?

tlb wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Adding one more datum: the Beowulf defenders did not see the Hastas that the SLN did deploy until they started their missile stages.

Jonathan_S wrote:I got the impression it wasn't so much that the Beowulf defenders didn't see the Hasta as that they didn't realize they weren't part of the "hefty shells of recon drones" that they saw the League BCs put out.

(Which makes sense - Hasta is basically an RD drive strapped to a missile pod. And at those extreme ranges, and launched before Ghost Rider recon drones could vector in for a closer look, all the RD drives are likely going to look quite similar. Even once all the drive shut down a Hasta going ballistic isn't going to look all that different from an RD going ballistic)

So, as often seems to be the case in war, the surprise isn't something you never saw; but instead something that turned out not to be what you'd dismissed it as.

That was another bet missed in the defense of Galton: why didn't that mix of recon drones initially sent out, contain a large percentage of drones carrying grassers?

And why wasn't Honor concerned that they might all be carrying grasers or laser warheads?

Jonathan_S wrote:

penny wrote:Also, after loitering, getting a g-torp back up to speed shouldn't take that much energy, IMO. It is already a slow missile. Almost as slow as an LD. I imagine a g-torp reaches its max acceleration very early after launch, so a restart after loitering shouldn't require any significant power, nor would there be a rush to get back up to speed.

It reaches it's max accel shortly after launch (it's capable of "few hundred gravities’ acceleration"). But it's so low an accel it'd spend a lot of time accelerating up to whatever max speed is used for an attack run.

And if you want it to slow down so it can loiter in a given area it has to spend exactly as long slowing down. Spend 2 hours working up to about 21,000 KPS and you'll need to spend another 2 hours to cancel out all that velocity it built up in the original acceleration.


So I partially agree with tlb. I don't think they'd have design a g-torp with enough extra energy to allow it to run its drive for over twice as long as a normal attack profile. They'd have given it some margin to allow the drive to be brought back up for maneuvering if making very long range shots, but we're likely talking 10-15% extra time.

However since the drive can freely restart, and incorporate ballistic segments in its flight profile - the smart "AI" onboard should give plenty of flexibility to let a captain allocate the limited energy budge in more interesting ways than a continuous powered shot from whatever their design range was.
(Trading off energy lost to capacitor leakage rate against lower peak velocities from running the drive less.

So they should be free to:
* use 90% of its run time to build up velocity, and save 10% for terminal maneuvering.
* Or drop that down to, say, 80 or 85% run time and use the extra power saved by 5%-10% less engine runtime to cover the leakage drain during a nice long ballistic coast (and still have 10% left for terminal maneuvering).
* Or if they wanted to use, say 35% of its run time, then have a nice long coast, another 35% to slow down to loiter speed, have the extra power saved by using 20% less runtime to cover leakage drain during coast & loitering (and still have 10% left for terminal maneuvering)

And you can partially compensate for the lower max velocity by simply sneaking closer so the g-torp doesn't have as far to go after launch.

Note: You might also want a slow terminal speed if you need to get at a target that could be protected by the wedge block-ships seen at Beowulf.
You need your velocity low enough that the g-torps few hundred gravities of accel can pick its way through the gaps between the wedges (which might require a couple of near 90 degree turns to dogleg your way through -- and if you've too much velocity you hit the back wedge before you can change your vector enough to miss it). So you might want the flexibility to slow down even if you're not planning to loiter before attacking.

With this kind of flexibility a loiter attack wouldn't need to be a specific design goal -- and might still be somewhat possible anyway.

tlb wrote:And why wasn't Honor concerned that they might all be carrying grasers or laser warheads?

penny wrote:The GA knows about the 3-second grasers?

Chapter 30 wrote:The weapons that were used on the space stations were another case entirely. At this point, it looks like they were probably some sort of throwaway, disposable version of our own Shrikes, although nobody in Admiral Hemphill's shop has the least clue how Manpower—excuse me, how whoever launched this attack—managed to cram a weapon that powerful into a remote platform. Or how they gave its graser that sort of pulse endurance. For all intents and purposes, though, it's basically only a longer-ranged version of our own Mistletoe

penny wrote:Without a lot of luck, absolutely not. Beowulf would not have seen them. The only reason the GA saw them at Galton was because the GA were in a battle specifically against the Mesan Alignment (and not against the SL navy) and the GA knew for certain what they had better be prepared for. At Beowulf, everyone knew for a fact they were in a battle against the SLN. And... the web of GR drones the GA seeded throughout Galton dwarfed anything that would have been deployed at Beowulf as an afterthought. Plus! When you are in a battle with a navy whose wedges that you see, who has the time, wherewithal or motivation to worry about unseen ghosts.

Jonathan_S wrote:It reaches it's max accel shortly after launch (it's capable of "few hundred gravities’ acceleration"). But it's so low an accel it'd spend a lot of time accelerating up to whatever max speed is used for an attack run.

