Hyperspace Combat and the Solarian Leauge Navy

drothgery wrote:

Alizon wrote:I think it's important to remember that SLN forces are not obsolescent hunks of steel anywhere else in the galaxy other than in the Haven Sector. The technology used by active SLN units is probably at least equivalent or most likely somewhat better than that used by Manticore and the Peeps during much of their first conflict (which started in "A Short Victorious War"). It's really only when facing fleets at long range armed with MDM's and superior missile fire control that the SLN becomes hopelessly outclassed.

With very few exceptions, what the SLN has deployed is noticeably inferior to pre-first Havenite War RMN tech. And while it's more 'advanced' the pre-first Havenite War People's Navy tech in many ways, the PN's ships are much, much better designed for laser-head era combat; a squadron of Dusquesnes would beat one of Vegas more often than not even if Elvis Santino commanded the Dusquesnes and Honor Harrington the Vegas.

Also, pretty much all the non-SLN/league-member SDF navies with wallers are in the Haven sector, so there's not really anything to compare to there.

Yes, the PN ships took the basic League tech and seem to have applied it much better. They've got more tubes, more CMs, and much faster cycle rates for both than similar year refit SLN designs. (Just as one example of how the Peeps applied the tech more effectively than Battle Fleet had)

I've just skimmed most of this subject, but I seem to remember that missiles can be used in hyper (which gives the Manties with their better sensors a slight but significant advantage) except in a Grav Wave, where it's energy weapons only, which gives the Manties a MAJOR advantage given that they have Bow Wall Bucklers which IIRC can be used both in conjunction with the Wedge and the Sail.

Since the Manties have the Buckler and the Sollies have only their armour in a Grav Wave, the Sollies will almost always end up getting incredibly reamed unless they have a truly staggering tonnage advantage.

And with the Manties having better accel rates and the particle-shielding provided by the Buckler...
Well, things aren't looking up for the Sollies...

Michael Everett wrote:I've just skimmed most of this subject, but I seem to remember that missiles can be used in hyper (which gives the Manties with their better sensors a slight but significant advantage) except in a Grav Wave, where it's energy weapons only, which gives the Manties a MAJOR advantage given that they have Bow Wall Bucklers which IIRC can be used both in conjunction with the Wedge and the Sail.

We've debated a few times whether the buckler wall would work in a grav wave; but there isn't really evidence either way.

Personally I think that the buckler could be made to work in a grav wave but it'd require additional hardware to pull it off.

I assume that it doesn't require an active wedge to raise the buckler; but that to make it work it'd almost certainly need something analogous to the tuners a Warshawski Sail uses to adjust it to the moment to moment fluctuation of the 'wave. Without those I'd expect a buckler sidewall to blow out from interference almost as soon as it was raised.


But that's my personal thought, like I said I don't recall any evidence in the books one way or the other. (And I'd like at least a simulated grav wave fight soon just so we can see if it works and how well).


Also a buckler works best one on one. With multiple opponents it shouldn't be too hard to get someone far enough off to one side to clear the quite narrow protected cone the buckler gives you.

Assume that the buckler is the normal 10 km away; and is twice the diameter of the max beam (SoS); and that I haven't screwed up my geometry. That gives a Roland buckler protection from anything up to 0.25° away from dead ahead (in any direction); but anything between that and 180° can hit the hammerhead (and as you approach 180° quite closely you can start hitting the broadside past the sails as well)[1]. A Nike due to the broader beam, and therefore broader buckler, is protected from anything up to 0.55° from dead ahead.

