Insanity: Screening elements in the HV

tlb wrote:I understand that sidewalls and bucklers have separate generators (see the discussion about adding a stern buckler to a LAC), but have always assumed that those generators still make use of the nodes to project the fields. Is that true or false or unknown?

Jonathan_S wrote:Unknown.

We do know from SoS that Terekhov thought of an old Mars-class CA "There's no way they could've refitted a bow wall without completely gutting her forward impeller rooms". So at least for the bow wall the nodes (or something in the hardware that drives them) needs to be compatible. But whether the bow wall generator literally uses the forward nodes to project that sidewall is still unknown.

Certainly in the Shrike sternwall discussion you mention it didn't sound like the aft wall generator had to be connected to the aft impeller room (well, probably not literally a room in a LAC, but after impeller hardware); and the aft nodes were presumably already 'wall' compatible because they shared a design with the forward nodes (which were designed to be compatible with a Shrike's bow wall).

But we don't know if that compatibility is because the nodes project the sidewall, because the generator somehow alters the output of the nodes, or simple that they need to avoid interfering with or destructive feedback from the wall and the generator does all the projection. (E.g. closing the stress bands at the wedge's fore or aft might stress the nodes)

And further we don't know whether the sidewalls require specifically compatible nodes. For that we'd probably need a short story set right around the invention of sidewalls discussing how the test ship was built or how retrofitting them into existing warships. Because these days sidewalls are such an old established technology that even if some node compatibility was required its probably baked into every single node; even civilian ones. (But unlike bow/stern walls sidewalls don't close the wedge's stress bands; so maybe they don't require anything special from their nodes. We just don't know)

"These are another innovation—for now we're calling them 'Beta-Squared' nodes—which are much more powerful than older nodes. In addition, they've been fitted with a new version of our FTL com—one with a much higher pulse repetition rate—which should make the Shrikes very useful as manned long-range scouts. I imagine we'll be seeing something like it in larger ships in the not too distant future. What matters for our present purposes, however, is that the new nodes are very nearly as powerful as old-style alpha nodes, and we've also built much heavier sidewall generators into the Shrike to go with them. The result is a sidewall which is about five times as tough as anything ever previously mounted in a LAC.

tlb wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:We do know from SoS that Terekhov thought of an old Mars-class CA "There's no way they could've refitted a bow wall without completely gutting her forward impeller rooms". So at least for the bow wall the nodes (or something in the hardware that drives them) needs to be compatible. But whether the bow wall generator literally uses the forward nodes to project that sidewall is still unknown.

Certainly in the Shrike sternwall discussion you mention it didn't sound like the aft wall generator had to be connected to the aft impeller room (well, probably not literally a room in a LAC, but after impeller hardware); and the aft nodes were presumably already 'wall' compatible because they shared a design with the forward nodes (which were designed to be compatible with a Shrike's bow wall).

But we don't know if that compatibility is because the nodes project the sidewall, because the generator somehow alters the output of the nodes, or simple that they need to avoid interfering with or destructive feedback from the wall and the generator does all the projection. (E.g. closing the stress bands at the wedge's fore or aft might stress the nodes)

And further we don't know whether the sidewalls require specifically compatible nodes. For that we'd probably need a short story set right around the invention of sidewalls discussing how the test ship was built or how retrofitting them into existing warships. Because these days sidewalls are such an old established technology that even if some node compatibility was required its probably baked into every single node; even civilian ones. (But unlike bow/stern walls sidewalls don't close the wedge's stress bands; so maybe they don't require anything special from their nodes. We just don't know)

From Echoes of Honor, chapter 3:

"These are another innovation—for now we're calling them 'Beta-Squared' nodes—which are much more powerful than older nodes. In addition, they've been fitted with a new version of our FTL com—one with a much higher pulse repetition rate—which should make the Shrikes very useful as manned long-range scouts. I imagine we'll be seeing something like it in larger ships in the not too distant future. What matters for our present purposes, however, is that the new nodes are very nearly as powerful as old-style alpha nodes, and we've also built much heavier sidewall generators into the Shrike to go with them. The result is a sidewall which is about five times as tough as anything ever previously mounted in a LAC.

