Countering the Spider – Real World Inspirations

torongill wrote:

SWM wrote:It seems likely that the smart paint will reduce the effectiveness of active search beams drastically. Unless you are lucky enough to be extremely close to the target, you won't detect it this way.

one thing is active search beams, and I suppose another is a full power burst mode from short range that could get you a hull-plate number. It's a given that it will reveal the position of the drones, but drones are expendable, and even if one of them is destroyed, it would provide a general vector for the search. And yes, it would be clearing small volumes of space at any given moment, but use enough of them in a pattern, and that volume would be big.

The problem is that space is BIG. REALLY BIG. You would need millions of drones to do what you are talking about. The short range burst would have to happen at thousands or tens of thousands of kilometers, and you have to search millions or hundreds of millions of kilometers. And the stealth ship can try to maneuver into the spaces you have already cleared.

You don't explain what you mean by BFN. I will assume that you mean Big Effin' Nukes.

Your first scenario depends on seeing the target ship against the glow produced by the explosion. Unfortunately, the volume which will be glowing enough to use as background illumination is rather small, compared to deep space. Suppose you manage to make a volume 10,000 km in radius glow (a rather remarkable achievement!). Suppose the target ship ship is a mere 1 light-second away from the explosion. In order for an observer to see the target ship against the background of the explosion, the observer would have to be within a mere 2 degrees of the direct line from the explosion to the target ship. If the target ship is more than 1 light-second away from the explosion, the angle gets even smaller.

The second scenario basically means that the target ship has to be within the volume of the explosion itself. If you don't already know where the target ship is, the probability of hitting it is nearly nonexistent. If you can hit it with a nuke, then you've already localized it.

Not illumination in the visible spectrum, more about the radiation from the nuke. The reach of that one would be greater, and of course there will be more than one set of eyes looking at the blast, and from different angles. It's not obligatory to use one nuke, multiple can be used to create a wide front of radiation. The triple ripple, using LAC-sized missiles, is supposed to have blinding radiation effect against shielded targets from 40 thousand km. If the effect is not to blind sensors, but to force the stealth paint to react to that radiation, the stand-off range would be quite a bit higher The point is to force the stealth systems to react and observe the effect from multiple angles. It would probably take a Hemphill-Foraker-Simoes brain trust to figure it out, but it would be like using active radiation sonar.
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No, nuclear explosions don't work that way. The radiation from a nuclear bomb travels in straight lines from the center of the explosion. So the only way to so the target ship illuminated against the explosion is if the detector is in a direct line from the center of the explosion through the target ship. The probability of managing that approaches zero unless you have billions of detectors. The only way to use the kind of illumination you are talking about (regardless of what kind of radiation you expect to use) is if you can cause some large volume (thousands of kilometers, at least) to glow with that radiation.

P.S. Spider Drive ships don't have inertial compensators, that's why they need grav plates and are of a "building" design, with the "top" being the stem and the "bottom" being the stern.

That is not quite true--we have never been told that spider drive ships do not have inertial compensators. What we have been told is that when running the spider drive, an inertial compensator does nothing useful. However, we also know that spider drive ships can use wormholes, which means they must be able to generate Warshawski sails. Warshawski sails do not restrict the shape of the ship the way impeller wedges do, so apparently sails are not incompatible with the spider drive. If they install Warshawski sails on spider drive ships, then it makes sense for them to also install inertial compensators to use while using those sails.

Jonathan_S wrote:I've got what's probably a stupid question. Assuming a very narrow, and therefore very locally hot, beam:
1) how often would it hit random denser bits of space (gas, micro-asteroids,ect)?
2) how visible would that kind of small junk be when hit by a very hit narrow beam which should quickly raise the junk's temperature?

I'm wondering if you could use a smaller number of IR sensors looking for secondary effects of the very hot narrow beam, instead of the beam itself.

(Like I said this is probably a stupid question given how unfathomely vast space is)

That's actually a very good question!

It would be hard to quantify an answer, because it depends on so many variables. We don't know how much energy the stealth ship is radiating away. We don't know what angle the beam spreads at. And we don't know the density or nature of the local interplanetary medium. But it is possible that the beam might heat up the local interplanetary medium enough to produce detectable effects.

The medium is really thin, especially in the outer planetary system, so it might not scatter or absorb enough to be detectable. And a smart captain would make sure they weren't pointing the beam at any one volume of space for too long. I'll have to think about that some more to see if I can make any hand-waving guesses. Good thought! It deserves some careful consideration.

