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Destroying Gravitic Arrays

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Re: Destroying Gravitic Arrays
Post by kzt   » Sat Mar 22, 2014 10:03 pm

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MaxxQ wrote:Don't look at me. I have even less of a clue than you do. :mrgreen:

Andy talked a tiny bit about them. There was a sketch shown of iirc 6 of them arranged around the system, about 1/3rd from the hyperlimit to the sun. This might have made it into HoS, but I don't think so.
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Re: Destroying Gravitic Arrays
Post by KNick   » Sat Mar 22, 2014 10:42 pm

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MaxxQ wrote:
KNick wrote:My impression from reading about them is that they are more like spider-webs than pancakes. Pancakes implies a much solider structure that is mostly material. Spider-webs implies much more space between components. I have always favored the idea of comparing it to a radio telescope network. Lots of individual nodes reporting to a central control station. Perhaps someone could clear that up (yes, I mean you BuNine).


Don't look at me. I have even less of a clue than you do. :mrgreen:


Yes, yes, I know. You're just the artist whom makes their ideas look real. But you are not the only member of BuNine to read these. One of them might have some thoughts on this.
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Re: Destroying Gravitic Arrays
Post by kzt   » Sat Mar 22, 2014 11:07 pm

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KNick wrote:Yes, yes, I know. You're just the artist whom makes their ideas look real. But you are not the only member of BuNine to read these. One of them might have some thoughts on this.

Most of the people who have that info won't talk about it. At all. I know someone who has at least some of the tech bible stuff and he says "no comment" to ANY question on Honorverse stuff, plot or tech.
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Re: Destroying Gravitic Arrays
Post by KNick   » Sun Mar 23, 2014 12:03 am

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kzt wrote:
KNick wrote:Yes, yes, I know. You're just the artist whom makes their ideas look real. But you are not the only member of BuNine to read these. One of them might have some thoughts on this.

Most of the people who have that info won't talk about it. At all. I know someone who has at least some of the tech bible stuff and he says "no comment" to ANY question on Honorverse stuff, plot or tech.


OK. I guess in that case, we go back to our usual modus operandi..ie. lots of WAGS. For an array with a diameter of 2,000 KM, that gives us a surface area of 3.14 million SQ. KM. It is my belief that a physical structure that large, if it was solidly constructed, would have it's own gravitation issues. That is one of the reasons I always thought of them as cobwebs.

On the other hand, if they were individual nodes connected by fiber optics or the honorverse equivalent, they would have very little mass to compensate for.

A missile impacting at a 90degree angle would destroy 100 SQ KM of the array. That would not even qualify as a flee bite. In fact, if the elements of the array are more than 10 KM apart, it might actually destroy only 1. If the elements of the array are connected by something like a cable, there would be no shock damage, even in the case of a contact nuke.

A missile travelling parallel to the array would destroy a channel 2,000 KM long by 10 KM wide or 20,000 SQ KM or less than 0.06% of the array. An SD travelling the same path would intersect more nodes, but it would still be less than 2% at the best.

The only effective way to totally destroy an array that I can think of would be to park a ship within PDLC range and target the nodes one batch at a time. Depending on how much time that took, it might allow for the interception and destruction of the ship involved. That would be almost a certainty someplace like Manticore or Haven.
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Try to take a fisherman's fish and you will be tomorrows bait!!!
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Re: Destroying Gravitic Arrays
Post by namelessfly   » Sun Mar 23, 2014 1:28 pm

namelessfly

We had a similar conversation when I suggested Abby Hearnes should not have been able to see the nuke flashes from the battle between Fearless and Thunder of God. Keep in mind that almost all energy from a nuke in vacuum is emitted initially as Gamma-rays then as X-rays from absorption and reradiation. Since the rate of X-Ray emission is proportional to plasma density squared, the X-Ray pulse is very brief due to the rapid (1,000s of km/sec) expansion of the vaporized weapon debris.

kzt wrote:
cthia wrote:I could be wrong, but I was under the impression that the triple-ripple-effect principle worked by way of EMP...

There is no EMP in deep space. Well, if you are (in Honorverse terms) really, really close the xray and gamma radiation will induce EMP effects (system generated EMP), but you can't get that close to a combat ship. Due the inverse square law the radiation intensity drops really fast.

You also don't get a fireball, as the fireball is from the weapon xrays interacting with the atmosphere (air is highly effective absorber of xrays and hence gets heated to incandescence). In deep space you get a really, really bright xray source and a bright visual and gamma source, which then expands at 10,000 km/sec, so rapidly becomes undetectable.

So no, I have no idea how this is supposed to work. I think this is part of why David formed Bu9....
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Re: Destroying Gravitic Arrays
Post by namelessfly   » Sun Mar 23, 2014 1:33 pm

namelessfly

This seems like the most plausible image to me. However; a spider web that is spinning to keep tension strands taunt makes sense too.


