Honorverse ramblings and musings

Talbot is the only surviving yard tha can build Manticore pattern SDs.

kzt wrote:Talbot is the only surviving yard tha can build Manticore pattern SDs.

Other than RFC has clearly retconned this part as Talbott was mentioned exactly once and never again.

wastedfly wrote:

kzt wrote:Talbot is the only surviving yard tha can build Manticore pattern SDs.

Other than RFC has clearly retconned this part as Talbott was mentioned exactly once and never again.

It's not rectonned. David has mentioned it in infodumps. He says that Talbot (remember, 1 t) left the Manticoran Alliance in disgust during the High Ridge administration. They still have the superdreadnought-capable shipyard that Manticore built for them.

Jonathan_S wrote:Erewhon had at least a few squadrons of wallers (purchased from League yards, and probably upgraded somewhat). Talbot had a yard capable of repairing wallers (iirc - can't remember if they were construction yards as well). So it presumably had a coupe squadrons of wallers as well (though unlike the Erewhonese squadrons I don't recall seeing them 'on screen')

At some point, probably shortly after joining the Alliance, Erewhon switched over to Manticoran-built wallers.

drothgery wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Erewhon had at least a few squadrons of wallers (purchased from League yards, and probably upgraded somewhat). Talbot had a yard capable of repairing wallers (iirc - can't remember if they were construction yards as well). So it presumably had a coupe squadrons of wallers as well (though unlike the Erewhonese squadrons I don't recall seeing them 'on screen')

At some point, probably shortly after joining the Alliance, Erewhon switched over to Manticoran-built wallers.

I think the point was that Erewhon had their own wallers even before they joined the Manticoran Alliance, and at the time of FiE had a larger navy than Grayson.

My niece has me pilfering through OBS now.

She bit her lip while her mind raced, searching for an answer, but her thoughts slithered like a groundcar on ice. Once her overtake velocity was high enough, she could try turning from side to side. At anything above two or three million kilometers, she couldn't turn far enough to completely interpose her sidewalls—not without giving up too much of her acceleration advantage, if she meant to stop the other ship short of the hyper limit—but at least she might deny Sirius straight down-the-throat shots by zig-zagging across her wake. It wasn't much, but it was absolutely all she could do, and her mouth tried to twist bitterly. All those clever maneuvers at ATC, all that sneaky forethought she'd put into ambushing Admiral D'Orville's flagship, and all she could think of to do now was writhe like a worm in hot ashes to avoid destruction.

I have never been able to understand how zigzagging would help at all. Missiles are locked on to you. You can run, but you can't hide? The missile will either get you on your zig. Or get you on your zag. Zig-dead or zag-dead is still dead. Am I missing something here?

cthia wrote:I have never been able to understand how zigzagging would help at all. Missiles are locked on to you. You can run, but you can't hide? The missile will either get you on your zig. Or get you on your zag. Zig-dead or zag-dead is still dead. Am I missing something here?

Look at the drawing here:
http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/100/0

What she is trying to do is keep the wedge between the SD and the CL.

cthia wrote:My niece has me pilfering through OBS now.

She bit her lip while her mind raced, searching for an answer, but her thoughts slithered like a groundcar on ice. Once her overtake velocity was high enough, she could try turning from side to side. At anything above two or three million kilometers, she couldn't turn far enough to completely interpose her sidewalls—not without giving up too much of her acceleration advantage, if she meant to stop the other ship short of the hyper limit—but at least she might deny Sirius straight down-the-throat shots by zig-zagging across her wake. It wasn't much, but it was absolutely all she could do, and her mouth tried to twist bitterly. All those clever maneuvers at ATC, all that sneaky forethought she'd put into ambushing Admiral D'Orville's flagship, and all she could think of to do now was writhe like a worm in hot ashes to avoid destruction.

I have never been able to understand how zigzagging would help at all. Missiles are locked on to you. You can run, but you can't hide? The missile will either get you on your zig. Or get you on your zag. Zig-dead or zag-dead is still dead. Am I missing something here?

My understanding is that by zig-zaging back and forth across the base course Honor can avoid pointing the wide open mouth of Fearless's wedge straight at Sirius -- but the rate of change is (as you said) way too low to make the missile lose lock.

Sidewalls run the entire length of the wedge (edit: as you can see in the post kzt go in before me), and by yawing off to the side by as little as about 5 degrees you've angled the leading edge of the sidewall between you and your target.

But because you haven't turned 90 degrees (fully imposed your sidewall) the missile doesn't have to divert all that far off to the side to reacquire the ideal, unprotected, down-the-throat shot. OTOH you might partially psych some of them out with a carefully timed zag, if they're veering to your right and you reverse left they may not have the time and delta-v to follow -- making them 'settle' for a shot through the sidewall. (And sidewalls, in addition to weakening and somewhat deflecting the shot, also screw with the missile sensor's view of the target; making them guess a bit more about exactly where the ship in within the wedge volume.


But as Honor says, even all that together isn't much, but it's better than nothing and the zig-zag doesn't cost all that much closure rate.

cthia wrote:My niece has me pilfering through OBS now.

She bit her lip while her mind raced, searching for an answer, but her thoughts slithered like a groundcar on ice. Once her overtake velocity was high enough, she could try turning from side to side. At anything above two or three million kilometers, she couldn't turn far enough to completely interpose her sidewalls—not without giving up too much of her acceleration advantage, if she meant to stop the other ship short of the hyper limit—but at least she might deny Sirius straight down-the-throat shots by zig-zagging across her wake. It wasn't much, but it was absolutely all she could do, and her mouth tried to twist bitterly. All those clever maneuvers at ATC, all that sneaky forethought she'd put into ambushing Admiral D'Orville's flagship, and all she could think of to do now was writhe like a worm in hot ashes to avoid destruction.

I have never been able to understand how zigzagging would help at all. Missiles are locked on to you. You can run, but you can't hide? The missile will either get you on your zig. Or get you on your zag. Zig-dead or zag-dead is still dead. Am I missing something here?

If Honor does not zigzag, she has her wide open throat exposed to the Sirius. The Sirius can see the Fearless without any sidewall obstructing, and can get better data for intercept.

By going a just few degrees to starboard, Honor puts her port sidewall between her and the Sirius. The sidewall makes it harder for the Sirius to tell where the Fearless is inside the wedge, which means Sirius can only tell the missiles approximately where the Fearless might be. The missiles also can't see the Fearless unless they happen to maneuver into a down-the-throat view, but the Fearless can make that harder by slewing around frequently. By zigzagging back and forth the Fearless won't get too far off the course of the Sirius. It slows the Fearless down slightly, but the benefit of blocking Sirius from a straight view down the throat is worth it.

I appreciate everyone's response regarding the zigzagging. I thought it was a useless tactic considering, as Honor herself said, she couldn't zigzag to an appropriate degree to completely interdict her sidewalls.

But alas, I didn't consider that, in a stern chase, her open throat was exposed. But wouldn't the zigzag tactic also expose her open throat on her return to base course?

And this tactic wouldn't work against a navy with the Apollo system.