The Alamo Contingency has already failed

Relax wrote:So, will Graser Torps radically change warfare into "a lot a lot" of Down-the-throat shots? Sorry; No.

The ONLY way obtaining Down-the-throat shot of 3s is against ships with nodes cold, sidewalls offline: Ship NOT maneuvering.

tlb wrote:

Relax wrote:So, will Graser Torps radically change warfare into "a lot a lot" of Down-the-throat shots? Sorry; No.

The ONLY way obtaining Down-the-throat shot of 3s is against ships with nodes cold, sidewalls offline: Ship NOT maneuvering.

How much is this analysis affected by the presence of buckler walls? A buckler cannot stop a graser beam, but it can prevent the easy acquisition of the ship's location (since it blocks the view of the ship, which is allowed to move around relative to all the walls).

Relax wrote:Buckler acquisition degradation? Sidewalls do not appear to degrade target acquisition so I would presume Bucklers do not degrade target acquisition either.

Relax wrote:
The ONLY way obtaining Down-the-throat shot of 3s is against ships with nodes cold, sidewalls offline: Ship NOT maneuvering.

tlb wrote:

Relax wrote:Buckler acquisition degradation? Sidewalls do not appear to degrade target acquisition so I would presume Bucklers do not degrade target acquisition either.

In On Basilisk Station it is stated that the gravity bands of a single wedge (or sidewall) can be analyzed by the enemy to see through; but that is by a full up ship's computer. Do we know that a missile can do so on its own? Even the Apollo control missile?

Relax wrote:Buckler acquisition degradation? Sidewalls do not appear to degrade target acquisition so I would presume Bucklers do not degrade target acquisition either.

tlb wrote:In On Basilisk Station it is stated that the gravity bands of a single wedge (or sidewall) can be analyzed by the enemy to see through; but that is by a full up ship's computer. Do we know that a missile can do so on its own? Even the Apollo control missile?

Joat42 wrote:In OBS it is also stated that a "single wedge" actually consists of 2 outer bands that are practically impenetrable and an inner band that's equal to a sidewall, ie O-I-O. The configuration of each of the 3 bands can be changed to deny an enemy the ability to "look through" a wedge by analyzing it to discern the ship's location within the wedge.

AFAIK, no such system is used for sidewalls or bucklers (at least there is no textev for it) for the simple reason that you usually don't present those to an enemy if you can avoid it.

Chapter 3 wrote:But what was possible for the generating warship was impossible for its foes. Civilian impeller drives generated a single stress band in each aspect; military impeller drives generated a double band and filled the space between them with a sidewall, for good measure. Hostile sensors might be able to analyze the outermost band, but they couldn't get accurate readings on the inner ones, and that was why no one could target something on their far side.

penny wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:In that case, sure, it could fire for a 3-seconds on the way in; but all it'd be able to shoot at that target's wedge -- which would totally ignore the graser. (Well, I guess it could try to go after the target's keyholes; as those have to be well outside the wedge - and hardly need a 3-second burn to kill; assuming you can hit them in the first place)

MA weapons may be able to "create" a shot down the throat of a wedge because it fires longer. IOW, I expect there to be a lot more "golden BBs". A lot-a-lot.

Relax wrote:Penny, hello, welcome to board.
My kid is sick so, may as well post late at night!

You need this: https://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/e ... ton/100/1/

Down-the-throat, up-the-kilt shot having greater duration than 0.2s even at LONG ranges = impossible. Certainly not a second or 3.

Why: Wedge/Sidewall Geometry, Closing Velocities, stand off distance etc. Math.

Sidewalls extend forward/aft to wedge extremities.

Wedge is 300km on a side. Ship length? 1km. Sidewall distance from ship? 10km. A triangle 20km wide by 150km long.
Angle = ~7.6 DEGREES, or 3.8 degrees from zero. ~4 degrees

Using same missile tech:

1) Missiles ability to acquire, discern, aim, be it LASER or GRASER is identical. A label of Graser Torp does not magically change this.

2) Missiles Gravitic concentrating power(how dispersed the beam is). Unless we are going to claim MA has RMN gravitic lens tech... But for this exercise lets assume they do.

On big ships difference between GRASER/LASER is 500,000km/300,000km, or was it 400,000km for LASER? Lets call it 60% increase in range.

Missiles are Not ship based Grasers/Lasers. Their Stand off attack range: 30,000km was considered long in 1st Havenite War, where 30,000km is standard in 2nd Havenite war, so a nice 60% increase obtains 50,000km(RMN style and no one else), but lets assume the MA can do it Note the nice comparison to above numbers(Yes authors also like nice round numbers as well as it makes story time easier to write and readers to understand)

Tangential shot: Length of 7.5 degree @ 50,000km is? ~6500 km

Closing delta vel 0.1c (yea right) but lets give best... Time for "continuous" fire = ~0.2s. ... Not 3.

Closing Delta Vel 0.8c: "continuous" fire= ~0.03s... Not 3s

BEST SCENARIO: Chase. Assume: ships are not skewed more than 4degrees(why the Hell would they not be? Cosine of 4deg = 0.9976)

Assume Captain, Sir, Idiot McDUNCE, in chase scenario, and does NOT have a 4 degree skew to opponent . ONLY if one uses a Graser Torpedo as a ~mine with ZERO wedge/spider or acceleration towards ship and a closing delta V under 50,000km/3seconds = 17,000km/s closing Delta V could one POSSIBLY ever use the 3 second firing time. If there was even a 4 degree delta skew(or 4 degree delta Velocity not overcome by Graser Torps acceleration) between BOTH ships, this could never happen.

Personally, I think David Weber's 3second firing duration = fumble fingered OOPS moment where he actually meant to enter 0.3second. 0.3s is still 100X longer duration than a ~0.003s duration LASER.

So, will Graser Torps radically change warfare into "a lot a lot" of Down-the-throat shots? Sorry; No.

The ONLY way obtaining Down-the-throat shot of 3s is against ships with nodes cold, sidewalls offline: Ship NOT maneuvering.

tlb wrote:So the question I posed remains: can that missile unscramble the image through a sidewall or buckler to get a fix on the ship being attacked or does it rely on either luck or a clear view to hit the target?

penny wrote:But a 3-second continuous firing graser is putting out continuous beams. IOW, the chance for an X-ray to be in the right place at the right time increases.