?

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Re: ?
by kzt » Sun Sep 19, 2021 4:12 pm
kzt Fleet Admiral Posts: 11351 Joined: Sun Jan 10, 2010 8:18 pm Location: Albuquerque, NM	Well, we know that graser torps can maneuver and track while firing, as they did that when destroying the stations.
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Re: ?

by kzt » Sun Sep 19, 2021 4:12 pm

kzt
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Well, we know that graser torps can maneuver and track while firing, as they did that when destroying the stations.

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Re: ?
by ThinksMarkedly » Sun Sep 19, 2021 8:06 pm
ThinksMarkedly Fleet Admiral Posts: 4141 Joined: Sat Aug 17, 2019 11:39 am	The problem here is the trade-off. Given absolutely no other trade-off, obviously a longer firing graser is better. The longer you can fire, the further out you can decide to fire. And you don't have to fire earlier if you don't want to. But there are trade-offs. Nothing is free. Suppose to make a missile fire a full half a second implies only throwing 10% as many missiles, because they're far bulkier (twice as big in all linear direction = 8x the volume; add in packing and it's easy to say 10% throw ratio). Is it worth it? Because with 10% as many missiles, the defensive fire becomes more deadly. It'll likely still kill as many incoming missiles in absolute terms, which means in relative terms it'll be far more devastating. Is that worth it? The moment a missile fires, it declares itself as a warhead, not a pen-aid or ECM. It becomes the target for all defensive fire that is yet uncommitted. Moreover, before the moment it fires, it must drop its wedge and immolate itself, so it has no acceleration. It's locked into a single ballistic course, which makes it easier to pick for defences. And I also don't buy it could perform the turns that Jonathan_S calculated. It's likely lost that ability the moment it began firing and is now subject to Newton's First Law. So we have to look into those trade-offs. I also don't buy the problem that the gtorps were invented to solve apply to the GA at all. The gtorps existed to be stealthy warheads and thus to produce maximum damage from as few weapons as possible. The GA is not concerned with either stealth when engaged in battle, nor in weapons numbers. In fact, the more missiles and more noise, the better.
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Re: ?

by ThinksMarkedly » Sun Sep 19, 2021 8:06 pm

ThinksMarkedly
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The problem here is the trade-off. Given absolutely no other trade-off, obviously a longer firing graser is better. The longer you can fire, the further out you can decide to fire. And you don't have to fire earlier if you don't want to.

But there are trade-offs. Nothing is free.

Suppose to make a missile fire a full half a second implies only throwing 10% as many missiles, because they're far bulkier (twice as big in all linear direction = 8x the volume; add in packing and it's easy to say 10% throw ratio). Is it worth it? Because with 10% as many missiles, the defensive fire becomes more deadly. It'll likely still kill as many incoming missiles in absolute terms, which means in relative terms it'll be far more devastating.

Is that worth it? The moment a missile fires, it declares itself as a warhead, not a pen-aid or ECM. It becomes the target for all defensive fire that is yet uncommitted. Moreover, before the moment it fires, it must drop its wedge and immolate itself, so it has no acceleration. It's locked into a single ballistic course, which makes it easier to pick for defences.

And I also don't buy it could perform the turns that Jonathan_S calculated. It's likely lost that ability the moment it began firing and is now subject to Newton's First Law.

So we have to look into those trade-offs.

I also don't buy the problem that the gtorps were invented to solve apply to the GA at all. The gtorps existed to be stealthy warheads and thus to produce maximum damage from as few weapons as possible. The GA is not concerned with either stealth when engaged in battle, nor in weapons numbers. In fact, the more missiles and more noise, the better.

