Insanity: Screening elements in the HV

ThinksMarkedly wrote:<snip>
Then what? A piecemeal transit to Darius is stupid. It just gets every ship killed as soon as it arrives. A mass transit would get some 25 ships of the wall through, but no one on the Darius side is going to mistake 25 capital ships for an authorised transit. The transiting ships may take out a chunk of the Darius defences in the process, but they die. It's a suicide mission that only tells Darius to stay on the alert, bring more missile pods around, and disable any IFF codes because the other side has been compromised. And it does not tell the SL where Darius is.
<snip>

Actually it's even worse. Before the start of the series, to defend a wormhole, a ship/fort was required to get within energy range to defend the emergence lane - wedges exploded on hitting the emergence lane, and laserheads didn't have the range to cover the entire width of the lane if exploded outside the lane.

Unfortunately, while the emerging ship was required to coast through the entire length of the emergence lane without it's wedge and could not fire missiles, it could fire it's energy weapons - with the same range as weapons OUTSIDE the emergence lane firing inward. So any defensive weapons were within range of the of the attackers - thus the defenders could be damaged.

Now, laserheads from the major powers have a standoff of 40 or 50,000KM and no portion of the emergence lane is safe from a laserhead. Further, Pods can be setup in clouds close enough to the emergence lane to quickly act, but far enough out that the attacking craft cannot hit them with their offensive weapons, while the forts are even further back, controling them.

The chances of an intact ship reaching the end of the lane and being in the shape to raise their wedge is VERY, VERY small - even if they did survive, they would still need to maneuver free of the resonance zone, and wait 5+ minutes to start their hyper generators to flee the defenders.

Theemile wrote:
Actually it's even worse. Before the start of the series, to defend a wormhole, a ship/fort was required to get within energy range to defend the emergence lane - wedges exploded on hitting the emergence lane, and laserheads didn't have the range to cover the entire width of the lane if exploded outside the lane.

Unfortunately, while the emerging ship was required to coast through the entire length of the emergence lane without it's wedge and could not fire missiles, it could fire it's energy weapons - with the same range as weapons OUTSIDE the emergence lane firing inward. So any defensive weapons were within range of the of the attackers - thus the defenders could be damaged.

That shouldn't actually be true (but yes, the books seem to imply it is).

You'd expect the close defenders to always have their sidewalls (or in the case of a fort its bubble-wall) up - and those approximately halve the effective range of energy weapons.

So a fort hanging back at 750,000 km (2.5 LS) should be easily in its energy range against a target that lacks sidewalls, but at that range (over half a million km) its side/bubble wall should still be nearly immune to return energy fire.

So even pre-laserhead you'd expect forts and energy weapon bouys to shred any hostile transit without taking any appreciable damage. The only limitation would be that the enemy would be able to clear a given fort's energy envelope much sooner than it can clear a missile envelope; so a large transit that was moving dangerously fast might get enough ships clear out the end of the lane that they could bring up wedges and sidewalls and have a somewhat fairer fight.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Theemile wrote:
Actually it's even worse. Before the start of the series, to defend a wormhole, a ship/fort was required to get within energy range to defend the emergence lane - wedges exploded on hitting the emergence lane, and laserheads didn't have the range to cover the entire width of the lane if exploded outside the lane.

Unfortunately, while the emerging ship was required to coast through the entire length of the emergence lane without it's wedge and could not fire missiles, it could fire it's energy weapons - with the same range as weapons OUTSIDE the emergence lane firing inward. So any defensive weapons were within range of the of the attackers - thus the defenders could be damaged.

That shouldn't actually be true (but yes, the books seem to imply it is).

You'd expect the close defenders to always have their sidewalls (or in the case of a fort its bubble-wall) up - and those approximately halve the effective range of energy weapons.

So a fort hanging back at 750,000 km (2.5 LS) should be easily in its energy range against a target that lacks sidewalls, but at that range (over half a million km) its side/bubble wall should still be nearly immune to return energy fire.

So even pre-laserhead you'd expect forts and energy weapon bouys to shred any hostile transit without taking any appreciable damage. The only limitation would be that the enemy would be able to clear a given fort's energy envelope much sooner than it can clear a missile envelope; so a large transit that was moving dangerously fast might get enough ships clear out the end of the lane that they could bring up wedges and sidewalls and have a somewhat fairer fight.

