Donkey LAC carriage

kzt wrote:Were you running 3rd fleets LACs? Because that is the idiocy they did. You KNOW there is a fight coming up, so you carefully refuse to deploy your primary antimissile platforms until far too late?

You're missing the point that your anti-missile assets need to either be with you or out ahead screening you. The don't do much good if they're lagging behind your formation because they can't keep up. (unless you're retreating and then you want your screen behind you, between you and your opponent.)

I understand from the House of Steel quote up thread that earlier Mantie LAC design were slower than SDs.

But is it really logical to assume that Solly design would have the same handicap? If you are talking about designing a LAC for the anti-missile defense role of your wall of battle, I would presume that making sure your LACs would keep up with your wall would be among the first things that a designer would try to accomplish. A bit of improvement with your inertial compensators probably would accomplish that. I know the Sollies are supposed to be a bit myopic, but I suspect that they probably could accomplish at least that much.

The issue with the older LACs was that no one was envisioning the anti-missile defense role. I think Shannon Foraker came up with that prior to Thunderbolt and the Manties eventually followed suit.

But once that becomes the agenda, whoever the designer is will attempt a workable design.

Don

n7axw wrote:I understand from the House of Steel quote up thread that earlier Mantie LAC design were slower than SDs.

But is it really logical to assume that Solly design would have the same handicap?

The cited Manticoran designs are essentially copies of Solarian Designs. They're cited as approximations of Solarian LAC and SD performance because we don't have details on relevant Solarian hardware.

n7axw wrote:If you are talking about designing a LAC for the anti-missile defense role of your wall of battle, I would presume that making sure your LACs would keep up with your wall would be among the first things that a designer would try to accomplish.

If the SLN has time to build anti-missile LACs from totally new plans, you're correct. However, The SLN doesn't have time to design from scratch; the best they can do for immediate survival is modify existing hulls -- replacing box magazine/launchers of ship-killers with box magazine/launchers of CMs.

Even if they do attempt a scratch design, they don't have time for the R&D necessary to improve the compensator or reduce crew size through automation and remote controls.

Eventually, if the League/SLN survive, they have the ability to crack the tech advantages GA LACs possess, but it will take time and/or espionage -- time and/or espionage they won't have if they don't come up with an interim anti-missile solution.

Sorry if this has been said I don't have the time to read all of the posts.

How about a hyper capable rig for an individual LAC or a small Group of LACs. (say 4 or so) It attaches externally to the LAC and once it makes the transition back to real space it is jettisoned at the edge of the system then recovered after the mission so they can hyper out. The rig would need its own power, sensors and nodes. maybe even have a couple of large drones it can launch in support of the mission. Just think what this would mean for tactical flexibility. being able to deploy entire squadrons to near by systems for raids or in support of larger operations.

n7axw wrote:I would presume that making sure your LACs would keep up with your wall would be among the first things that a designer would try to accomplish. A bit of improvement with your inertial compensators probably would accomplish that.

The reason LACs are slower than other ships is not their compensator, but their nodes. The wedge/nodes that they could fit onto an LAC were not powerful enough to max out a pre-Grayson style compensator. The reason that modern LACs are so fast is because of the Beta Squared nodes, (or at least the early result of the self same research that was mounted on Wayfarer's LACs) allowing them to project a much stronger wedge, giving the compensator a stronger sump to dump the inertia into.

I don't see the SLN making LACs that can keep up with even their SDs for at least 5 years, and if they are still fighting by then, the Manties might as well just give up.

barkerpa3466 wrote:Sorry if this has been said I don't have the time to read all of the posts.

How about a hyper capable rig for an individual LAC or a small Group of LACs. (say 4 or so) It attaches externally to the LAC and once it makes the transition back to real space it is jettisoned at the edge of the system then recovered after the mission so they can hyper out. The rig would need its own power, sensors and nodes. maybe even have a couple of large drones it can launch in support of the mission. Just think what this would mean for tactical flexibility. being able to deploy entire squadrons to near by systems for raids or in support of larger operations.

This hasn't come up in this discussion, but it has in an earlier one. The question was specifically for a hyper capable sleeve for an LAC to dock to. Mr. Weber has already answered in the Pearls. Specificaly he said, "My advice here is to forget the notion. It isn't worth it." You can read the rest if you want to.

kzt wrote:

Dafmeister wrote:Do you want to be handcuffed to an anti-missile screen that's building delta-v 20g slower than your flagship?

So do the math. if they are the system defense picket and you are just seeing them at 30 million KM, how far are you from the hyperlimit? I'd guess about a billion KM. How fast are you going at a billion KM into the hyperlimit and in what direction? You are well past turnover and are heading towards the planet with a constantly reducing velocity.

