondered what keeps the tide from slamming them into each other. The wiki says that some mines float with a cable under the water. I suppose the cable acts as an anchor. In the Honorverse, what keeps millions of mines in place? What stabilizes them? Thrusters would make them visible.

I also wonder about the cost of them. I know that the RMN's missiles are insanely expensive. What about mines? Considering the technology that they deploy (the various complicated sensors, etc.), I can't imagine that they come cheap, yet they are emplaced by the millions. Wikipedia says mines can be as cheap as two-thousand dollars to as much as millions. WHAT?!

I also wonder why mines are not laid in enemy systems during raids without their knowledge. As drifting debris. The wiki says... "Although international law requires that signatory nations declare mined areas, precise locations remain secret; and non-complying individuals may not disclose minelaying."

The MAlign would be one of those non-complying individuals. It is ironic that in the HV, it is left too much up to an enemy to play nice. When it comes to EEV's and laying mines in your backyard.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Attacking Darius:
Post by tlb   » Wed Dec 01, 2021 12:33 pm

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Theemile wrote:There's also been a discussion of "heavy" minelayers, as opposed to "fast" minelayers. I don't remember if that was just Fans discussing or if it was official. Such a ship would be used defensively (to support the shoals of mines around the Junction, for example). Would such a ship be a special design, or just a job for a stock missile collier/ammo ship, I'm not certain.

As mentioned above everything from subs to planes to tramp freighters have been used in a minelaying role historically. Some ships, like subs, were built specifically with hardware to drop the mines, others had the mine handling hardware bolted on. So it's been more of a role, than a design type.

Jonathan_S wrote:Likely a fan discussion.
The only mention of "minelayer" in the books that I didn't mention was from SoS "according to this same source, Jessyk's sending in a flock of freighters configured as minelayers, as well. At Jessyk's cost, not Monica's." [though I don't have TeiF in a searchable format]

Skipped them since they weren't naval minelayers.

But yes, anything including freighters can lay mines. Whether speed, stealth, or disguise matters in your minelayer depends on where/how you want to lay the mines.

In a discussion we had about the SLN ammunition ships at Hypatia, we wondered whether there had to be a plasma feed for the missiles (or mines) that are put out ready to use; since everything that needs power in the Honorverse, needs full capacitors if they do not have a reactor (and even the fusion reactor needs a startup charge). If mines need power for station keeping or need power to initiate and focus the explosion, then they would require charging. The point was that things stored within the ship are most likely uncharged for safety reasons.
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Re: Attacking Darius:
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Wed Dec 01, 2021 1:00 pm

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cthia wrote:In the Honorverse, what keeps millions of mines in place? What stabilizes them? Thrusters would make them visible.


Good question. It depends on what the expected drift is. And this also answers your other questions.

Thrusters don't necessarily have to be visible. Puffs of cold gas can maintain relative position to one another without giving the minefield away from a distance. Those would produce very minimal acceleration and thus couldn't combat a large drift. This and their limited fuel supply will limit how long the minefield is effective for.

And then there are orbital mechanics. Whereas on wet navy, the problem with keeping mines in position are tides, in space the problem will be that the bodies or volumes they're meant to interdict are not stationary relative to each other. So unless the minefield is trapped by the gravity of the body in question and is thus moving alongside it, it'll very quickly drift out of position. The thrusters are not likely at all to be able to produce enough acceleration to keep up with a planet in a lower orbit, not for long anyway. Onboard fuel would be exhausted pretty soon (don't ask me to estimate).

This means a minefield will be unable to stay in the least-time-course between a planet and the hyperlimit for any appreciable length of time. Earth, for example, has an orbital tangential velocity of 2*pi AU/year = 29.8 km/s. If you doubled the orbital radius so the minefield is placed at 16 light-minutes, half-way between Earth and the hyperlimit, the minefield would need to keep an orbital period of one year to keep up, meaning double the tangential velocity. But by applying Kepler's Third Law, we know the square of the orbital period increases with the cube of the radius, so doubling the radius should have produced a period of √8 bigger, or an orbital velocity √2 smaller instead. That means the delta between 2*29.8 and 29.8/√2 km/s is entirely dependent on thrusters.

I also wonder about the cost of them. I know that the RMN's missiles are insanely expensive. What about mines? Considering the technology that they deploy (the various complicated sensors, etc.), I can't imagine that they come cheap, yet they are emplaced by the millions. Wikipedia says mines can be as cheap as two-thousand dollars to as much as millions. WHAT?!

