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Re: ?
Post by cthia   » Thu Sep 16, 2021 5:39 pm

cthia
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ThinksMarkedly wrote:
Remontoire wrote:What about a grazer impeller hybrid of the two types though? Seems to me the spider drive grazer torps used in oysterbay wearn't designed to be practical ship to ship main combat weapons, they were surprise attack stealth weapons.


Spider drive wasn't a technology Simões knew about, so right now the GA has no idea how it works. They've probably scoured the sensor data from both Oyster Bay attacks as well as the Beowulf data, so they may have seen something. We'll find out in the next mainline book, I suppose.

Until then, we have assume that the GA has no spider drive tech.

Grasers, however, are a well-known technology. The Alignment seems to have made theirs last seconds, as opposed to nano- or microseconds, which made for a more powerful weapon, especially in the context of the surprise attack. If they put their minds to it, the GA can probably duplicate that technology, though whether it makes sense for ship-to-ship missiles remains to be seen.

We know RMN tech can make a missile hit a target between the wedges while flying at over 0.8c, but the missile can precalculate the exact firing position and adjust on the fly to evasive manoeuvres. A sustained fire is a different thing, since the missile would need to keep on target. Plus, if the missile is flying at 0.8c, in the 3.2 seconds the MAlign torpedo graser lasted, the missile would have covered 768,000 km. I would think that scaling up from microseconds to milliseconds makes sense, but 3.2 seconds is wasted effort. Literally overkill.

PS: is your handle related to the Alastair Reynolds character in the Revelation Space books?

You're kidding. Remember that the RMN increased the effectiveness of their missile with better lensing technology which puts more of a graser's output on target. Firing for longer does the very same thing, only much better. If the GA can duplicate the tech and maintain their lensing technology, it would be that much more effective. Again, I question whether a sidewall can withstand 3-second firing grasers. Plus, point defense waits for a moment a missile prepares to fire. If a missile has such a long firing time, it can begin firing before point defense is ready. And a 3-second strafing run along the length of a ship has to cause holy hell inside. The entire bridge decapitated.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: ?
Post by Jonathan_S   » Thu Sep 16, 2021 6:33 pm

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cthia wrote:
ThinksMarkedly wrote:Grasers, however, are a well-known technology. The Alignment seems to have made theirs last seconds, as opposed to nano- or microseconds, which made for a more powerful weapon, especially in the context of the surprise attack. If they put their minds to it, the GA can probably duplicate that technology, though whether it makes sense for ship-to-ship missiles remains to be seen.

You're kidding. Remember that the RMN increased the effectiveness of their missile with better lensing technology which puts more of a graser's output on target. Firing for longer does the very same thing, only much better. If the GA can duplicate the tech and maintain their lensing technology, it would be that much more effective. Again, I question whether a sidewall can withstand 3-second firing grasers. Plus, point defense waits for a moment a missile prepares to fire. If a missile has such a long firing time, it can begin firing before point defense is ready. And a 3-second strafing run along the length of a ship has to cause holy hell inside. The entire bridge decapitated.

The key question for whether it's worth duplicating is how small can they make it. Remember graser torps are huge, and it's not clear how much of that is basically squeezing a light cruiser's graser mount in and then turning it up past 11 to where it melts itself down on first use.

Is the MAlign graser warhead more destruction than a single laserhead? Sure, no question. But it (and its power source; since it's not being powered by the very energy dense explosion of a grav pinch nuclear bomb) and also almost certainly many times larger than a laserhead.

If you can duplicate the tech then you can clearly build a drone to carry it. And you could probably (though not certainly) build something with a missile drive that's also capable of carrying it. But how large that graser-head missile would have to be is unclear; but indications are the answer is "very".

I wouldn't be surprised if a single graser-head missile was physically larger in some dimension than one of the RMN's current missile pods. At the very minimum it seems likely you'd be unable to use them from any existing tube and you'd carry far fewer per pod.
Another unknown is what impact making a missile that large might have on its acceleration.

But even if we assume you could build a much larger missile, able to carry the graser-head, and maintain the same missile performance we're still left with questions about whether it's worth it. A much larger missile means you can carry fewer of them on a given ship, and it also means your individual salvos are smaller; which means the defender's point defense is going to be more effective as it's facing fewer numbers.

So we'd be left with some questions (which we lack the data to answer).
1) Is the extra destructive ability of an individual graser-head greater than the destructive ability of all the laserheads you could launch in its place?
And if it is:
2) Is that extra destructive ability worth the costs of smaller salvos and being able to carry fewer of them?


There's a reasonable chance that, at least for the next decades, that the answer to that is "no, it's not worth it". Because raw destructive power isn't everything, and sometimes the trade-offs for it are too great and it's not the most important thing.
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: ?
Post by cthia   » Thu Sep 16, 2021 11:10 pm

cthia
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Well, the Apollo system and support structure is raw destructive power.

