?

cthia wrote:Talking about tech falling into the wrong hands. If Shannon gets her hands on that 3 second firing ability of the GTs, a graser array kit similar to the one she's putting together to protect wormholes would be even more devastating. She's proposing five shots per graser now, as opposed to the single shot previously. Five, three second shots from each graser should discourage any enemy. If not, toasted quail is on the menu.

How long do ship grasers fire? If a LACs graser could up its ante to 3 seconds, then holy hell hath surely lit the cake!

Galactic Sapper wrote:We don't know but there's reason to believe they fire in fairly short pulses. And I doubt Shannon or anyone else will be able to get more than one shot out of a grazer torpedo, as the first firing generates enough heat to literally melt the entire torpedo to slag. The MAlign consider that to be a security feature, not a flaw.

tlb wrote:Particularly since the reason that graser remotes are being considered to replace mines is that they do NOT self-destruct after one shot and only require a plasma capacitor recharge to be good for another engagement.

If I remember correctly the torpedoes do not just melt; but explode so strongly that they destroy the spider drive, thus preserving its secret also.

What I'm positing, is the tech that enables the GT duration of fire could be used towards a breakthrough that squeezes more firing time out of traditional grasers. If the firing time of GA grasers can be increased to maybe 2 seconds, without destroying itself, it would be well worth it. Albeit, a 1 second firing time compared to a paltry microsecond would be a GA windfall. We'll even settle for a half of second firing time, as a result of MA ingenuity.

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kzt wrote:They are mentioned at times, and somehow never mentioned when you'd expect them to be. For example, would you expect that perimeter control would be on a soft platform or on a fort? And you'd kind of think that the forts around manticore would do SOMETHING when millions of tons of debris is about to bombard the planet, but apparently everyone had decided to take a nap or something.

I don't see what more they could do. I saw the suggestion above of using OWP to shoot debris, but I don't think that's effective. Especially against large pieces. The graser beam is needle width. Unless you time the shot perfectly against a tumbling piece of debris, the chances are that you're not even going to shoot through the thickest section. Either way, the beam is simply going to go through. The material will become plasma but it'll also shoot through longitudinally the beam hole. It will expand and cause some fractures, but that'll likely create more pieces of debris, which in turn can make matters worse.

If the beams can be made to defocus a little, it might be able to irradiate a larger area of the debris piece and vapourise more.

Anyway, it seems that the correct solution for handling debris is wedges. That certainly vapourises and eliminates the problem thoroughly (BTW, where do the matter and energy go?). But wedges are local effects and tugs can only be at so many places at a given time.

I suppose a second tool would be tractors and repulsor beams. Range may be an issue, though.

And if you can get within energy range of the fort without detection I suspect you can kill it in safety since the evidence to date is that the fort crew will sleep through the attack.

Or the forts could be manned by Stormtroopers.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:The graser beam is needle width. Unless you time the shot perfectly against a tumbling piece of debris, the chances are that you're not even going to shoot through the thickest section. Either way, the beam is simply going to go through. The material will become plasma but it'll also shoot through longitudinally the beam hole. It will expand and cause some fractures, but that'll likely create more pieces of debris, which in turn can make matters worse.

If the beams can be made to defocus a little, it might be able to irradiate a larger area of the debris piece and vapourise more.

Anyway, it seems that the correct solution for handling debris is wedges. That certainly vapourises and eliminates the problem thoroughly (BTW, where do the matter and energy go?). But wedges are local effects and tugs can only be at so many places at a given time.

I suppose a second tool would be tractors and repulsor beams. Range may be an issue, though.

My impression is that SD grasers are very large diamter. Like 8 meter. Which on low power rapid fire should be abl to do something.

And if not, you might just possibly want to launch some of the hundreds of LACs you have. I'm thinking that there might be 'something' they could do.

[quote="kzt"My impression is that SD grasers are very large diamter. Like 8 meter. Which on low power rapid fire should be abl to do something.

And if not, you might just possibly want to launch some of the hundreds of LACs you have. I'm thinking that there might be 'something' they could do.[/quote]

The graser mount definitely is, but that does not necessarily correspond to the beam also being that wide. But you're right that was thinking of the description of the laserhead missiles. Shipboard (and fort-based) grasers may very well be different.

And you're right: LACs definitely can help. A couple of hundred of them with wedges can clean up a lot. For that matter, so can pinnaces. The forts must definitely have a couple hundred qualified pilots each. If nothing else, they can help clean the smaller pieces and allow the tugs to focus on the bigger ones.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

kzt wrote:They are mentioned at times, and somehow never mentioned when you'd expect them to be. For example, would you expect that perimeter control would be on a soft platform or on a fort? And you'd kind of think that the forts around manticore would do SOMETHING when millions of tons of debris is about to bombard the planet, but apparently everyone had decided to take a nap or something.

I don't see what more they could do. I saw the suggestion above of using OWP to shoot debris, but I don't think that's effective. Especially against large pieces. The graser beam is needle width. Unless you time the shot perfectly against a tumbling piece of debris, the chances are that you're not even going to shoot through the thickest section. Either way, the beam is simply going to go through. The material will become plasma but it'll also shoot through longitudinally the beam hole. It will expand and cause some fractures, but that'll likely create more pieces of debris, which in turn can make matters worse.

If the beams can be made to defocus a little, it might be able to irradiate a larger area of the debris piece and vapourise more.

Anyway, it seems that the correct solution for handling debris is wedges. That certainly vapourises and eliminates the problem thoroughly (BTW, where do the matter and energy go?). But wedges are local effects and tugs can only be at so many places at a given time.

I suppose a second tool would be tractors and repulsor beams. Range may be an issue, though.