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Re: ?
by Jonathan_S » Sun Sep 19, 2021 10:46 pm
Jonathan_S Fleet Admiral Posts: 8300 Joined: Fri Jun 24, 2011 2:01 pm Location: Virginia, USA	kzt wrote:Well, we know that graser torps can maneuver and track while firing, as they did that when destroying the stations. Sure, but the graser torps don't appear to have been screaming in at over (possibly well over) half the speed of light. A relatively slow closure rate gives you lots of time to track your targets, plus a low rate of angular change in their bearing, making it pretty easy to keep your beam where you want it. But take that same warhead and somehow, impossibly, stick it on a high performance missile, like cthia proposed, and I think things get more complicated. That stripped down CL laser is damned devastating on slow moving, long endurance, surprise weapons like a graser torp. But there are trade-offs for it, and trade-off that mean it looks to me to be a bad fit on a non-stealthily mass fire weapon usually fired from a relatively non-stealthy platform. But as long as conventional impeller ships are the backbone of a navy I don't see the tradeoffs of the graser torp justifying a wholesale replacement of MDMs with graser torps; even once everybody has the tech for them. So I suspect this stripped down self-destructing graser will remain a niche warhead / capability for quite some time (Though once the tech's out there I suspect at least some navies will start carrying a few graser torps, maybe in somewhat enlarged boat bays, to have them on hand for the specific situations where they do excel.)
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Re: ?

by Jonathan_S » Sun Sep 19, 2021 10:46 pm

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kzt wrote:Well, we know that graser torps can maneuver and track while firing, as they did that when destroying the stations.

Sure, but the graser torps don't appear to have been screaming in at over (possibly well over) half the speed of light.

A relatively slow closure rate gives you lots of time to track your targets, plus a low rate of angular change in their bearing, making it pretty easy to keep your beam where you want it. But take that same warhead and somehow, impossibly, stick it on a high performance missile, like cthia proposed, and I think things get more complicated.

That stripped down CL laser is damned devastating on slow moving, long endurance, surprise weapons like a graser torp. But there are trade-offs for it, and trade-off that mean it looks to me to be a bad fit on a non-stealthily mass fire weapon usually fired from a relatively non-stealthy platform.

But as long as conventional impeller ships are the backbone of a navy I don't see the tradeoffs of the graser torp justifying a wholesale replacement of MDMs with graser torps; even once everybody has the tech for them. So I suspect this stripped down self-destructing graser will remain a niche warhead / capability for quite some time (Though once the tech's out there I suspect at least some navies will start carrying a few graser torps, maybe in somewhat enlarged boat bays, to have them on hand for the specific situations where they do excel.)

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Re: ?
by cthia » Sun Sep 19, 2021 11:09 pm
cthia Fleet Admiral Posts: 14951 Joined: Thu Jan 23, 2014 1:10 pm	I'd like to thank everyone for the numbers. KZT helped my fogged brain about the closing velocity of missiles. I was not certain I remembered it being 250,000 km/sec which I originally based my calculations on. Thanks kzt. Theemile wrote: snip And as KZT pointed out, at likely closing velocities, you may be able to fire from 750,000 km out (timed to allow a 3 sec beam), but no graser can defeat a sidewall over 400-500,000 km. and small grasers need to get closer to get through heavier sidewalls. Snip Are we certain that will remain a reality? No mere graser can fire for 3-seconds. No mere graser has been able to sustain fire, period. GA grasers shoot their wad in a few microseconds then die. Are we certain that sustained firing even from 500,000 km won't be effective? At any rate, continuously bombarding the sidewalls with directed energy for three million times longer than normal and in a Doppler Effect of directed energy I'm betting will fry any sidewall. And if a sidewall has been weakened - as in it is faltering - then it is done. ****** * Death Blossom mode appears to have some missile defense possibilities as well. These things going into DB mode in the midst of a missile launch may perform a lot better than barricade without the need for the "hinky geometry." That trick could already be a part of the LD's repertoire, which should perform even better with its low accel. Plus the fact that Manty missiles fly clumped together. 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: ?

by cthia » Sun Sep 19, 2021 11:09 pm

cthia
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I'd like to thank everyone for the numbers. KZT helped my fogged brain about the closing velocity of missiles. I was not certain I remembered it being 250,000 km/sec which I originally based my calculations on. Thanks kzt.

