New Manty ship ideas.

Once more, you prove that you haven't read the pearls. Something that pulls power from the alpha band? That is called "an impeller wedge." Otherwise it would take far to much reaction mass to accelerate a ship to the speeds we have seen in universe.

Also, energy weapon range is not limited by focus of the beam, but by the targeting ability of the ship. If you fire at missilepods from 1 light hour, the targeting data is 2 hours old by the time the beam arrives at the target. (1 hour for data from pods to ship, 1 hour for beam from ship to pods.) So even a tiney change in vector would cause a complete miss. And if your aim is of by the width of a atom, at one light hour, it will generat a clean miss. Or cause a beam aimed at someting in orbit to hit the planet. Also, I am not certain what you would do with one TRILLIONTH of a watt.

Oh and "of course there is the wedge ray." No, just no. The only things we have seen in universe even remotely related to it are the grav lance or the crippler. Neither of them effect the wedge in any way close to what you seem to want. The lance has no effect at all on a wedge, and puts a sidewall so out of tune it causes the generator to burn out. The crippler caused overloads in the power runs it the wedge that A) only worked on merchants and B) was defeated by fricking cercut breakers.

Lord Skimper wrote:As for weapon options one was thinking, although this could also be a counter to Manty missiles as well and a great SL tech option in the eternal guns vs missiles.

How about a form of partial alpha band reaching sail that pulls power from without entering the alpha band thus providing a great deal of power. Add a spinal mount pico watt paser? That fires a long way with an ever encompassing gamma ray burst. Which can be very long ranged and very damaging over a wide area. Make for a 1 light hour range, might need to be focused to prevent reducing a planet to a burnt cinder, but could raise merry havok on missile pods or any sidewall down ship.

Of course where the is a wedge there is a ray. How about a gravity ray that punches a hole through anything like a wedge only very long and skinny.
How do you make it, turn the wedge ring nodes in on themselves and grav focus them into a ray.

Not to mention that Warshawski Sails plain do not work that way. They only work in hyper, they only work in a grav wave, and they have absolutely no effect in n-space (unless entering a wormhole, which is described in the text as an abnormally strong grav wave). You can't draw power from it.

One question for you, Skimper: Where did you get the idea that this would work? And why, if the rules of the Honorverse would allow this to work (which they don't), why isn't this stuff used already?

Uroboros wrote:

Lord Skimper wrote:As for weapon options one was thinking, although this could also be a counter to Manty missiles as well and a great SL tech option in the eternal guns vs missiles.

How about a form of partial alpha band reaching sail that pulls power from without entering the alpha band thus providing a great deal of power. Add a spinal mount pico watt paser? That fires a long way with an ever encompassing gamma ray burst. Which can be very long ranged and very damaging over a wide area. Make for a 1 light hour range, might need to be focused to prevent reducing a planet to a burnt cinder, but could raise merry havoc on missile pods or any sidewall down ship.

Of course where the is a wedge there is a ray. How about a gravity ray that punches a hole through anything like a wedge only very long and skinny.
How do you make it, turn the wedge ring nodes in on themselves and grav focus them into a ray.

So, let me get this correct before I comment. It's a spinally mounted hyper-capable energy weapon? Isn't a picowatt an extremely small amount of energy? I'm sort of confused on what exactly you're suggesting.

Yes, pico is 10 to the -12th power. There for a very tiny amount of energy.

He's suggesting idiocy, as usual.

Modular, as was noted earlier, has been frequently touted for the Navy ships of this century. And has more often been a failure in real terms. Modular within certain limitations, yes. Modular in the replacement of massive portions of the ship? Not so much.

What you're proposing is akin to a ballistic missile submarine replacing missile tubes for different missions. Not going to happen.

Dafmeister wrote:

Montrose Toast wrote:E.G. and Nit: The first 5 Ticos were decomisioned early because they had Mk26 twin-arm launchers and it would cost more to convert them to VLS [modular] than it would cost to build a replacement. That is why my last ship was decom'd early [USS Yorktown commissioned 1984/decom'd 2005].

The VLS launchers used are what makes them modular...

