Changes in Battle tactics outside planetary hyper limits

Kytheros wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:[Just s correction. Bellerophon only turned a few degrees, nowhere close to 90. But given the engagement angles a few degrees was all it took to interpose the leading edge of the sidewall. (Since those extend to the front if the wedge, about 150 km forward of a waller, you don't need much of a turn to skew the vulnerable unoritected throat away from an enemy.

I suspect that even with near-perfect engagement geometry, most RMN ships would be able to get a sidewall or buckler in the way in time. Worst case scenario, the RMN ship has to go to a full bow-wall, and finish its skew turn on thrusters. Unless the RMN ship is too old to have been refitted with bow-wall technology. Or stern-walls, I suppose.


That being said, I have rather more faith in the competence levels of Admiral Pierre and his crews than I do in the vast majority of SLN types. Well, most Battle Fleet types anyways. Frontier Fleet is actually probably somewhat similar to the Legislaturalist PRHN skill level.
Point is, they were aiming for single drive missile range on an entirely different ship, and Bellerophon's being in energy range was a total fluke. I also have more faith in the the PRHN crews that went for the Basilisk terminus and missed.
I expect that single drive missile range is probably extremely good navigation. And, I'd expect that the slower a ship is when exiting hyperspace the more accurate it's going to be, so for maximum accuracy, you're probably leaving hyper and reentering realspace with an extremely low velocity.

Coming in at SDM range for a completely different ship or not, Admiral Theisman's crews came in expecting a fight. The Bellerophon was totally at peace, the war warning's hadn't been passed yet so they had zero reason to be on a hair trigger, and still managed to turn and computer override on weapons.

Any ships that partook in Laocoon II are going to be on hair triggers, and expecting possible combat until the later (and heavier) relief forces show up. And being mere destroyers and light cruisers, they're going to be agile enough you'd have to use 4+ SLN battlecruisers to bracket each RMN ship that it can't roll ship to stop everything. Which brings it back to the other point I observed, either the RMN ship hops up into hyper itself, negating the SLN's expert hyper-exit ambush, or more likely the SLN horribly failed and over-shot/under-shot their planned ambush.


And in AAC, Admiral Chin's Fifth fleet had near zero velocity and couldn't properly translate out of hyper to be in the planned 'ambush' of Kuzak's Third Fleet in BoMa. Even when they had perfect intell on exactly where Kuzak's ships were, so textev says even near-zero velocity translations are still a small crapshoot when you're talking translating out in a very specific place, rather than a general volume. Cause space is big, and reasons like that, even aiming at a general volume is still pretty specific compared to the volume of space contained by a hyper limit.

Jonathan_S wrote:[Just s correction. Bellerophon only turned a few degrees, nowhere close to 90. But given the engagement angles a few degrees was all it took to interpose the leading edge of the sidewall. (Since those extend to the front if the wedge, about 150 km forward of a waller, you don't need much of a turn to skew the vulnerable unoritected throat away from an enemy.

Kytheros wrote:I suspect that even with near-perfect engagement geometry, most RMN ships would be able to get a sidewall or buckler in the way in time. Worst case scenario, the RMN ship has to go to a full bow-wall, and finish its skew turn on thrusters. Unless the RMN ship is too old to have been refitted with bow-wall technology. Or stern-walls, I suppose.


That being said, I have rather more faith in the competence levels of Admiral Pierre and his crews than I do in the vast majority of SLN types. Well, most Battle Fleet types anyways. Frontier Fleet is actually probably somewhat similar to the Legislaturalist PRHN skill level.
Point is, they were aiming for single drive missile range on an entirely different ship, and Bellerophon's being in energy range was a total fluke. I also have more faith in the the PRHN crews that went for the Basilisk terminus and missed.
I expect that single drive missile range is probably extremely good navigation. And, I'd expect that the slower a ship is when exiting hyperspace the more accurate it's going to be, so for maximum accuracy, you're probably leaving hyper and reentering realspace with an extremely low velocity.

Somtaaw wrote:Coming in at SDM range for a completely different ship or not, Admiral Theisman's crews came in expecting a fight. The Bellerophon was totally at peace, the war warning's hadn't been passed yet so they had zero reason to be on a hair trigger, and still managed to turn and computer override on weapons.

Any ships that partook in Laocoon II are going to be on hair triggers, and expecting possible combat until the later (and heavier) relief forces show up. And being mere destroyers and light cruisers, they're going to be agile enough you'd have to use 4+ SLN battlecruisers to bracket each RMN ship that it can't roll ship to stop everything. Which brings it back to the other point I observed, either the RMN ship hops up into hyper itself, negating the SLN's expert hyper-exit ambush, or more likely the SLN horribly failed and over-shot/under-shot their planned ambush.


