1926 PD - Export hardware

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Finally, the GA-tech missiles have been pretty constantly using 46,000 gravities for a 180-second half-power stage and 92,000 for 60-second full power. Only CMs appear to break over the 100,000-gravity threshold.

Actually the GA-tech missiles have consistently been using the 46,000g 1/2 power setting for all three drives.

In fact, RFC posted a while back (shooting down one of my theories) that at least for the moment MDMs cannot set different accelerations of the three drives.

And while only RMN CMs appear to break 100,000-gravity we do have this exchange from UH

Uncompromising Honor wrote:The missiles we analyzed from Eleventh Fleet maxed at seven-zero-one KPS squared; these birds are coming in at over eight hundred and forty.”
Lessem inhaled sharply, remembering his earlier thoughts about Solarian innovation and productivity.
“Assuming the drive endurance on both stages is the same as on Filareta’s, that gives them a powered envelope of almost thirty-two million klicks,”

It's pretty clear from context that these Cataphracts are expected to run their 1st stage for the full 180 seconds (so at half power) despite pulling over 840 KPS^2. That implies that their full power setting is in excess of a whopping 1,680 KPS^2 -- or 171,428 gees!!!

That's nearly 32% quicker than a Mk31 CM; while sustaining the accel for 2.4x as long!!! So the MAlign appears to have made massive breakthroughs in missile drive performance; well and truly smashing the 100,000g barrier.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Relax wrote:1) There are no other derivatives, It is linear. Not how strength of materials/physics work Derivative of distance is velocity. Derivative of velocity is acceleration. Derivative of acceleration is Jerk. There is no further derivative.

The derivative of the jerk is the snap.

Whether that has any effect on materials, I don't know. According to Wikipedia, minimising the snap is important for curves, as a constant snap means the change in jerk is linear, allowing for a smooth radial acceleration.

Well dang, I have not had to use jerk in anything other than flexural accelerometers and you are so right. The Jerk Frequency on a radial object would create a whipping amplitude greater than Jerk and why you would want that derivative. Though where this would be applicable I haven't got a clue as we do vibration testing on spherical, cylindrical objects and it has never been a problem testing to 500+G on everything and as high as 25,000G in extremis. Guess you would need a multidimensional JERK for this to be applicable. Maybe in VERY flimsy 3D objects say in space where there is effectively zero dampening other than mass. A missile body would not have this problem it would have to be something like the ISS, and even then...

The MA really only used the G-torps publicly in Oyster Bay, the rest of the actual weapons (not the systems that are the Sharks or Ghosts and were using the spider drives) were essentially older tech that was heavily stealth ballistic packages to hit the well researched and mostly things in existing orbits.

The Cataphracts are also essentially brute force designs that are old tech (vs the Manticore MDMs etc) without the FTL and other Manticore tech that make the new generations of Manticore weapons systems to much more effective over such long distances.

From the MA's perspective, consider that while they were handing the SLN and the PRHin Excile all these "new" weapons of the Cataphracts and other improvements on the older SL state of the art gear, it was also contributing to the ultimate demise of the SL etc and hiding that the the MA existed. Sure, bigger, longer range weapons but within the capacity of the SL (or Technodyne) to develop without compromising the Spider drive and related tech which is clearly NOT SL development. They have had to hide. But while making the SL and others more deadly with longer (slightly) ranged missiles with bigger payloads, it is also much more expensive and so diverting money from the various entities like the SL and other political entities by shifting more spending to military and away from social spending.

A lot of this is almost as much economic warfare as it is pushing military conflict between the Star Nations to destabilize the SL etc.

Just what of the non FTL or micro fusion and similar levels of tech Manticore and the GA will be willing to license out we will have to wait for what shows up in print.

Jonathan_S wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Finally, the GA-tech missiles have been pretty constantly using 46,000 gravities for a 180-second half-power stage and 92,000 for 60-second full power. Only CMs appear to break over the 100,000-gravity threshold.

Actually the GA-tech missiles have consistently been using the 46,000g 1/2 power setting for all three drives.

In fact, RFC posted a while back (shooting down one of my theories) that at least for the moment MDMs cannot set different accelerations of the three drives.