Which is where the difference comes in. A modular VLS is essentially a set of one-shot box launchers (like the ones on old-style LACs), where each individual cell can be occupied by one of several missiles which roughly similar dimensions (Standard SAM or Tomahawk cruise missile etc). Honorverse missile tubes are re-usuable mass drivers which are emebedded into the structure of the ship, with their muzzels protruding from an armoured hull that's literally a single piece of alloy. Changing that solid surface to a modular bay will inevitable reduce the strength of the hull, and if the module goes far enough into the ship to include magazines and ammunition handling equipment then it'll reduce the hull strength even more, possibly even compromising the armoured core of the ship.

Toast - agree completely; thanks for elaboration.

Dafmeister - look at the Zumwalt -increased number of box launchers dispersed in clusters recessed into the deck but outside the watertight core of the ship.

To visualize an extreme example, take the hull and plant of a Seawolf SSN designed to stand the pressures of great depth and mate it with decks outside the pressure hull with sensors and fire control, dispersed clusters of flush deck box launchers and flush-deck pop-up gun modules in a low observable form. Money? Ouch!. But, Beowulf is rich. And, the text elaborates that they spend the money to get the best.

waddles for desert wrote:
Dafmeister - look at the Zumwalt -increased number of box launchers dispersed in clusters recessed into the deck but outside the watertight core of the ship.

To visualize an extreme example, take the hull and plant of a Seawolf SSN designed to stand the pressures of great depth and mate it with decks outside the pressure hull with sensors and fire control, dispersed clusters of flush deck box launchers and flush-deck pop-up gun modules in a low observable form. Money? Ouch!. But, Beowulf is rich. And, the text elaborates that they spend the money to get the best.

I understand the principle, and it absolutely makes sense for surface combatants today - VLS gives you greater rate of fire than the old-style single- or twin-arm launchers, or even the six-round launchers on the Royal Navy's Type 22 Frigates, and if you have a standardised cell size that will accomodate an SAM, anti-ship missile or cruise missile you gain huge mission flexibility.

However, the requirements in an Honorverse ship are rather different. RFC examined the question of VLS-style launch cells for light units 15 years ago:

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/entry/Harrington/173/1

Lord Skimper wrote:As for weapon options one was thinking, although this could also be a counter to Manty missiles as well and a great SL tech option in the eternal guns vs missiles.

How about a form of partial alpha band reaching sail that pulls power from without entering the alpha band thus providing a great deal of power. Add a spinal mount pico watt paser? That fires a long way with an ever encompassing gamma ray burst. Which can be very long ranged and very damaging over a wide area. Make for a 1 light hour range, might need to be focused to prevent reducing a planet to a burnt cinder, but could raise merry havok on missile pods or any sidewall down ship.

Of course where the is a wedge there is a ray. How about a gravity ray that punches a hole through anything like a wedge only very long and skinny.
How do you make it, turn the wedge ring nodes in on themselves and grav focus them into a ray.

You asked in another thread what physics had to do with anything. You clearly do not understand. You ignore both real physics and the physics of the "new" technology David Weber introduced for the Honorverse. You simply cannot blather any old idea that comes into your head, without paying attention to the rules of Weber's Honorverse, and expect to be taken seriously.

* A picowatt is an extremely tiny amount of power
* There is no such thing as a paser
* There is no such thing as a partial alpha band
* Sails only draw power from grav waves, not from normal hyperspace
* David specifically eliminated the concept of a massively powerful spinal-mount beam weapon in http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... ngton/77/1
* According to the text and the Pearls (which you obviously still haven't read), what you get when you turn the power of the impellers into a beam is a grav lance; unfortunately, a grav lance won't cut through anything--all it can do is overload certain forms of gravitic technology, such as sidewalls, but not an impeller wedge.

You clearly do not actually care to understand the universe that David Weber has created. You ignore the Pearls, even when they specifically talk about the concept you propose. You propose concepts which contradict the text and infodumps. If you simply want to blather nonsense, I can suggest a number of forums and websites. There is no point in discussing anything about the Honorverse with you as long as you continue to blatantly ignore basic concepts which we have pointed you to repeatedly. All you are doing is wasting our time, and I refuse to waste any more of it on you.

