Grav Lance Questions

I have no idea if David is really done with the grav lance, but I found the mention in HoS interesting. There is a very old pearl that said he had something in mind, but who knows?

kenl511 wrote:I move that the next person to raise the issue of Gravity Lances be tendered to a tree cat clan for use as a scratching pole.....

Is there a second?

kenl511 wrote:

kenl511 wrote:I move that the next person to raise the issue of Gravity Lances be tendered to a tree cat clan for use as a scratching pole.....

Is there a second?

Second

Is there any discussion of the motion?

kenl511 wrote:Is there any discussion of the motion?

How about we expand it to anyone replying to a skimper thread?

kzt wrote:

kenl511 wrote:Is there any discussion of the motion?

How about we expand it to anyone replying to a skimper thread?

Nah. You might actually have to thwap a newbie, like I was a few months ago. Now I am a mediumbie.

kenl511 wrote:Is there any discussion of the motion?

kzt wrote:How about we expand it to anyone replying to a skimper thread?

SharkHunter wrote:Nah. You might actually have to thwap a newbie, like I was a few months ago. Now I am a mediumbie.

And as been pointed out, sometimes he actually has an interesting idea - even a blind hog will root up an acorn every now and then.

kenl511 wrote:Is there any discussion of the motion?

kzt wrote:How about we expand it to anyone replying to a skimper thread?

SharkHunter wrote:Nah. You might actually have to thwap a newbie, like I was a few months ago. Now I am a mediumbie.

fallsfromtrees wrote:And as been pointed out, sometimes he actually has an interesting idea - even a blind hog will root up an acorn every now and then.

I'd like to point out that in a true democracy, the majority of users of the forum could just vote to exile him. In the society of laws that we exist under, even those who are reviled have the right to express their opinions, just as we have the right to ignore them.

kzt wrote:HoS, Sept 1883
"The most critical breakthrough was what Sonja Hemphill and some of Gram’s other team leaders had dubbed simply “the baffle”[snip description of usefulness for MDMs]

"Some other interesting bits and pieces were emerging from the effort, as well. Sonja, for example, was intrigued by the implications of something she’d tentatively christened a “grav lance,” although it looked to Jonas like something which would be useful mainly for capital ships that managed to get to knife-fighting range of one another. He couldn’t really see anything lighter than a waller being able to make much use of it, but he was more than willing to let Sonja run with it."

Now that you post that I remember that bit. But seeing it juxtaposed with the date caused me to do a quick check... Some things don't quite seem to line up (which I originally though might just be a minor chronological or equipment ret-con between Jaynes and HoS; except the issues is actually worse within HoS itself)


Jaynes and House of Steel list several classes that were equipped with the GL (prior to experimenting with it on the CL Fearless in 1901 PD)

* Anduril-class SD (Introduced 1889 [HoS])
* King William-class SD (Introduced 1872 [J:RMN]; HoS corrects this to 1877 and omits the GL and ETs)
* Majestic-class DN (Introduced 1888 [J:RMN]; HoS corrects this to 1896 and omits the GL and ETs)
* Gladiator-class DN (Introduced 1868 [HoS])
* Homer-class BC (Introduced 1863 [HoS])

Kind of odd to be talking about 'tentatively christening' something that's apparently been in active deployment for 20 years by that point; since this is 1883 and the Homer-class BC was designed around the GL -- and those started entering service in 1863 PD.

Jonathan_S wrote:...snip...

Kind of odd to be talking about 'tentatively christening' something that's apparently been in active deployment for 20 years by that point; since this is 1883 and the Homer-class BC was designed around the GL -- and those started entering service in 1863 PD.

Not going to get into when it was introduced but a nit:

HoS wrote:Like the Redoubtable, the Homer-class battlecruiser was built as something of a brawler, mounting an extensive energy broadside, augmented (in later flights) with a grav lance and an array of energy torpedoes for extremely close engagements. Like many Manticoran designs, the Homer’s passive protection relied on sidewalls in preference to thicker skin armor, on the theory that sidewalls could be upgraded more readily than hull armor as technology advanced.

So the Homer was not designed around it.

Going by ship classes and introduction of weapons is problematic.

Normal practices was to have 15-20% in the yards for refit at any particular point figuring a 6 month overhaul that works out to each ship was in the yards every 3-6 years which would give time to do a lot of things. Like fit grav lances. Which doesn't work as well once the shooting starts and minimal maintenance and upgrades are going to done.

Different mind set and I tend to think that HoS takes a lot of averages to get those numbers and capabilities.

Have fun,
T2M