The Carnivorous Ultradreadnought

As a tribute to a fellow contributor, one whose contributions I have always found highly creative even if sometimes they have not stood up absolutely solidly and without refinement to careful analysis, I offer a new species of warship.

The ship is based on the fact that the SLN needs some new weapons systems in order to live up to its revealed-by-Rajampet name, the Omnipotent Solarian League Navy.

The new class is based on several features:

Ships of the Wall can form a wall, sidewall to sidewall, with only wedges and a few bows and sterns exposed to the foe.

If two wedges collide, the less one is smited entirely.

If no one is on board, so you do not need to worry about acceleration compensators, a ship can pull thousands of gravities...Honor Harrington did this once. Of course, no one was on board, but the ship was under remote control.

The components of the new ship class are extremely expensive, guaranteeing that there are huge amounts of funds available to validate all design issues.

We now construct a stock of large ships with huge wedge generators and lots of power systems. No weapons are on board, only automated point defense systems, all mounted facing forward from the bow hammerhead. The ships are massively overbuilt to stand a large acceleration,thousands of gees.

The ships following the wise plans of EE Smith, form an (inverted) cone of battle, sidewall to sidewall but with the ships lying in a circle so there are no exposed sides at all, so only limited areas at the nose and stern are exposed. This can be improved if the wedges can be reshaped so that they all tilt toward the central axis, so all countermissile fire tends to protect all ships.

At the appropriate time, the skeleton crews abandon ship. The ship itself -- made of multiple separate parts -- charges the enemy ships at an enormous acceleration, runs them down, and uses its powerful wedge to eat the enemy alive.

This truly brilliant scheme has some minor challenges..perhaps bucklers would help.

And in tribute to someone whose ideas I have enjoyed reading, even if in the best tradition of the OSLN they could sometimes use a bit of fine tuning, the vessel is part of the (Oh, I shan't name the person being honored, lest I hurt feelings, though I do like the creativity of at least some of his ideas) class.

phillies wrote:As a tribute to a fellow contributor, one whose contributions I have always found highly creative even if sometimes they have not stood up absolutely solidly and without refinement to careful analysis, I offer a new species of warship.

The ship is based on the fact that the SLN needs some new weapons systems in order to live up to its revealed-by-Rajampet name, the Omnipotent Solarian League Navy.

The new class is based on several features:

Ships of the Wall can form a wall, sidewall to sidewall, with only wedges and a few bows and sterns exposed to the foe.

If two wedges collide, the less one is smited entirely.

If no one is on board, so you do not need to worry about acceleration compensators, a ship can pull thousands of gravities...Honor Harrington did this once. Of course, no one was on board, but the ship was under remote control.

The components of the new ship class are extremely expensive, guaranteeing that there are huge amounts of funds available to validate all design issues.

We now construct a stock of large ships with huge wedge generators and lots of power systems. No weapons are on board, only automated point defense systems, all mounted facing forward from the bow hammerhead. The ships are massively overbuilt to stand a large acceleration,thousands of gees.

The ships following the wise plans of EE Smith, form an (inverted) cone of battle, sidewall to sidewall but with the ships lying in a circle so there are no exposed sides at all, so only limited areas at the nose and stern are exposed. This can be improved if the wedges can be reshaped so that they all tilt toward the central axis, so all countermissile fire tends to protect all ships.

At the appropriate time, the skeleton crews abandon ship. The ship itself -- made of multiple separate parts -- charges the enemy ships at an enormous acceleration, runs them down, and uses its powerful wedge to eat the enemy alive.

This truly brilliant scheme has some minor challenges..perhaps bucklers would help.

And in tribute to someone whose ideas I have enjoyed reading, even if in the best tradition of the OSLN they could sometimes use a bit of fine tuning, the vessel is part of the (Oh, I shan't name the person being honored, lest I hurt feelings, though I do like the creativity of at least some of his ideas) class.

Minor nit. I believe that it was Rafe Cardones that disabled the compensators on a merchant ship so it could accelerate at 2,000 g's in order to protect Harrington's ship.

phillies wrote:As a tribute to a fellow contributor, one whose contributions I have always found highly creative even if sometimes they have not stood up absolutely solidly and without refinement to careful analysis, I offer a new species of warship.

The ship is based on the fact that the SLN needs some new weapons systems in order to live up to its revealed-by-Rajampet name, the Omnipotent Solarian League Navy.

The new class is based on several features:

Ships of the Wall can form a wall, sidewall to sidewall, with only wedges and a few bows and sterns exposed to the foe.

If two wedges collide, the less one is smited entirely.

If no one is on board, so you do not need to worry about acceleration compensators, a ship can pull thousands of gravities...Honor Harrington did this once. Of course, no one was on board, but the ship was under remote control.

The components of the new ship class are extremely expensive, guaranteeing that there are huge amounts of funds available to validate all design issues.

We now construct a stock of large ships with huge wedge generators and lots of power systems. No weapons are on board, only automated point defense systems, all mounted facing forward from the bow hammerhead. The ships are massively overbuilt to stand a large acceleration,thousands of gees.

The ships following the wise plans of EE Smith, form an (inverted) cone of battle, sidewall to sidewall but with the ships lying in a circle so there are no exposed sides at all, so only limited areas at the nose and stern are exposed. This can be improved if the wedges can be reshaped so that they all tilt toward the central axis, so all countermissile fire tends to protect all ships.

