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Felix junction, key aspect of the story (possible spoilers?)

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Re: Felix junction, key aspect of the story (possible spoile
Post by Somtaaw   » Wed May 09, 2018 4:40 pm

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pappilon wrote:
Somtaaw wrote:I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree here.

Whether it was White Haven's crash defense against Icarus, Honor and her Armed Merchies, or Laocoon II, every occasion of multi-ship transits, the first ship to go through has always switched from sails to wedge and is maneuvering clear well before the next ship in line comes through.

All of those cases, and whichever ones I'm forgetting indicate the grace period from sail to wedge is mere seconds. Yes some story compression may be happening, but even if the normal delay is 1 minute between ships, the cases of White Haven's defense and Laocoon prove that naval ships are easily able to do it considerably faster when they want/need to.

-Manticoran, Havenite, Grayson, Andermani and probably even Beowulfan ships, are all going to be capable of rapid transiting.

-Solarian, Silesian, and similar navies are not capable, they've never had to do rapid redeployments, whether through wormholes or not. The Solarian Navy especially has spent so long with gimme sims they've never had to practice 'hard maneuvering', even Frontier Fleet helmsmen I believe unlikely to be capable of even First War Havenite capability [Such as when Hamish was attacking Nightgale, and was run off by a Peep task group that was already maneuvering like a Manticoran one, mere months after the war start]

-Mesan Alignment helmsmen may, or may not, currently be skilled enough for rapid wormhole transiting. The only time we've ever seen them do something that required some skill was when the dozen or so Sharks performed their Alpha translation, tractored together, outside Manticore... the various some MAlign navies such as Mannerheim are completely unable to be assessed yet. [Have not yet read Uncompromising, so I may have missed some newer datums, but if I have I don't think its going to be enough to change the assessments]



How much time from bringing up the wedge until you can bring up the sidewalls? Plus you still don't know you are losing ships to enemy action. Textev is, well, textev. And all I can find is that transiting into the defended side of a WHJ is suicide. And if you are transiting into a natural ship killer, you still don't live long enough to get a message back through.


If you can get your wedge up, Sidewalls are usable probably within seconds. Although it likely depends whether you transited ready for battle such as Laocoon, or if you transited between say Manticore-Beowulf or Manticore-Gregor which should be cold.

As for the Junction, yes assaulting defended junctions (against Forts) is a quick form of assisted suicide. It has been mentioned that the original Legislaturalist People's Republic of Haven could use suicide waves of Battleships and kill more tonnage in forts than they lost in ships, which makes it a repeatable tactic. Against ships defending a wormhole, it's more a case of "how many missiles do they have, and how many does it take to kill your ship(s)?" question. You'll lose several ships in the attack, but considerably less than you would against trying to take out fort defenses, since forts are basically just over-gunned & up-armored superdreadnougts with less mobility


And I think this thread is mostly a "what happens if the Grand Alliance ever figures out the Torch wormhole IS transitable and is not in fact a killer wormhole?" So just theories of how/what the GA will do to break through the 2-3 Mannerheim battlecruiser squadrons covering the other side of the Torch wormhole.

If memory serves, despite having 2-3 squadrons of battlecruisers covering the wormhole, when HMS Harvest Joy transited and was destroyed 'only' 2 or 3 individual ships actually had the range or heading to fire on her... and Harvest Joy is a specially refit Star Knight heavy cruiser, which means her design is already obsolete. She didn't transit at battlestations, so her computers weren't even ready to take over what PDLC's she had which might have changed her survival from seconds to maybe even a minute.
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Re: Felix junction, key aspect of the story (possible spoile
Post by kzt   » Wed May 09, 2018 5:01 pm

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David went through a very detailed example of why trying a wormhole assault is stupid and pointless here. It does in fact take minutes to exit the grav wave, during which time you are unable to deploy the wedge, raise your sidewalls, launch missiles or small craft.
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Re: Felix junction, key aspect of the story (possible spoile
Post by Loren Pechtel   » Wed May 09, 2018 9:59 pm

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George J. Smith wrote:A Question followed by a Daft idea and another question:

Why can't a ship's computer be programmed to raise aft sails based on velocity? The foresail would be raised by remote from Astro Control, (or another ship), once shipboard sensors determine there is sufficient velocity from the foresail the aft wedge would be reconfigured and the aft sail raised.

