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THE C R U S H E R

Join us in talking discussing all things Honor, including (but not limited to) tactics, favorite characters, and book discussions.
Re: THE C R U S H E R
Post by Vince   » Sun Mar 05, 2017 12:47 pm

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Jonathan_S wrote:Redlining a LAC to 100% military power, or even trying to ride the compensator's safety margin to momentarily exceed 100% power (an Honor did on the CA HMS War Maiden during an emergency in Ms. Midshipwoman Harrington would be very dangerous) But also not something you'd ever be allowed to do in training.

Here's the bit I was referring to.
Changer of Worlds: Ms. Midshipwoman Harrington wrote:HMS War Maiden's inertial compensator protested its savage abuse. More alarms howled as the load on the heavy cruiser's impeller nodes peaked forty percent beyond their "Never Exceed" levels. Despite her mangled after impeller ring, War Maiden slammed suddenly forward at almost five hundred and fifty gravities.
WLBjork wrote:Depends. If the "never exceed" limit was about 70% of max, then 140% of that takes you to about 98% of max.

Although I thought they limited themselves to 80% of max under normal circumstances.

On the other hand, "never exceed" may have been intended as max, although that would require something distinctly...unusual for WM to achieve without the compensator blowing.
cthia wrote:Pull up! Pull up! Pull up!

I simply meant that LACS is one area where I imagine the RMN went out to push the limit. I still think I'm right. You all are so invested in the tech that you have one track minds. Pull back.

It is the human element and human nature. In the beginning, I imagine that the first LACS had many intrinsic problems that had to be ironed out. The RMN was in the middle of a war. LACS were evolving. I imagine that there were many accidents simply training to launch the damn things quickly. David Weber cannot and should not have to include everything that I know goes on behind the scenes in everyday life. Do you not think that the Honorverse is subject to the human element, human error, human nature?

No? Why is that?

Older RMN LACs prior to the Series 282s (1904PD) did not have the capability of maxing out their inertial compensators:
House of Steel, The Royal Manticoran Navy, Order of Battle wrote:Series 282 light attack craft
Mass: 17,750 tons

Dimensions: 121 × 20 × 19 m

Acceleration: 573.2 G (5.621 kps²)

80% Accel: 458.6 G (4.497 kps²)

Broadside: 12MB, 1L, 1CM, 3PD

Chase: 1L, 2PD

Service Life: 1904–1918
The Series 282 light attack craft was never given a formal class name because it was a prototype LAC, designed by the Weapon Development Board for the Trojan Horse program which saw extremely limited operational service.
While the Highlander class was a typical LAC design, built to very similar standards as a conventional warship, the Series 282 took advantage of advances in both equipment miniaturization and automation to greatly decrease the volume necessary for critical systems. The result was a flattened hull that was slightly smaller than the Highlander, despite being half again the tonnage. The small size of the Series 282, along with the fact that its “on-paper” offensive capabilities were nearly identical to those of the old design, was cited numerous times by the program’s many critics.
These critics uniformly failed to recognize the qualitative improvements behind the figures. The 282s carried only twelve cell-launched missiles, but both the missiles and launch cells were far in advance of anything the Highlander mounted. Beam mounts were also more powerful, and the addition of a counter-missile launcher in each broadside more than doubled their survivability, as well as allowing them to perform an area defense mission in protection of their launch platform. Perhaps most notably, the Series 282 was the first LAC to mount an impeller ring powerful enough to accelerate it to the limits of its inertial compensator. This class was the first to serve as testbeds for the early second generation compensator, raising its maximum acceleration to just over 600 G.
Despite the type’s clear advantages, it was never able to overcome the opposition of its critics. Regarded as suitable solely for local defense and burdened with the anti-LAC attitudes of a navy philosophically committed to projecting combat power (and vehemently opposed to attrition-based tactics), it was produced in very small numbers. The number built provided valuable experience in the new technologies and were used as test beds for many of the systems incorporated into the early Shrike-class prototypes, however, and the 282s provided a critical component in the combat power of the Trojan-class Q-ships until their final retirement in 1918.
Italics are the authors', boldface and underlined text is my emphasis.
-------------------------------------------------------------
History does not repeat itself so much as it echoes.
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Re: THE C R U S H E R
Post by Theemile   » Sun Mar 05, 2017 4:12 pm

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The reason older LACS didn't have more power was simple, they didn't mount the heavy alpha nodes. Alpha nodes, massing in the thousands of tons each, were unnecessary in a n-space craft, because the sails the alpha nodes made were useless without a hypergenerator. So, most LAC designs simply replaced the Alpha nodes with beta nodes in the ring, and got a wedge with ~50% the power it would have if the Alpha nodes were present. LACS could include the alpha nodes, at the expense of at least doubling the mass and cost of the ship, with no other gain, than maxing out the compensator.

