Uncompromising way out of order snippet for Rose

runsforcelery wrote:

Wait'll you hear Honor talking to Kingsford.

In person.

...

Jonathan_S wrote:

Theemile wrote:We're Forgetting about Missile Toe - what if the DD in question has seeded the SLN formation with bunches of stealthed drones, and a couple Missiletoe drones. After mysteriously blowing up a couple BCs with the handful of MissileToe drones she actually has, the DD commander could flash the stealth systems of all the other drones she has stalking their formation, just enough to show there are enough drones to get "all yall" - even if those drones can't really do that (but the SLN doesn't have to know that....)

A Mistletoe drone carries basically one missile warhead, either a 'contact' nuke or a laserhead.

Even against SLN sensors it's damn unlikely that a Mantie armed recon drone can get into contact nuke range of a SLN BC. (Unless you're going for sidewall burning only you'd need to get the warhead to, and penetrate through, the sidewalls just 10 km off the BC's flanks before detonation. A down the throat shot would have more standoff but still you're talking about at the very most maybe a thousand km.

So I don't think that's plausible.
But you'd need a contact nuke to hope to kill a BC in one hit.

Now a Mistletoe with a laser head has a much better chance of slipping in, dead ahead or astern, within ~50,000 km. That would let them fire the laserhead directly into the armored, but not sidewall protected, hammerhead. That's not going to kill a BC but it might lame it a bit.

What I don't know is if they're good, and accurate, enough to go for a deliberate golden BB. If you could pull it off probably the most devastating single laserhead strike would be to position the drone out very high (or low) but still ahead of the BC. From that spot there's a narrow angle that just clears the wedge yet skims past the armored forward hammerhead to hit the lightly armored ventral (or dorsal) surface and better yet the aft impeller nodes.
The golden BB would be a shot that pithed enough nodes and impeller rooms to destabilize and drop the aft rings. That'd drastically cut the BC's acceleration. (So it's consorts have to decide whether the abandon it, or to slow to a crawl to keep their defensive umbrella covering it)

I still think there's too much obsession with warheads. With the speeds of modern missiles getting one actual **hit** with a missile will kill even a SD. We've seen how badly Sollie fire control fares against inbounds at relativistic velocity. Get in front of them and closing as fast as you can, drop pods and scoot--staying out of detection range. Fire the pods so the missiles arrive just before burnout--given a good geometry you might be able to get .75c or so. Allocate one missile per ship but two volleys--the second one a fraction of a second behind. The sollies will have a hard enough time targeting the first ones, they won't stand a chance against the trailers. If the seekers can put the beams on target I think they can also guide the missile itself to ramming.

Yes, it could be countered by rolling the ship but they're not likely to realize the real threat--they would see rolling as giving the missiles free hits at point blank range. (The missile goes just far enough off target to clear the wedge, with the ships rolled there would be zero intercepts, they would eat the beams at tens of km rather than tens of thousands of km.)

Loren Pechtel wrote:Yes, it could be countered by rolling the ship but they're not likely to realize the real threat--they would see rolling as giving the missiles free hits at point blank range. (The missile goes just far enough off target to clear the wedge, with the ships rolled there would be zero intercepts, they would eat the beams at tens of km rather than tens of thousands of km.)

No, the geometry doesn't work.

The missile crossing the wedge at close range at high velocity does not have enough time to acquire the ship. It is flashing by so fast that it has single digit milliseconds from the point where the missile can see the ship past the front wedge until it gets blocked by the aft wedge. So it will do its best, but the PH will be terrible.

The missile have to be further out to get enough time to get a decent lock and have a decent chance of getting good hits. Or go a LOT slower.

THAT SIR IS TRUE AND CRUEL TO US WHO WONT READ IT FOR A YEAR!(UNLESS YOU OPPSIE AGAIN)

runsforcelery wrote:
I LIKE her attitude.

Wait'll you hear Honor talking to Kingsford.

In person. [/quote]

runsforcelery wrote:
Wait'll you hear Honor talking to Kingsford.

In person.

::hastily mops up drool::

runsforcelery wrote:Wait'll you hear Honor talking to Kingsford.

In person.

Hmm. Last time we checked, Kingsford was neither an idiot nor an Alignment plant, so despite that there might be a productive outcome of that talk ...

Fox2! wrote:

runsforcelery wrote: “You do realize they can sense fear, don’t you?” Hamish asked helpfully.