And while only RMN CMs appear to break 100,000-gravity we do have this exchange from UH

Uncompromising Honor wrote:The missiles we analyzed from Eleventh Fleet maxed at seven-zero-one KPS squared; these birds are coming in at over eight hundred and forty.”
Lessem inhaled sharply, remembering his earlier thoughts about Solarian innovation and productivity.
“Assuming the drive endurance on both stages is the same as on Filareta’s, that gives them a powered envelope of almost thirty-two million klicks,”

It's pretty clear from context that these Cataphracts are expected to run their 1st stage for the full 180 seconds (so at half power) despite pulling over 840 KPS^2. That implies that their full power setting is in excess of a whopping 1,680 KPS^2 -- or 171,428 gees!!!

That's nearly 32% quicker than a Mk31 CM; while sustaining the accel for 2.4x as long!!! So the MAlign appears to have made massive breakthroughs in missile drive performance; well and truly smashing the 100,000g barrier.

The point that annoyed me most in the SLN/Malign missile accels, is to add that much more velocity requires a significant increase in energy - thus in energy storage. No where was a SLN/Malign energy storage breakthrough (such as the Manty Super capacitor or micro fusion reactor) ever mentioned. We know the size of the missile didn't change (it's still launched from the same tubes, so it has to get 4x the energy from somewhere.... and it's never explained. One crazy set of breakthroughs out of no where in 12 months I can get - 2 radical changes in different fields, with no one mentioning this critical breakthrough....

Well, it's all plot. Next we're going to get a ship killer missile with FTL, 30 light year range, the ability to snap any ship it two, and it's the size of of a Footlong sub sandwich.

Theemile wrote:The point that annoyed me most in the SLN/Malign missile accels, is to add that much more velocity requires a significant increase in energy - thus in energy storage. No where was a SLN/Malign energy storage breakthrough (such as the Manty Super capacitor or micro fusion reactor) ever mentioned. We know the size of the missile didn't change (it's still launched from the same tubes, so it has to get 4x the energy from somewhere.... and it's never explained. One crazy set of breakthroughs out of no where in 12 months I can get - 2 radical changes in different fields, with no one mentioning this critical breakthrough....

Well, it's all plot. Next we're going to get a ship killer missile with FTL, 30 light year range, the ability to snap any ship it two, and it's the size of of a Footlong sub sandwich.

Yup, its like he just wanted to scratch the paint of the good guys for a last hurrah, as he knew he will probably never write Raoul's perspective ~20 years from now, so in universe physics logic be damned.

They have only had impeller missiles for ~500 years or so... All of a sudden all the previous physics get thrown out the window with introduction of cataphracts. As if folks for several THOUSAND years haven't built multi stage missiles

Started with pod attachments, not effecting acceleration even though mass is increased, and if this never effected ships before, uh hem, remember does not effect ships negatively in any way according to the books(multiple), WHY THE HELL DID they NOT BUILD to this LIMIT??? What idiot would not do so? Is the argument that EVERYONE in his universe is beyond STUPID? Hey, lets put all this massive investiture of resources into this compensator field and then--> Not use it. Lets purposefully build Little Crappy Ships without any weapons(pun intended), or defensive capability, armor, etc even though we paid for this platform. Yea that makes sense! Oh wait, to anyone with 2 brain cells using in universe physics why would you NOT just shrink the compensator field and get more acceleration, & cheaper operating costs?--> Yet no--> Increased compensator field is just never used its just ~there. No, sir, we do not like more PDLC's! NAY! We like dying thanks!

Sometimes Sucks being an engineer who cannot turn his brain off in this aspect of life. Love Sci Fic, but damn sometimes it really sucks being me.

Just disappointed more than anything else.

Relax wrote:They have only had impeller missiles for ~500 years or so... All of a sudden all the previous physics get thrown out the window with introduction of cataphracts. As if folks for several THOUSAND years haven't built multi stage missiles

The problem wasn't the ability to build one. Half a millennium before, Travis outlined how an MDM could be built. This was known.

The problem was cost. An MDM prior to the quantum baffle would be horribly expensive, so no one had one because no one could afford the cost of one and nothing justified said cost. The Cataphracts probably do cost an arm and a leg (and more), but at this point the SLN had a need for them, because the GA was throwing MDMs too. As Brigade XO said above, this also became economic warfare on the SL from the MAlign.

Relax wrote:Sometimes Sucks being an engineer who cannot turn his brain off in this aspect of life. Love Sci Fic, but damn sometimes it really sucks being me.

Just disappointed more than anything else.

Agreed - I I can't read most Sci fi because the physics is made of cheese cloth. I love it - but I hate it.

And the worst thing is Weber is one of the better writers when it comes to the physics

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Relax wrote:They have only had impeller missiles for ~500 years or so... All of a sudden all the previous physics get thrown out the window with introduction of cataphracts. As if folks for several THOUSAND years haven't built multi stage missiles

The problem wasn't the ability to build one. Half a millennium before, Travis outlined how an MDM could be built. This was known.

