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How To Abandon Ship?

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Re: How To Abandon Ship?
Post by George J. Smith   » Sun Nov 26, 2017 6:50 am

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Brigade XO wrote:Exactly, this was designed to look like multiple missle or energy weapon strikes on the ship.

snip..


The fact is that it was a merchant ship with no armour, and a reactor room close to the hull. A pdlc could probably have destroyed it by targeting the area above the reactor room, IMHO there was no need to hit it with multiple strikes therefore no reason to make it look like multiple strikes.
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Re: How To Abandon Ship?
Post by cthia   » Sat Dec 02, 2017 12:09 pm

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SoV wrote:Something slammed into the interposed belly of Bernike’s impeller wedge and vanished with the instantaneous ferocity of a several hundred thousand-kilometers per second gravity gradient. But something else missed the wedge. It came sizzling through the tanker’s wide-open throat on a reciprocal course with a closing velocity of over 60,000 KPS, crossed the wedge’s interior at a sharp angle in approximately five-thousandths of a second, missed her enormous hull by no more than sixty or seventy kilometers, and went racing out the wedge’s kilt.

Then it was gone. The collision alert continued to sound, and Mandrapilias felt echoes of terror that hadn’t had nearly long enough to register at the time whiplash up and down his nervous system. His head jerked around to Zinaida.

“What the fuck was that?!” he demanded.

He didn’t know—then—that he would never, ever forgive himself for not reporting the incident instantly to ACT. Not that three and a half minutes of warning would have done any good.


I don't know if that three minute lead time would have made any difference if ACT had been alerted, but it seems that it may have been enough time to alert Hephaestus to abandon ship. Three minutes could have gotten some people off Hepahestus.

Of course, it would have been ballsy of a freighter captain to have contacted Hepahestus and recommended that they evacuate immediately. At any rate, taking time to go thru ACT would have wasted precious time.

And even if everything would have gone like clockwork after the three minute countdown and many people successfully abandoned, being out in space amidst the maelstrom of BC sized chunks of debris being hurtled about could have become the instrument of a worse demise.

I wonder if Hepahestus carries emergency pods for everyone? Probably not since they would normally have the important element of time.

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: How To Abandon Ship?
Post by Theemile   » Sat Dec 02, 2017 1:01 pm

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cthia wrote:
SoV wrote:Something slammed into the interposed belly of Bernike’s impeller wedge and vanished with the instantaneous ferocity of a several hundred thousand-kilometers per second gravity gradient. But something else missed the wedge. It came sizzling through the tanker’s wide-open throat on a reciprocal course with a closing velocity of over 60,000 KPS, crossed the wedge’s interior at a sharp angle in approximately five-thousandths of a second, missed her enormous hull by no more than sixty or seventy kilometers, and went racing out the wedge’s kilt.

Then it was gone. The collision alert continued to sound, and Mandrapilias felt echoes of terror that hadn’t had nearly long enough to register at the time whiplash up and down his nervous system. His head jerked around to Zinaida.

“What the fuck was that?!” he demanded.

He didn’t know—then—that he would never, ever forgive himself for not reporting the incident instantly to ACT. Not that three and a half minutes of warning would have done any good.


I don't know if that three minute lead time would have made any difference if ACT had been alerted, but it seems that it may have been enough time to alert Hephaestus to abandon ship. Three minutes could have gotten some people off Hepahestus.

Of course, it would have been ballsy of a freighter captain to have contacted Hepahestus and recommended that they evacuate immediately. At any rate, taking time to go thru ACT would have wasted precious time.

And even if everything would have gone like clockwork after the three minute countdown and many people successfully abandoned, being out in space amidst the maelstrom of BC sized chunks of debris being hurtled about could have become the instrument of a worse demise.

I wonder if Hepahestus carries emergency pods for everyone? Probably not since they would normally have the important element of time.


3 minutes warning would have allowed time for the ready defensive wedge buoys to spin up and form a barrier and Hesphateus's bubble sidewall to come up. 3 minutes tracking would have allowed Manticore's forts to fire CMs at the incoming targets, and take PDLC potshots. 3 Minutes may have allowed a fort or warship to interpose itself in the missile's flight path. There would have been no need to abandon the station.
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Re: How To Abandon Ship?
Post by pappilon   » Sat Dec 02, 2017 3:36 pm

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cthia wrote:
I don't know if that three minute lead time would have made any difference if ACT had been alerted, but it seems that it may have been enough time to alert Hephaestus to abandon ship. Three minutes could have gotten some people off Hepahestus.

Of course, it would have been ballsy of a freighter captain to have contacted Hepahestus and recommended that they evacuate immediately. At any rate, taking time to go thru ACT would have wasted precious time.

And even if everything would have gone like clockwork after the three minute countdown and many people successfully abandoned, being out in space amidst the maelstrom of BC sized chunks of debris being hurtled about could have become the instrument of a worse demise.

I wonder if Hepahestus carries emergency pods for everyone? Probably not since they would normally have the important element of time.


Theemile wrote: 3 minutes warning would have allowed time for the ready defensive wedge buoys to spin up and form a barrier and Hesphateus's bubble sidewall to come up. 3 minutes tracking would have allowed Manticore's forts to fire CMs at the incoming targets, and take PDLC potshots. 3 Minutes may have allowed a fort or warship to interpose itself in the missile's flight path. There would have been no need to abandon the station.


