Light bulb Captured Solly fleet

Joat42 wrote:

Relax wrote:Blue highlighted flies directly in the face of reality. Chuck up one more Honorversism. In catastrophic damage, the joints almost never fail as fasteners are always doubled up for crack propagation requirements due to fatigue. In some rare instances it is possible, but overall? No. Only reason welded armor today on ships is preferred over fastened armor is because of a little thing called water. It helps keep the ship afloat. Tanks on the other hand are welded because they are so thin that adding all that extra structural mass for fasteners would literally add "tons" to the design. Welding and grown in place ARE lighter. What it is NOT is "vastly improved integrity against damage." In many instances, allowing the "ends" of a structural member to "float" via fasteners is actually MORE damage tolerant than welding as it allows more DEFLECTION and therefore more ENERGY ABSORPTION.

Anyways, for anyone actually interested in reality

It all depends on the material the armor is constructed of and how it behaves under stress and how it absorbs energy. Theoretically you could use cotton for armor, it just have to be a very very thick layer but there would be no need for joints and fasteners.

IIRC with iron-clads the rivets could be a weak spot. Repeated battering could break the rivets (or hits on them could cause them to energetically spall into the interior) eventually causing plates to fall off, without ever being pierced.

(Of course once the attack changed from very heavy, but relatively slow, spherical iron balls to high velocity armor piercing shot, or shells, the rivets weren't your main concern anymore)

Jonathan_S wrote:IIRC with iron-clads the rivets could be a weak spot. Repeated battering could break the rivets (or hits on them could cause them to energetically spall into the interior) eventually causing plates to fall off, without ever being pierced.

(Of course once the attack changed from very heavy, but relatively slow, spherical iron balls to high velocity armor piercing shot, or shells, the rivets weren't your main concern anymore)

Yup, back in the dark ages of metallurgy you are correct. Today, we would not even call such ships "steel" at all. Rather a form of cast iron. Today one can literally not even buy such low quality cast iron, let alone steel as was used on those initial steel riveted battleships.

Back then they had no idea about fatigue life, other than it existed, nor how to quantify it. Back then they had no idea about stress risers and how to minimize if not eliminate such problems. Both of these issues were finalized/quantitized in the 1970's. One of the MAJOR reasons cars have gotten so much lighter and vastly more reliable since then. Just throwing mass at a problem does not fix it. That was the old addage before these mathematical model solutions were developed.

For an example look at youtube videos of turbine housings failing. They always fail, nay, rupture through the side of the housing. Not through the mid line seal. Why? Designed to do so. Add in at the rupture initiation point, assuming you can find the piece, one can see the impure or as is usually the case, too PURE, nodule creating a shear initiation point.

Honorverse I see 2 types of armor.

1) Outer armor consisting of 'x' materials for absorbing high frequency high intensity energy. May or may not be worthy of the term "armor" in consideration of impact damage, but most likely is not exactly bad at it.

2) Inner armor that is not shabby at #1, but is much better at absorbing impact from the secondary damage caused/mitigated by the failure of #1. Rather inner armor is designed with toughness above all other design criteria.

In either case, it is a mechanical engineering exercise. Fasteners will always be heavier than welded/grown-in place material. Fasteners by and large will be more damage resistant under modern times because to mitigate the stress risers inherent in fasteners, round holes, threads, etc, one must add flanges, bosses, radius buttresses, etc to overcome this stress riser for fatigue life. Once this is done, its impact strength under normal conditions is vastly greater than the surrounding material is is upholding. Sure, there are exceptions, but as a general rule? No. Usually at exception points, we glue/weld or reinforce over a wider broader area. All of this takes weight.

So, when reading the Honorverse, in my mind I just switch, "vastly improved toughness", with "vastly improved specific toughness." Of course the term "vastly" is such a "vastly underwhelming nebulous word" as to make the whole argument rather droll to begin with Vast could be interpreted as 1% and still "technically" be correct. Gotta love such nebulous words as an author, or any marketing firm for that matter.

Joat42 wrote:It all depends on the material the armor is constructed of and how it behaves under stress and how it absorbs energy. Theoretically you could use cotton for armor, it just have to be a very very thick layer but there would be no need for joints and fasteners.

Not just theoretically — 'cottonclads' were used in the American Civil War.

Bill Woods wrote:

Joat42 wrote:It all depends on the material the armor is constructed of and how it behaves under stress and how it absorbs energy. Theoretically you could use cotton for armor, it just have to be a very very thick layer but there would be no need for joints and fasteners.

Not just theoretically — 'cotton-clads' were used in the American Civil War.

That's right there where 'cotton-clads' mostly by the CSA during the ACW. Against rifle fire they were ok but against cannon's forget it. Also IIRC Jackson used cotton bails for breast works during the Battle of New Orleans

Joat42 wrote: It all depends on the material the armor is constructed of and how it behaves under stress and how it absorbs energy. Theoretically you could use cotton for armor, it just have to be a very very thick layer but there would be no need for joints and fasteners.