Theemile wrote: snip

And as KZT pointed out, at likely closing velocities, you may be able to fire from 750,000 km out (timed to allow a 3 sec beam), but no graser can defeat a sidewall over 400-500,000 km. and small grasers need to get closer to get through heavier sidewalls.

Snip

Are we certain that will remain a reality? No mere graser can fire for 3-seconds. No mere graser has been able to sustain fire, period. GA grasers shoot their wad in a few microseconds then die. Are we certain that sustained firing even from 500,000 km won't be effective?

At any rate, continuously bombarding the sidewalls with directed energy for three million times longer than normal and in a Doppler Effect of directed energy I'm betting will fry any sidewall. And if a sidewall has been weakened - as in it is faltering - then it is done.

****** *

Death Blossom mode appears to have some missile defense possibilities as well. These things going into DB mode in the midst of a missile launch may perform a lot better than barricade without the need for the "hinky geometry." That trick could already be a part of the LD's repertoire, which should perform even better with its low accel. Plus the fact that Manty missiles fly clumped together.

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: ?
by munroburton » Mon Sep 20, 2021 9:04 am
munroburton Admiral Posts: 2368 Joined: Sat Jun 15, 2013 10:16 am Location: Scotland	cthia wrote:Are we certain that will remain a reality? No mere graser can fire for 3-seconds. No mere graser has been able to sustain fire, period. GA grasers shoot their wad in a few microseconds then die. Are we certain that sustained firing even from 500,000 km won't be effective? Any graser can overfire - and be destroyed in the process: The Shadow of Saganami - prologue wrote:And well they should have been surprised, a fragment of his brain thought grimly. His bleeding ship was headed directly into the teeth of the overwhelming enemy task force, now, not away, and the heavy spinal grasers of her forward chase armament locked onto a Mars-class heavy cruiser. They opened fire. The range was long for any energy weapon, even the massive chasers, but the Peep had strayed ahead of her consorts and the more massive battlecruisers as she raced eagerly for the kill, and Defiant's gunnery had always been good. Her target staggered as the deadly blast of energy, dozens of times more powerful than even a ship of the wall's laser heads, sledgehammered into her. It was as if she had run into a rock in space. The chasers went to rapid, continuous fire, sucking every erg Engineering and their own capacitor rings could feed them. Audible warning alarms added their shrillness to the cacophony of damage signals, combat chatter, and beeping priority signals as the grasers overheated catastrophically, but there was no point cutting back, and he knew it. So did the grasers' on-mount crews. They didn't even try to reduce power. They simply threw everything they had, for as long as they had it, and their target exploded into wreckage, shattering into jagged splinters, life pods, and vac-suited bodies. The tide of destruction swept aft, tearing her apart frame by frame, and then she vanished in a sun-bright fireball . . . two seconds before Chaser Two's abused circuitry exploded. As for the effects of battlecruiser-grade grasers at half a million klicks: Short, Victorious War - ch14 wrote:"Contact! Enemy vessel bearing oh-five-three, oh-oh-six, range five-seven-four thousand kilometers!" Pierre jerked in his command chair and twisted toward his ops officer's sudden, unanticipated report. They should be eleven light-minutes from their target! What the hell was the woman talking about?! "Contact confirmed!" Selim's tac officer called out, and then— "Oh, my God! It's a dreadnought!" Disbelief froze the admiral's mind. It couldn't be—not way the hell out here! But he was already turning back to his own display, and his heart lurched as it showed him CIC's confirming identification. "Put us back into hyper!" "We can't translate for another eight minutes, Sir," Selim's white-faced captain said. "The generators are still cycling." Pierre stared at the captain, and his mind whirled like a ground-looping air car. The man's words seemed to take forever to register, while his ships closed with the enemy at over forty thousand kilometers per second, and the admiral swallowed around an icy lump of panic. They were dead. They were all dead, unless, just possibly, that dreadnought's crew was as shocked as he was. He had a clear shot down the front of