At the appropriate time, the skeleton crews abandon ship. The ship itself -- made of multiple separate parts -- charges the enemy ships at an enormous acceleration, runs them down, and uses its powerful wedge to eat the enemy alive.

This truly brilliant scheme has some minor challenges..perhaps bucklers would help.

And in tribute to someone whose ideas I have enjoyed reading, even if in the best tradition of the OSLN they could sometimes use a bit of fine tuning, the vessel is part of the (Oh, I shan't name the person being honored, lest I hurt feelings, though I do like the creativity of at least some of his ideas) class.

EE Smith eh? Man did that take me back in time. I played football, quarterback. One team I dreaded playing was EE Smith, Fayetteville, NC. They played a veeery physical form of football. The "I" formation and the split "T." We always beat them. Mostly. But, we were accustomed to running up scores in the seventies, 71-6. Playing EE Smith, the scores tended to be like 6-3. All field goals!

As an author, I like his Lensman series for the heroine. Haven't read the Skylark series.


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That Ultradreadnought will have to have a very high metabolism to consume so many ships. Perhaps a Meyerdahl modification. Like Honor.

And to assist in hearburn and indigestion, RFC can throw in a few tums, tums, tums, tums ...tummmmss.

Sorry phillies, couldn't resist.

And of course, if it is an Ultradreadnought, it could only be crewed and handled by Ultramarines....Just going with the flow....

cthia wrote:

phillies wrote:As a tribute to a fellow contributor, one whose contributions I have always found highly creative even if sometimes they have not stood up absolutely solidly and without refinement to careful analysis, I offer a new species of warship.

The ship is based on the fact that the SLN needs some new weapons systems in order to live up to its revealed-by-Rajampet name, the Omnipotent Solarian League Navy.

The new class is based on several features:

Ships of the Wall can form a wall, sidewall to sidewall, with only wedges and a few bows and sterns exposed to the foe.

If two wedges collide, the less one is smited entirely.

If no one is on board, so you do not need to worry about acceleration compensators, a ship can pull thousands of gravities...Honor Harrington did this once. Of course, no one was on board, but the ship was under remote control.

The components of the new ship class are extremely expensive, guaranteeing that there are huge amounts of funds available to validate all design issues.

We now construct a stock of large ships with huge wedge generators and lots of power systems. No weapons are on board, only automated point defense systems, all mounted facing forward from the bow hammerhead. The ships are massively overbuilt to stand a large acceleration,thousands of gees.

The ships following the wise plans of EE Smith, form an (inverted) cone of battle, sidewall to sidewall but with the ships lying in a circle so there are no exposed sides at all, so only limited areas at the nose and stern are exposed. This can be improved if the wedges can be reshaped so that they all tilt toward the central axis, so all countermissile fire tends to protect all ships.

At the appropriate time, the skeleton crews abandon ship. The ship itself -- made of multiple separate parts -- charges the enemy ships at an enormous acceleration, runs them down, and uses its powerful wedge to eat the enemy alive.

This truly brilliant scheme has some minor challenges..perhaps bucklers would help.

And in tribute to someone whose ideas I have enjoyed reading, even if in the best tradition of the OSLN they could sometimes use a bit of fine tuning, the vessel is part of the (Oh, I shan't name the person being honored, lest I hurt feelings, though I do like the creativity of at least some of his ideas) class.

EE Smith eh? Man did that take me back in time. I played football, quarterback. One team I dreaded playing was EE Smith, Fayetteville, NC. They played a veeery physical form of football. The "I" formation and the split "T." We always beat them. Mostly. But, we were accustomed to running up scores in the seventies, 71-6. Playing EE Smith, the scores tended to be like 6-3. All field goals!

As an author, I like his Lensman series for the heroine. Haven't read the Skylark series.


****** *


That Ultradreadnought will have to have a very high metabolism to consume so many ships. Perhaps a Meyerdahl modification. Like Honor.

And to assist in hearburn and indigestion, RFC can throw in a few tums, tums, tums, tums ...tummmmss.

Sorry phillies, couldn't resist.

Don't SKIMP on the tea with the tumms, you know tum tea tum...

fallsfromtrees wrote:
Minor nit. I believe that it was Rafe Cardones that disabled the compensators on a merchant ship so it could accelerate at 2,000 g's in order to protect Harrington's ship.

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You are correct; although he did get a medal AND a minor reaming by Hemphill for it, but it did start Hemphill out thinking about FTL comm possibilities....

-- Stewart

Hutch wrote:And of course, if it is an Ultradreadnought, it could only be crewed and handled by Ultramarines....Just going with the flow....

I do hope they have ultraviolet clearance.. (wonder how many that will catch that reference)..

Joat42 wrote:

Hutch wrote:And of course, if it is an Ultradreadnought, it could only be crewed and handled by Ultramarines....Just going with the flow....

I do hope they have ultraviolet clearance.. (wonder how many that will catch that reference)..

Absolutely! Especially if ultraviolet clearance does not automatically include violet or lower clearance. Ultramarines, of course, do space to ground by popping the door on the spaceship, jumping, and remembering to roll when you land, without wasting money on retrorockets or space suits.

Ramming Speed!!!!