The Alamo Contingency has already failed

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?

Joat42 wrote:Depends on what you mean by "getting a fix". All missiles can calculate a general location of a ship without "seeing" it directly so it all comes down to statistics which is why missile combat usually involves launching broadsides to increase the chance of making hits.

But to answer your question, it all comes down to 3 factors:

1. Sensor data
2. Computing power
3. Time to intercept

The quality of the sensor data is highly dependent on if the target is obscured by wedges or not. The computing power determines how much it can refine that data into targeting information before the missile maneuvers to intercept and fire. If given enough time and sensor data, yes, the missile can unscramble the "image" but time and sensor data are usually in short supply when targeting a ship that can maneuver and accelerate at several hundred G's in a combat scenario, so it is highly unlikely that any missile without computing backup would have time to unscramble anything which is why Apollo with its dedicated computing/communication-node missiles was such a gamechanger.

Guessing at the location of the ship within the wedge is not so simple that any missile can do it.
From Pearls of Weber:

In addition, a ship can shift position somewhat within the area of its wedge. One can predict exactly where a ship will be within the volume of its wedge if it is seeking to attain the maximum possible acceleration (assuming that one has solid, reliable numbers on its inertial compensator's performance envelope), but at lower accelerations, ships can move "off center" within their wedges.

In the particular situation here of a Malign graser torpedo attack, there is not going to be communication between the missile and the ship that launched it. All of which suggests to me that sidewalls and bucklers will degrade the chance of such a graser hitting the ship (or any non-Apollo missile at long range).

Yes, Sidewalls, bucklers most certainly DO degrade a sensors ability to "See" the ship. I should have posted it as such in previous post. Why I posted otherwise... ugg <<Sorry>>

What I meant before is that be it a LASER or GRASER head firing, its ability to see through the sidewall or buckler is most likely identical as they are ~ identical in principle.

Speaking of Sensors: moment, I was thinking how here in the REAL world, a sensors ability to give targeting information to a missile drastically degrades based upon the G loading of it... <<Cough>> why one can generally not RADAR guide a missile all the way to target during high G maneuvers, but generally can do so under ~1G conditions or close to it. Why? Sensor PHYSICAL deflection. These deflections due to G loading create errors in both physical deflection of "WHERE" it is sensing(3D) angles but it also changes the piezo electric effect and the attenuation of the antenna(all sensors are an antenna of some form or another) due to said deflection. Likewise all those "antennas" are all different lengths and of different materials so ALL behave differently under different G loadings

Lets roll this to the Honorverse. Sensors on a Graser Torpedo are no different than those on a LASER head missile. Other than maybe the GIANT size of a Graser Torp ***May*** allow for a slightly larger sensor, but... why? This is vacuum of space, have the sensors fold out after firing. Which gets down to the REAL meat and potatoes here:

1) Normal missiles have a compensator keeping everything either in a 1G field or probably in missiles case a 0G field for even less deflection of the material in said sensor. Built in an orbital zero gravity field already so... most likely calibrated for 0G.

2) BUT: A Graser Torpedo using a Spider drive does NOT have a compensator. No wedge dump of the G forces and associated handwavium of momentum as well

2a) So, if 1) and 2) are true... does this mean the targetting acquisition of the Spider Drive based LASER/GRASER sensors falls off drastically due to G forces? <<Cough>> It should.

3) IF 1), 2), 2a) == TRUE, a GRASER torp super long range, high TIME duration firing shot, by necessity of an accurate shot, it must have a "dwell" time period of low acceleration profile at least at the end as it "steadies" , AKA dampens the deflections due to high G maneuvers. << Do remember in space there is no grounding in which vibrations can be absorbed. Graser Torps do not have compensator fields in which to dump momentum and also vibrations>> Therefore a Spider Drives ability to make a LONG range shot should be INFERIOR to a normal missile.

4) Mitigating factors: Gravitic plates as mentioned by DW, but they are DIRECTIONAL and a Graser Torp has to maneuver in 3 dimensions for firing solution and... ??? do not stop momentum as I recall??? Fuzzy memory here. They let some momentum and G forces through, that part I do remember. In either case, at least some degradation of sensor acuity under high Spider Drive G Load

Joat42 wrote:These missiles are glass-cannons that are only effective in an extremely limited amount of scenarios, mostly in the ambush-category and those usually work quite well with traditional missiles giving more flexibility in any case.

Which is typical of the MAlign thinking.

Being able to see through single layer wedges is of limited use for someone planning on shooting at warships. If you are considering use of your extremely long ranged, extremely long loiter time and extraordinarily deadly autonomous attack systems against merchant ships (like enforcing a blockade) then it might make sense to produce an ASIC to do the decoding given that your weapon is already enormous.

kzt wrote:Being able to see through single layer wedges is of limited use for someone planning on shooting at warships. If you are considering use of your extremely long ranged, extremely long loiter time and extraordinarily deadly autonomous attack systems against merchant ships (like enforcing a blockade) then it might make sense to produce an ASIC to do the decoding given that your weapon is already enormous.

