Small Pods.

Draken wrote:You know that sometimes freak hit happened? If something will hit pod with armed missiles and it would be inside wedge, LAC will be destroyed. Wise commander try to prevent freak hits and now we could place Ghost Rider drones on limit and sit waiting for info.

Jonathan_S wrote:

wastedfly wrote:There is a pearl over at thefifthimperium.com that states, compensator field is the limiting factor. Distance from the ship. Minimal is skin depth. You would think designers on newer ships have extended the compensator field at least one pod depth around the entire ship.

My understanding is that compensators are much more sensitive to volume than to actual mass. So I believe that if you were had a compensator covering an area one pod width farther than your hull that you'd get almost the same lowered acceleration of a ship that had a hull of that same greater radius.

That's going to be a significant hit (percentage wise) to a ship, especially a smaller one like a DD or CL, which are only a few pods wide to begin with.


But I don't know if you can design for that size, but normally run it "undersized" to just cover the hull; and if you can whether that's as efficient as just having a normal sized one.

More Than Honor, The Universe of Honor Harrington, (1) Background (General) wrote:Then, in 1384 pd, a physicist by the name of Shigematsu Radhakrishnan added another major breakthrough in the form of the inertial compensator. The compensator turned the grav wave (natural or artificial) associated with a vessel into a sort of "inertial sump," dumping the inertial forces of acceleration into the grav wave and thus exempting the vessel's crew from the g forces associated with acceleration. Within the limits of its efficiency, it completely eliminated g force, placing an accelerating vessel in a permanent state of internal zero-gee, but its capacity to damp inertia was directly proportional to the power of the grav wave around it and inversely proportional to both the volume of the field and the mass of the vessel about which it was generated. The first factor meant that it was far more effective for starships than for sublight ships, as the former drew upon the greater energy of the naturally occurring grav waves of hyper-space, and the second meant it was more effective for smaller ships than for larger ones. The natural grav waves of hyper-space, with their incomparably greater power, offered a much "deeper" sump than the artificial stress bands of the impeller drive, which meant that a Warshawski Sail ship could deflect vastly more g force from its passengers than one under impeller drive. In general terms, the compensator permitted humans to endure acceleration rates approaching 550 g under impeller drive and 4-5,000 g under sail, which allows hyperships to make up "bleed-off" velocity very quickly after translation. These numbers are for military compensators, which tend to be more massive, more energy and maintenance intensive, and much more expensive than those used in most merchant construction. Military compensators allow higher acceleration—and warships cannot afford to be less maneuverable than their foes—but only at the cost of penalties merchant ships as a whole cannot afford.
In practical terms, the maximum acceleration a ship can pull is defined in Figure 2.
These accelerations are with inertial compensator safety margins cut to zero. Normally, warships operate with a 20% safety margin, while MS safety margins run as high as 35%. Note also that the cargo carried by a starship is less important than the table above might suggest. The numbers in Figure 2 use mass as the determining factor, but the size of the field is of very nearly equal importance. A 7.5 million-ton freighter with empty cargo holds would require the same size field as one with full holds, and so would have the same effective acceleration capability.

Vince wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:My understanding is that compensators are much more sensitive to volume than to actual mass. So I believe that if you were had a compensator covering an area one pod width farther than your hull that you'd get almost the same lowered acceleration of a ship that had a hull of that same greater radius.

That's going to be a significant hit (percentage wise) to a ship, especially a smaller one like a DD or CL, which are only a few pods wide to begin with.


But I don't know if you can design for that size, but normally run it "undersized" to just cover the hull; and if you can whether that's as efficient as just having a normal sized one.

The inertial compensator is essentially equally sensitive to both mass and volume:

More Than Honor, The Universe of Honor Harrington, (1) Background (General) wrote:Then, in 1384 pd, a physicist by the name of Shigematsu Radhakrishnan added another major breakthrough in the form of the inertial compensator. The compensator turned the grav wave (natural or artificial) associated with a vessel into a sort of "inertial sump," dumping the inertial forces of acceleration into the grav wave and thus exempting the vessel's crew from the g forces associated with acceleration. Within the limits of its efficiency, it completely eliminated g force, placing an accelerating vessel in a permanent state of internal zero-gee, but its capacity to damp inertia was directly proportional to the power of the grav wave around it and inversely proportional to both the volume of the field and the mass of the vessel about which it was generated. The first factor meant that it was far more effective for starships than for sublight ships, as the former drew upon the greater energy of the naturally occurring grav waves of hyper-space, and the second meant it was more effective for smaller ships than for larger ones. The natural grav waves of hyper-space, with their incomparably greater power, offered a much "deeper" sump than the artificial stress bands of the impeller drive, which meant that a Warshawski Sail ship could deflect vastly more g force from its passengers than one under impeller drive. In general terms, the compensator permitted humans to endure acceleration rates approaching 550 g under impeller drive and 4-5,000 g under sail, which allows hyperships to make up "bleed-off" velocity very quickly after translation. These numbers are for military compensators, which tend to be more massive, more energy and maintenance intensive, and much more expensive than those used in most merchant construction. Military compensators allow higher acceleration—and warships cannot afford to be less maneuverable than their foes—but only at the cost of penalties merchant ships as a whole cannot afford.
In practical terms, the maximum acceleration a ship can pull is defined in Figure 2.
These accelerations are with inertial compensator safety margins cut to zero. Normally, warships operate with a 20% safety margin, while MS safety margins run as high as 35%. Note also that the cargo carried by a starship is less important than the table above might suggest. The numbers in Figure 2 use mass as the determining factor, but the size of the field is of very nearly equal importance. A 7.5 million-ton freighter with empty cargo holds would require the same size field as one with full holds, and so would have the same effective acceleration capability.

