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

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

The Vulcan was built to a specification of "500Kts at 35,000 to 50,000 ft" A supersonic version was proposed but never even prototyped.

Michael Everett wrote: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.

Yet fighter-bombers capable of Mach 2 or higher have been in service since the late 50s. Nearly every major air force has a mach 2+, nuclear capable, light or medium bomber either in service or only recently retired.

What they don't have are supersonic heavy bombers -- With the retirement of the Vulcans in the UK, the US might be the only country with any heavy bombers.

Michael Everett wrote:The Streak Drive is a different kettle of fish.

The whole Honorverse is a different kettle of fish. The point is that the economics and military realities will drive whether Streak Drive SDs enter service. In the RW, that choice has been no for large combatants in most cases -- supersonic heavy bombers being just one example.

Michael Everett wrote: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.

It is possible that, with suitable miniaturization and mass production, Streak Drives might become the standard hyper-drive for all ships -- I won't hold my breath, though.

I can see strategic advantages, but don't see a lot of tactical advantages. Tactics come into play in normal space when battle fleets face off. Better compensators provide a tactical advantage in higher acceleration. Better Hyperdrives don't really do anything to help in a tactical environment because few battles are fought in hyperspace.

The Abrams Main Battle Tank has a tactical advantage over any opponent; it is faster, better armored, and more accurate than any other MBT. It takes forever to ship Abrams to a potential battlefield, though. There are only a few C-5 transports capable of airlifting Abrams (and I'm not sure the latest version can be airlifted) so Tanks have to be transported by rail and ship -- about the same strategic speeds as WWI or WWII. That limitation hasn't prompted design or construction of faster methods of transport for Abrams -- Sea-going air-cushion ferries/landing craft, for example.

It is easily possible to design and build transport systems that easily double the strategic deployment speeds of Heavy Bombers or MBTs, but such efforts are not really needed or economically viable.

MaxxQ wrote: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.

If THAT is true, then SDs will get streak drive ASAP without even the slightest hesitation.

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Weird Harold wrote: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.

Yes the XB-70 Valkyrie. However there ARE supersonic heavy bombers in the Russian airforce.
The utterly gigantic swing-wing Tupolev-160 (empty weight at 110t and an insane 40t weapon load).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu-160

And there´s also the older Tu-22M, scourge of the USN (and various other more or less complimentary nicknames, anyone who ever played the Harpoon series of games knows that if you have it, you can usually destroy all enemies, it´s just a matter of time, how many times you need to have them refuel and rearm, it´s just that nasty if handled well).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-22M

Which happens to be somewhat contemporary and similar to the British TSR-2 which was also cancelled(pity).

It can also be argued that the US Rockwell B-1 belongs in this category, though it is unable to maintain supersonic speed at low level and IIRC can´t do it at all without afterburners, while topping out at a "mere" mach 1.25 (compared to the mach 1.88, 2.05 and 2.35 of the others, indeed the Tu-160 has a cruise speed higher than the B-1s top speed ).

Not only aren't there any supersonic heavy bombers

Over 400 Tu-22M, 35 Tu-160.

but the cost of scaling up supersonic/super-cruise capabilities just isn't worth the cost for a heavy bomber.

Not directly comparable, as bombers are built for heavy warloads, and heavy warloads is directly opposite to having high speed.

If a streak drive can be installed in new builds at reasonable cost, then it will get installed.

Cost isn´t going to have anything to do with it. Whether it can be done without sacrificing too much of their fighting ability is what will make the difference.

If there´s anything that has been shown in the books, it´s that building specific components (almost?) never truly affects final pricetags on warships in a noticeable manner.

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

Yup. But if you can get the speed by dropping just a small part of the fighting ability, then hell yeah, it´s totally worth it!

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

The Vulcan isn´t supersonic at all, as it tops out at mach 0.96. Very good plane, but not supersonic.

Weird Harold wrote:I can see strategic advantages, but don't see a lot of tactical advantages. Tactics come into play in normal space when battle fleets face off. Better compensators provide a tactical advantage in higher acceleration. Better Hyperdrives don't really do anything to help in a tactical environment because few battles are fought in hyperspace.

Big capital ships are strategic weapons. Increasing the strategic mobility of your wall will directly increase its strategic value. Sure, you probably lose some tactical ability, but ask yourself: Would lowering the pod loadout on an Apollo-equipped SD by a hundred or two hundred pods really make a big difference? Especially in the current threat environment?

In other words, is the capability to get your wall to the places where you need it faster more or less important than a minute or two of sustained high rate fire? Personally, I'd go with more important.

MaxxQ wrote: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.

Yes, the B1B Lancer is a heavy bomber and capable of supersonic sprints, primarily because the airframe is derived from the Mach 3 capable B1A which was canceled because the supersonic capability made it too expensive and complicated.

The Lancer is NOT however considered a supersonic bomber because it can't sustain supersonic speeds for more than a few minutes. (the B1A was designed for super-cruise, IIRC, but the inlets and engines were too expensive.)

The Abrams Main Battle Tank has a tactical advantage over any opponent; it is faster, better armored, and more accurate than any other MBT.

Not really.

Current model of Leo-2 is more accurate than current model M1.

British Challenger 2 is WAY better armored than any model of the M1 Abrams.

Faster, well that at least can be considered a matter of interpretation.

And that´s before we even start looking at the latest batch of MBTs. The recent Japanese T-10 may take the price in all 3 those categories.
If the SK K-2 wasn´t having so much technical problems, it would be a contender for all as well.
Turkish next generation Altay also looks potentially interesting, but there´s minimal hard data out on it, so difficult to say how good or bad it will end up.


