What's the chance of a Streek Drive Super Dreadnought?

hanuman wrote:Ignore me if this point has already been made, but even though I do not always understand the technical data very well, it seems to me that a SD-sized streak-drive ship would still be a better choice as a warship than one that is smaller, if any navy will choose to build such ships.

The reason I'm saying that is that even though an SD-sized ship's streak drive will be much larger than that of a smaller ship, the drive will still be proportional to the ship's size. Surely that means that an SD-sized streak-drive ship will still have much much more space for everything else than, say, one that is the size of a battlecruiser?

Yes and no. If the hyper gadget is proportional to ship size you are correct.

However, there´s more too it. A SD is based on maximum fighting ability, anything reducing that ability is a big minus, even if it is a clear strategic advantage like the streak drive.

For a smaller ship, while a larger drive may cause even more proportional loss of fighting ability, or overall loss of tonnage used for everything else, it doesn´t matter nearly as much, because fighting isn´t the primary reason for the ship´s existance.

If need be, you build the ship larger and accept that you have maybe a 350kt ship with the fighting ability of a 300kt ship, but with the extra speed in hyper.

hanuman wrote:The thing that strikes me is that there isn't any real need for superdreadnought-sized streak-drive ships, despite what I wrote before. Superdreadnoughts are intended to stand and pound on each other, not engage in extended pursuits of other ships, which is where speed would come in quite handily.

Strategic mobility is always a major advantage. The problem is that if the streakdrive is twice that of a normal one, you may be trading too much of the ship´s primary capability to get that advantage.

Reduced time in transit means that you effectively have more ships.

But again, for large main battle units, the question is how much of their primary ability has to be sacrificed to gain the speed, and if the tradeoff is worth it.

If a drive is normally 3% of a ship total, and a streak drive is 6%, then i would expect the upgrade to be generally a good idea.
But if the normal drive is 10% and a streak drive therefore is 20%, then it is probably a BAD idea.

But even if we had those specific numbers, it´s still very hard to say just where the limit is between "worth it" and not.

The thing is, most of the arguments here for why you wouldn't use a streak drive over a standard military drive also apply for why you wouldn't use a military drive over a civilian drive. No all, mind you but most. And yet every military ship has a military grade hyper drive. I suspect that most military planers would be willing to sacrifice a good bit to almost halve the communication loop.

How much sooner would White Haven shown up at Yeltsen if they had streak drives in HOTQ?

What about the SDs returning to relieve Sarnow in SVW?

Having it during the cutworm raids would have allowed Honor to either strike at twice as many targets or halve the vulnerability of Manticore.

Manticore has survived the last 20 years by having the most advanced ships in space, (and some luck admitidly,) so I don't see them going against that now.

Kare, Wix, and Simoes working together will go beyond the streak drive to something better. Sonja and Shannon and Sam Webster will put it in ships sooner than ordinary human beings could.

(Actually, I heard David hint at this years ago.)

dreamrider

Weird Harold wrote:Eighth Fleet and operations Cutworm and Sanskrit, might have been less risky because Eighth Fleet could be back home to reinforce Home Fleet, but the necessity of allowing time for News to reach Haven would have dictated the pace of operations far more than the ability to "get there and back" faster.

No, having the same ships hit two systems produces twice the effect. You get deep inside the enemies decision making and response cycle.

Tenshinai wrote:But again, for large main battle units, the question is how much of their primary ability has to be sacrificed to gain the speed, and if the tradeoff is worth it.

If a drive is normally 3% of a ship total, and a streak drive is 6%, then i would expect the upgrade to be generally a good idea.
But if the normal drive is 10% and a streak drive therefore is 20%, then it is probably a BAD idea.

But even if we had those specific numbers, it´s still very hard to say just where the limit is between "worth it" and not.

I'm not sure the hyper generator scales up proportionally. It could be 40% for a frigate/courier(generator mass ~20,000t) and a lot closer to 1% for a SD(generator mass 85,000t). If that's the case, then currently existing light vessels are going to be more problematic to refit - cramming an extra 20,000 tons into a 50,000 ton hull isn't going to happen. Conversely, finding an extra 85,000 tons out of a 8,500,000 ton hull, whilst involving some pretty serious rearranging, at least offers the refit designer options.

I think Manticore and the GA can't afford not to utilise the streak drive fully - because the MAlign has it and is using it. The fact that the GA has no information at all on how widely deployed it is should only add urgency to deploy at least some streak-upgraded squadrons.

If they had any yard space available, I'd suggest doing the BC(P)s first, as the unarmoured pod core which is so much its achilles heel also makes it the easiest warship in service to modify, even if it costs them pod storage - because milspec ammo ships should be even easier to refit.

munroburton wrote:

Tenshinai wrote:But again, for large main battle units, the question is how much of their primary ability has to be sacrificed to gain the speed, and if the tradeoff is worth it.

If a drive is normally 3% of a ship total, and a streak drive is 6%, then i would expect the upgrade to be generally a good idea.
But if the normal drive is 10% and a streak drive therefore is 20%, then it is probably a BAD idea.

But even if we had those specific numbers, it´s still very hard to say just where the limit is between "worth it" and not.

I'm not sure the hyper generator scales up proportionally. It could be 40% for a frigate/courier(generator mass ~20,000t) and a lot closer to 1% for a SD(generator mass 85,000t). If that's the case, then currently existing light vessels are going to be more problematic to refit - cramming an extra 20,000 tons into a 50,000 ton hull isn't going to happen. Conversely, finding an extra 85,000 tons out of a 8,500,000 ton hull, whilst involving some pretty serious rearranging, at least offers the refit designer options.