To begin with, it goes without saying "if all else remains equal." Like its practical scalability. I'm fairly confident that the dynamic duo can make it small thus practical.

But let's fully examine the implications. Of course, it will be mated to the Apollo system, and also to Mycroft. Consider that GA missiles can pirouette, and they have such fine control that they can thread the needle and purposely impact against an enemy's wedge. That means that a 3-second firing missile can maneuver for an optimum shot for maximum effect, pirouetting in a formation killing many LACs.

Remember, a 3-second-firing graser mated to the Apollo system can utilize a Death Blossom mode.

And when you are sniping because you have a limited missile loadout like our very own Megan Petersen, you'll appreciate it.

It can change the practice of packing your ships in closely. I think LAC packs fly close enough together to have several killed with one stone.

.
Last edited by cthia on Mon Sep 20, 2021 6:17 am, edited 1 time in total.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: ?
Post by kzt   » Fri Sep 17, 2021 12:49 am

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Jonathan_S wrote:
There's a reasonable chance that, at least for the next decades, that the answer to that is "no, it's not worth it". Because raw destructive power isn't everything, and sometimes the trade-offs for it are too great and it's not the most important thing.

Graser missiles are unlikely. It's likely that each one would use the space of at least two and possibly four missile pods. And they are only highly lethal if they can get deep within the PDLC effective envelope. For a giant missile that's a big problem.

And that's with a 3000 ton CA graser. Bigger grasers require much bigger missiles.

David has implied that there is a rather small (for the honorverse) cap on how much mass a missile-type drive can move, so eventually it is limited to recon-drone acceleration.

But Graser Torpedoes appear to be have the potential to restore the one-hit/one-kill capability that David has deliberately avoided. They don't punch a hole through the side your warship, they punch a hole through the entire length of the ship and then they start to spiralize it.

Oh where oh where is that fusion reactor.
Oh where oh where can it be.
Boom.
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Re: ?
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Fri Sep 17, 2021 2:12 am

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kzt wrote:But Graser Torpedoes appear to be have the potential to restore the one-hit/one-kill capability that David has deliberately avoided. They don't punch a hole through the side your warship, they punch a hole through the entire length of the ship and then they start to spiralize it.


Which is overkill. State of the art RMN missiles are good enough to guarantee kills against any opponent except other GA members. It's not one hit one kill, but one swarm one kill. Every ship targeted in Hypatia was killed or mission-killed, with enough left-overs for collateral damage.

More importantly, the ships thus targeted were defenceless. There was nothing they could do to stop that many missiles coming at them.

If you were to lower the number of missiles so they're bigger and stronger, you increase the chances for the defence.

One other detail is ECM. Your Dazzlers and Dragon's Teeth must look like warheads, otherwise you telegraph to your enemy which missiles are warheads and which ones are not. You can probably do a lot with more power in either type of ECM, but right now that's again overkill. There's no need for them.

So, no, 3-second missiles for the GA seem unlikely. But maybe a 10x firing time improvement from 1 ms to 10 ms might happen, with a minimal cost in size, if not compensated by further miniaturisation elsewhere.
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Re: ?
Post by Jonathan_S   » Fri Sep 17, 2021 1:12 pm

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:.

So, no, 3-second missiles for the GA seem unlikely. But maybe a 10x firing time improvement from 1 ms to 10 ms might happen, with a minimal cost in size, if not compensated by further miniaturisation elsewhere.
im away from my access to the old Jaynes books, but if I recall correctly they’ve got some detail on the size of a warship graser. I want to say that just the emitter assembly alone of a CL’s grazer is larger than Mk23 MDM.
So I’d definitely agree that 3-second graser-head MDM seems very unlikely.
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Re: ?
Post by kzt   » Fri Sep 17, 2021 1:30 pm

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Jonathan_S wrote:im away from my access to the old Jaynes books, but if I recall correctly they’ve got some detail on the size of a warship graser. I want to say that just the emitter assembly alone of a CL’s grazer is larger than Mk23 MDM.
So I’d definitely agree that 3-second graser-head MDM seems very unlikely.

David said it was 3000 tons. So it alone is on the scale of a Mk23 pod.
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Re: ?
Post by Theemile   » Fri Sep 17, 2021 2:16 pm

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kzt wrote:
Jonathan_S wrote:im away from my access to the old Jaynes books, but if I recall correctly they’ve got some detail on the size of a warship graser. I want to say that just the emitter assembly alone of a CL’s grazer is larger than Mk23 MDM.
So I’d definitely agree that 3-second graser-head MDM seems very unlikely.

David said it was 3000 tons. So it alone is on the scale of a Mk23 pod.