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[1]Obviously the vulnerable angles change in n-space with the wedge and sidewalls up, but the protected cone from the buckler doesn't

I still don't think that a SLN fleet is going to be able to catch a GA fleet in energy range. There are two main things the GA can use to avoid this. First of all, fleets have escorts for a reason. I think in whichever book she gets captured in (IEH?) it provided a discussion of convoy protection. They pushed one cruiser out to the very edge of sensor range, so they could move to protect the merchies against anyone lurking ahead. Now, lets apply this to a fleet. With rolands, you can do that and more-maybe even two layers of rolands out ahead, effectively tripling your sensor range. You don't need to do this in much more than a cone, because you have better compensators, and even at top speed (.6c, I believe) you are the same speed as your opponents. They need to be in a relatively small volume to catch you. That brings me to my second point, which is that the GA would be attacking a star system. It wouldn't be too hard to come in on any nonstandard vector you choose, thereby avoiding any sln or sdf fleet that might be in your cone. I don't know the numbers for sensor range in hyperspace, but if we knew those we could run the numbers and I think that it would be difficult for the bad guys to get in knife range with the good guys.

Oh, one other point. It's not really enough to get into SDM or ERM or cataphract range. Filareta was able to do that, and he, well, didn't win.

quark wrote:I still don't think that a SLN fleet is going to be able to catch a GA fleet in energy range. There are two main things the GA can use to avoid this. First of all, fleets have escorts for a reason. I think in whichever book she gets captured in (IEH?) it provided a discussion of convoy protection. They pushed one cruiser out to the very edge of sensor range, so they could move to protect the merchies against anyone lurking ahead. Now, lets apply this to a fleet. With rolands, you can do that and more-maybe even two layers of rolands out ahead, effectively tripling your sensor range. You don't need to do this in much more than a cone, because you have better compensators, and even at top speed (.6c, I believe) you are the same speed as your opponents. They need to be in a relatively small volume to catch you.

If you've got a convoy of fast transports then yeah, everyone will be doing 0.6c. With normal merchants you're limited to 0.5c. (Although I mistaken thought 0.6c and used it in a post a day or two ago)

Short victorious War wrote:The maximum safe velocity in hyper for any merchantman was barely .5 c

Still, a stern chase is a long one; still better to push your sensor envelope as far ahead as practical. (And outside of grav waves you should be able to use ghost rider recon drones to break trail for you.

Jonathan_S wrote:

drothgery wrote: With very few exceptions, what the SLN has deployed is noticeably inferior to pre-first Havenite War RMN tech. And while it's more 'advanced' the pre-first Havenite War People's Navy tech in many ways, the PN's ships are much, much better designed for laser-head era combat; a squadron of Dusquesnes would beat one of Vegas more often than not even if Elvis Santino commanded the Dusquesnes and Honor Harrington the Vegas.

Also, pretty much all the non-SLN/league-member SDF navies with wallers are in the Haven sector, so there's not really anything to compare to there.

Yes, the PN ships took the basic League tech and seem to have applied it much better. They've got more tubes, more CMs, and much faster cycle rates for both than similar year refit SLN designs. (Just as one example of how the Peeps applied the tech more effectively than Battle Fleet had)

Possibly. However other than the Vega's smaller size there really isn't much evidence supporting this conjecture nor any direct comparison to tell us with certainty how SLN vessels stacked up against their pre-war Manticorian and People's Republican counterparts.

What is known is that during this period, and really all the way through the overthrow of the Peeps and their replacement by the Republican government, Solarian technology was much prized by Haven.

It's fairly apparent that it's only the conflict between Haven and Manticore that has spurred the rapid development of both fleets but it's reasonable to assume that Solarian technology, prior to the war, at least on part with the Haven sector fleets. The fact that the Havenites continually sought Solarian technology virtually during the entire length of the first war suggests that Solarian technology at the beginning of the war was markedly superior to Havenite technology. When comparing the tech gap of that period between the RMN and the Peeps, the differences are, at best, modest. Therefor, barring any evidence to the contrary, it's reasonable to assume that Solarian technology at that time was approximately equal to or superior to Manticorian tech.

In the years which have passed, that certainly has changed, mostly because the Manties, the Republic and their various allies/foes have been running forward as fast as they can while the League has been walking casually along smelling the roses along the way.

