Battle of Spindle

Weird Harold wrote:

cthia wrote:Hmm, on that note. Are weakened sidewalls susceptible to ramming?

Why the fascination with throwing spitballs at SDs? Dazzlers run until they're melted rubble. Dragon's teeth run until they're targeted or meltdown. Aollo just makes sure that there's nothing to recover -- which doesn't include leaving any possibility of wreckage remaining.

A psychiatrist would undoubtedly attribute it to my parents drilling the proverbial "Waste not want not" maxim into my head. Fifteen hundred wasted 23-Es from Henke's salvo alone, of which I'm willing to bet some of them had opportunitie(s) to do damage to something. Or cause someone to flinch.

If the damn gun is empty, fling it! Are we absolutely certain it won't be the golden BB, arriving just in time that a wedge or sidewall temporarily falters?

At any rate, surely no one is advocating the position that if a 23-E finds itself bearing down on a golden opportunity to destroy or damage an enemy should abort, because, well, that isn't its mission? It sure isn't above its paygrade at the cost of that bugger. LOL

For a 23-E it's called. . . >Catch 'em with their pants down!<

MDMs have an attack velocity that is a large fraction of Cee. Unless their velocity vector is very close to being on a collision course with a target, they simply do not have enough time to alter their vector to get on a direct impact collision course. If the missile is on an attack vector that it is feasible to divert into a direct impact attack, they will impact a sidewall or impeller wedge. While a 100+ ton missile impacting at a large fraction of Ceehas a KE on the order of millions of Megatons, dwarfing the yield of a sidewall burner, Weber has decreed that KE weapons can not penatrate a sidewall. Since the impact velocity is an order of magnitude higher than the plasma expansion velocity of a nuke, this is puzzling.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:MDMs have an attack velocity that is a large fraction of Cee. Unless their velocity vector is very close to being on a collision course with a target, they simply do not have enough time to alter their vector to get on a direct impact collision course. If the missile is on an attack vector that it is feasible to divert into a direct impact attack, they will impact a sidewall or impeller wedge. While a 100+ ton missile impacting at a large fraction of Ceehas a KE on the order of millions of Megatons, dwarfing the yield of a sidewall burner, Weber has decreed that KE weapons can not penatrate a sidewall. Since the impact velocity is an order of magnitude higher than the plasma expansion velocity of a nuke, this is puzzling.

Understood. In my head, I imagine a 23-E may oftentimes opt to attack the wedge of another ship other than the bogey its brood cut its teeth against. There has been a few occasions undisciplined enemy ships have taken each other out in desperate maneuvers. Making me think they are operating close enough to each other and constantly maneuvering to bring themselves into striking distance of a fortunate 23-E. Sometimes the fly goes directly into the spider's lair. No work needed. >>Ahh, what have we here!<<

TFLYTSNBN wrote:MDMs have an attack velocity that is a large fraction of Cee.

Indeed. A fact that I glossed over very early on. The power budget needed to drive an object with mass approaches infinity as speed approaches C. Which is why I leave my calculator at home when consuming Sci-Fi. Which makes my sisters roll their eyes. I was floored when I learned that missiles in the Honorverse actually follow some of the laws of physics when we were discussing Barricade. Most Sci-Fi authors seem to have an enormous power budget of pixie dust. At least Weber has a limited supply.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:While a 100+ ton missile impacting at a large fraction of Ceehas a KE on the order of millions of Megatons, dwarfing the yield of a sidewall burner,

Super dinosaur killers. At any rate, I recall many instances where textev indicated a fluctuating wedge or sidewall and/or being temporarily down. Certainly not at 100 %, putting me in the mindset of the Enterprise's weakened shields. Scores of 100+ ton missiles impacting in relatively the same vicinity on a weakened sidewall won't bring it down? ::shrug::

cthia wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:MDMs have an attack velocity that is a large fraction of Cee. Unless their velocity vector is very close to being on a collision course with a target, they simply do not have enough time to alter their vector to get on a direct impact collision course. If the missile is on an attack vector that it is feasible to divert into a direct impact attack, they will impact a sidewall or impeller wedge. While a 100+ ton missile impacting at a large fraction of Ceehas a KE on the order of millions of Megatons, dwarfing the yield of a sidewall burner, Weber has decreed that KE weapons can not penatrate a sidewall. Since the impact velocity is an order of magnitude higher than the plasma expansion velocity of a nuke, this is puzzling.