SWM wrote:That is not quite true--we have never been told that spider drive ships do not have inertial compensators. What we have been told is that when running the spider drive, an inertial compensator does nothing useful. However, we also know that spider drive ships can use wormholes, which means they must be able to generate Warshawski sails. Warshawski sails do not restrict the shape of the ship the way impeller wedges do, so apparently sails are not incompatible with the spider drive. If they install Warshawski sails on spider drive ships, then it makes sense for them to also install inertial compensators to use while using those sails.

@SWM:
When/where have we been told that spider ships use worm holes?

Now, I totally agree with your premise, and agree that it would be strategic idiocy to field spider ships as a major fleet component without W. sails, or an equivalent capability from an operating mode of the spider.

But I'm not aware of any textev or pearl that confirms either possibility.

dreamrider

1. RFC has stated in forum replies that spider drive ships can use wormholes and navigate grav waves in hyperspace; both of these functions require Warshawski sails.

2. No matter what is done with spider drive ships, they still have mass. RFC has shown great determination in being non-specific about the Detweilers' size, but it has to be at least 6 million tons and there have been veiled hints that they are bigger, possibly much bigger. Bypassing the size limitations of the impeller drive, they could be 20 million tons or even more. Something like a Forward Mass Detector, or a more advanced development of it, should be able to localize that mass from a goodly distance. Keep a swarm of drones wandering around your star system in a pseudo-random pattern looking for unexpected multi-million-ton mobile objects that don't show up on anything else and you should be able to spot a spider infestation.
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Ma Lemming: If all your friends jumped off a cliff into the sea, would you....oh....um....nevermind.

Imaginos1892 wrote:1. RFC has stated in forum replies that spider drive ships can use wormholes and navigate grav waves in hyperspace; both of these functions require Warshawski sails.

2. No matter what is done with spider drive ships, they still have mass. RFC has shown great determination in being non-specific about the Detweilers' size, but it has to be at least 6 million tons and there have been veiled hints that they are bigger, possibly much bigger. Bypassing the size limitations of the impeller drive, they could be 20 million tons or even more. Something like a Forward Mass Detector, or a more advanced development of it, should be able to localize that mass from a goodly distance. Keep a swarm of drones wandering around your star system in a pseudo-random pattern looking for unexpected multi-million-ton mobile objects that don't show up on anything else and you should be able to spot a spider infestation.
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Ma Lemming: If all your friends jumped off a cliff into the sea, would you....oh....um....nevermind.

Once you know what an infesting spider looks like.

Don't forget. The GA don't even know what the parameters for the Sharks and the Ghosts are yet, except for rough estimates derived from the rough estimates of the config of the attack pods derived from the numbers and estimated size of the attack missiles and torpedoes.

Sonja's people have a glimmer of an inkling of a concept of what a spider might be ('an alternative space drive of at least small c fractional capability that does not cause gavitic disturbances within even 2 orders of magnitude of even a small impeller - oh, and its probably still gravitic...in some way'). They've got no clue yet on mass or even NUMBERS of the attack ships. They've got no clue they should get a clue about the Lenny Dets, except the historical truism "the clubs and rocks always get bigger, or sharper".

So hunter killer groups looking for Lenny Dets with a screen of mass detector drones may still be a ways off.

dreamrider

However, we also know that spider drive ships can use wormholes, which means they must be able to generate Warshawski sails. Warshawski sails do not restrict the shape of the ship the way impeller wedges do, so apparently sails are not incompatible with the spider drive. If they install Warshawski sails on spider drive ships, then it makes sense for them to also install inertial compensators to use while using those sails.

Warshawski sails are a modification of impeller wedge drive for hyperspace travel, which allows a much higher acceleration and a much better energy management, which makes hyperspace travel infinitely cheaper and safer, since Warshawski sails allow ships to use grav waves in hyperspace and provide their energy budget from that wave. But it all stems from the impeller drive.

The Spider drive is a new type of propulsion, it has nothing to do with impeller wedge drive. We just don't have enough information, but it's possible that the spider drive legs can latch onto the grav wave and provide propulsion. The inertial compensator doesn't need an impeller wedge, but without the impeller the compensator allows compensation of 150 G to felt 5G, and it doesn't stack with grav plates. It is also dependent on the mass and volume the inertia of which it has to compensate. I'd say that the compensation factor of a 12+ million ton Dettweiler class would be much lower than those 150 G.

