New Manty ship ideas.

"All we definitely know about the Detweilers: Spider drive super dreadnought capable of firing graser torpedoes internally, acceleration limited by grav plating (no better than the Sharks). We don't know anything else except the MAlign is building dozens of them."
I'm not sure they are super dreadnought size.
We are also not sure what the mission is besides carrying the graser torpedoes in stealth strikes. I suppose they could be commerce raiders (really big submarines/stealth fighters) that hang quietly outside the hyperlimit of systems and potshot merchant shipping with the graser torpedoes. They could do the same against military ships but that is going to be a lot of waiting around and could get really dangerous for the Detweilers (or Sharks) since they are probably going to have to be relatively close to the targets to engage and still stay outside the hyperlimit.
The graser torpedoes are stealth weapons in terms of the rest of current Honververse technology, using spider drive to maneuver and then destroying themselves in the process of firing at the target.
It has sounded to me that the conventional navies of the to-be-formed RF are to be the bulk of the military ships for advancing the Alignment plans with the Ghosts and Detweilers (and perhaps the Sharks being pressed to continue in tactical roles instead of trainers) to continue the method of striking at the infrastructure and, for lack of a better term, fleet anchorages, of the Alignments enemies. The Ghosts and Sharks worked exactly as designed (as far as we can tell) since they slunk around the Manticore and Grayson systems building up targeting data and deploying their weapons for the extremely effective stealth strikes before slinking away to be picked up. The question is: Can theses spider drive ships (including the Detweilers) continue to operate effectively now that several major navies know that they have to be looking for them? Manticore and Grayson are obviously aware from first hand experience. Haven and the IAN have to have been given the information along with the rest of the present members of the GA and any continuing members of the Manticore Alliance (Zanzibar and Alizon come to mind along with Erewhon).
When (possibly IF) the SLN determines that it has to take the Alignment threat as an actual/serious problem is another matter. However, it won’t take more than one Oyster Bay type strike at a SL Member system to get the ball rolling on that end.
We see at least Manticore adding things to its infrastructure defense such as sidewalls to the new stations that are going to be up all the time other than when opening gates to let ships and materials in and out of a shield bubble around installations. Once manufacturing gets running again, I would expect to see at least Manticore start putting the same kind of defense structure at it’s Astro Control and termini support structures. Expensive, of course, but less expensive than having the things blown up.

Jonathan_S wrote:And there's still going to be a solid wall of SD(P)s and CLACs (unless some other top end capital ship design supersedes them); given Manticore's economic mussels that wall is likely to be significantly larger than their pre-war build-up size but far smaller than their peak mid-war size.

For most powers, that's going to be true. For Manticore -- whose territory has vastly expanded and probably will end up the primary guarantor of peace in the post-League era -- I think their peacetime wall is going to end up larger than their peak 2nd Havenite War wall (of about 200, ignoring tube SDs), and possibly Manticore's may be larger than their peak first Havenite war wall (of about 400 including tube SDs). But it will be supported by 50-odd inhabited worlds instead of 3 or 4. If they end up in long-term control of some of the systems they've seized wormhole junctions in due to Lacoon II, it will be even more the case.

I would not assume that a pair of Shrikes can take on an SLN BC. We have observed 5 Rollands taking out SLN BCs with triple stack salvos of 5 x 3 x 12 = 180 Mk-16Gs. A pair of Shrikes can launch one salvo of 20 missiles or a total of only 40. Furthermore; the missiles are lighter weight CL or DD level missiles. They can't engage an SLN BC from beyond the SLN BC's range and the laser heads on their missiles do not have the beam intensity to shred BC armor.

thinkstoomuch wrote:Limpet 2 Shrikes to the outside when they leave a planet with an itinerary that means they are going to pass through hostile space on one of the legs.

