what is an Eradani Edict what is not?

Weird Harold wrote:

kzt wrote:Honorverse missiles spin. It's just how they do it. Remember the gunnery exercise in one of the short stories? I'd assume it's to allow vector changes. Without spin is still going to be pretty darn destructive to the surface.

That was a drone, simulating a hostile ship making evasive maneuvers. There is no textev indicating Honorverse missiles spin.

Missiles (and drones) in the Honorverse "spin" only to interpose their wedges against potential enemy fire. That is, it constitutes a form of evasive action without making major changes in base vector and heading. They have absolutely no other need to spin and more than a fin-stabilized rocket would need to spin in atmosphere.

The reason projectiles spin is for stabilization purposes, not to increase the distance to which they can be fired. Any projectile's density/weight will be less than uniformly distributed, no matter how careful your manufacturing processes, and that weight distribution will tend to pull it off course. By spinning it, the weight differential is moved rapidly around its axis, effectively negating the differential and stabilizing its flight path and attitude. Because its flight is more stable, it can be fired to a greater effective range because (1) it's more accurate at any range (including long ones), (2) it can be counted upon to maintain its orientation in flight, optimizing any aerodynamic efficiency designed into its shape, and (3) it can be cylindrical in shape which both reduces drag and increases mass (because it's as much as five or six times as long as it is across), and for a given initial velocity, a heavier projectile will travel farther and hit with more kinetic energy than a lighter one.

None of those factors apply to an impeller wedge or an impeller drive missile, however.

Interesting.

That IS interesting.

After reading Mr Weber's post, I did some thinking and realized that I'm plain stupid. Had I thought about it a little more, I'd have realized that it's the bullet shape of modern projectiles that allows them to 'cut' through air resistance - especially since I watched a documentary on land speeders just a few days ago. Is there an emoticon for slapping one's own head?

Hello RunsForCelery!

I want to thank you for this surprisingly succinct post, and all the others you've blessed us with today, I don't know if it was a personal record, one of your Bu9 minions might be able to check , but thank you again.

I hope Sharon and the kids are well, given your very early and late hours here correcting our miss-impressions of your universe.

All my best wishes and prayers to you and yours.

L

runsforcelery wrote:**quote="Weird Harold"**[quote="kzt"]Honorverse missiles spin. It's just how they do it. Remember the gunnery exercise in one of the short stories? I'd assume it's to allow vector changes. Without spin is still going to be pretty darn destructive to the surface.**quote**

That was a drone, simulating a hostile ship making evasive maneuvers. There is no textev indicating Honorverse missiles spin.

Missiles (and drones) in the Honorverse "spin" only to interpose their wedges against potential enemy fire. That is, it constitutes a form of evasive action without making major changes in base vector and heading. They have absolutely no other need to spin and more than a fin-stabilized rocket would need to spin in atmosphere.

The reason projectiles spin is for stabilization purposes, not to increase the distance to which they can be fired. Any projectile's density/weight will be less than uniformly distributed, no matter how careful your manufacturing processes, and that weight distribution will tend to pull it off course. By spinning it, the weight differential is moved rapidly around its axis, effectively negating the differential and stabilizing its flight path and attitude. Because its flight is more stable, it can be fired to a greater effective range because (1) it's more accurate at any range (including long ones), (2) it can be counted upon to maintain its orientation in flight, optimizing any aerodynamic efficiency designed into its shape, and (3) it can be cylindrical in shape which both reduces drag and increases mass (because it's as much as five or six times as long as it is across), and for a given initial velocity, a heavier projectile will travel farther and hit with more kinetic energy than a lighter one.

None of those factors apply to an impeller wedge or an impeller drive missile, however.[/quote]

lyonheart wrote:Hello RunsForCelery!

I want to thank you for this surprisingly succinct post, and all the others you've blessed us with today, I don't know if it was a personal record, one of your Bu9 minions might be able to check , but thank you again.

I hope Sharon and the kids are well, given your very early and late hours here correcting our miss-impressions of your universe.

All my best wishes and prayers to you and yours.

L

Michael Everett (sp?) has the honor of receiving three (count 'em - THREE!) one-word posts from RFC, fairly recently as well.

Another point to consider. Once the decision to invade, rather than flatten, the tower was made by the (redacted) politicians and the assault had actually begun, what happens if the decision is then reversed? The ground commander then has two choices. The first is to flatten the building with her own people still inside while the second is to engage in a fighting withdrawal. If she choses the first option she is telling all her people they are not worth considering. If she choses the second option, she will not know if she has killed the leaders of this particular fight until they pop up somewhere else. If the seccie commander is smart (as Thandi had already proven she was), she will start evacuating her own people just as fast as she can. Every survivor of the fighting she gets out is another rallying point for future resistance.

IMPO, once the decision to invade was made, for whatever reason, the Mesan powers-that-be had placed themselves in a lose/lose situation.

Just one scenario that could have been followed if the second option had been chosen. Enough seccie survivors and survivor's relatives could have been gathered to seize and hold a citizen tower. At that point, the Mesan armed forces would have had no choice but to take the tower back, with all the disadvantages of the previous battle without the option of using any KEWs.

kzt wrote:X-rays are STRONGLY absorbed by the atmosphere. This is why nukes in the atmosphere form the fireball. That is the atmosphere absorbing the X-rays from the bomb (which forms a very large percentage of the emitted energy) and re-radiating it as longer wavelengths. This doesn't mean you can't use them against ground targets if you push enough energy into the beam, but it will be messy, with the laser not being a precision weapon at the ground. IIRC, NASA stated once that the atmosphere is roughly equivalent to 14 meters of aluminum vs gamma rays, not aware of a similar equivalency for X-rays.