No matter what the situation actually was then - my point is now the defender will take virtually no damage if their tactics are correct, and any thru wormhole attackers have virtually no chance of attacking.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Theemile wrote:
Actually it's even worse. Before the start of the series, to defend a wormhole, a ship/fort was required to get within energy range to defend the emergence lane - wedges exploded on hitting the emergence lane, and laserheads didn't have the range to cover the entire width of the lane if exploded outside the lane.

Unfortunately, while the emerging ship was required to coast through the entire length of the emergence lane without it's wedge and could not fire missiles, it could fire it's energy weapons - with the same range as weapons OUTSIDE the emergence lane firing inward. So any defensive weapons were within range of the of the attackers - thus the defenders could be damaged.

That shouldn't actually be true (but yes, the books seem to imply it is).

You'd expect the close defenders to always have their sidewalls (or in the case of a fort its bubble-wall) up - and those approximately halve the effective range of energy weapons.

So a fort hanging back at 750,000 km (2.5 LS) should be easily in its energy range against a target that lacks sidewalls, but at that range (over half a million km) its side/bubble wall should still be nearly immune to return energy fire.

So even pre-laserhead you'd expect forts and energy weapon bouys to shred any hostile transit without taking any appreciable damage. The only limitation would be that the enemy would be able to clear a given fort's energy envelope much sooner than it can clear a missile envelope; so a large transit that was moving dangerously fast might get enough ships clear out the end of the lane that they could bring up wedges and sidewalls and have a somewhat fairer fight.

Theemeile wrote:No matter what the situation actually was then - my point is now the defender will take virtually no damage if their tactics are correct, and any thru wormhole attackers have virtually no chance of attacking.

I still question whether standoff range when attacking something IN or NEAR the emergence lane should be the same or even possible. As I suggested in the following thread, where there is such an intense band of gravity. Two and two just don't add up to four. Targeting should simply be affected while firing into or out of the emergence lane. Akin to how light itself is affected by being close to the sun. Parallax.

Wormhole Assault: MA Style
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=10729



The MAN can always use the tactic of pulling in its horns like a turtle and shutting down the WH by transiting the maximum tonnage through the WH, effectively shutting it down for its specified amount of time as I suggested in the following thread.

Shutting down the WHJ
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=11210

Upward translations are not visible.

penny wrote:I still question whether standoff range when attacking something IN or NEAR the emergence lane should be the same or even possible. As I suggested in the following thread, where there is such an intense band of gravity. Two and two just don't add up to four. Targeting should simply be affected while firing into or out of the emergence lane. Akin to how light itself is affected by being close to the sun. Parallax.

And yet we're told that
a) the emergence lane, while still strong enough to destroy a ship (or missile, drone, decoy, shuttle, etc.) that isn't protected by a sail, is weaker than an grav wave; and
b) In the far stronger grav wave energy weapons work just fine.
c) Laserheads (which can't enter the emergence lane) are deadly to ships within it.

There apparently no insurmountable problem with firing laserheads through the transition from non-lane to lane, and no insurmountable problem firing energy weapons within grav effects that are stronger than an emergence lane. So I do see why there should be significant problems with firing even more powerful energy mounts from non-lane to lane.

(Okay, there might be a little bit of defraction or bending -- but that would be equally true of the laserheads so logically if there is any it must be entirely possible to compensate for)


As for shutting down the Junction. Yes if the MAlign seized control on a terminus they could shut down that particular leg of the Junction. For the Manticore Junction that'd require sending 200 million tons of shipping through from that terminus every 17-18 hours. Possible, but 200 million tons is a lot of shipping to throw away to get less than a day of disruption.

And we're told that this only affects a given leg. So, say they gain control of Hennesy and destroy whatever defenses are there -- they now simultaneously send through 23 or so large freighters, totaling 200 million tons to lock it down for "over 17 hours". That prevents Manticore from sending ships through to Hennesy (not that you'd want to while a hostile fleet was hovering near the terminus), but it wouldn't affect the Junction's ability to move traffic to or from any of its other 6 termini.

And IIRC the Manticore Junction had the highest known tonnage cap - so a wormhole which could only handle a smaller simultaneous transit would be locked down for significantly less time as the lockdown length goes with the square of the tonnage. Send through 1/2 the tonnage and get 1/4 the lockdown length.

Jonathan_S wrote:

penny wrote:I still question whether standoff range when attacking something IN or NEAR the emergence lane should be the same or even possible. As I suggested in the following thread, where there is such an intense band of gravity. Two and two just don't add up to four. Targeting should simply be affected while firing into or out of the emergence lane. Akin to how light itself is affected by being close to the sun. Parallax.