Michael Everett wrote:I've just skimmed most of this subject, but I seem to remember that missiles can be used in hyper (which gives the Manties with their better sensors a slight but significant advantage) except in a Grav Wave, where it's energy weapons only, which gives the Manties a MAJOR advantage given that they have Bow Wall Bucklers which IIRC can be used both in conjunction with the Wedge and the Sail.

Since the Manties have the Buckler and the Sollies have only their armour in a Grav Wave, the Sollies will almost always end up getting incredibly reamed unless they have a truly staggering tonnage advantage.

And with the Manties having better accel rates and the particle-shielding provided by the Buckler...
Well, things aren't looking up for the Sollies...

Well, you're not going to have the SLN catching the GA forces in a stern chase very often.

But I'd disagree as to how the SLN would far in a battle that you've described. It's not bucklers that make the GA vessels so overpoweringly capable when compared to the SLN, it's MDM's. Individually, class by class ship for ship the GA vessels will normally have some degree of advantage but in comparison, those advantages are small fry compared to the MDM issue. Any situation which takes MDM's out of the equation or makes them no better than SDM's evens the odds for the SLN incredibly.

That being said, Bucklers are at best like sidewalls. They would provide some advantage but only to vessels directly in front of or directly astern the vessel. Further if the buckler does function as part of the sail, repositioning the buckler would logically also reposition the sail and potentially take the vessel is a direction that it didn't want to go.

And as has been pointed out, if you're fighting more than one SLN ship, the advantage a buckler gives you without the wedge and sidewalls is fairly small.

This thread strikes me as rather desperately clutching at straws in an effort to find some way in which the SLN might not be completely screwed. There's no way that the SLN are going to be able to somehow manage to get a significant percentage of battles to occur in hyperspace. All of the things that provoke battles by needing to be attacked or defended are in normal space and usually inside the hyper limit. They might spring a convoy or two, but that's nuisance value more than actual winning-the-war type value.

Regardless, it's worth noting that even if the SLN manages to win the lotto and cause a major fleet battle in hyper, if that battle is not in a grav wave the combatants will still be under impeller and therefore have a wedge to play with.

It's relatively simple to decline an energy range engagement just by rolling ship and giving your opponent nothing but wedge to shoot at. That's what the wall of battle is for after all.

Isn't there a passage in one of the books (or maybe a pearl?) that mentions how combat between two walls (before the events of the books at least) has always tended to be inconclusive because all the disadvantaged party has to do is roll ship and run away?

There's no good reason for a GA fleet to do anything different unless there's something essential that needs to be defended, and once they're clear of energy range they're just going to roll pods and blow stuff up, business as usual.

Alizon wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Yes, the PN ships took the basic League tech and seem to have applied it much better. They've got more tubes, more CMs, and much faster cycle rates for both than similar year refit SLN designs. (Just as one example of how the Peeps applied the tech more effectively than Battle Fleet had)

Possibly. However other than the Vega's smaller size there really isn't much evidence supporting this conjecture nor any direct comparison to tell us with certainty how SLN vessels stacked up against their pre-war Manticorian and People's Republican counterparts.

What is known is that during this period, and really all the way through the overthrow of the Peeps and their replacement by the Republican government, Solarian technology was much prized by Haven.

Well other places mentioned the anemic cycle time of the SLN launchers, but Mission of Honor and House of Steel give us enough info to do a comparison between the Scientists-class and the a few similar pre-1st war ships.

We see that the Scientist=class is small for an SD, basically the size of a pre-war RMN DN, but despite that carries no more missile tubes than the 600,00 ton lighter PN Nouveau Paris-class DN. I also looked at the Bellerophon-class DN and Duquesne-class SD which each carry more tubes. All those Haven sector designs carry more CMs (even the smaller PN Dreadnaught; although the Scientist is fairly lavishly equipped with PDLCs (for a pre-war design) carrying 33 vs 24 on the RMN DN and PN SD. And unsurprisingly the SL design carries more energy mounts than any of the Haven sector designs.