And in AAC, Admiral Chin's Fifth fleet had near zero velocity and couldn't properly translate out of hyper to be in the planned 'ambush' of Kuzak's Third Fleet in BoMa. Even when they had perfect intell on exactly where Kuzak's ships were, so textev says even near-zero velocity translations are still a small crapshoot when you're talking translating out in a very specific place, rather than a general volume. Cause space is big, and reasons like that, even aiming at a general volume is still pretty specific compared to the volume of space contained by a hyper limit.

While I don't have much faith or respect in the SLN, I would assume that they'd be prepared for battle as well.

I was pointing out that it's even easier on newer RMN ships to get their defenses between them and an enemy, even with a perfect down the throat or up the keel hyper exit geometry by an attacking SLN force.
Bellerophon was bows on, ish, and needed to get it's sidewall in the way. A newer RMN ship has a bow wall and/or bow buckler - which presumably will come up just as fast as a regular sidewall, if not faster, and means the ship won't need to move as much to get a wall in the way.

Kytheros wrote:While I don't have much faith or respect in the SLN, I would assume that they'd be prepared for battle as well.

I was pointing out that it's even easier on newer RMN ships to get their defenses between them and an enemy, even with a perfect down the throat or up the keel hyper exit geometry by an attacking SLN force.
Bellerophon was bows on, ish, and needed to get it's sidewall in the way. A newer RMN ship has a bow wall and/or bow buckler - which presumably will come up just as fast as a regular sidewall, if not faster, and means the ship won't need to move as much to get a wall in the way.

Well, the SLN would like to think they'd be prepared for battle, otherwise they never would have launched Raging Justice.

I still believe that the Bellerophon went from a more or less straight bow on heading, through more than a tiny heading change to get her sidewalls based on Pierre's reaction.

"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,-snipping-

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

She began a turn, which was just enough to interpose the sidewall, but she most definitely turned at least 45 degrees over a span of mere seconds. She had to, otherwise she couldn't have brought those grasers to bear so fast

Somtaaw wrote:Well, the SLN would like to think they'd be prepared for battle, otherwise they never would have launched Raging Justice.

I still believe that the Bellerophon went from a more or less straight bow on heading, through more than a tiny heading change to get her sidewalls based on Pierre's reaction.

"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,-snipping-

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

She began a turn, which was just enough to interpose the sidewall, but she most definitely turned at least 45 degrees over a span of mere seconds. She had to, otherwise she couldn't have brought those grasers to bear so fast

That battle does read quickly, but it probably took place over about four or six minutes, with the missing time covered for by jumping between the DN, CL and BC's bridges. BCs may be relatively agile, but they still take some time to turn too.

Somtaaw wrote:

Kytheros wrote:While I don't have much faith or respect in the SLN, I would assume that they'd be prepared for battle as well.

I was pointing out that it's even easier on newer RMN ships to get their defenses between them and an enemy, even with a perfect down the throat or up the keel hyper exit geometry by an attacking SLN force.
Bellerophon was bows on, ish, and needed to get it's sidewall in the way. A newer RMN ship has a bow wall and/or bow buckler - which presumably will come up just as fast as a regular sidewall, if not faster, and means the ship won't need to move as much to get a wall in the way.

Well, the SLN would like to think they'd be prepared for battle, otherwise they never would have launched Raging Justice.

I still believe that the Bellerophon went from a more or less straight bow on heading, through more than a tiny heading change to get her sidewalls based on Pierre's reaction.

"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,-snipping-

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

She began a turn, which was just enough to interpose the sidewall, but she most definitely turned at least 45 degrees over a span of mere seconds. She had to, otherwise she couldn't have brought those grasers to bear so fast

What you snipeted was 15-30 seconds
5 seconds to give the order to turn.
5 seconds to turn the first 10 degrees which puts the sidewall it it's way.
15-30 seconds more while the belepheron continues its turn, once it's gets to 30-45 degrees then it opens fire. One minute for a 90 degree turn would be 5 seconds and 15 more seconds for a 30 degree turn, 5 seconds and 25 seconds for a 45 degree turn.

By the way, a ship can't turn at even 102 gravities. (A=1,000M/s^2) Dimensions: 1293 × 187 × 175 m
(radius = 1293/2=646.5) circumphrence = 646.5*2pi= 4062m

A=V^2/R
A*R=V^2
V=(A*R)^.5
V=(1000*647)^.5 = 647,000^.5 = 804 m/sec.
360 Degree turn = 4062/804 = 5 seconds.

A 10g turn would be 13 seconds for 90 degrees on a dreadnought, less than a minute for a 360 degree turn.

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/128/1

A typical SKM DD can alter her heading (but not necessarily her vector, of course) by 90 degrees in about 100 seconds; an SD would need about twelve minutes for a 90-degree turn.

Hence why I said around six minutes - I figure it'd take that long for a DN to go from an exposed bow to being able to aim its broadsides.

Bellerophon's momentum may have helped it do this, along with a bit of luck. If Avshari had turned the other way, the BCs might have been able to interpose their wedges after all, turning it into a missile engagement.