?

Jonathan_S wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:For Oyster Bay, the Sharks -even with Spider Drive, had to be transported to Manticore (and we presume Grayson) and for Manticore were essentialy "dropped off" by a ship with traditional hyperdrive and coasted down to sublight. Same with the Ghosts.

Actually no. Ghosts were dropped off by freighters. But Storm from the Shadows (Sh 51) spends much of a page decribing how the Shark-class ship hypered themselves into Manticore. (So a bit long to simply quote)

Twenty of Sharks transitioned in, moving dead slow, tractored together. After entering normal space they deactivate the tractors, seperated, then headed away from the emergence point, under spider drive, at 75 gees.


They knew the signal of their emergence almost assuredly be detected and that it probably wouldn't just be written off, without follow-up as a sensor ghost. So they planned on somebody showing up to check it out. But their spider drive let them slip out of the search locus in a way they were pretty sure even a stealthed wedge couldn't manage -- not that close, not against Manticore's ultra sensitive long range sensor arrays.

Cycling back thru asking questions from my notes, like here. Why did the Sharks need to operate in tandem by being tractored together? From your post it seems they didn't disengage the tractors until they had dropped back into n-space. Approximately twenty tractors in n-space could have given them away before they were deactivated.

Also, why was it so easy to tractor twenty ships together in hyper when the Peeps had trouble with one? I might be able to solve that one myself with dedicated tractors designed for the job, and smaller ships? But! Twenty ships simultaneously in one chain?

Oh yes, one more thing. Their stealth systems must not be affected by operating tractors. And, their ship to ship separation from each other has to be a lot closer than Manty ships. So their systems must not be so affected by each other like Manty wedges are so territorial.

cthia wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Actually no. Ghosts were dropped off by freighters. But Storm from the Shadows (Sh 51) spends much of a page decribing how the Shark-class ship hypered themselves into Manticore. (So a bit long to simply quote)

Twenty of Sharks transitioned in, moving dead slow, tractored together. After entering normal space they deactivate the tractors, seperated, then headed away from the emergence point, under spider drive, at 75 gees.


They knew the signal of their emergence almost assuredly be detected and that it probably wouldn't just be written off, without follow-up as a sensor ghost. So they planned on somebody showing up to check it out. But their spider drive let them slip out of the search locus in a way they were pretty sure even a stealthed wedge couldn't manage -- not that close, not against Manticore's ultra sensitive long range sensor arrays.

Cycling back thru asking questions from my notes, like here. Why did the Sharks need to operate in tandem by being tractored together? From your post it seems they didn't disengage the tractors until they had dropped back into n-space. Approximately twenty tractors in n-space could have given them away before they were deactivated.

Also, why was it so easy to tractor twenty ships together in hyper when the Peeps had trouble with one? I might be able to solve that one myself with dedicated tractors designed for the job, and smaller ships? But! Twenty ships simultaneously in one chain?

Oh yes, one more thing. Their stealth systems must not be affected by operating tractors. And, their ship to ship separation from each other has to be a lot closer than Manty ships. So their systems must not be so affected by each other like Manty wedges are so territorial.

The tractor beams are a vastly weaker signal than the emergence itself - so they're not going to give anything away that the emergence didn't. And from the sounds of it they were deactivated seconds after entering normal space.

But the Sharks made the transit linked together to further disguise their signal. Two sensor ghosts are less detectable, and easier to dismiss as a glitch, that twenty emergences in formation

As for why it was easier than the Peeps towing LACs? Though it isn't explicitly stated, it's almost definitely because the Sharks didn't travel to Manticore that way, but instead only tractored into their two 10-ship clumps after coming to a near halt and immediately before leaving hyper. A temporary trick to make their emergence from hyper less obvious.