her wedge if he could get his ships around to clear their broadsides, and they couldn't possibly have been expecting him to appear in their face. If they took long enough reacting, long enough getting to battle stations— "Hard a port!" he barked. "All batteries, fire as you bear!" * * * "Sweet Jesus, they're Peeps!" Bellerophon's junior tactical officer whispered. The Book didn't like enemy reports like that, but Lieutenant Commander Avshari felt no inclination to criticize. After all, The Book didn't envision this lunatic sort of situation, either. The lieutenant commander watched his status boards' green lights turn amber and red and wished to hell the Captain would get here. Or the Exec. Or anybody senior to him, because he didn't have a clue and he knew it. This was supposed to be a milk run, a good opportunity for junior watch keepers to get a little bridge time on their logs, but he was a communications officer, for God's sake—and one whose Academy tactical scores had been a disaster, to boot! What the hell was he supposed to do next? "Sidewalls active! Starboard energy batteries closed up on computer override, Sir!" the youthful lieutenant at Tactical said, and Avshari nodded in relief. That decided which way to turn, anyway. "Bring us hard to port, Helm." "Aye, aye, Sir. Coming hard to port." The dreadnought began her turn, and fresh alarms whooped even as she swung. "Incoming fire!" the tac officer snapped, and lasers and grasers ripped at Bellerophon's suddenly interposed sidewall. Most of them achieved absolutely nothing as the sidewall bent and degraded them, but red lights bloomed on Avshari's damage control display as half a dozen minor hits cratered her massive armor, and this time he knew exactly what to do. Out of about 50 shots, only six got through to cause minor damage. The same does not apply in reverse, though: HMS Bellerophon's broadside opened fire, and enough energy to shatter a small moon flashed through the "gunports" in her starboard sidewall. A quarter-second later, Battlecruiser Divisions 141 and 142 of the People's Navy ceased to exist. What really underlines the asymmetry of that whole exchange is, Bellerophon has 33 energy mounts in a broadside. That works out at just eight shots per enemy battlecruiser. Cruiser grasers strapped to torpedoes/missiles are initially going to represent an improvement of "dozens of times" over a capital laserhead - not thousands. To get to where you want them to be(the same result as a grav lance+energy torpedo armananent at range?), the graser torpedo/missile would probably have to be as large as a destroyer or even a cruiser, one built around a superdreadnought's spinal graser. After all, a Shrike is wrapped around a BC's graser and that's about a quarter the diameter of a SD's. It seems like a rather large investment to make for a purely one-shot weapon, to say nothing of the logistics involved in moving such weapons around in strategic volumes.
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Re: ?

by munroburton » Mon Sep 20, 2021 9:04 am

munroburton
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cthia wrote:Are we certain that will remain a reality? No mere graser can fire for 3-seconds. No mere graser has been able to sustain fire, period. GA grasers shoot their wad in a few microseconds then die. Are we certain that sustained firing even from 500,000 km won't be effective?

Any graser can overfire - and be destroyed in the process:

The Shadow of Saganami - prologue wrote:And well they should have been surprised, a fragment of his brain thought grimly. His bleeding ship was headed directly into the teeth of the overwhelming enemy task force, now, not away, and the heavy spinal grasers of her forward chase armament locked onto a Mars-class heavy cruiser.

They opened fire. The range was long for any energy weapon, even the massive chasers, but the Peep had strayed ahead of her consorts and the more massive battlecruisers as she raced eagerly for the kill, and Defiant's gunnery had always been good. Her target staggered as the deadly blast of energy, dozens of times more powerful than even a ship of the wall's laser heads, sledgehammered into her. It was as if she had run into a rock in space. The chasers went to rapid, continuous fire, sucking every erg Engineering and their own capacitor rings could feed them. Audible warning alarms added their shrillness to the cacophony of damage signals, combat chatter, and beeping priority signals as the grasers overheated catastrophically, but there was no point cutting back, and he knew it.