JohnRoth wrote:
KNick wrote:My impression from reading about them is that they are more like spider-webs than pancakes. Pancakes implies a much solider structure that is mostly material. Spider-webs implies much more space between components. I have always favored the idea of comparing it to a radio telescope network. Lots of individual nodes reporting to a central control station. Perhaps someone could clear that up (yes, I mean you BuNine).


I've always imagined them to be something like the recent mission that mapped the lunar gravity field - two really simple satellites that used a laser ranging device to detect the subtle shifts in relative orbital velocity due to unevenness in the gravitational field.

There are advantages to having a few thousand relatively simple and relatively dumb nodes separated by hundreds if not thousands of kilometers and connected only by the beams of the ranging lasers.

Given sufficiently sophisticated analytical software, their positioning doesn't have to be all that good, either. In fact, there are real advantages to just sticking them in orbit and leaving them there until they have to be picked up for servicing.
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Re: Destroying Gravitic Arrays
Post by kzt   » Sun Mar 23, 2014 1:53 pm

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KNick wrote:A missile impacting at a 90degree angle would destroy 100 SQ KM of the array. That would not even qualify as a flee bite. In fact, if the elements of the array are more than 10 KM apart, it might actually destroy only 1. If the elements of the array are connected by something like a cable, there would be no shock damage, even in the case of a contact nuke.

A missile travelling parallel to the array would destroy a channel 2,000 KM long by 10 KM wide or 20,000 SQ KM or less than 0.06% of the array. An SD travelling the same path would intersect more nodes, but it would still be less than 2% at the best.

The only effective way to totally destroy an array that I can think of would be to park a ship within PDLC range and target the nodes one batch at a time. Depending on how much time that took, it might allow for the interception and destruction of the ship involved. That would be almost a certainty someplace like Manticore or Haven.

This is an interesting way to think about it. Thanks.
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Re: Destroying Gravitic Arrays
Post by KNick   » Sun Mar 23, 2014 3:47 pm

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If there are actually 6 arrays in the Manticore system, then the number of nodes is large. If they are spaced 100 KM apart, it would take only approximately 314 nodes for each array, or nearly 1,900 total. If they are closer together, the number rises quickly. Half the distance means quadruple the number of nodes. In that case, a ship passing parallel to the plane of the array could destroy the entire array in one pass using all of it's energy weapons. However, if the array is inside the hyper-limit, it should still be possible to intercept it before it reaches the array.

The question then becomes, is it worthwhile to lose 1 to 6 ships to temporarily blind a system? After all, it should be possible to establish a drone shell that can see at least a few light-minutes out in the matter of a day or two.

Once Manticore re-establishes it's electronics industry, it would be only a matter of a few weeks to a month to completely rebuild the arrays. It would be expensive, but not all that time consuming. It would take a lot of aggregate man hours, but that would mainly be due to crew size, not the time to emplace each node. A mine layer to drop them off and a couple of yard craft to follow along and ensure that each one was properly hooked into the net would do the trick.
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Re: Destroying Gravitic Arrays
Post by kzt   » Sun Mar 23, 2014 4:41 pm

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If the array wasn't there you could arrange the Manticore never quite got their industry reestablished...
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Re: Destroying Gravitic Arrays
Post by munroburton   » Sun Mar 23, 2014 4:45 pm

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Can gravitic arrays scan through a star? If the star creates a blind spot, then inevitably systems must invest in at least two separate arrays in locations far enough apart that there isn't a combined blind spot.

Manticore-A's hyper limit has a radius of 395 million kilometres. Even in an era of MDMs, something 200 plus million KM inside the limit(on a least-time course) is difficult. Against the assets deployed around Manticore-A, it's suicidal without spider drives before Oyster Bay.

If six gravitic arrays are deployed 150 million kilometres away from Manticore-A in a XYZ configuration, a MDM-equipped raiding force on a straight shot could only hope to destroy three, perhaps four, arrays. SDM-equipped raiders could only hit two. The force would have to travel nearly 44 light minutes of the most heavily defended location in the galaxy and be exposed to interception by micro-jumping forces on its way out, not to mention on its way in.

If backup arrays are positioned around Manticore-B(whose hyper limit is 15 million km less), it becomes impossible to deprive the MBS of alpha wall coverage without numerous raids, as even a single array has light-months of reach. Those raiders would need to stand up to scores of wallers plus screen, later augmented by system defense pods and swarms of LACs. Now Mycroft is in the mix.

The only times anyone attacked Manticore, they were after larger prizes than blowing up a few scanners and justifiably so, given the weight of hulls required to survive a hostile incursion.
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