What happens to all that debris?

cthia wrote:And we know that S&R takes hours to perform. And you can't use wedges for that.

At least this will not be like the situation after the battle at Hypathia, where the search ships could not get to the sites for hours and the debris had already scattered wildly. Here the ships responsible for directing the search are on the scene and can grapple the largest pieces with tractor beams while the space suits and life pods are gathered. Nothing has had a chance to get too far away.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:And we know that S&R takes hours to perform. And you can't use wedges for that.

At least this will not be like the situation after the battle at Hypathia, where the search ships could not get to the sites for hours and the debris had already scattered wildly. Here the ships responsible for directing the search are on the scene and can grapple the largest pieces with tractor beams while the space suits and life pods are gathered. Nothing has had a chance to get too far away.

Indeed. Another difference than Hypatia is since not a lot of time had passed, none of the beacons should be inactive because of drained batteries. Even so, there could have been several people whose skinsuits or even lifepods were not broadcasting for whatever reason. So, it still would have been time consuming to ensure every last body was recovered. Also consider that a bonafide S&R team would have specific hardware to assist with the search.

Jonathan_S wrote:Well each of her ships has a "broom" that's between about 10,000 and 29,000 km^2 -- and she's got 10 of them (5 BC, 4 CA, and a CL). Even the little CL's wedge is 100 km long (and thus about 128th the diameter of the earth) so it won't take too many sweeps to clear out anything.

No. The problem is that the broom is moving the wrong way--the sweeping will be going in the short direction, not the long direction.

Besides, you can't wedge sweep at all until the search and rescue is complete as you would kill the people out there. No meaningful sweeping is happening until long after the debris is no longer a threat.

cthia wrote:Indeed. Another difference than Hypatia is since not a lot of time had passed, none of the beacons should be inactive because of drained batteries. Even so, there could have been several people whose skinsuits or even lifepods were not broadcasting for whatever reason. So, it still would have been time consuming to ensure every last body was recovered. Also consider that a bonafide S&R team would have specific hardware to assist with the search.

What wouldn't that "specific hardware" be standard equipment on any small craft assigned to a military ship? Since they would be on the scene of any battle?

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:Indeed. Another difference than Hypatia is since not a lot of time had passed, none of the beacons should be inactive because of drained batteries. Even so, there could have been several people whose skinsuits or even lifepods were not broadcasting for whatever reason. So, it still would have been time consuming to ensure every last body was recovered. Also consider that a bonafide S&R team would have specific hardware to assist with the search.

What wouldn't that "specific hardware" be standard equipment on any small craft assigned to a military ship? Since they would be on the scene of any battle?

IINM, at Hypatia a lot of problems were encountered. I think I recall a discussion about not having specific equipment which allows S&R to locate pods visually, with the naked eye? Or was it vice versa? There was a problem locating and identifying pods which they couldn't get close enough to. There was a discussion about going back to base to retrieve said hardware?

As a matter of fact, somewhere in this very thread several people suggested a tactic that is used today. A fluorescent coating that glows when a certain spectrum of light hits it. It could be used to find hikers, mountain climbers, avalanche victims, etc. At any rate, the normal S&R gear would be included as standard, but not necessarily any specific hardware. And since this is the Cerberrus system during the Peep's reign, who is to say how prepared they were.

cthia wrote:Indeed. Another difference than Hypatia is since not a lot of time had passed, none of the beacons should be inactive because of drained batteries. Even so, there could have been several people whose skinsuits or even lifepods were not broadcasting for whatever reason. So, it still would have been time consuming to ensure every last body was recovered. Also consider that a bonafide S&R team would have specific hardware to assist with the search.

tlb wrote:What wouldn't that "specific hardware" be standard equipment on any small craft assigned to a military ship? Since they would be on the scene of any battle?

cthia wrote:IINM, at Hypatia a lot of problems were encountered. I think I recall a discussion about not having specific equipment which allows S&R to locate pods visually, with the naked eye? Or was it vice versa? There was a problem locating and identifying pods which they couldn't get close enough to. There was a discussion about going back to base to retrieve said hardware?

As a matter of fact, somewhere in this very thread several people suggested a tactic that is used today. A fluorescent coating that glows when a certain spectrum of light hits it. It could be used to find hikers, mountain climbers, avalanche victims, etc. At any rate, the normal S&R gear would be included as standard, but not necessarily any specific hardware. And since this is the Cerberrus system during the Peep's reign, who is to say how prepared they were.

However the searching being done at Hypatia was by the planet's civilian craft, not military craft as in the Cerberus System. Also the wreckage was not scattered here.