Tractor is running off a fission plant with 18 year service life(hell they can even man one person on the plant if they want/need). They go out air locks and man said Shrike when they get to the area that may be dangerous. Sure they can only stay out there for a month before some other consumable means they have to pass things from the inside to the outside of the hull to restock.

Impact to the ship, 20(maybe) extra passengers nothing else.

That one freighter and 2 Shrike's will clean the clock of anything including a SLN BC. Well after it happens once or twice the SLN BC may have a chance. If they start using their pathetic RDs to go commerce raiding on an individual merchant that is out and about.


What is the reason to have them inside the skin of the Merchant? I just don't understand that need.

T2M

I never mentioned using missiles.

Once again:

MoH Chapter 20 wrote:Captain Alice Levinsky, commanding officer of LAC Group 711, watched the Shrikes and Katanas of Carrier Division 7.1 forming up around Her Majesty’s Light Attack Craft Typhoon. She was aware of a certain queasiness as she contemplated the juggernaut of superdreadnoughts rumbling steadily towards Flax. Against a Havenite wall of battle, even the Manticoran Alliance’s newest-generation LACs no longer possessed anywhere near the survivability they’d boasted when the Shrike-A was first introduced all of nine T-years ago. And even if they had, superdreadnoughts—even Solly superdreadnoughts—were normally too heavily armored for even a Shrike’s enormous graser to damage significantly. Of course, the Shrike-B, like her own Typhoon, had significantly improved its graser’s grav lensing when the newest generation of bow wall came in. The Bravos really could blast their way through SD armor, assuming they could get close enough.

If a Shrike-B can go thru SD Armour what happens to the BC Armour. Well shall we look at BB's in Hancock ... with SD grasers and BCs.

I never even considered using the missiles. Given the capability of an SLN BC sensor suite. Which is also why I specifically mentioned using SLN RDs to blunt the affects. Though I guess I should have specified Shrike-B's.

Have fun,
T2M

namelessfly wrote:I would not assume that a pair of Shrikes can take on an SLN BC. We have observed 5 Rollands taking out SLN BCs with triple stack salvos of 3 x 3 x 12 = 96 Mk-16Gs. A pair of Shrikes can launch one salvo of 20 missiles or a total of only 40. Furthermore; the missiles are lighter weight CL or DD level missiles. They can't engage an SLN BC from beyond the SLN BC's range and the laser heads on their missiles do not have the beam intensity to shred BC armor.

Okay, you make the point. A pair of Shrikes will be able to shred an SLN BC if they can get into Graser range. It is probable that they will be able to do so the first few engagements, but even the SLN not to mention SDFs will adapt.

thinkstoomuch wrote:I never mentioned using missiles.

Once again:

MoH Chapter 20 wrote:Captain Alice Levinsky, commanding officer of LAC Group 711, watched the Shrikes and Katanas of Carrier Division 7.1 forming up around Her Majesty’s Light Attack Craft Typhoon. She was aware of a certain queasiness as she contemplated the juggernaut of superdreadnoughts rumbling steadily towards Flax. Against a Havenite wall of battle, even the Manticoran Alliance’s newest-generation LACs no longer possessed anywhere near the survivability they’d boasted when the Shrike-A was first introduced all of nine T-years ago. And even if they had, superdreadnoughts—even Solly superdreadnoughts—were normally too heavily armored for even a Shrike’s enormous graser to damage significantly. Of course, the Shrike-B, like her own Typhoon, had significantly improved its graser’s grav lensing when the newest generation of bow wall came in. The Bravos really could blast their way through SD armor, assuming they could get close enough.

If a Shrike-B can go thru SD Armour what happens to the BC Armour. Well shall we look at BB's in Hancock ... with SD grasers and BCs.

I never even considered using the missiles. Given the capability of an SLN BC sensor suite. Which is also why I specifically mentioned using SLN RDs to blunt the affects. Though I guess I should have specified Shrike-B's.