I take this as meaning that the sidewall generators (etc.) do make use of the Beta nodes. Otherwise the stronger sidewall generators could have been introduced years before.

tlb wrote:From Echoes of Honor, chapter 3:

"These are another innovation—for now we're calling them 'Beta-Squared' nodes—which are much more powerful than older nodes. In addition, they've been fitted with a new version of our FTL com—one with a much higher pulse repetition rate—which should make the Shrikes very useful as manned long-range scouts. I imagine we'll be seeing something like it in larger ships in the not too distant future. What matters for our present purposes, however, is that the new nodes are very nearly as powerful as old-style alpha nodes, and we've also built much heavier sidewall generators into the Shrike to go with them. The result is a sidewall which is about five times as tough as anything ever previously mounted in a LAC.

I take this as meaning that the sidewall generators (etc.) do make use of the Beta nodes. Otherwise the stronger sidewall generators could have been introduced years before.

penny wrote:That has always been a hard pill to swallow as well. One I've kept under my tongue... in cheek. How can that be, if wedge fratricide truly depends on the sizes of the wedges? I could certainly understand it if the speed of the CM was way beyond that of the capital missile where the CM is nearly an infinite mass missile. But that is nowhere near the case.

penny wrote:It is still difficult to fathom. Text says wedge fratricide depends on the respective sizes of the wedges.

Look at the difference in the size of a CM to the size of a capital missile.

https://honorverse.fandom.com/wiki/Missile

It's all about thresholds in the HV it seems.

Jonathan_S wrote:

penny wrote:It is still difficult to fathom. Text says wedge fratricide depends on the respective sizes of the wedges.

Look at the difference in the size of a CM to the size of a capital missile.

https://honorverse.fandom.com/wiki/Missile

It's all about thresholds in the HV it seems.

Right, but that's the side of the missile body; not the size of the wedge.

And CM's have "hugely overpowered impeller wedges" [ToF] (for their size). So the difference in wedge size should be far, far, less than the difference in missile body sizes.

So CMs are engineered to be the smallest missile body that can support a wedge large/powerful enough to guarantee killing any missile. And (unlike us) their designers know exactly what the thresholds are to ensure mutual fratricide.

(Also, IIRC, the example we have of a ship being able to survive a wedge impact is SD vs DD; and the size discrepancy there is much greater than even the one between MDM and CM. We just don't know what the threshold is where the wedge size difference become too small to be survivable)

tlb wrote:I take this as meaning that the sidewall generators (etc.) do make use of the Beta nodes. Otherwise the stronger sidewall generators could have been introduced years before.

Jonathan_S wrote:Certainly the strength of the wedge affects the maximum strength of the sidewall. So a more powerful wedge enabled more powerful sidewalls -- and old-style LACs had weak wedges. So weak that their acceleration was less than an SD; making only about 75% of the accel they should have had given their tiny mass.

But we don't know whether the nodes are used to project the sidewalls or whether the sidewalls are projected entirely by their generators and simply take advantage of the power of the wedge.

Clearly there's some interaction, but exactly how it works isn't spelled out. (Though on a practical level it probably doesn't matter much)

The jacketed slug exploded through the equally anachronistic paper target's "X" ring in a shower of small, white fragments, then vanished in a fiery flash as it plowed into the focused grav wall "backstop" and vaporized.

tlb wrote:However I do not know why the wedge might limit the strength of a sidewall, since the sidewall is still so much weaker. That is: why couldn't the much stronger sidewalls have been added to a LAC, before the Beta Squared nodes were introduced? One possibility is that a LAC did not have sufficient power for a stronger sidewall before the fission reactors were introduced.

Jonathan_S wrote:

penny wrote:It is still difficult to fathom. Text says wedge fratricide depends on the respective sizes of the wedges.

Look at the difference in the size of a CM to the size of a capital missile.

https://honorverse.fandom.com/wiki/Missile

It's all about thresholds in the HV it seems.

Right, but that's the size of the missile body; not the size of the wedge.

And CM's have "hugely overpowered impeller wedges" [ToF] (for their size). So the difference in wedge size should be far, far, less than the difference in missile body sizes.

So CMs are engineered to be the smallest missile body that can support a wedge large/powerful enough to guarantee killing any missile. And (unlike us) their designers know exactly what the thresholds are to ensure mutual fratricide.

(Also, IIRC, the example we have of a ship being able to survive a wedge impact is SD vs DD; and the size discrepancy there is much greater than even the one between MDM and CM. We just don't know what the threshold is where the wedge size difference become too small to be survivable)

penny wrote:What is preventing some shadow entity from hugely overpowering a capital missile’s impeller wedge? If possible, shouldn't that place a capital missile’s impeller wedge outside the threshold of a CM wedge’s ability to ensure mutual fratricide? Plus gain some additional acceleration?