Attacking Darius:

kzt wrote:Unknown. I would expect that is adjustable, but it has never been stated. It also appears that, unlike the wedge on a missile or recon drone, that this can be started and stopped multiple times. But we really know almost nothing about the details.

Right, but I'll go further and say that nothing that we have been said indicates that they couldn't vary the acceleration at will.

However, a time-on-target attack on a target that is accelerating faster than the weapons and doesn't have a predictable course is not possible.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:So even if those spiders halt their approach 5 light-hours out (orbit of Pluto) and wait for the best time, they have to predict the window of opportunity 11.5 hours in advance, so they can move in. The position of the target may change considerably in that time.

Well, home fleet going into orbit and shutting down their wedges is a pretty good sign 'this is a window of opportunity'. And they spend most of their time doing exactly that.

The unwillingness of the RMN to honor the threat that the spider poses has puzzled me for the last decade or so. The two options I see are:

Global Warming Option - Yeah, they talk about it and use it to extort funding from the government, but they know the spider is all bullshit. So they won't actually take any action to counter this horrible threat because it isn't.

Kuzak Option - Everyone in the RMN has taken up smoking crack.

I have no idea what is really going on.

kzt wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:So even if those spiders halt their approach 5 light-hours out (orbit of Pluto) and wait for the best time, they have to predict the window of opportunity 11.5 hours in advance, so they can move in. The position of the target may change considerably in that time.

Well, home fleet going into orbit and shutting down their wedges is a pretty good sign 'this is a window of opportunity'. And they spend most of their time doing exactly that.

The unwillingness of the RMN to honor the threat that the spider poses has puzzled me for the last decade or so. The two options I see are:

Global Warming Option - Yeah, they talk about it and use it to extort funding from the government, but they know the spider is all bullshit. So they won't actually take any action to counter this horrible threat because it isn't.

Kuzak Option - Everyone in the RMN has taken up smoking crack.

I have no idea what is really going on.

A massive Home Fleet sitting in orbit is exactly what I had in mind. If two or more Spiders launch from different bearings, I'd assume optimum destruction would come from a simultaneous time on target. Wolfpacks of yore didn't remain at the scene of the crime for good reason. Any other LD launching on the same target from farther away may not be able to wait to launch. I will also assume the Spiders are capable of the Wolpack tactic of mutual support. Which begs the question of whether they will employ some method of safe communication to coordinate fire even when running silent.

About the start stop ability. Wouldn't that increase detection when the drive stops and restarts?

The Kuzak Option.

cthia wrote:I have a question. Can the accel of torpedoes be selected for each launch, to effect a simulataneous time on target? Or do they have to haul flat out?

My guess is they'd be able to vary acceleration.

But even if they can't you can still do time on target; either using delayed drive start-up or simply by picking their flight paths correctly. Either would be trivial for any Honorverse fire control computer to do. (After all, they don't all have to take the shortest possible bath to the target and by adjusting how far each detours from their shortest path you can easily bring them to a given point at the same time).



Though if the target changes vector or speed they might inadvertently spoil your perfect time on target attack as they won't be where you planned and might be moving closer to some torps while further from others - and depending on target type might even have enough acceleration that a course change could make it impossible for some of your torps to achieve any intercept solution.

cthia wrote:Wolfpacks of yore didn't remain at the scene of the crime for good reason.

That'd be because any of their targets, including the slow SC convoys [8 knots or less], had a higher sustained speed than a submerged uboat and so simply left the wolfpack in their wake.

(And, fortunately for the uboats, until relatively late in the war the Allies didn't have enough escorts to leave some behind to keep trying to kill any uboats they'd left behind them. The escorts had to pretty quickly break off and race back to their position around said convoy to be ready to fend off the next uboat or wolfpack that tried its luck)

cthia wrote:I will also assume the Spiders are capable of the Wolpack tactic of mutual support. Which begs the question of whether they will employ some method of safe communication to coordinate fire even when running silent.

We have seen directional FTL communication, but that can still reveal location. The best way to communicate, which ought not to reveal location, is a tight beam laser. But even that can fail as we saw in chapter 27 of The Short Victorious War; where a fault in the beam gave away the existence of the Argus Net, that the Peeps wre using to monitor potential targets.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:I will also assume the Spiders are capable of the Wolpack tactic of mutual support. Which begs the question of whether they will employ some method of safe communication to coordinate fire even when running silent.

We have seen directional FTL communication, but that can still reveal location. The best way to communicate, which ought not to reveal location, is a tight beam laser. But even that can fail as we saw in chapter 27 of The Short Victorious War; where a fault in the beam gave away the existence of the Argus Net, that the Peeps wre using to monitor potential targets.

And we saw during Oyster Bay that the MAlign wasn't willing to risk attempts at long range communication between their various ships in-system. Instead they moved to pre-planned rendezvous spots to share their findings and coordinate futher.