Have fun,
T2M

namelessfly wrote:I would not assume that a pair of Shrikes can take on an SLN BC. We have observed 5 Rollands taking out SLN BCs with triple stack salvos of 3 x 3 x 12 = 96 Mk-16Gs. A pair of Shrikes can launch one salvo of 20 missiles or a total of only 40. Furthermore; the missiles are lighter weight CL or DD level missiles. They can't engage an SLN BC from beyond the SLN BC's range and the laser heads on their missiles do not have the beam intensity to shred BC armor.

Brigade XO wrote:It has sounded to me that the conventional navies of the to-be-formed RF are to be the bulk of the military ships for advancing the Alignment plans with the Ghosts and Detweilers (and perhaps the Sharks being pressed to continue in tactical roles instead of trainers) to continue the method of striking at the infrastructure and, for lack of a better term, fleet anchorages, of the Alignments enemies. The Ghosts and Sharks worked exactly as designed (as far as we can tell) since they slunk around the Manticore and Grayson systems building up targeting data and deploying their weapons for the extremely effective stealth strikes before slinking away to be picked up. The question is: Can theses spider drive ships (including the Detweilers) continue to operate effectively now that several major navies know that they have to be looking for them? Manticore and Grayson are obviously aware from first hand experience. Haven and the IAN have to have been given the information along with the rest of the present members of the GA and any continuing members of the Manticore Alliance (Zanzibar and Alizon come to mind along with Erewhon).

I suspect the Spider ships will be effective for a while yet.

Obviously we won't know for sure until we see them in action, but the current best mitigation plan we've heard a navy advance relies on a significant amount of infrastructure and a heavy commitment of light combatants. That's manticore's plan to swarm any detected hyper ghost with enough ships to saturate the area before a potential spider ship can slip out of detection range.

That's going to require permanently retaining a lot more DDs detailed to perimeter security and even so only works because of the extreme sensitivity of the sensor arrays covering Manticore gives light weeks (months?) of coverage - making it impractical to emerge beyond their range.


But even Manticore and Haven can only afford to sink those kind of resources into a fraction of their systems. That leave forces stationed in, or visiting, other system vulnerable to surprise strikes by Spider ships. For that matter if the MAlign can figure out a sneaky way to strike the sensor arrays that could open up even the Manticoran home system to a follow-up strike. (After all multi-km wide arrays, out past the hyper limit, aren't the easiest things in the world to protect)

In system detections can make use of active radar like transmissions with passive detectors that if they don't detect the signal sound the alarm. Doing this with some kind of FTL tech would give fast warning.

Also there has to be some kind of similar detection system for finding asteroids meteors and comets. Such a system should be able to find a spider drive ship.

With the new data they should be able to mod a ghost rider to detect the grav pulses from the grav drive.

If floating a fort where to work as a system control method everyone would do it. Forts work at a terminus because whatever comes through the terminus is defenseless for several seconds. Point blank anything not covered by a wedge or bubble is going to be massacred by dozens of grazers. Let alone a wedge from a counter missile.

Lord Skimper wrote:In system detections can make use of active radar like transmissions with passive detectors that if they don't detect the signal sound the alarm. Doing this with some kind of FTL tech would give fast warning.

Also there has to be some kind of similar detection system for finding asteroids meteors and comets. Such a system should be able to find a spider drive ship.

With the new data they should be able to mod a ghost rider to detect the grav pulses from the grav drive.

No, radar gives you a detection range of a few million KM max, assuming the target isn't composed of some sort of RAM. The inverse square effects are a bitch. If it's built of RAM you are talking under a light second. Plus the return pulse is moving at light speed, so a rapidly moving target arrives shortly after the detection pulse.

No to mention that the MAN spiders are invisible to radar, it's part of what they do.

Asteroids are large and moving at tens of km/sec, not tens or hundreds of thousands of km/sec. Asteroids are also not engineered to be difficult to detect and are present for decades to allow for detection over time.