Storm From the Shadows Ch. 51 wrote:All twenty of his ships were tractored together into two big, ungainly formations, nine hundred kilometers apart, as they floated with the closest thing possible to a zero velocity relative to one another and to the normal-space universe they'd left three months earlier.[...]
This maneuver had been tested against the Mesa System's sensor arrays[...]
It was physically impossible for any ship to cross the hyper wall without radiating a hyper footprint, but the strength of that footprint was—to a large extent, at least—a factor of the base velocity the ship in question wanted to carry across the wall. The alpha translation's bleed factor was roughly ninety-two percent, and all of that energy had to go somewhere. There was also an unavoidable gravitic spike or echo along the interface between the alpha bands of hyper-space and normal-space that was effectively independent of a ship's speed. Reducing velocity couldn't do anything about that, but a slow, "gentle" translation along a shallow gradient produced a much weaker spike, as well.[...]
The twenty Shark-class ships, each about midway between an old-fashioned battleship and a dreadnought for size, deactivated the tractors which had held them together. Reaction thrusters flared, pushing them apart, although they didn't seek the same amount of separation most starships their size would have. Then again, they didn't need that much separation.
A few moments later, they were underway at a steady seventy-five gravities.

cthia wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Actually no. Ghosts were dropped off by freighters. But Storm from the Shadows (Sh 51) spends much of a page decribing how the Shark-class ship hypered themselves into Manticore. (So a bit long to simply quote)

Twenty of Sharks transitioned in, moving dead slow, tractored together. After entering normal space they deactivate the tractors, seperated, then headed away from the emergence point, under spider drive, at 75 gees.


They knew the signal of their emergence almost assuredly be detected and that it probably wouldn't just be written off, without follow-up as a sensor ghost. So they planned on somebody showing up to check it out. But their spider drive let them slip out of the search locus in a way they were pretty sure even a stealthed wedge couldn't manage -- not that close, not against Manticore's ultra sensitive long range sensor arrays.

Cycling back thru asking questions from my notes, like here. Why did the Sharks need to operate in tandem by being tractored together? From your post it seems they didn't disengage the tractors until they had dropped back into n-space. Approximately twenty tractors in n-space could have given them away before they were deactivated.

Also, why was it so easy to tractor twenty ships together in hyper when the Peeps had trouble with one? I might be able to solve that one myself with dedicated tractors designed for the job, and smaller ships? But! Twenty ships simultaneously in one chain?

Oh yes, one more thing. Their stealth systems must not be affected by operating tractors. And, their ship to ship separation from each other has to be a lot closer than Manty ships. So their systems must not be so affected by each other like Manty wedges are so territorial.

Jonathan_S wrote:The tractor beams are a vastly weaker signal than the emergence itself - so they're not going to give anything away that the emergence didn't. And from the sounds of it they were deactivated seconds after entering normal space.

But they made the transit linked together to further disguise their signal. One sensor ghost is less detectable, and easier to dismiss as a glitch, that twenty emergences in formation

As for why it was easier than the Peeps towing LACs? Probably because the Sharks only tractored together right before leaving hyper. It wasn't how they were moved to Manticore - it was merely a temporary trick to make their emergence from hyper less obvious. So slow to a crawl, cut drives, tractor into a clump close enough for a single hyper generator to jump the whole group, un-tractor, bring up drives and sneak away.

Ah! I was thinking the opposite, that that tactic would appear as a large ship. Apparently I'm also wrong about the larger the ship the bigger the ghost.

But??? Ships can initiate tractor beams in hyper? I thought ship sensors and ship control was a bit too finicky for that in hyper - part of the reason behind ships shying away from attacking in hyper.

cthia wrote:But??? Ships can initiate tractor beams in hyper? I thought ship sensors and ship control was a bit too finicky for that in hyper - part of the reason behind ships shying away from attacking in hyper.

We know that tractor beams were initiated in normal space and survived the translation into hyperspace travel and then back to normal space. Why would initiating a tractor beam in hyperspace be more difficult?