Plus fusion reactor, spider drive, structure, stealth hardware, sensors and AI. Normal Grasers lock onto a sidewall and use it for their final lensing, so you've gotta have a grav lens projector as well (as all old spinal mounts must have). So a Grav torp has gotta be an easy 5, if not 8 Ktons - or 80% of a old LAC.
******
RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
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Re: ?
Post by cthia   » Fri Sep 17, 2021 2:39 pm

cthia
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cthia wrote:To begin with, it goes without saying "if all else remains equal." Like its practical scalability. I'm fairly confident that the dynamic duo can make it small thus practical.

But let's fully examine the implications. Of course, it will be mated to the Apollo system, and also to Mycroft. Consider that GA missiles can pirouette, and they have such fine control that they can thread the needle and purposely impact against an enemy's wedge. That means that a 3-second firing missile can maneuver for an optimum shot for maximum effect, pirouetting in a formation killing many LACs.

Remember, a 3-second-firing graser mated to the Apollo system can utilize a Death Blossom mode. And when you are sniping because you have a limited missile loadout like our very own Megan Petersen, you'll appreciate it.

It can change the practice of packing your ships in closely. I think LAC packs fly close enough together to have several killed with one stone.


Plus, not only can one of these stones kill a lot of LACs, it can take out several ships of the wall as well, with just a little help from providence. If it destroys an SD and it begins to pirouette, the chances are quite high for this missile to achieve a golden bb, an up the kilt shot, or an even luckier shot, which happens to hit the wedge at the exact time it begins to falter. Or any or all of the above. This missile literally creates opportunity. It is greedy. Imagine that the 64 missiles launched at Tourville at the BoM were a clump of these babies, all waiting to go into DB Mode.

Another implication is that less control nodes are needed because less missiles are needed.


NOTE:
I am aware that presently these things are huge. And I certainly understand why the moral majority think that they will remain so, even if the GA can reproduce them.

First, this is a reminder that we are all still under oath. The oath that we took in the beginning of the thread is to accept that certain technology has completely fallen into enemy hands. Remember the high capacity thumb drive that was found in the opening post and is now enroute to Foraker? It contains ALL of the available research. All of the Alignment's R&D from the very beginning of the project when it was simply a sperm cell in someone's head. It contains all of the failures and successes. All of the stalls and pitfalls. All of the disasters. All of the new materials. What didn't work, and why. Therefore the process should go much more smoothly not having to reinvent the wheel. Instead this will lead the GA to redefine the wheel, much as they did with Grayson. The Manties have never been shy about their technological prowess. I truly believe that a lot of inspiration will be fueled by digesting what undoubtedly has to be the most anal retentive notes ever seen. Even the information in the margins is priceless alone.

At any rate, please remember that this thread is about what is possible, rather than what is likely.

Psychoanalysis of an Alpha:
Suggests an anal personality most likely to keep anal retentive notes.


It must be nice to begin R&D at the end of the research/development/production cycle.

There's even a MilSpec Manual if it survives the drool. Having that thumb drive in hand you seriously doubt the dynamic duo? I'm all in! Shirt off my back and all.

I have the utmost confidence the dynamic duo can break the size limitation, and possibly even increase firing time. Keeping mind the GA is the most experienced, educated, and technologically advanced conglomerate in the galaxy. And someone else has done most of the work and put in the endless hours on this one. Also consider that this is most likely the first iteration of the tech by the MA. Who knows what flavor of breakthroughs are waiting up ahead. Much like "In the beginning there was the sperm cell that fertilized Apollo. And its offspring." It's the Share Effect.

Share Effect:
The share effect is all of the extra fun we eventually went on to discover as kids when we finally mixed our stuff with with the other kid's.


Scenario: "Hey these things fire for three seconds before they slag. But look HOW and WHY they slag. Remember that discovery we had last month waiting for a meaning? I do believe we've already solved the problem they are having. We can make this thing better!

"How much better?"

"We can make it fire longer, plus make it small enough to fire from existing tubes!"

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: ?
Post by Jonathan_S   » Fri Sep 17, 2021 4:12 pm

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Their firing time seems kind of irrelevant in a missile combat situation. Those things are usually closing at better than 80% the speed of light. Heck it’ll fly through the entire formation end well under one second, so make it burn longer than 3 seconds, doesn’t matter. As is is there wouldn’t be anything in range after 3 seconds.

I also think you’re overestimating their effect on anything protected by an active sidewall; so far we’ve only seen the graser torps hit poorly armored objects that lacked sidewall protection. Expecting to one shot kill an SD with a single CL graser seems optimistic; no mater how close it fires from.

But I lack faith than even our resident tech wizards can take an energy weapon mount that’s been roughly the same size for centuries and apply the 80-90% shrink Ray you’d need to even start thinking about squeezing it into an MDM.
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