It was stated somewhere, I think in the armor essay, that in the honorverse the phrase laser is shorthand for x-Ray laser. Which makes sense given the effective range they are supposed to have.

I should have done my research first. You are correct, according to what I read 37% of X-rays are absorbed in 1 to 15 meters, depending on frequency. I suspect that a high intensity laser would probably have a little more penetration than that, but in effect you would have a plasma pulse from the beam interaction with the atmosphere, and I doubt much or any imact on the surface.

For a laser to work well against planetary targets, it would need to be near the visible spectrum of light.

-- Bob G

BobG wrote:I should have done my research first. You are correct, according to what I read 37% of X-rays are absorbed in 1 to 15 meters, depending on frequency. I suspect that a high intensity laser would probably have a little more penetration than that, but in effect you would have a plasma pulse from the beam interaction with the atmosphere, and I doubt much or any imact on the surface.

For a laser to work well against planetary targets, it would need to be near the visible spectrum of light.

We talked about using energy weapons against ground targets at honorcon, with the guy who wrote that article.

Our conclusion was that grasers would certainly work, but would kill everyone in quite a large radius outside the main physical strike due to scattering and hence irradiating the hell out of the general area.

I don't think we talked about X-ray lasers. But based on the article, with enough power you blow a hole through the atmosphere due to turning the air into bleached plasma. Due to the atmospheric absorption of X-rays the radius where you kill every living creature (including cockroaches and bacteria) would be a lot smaller than a graser, though I have no real idea how the beam would refocus and hence how big the total destruction footprint would be. There would certainly be a vertical effect similar to a miles tall and narrow nuclear fireball, so it would have a lot of collateral damage.

KNick wrote:Another point to consider. Once the decision to invade, rather than flatten, the tower was made by the (redacted) politicians and the assault had actually begun, what happens if the decision is then reversed? The ground commander then has two choices. The first is to flatten the building with her own people still inside while the second is to engage in a fighting withdrawal. If she choses the first option she is telling all her people they are not worth considering. If she choses the second option, she will not know if she has killed the leaders of this particular fight until they pop up somewhere else. If the seccie commander is smart (as Thandi had already proven she was), she will start evacuating her own people just as fast as she can. Every survivor of the fighting she gets out is another rallying point for future resistance.

IMPO, once the decision to invade was made, for whatever reason, the Mesan powers-that-be had placed themselves in a lose/lose situation.

Just one scenario that could have been followed if the second option had been chosen. Enough seccie survivors and survivor's relatives could have been gathered to seize and hold a citizen tower. At that point, the Mesan armed forces would have had no choice but to take the tower back, with all the disadvantages of the previous battle without the option of using any KEWs.

They would have no idea either way, as it apparently took a very long time (Not worth looking up, but I think it was over a week) for the government to close off the underground access tunnels.

A reduction strategy presupposes that you actually can contain the people holding out. Since they didn't do this for some time (since knowing such things would have been a police function to plan - and the police forces seem to have been pushed by the MA to be run by murderous buffoons) it would have been a problem.

However, without an accurate list of who was there and who was leading the "terrorists" - the first of which they have no idea and second of which they have only vague clues about due to said buffoons - they really would have no idea who was there or if the leaders were killed even if the "terrorists" or a government munition didn't blow the fusion reactor in the basement and turn everyone into plasma.

The reactor in the basement is also good reason to not want to push forward in a methodical capture plan, as being near it (near being some unknown range from 100 or so meters to several km) when someone popped the bottle would probably ruin your weekend.

kzt wrote:They would have no idea either way, as it apparently took a very long time (Not worth looking up, but I think it was over a week) for the government to close off the underground access tunnels.

A reduction strategy presupposes that you actually can contain the people holding out. Since they didn't do this for some time (since knowing such things would have been a police function to plan - and the police forces seem to have been pushed by the MA to be run by murderous buffoons) it would have been a problem.

However, without an accurate list of who was there and who was leading the "terrorists" - the first of which they have no idea and second of which they have only vague clues about due to said buffoons - they really would have no idea who was there or if the leaders were killed even if the "terrorists" or a government munition didn't blow the fusion reactor in the basement and turn everyone into plasma.

The reactor in the basement is also good reason to not want to push forward in a methodical capture plan, as being near it (near being some unknown range from 100 or so meters to several km) when someone popped the bottle would probably ruin your weekend.

The MISD had captured and interrogated enough people by then to have an accurate list of who the leaders were. If they had shown up elsewhere, they would have been spotted.

As for the reactor in the basement, it had a years supply of hydrogen on hand. I have no idea what releasing that many tons of hydrogen into a confined space such as a tower would do. At the very least it would rapidly oxidize, seriously compromising the towers foundation. If it also caused the containment on the reactor to fail, big boom. I am unclear on whether or not the temperature and pressure would cause further fusion in that fuel supply, especially if it was still confined in liquid form in the supply tanks. One or the other is probably what Victor's remote detonator was connected to.