Attempts to coordinate a dispersed wolfpack of LennyDets is all too likely to lead to some of the same problems that attempts to coordinated dispersed wolfpacks of uboats did historically. The comms were getting detected and even when they couldn't be decrypted the simple fact they were communicating meant that uboat locations could be plotted from many, many, times further range than any WWII sensor system could see a uboat (even a surfaced one)

The Sharks were able to coordinate attacks during Oyster Bay because they stuck together as much as possible (so, for example, all the ships hitting targets in Manticore-A orbit moved as a group to their weapons release points) and the various groups hitting targets around other planets (or out in the belt) didn't need to guarantee perfect synchronization. Given the element of surprise simply working to a common timetable was good enough -- they must have assumed that the risk that any one branch of the attack would be forced to delay (or move up) their timeline and partially spoil the surprise was lower than the risk of maintaining communications so everyone in the system could be alerted to and adjust to any change in timetable.

cthia wrote:A massive Home Fleet sitting in orbit is exactly what I had in mind.

Explain what possible reason the Home Fleet would have to stand down ALL ships with wedges down in a visible and known location. Please, give me one. Who's defending the star system meanwhile?

I can see ships rotating in and out of the Fleet formation for repairs and refit. That's SOP. Those ships that are in refit will indeed power down, either docked at a station's moorings or nearby. But we're talking about what, 5% of Home Fleet? And meanwhile, another equivalent 5% should have gone underway to take up position. Even in peacetime, there's no reason to stand down ALL your ships and this is not peace time.

The MAlign might as well wish Home Fleet sailed into the star.

I also forgot to account for the light lag. So if the MAN is waiting 5 light hours away, then they find out that the ships have shut down their wedges 5 hours later. Yes, wedges activation and deactivation is FTL, but at 5 light-hours that's exceeding the sensing capability of mobile units. So they'd only see via light-speed optics, which adds 5 hours to their departure time.

If instead of 5 light-hours away they waited at 2, that's a 7.2-hour transit plus 2 hours of delay, and neither the ships nor the torpedoes would be moving at more than 0.13c.

If two or more Spiders launch from different bearings, I'd assume optimum destruction would come from a simultaneous time on target. Wolfpacks of yore didn't remain at the scene of the crime for good reason. Any other LD launching on the same target from farther away may not be able to wait to launch. I will also assume the Spiders are capable of the Wolpack tactic of mutual support. Which begs the question of whether they will employ some method of safe communication to coordinate fire even when running silent.

On fixed targets, sure. That's how Oyster Bay was accomplished. That needs no coordination during the launch, though, as others have said.

But if the RMN Home Fleet is sitting in orbit with wedges down, they deserve this.

Against a mobile Home Fleet that is accelerating and decelerating, not just in orbit, time-on-target is impossible. The MAN would be lucky if one set of torpedoes crossed the paths of the Home Fleet in range of attack. Two is not possible.

That in turn tells us that the launching ships must launch a lot of torpedoes. If they want to do anything besides piss off the Home Fleet, I'd expect that they need 4 torpedoes per capital ship, of which there were 50 during the first Battle of Manticore, so 200 torpedoes. That means launching a 1000, for a 20% chance that one cluster will cross paths. How many LDs are necessary to launch 1000 torpedoes? IIRC, each Shark carried 3; if I'm generous and say that a ship 3x the mass carries 5x as many, that's 15 per ship, so the MAN needs to dedicate 66 ships per system. To simultaneously attack Manticore, Grayson, Haven and New Berlin, they'd need 266 ships.

About the start stop ability. Wouldn't that increase detection when the drive stops and restarts?

Yes, we're told that the power spike of a spider starting is pretty high and can be detected. But they don't need to shut down the spider during an attack run, they could simply reduce its acceleration to 0, or go around in circles.

The advantage of shutting down is that there are no emissions, at all, while it's down. And it's not consuming the energy reserves of the torpedo.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:A massive Home Fleet sitting in orbit is exactly what I had in mind.

Explain what possible reason the Home Fleet would have to stand down ALL ships with wedges down in a visible and known location. Please, give me one. Who's defending the star system meanwhile?

I can give you two.

1. Complacency.

2. Irresponsibility.

3. Why not? It isn't like there's an entity out there that can come across the wall and not be detected. At least the RMN doesn't seem to think there is.

IINM, there is at least two occasions where the RMN were sitting in orbit with cold impellers. I can immediately put my finger on one. D'Orville. And that was during a state of war. There is plenty of time to crank the engines and get under way when an invasion force comes acallin. Sure, there will be some stragglers roaming around about the system that will rush back to join the fun. Stragglers.

And in the Endicott System, who wants to bet me that the Protector's Own won't be gone.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:I can see ships rotating in and out of the Fleet formation for repairs and refit. That's SOP. Those ships that are in refit will indeed power down, either docked at a station's moorings or nearby. But we're talking about what, 5% of Home Fleet? And meanwhile, another equivalent 5% should have gone underway to take up position. Even in peacetime, there's no reason to stand down ALL your ships and this is not peace time.

