New Honorverse renders uploaded

Shuffled quotes due to embedding limit.

MaxxQ wrote:
OTOH, for missiles, I believe the way we are working it is that a "grav tunnel" connects the missile port with the sidewall, effectively giving the ship a ten kilometer missile tube that continuously accelerates the missile until it is beyond the sidewall.

MaxxQ wrote:

TheMonster wrote:This is exactly how I always visualized it working Trying to build the mass driver into the ship itself to impart all of the launch velocity means either not getting much initial velocity or using literally crushing acceleration that might damage the missiles.

Of course, that begs the question of what to do about chase weapons, since there's no fore or aft sidewall to anchor the grav tube to. The answer there is that the tubes are much longer than the broadside tubes, and the forward tubes are longer than the aft tubes.

Hmm, that bring up two questions in my mind.

1) Can you anchor a grav tube to a buckler wall?
1a) If so do newer ships use "broadside length" chase tubes to free up volume in the hammerhead. (Roland; with your ammo storage, I'm looking at you )

2) If you need the sidewall to get full missile launch accel, doesn't that mean that getting some or all of your sidewall knocked out cripples your offense, not just your defense?
Hadn't realized that implication until just now. (Though this more applies to classic SDM missile fights; with DDM/MDM you've got enough range/accel time than the tube's initial boost is less important)

Weird Harold wrote:

MaxxQ wrote:Of course, that begs the question of what to do about chase weapons, since there's no fore or aft sidewall to anchor the grav tube to. The answer there is that the tubes are much longer than the broadside tubes, and the forward tubes are longer than the aft tubes.

Does the grav tube need to be anchored or is it just anchored on the broadsides to keep from shooting your own sidewall?

Wouldn't it be similar to a reversed tractor beam (presser beam?) that doesn't need any anchor except the object it is pushing.

TBH, I'm not really sure. There's textev about the "gunports" that open up in the sidewalls, so it may be that the grav tube just anchors itself to that not because it has to, but because it can. Maybe even to act as a guide to prevent the missile from "missing" the gunport.

For your second paragraph, I suppose you could think of it that way. But I'm not sure if that's actually how it works.

Jonathan_S wrote:Hmm, that bring up two questions in my mind.

1) Can you anchor a grav tube to a buckler wall?
1a) If so do newer ships use "broadside length" chase tubes to free up volume in the hammerhead. (Roland; with your ammo storage, I'm looking at you )

2) If you need the sidewall to get full missile launch accel, doesn't that mean that getting some or all of your sidewall knocked out cripples your offense, not just your defense?
Hadn't realized that implication until just now. (Though this more applies to classic SDM missile fights; with DDM/MDM you've got enough range/accel time than the tube's initial boost is less important)

1) Don't know. My guess would be no. I generally have not been involved with those discussions, as most of it took place before I joined.

1a) The Roland still has long tubes. Partly the reason for the outsized hammerheads - or is the wink because you saw the "discussion" at The Bar?

2) Quite possible. OTOH, with no sidewall, there's no need to get the missile beyond the sidewall as quickly as possible. This may also go back to what Harold was thinking about the grav tube not needing to actually be anchored to the sidewall.

MaxxQ wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:2) If you need the sidewall to get full missile launch accel, doesn't that mean that getting some or all of your sidewall knocked out cripples your offense, not just your defense?

2) Quite possible. OTOH, with no sidewall, there's no need to get the missile beyond the sidewall as quickly as possible. This may also go back to what Harold was thinking about the grav tube not needing to actually be anchored to the sidewall.

I was going to raise the question about lost sidewalls. I'm pretty sure there's textev of ships continuing to launch missiles with sidewall damage.

I don't see that a sidewall would be necessary for the grav tube to form. For starters, missie pods don't have sidewalls; if their launchers couldn't form grav tubes, then their missile performance would be seriously degraded compared to shipboard launchers. We've seen nothing to say that's the case. I suspect that the grave tubes 'lock into' the gunports to ensure alignment. You don't want to waste shots on the inside of your own sidewall. Perhaps it's even possible that a missile hitting the inside of the sidewall could initiate fusion in its warhead, only ten kilometers from the hull. It might be too far out to deal lethal damage, but your sensor, telemetry comm arrays will not be happy.

Dafmeister wrote:I don't see that a sidewall would be necessary for the grav tube to form. For starters, missie pods don't have sidewalls; if their launchers couldn't form grav tubes, then their missile performance would be seriously degraded compared to shipboard launchers. We've seen nothing to say that's the case. I suspect that the grave tubes 'lock into' the gunports to ensure alignment. You don't want to waste shots on the inside of your own sidewall. Perhaps it's even possible that a missile hitting the inside of the sidewall could initiate fusion in its warhead, only ten kilometers from the hull. It might be too far out to deal lethal damage, but your sensor, telemetry comm arrays will not be happy.

