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What happens to all that debris?

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Re: What happens to all that debris?
Post by Jonathan_S   » Wed Nov 24, 2021 8:22 pm

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cthia wrote:I am none too sure of that. Recall scenes when forces hyper into a system. It would take a long time before the blood-red icons of enemy ships to change to the color of friendlies.

Because, before the days of FTL equipped system recon nets you had to wait for the lightspeed emissions to reach you before you could tell anything but approximate tonnage (which you can get FTL by looking at their wedge)

The lightspeed signals you'd need to tell if a BC was friend or foe travel more slowly and could take 10 minutes to reach you, even if the ships emerged at the closest point on the hyper limit to the system defense command.

But that delay on recognizing newly hypered in ships doesn't matter for this scenario.

Because:
1) The tonnage of a Sultan-class BC is nearly 3 times that of a Star Knight. So they're trivial to tell apart simply by the approximate tonnage you can see via the FTL emissions of their wedges. White Haven knew which was which, and their course, speed, and acceleration all via FTL looks at their wedges.

2) The newly emerged ships don't have to wait to see lightspeed emissions from ships already in the system. What they do see is old, but even old emissions can let you classify a ship as friendly or not.

3) By the time the missiles get close enough to start thinking about engaging the lightspeed lag between them and the potential targets is down to a few seconds or less. So they've got recent lightspeed emissions to look at and plenty of time to check those against targeting profiles.
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Re: What happens to all that debris?
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Thu Nov 25, 2021 2:21 pm

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Jonathan_S wrote:2) The newly emerged ships don't have to wait to see lightspeed emissions from ships already in the system. What they do see is old, but even old emissions can let you classify a ship as friendly or not.


This is of course for passive detection. Active radar, on the other hand, would take long, but if White Haven had lit up the Thunder of God with targetting radar and waited for the returns to fire, even the inexperienced Masadans would have noticed.

Active targetting radar is the universal signal for "prepare yourself, let's do battle."
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Re: What happens to all that debris?
Post by Loren Pechtel   » Fri Nov 26, 2021 10:35 pm

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:
Loren Pechtel wrote:And how are you packing them like sardines? You have something that can place them like that without disturbing the ships nearby?? Your reaction jets are going to toss the nearby ships around.


Why would you use jets?

Just use a tug with an overpowered impeller. Those things can move 9-million-tonne freighters. Moving a 7-million tonne SD is easy-peasy.


And smash everything else with it's wedge in the process.
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Re: What happens to all that debris?
Post by Loren Pechtel   » Fri Nov 26, 2021 10:49 pm

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cthia wrote:The LDs probably will not be broadcasting any transponder or any other signal that with distinguish them from the enemy. So, if g-torps don't have a way to distinguish an ally, then an ally might get acquired.


No--a g-torp should have no problem telling the difference between a spider-drive ship and a wedge-drive ship.
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Re: What happens to all that debris?
Post by Loren Pechtel   » Fri Nov 26, 2021 10:52 pm

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:In the case of White Haven and BatCruRun 17 coming to Honor's help, Honor's ship had IFF running. The missiles wouldn't attack Fearless. I'm actually more surprised that they managed to get into range of Thunder of God to attack in the first place. Those missiles were flying ballistically, they wouldn't be able to close with the battlecruiser if it weren't where White Haven expected it to be.


It was specifically noted that the idiots on Thunder of God weren't doing the standard practice of evasive maneuvers. A ballistic shot requires predicting the target's location within the accuracy of the warhead range--Honorverse tracking is good enough for that if the target doesn't zig.
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Re: What happens to all that debris?
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Sun Nov 28, 2021 3:33 pm

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Loren Pechtel wrote:
ThinksMarkedly wrote:Just use a tug with an overpowered impeller. Those things can move 9-million-tonne freighters. Moving a 7-million tonne SD is easy-peasy.


And smash everything else with it's wedge in the process.


Wedge and tractor. Tugs can move ships close to space stations, building slips and other "fragile" infrastructure. So they must have a way of moving those ships without getting so close that their own wedge would destroy the installation in question.

