OK KZT: What's wrong with AAC?

The AIN and the GSN were given design data after someone blewed up the Manticoran lines. And the freighters full of the new production line for Grayson. It’s not quick to go from that to producing gear.

kzt wrote:The AIN and the GSN were given design data after someone blewed up the Manticoran lines. And the freighters full of the new production line for Grayson. It’s not quick to go from that to producing gear.

You said it was several months. They should get production lines set up at Grayson and Trevor's Star also.

In this scenario, what can Haven do? They also have a lot to replace, but have unimpared production lines to do it. However they know that a some point Apollo will be back in full swing.

tlb wrote:According to Jonathan_S the 108 million KM limit comes from the receiver sensitivity; the missile can no longer detect the ship's transmission past that distance. However Honor was able to control missiles at eight light-minutes with the use of the Hermes buoy, but the loss of bandwidth reduced the number of missiles that could be controlled. I thought that was all obvious from the earlier discussion in this thread.

It is, except for the part where this is confirmed by textev. I'm not sure this is an inference or if it was confirmed by text. I don't remember reading that detail.

I do remember something about Hermes bandwidth being insufficient.

PS. Is the one salvo per minute correct, or is it too conservative?

That was conservative. I think someone mentioned 45 seconds to fire two patterns. 1 minute was an easier calculation, plus it thickens the number of missiles that are going against 75 SD(P)-equivalent defensive forces (though no LACs).

PPS. What is the effect on your calculations if the missiles are dialed back from full power (which forced you to add a coasting mode to avoid going more than .9C )?

They're already at half power: 46000 gravities for 180 seconds per stage. Those missiles can do 92000 for 60 seconds at full power. I assume you meant lower than 46000 gravities.

From all we know, that doesn't increase the time the missile can accelerate. So decreasing the acceleration will proportionately decrease the distance the missile can cover while powered. At 38756 gravities, the missile achieves 0.9c exactly when the third stage shuts down, but it still needs to coast for 42.4 million km / 210.6 seconds. That puts the total travel time at 750.6 seconds (12:30.6 min).

We've never seen an MDM in both power settings, so I'm going to assume that is impossible. Firing in sprint mode only helps if Honor could get much closer, but according to these calculations she'd still be too far for sprint mode when Tourville translated.

However, I missed one very important detail: Eighth Fleet could launch a max salvo like they did at Fifth Fleet, so long as towing so many pods does not compromise their acceleration. Fifth Fleet was practically obliterated and it was stronger than Second Fleet would be at this stage. So unless Tourville can maintain at least 527 G (his max is 529), Honor will close to within 108 million km and will fire at least once.

So in this scenario, a 40 light-minute run on the exact opposite direction from Eighth Fleet, Second Fleet has an about even chance of survival. But this was a worst-case scenario. It all depends on the initial position. For example, if he vectored 45° off from the direct away from Eighth Fleet and reached the hyper limit within 1 hour and 48 min, he'd be saved. The hyper limit would need to be within 7 light minutes from his initial position. And then there's the initial velocity...

tlb wrote:In this scenario, what can Haven do? They also have a lot to replace, but have unimpared production lines to do it. However they know that a some point Apollo will be back in full swing.

Basically the RHN need to throw everything they can as soon as they can. Might not be enough, but they need to be really aggressive. It's going to be bloody as hel.

But this is also a pretty good time to reopen negotiations. As neither side is highly confident as to victory this might work out better.

Oh, and missile pod cycles are 12 seconds.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:We've never seen an MDM in both power settings, so I'm going to assume that is impossible. Firing in sprint mode only helps if Honor could get much closer, but according to these calculations she'd still be too far for sprint mode when Tourville translated.

RFC has stated that all stages must run at the same power setting, it is impossible with that technology to have them set differently.

tlb wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:We've never seen an MDM in both power settings, so I'm going to assume that is impossible. Firing in sprint mode only helps if Honor could get much closer, but according to these calculations she'd still be too far for sprint mode when Tourville translated.

RFC has stated that all stages must run at the same power setting, it is impossible with that technology to have them set differently.

Until the demon duo at Bolthole get to grips with the technology maybe.

kzt wrote:

tlb wrote:In this scenario, what can Haven do? They also have a lot to replace, but have unimpared production lines to do it. However they know that a some point Apollo will be back in full swing.

Basically the RHN need to throw everything they can as soon as they can. Might not be enough, but they need to be really aggressive. It's going to be bloody as hel.

