Technical questions re military hardware.

hanuman wrote:Here is my next question, re dispatch boats.

I've just finished rereading Mission of Honor. After the Yawata Strike Mr Weber writes that the dispatch boat sent to recall Honor from Haven made the journey from Trevor's Star in only six and a half days, while the boat informing Manticore of the attack on Grayson's shipyards made the run between Yeltsin's Star and Manticore in four days.

Now why would that be, when the distance between Trevor's Star and Haven is several times the distance between Manticore and Yeltsin's Star?

Most likely explanation is that there's one or more big, powerful grav waves between Trevor's Star and Haven to catch a lift on, while the waves between Manticore and Grayson aren't as convenient.

MaxxQ wrote: Weird Harold wrote:I would expect Apollo pods to have a 25/75 (2 of eight missiles) EW ratio. Pod layers have to work with the ratio of EW to warbirds preloaded into pods unless some pods are loaded with only EW birds and the rest with all warbirds.

Re: the bolded part. I've thought similarly myself. I figure one pod of EW per 12-pod salvo - 11 attack pods and 1 EW pod.

It seems to me that would work fine with normal Mk16 or Mk23 pods, but Apollo would create some problems. The eight EW birds would be tied to one Mk23E ACM and concentrated on only one part of the salvo, or overextend the ACM's light-speed control links to cover the whole spread. Even doubling the number of EW birds would only cover two clumps of the spread.

Weird Harold wrote:

MaxxQ wrote: Weird Harold wrote:I would expect Apollo pods to have a 25/75 (2 of eight missiles) EW ratio. Pod layers have to work with the ratio of EW to warbirds preloaded into pods unless some pods are loaded with only EW birds and the rest with all warbirds.

Re: the bolded part. I've thought similarly myself. I figure one pod of EW per 12-pod salvo - 11 attack pods and 1 EW pod.

It seems to me that would work fine with normal Mk16 or Mk23 pods, but Apollo would create some problems. The eight EW birds would be tied to one Mk23E ACM and concentrated on only one part of the salvo, or overextend the ACM's light-speed control links to cover the whole spread. Even doubling the number of EW birds would only cover two clumps of the spread.

Point. Maybe instead of two EW missiles per pod, you could do one, with three Dragon's Teeth and three Dazzlers for each six-pod salvo. That way, you're only losing one attack missile per pod, and each EW type is fairly evenly distributed.

Dafmeister wrote:

hanuman wrote:Here is my next question, re dispatch boats.

I've just finished rereading Mission of Honor. After the Yawata Strike Mr Weber writes that the dispatch boat sent to recall Honor from Haven made the journey from Trevor's Star in only six and a half days, while the boat informing Manticore of the attack on Grayson's shipyards made the run between Yeltsin's Star and Manticore in four days.

Now why would that be, when the distance between Trevor's Star and Haven is several times the distance between Manticore and Yeltsin's Star?

Most likely explanation is that there's one or more big, powerful grav waves between Trevor's Star and Haven to catch a lift on, while the waves between Manticore and Grayson aren't as convenient.

Is it bad that this was the first thing I immediately thought of upon reading the question? You know you've read too much HH when...

Dafmeister wrote:

hanuman wrote:Here is my next question, re dispatch boats.

I've just finished rereading Mission of Honor. After the Yawata Strike Mr Weber writes that the dispatch boat sent to recall Honor from Haven made the journey from Trevor's Star in only six and a half days, while the boat informing Manticore of the attack on Grayson's shipyards made the run between Yeltsin's Star and Manticore in four days.

Now why would that be, when the distance between Trevor's Star and Haven is several times the distance between Manticore and Yeltsin's Star?

Most likely explanation is that there's one or more big, powerful grav waves between Trevor's Star and Haven to catch a lift on, while the waves between Manticore and Grayson aren't as convenient.

Ah, I forgot about that one...

Fifth Imperium's infodumps are STILL down, so would someone please explain to me the technical details behind the Spider & Streak drives & how they differ from conventional impeller drives?

Thank you.

hanuman wrote:Fifth Imperium's infodumps are STILL down, so would someone please explain to me the technical details behind the Spider & Streak drives & how they differ from conventional impeller drives?

Thank you.

Read the books. Your questions are concisely answered in them. Start with Storm From the Shadows and Mission of Honor. If you do not own them, buy them. If you are unwilling to buy, read, and search on your own first, answering your own questions, why should we answer your questions?

hanuman wrote:Fifth Imperium's infodumps are STILL down, so would someone please explain to me the technical details behind the Spider & Streak drives & how they differ from conventional impeller drives?

Thank you.

They're two very different things.

The spider drive, rather than generating a wedge, uses three (I think) sets of what are basically ridiculously overpowered tractor beams to grab onto the alpha wall and pull the ship forwards, then release and grab on further forward. The down side is that, without the wedge, not only do you not have the primary passive defence of a warship, you can't run an inertial compensator either. You have to rely on grav plates, which limits max accel to about 200g. It also means that the ships are radically different in design, with trilateral symetry and their decks arranged so that 'up' is toward the bow.

The streak drive is an overpowered hyper generator (twice the size of a conventional generator) with some technical tweaks that allow it to translate through the previously impenetrable iota wall (the one HMS Apollo 'bounced' off during Alice Truman's dash from Grayson in Honor of the Queen, nearly losing the ship with all hands) and then the kappa wall, which increases apparent n-space velocity by almost half over travel in the theta bands.

wastedfly wrote:

hanuman wrote:Fifth Imperium's infodumps are STILL down, so would someone please explain to me the technical details behind the Spider & Streak drives & how they differ from conventional impeller drives?

Thank you.

Read the books. Your questions are concisely answered in them. Start with Storm From the Shadows and Mission of Honor. If you do not own them, buy them. If you are unwilling to buy, read, and search on your own first, answering your own questions, why should we answer your questions?

Now that's just rude.

Dafmeister wrote:
They're two very different things.

The spider drive, rather than generating a wedge, uses three (I think) sets of what are basically ridiculously overpowered tractor beams to grab onto the alpha wall and pull the ship forwards, then release and grab on further forward. The down side is that, without the wedge, not only do you not have the primary passive defence of a warship, you can't run an inertial compensator either. You have to rely on grav plates, which limits max accel to about 200g. It also means that the ships are radically different in design, with trilateral symetry and their decks arranged so that 'up' is toward the bow.

The streak drive is an overpowered hyper generator (twice the size of a conventional generator) with some technical tweaks that allow it to translate through the previously impenetrable iota wall (the one HMS Apollo 'bounced' off during Alice Truman's dash from Grayson in Honor of the Queen, nearly losing the ship with all hands) and then the kappa wall, which increases apparent n-space velocity by almost half over travel in the theta bands.

Nice summary, Dafmeister. I believe the primary advantage of the Spider drive is that it's very stealthy. Without the impeller wedge you're essentially invisible to gravitic sensors. I got the impression that they would only really work in an Oyster Bay-type situation and wouldn't be very useful in a traditional battle.