Boldface and underlined text is my emphasis.

As for running an inertial compensator 'undersized', it can't be done (unless of course either David or someone from BuNine says it can). An inertial compensator's capacity ( in terms of volume and mass, as well as acceleration loading) is sized to the ship (and its mission) it will be installed in. You may be thinking of the safety factor, where you can accelerate slower than the maximum acceleration load an inertial compensator is designed for.

Also the inertial compensator field (as previously debated on the Honorverse forum) has to extend some distance beyond the basic hull form in order to enclose the parts of the ship that extend past the basic outer hull form (any super [dorsal] or sub [ventral] structure, gravitic sensors [these stick out like blades at 90 degrees to the hull], mechanically steerable radar emitters, antennas, etc).

Missile pods probably are carried in that 'buffer space' between the basic outer hull and the maximum distance from the hull the inertial compensator field extends (avoiding the area around the impeller rings), at least when they are being tractored tight in against the carrying ship's hull.

MaxxQ wrote:

Draken wrote:*quote="Lord Skimper"*1)Pods are all the same size because that is what fits into the Pod Launchers.

2)But Smaller pods would add a great deal of added flexibility to smaller ships.

3)LAC and Frigates would benefit from a smaller pod. Something they can tow without decreasing their performance. A 6 missile MK16 pod would enhance the LAC with better then old school long range missile capabilities. Small enough to be towed without degrading performance capabilities but giving the LAC a great initial long range punch.

4)The CLAC would need to add a single small pod launcher to each LAC Bay. But this wouldn't be too difficult.

5)Even without the LAC the CLAC could launch 100+ 6 Mk16 Missile Pods and greatly enhance it's own capabilities.*quote*
1)False, they're not the same size, designers change shape of them few times. Also older were different shape than newer.
2) RFC in OFE of infodump.thefifthimperium.com said that adding hollow core into SD make him much more vulnerable than normal, it has toughness of prepod DN. Agamemnon isn't the greatest design and it was developed because Navy needed pod laying ship, but Janacek was against building bigger ships. So they created Agamemnon which is good but doesn't have good armor, look at the losses in the battle of Solon.
3) Frigates are used only by smaller navies and smallest design with hollow core was Agamemnon because lesser ships don't have wide enough hull.
LAC are ships which must attack fast, shot ammunition and escape. Pods will make them slower and easier to destroy.
4&5) CLACs are ships were everything is packed very tightly and they're very vulnerable, newer doctrine says that they will launch LACs and get out of system.

Much as I dislike doing this, I find I need to support skimper on point 1). Current gen pods *are* all the same size. Whether they carry 14 Mk-16s, 10 Mk-23s, or 8 Mk-23s and an Apollo Control Missile, the pods all have the same exact dimensions: http://maxxqbunine.deviantart.com/art/P ... -465723504

The rest of his points are just as harebrained as anything else he's posted in the past, and can be safely ignored.

Theemile wrote:*quote="JeffEngel"*[quote="fallsfromtrees"]Of course after you have tractored it to the LAC, since you won't be ablecto get it inside the wedge, you have seriously reduced one of the LAC's major advantages, that of its acceleration, makeing this one of the more brain dead ides I have heard of yet.*quote*
You definitely could not tractor even a single pod inside a LAC's wedge? I ask because I have neither data nor even an impression of the scales involved. I'm not about to advocate for doing it, mind you - I just don't have reason yet to be confident that the plan would fail at that stage.

On the electronics front, the new LACs have EW (and especially ECM) capabilities superior to most light cruisers. Coupled with their much smaller impeller signatures, which are already much less readily detectable than a DD's, that makes them far more stealthy than any other warship yet built. A SHRIKE mounts 3 tractors, which means it can tow up to 3 missile pods, but only with severe degradation of its acceleration curve. A SHRIKE with a single pod suffers a 20% reduction in accel; one with 2 pods suffers a 50% reduction; and one with 3 pods suffers an 80% reduction (max military power accel of only 127.2 gees). In addition, even a single pod on tow requires drive power levels which make stealth very difficult even with all the EW built into the new class.

Lord Skimper wrote:Who needs an SD(P) when you can have a pod layered Roland.