So did the grasers' on-mount crews. They didn't even try to reduce power. They simply threw everything they had, for as long as they had it, and their target exploded into wreckage, shattering into jagged splinters, life pods, and vac-suited bodies. The tide of destruction swept aft, tearing her apart frame by frame, and then she vanished in a sun-bright fireball . . . two seconds before Chaser Two's abused circuitry exploded.

As for the effects of battlecruiser-grade grasers at half a million klicks:

Short, Victorious War - ch14 wrote:"Contact! Enemy vessel bearing oh-five-three, oh-oh-six, range five-seven-four thousand kilometers!"

Pierre jerked in his command chair and twisted toward his ops officer's sudden, unanticipated report. They should be eleven light-minutes from their target! What the hell was the woman talking about?!

"Contact confirmed!" Selim's tac officer called out, and then— "Oh, my God! It's a dreadnought!"

Disbelief froze the admiral's mind. It couldn't be—not way the hell out here! But he was already turning back to his own display, and his heart lurched as it showed him CIC's confirming identification.

"Put us back into hyper!"

"We can't translate for another eight minutes, Sir," Selim's white-faced captain said. "The generators are still cycling."

Pierre stared at the captain, and his mind whirled like a ground-looping air car. The man's words seemed to take forever to register, while his ships closed with the enemy at over forty thousand kilometers per second, and the admiral swallowed around an icy lump of panic. They were dead. They were all dead, unless, just possibly, that dreadnought's crew was as shocked as he was. He had a clear shot down the front of her wedge if he could get his ships around to clear their broadsides, and they couldn't possibly have been expecting him to appear in their face. If they took long enough reacting, long enough getting to battle stations—

"Hard a port!" he barked. "All batteries, fire as you bear!"
* * *

"Sweet Jesus, they're Peeps!" Bellerophon's junior tactical officer whispered. The Book didn't like enemy reports like that, but Lieutenant Commander Avshari felt no inclination to criticize. After all, The Book didn't envision this lunatic sort of situation, either.

The lieutenant commander watched his status boards' green lights turn amber and red and wished to hell the Captain would get here. Or the Exec. Or anybody senior to him, because he didn't have a clue and he knew it. This was supposed to be a milk run, a good opportunity for junior watch keepers to get a little bridge time on their logs, but he was a communications officer, for God's sake—and one whose Academy tactical scores had been a disaster, to boot! What the hell was he supposed to do next?

"Sidewalls active! Starboard energy batteries closed up on computer override, Sir!" the youthful lieutenant at Tactical said, and Avshari nodded in relief. That decided which way to turn, anyway.

"Bring us hard to port, Helm."

"Aye, aye, Sir. Coming hard to port."

The dreadnought began her turn, and fresh alarms whooped even as she swung.

"Incoming fire!" the tac officer snapped, and lasers and grasers ripped at Bellerophon's suddenly interposed sidewall. Most of them achieved absolutely nothing as the sidewall bent and degraded them, but red lights bloomed on Avshari's damage control display as half a dozen minor hits cratered her massive armor, and this time he knew exactly what to do.

Out of about 50 shots, only six got through to cause minor damage. The same does not apply in reverse, though:

HMS Bellerophon's broadside opened fire, and enough energy to shatter a small moon flashed through the "gunports" in her starboard sidewall.

A quarter-second later, Battlecruiser Divisions 141 and 142 of the People's Navy ceased to exist.

What really underlines the asymmetry of that whole exchange is, Bellerophon has 33 energy mounts in a broadside. That works out at just eight shots per enemy battlecruiser.

