The Alamo Contingency has already failed

penny wrote:I have always had a problem with fans wanting to allow handwavium for the good guys but never the bad. Bad guys just never pay their handwavium bill.

It is clear that propulsion by wedge might be pure handwavium, but it was built in from the start and available to the good and the bad. But I do not know why you think that the Malign was not given advantages; they have the streak drive, the spider drive, a hidden fortress world (actually we find out there were two), a six hundred year long hidden conspiracy, biological assassination nanotech, unlimited genetic manipulation and centuries long manipulation and corruption of interstellar governments.

But now you are unhappy that they were not given an invincible and invisible war machine? As I stated earlier, if they had been given that, then the triumph of the Grand Alliance might not come for far too many books. I was unhappy that the conflict with the Mandarins was over too quickly and I blame the incompetence of the Malign for that. It makes sense for them to go down because of further incompetence.

penny wrote:Fair enough! I can accept this post. Actually, I love this post. In your previous post you stated that it is likely that the GA's stealth is better. I can't agree with that. For all of the reasons you just stated, and the fact that since they do have better stealth, gives them something to play with and try to locate. They have a better yardstick in which to measure their sensors.

"Can you see me now?"

"Nope"

"Can you see me now?"

"Nope."

Indeed. They know what they're looking for, so they probably have the best sensors at detecting that. Probably, not definitely: they don't know what they don't know about sensors.

An interesting conclusion from this is that the GA probably has the best sensors for detecting low-power-wedge-driven vessels and the MA has the best sensors for detecting spider-drive ships, but they both don't have good sensors for detecting the other's vessels.

In any case, the argument about the drone and escort shell around capital ships isn't that their individual sensors are better, it's that collectively they have more brute force. Brute force always works -- if it hasn't worked for you, it's because you haven't used enough of it. No stealth is perfect, and given enough sensing platforms from enough angles, those imperfections may be detected. What is below the detection threshold level of a single platform can rise above the noise when you integrate / interpolate across enough platforms.

It also stands to reason that if the LD can't detect GA drones, they're in for a lot of hurt.

Indeed: if the MAN vehicle can't detect the GR or stealthed escort ship/LAC, it doesn't know if it's going to pass too close either.

What I said is that the Silver Bullets are an indication of my assertion that their better stealth would lead to better sensors. No other navy has ever been able to find stealthy GA platforms. I am sure that shocked them.

That's a good point: no one else has. But no one else has had weeks to try and find them. Plus, the Silver Bullets did what Mistletoe did a few years earlier, though that against RHN stealth and RHN FTL comms.

cthia wrote:It also stands to reason that if the LD can't detect GA drones, they're in for a lot of hurt.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:Indeed: if the MAN vehicle can't detect the GR or stealthed escort ship/LAC, it doesn't know if it's going to pass too close either.

Exactly! But not only do I think that that will not be the case. I don't think it should be the case. LDs are analogues of submarines. And submarines could always see surface ships. Why should the author deny one of the most natural advantages of the analogue.

But another reason is that it would kill a lot of the excitement that we always see in movies; that of a sluggish submarine desperately trying to avoid detection by evading a much faster ship.

Besides, GA ships already have the speed advantage, in ships and drones… respecting the analogue. There is no need to further handicap the sub's natural advantage of being able to see the enemy coming.

"Up periscope."

Then panicking when it sees the enemy coming right towards it and not knowing if it has been or will be detected.

"Dive! Dive!"

But the sub is handicapped because it is slower and it is trying to get away (submerge deep enough) from a much faster ship.

Actually, I see the LD's analogue of diving to not simply be trying to crab away on a much safer bearing, but also trying to maneuver its bad side away from the enemy.

How much maneuverability on its axis can an LD accomplish? I have said long ago how weirdly a spider (arachnid) can move.

