Attacking Darius:

Relax wrote:If Mine range is ~equal to a mere Laser warhead from a missile, then mines are truly and utterly USELESS and beyond easy for a PDLC on a ship to deal with them.

We have Cerberus where mines were said to be difficult to take on with a warship unless they were careful.

If range is a mere 30,000m and PDLC range(200,000km) let alone LASER/GRASER fire is ~500,000km +++ then there is no way in this universe nor the Honorverse said mines have a laser head with a attack range of 30,000km let alone a stand off attack range of 60,000km(Manticore) and are "difficult" for a warship to take on without being careful.

Mines aren't actually meant to kill the enemy. Mines are meant to make him move through the area very cautiously, thus leaving himself open to attack by other forces and making surprise attacks basically impossible.

Yes, a ship can sweep mines--but they're going to be sitting there very stealthily (they have no wedge and little power) and so the ship will have to very carefully pick it's way through.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Anyway, the other aspect of this is that missiles have wedges. The reason barricade worked was that the Havenite missiles were in ballistic phase in order to overcome the range gap that the RMN true MDMs could power through. As others have calculated, unless you have a very good shot, the graser will waste itself on the wedge. The only thing that can take on a wedge is another wedge of comparable or more power -- which means the barricade might actually have worked against the RHN missiles even if they had been under acceleration.

If the targets have wedges up you just get mutual kills--you used a shipkiller as a countermissile.

Jonathan_S wrote:I'm amused to realize that your "particularly reckless CO" was once Honor at Blackbird [HotQ]. She had some reasons, and the recon drones back then were far less capable. But she swept her combined RMN and GSN formation of cruisers around the moon Blackbird without punching RD ahead to see what was there. That let Theisman whip his destroyer Principality/PNS Breslau around ahead over her, overtake, and launch into her rear aspect.

Well, yes. Hiding behind a planet is such a trope in sci-fi that I cringe every time it's used and someone falls for it. Sometimes the tech in that particular franchise don't allow for sufficiently capable recon drones and that would have been the case for HMS Fearless CL-56, which was an older ship and carried very few drones. Honor might not have had any left at this time in that case.

But she was not a rookie any more. She was a graduate of the Advanced Tactical training and had been mentored by the best strategist of his generation, Raoul Courvoisier. She was aboard a state of the art Star Knight CA and, even if she had used up all her RDs at this point, she had the GSN smaller ships with her. It might not be nice to whomever got selected to spring the trap, but the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Anyway, clearly overconfidence at this point. She probably thought no one would try such a trick. Maybe there's something special about Uriel, which we're told is even larger than Jupiter, that made the tactic more likely to work than otherwise, but I don't think so. She made a mistake and nearly paid for it.

At least we hope she's learned her lesson.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:I'm amused to realize that your "particularly reckless CO" was once Honor at Blackbird [HotQ]. She had some reasons, and the recon drones back then were far less capable. But she swept her combined RMN and GSN formation of cruisers around the moon Blackbird without punching RD ahead to see what was there. That let Theisman whip his destroyer Principality/PNS Breslau around ahead over her, overtake, and launch into her rear aspect.

Well, yes. Hiding behind a planet is such a trope in sci-fi that I cringe every time it's used and someone falls for it. Sometimes the tech in that particular franchise don't allow for sufficiently capable recon drones and that would have been the case for HMS Fearless CL-56, which was an older ship and carried very few drones. Honor might not have had any left at this time in that case.

But she was not a rookie any more. She was a graduate of the Advanced Tactical training and had been mentored by the best strategist of his generation, Raoul Courvoisier. She was aboard a state of the art Star Knight CA and, even if she had used up all her RDs at this point, she had the GSN smaller ships with her. It might not be nice to whomever got selected to spring the trap, but the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Anyway, clearly overconfidence at this point. She probably thought no one would try such a trick. Maybe there's something special about Uriel, which we're told is even larger than Jupiter, that made the tactic more likely to work than otherwise, but I don't think so. She made a mistake and nearly paid for it.

At least we hope she's learned her lesson.

My, then, 13-yr-old niece asked me that question way back in 2015 and it stumped me. She lamented on about it so much that I brought it to the forum.

She said she was watching Independence Day when the light went on. She's like a dog with a bone when she sinks her teeth into something. Yes, yes, yes, she got that honestly.