I also wonder why mines are not laid in enemy systems during raids without their knowledge. As drifting debris. The wiki says... "Although international law requires that signatory nations declare mined areas, precise locations remain secret; and non-complying individuals may not disclose minelaying."


I think the above answers your questions.

I suppose mines would enjoy economies of scale if produced in large enough quantities. It also depends on how dumb they are, but the electronics or molycircs required for them to identify an approaching target and blow up (or not, depending on IFF) shouldn't be expensive either. I don't think they are very expensive, actually, at least compared to a missile. And if Honor had 50 million Mk23 in her fleet train, a couple hundred million mines should be a minor budget adjustment.

But I think the orbital mechanics play a bigger role. Like drifting debris, they'd drift out of position very quickly. The minefield in SVW worked because it was a very short duration one, before they drifted out of position. Mining the Junction spaces so as to avoid a "negative position attack" we discussed for months should also be possible, because the drift relative to the Junction would be minimal (and because that minefield doesn't have to be a surprise).

But in interplanetary scales, I don't see it.
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Re: Attacking Darius:
Post by Theemile   » Wed Dec 01, 2021 1:43 pm

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cthia wrote:
ThinksMarkedly wrote:What's on the other side of the junction doesn't matter if it's blockaded from this side. We've discussed this in the other thread: a ship transiting is not in stealth and is in danger from LACs, much less a full task force.

Hmm... how fast can a warship shed the sails and shut down the hypergenerator? I'm talking about an emergency military n-space configuration.*

--shrug--

And if you've guessed where I'm headed, then how about it? Has textev supplied us with the total time to initiate the spider drive? I'd bet it has been discussed already. But if the spider drive can be brought up instantly, or instantly from an idle state, and an idle state can exist simultaneously with hypering, then perhaps the rules of engagement will give the Spiders (LDs] enough time to activate their stealth. Also, it isn't exactly inconceivable that the MA has eliminated transit sickness.

The GA doesn't have any idea what is on the other side of that WH. And even if during wartime ships exit the WH, until the GA can identify the bad guys for certain, they can't simply fire on anything coming out of the WH. It could be an innocent navy.

Also, with their total stealth, who is to say whether the MA has very stealthy platforms watching the watchers. And these platforms could be armed to the teeth awaiting orders. I can't believe the MA hasn't foreseen the time that that end of the WH would be seized.

* In the same vein as the much higher risk associated with removing the safety interlocks off the engine. Risky, but there are times that warrant it.


You have multiple issues there:
1) How long does it take the Spider Drive to power up from cold. - No Details
2) Can a Spider ship have alpha nodes with the Spider drive, or are sail amalgams made another way. - No Details
3) Can the Spider Drive be powered at the same time as the wedge/sail. - No Details

Now, all hyper translations to normal space are energetic - sail translations even more so. So it doesn't matter how quick you transition between one drive and another, your emergence will be seen by anyone with the proper sensors - and the more velocity you bring over the wall, the more energetic the signature will be.

And through a wormhole, the spider most likely (being a gravity based drive in a grav wave) cannot be used in the emergence lane or it will blow out the hardware - in the case of the Manty Junction that's 5 minutes + of floating in a straight line, completely naked before you can attempt to turn on the drive - assuming that it can be turned on so quickly after the sails have been used.
******
RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
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Re: Attacking Darius:
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Wed Dec 01, 2021 2:05 pm

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Theemile wrote:And through a wormhole, the spider most likely (being a gravity based drive in a grav wave) cannot be used in the emergence lane or it will blow out the hardware - in the case of the Manty Junction that's 5 minutes + of floating in a straight line, completely naked before you can attempt to turn on the drive - assuming that it can be turned on so quickly after the sails have been used.


And the sails themselves are VERY bright after a wormhole transition. You have these two 200-km wide planes emitting a lot of energy. So even if the spider could be used in an emergence lane (unlikely) and could be brought up instantly (unknown), the sails have already given you away to the forts less than 50,000 km away. They're not going to lose lock at that distance.

A similar thing happens after transitioning from a grav wave: the sails are there and can't be unfolded until back in n-space. The difference is that there aren't predictable emergence lanes for forts to be placed around of. So one can transit away from any traffic, carrying a little energy as possible. But I don't think that can be hidden from proper sensors in the defended hyperlimit for any system worth attacking. That may not save them, though.
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Re: Attacking Darius:
Post by Jonathan_S   » Wed Dec 01, 2021 2:10 pm

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:I suppose mines would enjoy economies of scale if produced in large enough quantities. It also depends on how dumb they are, but the electronics or molycircs required for them to identify an approaching target and blow up (or not, depending on IFF) shouldn't be expensive either. I don't think they are very expensive, actually, at least compared to a missile. And if Honor had 50 million Mk23 in her fleet train, a couple hundred million mines should be a minor budget adjustment.