Another analogue that naturally exists is that a sub could always shut down all essential systems and "run silent." Being able to quickly shut down its reactors and restart quickly would also honor the analogue. Even if reactor start times are the same - depending on the situation - sitting still like a hole in space for 45 minutes is a lot better than dying. And it should be par for the course for an LD. Besides, sitting alone twiddling your thumb should be easy for submariners. In the MA's case, it is genengineered in. Every sailor isn't cut out to serve under water.

That is another reason I think the smart paint is separate from the spider drive. There will still be some stealth when the LDs reactor/drive is in an emergency shut down.


So many submarine movies. Please don't take that away from me.

penny wrote:What I said is that the Silver Bullets are an indication of my assertion that their better stealth would lead to better sensors. No other navy has ever been able to find stealthy GA platforms. I am sure that shocked them.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:That's a good point: no one else has. But no one else has had weeks to try and find them. Plus, the Silver Bullets did what Mistletoe did a few years earlier, though that against RHN stealth and RHN FTL comms.

No one else had time to find them???

No one else even knew they were there!

penny wrote:Exactly! But not only do I think that that will not be the case. I don't think it should be the case. LDs are analogues of submarines. And submarines could always see surface ships. Why should the author deny one of the most natural advantages of the analogue.

I agree and it seems others in the forum do too. LDs shouldn't be used for close-in strikes where their advantages are minimised and the disadvantages maximised. They ought to be used in different roles, loitering very much outside detection range and lobbing stealth packages at formations, keeping them on toes and running the clock on their equipment.

But another reason is that it would kill a lot of the excitement that we always see in movies; that of a sluggish submarine desperately trying to avoid detection by evading a much faster ship.

And yet some of the best movies. The Hunt for the Red October comes to mind. And in Sci-Fi, one of the best Star Trek episodes is "Balance of Terror" where the Enterprise and the Romulan Bird of Prey operate like submarines.

It is another reason I think that the smart paint is separate from the spider drive. There will still be some stealth when the LDs reactor/drive is in an emergency shut down.

Quite so.


Anyway, the problem with our lack of information of the MAN force mix is that we don't know how they'll defend Darius. Galton didn't stand a chance against a 250 capital ship formation and I suppose it was the single best protected system anywhere outside of the GA itself.

Darius will have some advantages that Galton didn't, namely the stealth weapons, but I don't think those advantages are enough to prevent the GA from winning if Darius is discovered. They will be nasty surprises, but not enough to carry the day all by themselves. Many of them will also only work once. Meanwhile, Darius' productive capacity is degraded during an attack, because they don't have a defence against Apollo (that we've heard of, anyway). The GA could lose all its ships that went to attack and still win, because it can regroup and send another wave.

To put it bluntly, if Darius is discovered, the game is over. The only questions are how much the butcher's bill will be and how long it will take. I don't think the MAlign has invested enough in defensive technologies as much as it has on taking the offence, something that would align with their arrogance.

But discovering it won't be easy, because it's behind a wormhole. The most the GA can do is blockade on the Felix side, forcing the MAlign to use hyperspace and thus face the possibility of triangulation like what happened to Galton. I don't actually think this is how the series will progress.

penny wrote:What I said is that the Silver Bullets are an indication of my assertion that their better stealth would lead to better sensors. No other navy has ever been able to find stealthy GA platforms. I am sure that shocked them.

I know. I know. You all downplay it because the MA had lots of time. Manty blind fans.

To be fair in the 2nd war Haven was pretty reliably in detecting the Ghost Rider drones when those were shadowing their fleet. What they weren't able to do was:
a) detect them when they (or their mistletoe derivatives) were sneaking through a star system -- probably because there's a lot more sensors and RD on and around a fleet than there are dispersed through a star system.
b) have their fleets nail down a firing solution on the drones.

They knew they were "over that-a-way" but not well enough to shoot them. And that probably is, in part, because a GR drone can retain quite a bit of its stealth even while accelerating at over 1,000 gees -- so you need to find them very quickly or else by the time you work out where they are they're not there any more.


