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THE LENNYS ARE COMING! THE LENNYS ARE COMING!

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Re: THE LENNYS ARE COMING! THE LENNYS ARE COMING!
Post by MaxxQ   » Thu Oct 13, 2016 6:44 pm

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munroburton wrote:We know a little - they're upscaled versions of the Sharks with internal magazines to fire those graser torpedoes. We also know the original Oyster Bay was meant to be carried out by the LDs and include Haven, which has many more shipyards spread around.

I haven't seen any good theories on what they were supposed to do with them after Oyster Bay. Textev is, obviously, very scarce on that point.

My speculation is the actual OB attack we got could have been carried out by four LDs - one for each physical location(Manticore, Sphinx, Gryphon, Blackbird). The rest would've been doing the same to Haven's more scattered yards.

So what's next? Probably ambushes - figure out where the GA's going to visit, speed ahead with their improved hyper generators and lay doggo at a low relative velocity. The problem with that is, the LDs are no faster than the Ghosts or Sharks, so they would eventually be pinned down by recon drones operating with active scans, rather than passives.


cthia wrote:
Theemile wrote:Monroburton, you forgot a couple things.

1) Like the Sharks, they are podlayers.
2) As you implied, they mount the Spider drive, limiting their accel as you mentioned.
3) They probably mount a bubble sidewall (which cannot be used when the spider drive is active.)
4) They are considered to be true capital ships by the MA.
5) They are very large - when less than 50% complete, they were larger than the ~5 Mton Sharks.

Wow, just a few posts and I've already learned a lot.


cthia wrote:2. When I first read discussions regarding low accel, I thought that would be a serious disadvantage against a much more maneuverable opponent. So I wondered if RFC would give them an advantage in either initial accel (sprinters), then top out at ~ 400-500 gravities. Or vice versa with a max accel greater than the GA's. Perhaps, I'm in error about both?


In the Honorverse, all that needs to be done is set the accel where you want it, and then you go at that accel, instantly, or near enough as makes no difference. It's not a slow gradual buildup over time, and any "sprint" mode just means you're topping out your accel.

cthia wrote:3. Regarding your third point. It seems that would be a serious disadvantage during battle, no? They wouldn't be able to maneuver in a hell storm of incoming missiles w/o losing a fair amount of ship defenses - all else being equal?


Correct. It's a serious disadvantage. Very similar to LACs not being able to accelerate when their full buckler is up. The LDs drive attaches itself to the Alpha wall, and that means that it can't operate through a bubble sidewall.

cthia wrote:Unless that disadvantage is offset with a much greater non ballistic missile range?


Unless they've got MDMs of their own comparable to the GAs, no.

cthia wrote:4. I wonder if they will also form some kind of wall of battle, being true capital ships. Or are they designed to operate as solitary units?


These things are designed for stealth. A supposedly undetectable drive, combined with as much other stealth capabilities as are possible in the Honorverse. A wall would kind of defeat that purpose, and they are definitely not going to be able to stand up against a wall of regular HV warships. A bubble sidewall just won't cut it against capital ship missiles - they can't even "roll wedge" since they HAVE no wedge.

cthia wrote:5. They could conceivably scale up to 10+ Mton when complete? Though I thought they'd be even larger. Has textev given if indeed the spider drive is what accounts for the extra tonnage?


IIRC, it's not so much that the Spider Drive contributes to the tonnage, but that the Spider Drive isn't limited to the mass/compensator efficiency ratio like a wedge is for standard drive warships. Also, the compensator doesn't have to cover as much since the crew is genetically designed to withstand many more G's than "normal" pitiful humans. OTOH, as noted above, the maximum accel is much lower than that of a wedge, until your ship mass crosses the mass limit for a wedge/compensator combo. Once a standard HV wedge-drive ship crosses that limit, its accel drops rapidly.
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Re: THE LENNYS ARE COMING! THE LENNYS ARE COMING!
Post by MaxxQ   » Thu Oct 13, 2016 6:47 pm

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cthia wrote:
munroburton wrote:2. All manned spider drive ships top out at ~150g. Slower than impeller-drive merchantships.

3. The MAlign use the same missiles as the SLN(the Cataphracts). Graser torps have a spider drive and greater endurance, but are very slow and their maximum range falls well inside countermissile range(400,000km vs 3.5 million).

4. Unknown. There are no hints as to the Lennies' use other than in Oyster Bay style operations.

5. Wilder speculation has gone up to 30-40 million tons. It is probably closer to 10 million. Their size is nothing to do with the spider drive - there are frigate-sized spider ships. The size is more so they can carry graser torpedoes in internal magazines - which the "battleship sized" Sharks can't do.

