Possible Weapon Technology at MALign Bolthole

Possible Weapons Conceived at MALign Bolthole?

or

Counter Weapons by the MALign?

The MALign introduced revolutionary propulsion systems that did not use reaction drives. Is it possible that they have other unprecedented technology in the Weapons division as well? What if they could develop completely unprecedented missiles operating in a wholly different paradigm. Perhaps a propulsion system with an astounding power budget that allows missiles delivering point-on-ship energy weapons! Even if the missiles were significantly larger than Technodynes, if enough of the missiles can get thru an enemy's defenses — because of an astounding energy budget powering an ECM comparable or even exceeding the GA's — striking with delivered energy weapons ...

The energy weapons of a LAC, minitiarized and fitted onto huge missile platforms akin to unmanned drones would be devastating. Even if traditional missile propulsion used, and double barreled wedges are utilized for ship acceleration, even such large monstrosities could be shockingly effective if new technology delivered unprecedented efficiency in energy weapon technology and ECM.

Even if the missiles were triple the GA missile's size, their devastating payload would more than make up for it.

Game Changer.

Shoot the concept down all you want. These are just ideas that exceptionally intelligent MALign developers may design and perfect. Who'd-a-thunk of a Spider drive?

Any other weapons or ideas you can think of that may be prototyped on a MALign drawing board?

Just to keep storyline interesting and less than one sided whenever the GA shall meet the MisALigned.

Disclaimer:
I promise not to be a sympathizer or a spy or agent working for the MALign, seeking to harness experienced Honorverse ship and weapon's designers brilliant work so that I can smuggle conceptions back to the MALign via data-chips. And I assure, the millions of credits recently deposited in an extra-system account has nothing at all to do with a MALign advancement.

And don't go and call me crazy for an idea the MALign could be working on. Just call me crazy.

cthia wrote:Possible Weapons Conceived at MALign Bolthole?

or

Counter Weapons by the MALign?

The MALign introduced revolutionary propulsion systems that did not use reaction drives. Is it possible that they have other unprecedented technology in the Weapons division as well? What if they could develop completely unprecedented missiles operating in a wholly different paradigm. Perhaps a propulsion system with an astounding power budget that allows missiles delivering point-on-ship energy weapons! Even if the missiles were significantly larger than Technodynes, if enough of the missiles can get thru an enemy's defenses — because of an astounding energy budget powering an ECM comparable or even exceeding the GA's — striking with delivered energy weapons ...

The energy weapons of a LAC, minitiarized and fitted onto huge missile platforms akin to unmanned drones would be devastating. Even if traditional missile propulsion used, and double barreled wedges are utilized for ship acceleration, even such large monstrosities could be shockingly effective if new technology delivered unprecedented efficiency in energy weapon technology and ECM.

Even if the missiles were triple the GA missile's size, their devastating payload would more than make up for it.

Game Changer.

Shoot the concept down all you want. These are just ideas that exceptionally intelligent MALign developers may design and perfect. Who'd-a-thunk of a Spider drive?

Any other weapons or ideas you can think of that may be prototyped on a MALign drawing board?

Just to keep storyline interesting and less than one sided whenever the GA shall meet the MisALigned.

Disclaimer:
I promise not to be a sympathizer or a spy or agent working for the MALign, seeking to harness experienced Honorverse ship and weapon's designers brilliant work so that I can smuggle conceptions back to the MALign via data-chips. And I assure, the millions of credits recently deposited in an extra-system account has nothing at all to do with a MALign advancement.

And don't go and call me crazy for an idea the MALign could be working on. Just call me crazy.

Isn't this essentially what they have already demonstrated?

dr

dreamrider wrote:

cthia wrote:Possible Weapons Conceived at MALign Bolthole?

or

Counter Weapons by the MALign?

The MALign introduced revolutionary propulsion systems that did not use reaction drives. Is it possible that they have other unprecedented technology in the Weapons division as well? What if they could develop completely unprecedented missiles operating in a wholly different paradigm. Perhaps a propulsion system with an astounding power budget that allows missiles delivering point-on-ship energy weapons! Even if the missiles were significantly larger than Technodynes, if enough of the missiles can get thru an enemy's defenses — because of an astounding energy budget powering an ECM comparable or even exceeding the GA's — striking with delivered energy weapons ...

The energy weapons of a LAC, minitiarized and fitted onto huge missile platforms akin to unmanned drones would be devastating. Even if traditional missile propulsion used, and double barreled wedges are utilized for ship acceleration, even such large monstrosities could be shockingly effective if new technology delivered unprecedented efficiency in energy weapon technology and ECM.

Even if the missiles were triple the GA missile's size, their devastating payload would more than make up for it.

Game Changer.

Shoot the concept down all you want. These are just ideas that exceptionally intelligent MALign developers may design and perfect. Who'd-a-thunk of a Spider drive?

Any other weapons or ideas you can think of that may be prototyped on a MALign drawing board?

Just to keep storyline interesting and less than one sided whenever the GA shall meet the MisALigned.

Disclaimer:
I promise not to be a sympathizer or a spy or agent working for the MALign, seeking to harness experienced Honorverse ship and weapon's designers brilliant work so that I can smuggle conceptions back to the MALign via data-chips. And I assure, the millions of credits recently deposited in an extra-system account has nothing at all to do with a MALign advancement.

And don't go and call me crazy for an idea the MALign could be working on. Just call me crazy.