If Haven had weeks to track down and locate a sporadically transmitting GR drone that was just holding position I've every confidence they could also do so (despite the GR drone being a small fraction of the size of a Mycroft fire control relay - and thus should be harder to locate). What Haven couldn't do, is do so with platforms that the drone couldn't detect closing in.

Though, to be fair, we don't actually know that a Silver Bullet could successfully sneak within energy range of a GR drone -- there's no reason for a fire control relay to waste space mounting the kind of sensors the galaxy's best recon drone does. So the silver Bullets might have only needed to beat the system wide surveillance sensors - not close range RD quality ones. (Equally we don't know that they can't - at least against a single drone they they know is ahead of them somewhere. We've no information either way)

penny wrote:Exactly! But not only do I think that that will not be the case. I don't think it should be the case. LDs are analogues of submarines. And submarines could always see surface ships. Why should the author deny one of the most natural advantages of the analogue.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:I agree and it seems others in the forum do too. LDs shouldn't be used for close-in strikes where their advantages are minimised and the disadvantages maximised. They ought to be used in different roles, loitering very much outside detection range and lobbing stealth packages at formations, keeping them on toes and running the clock on their equipment.

I am going to have to disagree here. You know how I feel about that subject from another thread. You just need to change one word. Change "different" to "varying". LDs should be used in varying roles. Depending on the mission, that should include infiltrating deep into enemy territory. Taking risks. Operating behind enemy lines. This is why I decry a waste-heat limited LD that has to loiter on the edge of a system throwing long range rocks like a coward.

"AT ALL COSTS, destroy that bridge! Take out that port!"

Just like their analogues, subs were expendable depending on the mission. LDs can wage a short victorious war, if it wasn't Honor's Verse. Losing an LD because it has ventured deep in-system is worth a loss if it has taken out the entire Home Fleet. And Honor too. Especially if there really will be 100 of them. The MA will not have the luxury of sustaining a protracted war. The MA really needs to wrap this thing up quickly. Before they are discovered. Before their secrets are nullified. Before someone defects. Before the GA develops even more game changing tech.

Like their analogues, LDs should be willing to risk it all by waltzing right into port. Subs were not built to be timid. They were built to be decisive. Subs were never meant to act like frightened ships afraid to go where no enemy ship has gone before. That is the definition, function and the MO of a sub!

penny wrote:But another reason is that it would kill a lot of the excitement that we always see in movies; that of a sluggish submarine desperately trying to avoid detection by evading a much faster ship.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:And yet some of the best movies. The Hunt for the Red October comes to mind. And in Sci-Fi, one of the best Star Trek episodes is "Balance of Terror" where the Enterprise and the Romulan Bird of Prey operate like submarines.

Hunt for Red October was sub on sub warfare. And to be fair, the battle between the Enterprise and the Bird of Prey was decided by the exhaust from the Bird of Prey.

"Well it has to have a tailpipe doesn't it?" Says Uhuru.

penny wrote:I am going to have to disagree here. You know how I feel about that subject from another thread. You just need to change one word. Change "different" to "varying". LDs should be used in varying roles. Depending on the mission, that should include infiltrating deep into enemy territory. Taking risks. Operating behind enemy lines. This is why I decry a waste-heat limited LD that has to loiter on the edge of a system throwing long range rocks like a coward.

"AT ALL COSTS, destroy that bridge! Take out that port!"

I really disagree here. They will not risk any of their stealth vehicles where said vehicle may be captured or even rendered incapable of totally destroying itself. Letting their stealth technology and/or the spider drive fall into GA hands is not going to be an acceptable cost.

Unless they're either desperate (close to losing) or so assured of victory soon that the loss of the strategic advantage won't hurt their plans. Since we know the latter won't happen, I don't think we see such extremely risky missions until the last book, if at all.

penny wrote:Like their analogues, LDs should be willing to risk it all by waltzing right into port. Subs were not built to be timid. They were built to be decisive. Subs were never meant to act like frightened ships afraid to go where no enemy ship has gone before. That is the definition, function and the MO of a sub!

