Honorverse ramblings and musings

Somtaaw wrote:Wouldn't need all that many ships actually. When you consider that it's a wormhole, and nobody knows wormholes better than Manticore. Yes the actual "lanes" are big enough that the multi megaton freighters have a very distinct entry and exit lane that allows both incoming and outgoing ships to travel without coming close enough to blow each others nodes.

But if you park what amounts to a wall of rolled superdreadnoughts, you'd only need a dozen-ish to complete a basic wall. Superdreadnought wedges how wide, in addition to being longer than the ship is (and SDs are what, damn near a klick long themselves?)

That makes the wedge something approaching 2 km long, and more than a few km wide. Parked in just far enough out that you don't need a functional hyper generator or sails, you can pretty well block off any incoming travel, without using a ridiculous amount of hulls.

Additionally, ships using wormholes don't go through with zero velocity, so things will coast (slightly). Even the exploratory destroyer for the Astro-whatever bureau it was again had some bleed, and it was creeping into the two wormholes at less than 1 gravity of acceleration, standard velocity is between 10 and 50 I think.

Hitler's regime gave us the jet engine.

Duckk wrote:

Hitler's regime gave us the jet engine.

Eh...jet engine development was fairly widespread in Europe for the first half of the twentieth century. The Germans were the first to get an operational combat plane. However, the English actually beat the Germans to the punch in patenting the jet engine, and their operational engine development basically occurred in parallel to the German efforts. They didn't use it in WWII because it was considered too unreliable for combat use. Nonetheless, the Germans shouldn't be considered the sole developer of the technology. Even if the Nazi regime never came to power, the limitations in prop driven planes were all too obvious by the 30s and 40s, so the Brits (or someone else) would have gotten there eventually.

Duckk wrote:The Brits were the first to get a working design patented. It was the Germans, in the form of Hans von Ohain, who probably copied the design. The Germans may have been the first across the finish line, but it was built on the work of someone who already ran half the marathon. Despite that, it was still a photo finish. The Brits were right there next to the Nazis with Glouster Meteor, which was entirely home built. Saying that Germany is the one who ushered in the jet age is just as reductive as saying it was Newton who invented calculus. It was a parallel effort, which itself was based on the previous work of others.

In Hungary, Albert Fonó in 1915 devised a solution for increasing the range of artillery, comprising a gun-launched projectile which was to be united with a ramjet propulsion unit. This was to make it possible to obtain a long range with low initial muzzle velocities, allowing heavy shells to be fired from relatively lightweight guns. Fonó submitted his invention to the Austro-Hungarian Army but the proposal was rejected. In 1928 he applied for a German patent on aircraft powered by supersonic ramjets, and this was awarded in 1932.

cthia wrote:Some psychologically challenged madmen in our worldly society have added very good discoveries to it. Hitler's regime gave us the jet engine. Under Stalin was balanced the scales of nuclear deterrent. And what about the legacy left by Ivan the Terrible's political changes in Russia and the enormous change in the economy of Italy brought on by Mussolini?

Does the Honorverse stand to likewise benefit from the research of the MAlign? Look at what they've given us in propulsion. Are all of "Pinky's" friends in existence hell bent on taking over the universe and apt to give us an advancement in propulsion? Since they are willing to venture further down the line in the gene sequence do you suppose that they have tamed the unruly regen beast? Can they?

https://youtu.be/iJPFSNu_QNs

Oh drats, if only the Pinkys of the universe would use their Brains for good.

cthia wrote:Do you think it's possible that the MAlign has solved the regen problem in some people?

Duckk wrote:The Me-262 is notorious for being unreliable - their engines often had operational lives of less than 24 hours before something broke. The Meteors had relatively better service lives. The Meteors were also better armed than their German counterparts, as their guns had a higher muzzle velocity better suited for the jet's high velocity engagements.

Again, I don't dispute the Germans were first to be combat operational. But that's not the end-all, be-all of history. It completely trivializes the major work others had done in order to get there, which was my point when we started this tangent. The jet engine was an inevitability, so claiming we needed the Germans to get us there is a dubious claim.