Tech they ought to have.

Relax wrote:1) Solve in reverse. Time to get a CM to minimal interception range from the ship. Assume the firing key has already been depressed and its in the tube ready to go via C&C loop etc.

What is its initial Velocity? 1000km/s via mass driver?
Go with a wedge depth from ship of 50KM or so(small ship)
If 1000km/s v0 then requires essentially no time just to clear the ships wedge. t ~ 0.05

Lets go with ~0s for best scenario.

What is minimal distance before you do NOT fire and rather use PDLC? 100,000km?

Assume best scenario: v0 = 1k km/s, a = 10kmpss

t = time to clear wedge(0s) and get to 100k km = 13s

Distance at which you need to determine if one "blob" = two missiles. Assuming you do not know how many missiles were fired to begin with... which the books all say is rather apparent so we are left to believe a computer all of a sudden can't count to 20 without taking its socks off... and likewise can't put CM's in line with each other... Now add reaction time of a human who has to select the missed missile and hit fire instead of the computer doing it... As if the computer doesn't already know Friend from Foe Missiles aren't exactly stealthy you know...

V incoming, Best case scenario, SDM, 13s @100,000km intercept, is 1,000,000km @0.25c for distinguishing between 1 and 2 missiles. Assuming you have spare CM's that were not already launched for some odd reason... Its not like you don't already know that CM's miss incoming targets...

This is the equivalent of saying a human in a wet navy today should be in charge of using the CIWS/SEARAM... You might have noticed but no navy on earth is that stupid...

I'm not sure a CM has to coast clear of the ship's wedge before lighting off. It has to get over 5 km past the sidewalls - so over 15 km from the ship's hull. But as long as you don't clip the ship's wedge with your missile's wedge you can have one wedge active inside another -- otherwise they wouldn't have needed to invent sidewalls to protect ships against wedge contact missiles (as described in the armor essay from IFF)

Though since the CM's wedge is wider than the ship you can obviously can't have 2 light off simultaneously from the same broadside...
But that might let you cut down on the lag time to coast clear of the wedge that you had built into your calculations.

Relax wrote:inane nattering, trying to use maths and scientific stuff to disguise the point, which you changed into a CM issue rather than the real point

And to address your actual point, where in the hell did you jump into trying to use bad math and a "your computers are damaged and you can't even fire CMs", I didn't even make that point. I pointed out that with computer battle damage, your terrible "solo, computer operated defenses" have a much higher risk of being fried and screwing the whole ship. That has zero relation to trying to blind-fire a CM without computer support.

The point I was making was closer to the 'training scenario' aboard HMAMC Wayfarer, early in the books. When they'd lost their targetting sensors due to a single freak hit, and Wanderman had to pull programming out of his ass AND physically go run a line to get the targetting back up.

Are you honestly trying to tell us, you can program a computer that can intuitively reprogram itself after receiving battle damage, AND run manual lines from one portion of itself to another that doesn't require aid from a human?


Relax, you need to relax pal. There is no computer in the world, that leaps to answers that a brain can intuitively grasp. Computers follow logic paths, which have to first be programmed and accounted for. Yes, they can do it in literally inhuman speeds, but they still have to follow the path: A, then B, then C, ... until you finally arrive to the end. But it doesn't skip any steps, it just follows them very very quickly. A brain would see, A, B, C and intuitively end up at Z.

Relax wrote:DW baloney

, but if it's so stupid why do you insist on coming to these forums and spewing your filth and hate and calling everybody else stupid for believing it?

Somtaaw wrote:Are you honestly trying to tell us, you can program a computer that can intuitively reprogram itself after receiving battle damage, AND run manual lines from one portion of itself to another that doesn't require aid from a human?

Computers are very small. You essentially have mesh of them throughout the entire ship and they form a single distributed system. All communication links are also data links between the computers (voice is really low bandwidth). So if you have lost access to something critical either that system is no longer working or you have also lost access to everything else and are sitting in a room without any knowledge of what is going on or ability to talk to anyone. In all likelihood you are in vacuum with no power either, because backup communication cables would run through the power pathways.

This is in general a problem that any science fiction universe has.

You have to over-extrapolate some perhaps possible technological advancements (e.g. counter gravity, reactionless drives, FTL) while at the same time put the brakes fully on other technological advancements that are extremely likely. Otherwise the culture you are building will be (1) not very interesting, or (2) almost completely incomprehensible.

Some examples:

Why doesn't Elizabeth Winton have a Facebook page? Or its Manticoran equivalent.

Why don't conservatives and liberals on Grayson engage in flame wars on their equivalent of Twitter?

When characters go to meet at Cosmo's or Dempsey's or the Rare Sirloin, why don't they signal their waiter or waitress via their uni-link? Why don't they just order their meal using the uni-link rather than a possibly unsanitary or out-of-date menu?

kzt wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:Are you honestly trying to tell us, you can program a computer that can intuitively reprogram itself after receiving battle damage, AND run manual lines from one portion of itself to another that doesn't require aid from a human?

Computers are very small. You essentially have mesh of them throughout the entire ship and they form a single distributed system. All communication links are also data links between the computers (voice is really low bandwidth). So if you have lost access to something critical either that system is no longer working or you have also lost access to everything else and are sitting in a room without any knowledge of what is going on or ability to talk to anyone. In all likelihood you are in vacuum with no power either, because backup communication cables would run through the power pathways.

