Captured Solly SDs

Lord Skimper wrote:There is one thing that the captured Solly SD would be good at, you use them as a hidden base that is stationed in a gravity wave in hyperspace. Keep it outside of the civilian bands and each ship would be part of a parked fleet of ships. No missiles would be used, in the gravity wave, so all those Grasers would be great.

Each ship will be able to park, using its warshawski sail to provide power and sensors. when they need supplies they just travel to a N space base and restock then return. They should be able to stay on station for months if not years. All missile ammo storage and feeds could be removed and converted into research labs, etc....

Well, as suggestions go, it does at least provide a role for the ships' armor and energy weapons.

That said - The SD's still aren't designed for grav wave combat: no top and bottom armor, too much tonnage blown on missiles, sensors in many of the wrong places. That's forgivable - nothing is designed for grav wave combat, because it does not happen enough. Space is big. Finding something and committing it to combat even in a grav wave is hard to do. And under this suggestion, the SD's aren't even trying. The idea seems to be to park them somewhere and... I don't know. Wait for someone to pop by? Do research... on a warship... out of communication with any other researchers or data bases?

It still founders on the usual problems with any of the captured SD uses: building something to do whatever the proposed job is will deliver something so much better at it calling for vastly fewer people and generally at lower cost than even refitting this thing to do it. A purpose-built grav wave combatant - or hidden research station, if there's any rationale for one in a grav wave - would do much better with fewer people for much less cost, if there's a point to such thing at all.

On the silly idea scale, and yes, knowing that it takes way too many crew to make this really workable, but playing theoretical....

Let's say the GA could line those suckers with pods, and put them in a hyperspace orbit around Beowulf ready to pop out should the Mandarin's pet attack plan come to fruition. I'm positing that a cruiser like a Sag-C or Nike would be the controller, btw.

Which is my real question anyway... Could you orbit a system in hyper without being easy to find?

SharkHunter wrote:Which is my real question anyway... Could you orbit a system in hyper without being easy to find?

I don't see why not. Outside a grav wave, there's no need to keep a wedge or sails up, so you're not emitting the usual gravitic signature. Detection conditions in hyper are lousy in addition. Nothing prevents the use of stealth systems on top of that. And near the hyper limit is a huge volume, so you can be far from any usual spots for would-be detectors. Inside the hyper limit you won't be able to pop out of hyper without moving outside the limit first, but you'll be in a place even less likely to draw anyone looking. And you've got multiple hyper bands in which to hide. Higher level ones will be unlikely places for would-be detectors coming into the system or leaving it to be in at that stage of their voyage.

So yes - it's an awesome place to get lost. The more useful places in hyper - just outside the limit, in the alpha band, in tactically likely relevant places - will all be harder to hide in because they represent vastly smaller volumes in which to look, but "harder" is entirely relative.

JeffEngel wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:Which is my real question anyway... Could you orbit a system in hyper without being easy to find?

I don't see why not. Outside a grav wave, there's no need to keep a wedge or sails up, so you're not emitting the usual gravitic signature. Detection conditions in hyper are lousy in addition. Nothing prevents the use of stealth systems on top of that. And near the hyper limit is a huge volume, so you can be far from any usual spots for would-be detectors. Inside the hyper limit you won't be able to pop out of hyper without moving outside the limit first, but you'll be in a place even less likely to draw anyone looking. And you've got multiple hyper bands in which to hide. Higher level ones will be unlikely places for would-be detectors coming into the system or leaving it to be in at that stage of their voyage.

So yes - it's an awesome place to get lost. The more useful places in hyper - just outside the limit, in the alpha band, in tactically likely relevant places - will all be harder to hide in because they represent vastly smaller volumes in which to look, but "harder" is entirely relative.

Well with out the gravity of the system in hyper you technically wouldn't be 'in orbit' But otherwise I agree; hiding in hyper near systems seems quite possible.


I'd say evidence to that effect is that, even after the "Paul Revere" tactic became widely know, nobody's DD scouts have (as of yet) detected such a force lurking nearby in hyper waiting to spring the trap.

Since I tend to assume that the military strategists, by and large, aren't idiots I take that to mean that either
a) the DDs escorting raids do search nearby hyper as best they're able but it's still so difficult to detect a lurking force that they've yet to successfully do so; or
b) the likelihood of detection is known to be so low that it's a waste of resources to even try; those DDs are best employed elsewhere during a raid.


But I'm just speaking to the general tactic of having a reserve force in hyper; I'm not supporting trying to use captured SLN SDs that way.

SharkHunter wrote:On the silly idea scale, and yes, knowing that it takes way too many crew to make this really workable, but playing theoretical....

Let's say the GA could line those suckers with pods, and put them in a hyperspace orbit around Beowulf ready to pop out should the Mandarin's pet attack plan come to fruition. I'm positing that a cruiser like a Sag-C or Nike would be the controller, btw.

