Nitpicking at A Rising Thunder...

Relax wrote:Ok, maybe I have a screw loose, but why the Hell are we talking about sitting in a lane READY to transit instead of how long it takes when EXITING a Wormhole to change to impeller drive and get sidewalls up???

For hyperdrive use, we have SD times and I think DD times for initiation times if we really want to for maneuvering through a WHJ transit. Of course can still have impeller drive up and sidewalls under this scenario, until one is ready to switch to W-sail and hyperdrive to transit.

Perhaps you are talking about something else. What everyone else is talking about is Manticore holding both sides of the wormhole. The League jumps into the system, in an attempt to get to graser range and take out the picket. The question was this: if the SLN transits at or near graser range from the wormhole terminus, can a Manticoran ship escape through the wormhole with the news before SLN grasers blow it out of the sky?

[edit]The answer is that even if the SLN ship transits at SDM range, the SLN ship can take out the fleeing ship while it prepares to go through the wormhole and its wedge and sidewalls are down. The transiting ship will be vulnerable longer than SDM duration.[/edit]

kzt wrote:

crewdude48 wrote:An obvious solution would be to station most of the wormhole denial ships away from the wormhole. If you have the wormhole englobed from just under maximum effective MK16 range, it would be all but impossible for an attacking force to wipe out the defenders. And if the RMN ships are not destroyed right away, they should be able to fight most attacking forces off.

Put a couple of LACs or DDs in close to deal with traffic control, and have a few other small boys going back and forth every half hour or so to keep the other side updated.

This is what we call a recipe for defeat in detail. You have cleverly placed your ships such that if the SLN jumps a perimeter ship the rest are out of effective range. Which means you get to watch them blow up part of your squadron and then escape back to hyperspace.

Can I request the next clever plan?

Jumping the perimeter ships depends on finding those ships when you jump in - not exactly a given if they're lying doggo; or under stealth.

But either way escaping back into hyper seems unlikely; at least doing so basically unscathed.
It'll take upwards of 10 minutes for the SLN ships' hyper generators to recharge from jumping in. That's more than enough time for the rest of the squadron to light them up with Mk16s.

crewdude48 wrote:An obvious solution would be to station most of the wormhole denial ships away from the wormhole. If you have the wormhole englobed from just under maximum effective MK16 range, it would be all but impossible for an attacking force to wipe out the defenders. And if the RMN ships are not destroyed right away, they should be able to fight most attacking forces off.

Put a couple of LACs or DDs in close to deal with traffic control, and have a few other small boys going back and forth every half hour or so to keep the other side updated.

kzt wrote:This is what we call a recipe for defeat in detail. You have cleverly placed your ships such that if the SLN jumps a perimeter ship the rest are out of effective range. Which means you get to watch them blow up part of your squadron and then escape back to hyperspace.

Can I request the next clever plan?

Jonathan_S wrote:Jumping the perimeter ships depends on finding those ships when you jump in - not exactly a given if they're lying doggo; or under stealth.

But either way escaping back into hyper seems unlikely; at least doing so basically unscathed.
It'll take upwards of 10 minutes for the SLN ships' hyper generators to recharge from jumping in. That's more than enough time for the rest of the squadron to light them up with Mk16s.

It also requires detailed, and up to date, information on the picket's disposition - which has to be gathered somehow.
Oddly, I suspect that the Manticoran detachments responsible for inspections are going to want very good explanations for military grade sensor suites, and those ships with inadequate explanations will be denied transit, denied close approach to any of the picket's ships, and possibly seized, depending. That means the SLN's most reliable bet is going to be dropping a scout out of hyper and sending in recon drones, which are a going to be greatly inferior source of information, and definitely outclassed by the Manticoran recon drones, and probably inadequate against Manticoran stealth tech.
And then, once you somehow manage to get current and reliable information, you need very good navigation - microjumps, which is what this essentially would be, are a lot harder than long jumps.


This, of course, ignores the possibility that the Manticoran picket may have somebody (or two ships) sitting stealthed in hyper to watch for somebody trying to jump them.


Besides, while the pickets are going to be spread out, they're not going to all be at max effective Mark-16 range. There'll be one or two ships, probably supported by LACs, at probably 3-5 light seconds from the terminus. If there are Shrikes along, there might be a couple in stealth closer in, just in case they need to murderize somebody trying to launch an assault through the wormhole against them.