Understood. In my head, I imagine a 23-E may oftentimes opt to attack the wedge of another ship other than the bogey its brood cut its teeth against. There has been a few occasions undisciplined enemy ships have taken each other out in desperate maneuvers. Making me think they are operating close enough to each other and constantly maneuvering to bring themselves into striking distance of a fortunate 23-E. Sometimes the fly goes directly into the spider's lair. No work needed. >>Ahh, what have we here!<<

TFLYTSNBN wrote:MDMs have an attack velocity that is a large fraction of Cee.

Indeed. A fact that I glossed over very early on. The power budget needed to drive an object with mass approaches infinity as speed approaches C. Which is why I leave my calculator at home when consuming Sci-Fi. Which makes my sisters roll their eyes. I was floored when I learned that missiles in the Honorverse actually follow some of the laws of physics when we were discussing Barricade. Most Sci-Fi authors seem to have an enormous power budget of pixie dust. At least Weber has a limited supply.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:While a 100+ ton missile impacting at a large fraction of Ceehas a KE on the order of millions of Megatons, dwarfing the yield of a sidewall burner,

Super dinosaur killers. At any rate, I recall many instances where textev indicated a fluctuating wedge or sidewall and/or being temporarily down. Certainly not at 100 %, putting me in the mindset of the Enterprise's weakened shields. Scores of 100+ ton missiles impacting in relatively the same vicinity on a weakened sidewall won't bring it down? ::shrug::

I wonder if there would even be a market for serious military Sci Fi in which the laws of currently understood physics are largely obeyed? Some type of FTL such as Pournelle's Alderson drive which can enable intersteller travel without enabling any blather about combat in hyperspace would be needed. Would readers enjoy battles where ships are limited to about a month of boosting at one gee or proportionately shorter time at higher gee before they need to refuel?

Then again, even Niven and Pournelle didn't just violate the laws of physics to make it neccessary for the Moties to operate such awesome launching lasers for decades, they raped them. It took me forty years of occassionally rereading a favorite book before I actually crunched the numbers. While the Mote is a dimmer sun than New Caledonia, the difference in "photonic potential energy (big hint on calculating lightsail transit velocity which is proportional to the section density of the sail), you could launch it easily enough by operating the fusion powered photon drive of an empire warship for just a few hours. Of course I pissed off Pournelle by pointing out that the Specific Impulse of a fusion powered photon drive would be one-twentieth the ISP of a simpler fusion rocket. When I showed him the math, Jerry suggested that if I built both he would happily test them.

cthia wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:MDMs have an attack velocity that is a large fraction of Cee.

Indeed. A fact that I glossed over very early on. The power budget needed to drive an object with mass approaches infinity as speed approaches C. Which is why I leave my calculator at home when consuming Sci-Fi. Which makes my sisters roll their eyes. I was floored when I learned that missiles in the Honorverse actually follow some of the laws of physics when we were discussing Barricade. Most Sci-Fi authors seem to have an enormous power budget of pixie dust. At least Weber has a limited supply.