And yet we're told that
a) the emergence lane, while still strong enough to destroy a ship (or missile, drone, decoy, shuttle, etc.) that isn't protected by a sail, is weaker than an grav wave; and
b) In the far stronger grav wave energy weapons work just fine.
c) Laserheads (which can't enter the emergence lane) are deadly to ships within it.

There apparently no insurmountable problem with firing laserheads through the transition from non-lane to lane, and no insurmountable problem firing energy weapons within grav effects that are stronger than an emergence lane. So I do see why there should be significant problems with firing even more powerful energy mounts from non-lane to lane.

(Okay, there might be a little bit of defraction or bending -- but that would be equally true of the laserheads so logically if there is any it must be entirely possible to compensate for)


As for shutting down the Junction. Yes if the MAlign seized control on a terminus they could shut down that particular leg of the Junction. For the Manticore Junction that'd require sending 200 million tons of shipping through from that terminus every 17-18 hours. Possible, but 200 million tons is a lot of shipping to throw away to get less than a day of disruption.

And we're told that this only affects a given leg. So, say they gain control of Hennesy and destroy whatever defenses are there -- they now simultaneously send through 23 or so large freighters, totaling 200 million tons to lock it down for "over 17 hours". That prevents Manticore from sending ships through to Hennesy (not that you'd want to while a hostile fleet was hovering near the terminus), but it wouldn't affect the Junction's ability to move traffic to or from any of its other 6 termini.

And IIRC the Manticore Junction had the highest known tonnage cap - so a wormhole which could only handle a smaller simultaneous transit would be locked down for significantly less time as the lockdown length goes with the square of the tonnage. Send through 1/2 the tonnage and get 1/4 the lockdown length.

That just doesn't compute. It may be honorversally correct, but logically, it does not compute. The band of gravity is strong enough to destroy ships and missiles, but it only marginally affects energy fire?

It's just another huge prescription pill that is hard for me to swallow. It would be easier to accept, only easier mind you, if it was only possible for a ship in the emergence lane to fire on another ship in the emergence lane. Emergence to emergence fire. Similar to it being easier to accept, only easier mind you, that a ship can fire on another ship while in a grav wave. Grav-wave to grav-wave fire. Even then, while in hyper (grav waves too I thought) it isn't exactly easy to target another ship. Granted, that is explained away because of distorted sensor ability. But, well, still.

At any rate, the notion of photons escaping a huge band of gravity goes against the grain. Einsteinian WH or not, an intense band of gravity is an intense band of gravity. At the very least, standoff range should be severely affected.

Anyway, firing out from within and within from without gives me anxieties. Two and two just don't add up to be four. The beam shouldn't simply be defracted, it should be deflected. The wedge is an intense band of gravity as well. And the wedge is totally immune to laserheads. We are told the equation for wedge fratricide favors the bigger wedge (band of gravity). And the emergence lane is obviously a bigger band of gravity than a wedge. Yet a wedge can deflect laserheads whereas the emergence lane cannot.

2 + 2 does not equal 4.

If it were on an exam, I'd go to bed worrying whether I got that answer correct. The aforementioned anxieties.


Two plus two is indeed NOT four

Jonathan_S wrote:And even if it's clear they know the junction is there they could claim it was only recently discovered and they were trying to nail down incontrovertible proof of complete ownership before anything else and hadn't even started surveying it. So obviously they had no idea that bad guys might have use it. They're shocked, shocked they say, to be told this.

(The GA might be suspicious. Hell, they might be very suspicious; but they'd have no proof that Mannerheim was in cahoots with the MAlign - not unless they'd found details of MAlign use of the wormhole via Mannerheim assets)

Remember, I said they'd send a scout ship to survey it for a while before making any overt moves. If they suspect the MAlign is using it, they're going to try and wait to see a MAlign ship transiting. Just finding the wormhole kills your intel pipe without giving you anything more than you had before. Instead, if you patiently wait a month or two or three for ships to transit, you can tell that the wormhole is a) in use, b) the Mannerheim defending ships know about it, and c) might give enough idea about the transit vectors, even from a few light-seconds away via GR drones.

Then you drop in when a ship has just arrived but hasn't cleared the hyperlimit yet. You demand to board and ask who those people are. Since this system does not (yet) belong to Mannerheim, I don't know if Mannerheim can object to it. They may object on their own warships, but the freighter that has just arrived may not have that option. The freighter may even be known by ship signatures.