Isn't this essentially what they have already demonstrated?

dr

I didn't think so dreamrider. What I thought was unprecedented was the MALign's ship design. I thought the missile system was conventional. Am I incorrect?

cthia wrote:

dreamrider wrote:Isn't this essentially what they have already demonstrated?

dr

I didn't think so dreamrider. What I thought was unprecedented was the MALign's ship design. I thought the missile system was conventional. Am I incorrect?

The giant-sized, spider drive, graser torpedoes were totally revolutionary, and exclusive (so far) to the MAN.

dr

dreamrider wrote:The energy weapons of a LAC, minitiarized and fitted onto huge missile platforms akin to unmanned drones would be devastating. Even if traditional missile propulsion used, and double barreled wedges are utilized for ship acceleration, even such large monstrosities could be shockingly effective if new technology delivered unprecedented efficiency in energy weapon technology and ECM.

Even if the missiles were triple the GA missile's size, their devastating payload would more than make up for it.

Isn't this essentially what they have already demonstrated?

dr[/quote]

That's something like the graser torpedo, anyway - the huge stealth missile / armed drone that fires a capital-ship-range graser for a three second sweep, once. They were the things that chopped up Hephaestus, Vulcan, and Weyland.

I don't think they represented a special power systems advance, though that may have been part of it - particularly really powerful capacitors to power the thing. If the Alignment did have a great power advance, it'd likely have had implications to other systems and units already used, which would in turn have been at least hinted at by now and probably mentioned outright.

Mostly the thing behind it is the stealth capability of the spider drive, with the general stealth skin capabilities of the Oyster Bay tool kit as a secondary but still important additional factor. Anything that big and slow, without being able to use active systems, would be too easy to evade or destroy without that stealthiness. But Mistletoe - the Manticoran stealth weaponry used to disable unprotected or minimally protected system missile defense control platforms - is something conceptually similar, just using conventional (bleeding edge) stealth and a nuclear warhead or laserhead rather than a big honkin' energy weapon. The graser torpedo just gets to get in a lot closer and use a bigger single energy weapon for a long slash on account of even better stealth capability - and being used only on targets that don't move unpredictably and (for Oyster Bay) didn't have any reason to even try looking for such an attacker.

I'm not supposing the Alignment doesn't have more technical surprises. I just think they're going to be in three categories:
1 - Unexpected catch-up with Haven Sector missile and electronic warfare advances
2 - Other systems based on the spider drive
3 - _Combinations_ of those two, like (perhaps) a spider-drive missile pod - like a graser torpedo but with impeller missile submunitions, meant to drift toward an enemy under spider drive and fire off the missiles at an enemy that will then have an especially short tracking and response time.

Just about the whole conventional space military tool kit in the Honorverse goes back to gravitic/impeller technology. The spider drive is a radical variant on that, and I think most Mesan surprises are going to be based on that, existing technologies from elsewhere, or combinations. Bringing up something else entirely would be peculiar for Weber.

I do think that the streak drive will be a less dramatic but still very important toll for the MAN. The hypergenerators for it are larger, but I don't believe hypergenerator mass or volume are a major hindrance in naval architecture, so being able to whip around at 50% higher speeds in hyper would be a huge operational and strategic advantage for modest cost.

Graser Torpedoes? Hot damn, I was on to something. Just a day late and a credit short. Thanks for bringing me up to speed dreamrider.

Can anyone conceive of any other MALign tech that may be on the drawing board?

****** *

Are there any limitations to the graser torp? Wiki doesn't give much info, except that it's cumbersome (to be expected), and more devastating, three seconds of on target fire as opposed to milliseconds. Sounds like a devastating weapon if it can be married with worthy ECM and acceleration speeds.

Its a cruiser sized graser...but it is being fired at closer than laserhead ranges.


That's OK, though. When the 'SoShan Combine of Bolthole' releases one based on the Mistletoe stealth attack drone, it WILL mount an a capital ship level graser.

They'll probably get 6 seconds duration out of it, too.

(They've already had 6 months...they should be just about ready to demonstrate.)

dreamrider

Missile progression in the Honorverse took the course of ECM, range, numbers on target, and acceleration. (Not sure of order)

I wonder about the MALign's missile acceleration being vastly improved as an Honorverse progression. Also, how close to a ship can a MAN ship get? Is it close enough that counter-measures would be drastically reduced even with conventional missile attack?

I admit, that I just cannot wait for the new novels and I try to second guess the MALign.

dreamrider wrote:Its a cruiser sized graser...but it is being fired at closer than laserhead ranges.


That's OK, though. When the 'SoShan Combine of Bolthole' releases one based on the Mistletoe stealth attack drone, it WILL mount an a capital ship level graser.

They'll probably get 6 seconds duration out of it, too.

(They've already had 6 months...they should be just about ready to demonstrate.)

dreamrider

How effective are grasers, cruiser or SD sized, on the wedge and impeller walls of other cruisers and SDs?

It seems like the biggest problem with graser armed missiles is it would give point defenses more time to target and destroy them because they have to get so much closer. The OB strike succeeded because there was no way it could have been countered by Manticore. They had no way of knowing such technology even existed (spider drive). Now that they do, it will be much much harder to strike at system and orbital infrastructure like that again. It's been stated it was pretty much a one shot deal.


How do impellers bands work? Can you make just an impeller band and no wedge? I kind of had a thought that might be plausible if not technically improbable.

Cthia raises an excellent idea, namely that the Invincible Alignment may have been developing other things besides better drives.

One shotgun has been very clearly placed on the wall. When Detweiler and wife were having a quiet evening reading by the fireside (or whatever), there was a revealed topic of the item that she was reading.