IIRC none of the 3 stations had sidewall bubbles, and it takes 20-30 minuted from cold start to have an operational wedge (or, I assume, a bubble side wall). It may have allowed someone to bring sensors to bear on that critical area of space. processing the information and formulating a plan,any plan and executing it would have chewed up most of those 3 minutes. Yes, some suited personnel may have gotten their helmets on, but would they have survived the great spalls and other flying debris?
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Re: How To Abandon Ship?
Post by Castenea   » Sat Dec 02, 2017 5:58 pm

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pappilon wrote:IIRC none of the 3 stations had sidewall bubbles, and it takes 20-30 minuted from cold start to have an operational wedge (or, I assume, a bubble side wall). It may have allowed someone to bring sensors to bear on that critical area of space. processing the information and formulating a plan,any plan and executing it would have chewed up most of those 3 minutes. Yes, some suited personnel may have gotten their helmets on, but would they have survived the great spalls and other flying debris?
I think you are a little pessimistic, but not by much. Three minutes of warning would have increased the number of survivors from nearly non-existant to minuscule.

I believe that evec drills for the station have a time of at least 15 min. and think 30 min. to an hour is more realistic.
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Re: How To Abandon Ship?
Post by kzt   » Sat Dec 02, 2017 6:31 pm

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Castenea wrote:I believe that evec drills for the station have a time of at least 15 min. and think 30 min. to an hour is more realistic.

Based on the text, nobody had in living memory conducted an actual evac drill. (Now you'd think having the enormous RHN 2nd fleet boring into missile range would have resulted an evacuation of Sphinx's orbital infrastructure, but apparently not.) Given the size and number of people I'd assume several hours would be needed to get the vast majority off.

The stations have bubble sidewalls, which unfortunately would have probably been less helpful than you might hope given the comments about the graser burn time and ability to go through a warship sidewall if close enough.

CMs wouldn't have worked very well, the graser torps are both fairly small (like LAC sized) and extremely stealthy.
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Re: How To Abandon Ship?
Post by Loren Pechtel   » Sat Dec 02, 2017 11:16 pm

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pappilon wrote:IIRC none of the 3 stations had sidewall bubbles, and it takes 20-30 minuted from cold start to have an operational wedge (or, I assume, a bubble side wall). It may have allowed someone to bring sensors to bear on that critical area of space. processing the information and formulating a plan,any plan and executing it would have chewed up most of those 3 minutes. Yes, some suited personnel may have gotten their helmets on, but would they have survived the great spalls and other flying debris?


The emergency tugs could have interposed themselves. They had hot drives and huge wedges, putting themselves on the missile bearing, as close to the station as was safe and wedge towards the missiles would have stopped most of the incoming fire. The inbounds were aiming at a defenseless station, they would have gone for the most accurate shot which would be with a bit of standoff distance so the bearing rate was low.
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Re: How To Abandon Ship?
Post by kzt   » Sun Dec 03, 2017 12:28 am

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Loren Pechtel wrote:The emergency tugs could have interposed themselves. They had hot drives and huge wedges, putting themselves on the missile bearing, as close to the station as was safe and wedge towards the missiles would have stopped most of the incoming fire. The inbounds were aiming at a defenseless station, they would have gone for the most accurate shot which would be with a bit of standoff distance so the bearing rate was low.

What killed the stations was mostly the graser torps. Which are effectively holes in space, you simply are not going to see them far enough to do anything about them.
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Re: How To Abandon Ship?
Post by George J. Smith   » Sun Dec 03, 2017 6:01 am

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kzt wrote:What killed the stations was mostly the graser torps. Which are effectively holes in space, you simply are not going to see them far enough to do anything about them.


Quite, IIRC some of the missiles were used on the stations because the MAlign were not sure the grazer torps would be enough.
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A man should live forever, or die in the attempt
Spider Robinson Callahan's Crosstime Saloon (1977) A voice is heard in Ramah
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Re: How To Abandon Ship?
Post by Loren Pechtel   » Sun Dec 03, 2017 3:28 pm

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kzt wrote:
Loren Pechtel wrote:The emergency tugs could have interposed themselves. They had hot drives and huge wedges, putting themselves on the missile bearing, as close to the station as was safe and wedge towards the missiles would have stopped most of the incoming fire. The inbounds were aiming at a defenseless station, they would have gone for the most accurate shot which would be with a bit of standoff distance so the bearing rate was low.

What killed the stations was mostly the graser torps. Which are effectively holes in space, you simply are not going to see them far enough to do anything about them.


You don't need to see them. The incoming bearing was known, I'm simply saying to interpose the tug wedge between the station and that bearing and as close to the station as possible.

The graser torps probably aren't built to deal with wedges as there weren't supposed to be any. Even if they are, they lose target lock when the wedge gets in the way and have to reacquire after flying by the target. That's going to make it much harder and if another tug does the same thing on the other side it's going to be all but impossible.

It's not like shooting at a ship hiding behind it's wedge--in that case you can use the wedge to have a pretty good idea of where the actual target is, the missile can position almost perfectly, only a small nudge is needed when they have the final bearing.
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