Pretty much my way of thinking, although I don't know if that's what the rest of BuNine thinks. It makes sense, but some things can make sense and still be wrong. If one of the others sees this and decides to post on it, I'll know better, but for now, I'm just leaving it up to speculation on both my part and the non-BuNine people here.

MaxxQ wrote:

Dafmeister wrote:I don't see that a sidewall would be necessary for the grav tube to form. For starters, missie pods don't have sidewalls; if their launchers couldn't form grav tubes, then their missile performance would be seriously degraded compared to shipboard launchers. We've seen nothing to say that's the case. I suspect that the grave tubes 'lock into' the gunports to ensure alignment. You don't want to waste shots on the inside of your own sidewall. Perhaps it's even possible that a missile hitting the inside of the sidewall could initiate fusion in its warhead, only ten kilometers from the hull. It might be too far out to deal lethal damage, but your sensor, telemetry comm arrays will not be happy.

Pretty much my way of thinking, although I don't know if that's what the rest of BuNine thinks. It makes sense, but some things can make sense and still be wrong. If one of the others sees this and decides to post on it, I'll know better, but for now, I'm just leaving it up to speculation on both my part and the non-BuNine people here.

Hmm, makes sense.

But in that case you shouldn't need longer chase tubes just because there's no sidewall there.


But maybe RFC (or the ship designers) took a page from the historical sailing ship example where you had long guns as chasers -- giving a bit more range in a chase than broadside to broadside. If the longer physical tube gave a bit higher acceleration the the chase tubes, then your chase missiles would have marginally more range than your broadsides.

Jonathan_S wrote:Hmm, makes sense.

But in that case you shouldn't need longer chase tubes just because there's no sidewall there.


But maybe RFC (or the ship designers) took a page from the historical sailing ship example where you had long guns as chasers -- giving a bit more range in a chase than broadside to broadside. If the longer physical tube gave a bit higher acceleration the the chase tubes, then your chase missiles would have marginally more range than your broadsides.

Longer chase tubes, at least on the forward hammerhead, are for higher accel to get the missiles out to a range to light off their drives before the ship runs over them. After all, the ship is still accelerating, while the missiles stop accelerating as soon as they leave the tube(s).

One possibility is that because the grav tube doesn't have a sidewall to lock onto, it might have a somewhat shorter range than a broadside grav tube - say maybe 5 or 7.5km instead of 10 (just throwing numbers out).

Again, that's just speculation on my part.

If you go back to SVW where Weber first introduces missile pods he makes two points about why they had become obsolete:

The tubes on missile pods could impart only minimal launch velocity compared to ship tubes.
This lower launch velocity limited effective range somewhat.
This lower launch velocity also reduced terminal velocity which seems to have made them
somewhat more vulnerable to defenses.
This lower launch velocity somewhat complicated achieving a time on target salvo to saturate
defenses.

The newer missile pods used the new gravity drivers that had been developed for LACs which had higher accelleration and launch velocity than the old gravity drivers.

One gets the impression that the launch velocity of modern missile pods is still much lower than the launch velocity of ship mounted tubes. If the velocity differential is relevant compared to total Delta Vee of the missiles, then the launch velocity and accelleration of broadside tubes must be hellacious. I am thinking millions of gees even if they use a ten kilometer long gravity tube that is anchored to the sidewalls.

I would be elated if Weber commented.

Just FYI,

Ke = 1/2mVV = mgx

2gx = VV or

(2 x accelleration x launcher length)^1/2 = launch velocity.

Perhaps Weber will play with the numbers to give us insight on launch velocity and accelleration?

Dafmeister wrote:I don't see that a sidewall would be necessary for the grav tube to form. For starters, missie pods don't have sidewalls; if their launchers couldn't form grav tubes, then their missile performance would be seriously degraded compared to shipboard launchers. We've seen nothing to say that's the case. I suspect that the grave tubes 'lock into' the gunports to ensure alignment. You don't want to waste shots on the inside of your own sidewall. Perhaps it's even possible that a missile hitting the inside of the sidewall could initiate fusion in its warhead, only ten kilometers from the hull. It might be too far out to deal lethal damage, but your sensor, telemetry comm arrays will not be happy.

MaxxQ wrote:2) Quite possible. OTOH, with no sidewall, there's no need to get the missile beyond the sidewall as quickly as possible.

Yes there is. It keeps the missile from being hit by the wedge as the ship maneuvers.

There really isn't an reason to need to get the missile past the sidewall other then this. In fact, dropping the missile out of a hatch and letting the ship run away from them would work too, but that messes with David's "Hornblower in Space" thing.

kzt wrote:... dropping the missile out of a hatch and letting the ship run away from them would work too, but that messes with David's "Hornblower in Space" thing.

Isn't that pretty much what an SD(P) does?