I do not see that a coating, such as you describe, would have helped at Hypatia; since optical sighting is poor at the distances involved. Somewhat better would be a tuned resonant circuit, that would work the same as the passive RFID tags used in stores; so when hit by a specific frequency, it would broadcast an echo back without the need for batteries. The searching ship would send out a strong omnidirectional pulse at the proper frequency and then listen for responses, which could be homed on. There could be more than one per pod, to increase the chances of at least one working.

tlb wrote:However the searching being done at Hypatia was by the planet's civilian craft, not military craft as in the Cerberus System. Also the wreckage was not scattered here.

I can think of three problems at Hypatia, at least one of them pretty unique.

First, while the Hypatians and the GA remained in possession of the system, they had to wait for the dozen SLN BCs to exit the system. HMS Arngrim, which likely had the highest acceleration in the system by a wide margin, couldn't participate until those Sollies were well out of range. This might not be exclusive to Hypatia, but in general the forces holding the system usually have a much higher relative firepower to those withdrawing, than one destroyer versus a dozen battlecruisers.

Second the wreckage from HMS Phantom and its consorts were at high speed. Kotouč had the ships accelerate from the inner system towards the planet, then turn over and decelerate for the attack run. It wasn't a high fraction of light speed, but it wasn't negligible either. This is probably unusual, though not unique: attack runs usually don't happen at such a high relative velocity and the attacker doesn't usually get completely obliterated that it can't mount its own SAR. At Cerberus, the incoming ships were in a much later phase of deceleration relative to the planet and the primary.

Third and the definitely unique one, the situation of the civilians. Not only were they civilians, but they had been busy with the humanitarian catastrophe in the making caused by the Solarian task force. The local shuttles and their crews had been overworked, and were in need of refit and rest, respectively. And they were still engaged in shuttling people from the orbital habitats when the attack happened, so it's easy to think they had some civilians to drop off somewhere before they could engage in SAR.

I do not see that a coating, such as you describe, would have helped at Hypatia; since optical sighting is poor at the distances involved. Somewhat better would be a tuned resonant circuit, that would work the same as the passive RFID tags used in stores; so when hit by a specific frequency, it would broadcast an echo back without the need for batteries. The searching ship would send out a strong omnidirectional pulse at the proper frequency and then listen for responses, which could be homed on. There could be more than one per pod, to increase the chances of at least one working.

The problem of a passive transponder is that it can't retransmit more power than it receives from that omnidirectional pulse (there's a reason why RFID tags are short range). And you can't turn up the crank in the transmitter because of all the damaged parts and damaged pods, with people in ill-condition inside, because objective is to rescue them not fry them.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:The problem of a passive transponder is that it can't retransmit more power than it receives from that omnidirectional pulse (there's a reason why RFID tags are short range). And you can't turn up the crank in the transmitter because of all the damaged parts and damaged pods, with people in ill-condition inside, because objective is to rescue them not fry them.

There are electronic gadgets now that can actually power themselves using your home WiFi signal. So consider this: a longer signal from the search craft, that the passive transponder resonates to and stores power from; then when the input signal ends the transponder pulses back?

Those transponders would have to be inactive until the pods and suits were launched, otherwise they would negate stealth.

tlb wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:The problem of a passive transponder is that it can't retransmit more power than it receives from that omnidirectional pulse (there's a reason why RFID tags are short range). And you can't turn up the crank in the transmitter because of all the damaged parts and damaged pods, with people in ill-condition inside, because objective is to rescue them not fry them.

There are electronic gadgets now that can actually power themselves using your home WiFi signal. So consider this: a longer signal from the search craft, that the passive transponder resonates to and stores power from; then when the input signal ends the transponder pulses back?

A 2 ounce battery can run a 406 mHz beacon for 24-48 hours, this can be picked up by the GEOSTAR sats at 40,000 km altitude. A 5 kilo battery can run it for a lot longer. Alternately, radar target enhancers use very low power until they see a signal and then pump out a high power and distinct radar return. This can be seen at a lot longer range than the skin track of the vehicle.

Then you can user radar reflectors. These are passive and can be very light, you can build one that is inflatable and deployed automatically. This is quite small, you can certainly make one several meters in diameters. https://www.traconed.com/product/230477 ... d-approved

So I'd guess that an intact lifepod is not hard to find during the period where survival is viable. You get within a few million KM you can see it and track it.

Individual suits are going to be a lot harder to spot, and you'll need to be a lot closer. But if it has power you should be able to spot it at not less than the range that a 406 mHz ELB can be, which is about 40,000 km (geosynch).