The repercussions are quite interesting, mind you:
The spider drive ships would be slower, less maneuverable and in the depths of hyperspace they would be pure "ambush predators", using graser torpedoes for long-range attacks and energy broadsides for short ranges, at which point their massive armor would serve them very well, but they would be dangerous in the immediate zone of interception, while Warshawski-sail equipped ships would be able to maneuver much better(due to the higher acceleration that Warshawskis allow them).

torongill wrote:

However, we also know that spider drive ships can use wormholes, which means they must be able to generate Warshawski sails. Warshawski sails do not restrict the shape of the ship the way impeller wedges do, so apparently sails are not incompatible with the spider drive. If they install Warshawski sails on spider drive ships, then it makes sense for them to also install inertial compensators to use while using those sails.

Warshawski sails are a modification of impeller wedge drive for hyperspace travel, which allows a much higher acceleration and a much better energy management, which makes hyperspace travel infinitely cheaper and safer, since Warshawski sails allow ships to use grav waves in hyperspace and provide their energy budget from that wave. But it all stems from the impeller drive.

The Spider drive is a new type of propulsion, it has nothing to do with impeller wedge drive. We just don't have enough information, but it's possible that the spider drive legs can latch onto the grav wave and provide propulsion. The inertial compensator doesn't need an impeller wedge, but without the impeller the compensator allows compensation of 150 G to felt 5G, and it doesn't stack with grav plates. It is also dependent on the mass and volume the inertia of which it has to compensate. I'd say that the compensation factor of a 12+ million ton Dettweiler class would be much lower than those 150 G.

The repercussions are quite interesting, mind you:
The spider drive ships would be slower, less maneuverable and in the depths of hyperspace they would be pure "ambush predators", using graser torpedoes for long-range attacks and energy broadsides for short ranges, at which point their massive armor would serve them very well, but they would be dangerous in the immediate zone of interception, while Warshawski-sail equipped ships would be able to maneuver much better(due to the higher acceleration that Warshawskis allow them).

David has stated that spider drive ships can use wormholes. He has also explicitly stated that a Warshawski sail is necessary to navigate a wormhole. Therefore, spider drive ships must have Warshawski sails.

Yes, Warshawski sails derive from the same technology as impeller wedges. However, it is possible to build a ship that can generate Warshawski sails but not impeller wedges. Impeller wedges impose certain constraints on the shape of the ship. Warshawski sails do not. David has said this. The shape imposed by impeller wedges is incompatible with the shape imposed by the spider drive. Apparently, Warshawski sails are not incompatible with the spider drive.

If the spider drive ship has Warshawski sails, as proven above, then the spider drive ship could also have an inertial compensator to take advantage of the high accelerations in a grav wave. Of course, if the spider drive ships are as large as some have suggested, then it can't have an inertial compensator, but I have always been wary of those large size predictions.

SWM wrote:David has stated that spider drive ships can use wormholes. He has also explicitly stated that a Warshawski sail is necessary to navigate a wormhole. Therefore, spider drive ships must have Warshawski sails.

Yes, Warshawski sails derive from the same technology as impeller wedges. However, it is possible to build a ship that can generate Warshawski sails but not impeller wedges. Impeller wedges impose certain constraints on the shape of the ship. Warshawski sails do not. David has said this. The shape imposed by impeller wedges is incompatible with the shape imposed by the spider drive. Apparently, Warshawski sails are not incompatible with the spider drive.

If the spider drive ship has Warshawski sails, as proven above, then the spider drive ship could also have an inertial compensator to take advantage of the high accelerations in a grav wave. Of course, if the spider drive ships are as large as some have suggested, then it can't have an inertial compensator, but I have always been wary of those large size predictions.