The high guestimates sound more like the stats of a fricking fort! Mama Mia, I should have visited those technical threads a lot more.

What am I missing? There is a serious disadvantage in accel and max accel. And a serious advantage in missile range. What will there main tactical advantage be? Surely they can't get close enough with those behemoths if the larger tonnage sizes are correct? They won't be targeting space stations in a straight up fight.


The entire advantage to the LD is its stealth. Once that's cracked, they're useless. The MA built them for nothing more than sneak attacks, because they know they can't (yet) build anything that can otherwise match the GA ships on a one-for-one basis.

Take away their stealth, and they've got nothing.
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Re: THE LENNYS ARE COMING! THE LENNYS ARE COMING!
Post by Weird Harold   » Thu Oct 13, 2016 7:23 pm

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munroburton wrote:2. All manned spider drive ships top out at ~150g. Slower than impeller-drive merchantships.


That "all manned spider drive hips" is the result if Spider drives being limited to what can be offset by grav plates. Spider Drives don't have a wedge to use as an inertia sump so they can't use compensators in N-Space. They can of course use Compensators in a grav wave in Hyper since they apparently will mount Warshwaski Sails (they pretty much have to if they're going to travel in Hyperspace)

That raises the question of what accel the Spider Drive is capable of if the vessel is NOT manned. Just as Impeller Drive missiles can accelerate at number that would reduce living passengers to strawberry jelly, Spider drive missiles should be able to accelerate faster than manned ships. I wouldn't be surprised if the ratio of manned acceleration to unmanned acceleration was even higher than 500G/96000G
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Answers! I got lots of answers!

(Now if I could just find the right questions.)
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Re: THE LENNYS ARE COMING! THE LENNYS ARE COMING!
Post by MaxxQ   » Thu Oct 13, 2016 7:44 pm

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Weird Harold wrote:That "all manned spider drive hips" is the result if Spider drives being limited to what can be offset by grav plates. Spider Drives don't have a wedge to use as an inertia sump so they can't use compensators in N-Space. They can of course use Compensators in a grav wave in Hyper since they apparently will mount Warshwaski Sails (they pretty much have to if they're going to travel in Hyperspace)


Crap! I forgot about that (bolded) bit.

Yeah... what he said... :mrgreen:
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Re: THE LENNYS ARE COMING! THE LENNYS ARE COMING!
Post by Theemile   » Thu Oct 13, 2016 8:22 pm

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Weird Harold wrote:
munroburton wrote:2. All manned spider drive ships top out at ~150g. Slower than impeller-drive merchantships.


That "all manned spider drive hips" is the result if Spider drives being limited to what can be offset by grav plates. Spider Drives don't have a wedge to use as an inertia sump so they can't use compensators in N-Space. They can of course use Compensators in a grav wave in Hyper since they apparently will mount Warshwaski Sails (they pretty much have to if they're going to travel in Hyperspace)

That raises the question of what accel the Spider Drive is capable of if the vessel is NOT manned. Just as Impeller Drive missiles can accelerate at number that would reduce living passengers to strawberry jelly, Spider drive missiles should be able to accelerate faster than manned ships. I wouldn't be surprised if the ratio of manned acceleration to unmanned acceleration was even higher than 500G/96000G

The "smallish" graser torps are limited to a few hundred Gs as unmanned torps. The larger the spider ship is, the more powerful the spider drive, so I don't doubt that a spider drive the size of the Lenny Det's could pull a few hundred extra Gs in an unmanned configuration, but not 10s of thousands.
******
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: THE LENNYS ARE COMING! THE LENNYS ARE COMING!
Post by munroburton   » Thu Oct 13, 2016 8:33 pm

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cthia wrote:The high guestimates sound more like the stats of a fricking fort! Mama Mia, I should have visited those technical threads a lot more.

What am I missing? There is a serious disadvantage in accel and max accel. And a serious advantage in missile range. What will there main tactical advantage be? Surely they can't get close enough with those behemoths if the larger tonnage sizes are correct? They won't be targeting space stations in a straight up fight.


Aye, forts form the basis for the wilder speculation. Since the (manned) drive is limited to 150g regardless of size, the tonnage limit is effectively removed and large forts do exist, proving such construction is possible.

MaxxQ wrote:The entire advantage to the LD is its stealth. Once that's cracked, they're useless. The MA built them for nothing more than sneak attacks, because they know they can't (yet) build anything that can otherwise match the GA ships on a one-for-one basis.

Take away their stealth, and they've got nothing.