Ships do not shy away from attacking in hyperspace; they shy away from using missiles, because the wedge is rarely compatible with hyperspace travel - sails are needed instead.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:But??? Ships can initiate tractor beams in hyper? I thought ship sensors and ship control was a bit too finicky for that in hyper - part of the reason behind ships shying away from attacking in hyper.

We know that tractor beams were initiated in normal space and survived the translation into hyperspace travel and then back to normal space. Why would initiating a tractor beam in hyperspace be more difficult?

Ships do not shy away from attacking in hyperspace; they shy away from using missiles, because the wedge is rarely compatible with hyperspace travel - sails are needed instead.

I didn't think ships have the kind of control riding the various waves needed to steer a ship that close while in hyper to initiate the tractors, because of degraded sensors.

Albeit, I could be suffering from other sci-fi bleeding over into the Honorverse. I thought Honorverse sensors suffered in hyper.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:But??? Ships can initiate tractor beams in hyper? I thought ship sensors and ship control was a bit too finicky for that in hyper - part of the reason behind ships shying away from attacking in hyper.

We know that tractor beams were initiated in normal space and survived the translation into hyperspace travel and then back to normal space. Why would initiating a tractor beam in hyperspace be more difficult?

Ships do not shy away from attacking in hyperspace; they shy away from using missiles, because the wedge is rarely compatible with hyperspace travel - sails are needed instead.

Well sensor ranges to suck in hyper compared to normal space. But they're still IIRC around 3 LM (around 50 million km).
And since tractor beam ranges seem to be under 5000 km sensor conditions won't cause any issues for using tractor beams.

Heck, we know that tractor beams can not only be initiated within hyper but within a grav wave in hyper.
When the RMN convoy gets jumped just before the official start of the war, in a grav wave, Theisman make the point to the Havenite commander that any ship that loses a sail will need to be towed clear of the grav wave (by another warship using its tractors). Any ship losing both sails would be immediately destroyed by the grav turbulence.
He wouldn't have said that if tractoring them to tow clear was an impossibility. It wasn't even treated as risky for the towing ship - simply that saving their fellow spacers would take more warships out of the fight for towing duty.


So combat within a grav wave is risky, but not specifically because of sensor conditions. It's lack of sidewalls, no missiles or decoys, no LACs, no ability to use lifepods or shuttles, and increases risks if impeller damage is taken -- all because of the grav wave. Though sensor conditions do make it hard to intercept a target that's moving along at 0.5 - 0.6c (depending on whether they've all got military rad shielding or are being slowed by civilian grade gear) - because you can't track them from long enough range to manage a converging intercept.

Now if you're in a rift between waves (like Warfarer was in her final battle) you have all your normal weapons, defenses, small craft/LACs/lifepods and while sensor range is poor it still exceeds SDM range and covers even the majority of MDM powered range (though the further you are from the target the more the conditions will degrade the quality of your sensor readings)

cthia wrote:Ah! I was thinking the opposite, that that tactic would appear as a large ship. Apparently I'm also wrong about the larger the ship the bigger the ghost.

This might still be true and yet the manoeuvre made sense. Ten 4-million-tonne ships translating together would have a footprint of a 40-million-tonne one (if it scales linearly), which doesn't exist. Since that happened 1 light-month out, a sensor signature saying two impossible ships dropped out that far out would be far more likely to be dismissed as a glitch.

And the RMN still sent 4 destroyers to investigate.

BTW, how long did the destroyers investigate for? The books made it seem like they spent weeks there.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:Ah! I was thinking the opposite, that that tactic would appear as a large ship. Apparently I'm also wrong about the larger the ship the bigger the ghost.

This might still be true and yet the manoeuvre made sense. Ten 4-million-tonne ships translating together would have a footprint of a 40-million-tonne one (if it scales linearly), which doesn't exist. Since that happened 1 light-month out, a sensor signature saying two impossible ships dropped out that far out would be far more likely to be dismissed as a glitch.