If the freighter crew then starts dying of natural causes when interrogated, you've proven it's the MAlign and that Mannerheim was in cahoots. And since they can't give the Darius coordinates, it will be very clear they were protecting whoever is on the other side. Circumstantial evidence, sure, but it's game over for this portion of The Plan. Mannerheim is burned, and if the RF survives after this, it's tainted by association.

penny wrote:That just doesn't compute. It may be honorversally correct, but logically, it does not compute. The band of gravity is strong enough to destroy ships and missiles, but it only marginally affects energy fire?

Photons have no mass, so they are not affected by tidal waves of gravity. The photon packet is affected equally along its length as it passes through. Along its width there may be a disruption, causing the beam to become unfocused and thus lose effectiveness.

Plus, light travels at the speed of light. Unless the gravity disruption has a very high frequency (as in, above the VHF range - above 300 MHz), the photon packet will mostly pass through any changes in the gravity field before the gravity field changes, with minor distortions only.

It's just another huge prescription pill that is hard for me to swallow. It would be easier to accept, only easier mind you, if it was only possible for a ship in the emergence lane to fire on another ship in the emergence lane. Emergence to emergence fire. Similar to it being easier to accept, only easier mind you, that a ship can fire on another ship while in a grav wave. Grav-wave to grav-wave fire. Even then, while in hyper (grav waves too I thought) it isn't exactly easy to target another ship. Granted, that is explained away because of distorted sensor ability. But, well, still.

There's no limitation of firing in and out of gravity waves, other than the ability to track the target.

And here we have an important difference for wormhole defences: even if you're right and energy weapons are degraded, the sheer number of energy weapons that the forts can put out is incredibly high. And then you add all the missiles that can deploy and fire within 30 seconds. The ship will die by a thousand paper cuts.

At any rate, the notion of photons escaping a huge band of gravity goes against the grain. Einsteinian WH or not, an intense band of gravity is an intense band of gravity. At the very least, standoff range should be severely affected.

It may be but it's also inconsequential.

Anyway, firing out from within and within from without gives me anxieties. Two and two just don't add up to be four. The beam shouldn't simply be defracted, it should be deflected. The wedge is an intense band of gravity as well. And the wedge is totally immune to laserheads. We are told the equation for wedge fratricide favors the bigger wedge (band of gravity). And the emergence lane is obviously a bigger band of gravity than a wedge. Yet a wedge can deflect laserheads whereas the emergence lane cannot.

2 + 2 does not equal 4.

If it were on an exam, I'd go to bed worrying whether I got that answer correct. The aforementioned anxieties.

In any case, this point is moot. There is no discussion. We have textev saying it is possible, so there's nothing to be discussed.

In UH, during the second part of the Battle of Ajay-Prime, the RMN had deployed LACs to the far side of the wormhole. The LACs were killing battlecruisers with a single graser shot from outside the emergence lane. If a single LAC can do this, a dozen forts are practically overkill.

penny wrote:That just doesn't compute. It may be honorversally correct, but logically, it does not compute. The band of gravity is strong enough to destroy ships and missiles, but it only marginally affects energy fire?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Photons have no mass, so they are not affected by tidal waves of gravity. The photon packet is affected equally along its length as it passes through. Along its width there may be a disruption, causing the beam to become unfocused and thus lose effectiveness.

Plus, light travels at the speed of light. Unless the gravity disruption has a very high frequency (as in, above the VHF range - above 300 MHz), the photon packet will mostly pass through any changes in the gravity field before the gravity field changes, with minor distortions only.

Isn't the problem that it is strong enough to destroy ships that try to bring up a wedge too soon? We know that it does not simply destroy ships, because then no one could make a transit. The worst point is not the lane, but the actual entry or exit from the wormhole.

Einstein's General Theory does have photons deflected by a gravitational field, but that is one that has symmetry around a central object. The sort of fields here are weaker (although strong enough to destroy an incautious ship). Even if the beams were deflected by meters, they would still hit the ship; just shoot down the line of sight, since vision or lidar will be deflected by about the same amount..

tlb wrote:Isn't the problem that it is strong enough to destroy ships that try to bring up a wedge too soon? We know that it does not simply destroy ships, because then no one could make a transit. The worst point is not the lane, but the actual entry or exit from the wormhole.

Right, it's the actual transit that requires the sails. In the lane, the ship travels normally under regular rocket science. It just can't bring up its wedge because the wedge interacts with the lane's gravitic field.

Therefore, outside of the wedge, Physics works normally there. There's no reason a graser beam or a reaction-drive missile wouldn't work.