So a 40 kton LAC may be able to max out it's comp, because it might have included alpha nodes in it's design. But the 9-12 kton conventional LACS usually seen can't.
******
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 C R U S H E R
Post by Duckk   » Sun Mar 05, 2017 4:58 pm

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Re: THE C R U S H E R
Post by Annachie   » Sun Mar 05, 2017 5:15 pm

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The fighter jock mentality that we are discussing seems to be more a product of CLAC era LAC's, not the old things.

Which makes me wonder what the equilivent of Barnstorming would be in a LAC?



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Re: THE C R U S H E R
Post by cthia   » Mon Mar 06, 2017 11:45 pm

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Annachie wrote:The fighter jock mentality that we are discussing seems to be more a product of CLAC era LAC's, not the old things.

Which makes me wonder what the equilivent of Barnstorming would be in a LAC?



Sent from my SM-G920I using Tapatalk

Brought back memories of the many airshows I would always attend throughout my very young years. Then later accompanying my many nieces and nephews to keep the tradition alive.

Admittedly, I thought of the LACS in that manner and still find it difficult to dismiss the thought even though they have no where near the maneuverability of fighter jocks. Although, I imagined, right or wrong, that they'd practice maneuvers of getting in real close in formation to an enemy ship, between ships. Perhaps even using floating captured SLN hulks to maneuver in and out of, keeping their bow walls at optimum angles while practicing targeting specific areas of a ship. Kind of hard not to think of a LAC as an expendable kamikraze, as storyline seemed to do in my head.

I always wondered why there were never more accidents during actual combat where enemy ships would have to break formation to avoid collision with their own ships after a successful attack. Or having to maneuver to avoid dangerous debris from explosions. IOW, why there were never more "Watch out!s" shrug

I also expected two or more LACS targeting the same area of an enemy ship to be more effective. Guess I was wrong there as well because I don't ever recall it happening.

Blame it all on my tech lag.

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: THE C R U S H E R
Post by Jonathan_S   » Tue Mar 07, 2017 12:20 am

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cthia wrote:Brought back memories of the many airshows I would always attend throughout my very young years. Then later accompanying my many nieces and nephews to keep the tradition alive.

Admittedly, I thought of the LACS in that manner and still find it difficult to dismiss the thought even though they have no where near the maneuverability of fighter jocks. Although, I imagined, right or wrong, that they'd practice maneuvers of getting in real close in formation to an enemy ship, between ships. Perhaps even using floating captured SLN hulks to maneuver in and out of, keeping their bow walls at optimum angles while practicing targeting specific areas of a ship. Kind of hard not to think of a LAC as an expendable kamikraze, as storyline seemed to do in my head.

I always wondered why there were never more accidents during actual combat where enemy ships would have to break formation to avoid collision with their own ships after a successful attack. Or having to maneuver to avoid dangerous debris from explosions. IOW, why there were never more "Watch out!s" shrug

I also expected two or more LACS targeting the same area of an enemy ship to be more effective. Guess I was wrong there as well because I don't ever recall it happening.

Blame it all on my tech lag.
I doubt LACs ever spent much time digging around enemy ship at anywhere near collision range. The closer they get the easier they are for the enemy to see, making them more likely to be hit. Even a Shrike has no need to bore in much closer than, say, 75,000 km and the Ferrets would stay even further back.

The talk of fighter jock mentality can tend to give the impression that LACs act like jets. But it'd be closer to call it a motor gun boat mentality; the fast unarmored speed boats going guns blazing up against German E and S boats in the English Channel or off Italy.
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Re: THE C R U S H E R
Post by cthia   » Tue Mar 07, 2017 8:27 am

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Jonathan_S wrote:
cthia wrote:Brought back memories of the many airshows I would always attend throughout my very young years. Then later accompanying my many nieces and nephews to keep the tradition alive.

