?

cthia wrote:Doesn't that remind you of the very special torpedo that Spock and McCoy worked on to zero in on the cloaked Romulan ship?

****** *

Hmm. A long-range, low-range, low-speed gas guzzler?

Pardon the pun, but it sounds like the LDs might have a limited range, rather, a low gas-mileage with the air-conditioning (stealth) turned on. I suppose the Spider Drive is essentially the equivalent of a... very low speed gas hog? Huh? Running off of liquid helium? Perhaps the LDs are capable of much faster speeds, but they have to keep it below their version of "55" when gas mileage begins to suck hind teet. I wonder if the Spider Drive has an overdrive mode for efficiency. Except that overdrive for a Spider means slowing down or stopping completely. Huh? LOL

I suppose this is something Honor will figure out on the fly. The Spider and the Fly.

ThinksMarkedly's comment on the Heatsink is just conjecture based on physics, not based on anything we've seen in the series - RFC's remarks on the stealth suite and heat dissipation using the smart skin are cannon. Every major navy uses a variant of this system in their stealth system; the MAN has just perfected it to work by dissipating heat from the skin in a very narrow region of the skin to minimize detection.

Acceleration of spider drive ships are based off the ability of the Gravity plates to not kill their inhabitants, so all Spider drive ships have the same usable max acceleration. We've been told that acceleration ability of the spider drive actually scales with size, but this is irrelevant, as the Gravity plates limit the acceleration of all Spider Drive ships to a accel below their drive's max speed. The Malign has developed better Grav plates than the standard, but there it still limits the ship's accel, and, at max accel, can only be used in battle conditions with the crew in g-suits and g-couches.

cthia wrote:Pardon the pun, but it sounds like the LDs might have a limited range, rather, a low gas-mileage with the air-conditioning (stealth) turned on. I suppose the Spider Drive is essentially the equivalent of a... very low speed gas hog? Huh? Running off of liquid helium? Perhaps the LDs are capable of much faster speeds, but they have to keep it below their version of "55" when gas mileage begins to suck hind teet. I wonder if the Spider Drive has an overdrive mode for efficiency. Except that overdrive for a Spider means slowing down or stopping completely. Huh? LOL

I've always pictured them averaging 40 hogs to the hogshead.

Remember that while the Ghosts in the Oyster Bay attacks were doing stealthy recon in the systems but it seemed that the Sharks (Spider Drives and all) were, if not outside the hyper limit, way out on the periphery of the system.

Does this imply that the Sharks needed to keep distance from the system sensor networks and especially from traveled (if shifting with normal orbital movements) routing in the system? Certainly the Ghost is noted as being WAY out in a place not expecting any kind of traffic and disoverd a squadron of warships running excercises. Thought they knew what the Ghost stealth systems could do against Alignment systems that had their information, they still wanted to stay very far away from warships with Manticorian sensors.

The LD's are many times larger than the Sharks. (Ok, the Sharks were having to hang at least the Graser Torpedoes on exterior ordence racks though they may also have needed to carry a lot of the ballistic packages that way and have been "dirty" in the trying for stealth mode with all that stuff stuck on the outside tht could provide a sensor return. ) But what if the LD's are designed to hang outside systems and do the same kind of delivery? The primary weapons system (that we know about) is the GT and that is designed to, if not swim quietly in under spider drive, to fall into a system on ballistic and only go active with the drive in the positioning relative to the designated target and then still manuver (with the spyder) to do that "slicing" kind of attack rather than just burn through in a relativly small area as a normal graser shot would do. The tube launching system for the GTs is probably going to be the same kind of mass-driver used by Manticore to launch missiles but not have them detected till their drives light of. The ballistic packages would be carried internally and delivered like pods, heck, one type of package could be pods though what they would launch is up in the air yet.

Perhaps you don't want LDs swanning aound under steath anywhere in a system. Getting id'd inside the hyperlimit would be really bad news against RMN MDM weapons and Apollo. At least if your outside the hyper limit (and probably using one of more Ghost to get current targeting data) you can just slaugher orbital and other facilities. They can't see you, they are going to not be able to get to you if you can hyper-out in under ten minutes (unless you are haveing truly horrible luck) and you don't want anybody getting a hull return or good sensor sniff on your dive.
Just wondering.

Theemile wrote:Acceleration of spider drive ships are based off the ability of the Gravity plates to not kill their inhabitants, so all Spider drive ships have the same usable max acceleration. We've been told that acceleration ability of the spider drive actually scales with size, but this is irrelevant, as the Gravity plates limit the acceleration of all Spider Drive ships to a accel below their drive's max speed.

Irrelevant for ship's certainly. But the low end of a spider drive's scaling factor hurts when you're trying to use it for something smaller than a ship.