And if you want it to slow down so it can loiter in a given area it has to spend exactly as long slowing down. Spend 2 hours working up to about 21,000 KPS and you'll need to spend another 2 hours to cancel out all that velocity it built up in the original acceleration.

penny wrote:Is that written in stone? For a spider-drive I always assumed the opposite. Not based on textev, simply my own assumption. I always assumed, at least for a spider-drive, that decelerating would be much more efficient than accelerating. The ship simply has to toss out its anchors, tractors, that grab at the wall. It doesn't have to continuously reach for a new purchase point ahead of the ship as it does when accelerating. Which would be more in line with the movements of an Arachnid plus give it a bit more tactical mobility. I am not expecting an LD to stop on a dime, but I do expect its stopping distance to make a Porsche proud. Emergency acceleration. Emergency deceleration. Smell those brake pads? Textev?

penny wrote:The GA knows about the 3-second grasers?

Mission of Honor, ch. 30 wrote:"My own feeling, and Admiral Hemphill's tentative analysis supports the same conclusion, is that what we have to be looking at is some radically new propulsive system. The missiles used in this attack were essentially conventional weapons—variants on our own MDMs. Analysis of their maneuvers from the moment they brought their drivers up further suggests they were delivered in pods, probably coasted ballistically in to their launch points at a velocity of about point-two cee. The weapons that were used on the space stations were another case entirely. At this point, it looks like they were some sort of throwaway, disposable version of our own Shrikes, although nobody in Admiral Hemphill's shop has the least clue how Manpower—excuse me, how whoever launched this attack—managed to cram a weapon that powerful into a remote platform. Or how they gave its graser that sort of pulse endurance. For all intents and purposes, though, it's basically a longer-ranged version of our own Mistletoe, probably using whatever new drive technology their ships use instead of relying completely on stealth the way Mistletoe does."

penny wrote:Is that written in stone? For a spider-drive I always assumed the opposite. Not based on textev, simply my own assumption. I always assumed, at least for a spider-drive, that decelerating would be much more efficient than accelerating.

The ship simply has to toss out its anchors, tractors, that grab at the wall. It doesn't have to continuously reach for a new purchase point ahead of the ship as it does when accelerating. Which would be more in line with the movements of an Arachnid plus give it a bit more tactical mobility. I am not expecting an LD to stop on a dime, but I do expect its stopping distance to make a Porsche proud. Emergency acceleration. Emergency deceleration. Smell those brake pads? Textev?

tlb wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:It reaches it's max accel shortly after launch (it's capable of "few hundred gravities’ acceleration"). But it's so low an accel it'd spend a lot of time accelerating up to whatever max speed is used for an attack run.

And if you want it to slow down so it can loiter in a given area it has to spend exactly as long slowing down. Spend 2 hours working up to about 21,000 KPS and you'll need to spend another 2 hours to cancel out all that velocity it built up in the original acceleration.

penny wrote:Is that written in stone? For a spider-drive I always assumed the opposite. Not based on textev, simply my own assumption. I always assumed, at least for a spider-drive, that decelerating would be much more efficient than accelerating. The ship simply has to toss out its anchors, tractors, that grab at the wall. It doesn't have to continuously reach for a new purchase point ahead of the ship as it does when accelerating. Which would be more in line with the movements of an Arachnid plus give it a bit more tactical mobility. I am not expecting an LD to stop on a dime, but I do expect its stopping distance to make a Porsche proud. Emergency acceleration. Emergency deceleration. Smell those brake pads? Textev?

No, an LD could not stop on a dime; because you have the same human tolerance problem when decelerating, as when accelerating - no more than a few gravities.

If the spider drive just grabs a single purchase point and tries to stop, two things happen:
1) there is a sudden jerk that may exceed human limits.
2) As the distance to the purchase point increases (as the ship or missile moves past), then the grip weakens until it can no longer hold on. In order to come to a stop, then you have to continually grab at new points.

Obviously a missile is not affected by point one as much as a manned ship, but the second point means that the rates of acceleration or deceleration would be roughly the same.

penny wrote:As I said, I do not expect an LD to stop on a dime. I think perhaps you misread that.

However, it appears that the mechanics of accelerating and decelerating would be different for a spider-drive. As in inherently more efficient. When accelerating, a spider-drive has to continuously reach for a new purchase point ahead of the ship. Much like walking or crawling one has to put one foot ahead of the next, so forth and so on, on and on. But to stop -- much like what is depicted in cartoons, on the basketball court and for an ice skater -- one only has to stop both feet. Drag the feet, like what Fred Flintstone does when he just puts his feet down on the ground underneath the car.

When stopping, a spider-drive does not have to reach for a purchase point. It only has to drag its anchor as efficiently as it can. It can use the purchase points that are at the current position of the ship.

I see this possibility as exceeding what we might ordinarily think an emergency deceleration would entail. Again, more efficient than accelerating. IOW, an LD may be able to achieve deceleration in n-space that mimics a crash translation in h-space. Who cares if there is nausea and vomiting afterwards. Which I also posited the MA should have countered the effects of that with their research anyway.

penny wrote:

tlb wrote:That was another bet missed in the defense of Galton: why didn't that mix of recon drones initially sent out, contain a large percentage of drones carrying grassers?

And why wasn't Honor concerned that they might all be carrying grasers or laser warheads?

The GA knows about the 3-second grasers?