Bill Woods wrote: Not just theoretically — 'cotton-clads' were used in the American Civil War.

saber964 wrote: That's right there where 'cotton-clads' mostly by the CSA during the ACW. Against rifle fire they were ok but against cannon's forget it. Also IIRC Jackson used cotton bails for breast works during the Battle of New Orleans

I remembered that too, but from what I googled, that is probably wrong or seriously overstated. Which I guess makes sense — when dirt is available for armor, why use bales of cotton, other than maybe as retaining walls for the dirt.

Bill Woods wrote:

Joat42 wrote: It all depends on the material the armor is constructed of and how it behaves under stress and how it absorbs energy. Theoretically you could use cotton for armor, it just have to be a very very thick layer but there would be no need for joints and fasteners.

Bill Woods wrote: Not just theoretically — 'cotton-clads' were used in the American Civil War.

saber964 wrote: That's right there where 'cotton-clads' mostly by the CSA during the ACW. Against rifle fire they were ok but against cannon's forget it. Also IIRC Jackson used cotton bails for breast works during the Battle of New Orleans

I remembered that too, but from what I googled, that is probably wrong or seriously overstated. Which I guess makes sense — when dirt is available for armor, why use bales of cotton, other than maybe as retaining walls for the dirt.

Desperation leads to innovation. And if you are desperate for armor....

I also saw that there was a problem with fire when I was digging into it. Primarily as an accidental byproduct of artillery. Although I imagine if cotton armor became widespread, intentional use of fire would enter the scene. Flaming arrows have been around for millennia after all.

biochem wrote:"Bill Woods"]"Joat42"]

It all depends on the material the armor is constructed of and how it behaves under stress and how it absorbs energy. Theoretically you could use cotton for armor, it just have to be a very very thick layer but there would be no need for joints and fasteners.

Bill Woods wrote: Not just theoretically — 'cotton-clads' were used in the American Civil War.

saber964 wrote: That's right there where 'cotton-clads' mostly by the CSA during the ACW. Against rifle fire they were ok but against cannon's forget it. Also IIRC Jackson used cotton bails for breast works during the Battle of New Orleans

I remembered that too, but from what I googled, that is probably wrong or seriously overstated. Which I guess makes sense — when dirt is available for armor, why use bales of cotton, other than maybe as retaining walls for the dirt.[/quote]

Desperation leads to innovation. And if you are desperate for armor....

I also saw that there was a problem with fire when I was digging into it. Primarily as an accidental byproduct of artillery. Although I imagine if cotton armor became widespread, intentional use of fire would enter the scene. Flaming arrows have been around for millennia after all.[/quote]

-----------------

The "cotton-clads" and the timber-clads were an expediency. You will note they did not last long operationally.

The Japanese used a variant on the timber-clads with some of their island bunkers in WWII. Coconut trunks covered by canvas and dirt. Some were able to withstand all but a direct hit by naval gunfire.

-- Stewart

Hate to resume and keep this post alive, but I saw something that sort of made me grin relative to the fact that we figure the best thing to do to get rid of these things is to break them up...

...and, we want to defend the Torch wormhole. So what happens if
in comes the first few MAlign invaders (and get blown up, presumably by a few frigates on station), and instead of counter invading, you simply aim enough of these at that particular location in space but never raise a sail? does the mass limitation come into play while the wormhole stresses tear the thing to shreds, and does the fixed hyperspace wave then toss x-gazillion tons of fragged ship through the other side of the wormhole helter skelter? or do you get nicely busted up raw materials on your end for your miners to salvage?

Things that make you go hmmmmm....

SharkHunter wrote:Hate to resume and keep this post alive, but I saw something that sort of made me grin relative to the fact that we figure the best thing to do to get rid of these things is to break them up...

...and, we want to defend the Torch wormhole. So what happens if
in comes the first few MAlign invaders (and get blown up, presumably by a few frigates on station), and instead of counter invading, you simply aim enough of these at that particular location in space but never raise a sail? does the mass limitation come into play while the wormhole stresses tear the thing to shreds, and does the fixed hyperspace wave then toss x-gazillion tons of fragged ship through the other side of the wormhole helter skelter? or do you get nicely busted up raw materials on your end for your miners to salvage?

Things that make you go hmmmmm....

I don't think it makes it back into n-space at all. For all practical intents and purposes the wormhole eats it, disappearing it from any reality we would encounter.

Don

SharkHunter wrote:Hate to resume and keep this post alive, but I saw something that sort of made me grin relative to the fact that we figure the best thing to do to get rid of these things is to break them up...

...and, we want to defend the Torch wormhole. So what happens if
in comes the first few MAlign invaders (and get blown up, presumably by a few frigates on station), and instead of counter invading, you simply aim enough of these at that particular location in space but never raise a sail? does the mass limitation come into play while the wormhole stresses tear the thing to shreds, and does the fixed hyperspace wave then toss x-gazillion tons of fragged ship through the other side of the wormhole helter skelter? or do you get nicely busted up raw materials on your end for your miners to salvage?

Things that make you go hmmmmm....

Nothing happens. They fly through that point in space and keep going. They never enter the Wormhole itself, and they do not trigger the mass limitation.