Uncompromising Honor, snippet #1

kzt wrote:Last I checked, cleanly removing these sorts of systems from an SD requires certain facilities that are currently not terrible available in the Manticore system. So I'm sort of wondering who is going to do this.

The flippant answer is Captain Clayton and the crew at the Unicorn Seven refinery [G}.

But how it is they have the equipment and expertise to pull giant yet sensitive / delicate components out of a massive armor matrix undamaged is what I assume you were really asking. And that's a good question.

kzt wrote:

Theemile wrote:Let me validate one more detail. The SLN grasers in question, are 1) not necessarily a better tech fielded by the RMN, 2) not necessarily any larger than an average SD Graser the RMN has fielded. They are just nice, consistent (say...) 450cm grasers, mounted in massive numbers on a massive number of ships.

Not blow your mind impressive, but a "that's nice" kind of impressed, especially when you see the spreadsheet tally...

Last I checked, cleanly removing these sorts of systems from an SD requires certain facilities that are currently not terrible available in the Manticore system. So I'm sort of wondering who is going to do this.

First, Threemile's evaluation of where these grasers fall vis-a-vis Alliance tech is essentially accurate. They are far from being better than first-line, current-generation Manty weapons; they're certainly comparable, though, and we happen to know where we can get a bunch of them cheap.

As for pulling them, the facilities to which they are being sent are specifically reclamation/shipbreaking platforms which have been doing precisely this sort of work for, oh, two or three centuries now. They have a lot of expertise in --- and the physiical plant needed for --- performing exactly that function. The problem isn't that those facilities don't exist and didn't survive the Yawata Strike; it's that they have a lot more business than usual at the moment, and Clayton's job is to help prioritize what they do. The Manties lost their building and manufacturing capacity; reclamation facilities (which have no building capacity and can basically only stockpile anything they salve from a discarded/wrecked ship) were way down the priorities list when the Alignment set up the Oyster Bay targeting queues, people. It's not like they had an unlimited supply of missiles and graser torpedoes, so they kinda focused on the facilities that could build things on the theory that facilities that took things apart were going to be less threatening to their plans.

I sorta, kinda thought that had been made relatively clear, but it would appear not.

You know we all missed the point badly when the author tells us: "I thought I made it obvious.........."

I was thinking that the facilities that remove high-value delicate items are generally called shipyards while ship breakers are normally turning the low value non-delicate parts into razor blades.

runsforcelery wrote:

First, Threemile's evaluation of where these grasers fall vis-a-vis Alliance tech is essentially accurate. They are far from being better than first-line, current-generation Manty weapons; they're certainly comparable, though, and we happen to know where we can get a bunch of them cheap.

As for pulling them, the facilities to which they are being sent are specifically reclamation/shipbreaking platforms which have been doing precisely this sort of work for, oh, two or three centuries now. They have a lot of expertise in --- and the physiical plant needed for --- performing exactly that function. The problem isn't that those facilities don't exist and didn't survive the Yawata Strike; it's that they have a lot more business than usual at the moment, and Clayton's job is to help prioritize what they do. The Manties lost their building and manufacturing capacity; reclamation facilities (which have no building capacity and can basically only stockpile anything they salve from a discarded/wrecked ship) were way down the priorities list when the Alignment set up the Oyster Bay targeting queues, people. It's not like they had an unlimited supply of missiles and graser torpedoes, so they kinda focused on the facilities that could build things on the theory that facilities that took things apart were going to be less threatening to their plans.

I sorta, kinda thought that had been made relatively clear, but it would appear not.

So, In short, Manticoe's traditional reclamation facilities were 1) not co-located on the 3 main stations, 2) being away from the main stations and the dispersed building yards, they survived they Yawatta Strike because 3) (known fact) the OB planners barely had enough missiles to target the 3 main stations and the dispersed yards.

I believe the confusion was the belief that it took a slip, located at one of the stations to do this job. From this, it sounds like the reclaimation yards, (and their fields of gruesome subjects), are closer located to the ore processing facilities in the asteroid belts of Manticore B than to one of the inhabited planet's orbits.

runsforcelery wrote:First, Threemile's evaluation of where these grasers fall vis-a-vis Alliance tech is essentially accurate. They are far from being better than first-line, current-generation Manty weapons; they're certainly comparable, though, and we happen to know where we can get a bunch of them cheap.

As for pulling them, the facilities to which they are being sent are specifically reclamation/shipbreaking platforms which have been doing precisely this sort of work for, oh, two or three centuries now. They have a lot of expertise in --- and the physiical plant needed for --- performing exactly that function. The problem isn't that those facilities don't exist and didn't survive the Yawata Strike; it's that they have a lot more business than usual at the moment, and Clayton's job is to help prioritize what they do. The Manties lost their building and manufacturing capacity; reclamation facilities (which have no building capacity and can basically only stockpile anything they salve from a discarded/wrecked ship) were way down the priorities list when the Alignment set up the Oyster Bay targeting queues, people. It's not like they had an unlimited supply of missiles and graser torpedoes, so they kinda focused on the facilities that could build things on the theory that facilities that took things apart were going to be less threatening to their plans.

I sorta, kinda thought that had been made relatively clear, but it would appear not.

I think it's that you did too good a job here, in the aftermath of Oyster Bay, in correcting all the overzealous posters pointing out all the places that 'obviously' manufacturing facilities and people must still exist. [G]

We clearly over-corrected into thinking that reclamation must have been destroyed along with the major stations and yards. Oops.


(And it's nice to see you've got a little time to post here again)

David, if you're still checking in on this topic, can you double check the numbers of SLN ships destroyed against those presented in A Rising Thunder? Mark Gustis noticed they don't align.

*snort* "the ballad of the Wreck of the Steadholder Fitzgerald"; was his first name Edmund, perhaps?

Who says that the weapons have to be removed cleanly?

The weapins have to be undamaged true, but who cares about the ship theyare currently mounted in.

Slash cut them out and clean them up later at Bolthole. (Or where ever)

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This is stripping usable materials from captured ships.
Note that they ARE NOT going to be installed in any GA ship. They are going to be used in a semi-static defensive role for wormhole termini.
Also note the author did not say WHICH wormhole termini.

So they are going to be paired up with power sources and you might presume some sort of targeting system which would be controled remotely from other (manned) platforms.
So, if you park these things essentialy right on the edges of the entry/egress vectors as close to the termini in question, you can blast anything that comes through with multiple shots from each graser before the weapon needs to recycle the capacitors for each unit.
Against even an SD, multiple capital ship graser hits against a ship which has niether it's impellers up nor any of it defensive weapons on-line, this should be devistating.

Ok, they have to build (or recover and repurpose SLN equipment) for the power and for the control links/tactic systems but I can see a bunch of upside to this.
One is that you could free up several terminal fortresses for use elcewhere. That odd wormhole by Torch could benifit from some of these.

Another is you could park these at places like termini taken during Lacoon II as an alternative to putting several warships in posistion to interdict the wormhole against what is going to be mostly suicidal attempts through a wormhole to try and drive off RMN ships.

Unlike mines, these are multi-shot and can be recharged. Very unidirectional mines but you can aim these. Think something like giant repeating Caymore. Fun.