Remember that this is a boy raised by mated tree cats bonded to his parents. Who had his extra-sensorily gifted mother poking around in his emotions while he was still in utero (replicator).

dscott8 wrote:This goes along with my long-cherished suspicion that Raoul (and maybe ALL of Honor's kids) will be telempathic. Honor should start teaching him to play poker.

cthia wrote:Didn't you read the passage. He already is playing poker. He just upped the stakes on the peas. Honor upped the ante and laid down the law about the 'paghetti. Raoul called. Honor raised the stakes again with a bluff about no peas no 'paghetti. Raoul called her on it again and went all in and threw his spoon. Sounds like poker to me. And Raoul certainly won that hand!

Matter of fact. It's a high stakes game between two telempaths. Hamish isn't even in their league. It's why he's sitting it out. LOL

I spoke too soon. Honor pulled victory out of defeat. She had a much better hand than she let on. Plus she was cheating.

So, she called Raoul's "all-in" with her own "all-in."

Honor won, but she did it by cheating her own son at poker. She cheated by essentially counting cards. You can't count cards in Vegas, its illegal. LOL

Knowing that Raoul had a limited amount of minutes before he had to feed that nuclear reactor, allowed Honor to count the minutes to burnout and wait him out. It reminds me of the Old West when they smoked you out of your hut. Honor's using an Old West tactic on Raoul, probably learned while on Grayson.

Plus she's counting cards.

Raoul had a full house, all hearts, because he knew Mommy ❤ Raoul + Daddy ❤ Raoul. He knew it for a fact -- he can truly sense it.

Yet Honor had a "Royal Flush" in hearts, because she knew that Raoul ❤ Mommy + Raoul ❤ Daddy + Raoul ❤ 'paghetti. It was some of those "insider trading" tactics Honor was deploying. Plus she was hitting below the belt. Albeit, Raoul would probably disagree and say that she was hitting just above the belt. LOL

That relationship promises to be a lot of fun if Honor doesn't die.

Seems like RFC would be cheating himself artistically if he kills off Honor. It at least seems kin to shooting himself in the foot, artistically. So many threads of the storyline are available to him artistically with the telempathic equation of Honor, Nimitz and Raoul. It seems the possibilities would be exciting to him.

EQN ⇒ Telempathy + Honor + Nimitz = FUN
EQN ⇒ Telempathy + Honor + Nimitz + Raoul = FUN²

Gedankenexperiment: I wonder if Honor can telempathically interact with Nimitz & Raoul simultaneously. I know that treecats do, but can a human hold open two or more frequencies simultaneously?

IOW, is Honor's telempathic prowess truly multi-channel, can she participate in a three-way call?

.

BobG wrote:Hmmm, a DD can take about 20 missile pods, each carrying 9 Mk 23 missiles and a Mk 23E (IIRC). Based on previous battles, 2 pods might be enough to take out a BC. Plot a course ahead of the enemy force, release the some of the pods, then travel more, release more pods, and when the BCs are in range, fire 2 or 3 pods at each BC. Should be sufficient for mission kill, given the past experience. The 20 pods might be enough to take out a squadron of BCs. Alternatively, a single pod should be sufficient for a Sollie lone DD or CL.

Using multiple launches instead of a single one is part of the psy-ops against the Sollies.

When the pods run out, delayed launch the Mk 16s.

And if the DD had enough time to launch the pods, get more pods, and return, ...

I assume that missiles can be controlled from directions other that "almost aft"?

I suspect that the mentioned DD is down to it's own tubes, and may be down to almost no anti-ship missiles, when the ultimatum is made.

Yes, I definitely want to read this ASAP! Thank you, David!

-- Bob G

Minor nit - an Apollo pod holds EIGHT (not nine) Mk-23s and a single ACM (Apollo Control Missile). A non-Apollo pod can hold 10 Mk-23s or 14 Mk-16s.

Another thought came to me, regarding our mysterious Grand-Alliance-CO in question. What, if she had a squadron of LACs at her back? After all, since 2nd Hancock we know for sure that BCs and even BBs are legitimate prey for modern LACs. And if I remember the thoughts of the LAC-CO during the Battle of Spindle correctly, then she thought she had at least an even chance against Solly-SDs, too.
The hints, RFC gave us about speed and stealth could point in that direction, too.
The one major point which would speak against that scenario - we don't know anything about the timing. If the Sollies were first in system, then it is not very likely - after all, the arrival of a CLAC is nothing to overlook, and the Manties or Havies don't have any reason (probably) to make their translation some lightdays outside the system.

On the other hand, if the CLAC got first to the system, put its birds out and got back into hyper in time to avoid being detected by oncoming solly forces ... who knows?

Direwolf18 wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:

Wait'll you hear Honor talking to Kingsford.

In person.

...

where is the 'head about to explode' icon when you need it???