Which is my real question anyway... Could you orbit a system in hyper without being easy to find?

You could not "orbit" in hyperspace, since stars do not exert gravitational pull into hyperspace. You could certainly maneuver stealthily, or even better just sit still.

I would recommend sitting still. The only way to navigate in hyperspace is with inertial guidance, and it is not 100% accurate. Maneuvering around near the hyper limit for weeks or months at a time, you could easily drift across that line and accidentally try to transit on the wrong side of the hyper limit. That would be bad.

As to the basic idea, I don't see any real point. That's the kind of thing you do if you know an attack is imminent. There's no good reason to leave a force out there indefinitely, "just in case".

You already implied that there's no reason to use the Solarian ships (as opposed to other ships that they have available) for this, so I won't belabor that point.

--snipping-- with an evil grin...

SWM wrote:As to the basic idea, I don't see any real point. That's the kind of thing you do if you know an attack is imminent. There's no good reason to leave a force out there indefinitely, "just in case".

You already implied that there's no reason to use the Solarian ships (as opposed to other ships that they have available) for this, so I won't belabor that point.

Two words: Freakout value, aka the Beowulf defense the "just in case".

To go with earlier posts about shooting the SLN ships with sorta their own bullets, and doing their best to make certain Solarian admirals lose bowels in skinsuits before the Beowulfan' defense forces even light off their impellers to clean up the leftover trash.

SharkHunter wrote:--snipping-- with an evil grin...

SWM wrote:As to the basic idea, I don't see any real point. That's the kind of thing you do if you know an attack is imminent. There's no good reason to leave a force out there indefinitely, "just in case".

You already implied that there's no reason to use the Solarian ships (as opposed to other ships that they have available) for this, so I won't belabor that point.

Two words: Freakout value, aka the Beowulf defense the "just in case".

To go with earlier posts about shooting the SLN ships with sorta their own bullets, and doing their best to make certain Solarian admirals lose bowels in skinsuits before the Beowulfan' defense forces even light off their impellers to clean up the leftover trash.

Well, you can still use SLN muntions aganist the SLN.
You could take any surviving SLN pods and a ****load of the capital ship missiles off the SDs surrendered at Manticore and then Beowulf could jury-rig the missiles onto a number of existing system defence pods etc. Of course you would have to play with both the power supplies for pods, the software to receive Beowulf tactial signals and deal with targeting and directing said missiles. When the SLN shows up to "deal with" the plebecite, the initial defensive lauches against SLN ships would be from those "defensive pods" which were clearly loaded with "standard" SLN capital ship missiles"- of course they "were", the SLN can read the emission signatures of the missiles.
Silly Beowulf will have launched them at extrem range in an attempt to get the SLN to turn away or to start attrition of the attacking ships. In a timeframe to have modern RMN missiles arrive in at the point to match the laserhead range of the former SLN weapons, you launch (at maximum acceleration)the dual/multi drive weapons that are internal to the pods. That puts the both types of weapons in the attack phase at the same time. Guess what weapons the SLN CM's. and lightspeed weapons will focus on? The SLN ships will be busy shooting at highly visable attacking weapons (the ones that are really easy to see) and the more potent and much faster moving RMN munitions will have a much higher survial rate (still better than their already astronomial rates against SLN defense) and probably gut the SLN forces.
At the very least you could flush bunches of SLN weapons down the attack paths of the incomming ships and force them to either accept flying thought a cloud of their own weapons or maneuvering to avoid them. Essentialy throwing minefields into their paths using SLN weapons.

Brigade XO wrote:
Well, you can still use SLN muntions aganist the SLN.
You could take any surviving SLN pods and a ****load of the capital ship missiles off the SDs surrendered at Manticore and then Beowulf could jury-rig the missiles onto a number of existing system defence pods etc. Of course you would have to play with both the power supplies for pods, the software to receive Beowulf tactial signals and deal with targeting and directing said missiles. When the SLN shows up to "deal with" the plebecite, the initial defensive lauches against SLN ships would be from those "defensive pods" which were clearly loaded with "standard" SLN capital ship missiles"- of course they "were", the SLN can read the emission signatures of the missiles.
Silly Beowulf will have launched them at extrem range in an attempt to get the SLN to turn away or to start attrition of the attacking ships. In a timeframe to have modern RMN missiles arrive in at the point to match the laserhead range of the former SLN weapons, you launch (at maximum acceleration)the dual/multi drive weapons that are internal to the pods. That puts the both types of weapons in the attack phase at the same time. Guess what weapons the SLN CM's. and lightspeed weapons will focus on? The SLN ships will be busy shooting at highly visable attacking weapons (the ones that are really easy to see) and the more potent and much faster moving RMN munitions will have a much higher survial rate (still better than their already astronomial rates against SLN defense) and probably gut the SLN forces.
At the very least you could flush bunches of SLN weapons down the attack paths of the incomming ships and force them to either accept flying thought a cloud of their own weapons or maneuvering to avoid them. Essentialy throwing minefields into their paths using SLN weapons.