Heh, not that limited.
The missile (and ship) accelerations ignores relativity (which, to be fair, does make the author's number crunching far more straightforward)

And the "wedge siphons most of the power needed to accelerate like that from hyperspace" is a pretty heavy shake of pixie dust


Still they follow some consistent rules so the missile capabilities normally aren't purely the power of plot (When RFC needs improbably combat results for plot reasons he tends use his thumb to weight the parts of missile combat that are inherently probabilistic; how well the decoys/ecm did, and hence how many missiles lost target or got stopped (or not) by point defense)

cthia wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:MDMs have an attack velocity that is a large fraction of Cee. Unless their velocity vector is very close to being on a collision course with a target, they simply do not have enough time to alter their vector to get on a direct impact collision course. If the missile is on an attack vector that it is feasible to divert into a direct impact attack, they will impact a sidewall or impeller wedge. While a 100+ ton missile impacting at a large fraction of Ceehas a KE on the order of millions of Megatons, dwarfing the yield of a sidewall burner, Weber has decreed that KE weapons can not penatrate a sidewall. Since the impact velocity is an order of magnitude higher than the plasma expansion velocity of a nuke, this is puzzling.

Understood. In my head, I imagine a 23-E may oftentimes opt to attack the wedge of another ship other than the bogey its brood cut its teeth against. There has been a few occasions undisciplined enemy ships have taken each other out in desperate maneuvers. Making me think they are operating close enough to each other and constantly maneuvering to bring themselves into striking distance of a fortunate 23-E. Sometimes the fly goes directly into the spider's lair. No work needed. >>Ahh, what have we here!<<

TFLYTSNBN wrote:MDMs have an attack velocity that is a large fraction of Cee.

Indeed. A fact that I glossed over very early on. The power budget needed to drive an object with mass approaches infinity as speed approaches C. Which is why I leave my calculator at home when consuming Sci-Fi. Which makes my sisters roll their eyes. I was floored when I learned that missiles in the Honorverse actually follow some of the laws of physics when we were discussing Barricade. Most Sci-Fi authors seem to have an enormous power budget of pixie dust. At least Weber has a limited supply.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:While a 100+ ton missile impacting at a large fraction of Ceehas a KE on the order of millions of Megatons, dwarfing the yield of a sidewall burner,

Super dinosaur killers. At any rate, I recall many instances where textev indicated a fluctuating wedge or sidewall and/or being temporarily down. Certainly not at 100 %, putting me in the mindset of the Enterprise's weakened shields. Scores of 100+ ton missiles impacting in relatively the same vicinity on a weakened sidewall won't bring it down? ::shrug::

TFLYTSNBN wrote:I wonder if there would even be a market for serious military Sci Fi in which the laws of currently understood physics are largely obeyed? Some type of FTL such as Pournelle's Alderson drive which can enable intersteller travel without enabling any blather about combat in hyperspace would be needed. Would readers enjoy battles where ships are limited to about a month of boosting at one gee or proportionately shorter time at higher gee before they need to refuel?

Then again, even Niven and Pournelle didn't just violate the laws of physics to make it neccessary for the Moties to operate such awesome launching lasers for decades, they raped them. It took me forty years of occassionally rereading a favorite book before I actually crunched the numbers. While the Mote is a dimmer sun than New Caledonia, the difference in "photonic potential energy (big hint on calculating lightsail transit velocity which is proportional to the section density of the sail), you could launch it easily enough by operating the fusion powered photon drive of an empire warship for just a few hours. Of course I pissed off Pournelle by pointing out that the Specific Impulse of a fusion powered photon drive would be one-twentieth the ISP of a simpler fusion rocket. When I showed him the math, Jerry suggested that if I built both he would happily test them.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:I wonder if there would even be a market for serious military Sci Fi in which the laws of currently understood physics are largely obeyed?

Yep! Kim Stanley Robinson's Martian Trilogy. Talked my sister into reading Red Mars and she was pleasantly surprised. "Any other SciFi works like this one?"

"Um, um, um, um . . ."

" "

You are correct to wonder if there's a market for that particular brand of SciFi. Many of my own friends are divided on the Martian Trilogy, as is the lukewarm reception of it found here on the forum. The Trilogy is so true to physics, chemistry, biology and the like that it is said to be the Bible of space exploration and terraforming. One of my favorite reads.