Everybody else will likely be within a light-minute or so, and most of them will be in stealth - and anybody not in stealth is probably a decoy, or has decoys predeployed, if not active. The Manticoran recon drone shell will be significantly further out, however.

Kytheros wrote:

crewdude48 wrote:An obvious solution would be to station most of the wormhole denial ships away from the wormhole. If you have the wormhole englobed from just under maximum effective MK16 range, it would be all but impossible for an attacking force to wipe out the defenders. And if the RMN ships are not destroyed right away, they should be able to fight most attacking forces off.

Put a couple of LACs or DDs in close to deal with traffic control, and have a few other small boys going back and forth every half hour or so to keep the other side updated.

kzt wrote:This is what we call a recipe for defeat in detail. You have cleverly placed your ships such that if the SLN jumps a perimeter ship the rest are out of effective range. Which means you get to watch them blow up part of your squadron and then escape back to hyperspace.

Can I request the next clever plan?

Jonathan_S wrote:Jumping the perimeter ships depends on finding those ships when you jump in - not exactly a given if they're lying doggo; or under stealth.

But either way escaping back into hyper seems unlikely; at least doing so basically unscathed.
It'll take upwards of 10 minutes for the SLN ships' hyper generators to recharge from jumping in. That's more than enough time for the rest of the squadron to light them up with Mk16s.

It also requires detailed, and up to date, information on the picket's disposition - which has to be gathered somehow.
Oddly, I suspect that the Manticoran detachments responsible for inspections are going to want very good explanations for military grade sensor suites, and those ships with inadequate explanations will be denied transit, denied close approach to any of the picket's ships, and possibly seized, depending. That means the SLN's most reliable bet is going to be dropping a scout out of hyper and sending in recon drones, which are a going to be greatly inferior source of information, and definitely outclassed by the Manticoran recon drones, and probably inadequate against Manticoran stealth tech.
And then, once you somehow manage to get current and reliable information, you need very good navigation - microjumps, which is what this essentially would be, are a lot harder than long jumps.


This, of course, ignores the possibility that the Manticoran picket may have somebody (or two ships) sitting stealthed in hyper to watch for somebody trying to jump them.


Besides, while the pickets are going to be spread out, they're not going to all be at max effective Mark-16 range. There'll be one or two ships, probably supported by LACs, at probably 3-5 light seconds from the terminus. If there are Shrikes along, there might be a couple in stealth closer in, just in case they need to murderize somebody trying to launch an assault through the wormhole against them.

Everybody else will likely be within a light-minute or so, and most of them will be in stealth - and anybody not in stealth is probably a decoy, or has decoys predeployed, if not active. The Manticoran recon drone shell will be significantly further out, however.

The key to making this work is that most of your squadron is not out there for everybody to see. Rather it is spread out in stealth with everybody being within mk 16 range of the wormhole. A couple of light cruisers or destroyers visible as the picket serving as bait in the area where you would expect the picket to be...

Negative thought...This plan could be hard on the bait...

Don

SWM wrote:

Relax wrote:Ok, maybe I have a screw loose, but why the Hell are we talking about sitting in a lane READY to transit instead of how long it takes when EXITING a Wormhole to change to impeller drive and get sidewalls up???

For hyperdrive use, we have SD times and I think DD times for initiation times if we really want to for maneuvering through a WHJ transit. Of course can still have impeller drive up and sidewalls under this scenario, until one is ready to switch to W-sail and hyperdrive to transit.

Perhaps you are talking about something else. What everyone else is talking about is Manticore holding both sides of the wormhole. The League jumps into the system, in an attempt to get to graser range and take out the picket. The question was this: if the SLN transits at or near graser range from the wormhole terminus, can a Manticoran ship escape through the wormhole with the news before SLN grasers blow it out of the sky?

[edit]The answer is that even if the SLN ship transits at SDM range, the SLN ship can take out the fleeing ship while it prepares to go through the wormhole and its wedge and sidewalls are down. The transiting ship will be vulnerable longer than SDM duration.[/edit]

And I say that is baloney regarding SDM range and in direct contradiction of the text. Only time one is vulnerable is when one switches between impeller and W-sail. Several times we have seen this happen in the books and it takes a couple of seconds. Then W-sail pulls it through the WH. We saw it in OBS and WoH.