I guess you could. I guess the captured SDs would have a reasonable number of cataphracts in their magazines (admittedly not ones with SD weight laserheads; those were oversized and only carried in the, presumably all expended, pods).

If you used SLN SDM capital missiles you'd give up too much range (as well as letting the SLN ships you were targetting into their own effective SDM range).
Even in full power 3-stage sprint an MDM has twice the range of an SDM in 50% power mode (14.6 million km vs 7.3 million km)



Mind you I still don't see the point unless you had a gross surplus of control channels; otherwise the ex-SLN missiles are simply reducing the number of far more effective RMN misssiles you can launch/control.

SWM wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:Granted that I was guilty of resurrecting this thread once before, but since "here 'tis again...." in the "defense of Beowulf" role [already mostly suggested and dead] but picture these ships basically drone level crewed lighting off their drives from flanking positions in space, then starting to drop big salvos of DDMs from exterior rack mounted pods simply to screw up the SLN's wall formation and maneuvering.*

Once that SD is out of missiles, slave it as a missile itself at the SLN formation, then the few crew on the SD bail via pinnaces, shuttles etc. and get the heck out of the way. Stack them in two groups, do it twice, etc... Who knows, they might even take out a few SLN ships on the edges of an SLN wall? and at worst burn up a lot of the attacker's CM fire, totally screwing up the SLN's defensive capability.

By the time any SLN formation actually got in range of the Beowulf forces, they'd likely be less organized for mutual defense, making them much more vulnerable to destruction in detail or yet another forced surrender. That doesn't even count what the GA will do in mutual support from stealth if their hand is forced.

*I'm thinking that the actual missile controller would be in-system (likely a Sag-C sold to the Beowulfans in the mean time).

Two problems. One: it takes a lot more crew than you seem to think just to get an old-style superdreadnought moving. Two: there is strong speculation that missiles need to be controlled from behind, not from in front. It would make sense if the control links on a missile are on the rear and not the front of a missile.

I wasn't going to read this thread, but then I found some time. And I didn't intend to post either. But there is another reason to join with those who prefer to activate Manticoran reserve ships.


I don't intend to irritatthe proponents of whatever scheme or proposal --just remind folks that Filareta's Fleet had at most 18000 missiles possible in their salvos, due to limitations of their fire control (stated by Harrington); and 427 SDs, each with 32 missile tube broadsides. Dividing that potential salvo by the launching ships gives at most 42 missiles per ship. I believe this to be the main reason the ships are utterly useless- it is only about 10 percent of a pod-layers control links.

The real reason I am posting this is SWM's comment about missiles not being controlled by ships in front of the missile platforms. That seems to be directly contradicted by Roszak's arsenal ships, and his "forward control" Marksman and Warrior class ships, with "most of their extra tonnage going into fire control, not extra weapons", to paraphrase chapter two of TOF.

So, I would be interested where the idea came from that the direction of the controlling ship in regard to the missiles position came from--first time I ever saw that idea expressed.

I don't spend much time online anymore though--haven't browsed through here in a couple months.

Regards,

Rob

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:

SWM wrote:Two problems. One: it takes a lot more crew than you seem to think just to get an old-style superdreadnought moving. Two: there is strong speculation that missiles need to be controlled from behind, not from in front. It would make sense if the control links on a missile are on the rear and not the front of a missile.

I wasn't going to read this thread, but then I found some time. And I didn't intend to post either. But there is another reason to join with those who prefer to activate Manticoran reserve ships.


I don't intend to irritatthe proponents of whatever scheme or proposal --just remind folks that Filareta's Fleet had at most 18000 missiles possible in their salvos, due to limitations of their fire control (stated by Harrington); and 427 SDs, each with 32 missile tube broadsides. Dividing that potential salvo by the launching ships gives at most 42 missiles per ship. I believe this to be the main reason the ships are utterly useless- it is only about 10 percent of a pod-layers control links.

The real reason I am posting this is SWM's comment about missiles not being controlled by ships in front of the missile platforms. That seems to be directly contradicted by Roszak's arsenal ships, and his "forward control" Marksman and Warrior class ships, with "most of their extra tonnage going into fire control, not extra weapons", to paraphrase chapter two of TOF.

So, I would be interested where the idea came from that the direction of the controlling ship in regard to the missiles position came from--first time I ever saw that idea expressed.

I don't spend much time online anymore though--haven't browsed through here in a couple months.

Regards,

Rob

Actually Roszak's "forward control" Marksmen were between his arsenal ship freighters and the People's Navy in Exile ships they were engaging. That's possition would potentially allow them to take control of the missiles after they'd overflow the Marksmen; which would be compatible with only rear-facing control links. (But would require the arsenal ships have the ability to feed at least basic flight data and launch orders to the missiles they were carrying; though they wouldn't need to hold a control link after launch)