Mission of Honor - Ch 28 wrote:It was simply impossible to fit a spider drive capable of more than a few hundred gravities’ acceleration into something small enough to make a practical weapon.

And given how large graser torps are compared to even MDMs they were pushing hard into the large end of "practical" to manage even that few hundred gees.

It's a good thing they're hard to see coming, because they'd be pretty easy for most ships to run away from.


And any hypothetical spider powered pinnaces/shuttles would also have glacially low acceleration.

Brigade XO wrote:Remember that while the Ghosts in the Oyster Bay attacks were doing stealthy recon in the systems but it seemed that the Sharks (Spider Drives and all) were, if not outside the hyper limit, way out on the periphery of the system.

They were all travelling together.

They all transited well out of range of sensor range so that the hyper translation footprint would be mistaken for a freighter with terrible navigation skills and ignored. Any closer transit would have brought the ready DDron too quickly for the ships to be sure their stealth would protect them or even in range of the regular scanners. Detecting a ship that you don't know is there and have no clue where is pretty difficult, but if you know exactly where to look, your chances increase considerably.

The Ghosts were supplying extra targetting information so the Sharks didn't have to get that close. IIRC, the Sharks deployed their graser torpedoes and then veered away to their exfiltration points, but the Ghosts were required for fine-tuning. Whether the Sharks would have been detected or not is not important: there's no need to risk them and the same would apply to LDs. If you have smaller ships that can achieve the same task, use those instead of your big assets.

Does this imply that the Sharks needed to keep distance from the system sensor networks and especially from traveled (if shifting with normal orbital movements) routing in the system? Certainly the Ghost is noted as being WAY out in a place not expecting any kind of traffic and disoverd a squadron of warships running excercises. Thought they knew what the Ghost stealth systems could do against Alignment systems that had their information, they still wanted to stay very far away from warships with Manticorian sensors.

I think it applies to all ships. Getting to close to the rush hour traffic that the Manticore-hyperlimit and Manticore-Junction lanes must be is suicide for stealth ships. At the very least, unnecessary risk.

But what if the LD's are designed to hang outside systems and do the same kind of delivery? The primary weapons system (that we know about) is the GT and that is designed to, if not swim quietly in under spider drive, to fall into a system on ballistic and only go active with the drive in the positioning relative to the designated target and then still manuver (with the spyder) to do that "slicing" kind of attack rather than just burn through in a relativly small area as a normal graser shot would do. The tube launching system for the GTs is probably going to be the same kind of mass-driver used by Manticore to launch missiles but not have them detected till their drives light of. The ballistic packages would be carried internally and delivered like pods, heck, one type of package could be pods though what they would launch is up in the air yet.

That's what I expect their primary tactic to be: sit very far from the target launch weapons into the system. Alternatively, make a high-speed pass and, like Oyster Bay, change course before the weapons actually strike. They shouldn't get to kissing distance, like cthia suggests.

The thing is... at that point, the LD is just a glorified freighter. It doesn't even get the designation of "carrier."

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
That's what I expect their primary tactic to be: sit very far from the target launch weapons into the system. Alternatively, make a high-speed pass and, like Oyster Bay, change course before the weapons actually strike. They shouldn't get to kissing distance, like cthia suggests.

The thing is... at that point, the LD is just a glorified freighter. It doesn't even get the designation of "carrier."

Right, It's been mentioned several times that a freighter could have accomplished the same attack (with the graser torpodeos), with no sharks needed. Or, Instead of a silent insertion months out, cross the hyper limit with an amount of energy, and launch the g-torps and leave. By the time the quick reaction force arrives (13 hours later), the freighter has left and the G torps are silently running for the inner system.

or do KZT's option, jump in and out well beyond the hyperlimit
repeatedly for weeks, then launch an attack - you will overwhelm the defender's ability to investigate each instance and they will be much more likely to miss the actual attack, but will be at a heightened state of awareness when the attack hits.

The "LD might as well be a freighter" though does bring up some interesting things.

We presume that it is intended to move to places and slink around with the Spider drive and then fire (well, push with mass driver or something similar) whatever number of Graser Torpedoes nessisary to accomplish it's/their mission. Perhaps also put out various ballistic packages like dropping pods.

Since we also don't know what other offensive or defensive hardware and systems the LD's have that the Ghosts and Sharks have, we can't make any actual guesses at what their capasity is (beyond the Spyder and serious SmartSkin type stealth) and how the would be able to defend themselves if discovered.