If that could be made possible, and I see no reason why a computer could not be so programmed, a large ship full of the most powerful explosives in the Honorverse could be sent through.

When the defenders open fire on the ship with their grazers the ship blows up. Now would the explosion be big enough to reach the defenders ships, or at least fry the sensors long enough for another ship to go through after?

I know there would be a problem with maybe the 2nd ship ramming the 1st if there weren't any defenders and the 1st ship was not destroyed, but could the computers also be programmed to reconfigure sails and accelerate after returning to normal space once the ship passes through the wormhole?


I don't think you need the computer to do it--I see no reason it can't be done by remote control from a nearby ship. Once it's through you might not be able to lower them but if you're just sending through a bomb, so what?

You don't want to wait for the defenders to fire, an h-bomb is a complex piece of machinery and you don't want it torn apart before it goes off. Simply detonate based on time.

You won't actually harm the defenders but you should be able to wreck havoc on their sensors and deployed pods. (Remember, pods are vulnerable to proximity kills at considerable range. Kill range goes up at the third root of the bomb's power--but a ship-sized bomb is vastly more powerful than a missile warhead, so the kill range should go up considerably.) Furthermore, the aftermath of such a detonation is a very hot, ionized cloud--even if you didn't actually fry a sensor it's pretty much blind behind that.
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Re: Felix junction, key aspect of the story (possible spoile
Post by n7axw   » Wed May 09, 2018 10:56 pm

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All of this is predicated on the GA is aware of hostile forces on the other side of the wormhole.

I am aware that we really can't mix RFC's universes. But this notion from Crusade in the Starfire universe of flooding the warp point with empty freighters on computer control to soak up defensive fire does sound interesting. In to the middle of that place some bcs. The idea would be to buy time for warships to get set, identify targets and get their defenses up.

I'm sure this idea from the wrong universe wouldn't work in the honorverse, but it is not too different from the notion of Peeps putting waves of battleships through from Trevor's star to overwhelm Manticore's offenses. IIRC, one of the things that Manticore was concerned about were the Peeps able to seize the Basilisk terminus was that the threat would come from two directions.

Don

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When any group seeks political power in God's name, both religion and politics are instantly corrupted.
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Re: Felix junction, key aspect of the story (possible spoile
Post by kzt   » Thu May 10, 2018 1:46 am

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n7axw wrote:I'm sure this idea from the wrong universe wouldn't work in the honorverse, but it is not too different from the notion of Peeps putting waves of battleships through from Trevor's star to overwhelm Manticore's offenses. IIRC, one of the things that Manticore was concerned about were the Peeps able to seize the Basilisk terminus was that the threat would come from two directions.

Per David, later analysis showed they over-rated the threat.
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Re: Felix junction, key aspect of the story (possible spoile
Post by n7axw   » Thu May 10, 2018 8:25 am

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kzt wrote:
n7axw wrote:I'm sure this idea from the wrong universe wouldn't work in the honorverse, but it is not too different from the notion of Peeps putting waves of battleships through from Trevor's star to overwhelm Manticore's offenses. IIRC, one of the things that Manticore was concerned about were the Peeps able to seize the Basilisk terminus was that the threat would come from two directions.

Per David, later analysis showed they over-rated the threat.


Yes, but...

The point is that they regarded the threat possible. Warships could have come at Manticore through the junction. While initial losses would have been high, it wasn't completely suicidal, at least before the junction forts were up and in place. Those forts were both for defense against an attack from hyper and from down the throat(s) of the junction itself.