Essentially, the original Abrams started out underarmed and underarmored due to the political rubbish that rejected using "foreign solutions", the gun upgrade and the armour upgrade put it close to contemporaries with the same tactical concept, but since then it´s been getting somewhat outrun by others, the Leo-2 keeps getting lots of upgrades thanks to export contracts, noone is going to have better armour than the Chally-2 anytime soon (well, not unless they go armourcrazy on some new tank, as new armour types are quite impressive in their improved capabilities), and the new batch of tanks getting into production recently or soon, well they´re simply just hard to compete with(without starting from scratch yourself, :edit).

Tenshinai wrote:However there ARE supersonic heavy bombers in the Russian airforce.
The utterly gigantic swing-wing Tupolev-160 (empty weight at 110t and an insane 40t weapon load).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu-160

Thanks for the link. I was unaware of that aircraft.

Tenshinai wrote:And there´s also the older Tu-22M, scourge of the USN (and various other more or less complimentary nicknames, anyone who ever played the Harpoon series of games knows that if you have it, you can usually destroy all enemies, it´s just a matter of time, how many times you need to have them refuel and rearm, it´s just that nasty if handled well).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-22M

I was aware of the Tu-22, but I'm pretty sure it is (or was) classed as a medium bomber rather than a heavy.

Tenshinai wrote:Not directly comparable, as bombers are built for heavy warloads, and heavy warloads is directly opposite to having high speed.

Heavy bombers/Main Battle Tanks/Battleships are comparable to DNs and SDs -- war-load/combat capability is a higher priority than speed.

Tenshinai wrote:

If a streak drive can be installed in new builds at reasonable cost, then it will get installed.

Cost isn´t going to have anything to do with it. Whether it can be done without sacrificing too much of their fighting ability is what will make the difference.

Cost is going to be a factor. Not as much of a factor as it would be for a civilian design, but any Navy is going to buy as much combat capability as it can afford -- spending too much on the hyper-drive will reduce the budget for combat power.

Tenshinai wrote:If there´s anything that has been shown in the books, it´s that building specific components (almost?) never truly affects final pricetags on warships in a noticeable manner.

That's probably because we haven't seen any new components/designs that don't increase combat capability. The Streak Drive doesn't really increase individual ship combat capability, it just increases strategic mobility.

Tenshinai wrote:

The Abrams Main Battle Tank has a tactical advantage over any opponent; it is faster, better armored, and more accurate than any other MBT.

Not really.

Just as every Solly knows the SLN has the best SDs in Creation, you won't shake my belief in the superiority of the Abrams.

The point still remains that no MBT can reach a potential battlefield in significant numbers faster than the speed of rail and ship transport.

Weird Harold wrote:

Tenshinai wrote:And there´s also the older Tu-22M, scourge of the USN (and various other more or less complimentary nicknames, anyone who ever played the Harpoon series of games knows that if you have it, you can usually destroy all enemies, it´s just a matter of time, how many times you need to have them refuel and rearm, it´s just that nasty if handled well).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-22M

I was aware of the Tu-22, but I'm pretty sure it is (or was) classed as a medium bomber rather than a heavy.

The original Tu-22 Blinder was (20,000 lbs of bombs), but the Tu-22M Backfire is more debatable; though wikipedia still categorizes it as such.

However since the Backfire can carry 50,000 lb of payload it's got 70% the payload of a B-52, and over twice the payload of the Vulcan mentioned earlier. That's a lot more than, say, the F-111 (at 31,500 lb) which is more what I'd consider a medium bomber -- so, personally, I have a hard time thinking of the Tu-22M as a medium bomber.


But back on the Streak drive we just don't know enough of the variables to make an educated guess as to whether it will be widely deployed or not. I tend to suspect it will be more widely deployed, but realize there's no real data on the impact of adding it to larger ships.

I have a question that seems relavant to this discussion. There has to be something more to the streak than supersized hyperdrives. A conventional hyperdrive can probably can climb into the iota band but the ship would probably be destroyed in the attempt. The streak equiped ship is able to survive there comfortably. Why? I would think that the answer to the question would have a bearing on whether the streak would be doable for anything above a destroyer.

Don

n7axw wrote:I have a question that seems relavant to this discussion. There has to be something more to the streak than supersized hyperdrives. A conventional hyperdrive can probably can climb into the iota band but the ship would probably be destroyed in the attempt. The streak equiped ship is able to survive there comfortably. Why? I would think that the answer to the question would have a bearing on whether the streak would be doable for anything above a destroyer.

Don

What we know for sure:

Mission of Honor
Chapter Four wrote:But the Mesan Alignment hadn't abandoned it, and finally, after the better part of a hundred T-years of dogged research, they'd found the answer. It was, in many ways, a brute force approach, and it wouldn't have been possible even now without relatively recent advances (whose potential no one else seemed to have noticed) in related fields. And even with those other advances, it had almost doubled the size of conventional hyper generators. But it worked. Indeed, they'd broken not simply the iota wall, but the kappa wall, as well. Which meant the voyage from New Tuscany to Mesa, which would have taken anyone else the next best thing to forty-five T-days, had taken Anisimovna less than thirty-one.

As I read that, all of the "recent advances in related fields" contributed to the increase in size.

I've seen speculation that the "RAIRF" were in power generation and/or storage or were in structural engineering to make ships stronger, but this description implies that everything is encompassed by the Hyper-generator's increased size.