LAC not so useful after all?

Kizarvexis wrote:Just so that I completely understand, you want a ship to generate a second, short lived wedge 90 degrees offset from the primary wedge. Basically, outside the primary wedge and parallel to the sidewall correct?

I think he is suggesting using other platforms to generate wedges as extra "armor" for the ship. The biggest problem with that is that the platform has to be quite far out from the ship in order to operate at a right angle. If it is too close, the ship begins missing large parts of hull and other useful bits. If it is too far, the entire plan is pointless.

As well, I imagine that any missile would react quite ably to small platforms interposing their wedges by simply bobbing over them. We've seen in the series before that smaller ships try the same technique, and the larger ships are still hit. Considering how close the ship would have to be to be usefully able to catch missiles and how large their wedges are, I'd say that smaller platforms wouldn't stand much of a chance.

Also, you have to think how overpowered missile wedges are, and how awfully it would constrain your own active defenses. One missile could simply run over a recon platform's wedge and fratricide it, while the rest swarm in. Meanwhile, your CMs would have a lot of trouble trying to miss your own "protective" wedge, as well as blinding your own sensors to enemy missiles, screwing up missile intercept solutions, or worse yet, completely missing missiles on the plot altogether.

Uroboros wrote:I think he is suggesting using other platforms to generate wedges as extra "armor" for the ship. The biggest problem with that is that the platform has to be quite far out from the ship in order to operate at a right angle. If it is too close, the ship begins missing large parts of hull and other useful bits. If it is too far, the entire plan is pointless.

The problem is that interposing another set of smaller wedges works fantastically well against a small salvo (we've seen this in Ashes of Victory), but its efficiency drops dramatically the larger the incoming salvo is. Throw enough missiles at the target, and some of them will be able to get to a firing position, even if it means trying to fire down the throat or kilt, or overshooting and firing at the opposite sidewall.

The E wrote:

Uroboros wrote:I think he is suggesting using other platforms to generate wedges as extra "armor" for the ship. The biggest problem with that is that the platform has to be quite far out from the ship in order to operate at a right angle. If it is too close, the ship begins missing large parts of hull and other useful bits. If it is too far, the entire plan is pointless.

The problem is that interposing another set of smaller wedges works fantastically well against a small salvo (we've seen this in Ashes of Victory), but its efficiency drops dramatically the larger the incoming salvo is. Throw enough missiles at the target, and some of them will be able to get to a firing position, even if it means trying to fire down the throat or kilt, or overshooting and firing at the opposite sidewall.

This has been popping up for discussion repeatedly over the last year - namely the "drone wedge as armor defense". I havn't really weighed my opinion on it, but I've been searching to see if one lynchpin - the tractor - will work. I have yet to find a single reference of tractors being used to hold a craft or device with an active wedge, and definitely not a mention of a ship or device under active acceleration being tractored. The closest I've found is damaged ships in a grav wave, but the tractoring ship is under the same gravitational tidal forces as the ship being towed.

So a missile couldn't be held "against it's will" by tractors and be used as a shield, and I'm uncertain if you could hold a drone with an active wedge at 0 acceleration levels. It is quite possible that the Drone's wedge's connection to the alpha wall could serve as an anchor - though there is nothing in text-ev.

Theemile wrote:This has been popping up for discussion repeatedly over the last year - namely the "drone wedge as armor defense". I havn't really weighed my opinion on it, but I've been searching to see if one lynchpin - the tractor - will work. I have yet to find a single reference of tractors being used to hold a craft or device with an active wedge, and definitely not a mention of a ship or device under active acceleration being tractored. The closest I've found is damaged ships in a grav wave, but the tractoring ship is under the same gravitational tidal forces as the ship being towed.

I'm pretty sure (although, as you say, there is nothing in the textev to support this) that tractors can't gain purchase on the surface of an impeller wedge. The only thing that would keep this supplementary wedge in position would be active stationkeeping on the part of the small craft (See again: Ashes of Victory). This is the big issue here, using this protection method locks both vessels into a fairly predictable course, and thus makes it fairly easy for the incoming laserheads to make their final targeting adjustments.

kzt wrote: To have lot more visible light

Why would you ever want that? That would be stupid as it´s utterly useless for affecting electronics.

kzt wrote:You can optimize somewhat for neutrons, xrays or gamma IIRC.

And IIRC, Zizka optimised for plasma and radiation. Not my idea.

kzt wrote:but due to the inverse square law, you have to get VERY close (in honorverse terms) to do anything with nukes in space.

Perfectly aware of that, and i still didn´t come up with the idea.

You can however shape even nuclear charges quite well.

kzt wrote:"A lot more compared to what? A "lot more" vs 12,000 warheads? A "lot more" compared to 108,000 warheads? Somehow I have my doubts.

Warheads DESIGNED to generate maximum interference instead of being good at causing damage.

Tenshinai wrote:

kzt wrote: To have lot more visible light

Why would you ever want that? That would be stupid as it´s utterly useless for affecting electronics.