The problem was cost. An MDM prior to the quantum baffle would be horribly expensive, so no one had one because no one could afford the cost of one and nothing justified said cost. The Cataphracts probably do cost an arm and a leg (and more), but at this point the SLN had a need for them, because the GA was throwing MDMs too. As Brigade XO said above, this also became economic warfare on the SL from the MAlign.

Today, cost of a product is only 5% its material. Automation is only Superior in Honor's time. Those missiles are made on an automatic assembly line. It ain't rocket science to dump one stage on top of another--> pun intended. So, no, they do not cost an arm and a leg. Unless we are going to argue over minute difference in cost of a single SDM and a CM is somehow expensive in the grand scheme of things along with attaching a data bus link to the sensors to the 1st stage.

Relax wrote:Today, cost of a product is only 5% its material. Automation is only Superior in Honor's time. Those missiles are made on an automatic assembly line. It ain't rocket science to dump one stage on top of another--> pun intended. So, no, they do not cost an arm and a leg. Unless we are going to argue over minute difference in cost of a single SDM and a CM is somehow expensive in the grand scheme of things along with attaching a data bus link to the sensors to the 1st stage.

Sprry, but you don't get to disagree with canon. It's established that they cost, so accept it. You may disagree that it should be like that (and I have some disagreements over other things in the HV), but we don't make the rules. We accept them.

Here are a couple of reasons why missiles may cost more, aside from the cost of the material:

If the majority of the cost of a missile is its impeller ring because they are finely-tuned quantum-gravitic mechanisms, then putting two in a missile means you can only get half as many for the same budget.

If a portion of the cost is the time it takes to build (because time is money), then building a bigger missile usually correlates taking longer to build each missile. Moreover, it probably means retooling, if not recreating your lines to be able to create something that is twice as big.

Travis also said that the only way two impellers would ever work on the same missile is if they were separated by a boom that was either extremely thick or made of a material that they didn't have the science for yet. If it's so thick, he said it would cost as much as a frigate to build; if it's the latter, then the MAlign and TIY have solved the material problem somehow and that by itself might be a non-neglitible additional cost.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Relax wrote:Today, cost of a product is only 5% its material. Automation is only Superior in Honor's time. Those missiles are made on an automatic assembly line. It ain't rocket science to dump one stage on top of another--> pun intended. So, no, they do not cost an arm and a leg. Unless we are going to argue over minute difference in cost of a single SDM and a CM is somehow expensive in the grand scheme of things along with attaching a data bus link to the sensors to the 1st stage.

Sprry, but you don't get to disagree with canon. It's established that they cost, so accept it. You may disagree that it should be like that (and I have some disagreements over other things in the HV), but we don't make the rules. We accept them.

Here are a couple of reasons why missiles may cost more, aside from the cost of the material:

If the majority of the cost of a missile is its impeller ring because they are finely-tuned quantum-gravitic mechanisms, then putting two in a missile means you can only get half as many for the same budget.

If a portion of the cost is the time it takes to build (because time is money), then building a bigger missile usually correlates taking longer to build each missile. Moreover, it probably means retooling, if not recreating your lines to be able to create something that is twice as big.

Travis also said that the only way two impellers would ever work on the same missile is if they were separated by a boom that was either extremely thick or made of a material that they didn't have the science for yet. If it's so thick, he said it would cost as much as a frigate to build; if it's the latter, then the MAlign and TIY have solved the material problem somehow and that by itself might be a non-neglitible additional cost.

At the outset of the series, the cost of the Missiles in an SD equaled the cost of the SD.

But, that's "small batch" production. As you scale up production and optimize it, costs go down. Setup of production is a large portion of costs. Also, how much of that cost is R&D?

Chances are, Mk-25D MDMs were significantly cheaper to produce on the day prior to OB than a Mk19 capital missile was in 1900. An optimized assembly line (or 5) was dedicated to their production, and it turned out missiles 24/7.

An interesting study in War production was Chrysler's management of the Warren Tank Plant in WWII. Over the course of the war, they significantly lowered the price of a Sherman, sped up production, improved the design, and ultimately gave the government back rebates on the production costs.

https://www.allpar.com/threads/chrysler-helps-build-the-arsenal-of-democracy-m3-sherman-and-pershing-tanks.227811/?post_id=1085221909&nested_view=1&sortby=oldest#post-1085221909