Don

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When any group seeks political power in God's name, both religion and politics are instantly corrupted.
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Re: Felix junction, key aspect of the story (possible spoile
Post by pappilon   » Thu May 10, 2018 4:15 pm

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OK if the working hypothesis for this thread is how to, then, yes we have a legitimat use for all those deathtrap obsolete Solly SDs. Modify them. At battle stations all the air should be evacuated from certain sections of the hull anyway, so fill every space not required for tyhis one time operation with whatever composites they use for battle armor. Run their kevlar equivalent around all necessary areas if the ships and send a mass transit of them with a similarly treated Nike in the middle.

It would be similar to the Beowulf massing of Merchant ships around the manufacturing platforms. Use the heavily armored hulls to absorb the missile/grazer fire until/ hopefully, the Nike can raise wedge and sidewalls.
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Re: Felix junction, key aspect of the story (possible spoile
Post by SYED   » Thu May 10, 2018 6:12 pm

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Is this for all terminii assaults, or just those with establish and prepared defences, instead of just ships? Ships could deal with the occasional explorer or trespasser, but a military expedition would be a whole different matter. especially considering the difference in military capabilities. It would still be deadly and risky, but planned right, it might be possible.
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Re: Felix junction, key aspect of the story (possible spoile
Post by pappilon   » Thu May 10, 2018 8:32 pm

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SYED wrote:Is this for all terminii assaults, or just those with establish and prepared defences, instead of just ships? Ships could deal with the occasional explorer or trespasser, but a military expedition would be a whole different matter. especially considering the difference in military capabilities. It would still be deadly and risky, but planned right, it might be possible.



Felix Junction ... being the operational part of this thread :cry: I thought Then wormhole at torch being blockaded by Mannerheim was the obvious choice. :shock:

I can't see sending ships and skeleton crews on suicide missions to attack a WHJ when "everyone in the entire 'verse" knows where the other end is. Much easier on your crews to just take the long way around and attack from hyperspace like Honor did attacking Ganymede.

Textev suggested only The People's Republic was ... uncaring enough to just waste lives on futile frontal assaults. And we're beyond that now.
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The imagination has to be trained into foresight and empathy.
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Definite UH Spoiler!
Post by Weird Harold   » Fri May 11, 2018 2:31 am

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Somtaaw wrote:
Weird Harold wrote:Ten second intervals just means that there is more than one ship in the "inbound lane" at the same time.

Think of it as like an escalator; you don't have to wait for the person ahead of you to get off the escalator before you start down. The only time there's a problem is if somebody ahead of you steps off but doesn't move our of the way of the next person.



I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree here.


Uncompromising Honor
SLN Transit from Prime to Ajay wrote:
“I have the destroyers’ impeller signatures, Sir,” Captain Absolon Badrani’s plotting officer announced as SLNS Hindustan reemerged into everyone else’s universe.

“Very good,” Badrani acknowledged absently. His attention was on his helmswoman as the Nevada-class battlecruiser glided out of the terminus. Hindustan’s sister ship Océan was on her heels, and Captain Hackenbroch had an acid personality backed up by a scalpel-sharp sarcasm. She was bound to say something rude if Hindustan was clumsy about getting out of her way.

Not that Océan would be coming through that quickly. Admiral Isotalo had ordered a twenty-five second interval between transits. That was far longer than anyone would ever need. True, it would be another—he checked the display—fifty-three seconds before he could reconfigure from Warshawski sail to impellers, but those sails provided all the acceleration he’d need to keep Hindustan out of Océan’s way.


Earlier in the battle of Prime/Ajay it is explicitly stated that the time from Transit to Impeller drive on the Prime-Ajay bridge is 80 seconds. With 25 second intervals, there should be three ships in the inbound lane at one time, all vulnerable without wedges or sidewalls.
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Answers! I got lots of answers!

(Now if I could just find the right questions.)
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