Admittedly, I thought of the LACS in that manner and still find it difficult to dismiss the thought even though they have no where near the maneuverability of fighter jocks. Although, I imagined, right or wrong, that they'd practice maneuvers of getting in real close in formation to an enemy ship, between ships. Perhaps even using floating captured SLN hulks to maneuver in and out of, keeping their bow walls at optimum angles while practicing targeting specific areas of a ship. Kind of hard not to think of a LAC as an expendable kamikraze, as storyline seemed to do in my head.

I always wondered why there were never more accidents during actual combat where enemy ships would have to break formation to avoid collision with their own ships after a successful attack. Or having to maneuver to avoid dangerous debris from explosions. IOW, why there were never more "Watch out!s" shrug

I also expected two or more LACS targeting the same area of an enemy ship to be more effective. Guess I was wrong there as well because I don't ever recall it happening.

Blame it all on my tech lag.
I doubt LACs ever spent much time digging around enemy ship at anywhere near collision range. The closer they get the easier they are for the enemy to see, making them more likely to be hit. Even a Shrike has no need to bore in much closer than, say, 75,000 km and the Ferrets would stay even further back.

The talk of fighter jock mentality can tend to give the impression that LACs act like jets. But it'd be closer to call it a motor gun boat mentality; the fast unarmored speed boats going guns blazing up against German E and S boats in the English Channel or off Italy.

Understood Jonathan. Just hard for me to fight the kamikrze mentality I've got of them. And even more difficult to fight my image of the necessity of them to fight errant debris or wildly maneuvering enemy ships - since they fly inside of enemy formations. It is simply imagery I find hard to shake.

You also cleared up another of my misnomers. I didn't think that they were hard to see if you were looking for them. Just hard to hit because they are such small nimble little targets. I suppose one begets the other. shrug Like I said, another misnomer.

I imagine that LACs are on the classified info list and I can't imagine they'd want the SLN to capture one. I suppose that'd prevent Torch from being the recipient of obsolete LACs to add to their navy. I'd like to see the TNS grow, after such time that Bolthole begins to churn out ships and the SLN is relegated to the dustbin of history.

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: THE C R U S H E R
Post by Theemile   » Tue Mar 07, 2017 1:37 pm

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cthia wrote:
Jonathan_S wrote:I doubt LACs ever spent much time digging around enemy ship at anywhere near collision range. The closer they get the easier they are for the enemy to see, making them more likely to be hit. Even a Shrike has no need to bore in much closer than, say, 75,000 km and the Ferrets would stay even further back.

The talk of fighter jock mentality can tend to give the impression that LACs act like jets. But it'd be closer to call it a motor gun boat mentality; the fast unarmored speed boats going guns blazing up against German E and S boats in the English Channel or off Italy.

Understood Jonathan. Just hard for me to fight the kamikrze mentality I've got of them. And even more difficult to fight my image of the necessity of them to fight errant debris or wildly maneuvering enemy ships - since they fly inside of enemy formations. It is simply imagery I find hard to shake.

You also cleared up another of my misnomers. I didn't think that they were hard to see if you were looking for them. Just hard to hit because they are such small nimble little targets. I suppose one begets the other. shrug Like I said, another misnomer.

I imagine that LACs are on the classified info list and I can't imagine they'd want the SLN to capture one. I suppose that'd prevent Torch from being the recipient of obsolete LACs to add to their navy. I'd like to see the TNS grow, after such time that Bolthole begins to churn out ships and the SLN is relegated to the dustbin of history.


Here's one sobering way to think about LACs...

A modern RMN LAC's wedge size is 40+ kilometers across, according to MaxxQ's wedge data drop. Remember, you don't really drive an impeller ship, you drive a wedge, with your ship nestled inside. So, It's kinda hard for a 40 KM wedge to fly knap of the earth along the surface of a disabled ship that is less than 1.5 km long, let along hide behind it.

In case you don't have the list, the largest wedge size we have is the Medusa B's proposed wedge, which is 342 km wide and long, with the Invictus trailing slightly behind at 339 km.

While the RMN's "super LACS" probably won't be on the export list anytime soon, The 1st generation Cimeterres may be. They, like classical LACS, used a fusion reactor and mostly off the shelf parts, while following the minimalist doctrine the RMN used designing their super LACs to make them a dedicated warfighter, with little focus on maintenance (99% of maintenance is done in the LAC base.) While the end product was far inferior to the RMN's version, the "off the shelf" design is far superior to the ordinary LAC classes, and with the correct doctrine, deadly to smaller starships.