And the RMN still sent 4 destroyers to investigate.

BTW, how long did the destroyers investigate for? The books made it seem like they spent weeks there.

The only problem with that though is the ghost would be very strong, proportional to the size of ship? Ghosts are classified as ghosts because they are faint, weak. A 40 million ton ship is not going to yield the weak ectoplasm of a small ghost able to be classified as a glitch.

cthia wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
This might still be true and yet the manoeuvre made sense. Ten 4-million-tonne ships translating together would have a footprint of a 40-million-tonne one (if it scales linearly), which doesn't exist. Since that happened 1 light-month out, a sensor signature saying two impossible ships dropped out that far out would be far more likely to be dismissed as a glitch.

And the RMN still sent 4 destroyers to investigate.

BTW, how long did the destroyers investigate for? The books made it seem like they spent weeks there.

The only problem with that though is the ghost would be very strong, proportional to the size of ship? Ghosts are classified as ghosts because they are faint, weak. A 40 million ton ship is not going to yield the weak ectoplasm of a small ghost able to be classified as a glitch.

Yet we're told that the tractored hyper emergence technique for minimizing emergence signature was tested (repeatedly) against the Mesa system's sensor arrays. In fact the Shark has done a hundred practice runs before the real maneuver at Manticore. So the MAlign wouldn't have bothered with it if their real world testing hadn't shown that the maneuver was more effective than the alternatives.

I suspect the speed as you transition is far more impactful on signature power than tonnage. But something about a pair of larger transitions was better than 20 separate ones; even if done at that same, slow as possible, speed. We're just not told quite why it's better.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:This might still be true and yet the manoeuvre made sense. Ten 4-million-tonne ships translating together would have a footprint of a 40-million-tonne one (if it scales linearly), which doesn't exist. Since that happened 1 light-month out, a sensor signature saying two impossible ships dropped out that far out would be far more likely to be dismissed as a glitch.

And the RMN still sent 4 destroyers to investigate.

BTW, how long did the destroyers investigate for? The books made it seem like they spent weeks there.

cthia wrote:The only problem with that though is the ghost would be very strong, proportional to the size of ship? Ghosts are classified as ghosts because they are faint, weak. A 40 million ton ship is not going to yield the weak ectoplasm of a small ghost able to be classified as a glitch.

Jonathan_S wrote:Yet we're told that the tractored hyper emergence technique for minimizing emergence signature was tested (repeatedly) against the Mesa system's sensor arrays. In fact the Shark has done a hundred practice runs before the real maneuver at Manticore. So the MAlign wouldn't have bothered with it if their real world testing hadn't shown that the maneuver was more effective than the alternatives.

I suspect the speed as you transition is far more impactful on signature power than tonnage. But something about a pair of larger transitions was better than 20 separate ones; even if done at that same, slow as possible, speed. We're just not told quite why it's better.

From Storm from the Shadows, chapter 51:

It was physically impossible for any ship to cross the hyper wall without radiating a hyper footprint, but the strength of that footprint was—to a large extent, at least—a factor of the base velocity the ship in question wanted to carry across the wall. The alpha translation's bleed factor was roughly ninety-two percent, and all of that energy had to go somewhere. There was also an unavoidable gravitic spike or echo along the interface between the alpha bands of hyper-space and normal-space that was effectively independent of a ship's speed. Reducing velocity couldn't do anything about that, but a slow, "gentle" translation along a shallow gradient produced a much weaker spike, as well.

No translation, however slow and gentle, could render a hyper footprint too weak to be detected by the sort of arrays covering the Manticore Binary System. Yet arrays like that, because of their very sensitivity, were notorious for throwing up occasional "false positives," ghost translations that the filters were supposed to strain out before they ever reached a human operator's attention. And the most common ghosts of all normally appeared as a hyper footprint and an echo, which was precisely what Topolev's maneuver was supposed to counterfeit.