It is peacetime. Galton is gone. The RMN swallowed the bait. Hook, line, and sinker. So, as I stated in another thread. However long it takes the MA to attack, you expect the Capitals to maintain a DEFCON 1. Indefinitely. That has to be super expensive. Again, it reminds me of the Wakka Wakka sound of PACMAN gobbling up widgets, sprockets, cogs and nodes. Imagine the US at a constant state of war. DEFCON 1. We'd go broke in less than a year. It is just not practical. Now you understand why any ole government won't do. Someone has to authorize the constant expense of jumping at shadows.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:The MAlign might as well wish Home Fleet sailed into the star.

Said the Spider - with the hellfire grasers and WTF energy weapons - to the Fly.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:I also forgot to account for the light lag. So if the MAN is waiting 5 light hours away, then they find out that the ships have shut down their wedges 5 hours later. Yes, wedges activation and deactivation is FTL, but at 5 light-hours that's exceeding the sensing capability of mobile units. So they'd only see via light-speed optics, which adds 5 hours to their departure time.

If instead of 5 light-hours away they waited at 2, that's a 7.2-hour transit plus 2 hours of delay, and neither the ships nor the torpedoes would be moving at more than 0.13c.

Irrelevant. When the fleet is in orbit, Honor is visiting groundside and much of the crew are too. You expect Home Fleet to remain at DEFCON 1 indefinitely. Stop reading so much sci-fi.

cthia wrote:If two or more Spiders launch from different bearings, I'd assume optimum destruction would come from a simultaneous time on target. Wolfpacks of yore didn't remain at the scene of the crime for good reason. Any other LD launching on the same target from farther away may not be able to wait to launch. I will also assume the Spiders are capable of the Wolpack tactic of mutual support. Which begs the question of whether they will employ some method of safe communication to coordinate fire even when running silent.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:On fixed targets, sure. That's how Oyster Bay was accomplished. That needs no coordination during the launch, though, as others have said.

I disagree. Even with fixed targets there may be situations which call for coordination. Especially if a particular Spider is low on torps. If a Spider launches, it needs to ensure itself maximum destruction. Like you said, they don't want to just piss off Home Fleet. They want to write off Home Fleet.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:But if the RMN Home Fleet is sitting in orbit with wedges down, they deserve this.

I wouldn't be that harsh. Mankind is vulnerable to the human element. But, I am curious. What exactly is at the core of your thoughts? The only thing I can figure is your classified knowledge and fear of the spider drive. Obviously the RMN don't share either.

At any rate, if the author finally advances the timeline significantly, and now seems to be a good time to do just that, you expect the entire GA to maintain DEFCON 1 for five or more years without even as much as a peep out of the "Peeps"? And, complacency doesn't even require years.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Against a Home Fleet that is accelerating and decelerating, not just in orbit, time-on-target is impossible. The MAN would be lucky if one set of torpedoes crossed the paths of the Home Fleet in range of attack. Two is not possible.

Providence. The Demon Murphy. They both like to crash parties. Say, like when Home Fleet is in the act of turnover for orbit and passes right by a few Spiders that decide to gift wrap a few torps. Those things seem to be patient.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:That in turn tells us that the launching ships must launch a lot of torpedoes. If they want to do anything besides piss off the Home Fleet, I'd expect that they need 4 torpedoes per capital ship, of which there were 50 during the first Battle of Manticore, so 200 torpedoes. That means launching a 1000, for a 20% chance that one cluster will cross paths. How many LDs are necessary to launch 1000 torpedoes? IIRC, each Shark carried 3; if I'm generous and say that a ship 3x the mass carries 5x as many, that's 15 per ship, so the MAN needs to dedicate 66 ships per system. To simultaneously attack Manticore, Grayson, Haven and New Berlin, they'd need 266 ships.

That is another reason coordination of fire may be necessary. It is also the reason I stated in another thread that the torpedoes an LD will carry will be much more destructive. Why can't someone else's navy have a Capital ship version of missiles.

cthia wrote:About the start stop ability. Wouldn't that increase detection when the drive stops and restarts?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Yes, we're told that the power spike of a spider starting is pretty high and can be detected. But they don't need to shut down the spider during an attack run, they could simply reduce its acceleration to 0, or go around in circles.

The advantage of shutting down is that there are no emissions, at all, while it's down. And it's not consuming the energy reserves of the torpedo.

Interesting ability. Perhaps KEWS could benefit from sleeping torpedoes. Was this ability used during Oyster Bay?

I'd point out that the peacetime USN, hardly at Defcon 1, varies between ~33-66% of its ships out of home port out working up, in transit to patrol stations, patrolling, making show the flag visits, performing freedom of navigation exercises, participating in war games, etc., etc.
They're not sitting in their home ports with the equivalent of cold impellers just waiting for an emergency or the start of a war.

You don't need to be at full war footing to keep a sizable fraction of your home fleet moving about with active impellers. That's just what navies do.