Cruiser grasers strapped to torpedoes/missiles are initially going to represent an improvement of "dozens of times" over a capital laserhead - not thousands.

To get to where you want them to be(the same result as a grav lance+energy torpedo armananent at range?), the graser torpedo/missile would probably have to be as large as a destroyer or even a cruiser, one built around a superdreadnought's spinal graser. After all, a Shrike is wrapped around a BC's graser and that's about a quarter the diameter of a SD's.

It seems like a rather large investment to make for a purely one-shot weapon, to say nothing of the logistics involved in moving such weapons around in strategic volumes.

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Re: ?
by Jonathan_S » Mon Sep 20, 2021 11:44 am
Jonathan_S Fleet Admiral Posts: 8300 Joined: Fri Jun 24, 2011 2:01 pm Location: Virginia, USA	munroburton wrote:To get to where you want them to be(the same result as a grav lance+energy torpedo armananent at range?), the graser torpedo/missile would probably have to be as large as a destroyer or even a cruiser, one built around a superdreadnought's spinal graser. After all, a Shrike is wrapped around a BC's graser and that's about a quarter the diameter of a SD's. And the graser torp's weapon is specifically noted as being less powerful than the one a Shrike carries. It's a light cruier's graser; not a BC's (and wouldn't have the improved grav lensing that makes the latest revisions of Shrike grasers even nastier). But even with those uprated grasers an entire wing of Shrikes can't be confident of killing an SD in a single firing pass. SDs are just so much inherently tougher, with their sidewalls and meters of armor, than the fragile targets we've seen graser torps hit to date.
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Re: ?

by Jonathan_S » Mon Sep 20, 2021 11:44 am

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munroburton wrote:To get to where you want them to be(the same result as a grav lance+energy torpedo armananent at range?), the graser torpedo/missile would probably have to be as large as a destroyer or even a cruiser, one built around a superdreadnought's spinal graser. After all, a Shrike is wrapped around a BC's graser and that's about a quarter the diameter of a SD's.

And the graser torp's weapon is specifically noted as being less powerful than the one a Shrike carries. It's a light cruier's graser; not a BC's (and wouldn't have the improved grav lensing that makes the latest revisions of Shrike grasers even nastier).

But even with those uprated grasers an entire wing of Shrikes can't be confident of killing an SD in a single firing pass. SDs are just so much inherently tougher, with their sidewalls and meters of armor, than the fragile targets we've seen graser torps hit to date.

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Re: ?
by cthia » Mon Sep 20, 2021 1:07 pm
cthia Fleet Admiral Posts: 14951 Joined: Thu Jan 23, 2014 1:10 pm	munroburton wrote: cthia wrote:Are we certain that will remain a reality? No mere graser can fire for 3-seconds. No mere graser has been able to sustain fire, period. GA grasers shoot their wad in a few microseconds then die. Are we certain that sustained firing even from 500,000 km won't be effective? Any graser can overfire - and be destroyed in the process: The Shadow of Saganami - prologue wrote:And well they should have been surprised, a fragment of his brain thought grimly. His bleeding ship was headed directly into the teeth of the overwhelming enemy task force, now, not away, and the heavy spinal grasers of her forward chase armament locked onto a Mars-class heavy cruiser. They opened fire. The range was long for any energy weapon, even the massive chasers, but the Peep had strayed ahead of her consorts and the more massive battlecruisers as she raced eagerly for the kill, and Defiant's gunnery had always been good. Her target staggered as the deadly blast of energy, dozens of times more powerful than even a ship of the wall's laser heads, sledgehammered into her. It was as if she had run into a rock in space. The chasers went to rapid, continuous fire, sucking every erg Engineering and their own capacitor rings could feed them. Audible warning alarms added their shrillness to the cacophony of damage signals, combat chatter, and beeping priority signals as the grasers overheated catastrophically, but there was no point cutting back, and he knew it. So did the grasers' on-mount crews. They didn't even try to reduce power. They simply threw everything they had, for as long as they had it, and their target exploded into wreckage, shattering into jagged splinters, life pods, and vac-suited bodies. The tide of destruction swept aft, tearing her apart frame by frame, and then she vanished in a sun-bright fireball . . . two seconds before Chaser Two's abused circuitry exploded. I appreciate the interesting textev, but I think it is somewhat incompatible with what we've been discussing, if I digested the passage correctly. It says "...rapid, continuous fire..." which isn't exactly the same thing as continuous "sustained" fire. For one thing, there will not be an added element of the Doppler Effect of delivered energy. Plus, you would have to consider the elapsed time between firings, which conceivably could be a full second. Half a second would be too significant to be compatible with the experience of what a g-torp delivers. BTW, Jonathan. I apologize for the confusion upstream about the GA pushing their graser to slagging. I specifically meant what munroburton includes here. My long posts and my inundated brain often get off track, and I miss it during edits. I was responding with the shoehorned CL graser supposition you posited upstream in mind. At any rate, I think I have the answer to that question, somewhat, with this post. As is, GA weapons cannot "sustain" fire. Can anyone get Jayne to whisper in your ear about the maximum rate of fire of GA energy weapons? . Last edited by cthia on Mon Sep 20, 2021 2:28 pm, edited 2 times 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: ?