It is not useless today. Depends on the sensor in question to determine how "useless" adding all those photons @ frequency is. Optimum? Maybe not. Optimum is all those extra photons at the frequency the sensors use. Once again depends on the sensor in question how prone to different frequencies a sensor is. Today, all sensors are prone to all frequencies. Now the noise generated is another story.

Will visible light spectrum effect Xray sensor? Sure.
Will visible light spectrum effect IR sensors? Sure.
Will visible light spectrum effect Radar sensors? Sure.
Will visible light spectrum effect UV sensors? Sure.

Of course those are today's sensors. Basic physics. Honorverse sensors this may not be true.

J6P wrote:

It is not useless today. Depends on the sensor in question to determine how "useless" adding all those photons @ frequency is. Optimum? Maybe not. Optimum is all those extra photons at the frequency the sensors use. Once again depends on the sensor in question how prone to different frequencies a sensor is. Today, all sensors are prone to all frequencies. Now the noise generated is another story.

Will visible light spectrum effect Xray sensor? Sure.
Will visible light spectrum effect IR sensors? Sure.
Will visible light spectrum effect Radar sensors? Sure.
Will visible light spectrum effect UV sensors? Sure.

Of course those are today's sensors. Basic physics. Honorverse sensors this may not be true.

And just what do you gain from a very short moment of AFFECTING the sensors with regular light? Unless whoever designed the sensors was utterly incompetent, those sensors will just "blink" for a short moment and then be back perfectly well to normal.

And the effect by visible light on radar? It´s so tiny it might as well not exist at all.
Same for X-ray even if technically, it´s "more" affected.

UV, IR and Thz can be blinded by visible light, but even there the effect wont be much to talk about.


Ionising radiation however, that can mess up electronics real good. Even if it doesn´t destroy or permanently damage the electronics, it can degrade their performance long enough.

Would a triple ripple work against a ship and its can't look away sensors? Seems the ship would be looking at the missiles incoming and if a ripple went off up close it could work better than a dazzler. Would also disrupt control of their own missiles as well. Plus if they do look away, it would be disastrous for their defense.

Seems like it might be very effective. One also wonders if the ships sensors work after a laser head attack which will be very similar to this anyway, the sensors might not be so much as damaged by the flare as much as by passing through the radiation.

Tenshinai wrote:
Ionising radiation however, that can mess up electronics real good. Even if it doesn´t destroy or permanently damage the electronics, it can degrade their performance long enough.

Just what do you think radiation does that normal photons cannot? They both ionize. Though generally photons are not listed as an ionizing agent. Heard of photoelectric effect or the Compton effect? These effects then create electromagnetic effects as well due to physical interaction with how they are constructed. ERGO the AD S/N ratio on all electronics...

Do you magically believe senors just "pick" their spectrum sensitivity out of thin air and ignore the other frequencies? Very specific gratings, materials are used along with physical size attenuating the understandable frequencies while trying to allow desirable frequencies through via both the photoelectric and compton effects. Sensors work off of both of these principles for Xray's, UV, and IR sensors.

Are these effects as energetic as Beta, alpha radiation? No. Can photons penetrate like alpha, beta, gamma, xray? No. Can they do the exact same damage creating high currents, burning out the electronics in question? Yes.

wastedfly wrote:Just what do you think radiation does that normal photons cannot? They both ionize. Though generally photons are not listed as an ionizing agent. Heard of photoelectric effect or the Compton effect? These effects then create electromagnetic effects as well due to physical interaction with how they are constructed. ERGO the AD S/N ratio on all electronics...

Do you magically believe senors just "pick" their spectrum sensitivity out of thin air and ignore the other frequencies? Very specific gratings, materials are used along with physical size attenuating the understandable frequencies while trying to allow desirable frequencies through via both the photoelectric and compton effects. Sensors work off of both of these principles for Xray's, UV, and IR sensors.

Are these effects as energetic as Beta, alpha radiation? No. Can photons penetrate like alpha, beta, gamma, xray? No. Can they do the exact same damage creating high currents, burning out the electronics in question? Yes.

There is a difference of scale. Why do you think visible light is NOT considered "ionizing radiation"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionizing_radiation
whereas the lower ultraviolet, visible light (including laser light), infrared, microwaves, and radio waves are considered non-ionizing radiation (although lower ultraviolet can still create some ionization).

...

Even though photons are electrically neutral, they can ionize atoms directly through the photoelectric effect and the Compton effect. Either of those interactions will eject an electron at relativistic speeds, turning it into a beta particle that will ionize many more atoms. Since most of the affected atoms are ionized indirectly by the secondary beta particles, photons are considered to be indirectly ionizing.

And do notice that that is preceeded by links to gamma rays and x-rays, and NOT referring to visible light.


Sensors does not pick their spectrum no, but do you have ANY clue just how much visible light you have to put on a radar antenna to even make it get just a slight little hickup?
Yes, radars work better at night, but that is mostly by far not due to interference from the VISIBLE light. IIRC, normal sunlight (visible light parts) at the equator on a day with zero clouds isn´t even enough to be a single full percent of the interference.