I also suspect that drive nodes, even little ones for missile, are not cheap. Each node on a missile (and IIRC an MDM would have 3x10=30 nodes) is what, at least the size of a large suitcase and is entirely full of precision molecular scale engineering necessary to form and control the vast powers of a wedge. Producing those to the necessary tolerances can't be particularly cheap - even with economies of scale.

A mine wouldn't have those, nor should it need the stored energy it takes to create and sustain a wedge. So there are some cost savings for a mine compared to a missile.

But the sensors, warhead, and lasing rods for a mine are presumably much like (if not identical to) that of a capital ship's missile. Though you might want more of them - more sensors to get 360 coverage, more lasing rods (as you're not so space constrained) to get more of the warhead power onto target and/or to spread shots more widely to increase your chance of some hits, etc.
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Re: Attacking Darius:
Post by Brigade XO   » Wed Dec 01, 2021 3:55 pm

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:
Good question. It depends on what the expected drift is. And this also answers your other questions.

Thrusters don't necessarily have to be visible. Puffs of cold gas can maintain relative position to one another without giving the minefield away from a distance. Those would produce very minimal acceleration and thus couldn't combat a large drift. This and their limited fuel supply will limit how long the minefield is effective for.

And then there are orbital mechanics. .


The drift and probable dispersion rate (and directions) of mines once laid in space is another question that needs more work. At minimum, somebody is going to have to handle doing repair/maintain work on mines laid for things like defending the Junction, termini- which are long term installations and the types of fields laid to defend (or attack something) short term such as what Mike ran into.

So you need minesweepers. Sure, you could probably use purpose built minelayers and just -slowly- reverse the process to recover the mines. Minesweepers appear usually to be engaged in finding mines and then destroying them......disarming could be "interesting".
If they are your own (or an allied Star Nation's) you should be able to pick them up and move them after shutting them off. Even if inexpensive, there is still a good amount of credits involved.

Finding them could be interesting since they should be as stealthy as possible to avoid an unfriendly ship spotting them.
Your own forces should have charts of where (and when) and what they laid and what the anticipated movement of the field was projected to be. Then there is the question of how close you need to be to transmit (probably wisker com) shutdown codes to deal only with the one you want instead of shutting off the whole field if dealing with someplace like the Junction. How long is their communications power normaly good for, what happens when the power gets too low- does it disarm the mine?

And, are they capable of both proximity and command detonation? That would also drive how you might want to be able to turn them on and off. We saw that mines at Cerebus were proximity with nuclear explosions but these days it seems like they are more likely to be pods which double as remote missile launchers using laser heads. :)
You can always deal with enemy mines by using CMs or perhaps lasers to destroy them.
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Re: Attacking Darius:
Post by Theemile   » Wed Dec 01, 2021 4:29 pm

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Brigade XO wrote:So you need minesweepers. Sure, you could probably use purpose built minelayers and just -slowly- reverse the process to recover the mines. Minesweepers appear usually to be engaged in finding mines and then destroying them......disarming could be "interesting".
If they are your own (or an allied Star Nation's) you should be able to pick them up and move them after shutting them off. Even if inexpensive, there is still a good amount of credits involved.

Finding them could be interesting since they should be as stealthy as possible to avoid an unfriendly ship spotting them.
Your own forces should have charts of where (and when) and what they laid and what the anticipated movement of the field was projected to be. Then there is the question of how close you need to be to transmit (probably wisker com) shutdown codes to deal only with the one you want instead of shutting off the whole field if dealing with someplace like the Junction. How long is their communications power normaly good for, what happens when the power gets too low- does it disarm the mine?

And, are they capable of both proximity and command detonation? That would also drive how you might want to be able to turn them on and off. We saw that mines at Cerebus were proximity with nuclear explosions but these days it seems like they are more likely to be pods which double as remote missile launchers using laser heads. :)
You can always deal with enemy mines by using CMs or perhaps lasers to destroy them.


Honorverse minefields are supposed to be "smart" with IFF and "remote arm" features built in. I would assume they also have a ping function, a disarm function, and and a remote detonation function.

So there should be some function for remote "field removal" commands - where they start pinging and safely turn off the warhead and sensors.

For friendly minefields, the only thing you should have to worry about are those handful whose electronics go "squirrly"...
******
RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
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