And if you can get within energy range of the fort without detection I suspect you can kill it in safety since the evidence to date is that the fort crew will sleep through the attack.

Or the forts could be manned by Stormtroopers.

Graser beams are huge... The shrike beam has a diameter of 1.5m. Capital beams start in the 3.5m range and go up to 6.5m or so. I would hardly call a beam the size of my living room, "needle-like".

cthia wrote:What I'm positing, is the tech that enables the GT duration of fire could be used towards a breakthrough that squeezes more firing time out of traditional grasers. If the firing time of GA grasers can be increased to maybe 2 seconds, without destroying itself, it would be well worth it. Albeit, a 1 second firing time compared to a paltry microsecond would be a GA windfall. We'll even settle for a half of second firing time, as a result of MA ingenuity.

I agree that a longer duration shot from a graser would be beneficial, but do not expect that the graser torpedo will help in that effort; since it explodes at the end of the shot. It seems more efficient to look at the failure points in a long duration firing and correct them one by one. You are correct to point out the Malign scientists had to have done some of this research already. However stopping the final explosion is a very big hurdle and solving it does not count as an technology transfer.

A couple of points according to my warped brain. Believe me, I hate it when it warps too.

An LDs vulnerability to detection is during her initial insertion into hostile waters. If she gets into a system w/o detection, chances are she'll operate with impunity. Save for any RMN providence, like Murphy.

Regarding how close an LD can get, recall that current Russian subs can deploy less than 200 miles off the US coast without detection causing a real Hunt for Red October off the same US East Coast.

Also remember the amazing stealth of GR drones, then recall what MA stealth has accomplished thus far. And, that they're a cut above.

Theemile wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Anyway, it seems that the correct solution for handling debris is wedges. That certainly vapourises and eliminates the problem thoroughly (BTW, where do the matter and energy go?). But wedges are local effects and tugs can only be at so many places at a given time.

I suppose a second tool would be tractors and repulsor beams. Range may be an issue, though.

Graser beams are huge... The shrike beam has a diameter of 1.5m. Capital beams start in the 3.5m range and go up to 6.5m or so. I would hardly call a beam the size of my living room, "needle-like".

We don't know that they are. We know the mounts are that big, but the beam itself could be a tiny fraction of the area of the emitter. Like our very large telescopes today, even the JWST, they have a huge area for light collection, but they are actually imaging an area of the sky that is a couple of arc minutes at best in width.

But we don't know that they aren't either.

Anyway, it's just occurred to me that the RMN has one more thing at its disposal that is designed to sweep an area with wedges, has very powerful (overpowered even) wedges and the forts would have plenty of: counter-missiles. If Harkness can barricade with capital ship missiles, the forts can use a couple thousand CMs to sweep the area of debris, big and small.

cthia wrote:A couple of points according to my warped brain. Believe me, I hate it when it warps too.

An LDs vulnerability to detection is during her initial insertion into hostile waters. If she gets into a system w/o detection, chances are she'll operate with impunity. Save for any RMN providence, like Murphy.

Agreed, but that's a very big if. The big problem is the alpha translation back to normal space. There's no way to completely eliminate the energy dissipation. So they're going to have to translate very far out. I've thrown the number of 6 light-months out as the edge of the detection of Manticoran sensors. If the translation is detected, a force will be dispatched to determine what happened and they will comb the region to find any vessels that transited. At 6 light-months out, the detection time is 182/62 ≅ 3 days, plus the travel time in hyperspace for the ready force. If that's 4 days, at 150 G, the LD will be within 58 light-hours of the emergence point. That's not a searchable volume.

The second aspect is that it puts a minimum time on when such a ship can arrive at its destination. If it arrived 6 light-months out, it will take 7.5 months to close to targets. But of course, it won't take the least-time course (that would be stupid), so the defenders would need to stay months on alert after the translation.

A tactic that the MAlign could use for insertion is to have multiple ships translating from alpha at a light-month out, over the course of a couple of weeks. The defenders won't be able to investigate them all, so they won't be able to tell how many (if any!) of those are attackers still coming.

Regarding how close an LD can get, recall that current Russian subs can deploy less than 200 miles off the US coast without detection causing a real Hunt for Red October off the same US East Coast.

Also remember the amazing stealth of GR drones, then recall what MA stealth has accomplished thus far. And, that they're a cut above.

How big is a Ghost Rider? 30 m long, 300 tonnes? That's 5 orders of magnitude less in mass and volume, which means it has a cross section 3 orders of magnitude smaller and a liner dimension nearly 2 orders of magnitude smaller. By the Square-Cube Law, if the thermal output of the ship is proportional to its volume, then it must be irradiating much more over its area than a recon drone does.

So the MAlign tech may be better in stealth, but I still don't think they can get to within 1 light-second of a determined defender that is actively scanning. The MAlign would be wise to assume detection is a near certainty below that, dropping sharply as the range extends.

Another problem is that they can't tell where the Ghost Rider RDs are either. They don't want to accidentally pass too close to one, since that would give their position away, at FTL speeds. So the LDs will not close to where big fleets and important assets are, since there can be a shell of invisible RDs (and the defenders would be wise to have more than one). The GA has been already bitten twice by failing to detect incoming, stealthy weapons: once during Oyster Bay and once at Beowulf, with the Silver Bullet.

In fact, they don't even need to hide the scanning platforms.

I don't think OWPs exist. Home Fleet can accomplish what an OWP can do. They were clearly not available during OB. Besides, I'm not certain you'd want a platform so close to Home Fleet. If a key personnel(s) falls under compulsion, an unsuspecting Honor Harrington can die a sad death getting bynged.

And since they'd be manned by personnel taking advantage of being so close to the planet constantly visiting their families opportunities for nanite injection is high.