by cthia » Mon Sep 20, 2021 1:07 pm

cthia
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Posts: 14951
Joined: Thu Jan 23, 2014 1:10 pm

munroburton wrote:
cthia wrote:Are we certain that will remain a reality? No mere graser can fire for 3-seconds. No mere graser has been able to sustain fire, period. GA grasers shoot their wad in a few microseconds then die. Are we certain that sustained firing even from 500,000 km won't be effective?

Any graser can overfire - and be destroyed in the process:
The Shadow of Saganami - prologue wrote:And well they should have been surprised, a fragment of his brain thought grimly. His bleeding ship was headed directly into the teeth of the overwhelming enemy task force, now, not away, and the heavy spinal grasers of her forward chase armament locked onto a Mars-class heavy cruiser.

They opened fire. The range was long for any energy weapon, even the massive chasers, but the Peep had strayed ahead of her consorts and the more massive battlecruisers as she raced eagerly for the kill, and Defiant's gunnery had always been good. Her target staggered as the deadly blast of energy, dozens of times more powerful than even a ship of the wall's laser heads, sledgehammered into her. It was as if she had run into a rock in space. The chasers went to rapid, continuous fire, sucking every erg Engineering and their own capacitor rings could feed them. Audible warning alarms added their shrillness to the cacophony of damage signals, combat chatter, and beeping priority signals as the grasers overheated catastrophically, but there was no point cutting back, and he knew it.

So did the grasers' on-mount crews. They didn't even try to reduce power. They simply threw everything they had, for as long as they had it, and their target exploded into wreckage, shattering into jagged splinters, life pods, and vac-suited bodies. The tide of destruction swept aft, tearing her apart frame by frame, and then she vanished in a sun-bright fireball . . . two seconds before Chaser Two's abused circuitry exploded.

I appreciate the interesting textev, but I think it is somewhat incompatible with what we've been discussing, if I digested the passage correctly.

It says "...rapid, continuous fire..." which isn't exactly the same thing as continuous "sustained" fire. For one thing, there will not be an added element of the Doppler Effect of delivered energy.

Plus, you would have to consider the elapsed time between firings, which conceivably could be a full second. Half a second would be too significant to be compatible with the experience of what a g-torp delivers.

BTW, Jonathan. I apologize for the confusion upstream about the GA pushing their graser to slagging. I specifically meant what munroburton includes here. My long posts and my inundated brain often get off track, and I miss it during edits. I was responding with the shoehorned CL graser supposition you posited upstream in mind. At any rate, I think I have the answer to that question, somewhat, with this post. As is, GA weapons cannot "sustain" fire.