She tried to come up with something to make it make sense. And never did. I offered that perhaps Honor's momentum was too great before she would be exposed and could get feeds back from a drone. Drones cannot communicate through a planet. She says, no.

I know what you're thinking. I am not smarter than a 13 yr-old. But I am smarter than a 12-yr-old, who hasn't been skipped ahead four grades. LOL

Jonathan_S wrote:Can't recall the books ever saying anything about energy weapons having greater effective range in hyper. And at Selker Rift the Peeps still seemed to need to close to 500,000 km for their broadside energy mounts to get into range against a sidewall protected opponent. So that's the same as in normal space.

There is a lot of weird (and major) issues with hyper. Starting with the idea that space is ~60 times more compact on Alpha. So, if you are 10km away from a ship when you both translate down, how far apart are you in real-space?

If the hyper limit is 20 light minutes radius, how large in radius will the surface of a sphere that correlates to the hyper-limit be on Alpha?

The answer I got on those questions was David won't discuss them.

cthia wrote:

An LD Running Silent

Exactly what tactics might allow an LD to sneak up on a skunk and steal his stink?



— A newly developed material on the hull which bends light. This should allow for very close approaches.

— The most vulnerable blind spot? Approaching from the rear of enemy vessels where radar or human attention might not be focused. The vector of least likely threat.

— Nano coating on the hull used to deter radar.

— Possible reorientation of LD towards the prey.

— A Stealthy Shape which minimizes detection by minimizing cross sections, that reflect radar returns away from source.

— Very slowly.

Jonathan_S wrote:I'll note that the rear of Honorverse ships has quite a lot of radar focused from it. They do spend quite a lot of their time flying "backwards" -- with their aft hammerhead pointed into the direction of travel. As such it has just as much radar and sensors, devoted to watching where it's going and for any approaching threat, as the forward hammerhead does.

(That's what happens when you've got ships with effectively no drag/friction to slow them down and effectively only able to accelerate towards their bow. To come to a stop you point forwards for the first half of the trip -- accelerating to maximum speed -- then flip over and send the second half of the trip flying tail first as you apply acceleration towards your bow to scrub off all the speed you just built up)

So doesn't matter which ways its flying, or if you consider the rear with respect to the ship hull, or the direction of travel, the same quality of sensors are pointed each way.



The actual blind, or at least myopic, spots are from directly above or directly below, where the ship's wedge distorts and clouds its own sensors. It can see through its wedge, thanks to knowing more about the wedge's current state than any outside observer could; but even so the sensor view is still degraded.
However I don't know if a warship would normally maintain a constant level, or if it might periodically do a slow roll to sweep its broadside sensors around through those normally wedge obscured areas.

Yes, but my point is that the direction of travel will receive the most attention. Radar is probably in auto mode to the rear. And, again, radar has to be directed. A huge target like an LD will not be expected just off the stern of the ship. The LDs will cause the GA to adopt the Crazy Ivan maneuver just to make sure the stern is clear, after a few losses. LOL

cthia wrote:Yes, but my point is that the direction of travel will receive the most attention. Radar is probably in auto mode to the rear. And, again, radar has to be directed. A huge target like an LD will not be expected just off the stern of the ship. The LDs will cause the GA to adopt the Crazy Ivan maneuver just to make sure the stern is clear, after a few losses. LOL

Didn't we say that both hammerheads are actually the most observed directions in any impeller ship? Those are the two most vulnerable aspects, not protected by either the wedge or the sidewalls. If the ship is under acceleration, it can't have more than a buckler in one of the two direction-of-travel aspects either.

Anyway, why would a computer be lax? If a ship is detectable, the computer can do it, therefore the computer will do it, tirelessly. Human input is only required when the machine algorithms don't suffice and that usually requires that humans intuit something from what the computer considers noise. If the ship and the humans aboard it don't think there's danger, they won't be doing anything, so it won't matter which direction the danger comes from.

But danger should not come from the most watched aspects, because that's where the radar and lidar will be most effective on.

What's more, how is a spider ship going to come to an impeller ship's rear? It can't be during acceleration because the spider ship can't catch up. So it would have to be during deceleration.