Now basic numbers aren't everything. But we know the BCs at Monica at least had fire control software and CMs that BuWeaps considered several generations out of date compared to Manticore's pre-1st war designs. I know Manticore had an edge on the Peeps in that area, but I don't know that it was a "several generations worth"; which at least implies that Haven upgraded or improved the software on their pre-war hardware over what Battlefleet itself has.

quark wrote:I still don't think that a SLN fleet is going to be able to catch a GA fleet in energy range. There are two main things the GA can use to avoid this. First of all, fleets have escorts for a reason. I think in whichever book she gets captured in (IEH?) it provided a discussion of convoy protection. They pushed one cruiser out to the very edge of sensor range, so they could move to protect the merchies against anyone lurking ahead. Now, lets apply this to a fleet. With rolands, you can do that and more-maybe even two layers of rolands out ahead, effectively tripling your sensor range. You don't need to do this in much more than a cone, because you have better compensators, and even at top speed (.6c, I believe) you are the same speed as your opponents. They need to be in a relatively small volume to catch you. That brings me to my second point, which is that the GA would be attacking a star system. It wouldn't be too hard to come in on any nonstandard vector you choose, thereby avoiding any sln or sdf fleet that might be in your cone. I don't know the numbers for sensor range in hyperspace, but if we knew those we could run the numbers and I think that it would be difficult for the bad guys to get in knife range with the good guys.

Oh, one other point. It's not really enough to get into SDM or ERM or cataphract range. Filareta was able to do that, and he, well, didn't win.

Well, there are all sorts of counter moves that GA forces could and probably would employ against this tactic. But the real question is, would they. If I were the GA commander the last thing I would expect to find is an entire SLN fleet lying in wait for me in hyper. Chances are that in such a case I'm going to value keeping all my ships near me so that if something weird does happen we're all, or as much as possible, in mutual support distance of each other.

You tend to look for the threats you think are out there. It's the one's you aren't thinking about that always cause the most trouble.

But yes, pushing escorts out in front is a legitimate response if you believe that a hyperspace fleet intercept is a credible threat.

In a lot of ways, it's like the Air Force at Pearl Harbor. Do I scatter my planes so that they are easier to deploy and less vulnerable to air attack, or do I draw them all in together so I can guard them better from sabotage.

Which threat are you most interested in protecting against?

But lets say we're later into the conflict, the SLN has made some successful fleet intercepts and the GA is responding with using fleet escorts in a more aggressive screening role. Does this eliminate the threat of a hyperspace intercept?

No, it simply changes the tactics that have to be used.

In this instance I park the fleet in either a lower or higher hyperband than I suspect you are using. I map out where my fleet is positioned in relation to the band I think you'll use so I have a very good idea of where I'll be when I translate either up or down. I then station light units in the area I expect you to move through and if they see your fleet move through that volume of space they translate into the band that my fleet is in and the fleet translates into the band you are in, hopefully in up close and personal range.

If the SLN fleet is in a higher hyperband I can instead take information from the scout DD and actually use that information and the higher compression factor of the higher band the SLN fleet is in to put my fleet where I think your fleet is and then translate into the band the GA fleet is in, once again hopefully in close proximity.

This can actually work better if I guess right than lying doggo in the expected hyperband as I can maneuver for position in this instance rather than simply hoping you're going to come close enough for me to engage otherwise.

There are, of course, counters to this tactic as well and probably counters to the counter etc ... ... . h-space simply give a commander oppurtunities and challenges that don't exist in n-space which can be used to advantage if you can just figure out how.

And just one more note, I might be forgetting something but I don't recall Filerta having Caphtaracts. Could be wrong but I think a Capharacts is a two stage missile using the standard body of a SLN capitial ship missle with a second stage carrying a medium warhead. As I said I could be wrong but I don't think a missile like that would fit in a SLN SD's missile tubes. It would have to be pod based.

Once again, I could be wrong, but I have a feeling that had Filerta been fully loaded with missiles like these and if he had been in range to use them, he probably would have.