I think Manticore and the GA can't afford not to utilise the streak drive fully - because the MAlign has it and is using it. The fact that the GA has no information at all on how widely deployed it is should only add urgency to deploy at least some streak-upgraded squadrons.

If they had any yard space available, I'd suggest doing the BC(P)s first, as the unarmoured pod core which is so much its achilles heel also makes it the easiest warship in service to modify, even if it costs them pod storage - because milspec ammo ships should be even easier to refit.

I'm not so sure that's the case. Recall that Anisimovna's (or was it Bardasano?) ship was outwardly just a normal ship, and *I think* it was hinted that a cursory internal inspection wouldn't reveal anything about the drive. IIRC, it was a fairly small ship, so while it may be twice as large as a normal hyperdrive, it seems that a hyperdrive doesn't take up so much space that increasing its size has a significant impact on internal volume.

The question is whether a Streak Drive's size increases proportionally to the size of the ship, or even increases in size at all as the ship gets larger. It may be that hyperdrives in general, or even the Streak in particular, might be one of those items that is the same size across all classes.

munroburton wrote:
Not useful in superdreadnoughts? I wonder how effective Eighth Fleet would have been if it could take advantage of a ~7250x multiplier, instead of ~3500x. That suggests to me they'd be able to cut the actual time spent travelling back and forth between Trevor's Star and targets in the RoH by around half - jumping up from ~2100c to 4350c and that's sticking with .6c.

Even if those higher bands do generate extra wear-tear, they don't necessarily have to use them every time they go into hyper.

I think you're numbers a slightly off.
The Kappa bands do provide appear to provide a (roughly) 7250x multiplier, but the Theta bands are 5000x; not ~3500x. (And a warship can't do more than .6 of that in either).

Still, 145% the speed is nothing to sneeze at.

munroburton wrote:I think Manticore and the GA can't afford not to utilise the streak drive fully - because the MAlign has it and is using it. The fact that the GA has no information at all on how widely deployed it is should only add urgency to deploy at least some streak-upgraded squadrons.

The question is, "What constitutes full utilization?"

The US has the technical capability to build supersonic heavy bombers -- has built prototypes of supersonic heavy bombers -- but there are no supersonic heavy bombers in active service. AFAIK, there are no supersonic heavy bombers in any air force.

Not only aren't there any supersonic heavy bombers, there are few, if any, forward deployed heavy bombers and recent heavy bomber missions have been 48 hour missions flown from US bases.

All of the arguments for putting Streak Drives in SDs would seem to apply to building supersonic, or even hypersonic, heavy bombers, but nobody in the real world is investing in supersonic heavy bombers. They're building supersonic stealth fighters with "super-cruise" and light and medium fighter-bombers with limited supersonic sprint capabilities, but the cost of scaling up supersonic/super-cruise capabilities just isn't worth the cost for a heavy bomber.

If a streak drive can be installed in new builds at reasonable cost, then it will get installed. If a streak drive can be retrofitted at reasonable cost to any given shop class, it will get retrofitted. The harder and less economical installing or retrofitting a streak drive is, the less likely a streak drive becomes.

But, like heavy bombers, SDs don't need speed, they need survivability and war-load.

Weird Harold wrote:
The question is, "What constitutes full utilization?"

The US has the technical capability to build supersonic heavy bombers -- has built prototypes of supersonic heavy bombers -- but there are no supersonic heavy bombers in active service. AFAIK, there are no supersonic heavy bombers in any air force.

The RAF used to have one, the Vulcan Bomber. The Argentinians can testify to how effective it was.

The reason that no major air force currently uses supersonic bombers is quite simple, the amount of fuel required to push said bomber beyond the speed of sound and keep it there has a serious negative impact on the amount of ordnance that can be carried, specially since external ordnance can cause significant drag, thus requiring more fuel etc.

The Streak Drive is a different kettle of fish. Although it is larger and needs more energy, both demands can be easily met on the larger ships with only minor effects on things like fuel bunkerage and missile storage. The main problem is the wall between hyper bands, once the wall has been breached, the starship can use grav waves for power. The actual Hyper band environment is not radically different from the lower bands, unlike the airflow differences between subsonic and supersonic flight.

Once built, tested, rebuild, miniaturized and put into mass-production, the Streak Drive will become the standard model of military Hyper drive. The (minor) downsides are miniscule compared to the tactical/strategic advantages the drive bestows upon the navy that uses it.

Michael Everett wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:
The question is, "What constitutes full utilization?"

The US has the technical capability to build supersonic heavy bombers -- has built prototypes of supersonic heavy bombers -- but there are no supersonic heavy bombers in active service. AFAIK, there are no supersonic heavy bombers in any air force.

The RAF used to have one, the Vulcan Bomber. The Argentinians can testify to how effective it was.

It may have been effective, but it was *not* supersonic. At least, not according to the Wiki you linked. Highest Mach number I saw on there was 0.96. Maybe in a dive, it would go supersonic, but from what I saw there, under normal operating conditions, it could not be considered supersonic.

Edit: OTOH, the B-1B Lancer could go as high as Mach 1.25

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-1_Lancer ... .28B-1B.29

With a payload of 125,000 lbs., I'd consider it a heavy bomber.