I wonder when the warship is in parking orbit, if it goes down to a single layer wedge, with the second wedge on standby? But I was asking more about sidewalls and bucklers.

tlb wrote:I wonder when the warship is in parking orbit, if it goes down to a single layer wedge, with the second wedge on standby? But I was asking more about sidewalls and bucklers.

I’m not at all sure that is even an option. Can you point out where a warship has a single-layer wedge up?

Mostly they just don’t have a wedge up.

Sidewalls are sufficiently transparent that if you can see the sidewall you can tell where the ship is. I’d assume the same is true for bucklers etc.

Joat42 wrote:

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.

It outputs a single beam, not beams. Plus, ships kinda move around in battle and a graser missile is slooow in comparison to any ship with a wedge.

These missiles are glass-cannons that are only effective in an extremely limited amount of scenarios, mostly in the ambush-category and those usually work quite well with traditional missiles giving more flexibility in any case.

Thanks for correcting that grammatical mistake.

It reminded me of when I suggested that the MA may develop an ability for its grasers to quickly spin on its axis, taking out objects that are very close to each other. Akin to the "death blossom" mode of the ship in The Last Starfighter.

Since grasers can fire for 3-seconds, theoretically, there might be a lot that can be done with the ability. The beam can be made to quickly spin on its axis for one.

tlb wrote:I wonder when the warship is in parking orbit, if it goes down to a single layer wedge, with the second wedge on standby? But I was asking more about sidewalls and bucklers.

kzt wrote:I’m not at all sure that is even an option. Can you point out where a warship has a single-layer wedge up?

Mostly they just don’t have a wedge up.

Sidewalls are sufficiently transparent that if you can see the sidewall you can tell where the ship is. I’d assume the same is true for bucklers etc.

Whether it is a possibility is up to RFC; it was just conjecture on my part without any examples (which would have changed it from a conjecture to a statement of Honorverse fact).

Back to you: do you have support for saying "Sidewalls are sufficiently transparent that if you can see the sidewall you can tell where the ship is"? I would expect it to involve the same sort of analysis and computation, since a sidewall (or buckler) is a gravity band similar to a wedge (but weaker).

kzt wrote:I’m not at all sure that is even an option. Can you point out where a warship has a single-layer wedge up?

Mostly they just don’t have a wedge up.

I can’t recall it being specifically called out. But I think any warship that lost one pair of impeller rings (whether the alphas or the betas) would be reduced to a single-layer wedge. (IOW that you need all four rings (foreword Alpna, forward Beta, aft Beta, aft Alpha active to get the double-layer military wedge)

But I don’t think they’d do that outside of real or simulated combat damage.

The grazer torpedo really is a sort of analog of a wet navy torpedo in the way it is used and against what it is used. Although current torpedoes can have active sensors and targeting systems, the early torpedoes were essentially pre-set for depth and speed (within limited options where any existed) and were launched to intercept a target based on the estimated size, range and speed. Stealth by the submarine trying to do the shooting was required as you needed to both get within range and keep from alerting the target since even just turning turning the target (which is why zig-zagging was a standard defense tactic) could cause the weapon to miss.

So, do the grazer torpedoes have active (vs passive) sensors tracking their targets? Probably not, otherwise lighting off those boadcasting active sensors would tell anybody in quite an area that something was pinging for a target and probably fairly quickly pinpoint the location of the active transmitter. So, ambush weapon, usually fired from stealth. Very effective when you hit your target but you have to get to a place where you are within the engagement envelope of your weapon and keep your target ignorant of the danger for as long as possible.

Shooting at space stations, moored ships, astroid processing or scrap reclamation plants and any sort of orbital stuff in stable orbits. Sure, particularly if their defenses are not active. Shooting at a freighter or warship which is unaware of the launch of a g-torp is exactly the same in the Honorverse as doing it with submarine in WW II. The target can speed up and/or turn, though in the Honorvers it (even a merchant) can roll to interpose its wedge as defense.
Sure, build in passive sensors which can "see" things like a 100+ KM orbital station though power usage (or a moored ship with standard lights (actual anti-collision which ARE routinely used by civilian and military ships in the Honorvers) or electronic beacons and with spider drive to change direction and be able to "swerve" a 3 second beam around so it cuts like a light saber though a station.

The g-missiles are another question. Stealthy......exactly how stealthy and by what means of propulsion to get from a "resting" start to enough velocity to set up a detectable bow-wave of particles when fired from somewhere within a star system? How low a power level would a couple of thousand g-missiles need to bring up their impellers to avoid warship sensors -even those inside the hyper limit- to not notice that many impeller systems switching on?
To our knowledge, nothing near the Galton system was ever using a spider drive and nobody has mentioned that shipboard (or station mounted) missile launchers use launching systems that start out driving the missiles at the speeds the g-missiles would need to build up that considerable wave front.
Just wondering how that works.