Can anyone get Jayne to whisper in your ear about the maximum rate of fire of GA energy weapons?

.

Last edited by cthia on Mon Sep 20, 2021 2:28 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: ?
by kzt » Mon Sep 20, 2021 2:28 pm
kzt Fleet Admiral Posts: 11351 Joined: Sun Jan 10, 2010 8:18 pm Location: Albuquerque, NM	Jonathan_S wrote: But even with those uprated grasers an entire wing of Shrikes can't be confident of killing an SD in a single firing pass. SDs are just so much inherently tougher, with their sidewalls and meters of armor, than the fragile targets we've seen graser torps hit to date. The last time a wing of shrikes tried it's luck against SDs it ended 'poorly' for the shrikes. Like 2/3rds were killed and they did essentially no damage.
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Re: ?

by kzt » Mon Sep 20, 2021 2:28 pm

kzt
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Location: Albuquerque, NM

Jonathan_S wrote:
But even with those uprated grasers an entire wing of Shrikes can't be confident of killing an SD in a single firing pass. SDs are just so much inherently tougher, with their sidewalls and meters of armor, than the fragile targets we've seen graser torps hit to date.

The last time a wing of shrikes tried it's luck against SDs it ended 'poorly' for the shrikes. Like 2/3rds were killed and they did essentially no damage.

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Re: ?
by cthia » Mon Sep 20, 2021 3:31 pm
cthia Fleet Admiral Posts: 14951 Joined: Thu Jan 23, 2014 1:10 pm	kzt wrote: Jonathan_S wrote: But even with those uprated grasers an entire wing of Shrikes can't be confident of killing an SD in a single firing pass. SDs are just so much inherently tougher, with their sidewalls and meters of armor, than the fragile targets we've seen graser torps hit to date. The last time a wing of shrikes tried it's luck against SDs it ended 'poorly' for the shrikes. Like 2/3rds were killed and they did essentially no damage. Nether one of those Shrikes had a sustained fire, and I don't think Shrikes strike from a range as close as missiles. But consider if a Shrike could sustain fire for as long as a g-torp, and possibly concentrate that fire on one area of the sidewall. All of the combined energy of a coordinated Shrike attack is spread over the complete area of the sidewalls. Or at least a significant portion thereof. And again, there is the missing Doppler Effect. 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: ?

by cthia » Mon Sep 20, 2021 3:31 pm

cthia
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 14951
Joined: Thu Jan 23, 2014 1:10 pm

kzt wrote:
Jonathan_S wrote:
But even with those uprated grasers an entire wing of Shrikes can't be confident of killing an SD in a single firing pass. SDs are just so much inherently tougher, with their sidewalls and meters of armor, than the fragile targets we've seen graser torps hit to date.

The last time a wing of shrikes tried it's luck against SDs it ended 'poorly' for the shrikes. Like 2/3rds were killed and they did essentially no damage.

Nether one of those Shrikes had a sustained fire, and I don't think Shrikes strike from a range as close as missiles. But consider if a Shrike could sustain fire for as long as a g-torp, and possibly concentrate that fire on one area of the sidewall.

All of the combined energy of a coordinated Shrike attack is spread over the complete area of the sidewalls. Or at least a significant portion thereof.

And again, there is the missing Doppler Effect.

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Re: ?
by cthia » Tue Sep 21, 2021 7:38 am
cthia Fleet Admiral Posts: 14951 Joined: Thu Jan 23, 2014 1:10 pm	Why isn't it a given that the g-torp can be made somewhat smaller right out of the box simply by replacing the power source with the GA's smaller reactor? 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: ?

by cthia » Tue Sep 21, 2021 7:38 am

cthia
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 14951
Joined: Thu Jan 23, 2014 1:10 pm

Why isn't it a given that the g-torp can be made somewhat smaller right out of the box simply by replacing the power source with the GA's smaller reactor?

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