Now, if one can actually transit into Graser range... Well yea: Toasty GA ships.

n7axw wrote:The key to making this work is that most of your squadron is not out there for everybody to see. Rather it is spread out in stealth with everybody being within mk 16 range of the wormhole. A couple of light cruisers or destroyers visible as the picket serving as bait in the area where you would expect the picket to be...

Negative thought...This plan could be hard on the bait...

Don

Plans that rely on the enemy being a total idiot tend to fail in ugly ways.

Relax wrote:

SWM wrote:
And I say that is baloney regarding SDM range and in direct contradiction of the text. Only time one is vulnerable is when one switches between impeller and W-sail. Several times we have seen this happen in the books and it takes a couple of seconds. Then W-sail pulls it through the WH. We saw it in OBS and WoH.

Now, if one can actually transit into Graser range... Well yea: Toasty GA ships.

I am pretty sure we have Word of Weber that a transit actually takes more than a few seconds, up to a couple of minutes for the Manticore Junction. I remember one transit seen where it was stated something along the line of Honor watched the readout crawl upwards until it reached a certain point. No times were mentioned, but the fact that it was a very few lines did indeed imply it was a short amount of time, but it did not contradict taking a few minutes. I will see if I can find a pearl or something, but probably not until I can get to my computer tomorrow.

crewdude48 wrote:I am pretty sure we have Word of Weber that a transit actually takes more than a few seconds, up to a couple of minutes for the Manticore Junction. I remember one transit seen where it was stated something along the line of Honor watched the readout crawl upwards until it reached a certain point. No times were mentioned, but the fact that it was a very few lines did indeed imply it was a short amount of time, but it did not contradict taking a few minutes. I will see if I can find a pearl or something, but probably not until I can get to my computer tomorrow.

Yes, we do.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3107&start=60#p68448

"You come through the terminus. You have no impeller wedge. You cannot drop your Warshawski sails and reconfigure to wedge until you are clear of the grav wave running through the terminus. This takes anywhere from about 20 seconds to as much as 3 minutes, depending on the terminus. (Actually, it can take even longer for some termini because the nature of their internal stresses imposes a very, very low transit velocity.) Until you're clear of the grav wave, none of the ships you plan on launching away from the mothership can bring up their wedges, either, nor can they survive in the gravity wave without using Warshawski sails of their own, which means that the instant they separate from the mothership and began attempting to move independently, they get ripped apart by the aforesaid gravity wave, without even worrying about what any defenders might do to them."

crewdude48 wrote:

Relax wrote:And I say that is baloney regarding SDM range and in direct contradiction of the text. Only time one is vulnerable is when one switches between impeller and W-sail. Several times we have seen this happen in the books and it takes a couple of seconds. Then W-sail pulls it through the WH. We saw it in OBS and WoH.

Now, if one can actually transit into Graser range... Well yea: Toasty GA ships.

I am pretty sure we have Word of Weber that a transit actually takes more than a few seconds, up to a couple of minutes for the Manticore Junction. I remember one transit seen where it was stated something along the line of Honor watched the readout crawl upwards until it reached a certain point. No times were mentioned, but the fact that it was a very few lines did indeed imply it was a short amount of time, but it did not contradict taking a few minutes. I will see if I can find a pearl or something, but probably not until I can get to my computer tomorrow.

The best description of a wormhole transit (starting from the Manticoran Wormhole Junction and going to the Gregor terminus) takes up most of chapter 9 of Honor Among Enemies. It doesn't actually specify the amount of time spent (once traffic control gave clearance to transit) approaching the wormhole to transit, or the amount of time spent clearing the wormhole after completing transit.

As for the time it takes to clear a wormhole after transit, it isn't in a PoW, but was discussed by David in (one of many numerous) Re: SPOILER - finding the torch wormhole's destination.

Presumably it takes the same amount of time to move into the wormhole and then make transit as it does when you transit and then move clear of the wormhole.

You know, I had never read that thread before. I must have been buried at work when it came up.

In short, defending ships on a terminus better be OFF the terminus hiding against a hyper attack. No one is transiting to warn the other side unless there are quite a few ships in a target rich environment.

I suppose one could preposition a ship having their W-sails up and hyper generator always hot at the entrance to the WH. Sitting waiting for the word to run through.