Sorry SWM. He has read the books and he has read the infodumps and Pearls. He has quoted them correctly when someone else has made a mistake. He is simply a Phishing troll. At a guess, he is not a philosophy major, he's a shrink trying to get a rise out of anyone he can.

Dafmeister wrote:

waddles for desert wrote:
Dafmeister - look at the Zumwalt -increased number of box launchers dispersed in clusters recessed into the deck but outside the watertight core of the ship.

To visualize an extreme example, take the hull and plant of a Seawolf SSN designed to stand the pressures of great depth and mate it with decks outside the pressure hull with sensors and fire control, dispersed clusters of flush deck box launchers and flush-deck pop-up gun modules in a low observable form. Money? Ouch!. But, Beowulf is rich. And, the text elaborates that they spend the money to get the best.

I understand the principle, and it absolutely makes sense for surface combatants today - VLS gives you greater rate of fire than the old-style single- or twin-arm launchers, or even the six-round launchers on the Royal Navy's Type 22 Frigates, and if you have a standardised cell size that will accomodate an SAM, anti-ship missile or cruise missile you gain huge mission flexibility.

However, the requirements in an Honorverse ship are rather different. RFC examined the question of VLS-style launch cells for light units 15 years ago:

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/entry/Harrington/173/1

What has happened to Honorverse tech in that 15 years ?

For example, there were no off-bore missiles then, and no flat pack pods.

One design possibility for someone needing to build many survivable platforms with a lot of punch with limited resources would be to take the bulk of the armor and apply it to the hammer heads, the node supports closest to each hammer head and to a central tube running between the hammer heads containing the fusion plants, life support and the crew spaces. Everything else would be inside the wedge and the sidewalls, but outside of the primary armor. Forget putting people on grasser mounts and such. Mount instruments and fire control on the external surfaces of fragmentation partitions. Between the partitions, rack stacks of pods like RORO containers on a container ship. I could see doing away with broadside lasers and grasers all together. But, if you must have them, mount them on the ventral and dorsal surfaces like spinal mount emplacements, but rotated 90 degrees to port and starboard.

Such ships should be at least the size of a Nike, and preferably larger with provisions for Keyhole 1 or 2.

These are strike ships more than wall of battle. There job is to put a load of ordinance on the enemy and make it back home. If they run into an ambush on a strike like at Solon, they get the crew and the core home for several months of rebuild, and then they go out again.

You do not set out to defend anything of great strategic value with these ships unless you are convinced that you will have significantly superior range for detection, fire control and missiles AND that you will not face unmanageable numbers of attackers. These ships would be shoot it or loose it in an at all cost defense and would end up Winchester while the surviving onslaught took the objective.

Now, there was a time when Tenth Fleet could have benefited from such a class of ships. But, the folks most in need of such strike capability right now are not the members of the GA. It is the SLN that is contemplating commerce raiding strikes across tremendous distances against the SEM. Such a design would make the most of their pitiful chances, and it would allow for much easier upgrades if they are able to move their missile technology ahead a couple of generations during the life of the ship class.

Ahh I meant PETA watt. 1000x a Terra watt.

Haha my sister is the Psychiatrist in the family. I'm the neural philosopher.

Cue Manifestation, deficit denial, hey I admit I am at times corrigible.

I haven't read all the pearls... I typically scan through them. Unfortunately they are not written with an index thus some things are hard to find.

I suppose the idea of something new escapes some of the admirals, but then not everyone can think outside the box.

Someare stuck trying to explain everything in decimal math. Mention non decimal math and they try to convert things, something don't convert.

Lord Skimper wrote:Ahh I meant PETA watt. 1000x a Some are stuck trying to explain everything in decimal math. Mention non decimal math and they try to convert things, something don't convert.

It's this attitude of yours and refusal to accept facts that makes you unpopular here. There are some very smart people determining stress and loads on that bridge to make sure it doesn't collapse under your ass. There's a reason things are done in that 'decimal math' you despise so much.

Thankfully, bridges and warships are built by people with actual training and understanding, not by random philosophers with a Masters in Googleology and a Ph.D in trivia who think 'thinking outside the box' trumps years of training.

EDIT: wording modifications