On the other hand, the Sharks and Ghosts were deliverd by freighter so the did generate that initial scouting responce from the duty DD squadron to track down the downward from hyper spike so PROBABLY that isn't going to happen in an actual strike operation as the LD's are going to use the Spyder drive to get there, Somehow I don't see the Alignment building "conventional bulk freighters" of a size to carry the implied size of a LD to where it is going to work and then have to do the same routine as the Oyster Bay Attacks. We also don't know if an intention is to pair up an LD (one or more) with at least one Ghost so that the scout could do the close in work identifying targets and sending the information out to the attack ship(s)

So, other than slinking up to a system with the undetectable (for now) Spyder drive and blowing the crap out of anything that lives in a regular orbit relative to anyting in that system, what is the mission of the LD's?
I think that this is probaby essentialy a terror weapon system. Sure, the Oyster Bay attacks were more or less against targets which could be considered military in nature. But there was absolutleye no warning given in and with the nature of the weapon systems used, essentilay no possibility of evacuating civilians from anything. Note that it is discussed in some detail that the planners only took some effort to avoid the technical specs of an EE attack but that nothing was done to prevent (or try to prevent in any way) to keep chunks of stations from impacting on planets.
The INTENT was to destroy the orbital infrastructure and manufacturing capacity of the systems invovled AND to kill as many of their trained workforce as possible. All the civilians killed were just a bonus as far as the Alignment was concerned- more damage, horror, confusion and loss for the rest of the population of the systems. That was accomplished.

So what was a major goal in THE PLAN befor and after Oyster Bay was "rushed". Destroy major systems ability to build and support both their navies and their capasity to manufacture anyting in orbital infrastructure. Shatter the League both militarily and politically so that the fragments could be brought into a situation set up to rewrite their basic philosophys, particularly in genetics. So you are going to crate situations where your maniplated set of systems (primarily Haven but Manticor would do) chew up the SLN and others in the process of creating a Balkinized humanity with multiple systems at war with others----and having already smashed what major powers capasity possible with Haven attacking the League, you send in the Lenny Detts and have undetected and unidentified forces hitting any orbital (and other including planitary) locations they want with no warning. Each victim is free to pick the probable attacker from whomever has been the most problem recently and then attempt to strike back in retaliation. The Alignment just keeps killing people and destroying capasity and lets the RF seed it's actual rebuilding program amoung the devistated survivors,

The Alignment is going to be slinking around stepping on ants (some of them very dangerous but they can't bite back at what they can't see of detect) till the ants as suitably "pacified" and reeducated to become just more Alignment cattle. All those lives of "normals" are of no consequence to the StarLines.

Brigade XO. I know the MA are cruel, but I don't think they could actually give a warning before a strike. It would defeat the purpose and diminish the effectiveness of the strike. Especially with the grasers coming in so slow.

Tube launched gtorps are going to wreak havoc on systems. The efficiency and convenience alone will make the strike way beyond Oyster Bay's disaster.

However, I can't believe the MA won't have colliers to resupply the LDs. Invisible support ships will add another dimension to MA tactics. Imagine an invisible David-Taylor class CW support ship dumping gobs of pods into a system. Surprise pods.

I took a minute to look at what science has new going on with heatsinks. There is an outfit which came up with some interesting geometry for heatsinks. The internal lattice is getting really complicated. It is all about the shape and internal structure which determines efficiency. Perhaps the LDs shape actually helps with it's huge heatsinks. Interesting.

cthia wrote:I took a minute to look at what science has new going on with heatsinks. There is an outfit which came up with some interesting geometry for heatsinks. The internal lattice is getting really complicated. It is all about the shape and internal structure which determines efficiency. Perhaps the LDs shape actually helps with it's huge heatsinks. Interesting.

That is just prolonging the time it takes until the heatsink can no longer absorb heat. There are amazing materials that may have huge specific heat capability, but that is still a finite number and the heat sink will reach thermal equilibrium at some point.

The only question is how long that takes.

I'm prepared to accept that it can last days of waste heat production from the ship under stealth, which is probably sufficient for the inner system operation.

Vince wrote:Regarding missile and reconnaissance drone power systems in the Honorverse:

All Honorverse navies, prior to the RMN invention of the high-output micro-fusion reactor, used plasma capacitors to power the drives of both missiles and reconnaissance drones.

After the RMN invention of the high-output micro-fusion reactor, the RMN had a duopoly (the GSN also had access to the technology) on fusion-powered MDMs, DDMs, and the more capable Ghost Rider reconnaissance drones.

After the Grand Alliance was formed, the RMN began sharing their secrets with the other Grand Alliance navies (RHN, BSDF) and the more loosely aligned IAN, that didn't have the new technology.

I am not at all sure about this. The GSN and IAN had no design documents or plans for the the Mk23 or Mk16 per David prior to some unfortunate events in Manticore. They were sent contact teams by the RMN to help build facilities after someone blew up the only production facilities for RMN missiles. And the Mk23 reactor is the Mk16 reactor is the recon drone reactor.