Tell that to the interwar US Navy. Their attack doctrine was to fire while submerged off of hydrophone bearing because it was presumed to be too risky to use a periscope within torpedo range of an enemy formation.

That's pretty timid. (Especially since hydrophones couldn't give accurate enough range and bearing data to really aim the torpedo -- so it was more 'hide in front of the enemy formation and once they sound loud enough dump all your torpedoes in their general direction')

Come wartime it took new, more aggressive, submarine commanders before the USN subs really started achieving results. (Though, of course, the many and well documented issues with their Mk14 torpedoes didn't help -- but if they'd stuck to their timid pre-war tactics they would have had a much harder time working out that there was something wrong with their bloody torpedoes)

Jonathan_S wrote:

penny wrote:What I said is that the Silver Bullets are an indication of my assertion that their better stealth would lead to better sensors. No other navy has ever been able to find stealthy GA platforms. I am sure that shocked them.

I know. I know. You all downplay it because the MA had lots of time. Manty blind fans.

To be fair in the 2nd war Haven was pretty reliably in detecting the Ghost Rider drones when those were shadowing their fleet. What they weren't able to do was:
a) detect them when they (or their mistletoe derivatives) were sneaking through a star system -- probably because there's a lot more sensors and RD on and around a fleet than there are dispersed through a star system.
b) have their fleets nail down a firing solution on the drones.

They knew they were "over that-a-way" but not well enough to shoot them. And that probably is, in part, because a GR drone can retain quite a bit of its stealth even while accelerating at over 1,000 gees -- so you need to find them very quickly or else by the time you work out where they are they're not there any more.


If Haven had weeks to track down and locate a sporadically transmitting GR drone that was just holding position I've every confidence they could also do so (despite the GR drone being a small fraction of the size of a Mycroft fire control relay - and thus should be harder to locate). What Haven couldn't do, is do so with platforms that the drone couldn't detect closing in.

Though, to be fair, we don't actually know that a Silver Bullet could successfully sneak within energy range of a GR drone -- there's no reason for a fire control relay to waste space mounting the kind of sensors the galaxy's best recon drone does. So the silver Bullets might have only needed to beat the system wide surveillance sensors - not close range RD quality ones. (Equally we don't know that they can't - at least against a single drone they they know is ahead of them somewhere. We've no information either way)

I didn't think even Haven was aware the GR drones existed when they were first unleashed. I thought it was after the fact that it was determined that something like GR must have been used. Am I wrong about that?

Question:

Shouldn't a stationary platform be inherently more stealthy than a drone? Or is it?

P.S. I am rereading the climactic battle in TeIF. I'd like to restart a couple threads, and I needed to check out a few things. The current trending thread is reason enough for a reread. I'LL BE BOCK!

An aside:

Why was Galton command able to identify itself without dropping dead? Let alone identify itself as the Mesan Alignment.

It could have been because Adebayo's order to do so automatically disabled the nanites. Or the nannies did not exist.

penny wrote:Fair enough! I can accept this post. Actually, I love this post. In your previous post you stated that it is likely that the GA's stealth is better. I can't agree with that. For all of the reasons you just stated, and the fact that since they do have better stealth, gives them something to play with and try to locate. They have a better yardstick in which to measure their sensors.

"Can you see me now?"

"Nope"

"Can you see me now?"

"Nope."

Thinksmarkedly wrote:Indeed. They know what they're looking for, so they probably have the best sensors at detecting that. Probably, not definitely: they don't know what they don't know about sensors.

An interesting conclusion from this is that the GA probably has the best sensors for detecting low-power-wedge-driven vessels and the MA has the best sensors for detecting spider-drive ships, but they both don't have good sensors for detecting the other's vessels.

Can you elaborate on this. Wedges can be seen from another system. Are you simply lumping warships and drones together?