TFLYTSNBN wrote: While a 100+ ton missile impacting at a large fraction of Ceehas a KE on the order of millions of Megatons, dwarfing the yield of a sidewall burner, Weber has decreed that KE weapons can not penatrate a sidewall. Since the impact velocity is an order of magnitude higher than the plasma expansion velocity of a nuke, this is puzzling.

Reasons! And Reasons! Any questions?

It's one of those tings you have to accept.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:The Dragon's Teeth can still jam so long as there are ships alive and thus I would normally not consider them for ramming. I was including the Dazzlers in the rammers, I would think they are actually more likely to be able to ram than the 23-Es as they are expended several seconds out.

Isn't that backwards?

Dragon's Teeth are decoys, when activated they create lots of fake missile signatures attempting to trick the enemy into wasting defensive fire on those phantoms instead of the actual missiles. Once they pass the enemy force it wouldn't mater if they still appeared to be many missiles as the enemy wouldn't waste fire on missiles that already missed.
So once the laserhead missiles of their salvo have detonated the dragon's teeth are only useful for at most the second or two it takes to cover then final 50,000 km to the target (and that only if the enemy still hasn't figured out they're fake signatures and treats them as possible contact nuke attackers; keeping defensive fire on them instead of redirecting it towards the next incoming salvo) -- so might be candidates to attempt ramming. After all it's not like they can't keep faking missile signatures while trying to run into a decoy, halo platform, or part of a ship not protected by wedge or sidewall.

Dazzlers are the jammers than try to blind enemy sensors and disrupt their data and control links. Those might still be useful for a handful of seconds after passing the enemy (assuming they can keep their emitters focused on the enemy). Though even they will rapidly get too far away to remain effective.

My understanding is the Dazzlers run for a very short time overloading the sensors so all targeting is lost, but they very quickly burn out. Before they burn out the Dragon's Teeth turn on, providing a whole bunch of false targets. Since the defenders lost their locks to the Dazzlers they have to start fresh sorting real from electronic ghost--and the countermissiles are already running. They don't have time.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:MDMs have an attack velocity that is a large fraction of Cee. Unless their velocity vector is very close to being on a collision course with a target, they simply do not have enough time to alter their vector to get on a direct impact collision course. If the missile is on an attack vector that it is feasible to divert into a direct impact attack, they will impact a sidewall or impeller wedge. While a 100+ ton missile impacting at a large fraction of Ceehas a KE on the order of millions of Megatons, dwarfing the yield of a sidewall burner, Weber has decreed that KE weapons can not penatrate a sidewall. Since the impact velocity is an order of magnitude higher than the plasma expansion velocity of a nuke, this is puzzling.

1) It comes down to the geometry. If the missiles are attacking towards a sidewall or throat they will already basically be heading for the ship. Very little change will be needed. If they're not on such a course ramming will not be possible.

2) Lasers from missiles can penetrate sidewalls, albeit with attenuation. If an MDM slams into a sidewall and gets vaporized much of it's energy is going to be converted into very hard gamma radiation--something we know penetrates. While it won't be a laser it will be highly selective in being pointed at the ship and it will be several orders of magnitude above a normal missile laser, it can be quite spread out while still packing a huge punch. In the old days blowing a missile into vapor with a sidewall wouldn't produce such energies.

cthia wrote:Super dinosaur killers. At any rate, I recall many instances where textev indicated a fluctuating wedge or sidewall and/or being temporarily down. Certainly not at 100 %, putting me in the mindset of the Enterprise's weakened shields. Scores of 100+ ton missiles impacting in relatively the same vicinity on a weakened sidewall won't bring it down? ::shrug::

Nope. In the early days of MDMs I did the math--it takes a whole pod to approximate the dinosaur killer.