If you were to pull the advanced compensator and FTL hardware, those fist gen Havenite super LACS would fine export versions.
******
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 C R U S H E R
Post by cthia   » Tue Mar 07, 2017 4:39 pm

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cthia wrote:
Jonathan_S wrote:I doubt LACs ever spent much time digging around enemy ship at anywhere near collision range. The closer they get the easier they are for the enemy to see, making them more likely to be hit. Even a Shrike has no need to bore in much closer than, say, 75,000 km and the Ferrets would stay even further back.

The talk of fighter jock mentality can tend to give the impression that LACs act like jets. But it'd be closer to call it a motor gun boat mentality; the fast unarmored speed boats going guns blazing up against German E and S boats in the English Channel or off Italy.

Understood Jonathan. Just hard for me to fight the kamikrze mentality I've got of them. And even more difficult to fight my image of the necessity of them to fight errant debris or wildly maneuvering enemy ships - since they fly inside of enemy formations. It is simply imagery I find hard to shake.

You also cleared up another of my misnomers. I didn't think that they were hard to see if you were looking for them. Just hard to hit because they are such small nimble little targets. I suppose one begets the other. shrug Like I said, another misnomer.

I imagine that LACs are on the classified info list and I can't imagine they'd want the SLN to capture one. I suppose that'd prevent Torch from being the recipient of obsolete LACs to add to their navy. I'd like to see the TNS grow, after such time that Bolthole begins to churn out ships and the SLN is relegated to the dustbin of history.
Theemile wrote:Here's one sobering way to think about LACs...

A modern RMN LAC's wedge size is 40+ kilometers across, according to MaxxQ's wedge data drop. Remember, you don't really drive an impeller ship, you drive a wedge, with your ship nestled inside. So, It's kinda hard for a 40 KM wedge to fly knap of the earth along the surface of a disabled ship that is less than 1.5 km long, let along hide behind it.

In case you don't have the list, the largest wedge size we have is the Medusa B's proposed wedge, which is 342 km wide and long, with the Invictus trailing slightly behind at 339 km.

While the RMN's "super LACS" probably won't be on the export list anytime soon, The 1st generation Cimeterres may be. They, like classical LACS, used a fusion reactor and mostly off the shelf parts, while following the minimalist doctrine the RMN used designing their super LACs to make them a dedicated warfighter, with little focus on maintenance (99% of maintenance is done in the LAC base.) While the end product was far inferior to the RMN's version, the "off the shelf" design is far superior to the ordinary LAC classes, and with the correct doctrine, deadly to smaller starships.

If you were to pull the advanced compensator and FTL hardware, those fist gen Havenite super LACS would fine export versions.

Thanks, the imagery in my head is clearer. Before it was nixed, I was hoping about three movies into the franchise would feature accurate examples of lots of the tech per DW's approval.


So Torch could end up with some Cimeterres, good enough.

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: THE C R U S H E R
Post by Jonathan_S   » Tue Mar 07, 2017 5:42 pm

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Theemile wrote:While the RMN's "super LACS" probably won't be on the export list anytime soon, The 1st generation Cimeterres may be. They, like classical LACS, used a fusion reactor and mostly off the shelf parts, while following the minimalist doctrine the RMN used designing their super LACs to make them a dedicated warfighter, with little focus on maintenance (99% of maintenance is done in the LAC base.) While the end product was far inferior to the RMN's version, the "off the shelf" design is far superior to the ordinary LAC classes, and with the correct doctrine, deadly to smaller starships.

If you were to pull the advanced compensator and FTL hardware, those fist gen Havenite super LACS would fine export versions.
Though Haven did something unnatural (for classic LACs) to get the acceleration as high as they did. Remember that House of Steel says the LAC's Honor took to Silesia aboard Wayfairer were the first LACs with a strong enough wedge to fully utilize the inertial compensator tech. Prior LACs all had lower accelerations that even enormous super dreadnoughts.

I don't know if Haven independently invented some rough equivalent of Manticore's Beta Squared nodes, or if they build Alpha nodes with the sail tuner hardware omitted, or just flat out stuck full-up Alpha nodes on them.

Those later 2 options would really squeeze the internal space available for weapons, engineering, and crew compared to Manticoran designs; even moreso that the fusion reactor already does.


If Haven had something like Beta Squared nodes they might put even the original generation Cimeterres on a export controlled list...
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