If you meant the stern aspect of the ship, then that's the direction of travel, where the ship is going to. That's the opposite of what you said the humans' attention would be: they will be looking at where they're going, not where they've come from (which was clear when they passed through it). For pod-laying ships, that's the direction of the pod bay doors (which HAL won't open). It's the most vulnerable part of the ship, which means it's where the most attention should be given.

If you meant on the same direction of travel, then this is the throat aspect of the wedge. It's where pod-laying ships have most sensors and weapons, because they are not encumbered by the pod bay doors. I can agree with you this is where the crew will be paying least attention to because the danger would be coming from somewhere they've just been through, so they'd think it clear. The problem for the attacker is that they have to build up velocity and not decelerate, so they will be shooting past the target ships, and probably at a very low relative velocity. That places them in the danger basket for a long time.

No, I don't see any one-dimensional LD tactic working. It needs to be at least two-dimensional, coming at an angle. That means dealing with the sidewalls.

cthia wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:I'll note that the rear of Honorverse ships has quite a lot of radar focused from it. They do spend quite a lot of their time flying "backwards" -- with their aft hammerhead pointed into the direction of travel. As such it has just as much radar and sensors, devoted to watching where it's going and for any approaching threat, as the forward hammerhead does.
[snip]

The actual blind, or at least myopic, spots are from directly above or directly below, where the ship's wedge distorts and clouds its own sensors. It can see through its wedge, thanks to knowing more about the wedge's current state than any outside observer could; but even so the sensor view is still degraded.
However I don't know if a warship would normally maintain a constant level, or if it might periodically do a slow roll to sweep its broadside sensors around through those normally wedge obscured areas.

Yes, but my point is that the direction of travel will receive the most attention. Radar is probably in auto mode to the rear. And, again, radar has to be directed. A huge target like an LD will not be expected just off the stern of the ship. The LDs will cause the GA to adopt the Crazy Ivan maneuver just to make sure the stern is clear, after a few losses. LOL

I don't see how that follows from your premise.
The Crazy Ivan maneuver was done to swing around so the noisy prop wasn't masking sounds from the rear and to swing the large senstivie bow sonar array in that direction (to hopefully catch any trailing subs).

But you're arguing that the Honorverse equivalent hiding spot is caused not by propulsion interference or lack of equal quality rear facing sensors but rather by tac crews lack of focus there. If so there's no need for a Crazy Ivan, or the more sedate partial turn to clear their baffles, to check their "six" -- the tac crews just need to actually pay attention to the sensors that are already pointed that way. (Whether that's all the time, or temporarily switching their focus). And unlike a baffle clearing maneuver checking the sensors doesn't tip off any observers that you're checking for them.

(And note that subs have basically stopped these maneuvers as well thanks to mostly being equipped with towed sonar arrays which can look behind them without any maneuvering -- showing again that once you have quality rear facing sensors you no longer need to maneuver to check your "six")


Also, I doubt the (currently) rear facing sensors are especially neglected. The Captain and XO may not be paying the most attention to that area, but the tactical department will have people assigned to every sensor and every angle -- and they'll raise an alert if anything was detected.

You have this huge mass of GA ships parked out beyond the hyperlimit. A group of LDs just loaded down with graser torps are also outside the hyper limit. They launch their dozens of graser torps at the rear of the GA formation. And then, a few days later, a whole lot of major GA ships mysteriously explode all at once.

They will eventually figure out that parking on one place is a bad idea, but first they are going to get a lesson.

cthia wrote:

Inta da fire

My opinion seems to differ quite a bit about how easy it should be to attack Darius.

I don't know about you, but I am having nightmares about a Home System that makes the perimeter that the MBS has established look like a Boy Scout Camp.


Spider
--The system defense variant.

Sharks
--Hungry officers looking for promotion? LOL



Massive Forts w/ Spider Drive
-- Surrounded by shoals of system defense graser pods.

Massive Graser Installations
--They don't even have to have much mobility, because they are built in enormous numbers. When you have invisible weapons platforms seeded throughout your system, you can maneuver and engage the enemy with those invisible installations in mind, thus setting a trap.

Do you really think you can hyper into Darius without receiving a very warm welcome?

HOT AS HELL

munroburton wrote:Grand Fleet lost about 20 capital ships in order to take the only star system fortified more heavily than Manticore's own Binary System.

Do pardon this snip from another thread.

Say what??? Is this validation from a peer? And that was Galton.