Actually I believe his wording was closer to "what makes you think they [spider ships] can't use wormholes"

OTOH with sails remember you get a roughly 10x accel boost from a compensator in a grav wave due to the immensely deeper grav sump the 'wave provides (compared to any ship's wedge)
So even if the spider ship is big enough to have a sub 100g if it had had an impeller it could still pull almost a thousand g in a 'wave - allowing it to get up to top speed in semi reasonable amount of time.

torongill wrote:
(snip)

The repercussions are quite interesting, mind you:
The spider drive ships would be slower, less maneuverable and in the depths of hyperspace they would be pure "ambush predators", using graser torpedoes for long-range attacks and energy broadsides for short ranges, at which point their massive armor would serve them very well, but they would be dangerous in the immediate zone of interception, while Warshawski-sail equipped ships would be able to maneuver much better(due to the higher acceleration that Warshawskis allow them).

nits:
1) I'm not sure why we need assume the spider ships are less 'maneuverable'. Could you explain how you mean this? I can conceive how, with all those presumably independently manipulatable drive elements they may be MORE maneuverable, at least within their accel envelope. Or not.

2)Warshawski sails are not used for general hyperspace maneuvering. Impellers are used in most of hyperspace just as they are in n-space. W. sails are used for:
a) grav wave survival & navigation, and
b) worm hole transit.
(As a side note, tMWW has said in pearls that interception & battle in a grav wave is the rarest of all hostile encounters, and no navy compromises other warfighting and operational features to optimize for it.)

3)Interceptions in hyperspace AT ALL have also been stated to be pretty rare and difficult, despite the one or two instances we have seen in the books. For one thing, the energetically chaotic environment of hyperspace makes detection and acquisition very problematical.

dreamrider

SWM wrote:(snip)
If the spider drive ship has Warshawski sails, as proven above, then the spider drive ship could also have an inertial compensator to take advantage of the high accelerations in a grav wave. Of course, if the spider drive ships are as large as some have suggested, then it can't have an inertial compensator, but I have always been wary of those large size predictions.

Well, we know from textev (?pearl?) that Sharks are 'about battleship' sized. We further know from various thoughts and discussions of the Detweiller clan, and MAN officers, that the Leonard Detweiller class is much larger than the Sharks. We also know that the Lenny Dets are taking an real long time to build (a measure of mass for all ship types), apparently well over 2 years and maybe as long as 4+, even with the resources of Darius essentially devoted to the task. Finally, we know that the Lenny Dets the magazines and tubes to carry and launch graser torpedoes internally, whereas Sharks are far too small for that and had to make do with carrying 1 or 2 graser trops on jury rigged external racks (18 torps in the Hepaestus attack, 15 Sharks in that task force - parcel them out as you wish).

Just for wild ass guess sake, let's assume that a Shark with two torps strapped on, and some missile pods aboard to drop, equates to an oversized motor torpedo boat as the minimum platform to deploy the weapon systems. The largest of those in the WWII era were ~100 tons. Let's further assume further that a Shark weighs in as a smallish BB, at ~3.5M Tonnes.

Then we will assume that the Leonard Detweiler class full-up stealth attack ships are proportionally as much larger than the Shark class as a smallish WWII submarine was larger than the largest era T-boats. Seems vaguely appropriate to me since the submarines were optimized as stealthy, long range, primary torpedo employment platforms. The smallest effective submarines of WWII were ~700-800 tons.

So that gives us a SWAG (Sophisticated Wild Ass Guess) ratio between the minimum platform and the optimum platform of ~1:8.

Now let's cut that in half, just because that seems like a wa-a-ay out there figure. Make our working estimate ratio between the minimum spider torpedo platform and the optimum spider torpedo platform ~1:4.

With the Shark at a smallish BB tonnage of 3.5M tonnes, that would put my notional Lenny Det up in the range of 14M tonnes...plus, in my opinion.

Remember, according to the text description of the functioning of the spider drive in MoH, spider drive ships are not constrained in size by any of the drive or related system characteristics.

They would be constrained if they also mounted impellers, but we know from the descriptions of forts that impeller drives, with low top accel compensation limits, are used on forts up to 16T or more.

Folks here have mentioned/implied that compensators are necessary for W. sail travel in grav waves and in wormholes. Do we really have textev for that? I couldn't find any.

We do know that somehow ships and crews ARE able to survive grav wave entry and sailing at effective accelerations that are nominally vastly greater than their compensator ratings. I assume that this is either because gravitic 'medium' of the grav wave is 'flowing' in such a way that the relative acceleration is within the limits of the available compensator, or because the compensator is somehow able to operate much more efficiently in the medium of the grav wave.

As for wormholes, it is an effectively instantaneous transit, at very low ship produced acceleration, through an anomaly in space time. I'm perfectly willing to believe that accel compensation doesn't matter at all, due to the handwavium corona of the transit event.

Just some food for thought.

dreamrider