One thing not yet established is how effective active sensors are against spider ships. This is a potentially interesting question, given the lessons of Honor's last battle at Cerberus - and the later emphasis on paying attention to non-gravitic sensors in her lectures.
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Re: THE LENNYS ARE COMING! THE LENNYS ARE COMING!
Post by Theemile   » Thu Oct 13, 2016 8:40 pm

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Theemile wrote:
3) They probably mount a bubble sidewall (which cannot be used when the spider drive is active.)


cthia wrote:
3. Regarding your third point. It seems that would be a serious disadvantage during battle, no? They wouldn't be able to maneuver in a hell storm of incoming missiles w/o losing a fair amount of ship defenses - all else being equal?


MaxxQ wrote:
Correct. It's a serious disadvantage. Very similar to LACs not being able to accelerate when their full buckler is up. The LDs drive attaches itself to the Alpha wall, and that means that it can't operate through a bubble sidewall.


The related point not yet mentioned is spider ships have no sidewalls or known buckler technology while the Spider is in use. The point about the Bubble sidewall is from a response by David that a bubble sidewall cannot work while the Spider drive is running, ending with one of his infamous tum-te-tums.

While the shape of a spider ship has to conform with the "triple-skeg" geometry of the spider drive, some have theorized that a large spider ship (Like the Sharks, LDs and Detweiler's yacht) also have a pair of node rings and Compensator. This configuration is especially required for grav waves and wormhole translations. it is quite possible that a set of nodes is run out on a ram to complete the standard wedge configuration.

If Spider ships do not also have the alpha nodes and compensator of a wedge ship, either they are unable to travel in grav waves and wormholes (a major strategic disadvantage, especially since Darius is hidden at the end of a wormhole) or else the MA has found a tech to allow the spider to act with grav waves as a replacement for the the alpha nodes.
******
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: THE LENNYS ARE COMING! THE LENNYS ARE COMING!
Post by Kizarvexis   » Thu Oct 13, 2016 11:26 pm

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munroburton wrote:3. The MAlign use the same missiles as the SLN(the Cataphracts). Graser torps have a spider drive and greater endurance, but are very slow and their maximum range falls well inside countermissile range(400,000km vs 3.5 million).

5. Wilder speculation has gone up to 30-40 million tons. It is probably closer to 10 million. Their size is nothing to do with the spider drive - there are frigate-sized spider ships. The size is more so they can carry graser torpedoes in internal magazines - which the "battleship sized" Sharks can't do.


While I would not be surprised at 30+ million LDs, I think they are around fort size, 16+ million. They need pod space, space for graser torp magazines and tubes and massive armor since they don't have a wedge. 10 million is too close to regular SDs and they have been implied as very large, IMO.

Graser torps use the spider drive, but have no crew onboard, so we don't know their max accel. IMO, it will be almost certainly faster than 150g's. A 1,000g would make them faster than ships and I would not be surprised at an accel in the tens of thousands, but that is RFCs call. They don't need to be super fast as graser range is 400,000km against a sidewall, more vs no sidewall or throat/kilt of the wedge of an unsuspecting enemy like the 2nd battle of Hades. Spider drives are very hard to detect at much more then a light second, 300,000km (Ghost captain mentions it while scouting the Manti system), so 400,000k graser range gives them a 100,000km buffer. They also have the range of a modern RD as mentioned during the Oyster Bay attack. So a LD can fire them from really, really long range. Even out of current Apollo range. So I don't think the LDs will be as much of a paper tiger as some have said.
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Re: THE LENNYS ARE COMING! THE LENNYS ARE COMING!
Post by fallsfromtrees   » Thu Oct 13, 2016 11:50 pm

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One other point about super heavy LOS.
Wormhole junctions have a mass limit they can handle. Although the Manticore junction can handle 100s of mega tons simultaneously, many other smaller junctions have much lower limits. Therefore a super heavy (40-50 MT) LD may well be unable to use a lot of the galaxies Wormhole junctions. This has implications for how usable they are, since it may take too long to get them somewhere.
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Re: THE LENNYS ARE COMING! THE LENNYS ARE COMING!
Post by cralkhi   » Fri Oct 14, 2016 2:01 am

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Do we know that LDs are actually primarily podlayers? I know they have internal graser torp bays, but if they're THAT big they could have internal bays and still tons of mass to devote to energy weapons.

I'm kind of expecting them to be heavy on energy weapons. Stealth would hopefully let them get into energy range, and Manticore doesn't really have much advantage there.

When were the LDs designed? After the advantages of SD(P)s became obvious?
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