Indeed, however there's usually a hard drive specific portion of all computers, even today we don't have software distributed so thoroughly you can just randomly slice off a portion and keep a 100% fully intact, functional computer.

What I initially proposed, was that yes having a human (or hell let's be generous and say any non-artificial) intelligence somewhere in the command loop does lead to marked improvements in computer operating. Provided of course said organic intelligence is trained, and understands what is going on, otherwise it's only going to slow things down dramatically.

After all, if that weren't the case, why haven't we gone to primarily unmanned drones for the military right now? We have the technology, we could cut out the human factor here and now, except most first world countries swear to keeping a person aboard everything, that actually controls it. Whether it's a tank, jet, ship, we still have at least one person aboard every major warfighting technology, they're all heavy on computers nowadays, and won't even operate at all without the computers... but we still put a person into the control loop for all of them.

That's not, by Relax's words "DW baloney", so I either I'm a total, utter moron; which I will admit is very possible, or he's making mountains out of a few grains of sand again.

Somatow: Not sure why I bother when this is like describing the color blue to a blind person...

Redundant computing has been around since the Saturn V...

"DW BALONEY" is an alternate phrase to the title of this thread...

The problem with drones or a fighter without a pilot is the communications link, not the software, not redundant computing. EMP is also harnessed via optical connections by and large since the 80's.

Who wins every time? A computer playing chess or the human? The computer by a vast margin.

Military tech is always at least several decades behind the actual tech threshold capability of a civilization. Integration requires a lot of time and $$$. Add the unknowing obsolescence of certain tech which would waste additional money making the military very conservative. Most deployed military "tech" is no older than the 80s at best today(miniaturization is an exception due to extreme advances in small computer size). The next couple decades it will plateau. Might have noticed, but in the civilian world, computers haven't noticeably changed in 10 years other than someone finally got a clue and figured out how to bypass Windows idiotic boot up sequence snail pace..... Never had that problem in computers before Windows garbage became dominant.

Somtaaw wrote:After all, if that weren't the case, why haven't we gone to primarily unmanned drones for the military right now? We have the technology, we could cut out the human factor here and now, except most first world countries swear to keeping a person aboard everything, that actually controls it. Whether it's a tank, jet, ship, we still have at least one person aboard every major warfighting technology, they're all heavy on computers nowadays, and won't even operate at all without the computers... but we still put a person into the control loop for all of them.

All the drones we have are based on the assumption that we have secure communications links, which are mostly based on leased SATCOM. If we go to war against one of the big boys we will lose every critical LEO sat in hours and critical GEO sats in days, and they will be effectively useless due to jamming long before that.

And fully autonomous operation is a ways out. Exactly how long is unclear, depending on just what is included.

Given that, last I heard, only 87 of the 274 USMC F-18s are flyable, things will get very interesting if the jackass who has underfunded defense for the better part of decade manages to get us into a major war with another display of smart diplomacy.

[quote="Relax"]Somatow: Not sure why I bother when this is like describing the color blue to a blind person...

Redundant computing has been around since the Saturn V...

"DW BALONEY" is an alternate phrase to the title of this thread...

The problem with drones or a fighter without a pilot is the communications link, not the software, not redundant computing. EMP is also harnessed via optical connections by and large since the 80's.

Who wins every time? A computer playing chess or the human? The computer by a vast margin. /quote]

You once again dodge the point Relax... you're always boasting how awesome you are, but you can't seem to address the point I keep raising. Those computers were a) programmed specifically to play chess, b) usually have thousands and thousands of simulation hours, and c) they're programs that play chess, playing chess.

I can take your chess playing computer, and move it to forcing it to play a human playing backgamon. Suddenly your super-chess winner is going to freak out, because I changed the environment and did something out of it's programming. Or you managed to program it for other board-games, so now I change the situation again and make it play, say poker. As a human, I can constantly change what I do, in an effort to break your super-computer, and find that edge I need to win... a computer vs computer battle is both incredibly boring, and boils down to "which one is programmed the best"

An alternative would end up being, that really terrible Star Trek Original Series episode, two planets "warring" with each other, letting computers "simulate" battles and stating who "died" who then report to transporters and move to the other planet.

We have barely even begun to start along self-programming computers, and we're still encountering GIGO issues, self-teaching computers are extremely hard to get working properly. Your claim that it should be everywhere in Honorverse, when we still haven't managed to do it right is a joke, and I give up pointing that out.

Somtaaw wrote:Your claim that it should be everywhere in Honorverse, when we still haven't managed to do it right is a joke, and I give up pointing that out.

I find it shocking that people claim there were no freight trains in 1000BC. How could they not have have them, it's not like the concept is hard? Steel rails, steel wheels, fuel producing steam? People tell me "you know, it was 3000 years ago", but come on! What could have changed?

Somtaaw wrote:
I can take your chess playing computer, and move it to forcing it to play a human playing backgamon. Suddenly your super-chess winner is going to freak out,

Physics & logic do not change. Manipulation of the data does not change. Either the sensors have high enough fidelity or they do not. All manipulation of the data in a few seconds a human can do through a GUI, a computer can do thousands of times using every single available permutation. New algorithms do not magically appear. If you wish to believe some chump is going to magically write millions of lines of code in a couple minutes, upload, reboot, test, then use them, all during a battle;(as if the captain would allow them to) then enjoy your fantasy super genius hyperactive tasmanian devil utopia...

Drop the SF trope BS dude. They are as stupid as the Rom-Com tropes.

Try this reality:
Computers >>> Humans
In everything other than design