But this is also a pretty good time to reopen negotiations. As neither side is highly confident as to victory this might work out better.

Oh, and missile pod cycles are 12 seconds.

Pod cycles are 12 seconds, but most engagements are being fought with 4 cycle stacks fired at 50-60 second intervals. Presumably that's a convenient balance between frequency of salvos and the size of salvos necessary to get a worthwhile number of hits through modern defenses

tlb wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:We've never seen an MDM in both power settings, so I'm going to assume that is impossible. Firing in sprint mode only helps if Honor could get much closer, but according to these calculations she'd still be too far for sprint mode when Tourville translated.

RFC has stated that all stages must run at the same power setting, it is impossible with that technology to have them set differently.

I seem to recall he specifically said that future improvements to the tech might enable a mixed acceleration profile. But yes, for the moment true MDMs have to pick the same acceleration for all their drives.

(Cataphract can use different accelerations because it uses a different mechanism; with a true 2nd stage not just an additional drive ring or two. But it's much larger and has a reduced warhead size to boot)


Of course RFC got around to mentioning that limitation only after I'd wasted time crunching numbers on which acceleration profile was best at any given range (And realizing that one or another mixed profile would have been best out even 65 million km)

I need to correct my calculations. We've all been doing calculations when the firing and target ships are moving so slowly that I've been in the habit of simply ignoring their velocities. Compared to a missile moving at 0.81c, a ship at a few thousand km/s (~0.01c) doesn't make much of a difference.

I had factored in Eighth Fleet's base velocity, but forgot to account for Second's. The numbers change, but not the outcome.

If 2nd flees at 500 G, Honor still fires 3 hours and 15 minutes into the flight, when the distance has decreased to 108 million km. At this point, 8th is travelling at 0.22c but 2nd is at 0.19c. The missiles still have the same total flight time of 455 seconds, but the time coasting is actually 342 s. The missiles need over 13 minutes from launch to arrive at target, having flown a whopping 153.8 million km (1.027 AU).

Still, in this scenario, Tourville is under attack for an hour. In fact, if Honor closed to 90 million km (5 light minutes), she could fire one massive salvo, see it hit 11 minutes and 31 seconds later, adjust her aims and fire again before Tourville could hyper out. Or wait to reach 76 million km before firing a single time.

Now here's an interesting twist: Tourville's missiles are not speed-limited, because he'd be firing against his base velocity vector. I don't recall the performance numbers for RHN MDMs, so if they are equal to Manticoran missiles, the first two minutes after leaving the pods are spent reducing the missiles' velocity to zero relative to the star. Then they can continue accelerating all the way to 0.62c before they come crashing down on Eighth (which adds 0.22c relative). Because of that, his missiles arrive earlier than Honor's. Of course, his missiles' accuracy suck at this range and he didn't have nearly enough missiles to make a difference anyway.

kzt wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:If you're being hit you should have been using your countermissile systems. They were being hit hard, there were no unnecessary launchers other than ones that couldn't bear.

So you you have a sniper rifle and see a bunch of guys with pistols 800 yards away who are coming to kill you. You decide that to maximize your first round hit probability you'll wait until they start shooting before you will shoot. Does this seem like a good plan?

But unknown to you, what you think are pistols are revealed to be shotguns when they all open fire at you at 15 yards. How do you think this scenario is going to end?

You can't concede every technological and positional advantage to the enemy and then claim "Well, you know, we did the best we could" and expect us not to laugh at you.


Haven can shoot back at 70 million km. They just can't hit very much. Hence you don't need the same scale of defenses you need once you are deep inside their effective range, where they are probably going to hit with every missile unless you stop it. Like say if you wait until they decide what is the most favorable range for them to best kill you.

Letting the enemy control the tempo and conditions of the fight is not how you win fights.

And from an operational point of view you need them to expend every missile you can get them to shoot, both because you have a lot more ammo per ship and because you have reinforcements coming.

Loren Pechtel wrote:You're addressing the other issue that was raised--and in which I agree with you. I was simply addressing the issue of whether you need all your defenses against long range fire.

When the Peeps were out of missile range, but inside the Manty envelope, I always wondered why they wouldn't deploy their pods and fire moments before the Manty barrage arrived, hoping for some mutual destruction and/or causing mass fratricide between opposing missiles. Sort of a variation of the Triple Ripple. Why doesn't that work? At least once, textev spoke of opposing missile storms passing betwixt each other. Manty missile storms are groups of molecules composed of nine indivisible atoms that cannot be separated by much.