If they can do that, they can do the same to a moon.
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Re: What happens to all that debris?
Post by cthia   » Fri Jan 21, 2022 9:19 am

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I have a question that has been nagging at me. I think it is perfect for this thread, especially since it also gives me a chance to revisit some lingering concerns that are also still nagging at me.

First.

cthia wrote:"What on Earth" happens to all the debris caused by space battles? There must be countless tons of debris emanating from the wreckage of warships, torpedoes, probes, and... who knows what else? What happens to it all? This stuff is dangerous. Yachts, busses, and smaller ships should be vulnerable too. Crew working in space must account for many casualties. And what about pieces that eventually make it inside the local planet's atmosphere? Atmosphere breathers should be downed much too frequently to simply brush aside, pardon the pun.


Jonathan_S wrote:Some of it is heading out of the system at well over escape velocity; so isn't likely to be problem.
Some of it would have to get cleaned up.

The good news is that in the honorverse, thanks to impeller powered ships, delta-V is almost free so you don't have the problem we've got today where the cost to play garbage collector is simply impossibly high. (Plus for stuff you don't care to recover you don't need to worry about matching velocities and capturing it. You can just stick a wedge or sidewall into it's path and let it harmlessly vaporize itself. When a larger freighter's wedge can cover an area 90,000 km^2; and harmlessly rid it of any debris garbage cleaning isn't the headache it is today.

Also even the structural steel of freighters seems to be tougher than the armor on WWII - and odds are even any debris moving fast enough to punch through is going to spall itself over a giant cargo hold rather than hitting anything vital. They're a far larger target than any of today's spacecraft - but they're also far tougher and have their critical areas far more separated. As for hitting a warship's hull armor... And at least while underway a warship uses its sensor to look for debris or micrometiorites that are too large for its rad shields to handle and blasts them with its chase PDLCs. (Or now for modern ships might throw up a buckler wall instead)

So it's a problem, but most inhabited systems worth fighting over will have enough impeller powered ships / small craft left after the fight to sweep the most dangerous debris. It's just one of those boring routine, but important, jobs that haven't had reason to clutter up the books.


cthia wrote:At any rate, what about the battles where there won't be a chance at cleanup for a while, like Cerberus? It would be some time before trash collectors can pick up the garbage Honor left, indeed before they arrive in system and even see any garbage. Poor souls left on planet?
Jonathan_S wrote:Honor's ships could have swept the worst of it before they left.

This bothers me a lot. Why would a combatant even worry about trash collecting in someone else's system. It is a nice gesture, I suppose, or a crazy one. I mean, all is fair in love and war. Actually, I cannot believe that freighters don't intentionally dump huge chunks of garbage in a system during war. Like homemade debris fields. I know that a ship uses rad shields for smaller debris. And for larger debris PDLCs. However, can a warship see what it is hypering into? I know Honor was able to sit in hyper waiting for the other shoe to drop because her spider senses were tingling. Which means that you can see other ships in n-space from hyper. But does that also imply that you can see debris as well? You should be able to, else what is preventing ships from translating right into asteroid fields.

Consider that in one book the debris fields had to be marked with buoys so they wouldn't lose site of them in order to retrieve lifepods. Even though some of them may or may not have been broadcasting with beacons.

About killing large debris with PDLCs. If a ship in hyper cannot detect debris fields that shouldn't be there - and since downward translations cause a significant moment of a lack of concentration - the process should be automated. But what if you hyper right on top of a very large chunk of junk? Will the sensors always have time to discern between firing on junk or a disabled Yacht?

Which brings me to my new concern. If ships in hyper can see what is in n-space, but certainly ships in n-space cannot see into hyper. What prevents ships in n-space from hypering right into oncoming traffic? "Hard a port!"

Pardon the questions from the back of the class.

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: What happens to all that debris?
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Fri Jan 21, 2022 5:19 pm

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cthia wrote:This bothers me a lot. Why would a combatant even worry about trash collecting in someone else's system. It is a nice gesture, I suppose, or a crazy one. I mean, all is fair in love and war.


Whoever remains in possession of the system after a battle is responsible for the security and safety of the civilian population and that includes traffic lanes. If nothing else, your own side is probably sending auxiliary ships after the battle and they'll thank you for there not being navigational hazards in their way. Later, the auxiliaries will be followed by civilian shipping.