And no, they don't have any test hardware, or designs with which to build them with which to conduct any tests. What they have is a handwaving explanation by someone peripherally involved, which may or may not be accurate or leave out critical elements.

Jonathan_S wrote:I suspect the Spider ships will be effective for a while yet.

Obviously we won't know for sure until we see them in action, but the current best mitigation plan we've heard a navy advance relies on a significant amount of infrastructure and a heavy commitment of light combatants. That's manticore's plan to swarm any detected hyper ghost with enough ships to saturate the area before a potential spider ship can slip out of detection range.

That's going to require permanently retaining a lot more DDs detailed to perimeter security and even so only works because of the extreme sensitivity of the sensor arrays covering Manticore gives light weeks (months?) of coverage - making it impractical to emerge beyond their range.


But even Manticore and Haven can only afford to sink those kind of resources into a fraction of their systems. That leave forces stationed in, or visiting, other system vulnerable to surprise strikes by Spider ships. For that matter if the MAlign can figure out a sneaky way to strike the sensor arrays that could open up even the Manticoran home system to a follow-up strike. (After all multi-km wide arrays, out past the hyper limit, aren't the easiest things in the world to protect)

The multi-km wide arrays that have been described in text are located inside the hyper limit, in order to protect them. The ones watching over the Barnett system were one light minute inside the hyper limit.

Ashes of Victory, Chapter 35 wrote:"It does seem a bit . . . overly cautious of them. Especially on that broad a bearing from Enki," he agreed, and wondered what the hell the Manties thought they were up to. Barnett was only a G9 star, with a hyper limit of just a hair over eighteen light-minutes, so why were they turning up a full four light-minutes further out than they had to? And on a bearing from the primary which added yet four more unnecessary light-minutes to their distance from their only possible objective?
The citizen admiral clamped his hands behind him and took a slow, deliberate turn around the command balcony above the enormous war room. His outermost sensor shell was seventeen light-minutes from the primary, safely within the hyper limit to at least make hit-and-run raids on it difficult, but far enough out from the gravitational center of Barnett to give the enormous passive arrays a reach of almost two and a half light-weeks, over which they could expect to pick up the hyper transit of anything much bigger than a courier boat. That range put them nine light-minutes outside the planet Enki, and the actual range to the platform closest to the Manties was about thirteen light-minutes. Which meant it would be another—he checked the time—ten minutes and twenty-six seconds before he got a light-speed report from the sensors with the best look at whatever was coming at him. On the other hand, the inner-system arrays had more than enough reach to at least detect such a massive hyper translation. They'd picked up the faster-than-light ripple along the alpha wall as the Manties made transit, and they were picking up a confused clutch of impeller drive signatures now. But they were much too far away to see anything else, which meant Tracking's reports were going to be maddeningly vague until the Manties were a lot deeper in-system. Unfortunately, Tracking had already picked up enough for Dimitri to feel certain the enemy would be coming in a lot deeper. The estimate blinking on the main board said there were over seventy of the wall headed for Enki, and that was no raiding force.

Italics are the author's, boldface and underlined text is my emphasis.

Radar itself won't work but a sent signal that must be received if not an alarm sounds and using gravity waves or pulses for a FTL signal and detection basis. Manties know how to use FTL gravity directed signals, obviously this would be a development of this RFC technology. (Otherwise we couldn't discuss it here). If the signal is intercepted the section is displayed on a plot and a whole series of such pulse would swarm around the area while everyone raises their bubbles and wedges/sidewalls, until the investigation proves what it is and what it isn't.

Likewise this detection system would also be used as the whole system FTL communications system. And using the whole civilian and military communications routed through many of these pulses around the system may slow civilian communications a bit it would still be much faster than LST's. Military important messages would likely be more direct.

As for the dispersion of signals remember missiles without Apollo have signals sent from ships many of light seconds away let alone communication lasers that have light minute travel times but can pinpoint ships one to another. Even Sollies can do this.