How much slower is 20g in this situation? How does this matter in any practical way? Is there ANY possible way you can expect to run out of range before the RMN fires off every single Mk-16 in their magazines?

Ok, here are my assumpions
1) SLN SDs had the same accel as the 6.9 mton Bellerophon-class did when introduce (420.1g @100%)
2) Their LACs can do 409.3g, the same as a Highlander-class LAC. (So initially they're moving at 80% of LAC accel)
3) They won't exceed 80% power
4) They'll carry 0.025c down from hyper (max they could have carried was 0.048c)
5) They were heading for a zero velocity intersection with the planet (note I ignored the side vector they'd need to actually match orbit with the planet; it's a lot more calculation for what should be a minor difference)
5) The planet, like Gryphon is 9.7 lm inside the 21.1 lm hyper limit (because I partially reused a spreadsheet for transit from Manticore to Gryphon)
6) They're on a least distance course between the hyper limit and the planet
7) The system defense force is 5 million km beyond the planet, so is detected 35 million km short of it (or 162,863,022 km inside the hyper limit)

At the the time of detection I make their time until zero-zero at the orbital distance of the planet roughly 78 minutes, and their residual velocity towards the planet as 14,987 km/s (almost 0.05c).

Their time to hold that accel to zero at the planet and then boost back to the hyper limit would have been 4.19 hours.
Ditching the LACs and increasing to 336.08g (80% power for the SDs) would cut that to 4.12 hours; it saves a whopping 4.2 minutes.

Now this probably isn't the best evasion path, but it was enough of a pain calculating this just to confirm the difference was trivial -- I can't be bothered to calculate other escape paths. For that matter, if the SDs won't exceed 80% power levels, the LACs would only have to go to 82.1% power to match the accel -- that's not much of an increased risk.


Actually, since old style LACs are node power limited, it may not be any additional risk. It depends on how much the compensator is linked to node power. You'd expect something the mass of a Highlander to be able to pull closer to 545g if it had full power nodes; flat out with its weak nodes is only 75% of that. But if the compensator capability is linked to max node strength then running weak nodes up to 100% power might be as risky as running full strength nodes up that high -- I don't think we know.

Either way 2 percentage points shaved off the safety buffer to keep you anti-missile screen with you seems totally worth it.

Weird Harold wrote:

n7axw wrote:I understand from the House of Steel quote up thread that earlier Mantie LAC design were slower than SDs.

But is it really logical to assume that Solly design would have the same handicap?

The cited Manticoran designs are essentially copies of Solarian Designs. They're cited as approximations of Solarian LAC and SD performance because we don't have details on relevant Solarian hardware.

n7axw wrote:If you are talking about designing a LAC for the anti-missile defense role of your wall of battle, I would presume that making sure your LACs would keep up with your wall would be among the first things that a designer would try to accomplish.

If the SLN has time to build anti-missile LACs from totally new plans, you're correct. However, The SLN doesn't have time to design from scratch; the best they can do for immediate survival is modify existing hulls -- replacing box magazine/launchers of ship-killers with box magazine/launchers of CMs.

Even if they do attempt a scratch design, they don't have time for the R&D necessary to improve the compensator or reduce crew size through automation and remote controls.

Eventually, if the League/SLN survive, they have the ability to crack the tech advantages GA LACs possess, but it will take time and/or espionage -- time and/or espionage they won't have if they don't come up with an interim anti-missile solution.

I personally don't think they have time for ANY of this stuff to happen. But if you are going to conjecture, you are obviously assuming that they do. And if they do, you just as well assume they have time for something that makes sense.

Don

I honestly don't see the Solarian navy coming up with a way to tow LAC's in general

on the other hand I could potentially see a reason to tow in a couple squadrons of LACs if you have a freighter shortage but its a little counter intuitive.

you bring into the system a Modular LAC "base" station in the cargo hold of your freighter in pieces that are as big as you can conveniently fit into the cargo bay.
the "base" has the following features:
life support, fuel, ordinance, and parts stowage.
it has bays to hold and service LAC's in
it of course has station keeping capabilities.

basically the freighter hauls in the base and tows in the LAC's and crews that go with the base, and significantly upgrades the systems defense capabilities.

the thing is this would be MUCH more effective for the GA as their LAC's actually pose a credible threat for full up starships wheras last I looked the solarian navies LAC's would have trouble threating anything more military than freighters.

n7axw wrote:I personally don't think they have time for ANY of this stuff to happen. But if you are going to conjecture, you are obviously assuming that they do. And if they do, you just as well assume they have time for something that makes sense.

Don

There is a difference between conjecture and fantasizing.

If you give the League "time for something that makes sense" you're conceding the war entirely.