If you've just taken possession of a system, there's something in it you want. Wrecking it is not usually in your interest.

Actually, I cannot believe that freighters don't intentionally dump huge chunks of garbage in a system during war. Like homemade debris fields. I know that a ship uses rad shields for smaller debris. And for larger debris PDLCs. However, can a warship see what it is hypering into? I know Honor was able to sit in hyper waiting for the other shoe to drop because her spider senses were tingling.


Civilian freighters doing that would be fined and their operators liable for prosecution under civilian laws of the host system. The ship could get impounded if the littering was serious. A civilian wouldn't want to do that.

A military operation might want to do that, but throwing debris in the path of civilian ships is the next best thing to directly attacking civilians. Even commerce raiding is not supposed to shoot first and ask questions later: a civilian ship of the opposing polity should be offered the opportunity to surrender first and their civilian crew should get the opportunity to be returned home.

Which means that you can see other ships in n-space from hyper. But does that also imply that you can see debris as well? You should be able to, else what is preventing ships from translating right into asteroid fields.


No, you can't do that. In any band or n-space, you can only see that band.

About killing large debris with PDLCs. If a ship in hyper cannot detect debris fields that shouldn't be there - and since downward translations cause a significant moment of a lack of concentration - the process should be automated. But what if you hyper right on top of a very large chunk of junk? Will the sensors always have time to discern between firing on junk or a disabled Yacht?


The chance of hypering right on top of a debris field is literally astronomical.

Civilian vessels, especially merchants, don't translate exactly on the hyperlimit. Their navigation isn't that good. Warships and probably some civilian fast couriers will try to translate at the hyperlimit on the least-time course to their destination. That's the only location where a translation could be predicted. But a warship would not do that on an enemy system, because it's predictable (unless you're thumbing your nose at them, like Honor did in Galton). They'd do only where the destination is known to be safe, which means your friendlies have cleared it of possible debris.

It could be that you're just unlucky, that you hypered in right after an accident and therefore the other ship registers as debris. That doesn't mean your computers will immediately register it as a hazard and shoot at it. For one thing, as you said, you've just lost 92% of your velocity, so the debris wouldn't be moving at you.

In fact, I'd be more concerned about non-debris traffic. How do you know you're not hypering in right on top of a ship that is about to leave? I'd guess that there's an SOP for every ship to just add a bit of randomisation to the arrival. 1000 or even 10,000 km are not going to significantly delay your journey. That's about a minute more, at 500 gravities.
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Re: What happens to all that debris?
Post by tlb   » Fri Jan 21, 2022 6:00 pm

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cthia wrote:Which brings me to my new concern. If ships in hyper can see what is in n-space, but certainly ships in n-space cannot see into hyper. What prevents ships in n-space from hypering right into oncoming traffic?

What makes you think that ships in hyperspace can see into normal space? I believe that I may have seen suggestions that ships in hyperspace can see the disturbance caused by objects that create hyper-limits (because you need to transit outside of the hyper-limit); but I do not recall seeing a suggestion that anything smaller than that can be seen.
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Re: What happens to all that debris?
Post by cthia   » Fri Jan 21, 2022 7:54 pm

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tlb wrote:
cthia wrote:Which brings me to my new concern. If ships in hyper can see what is in n-space, but certainly ships in n-space cannot see into hyper. What prevents ships in n-space from hypering right into oncoming traffic?

What makes you think that ships in hyperspace can see into normal space? I believe that I may have seen suggestions that ships in hyperspace can see the disturbance caused by objects that create hyper-limits (because you need to transit outside of the hyper-limit); but I do not recall seeing a suggestion that anything smaller than that can be seen.

Well, I wasn't sure. Because a lot of things didn't add up. I did say nagging me?

At any rate, in AAC, Honor and Tourville were trying to out wait each other before hypering in. I got the impression that Honor was looking at the melee as it was happening. She could see the entire tactics play out, which made her say something like "This doesn't make sense. There has to be another shoe that is going to drop." And she was right. If she had hypered in she would have been mousetrapped. How could she see that much detail?

Plus! How could she order Theophile Kgari(?) to put her so many kilometers from a specific Fleet?

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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