Early Warning Picket for Beowulf

OrlandoNative wrote:We know they have the FTL comm, they used it to talk to Tsang. While the remote platform was probably a standard Hermes buoy, the BSDF flagship at least needed to have a FTL comm suite installed. If the flagship has it, there's no reason the rest of the fleet couldn't/wouldn't; as well.

Not necessarily.

A Hermes Buoy close by relaying to/through a Hermes Buoy close to Tsang's flagship would work just as well. Beowulf's ships don't need the FTL comm suite as long as the area/system is well-seeded with Hermes Buoys.

Weird Harold wrote:

OrlandoNative wrote:We know they have the FTL comm, they used it to talk to Tsang. While the remote platform was probably a standard Hermes buoy, the BSDF flagship at least needed to have a FTL comm suite installed. If the flagship has it, there's no reason the rest of the fleet couldn't/wouldn't; as well.

Not necessarily.

A Hermes Buoy close by relaying to/through a Hermes Buoy close to Tsang's flagship would work just as well. Beowulf's ships don't need the FTL comm suite as long as the area/system is well-seeded with Hermes Buoys.

Or, they just route their comms through one of Truman's ships. Sollies wouldn't know either way.

Rob

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:Or, they just route their comms through one of Truman's ships. Sollies wouldn't know either way.

Rob

That would work for that particular situation, but not for the general "Beowulf has FTL Communications" situation.
Truman won't be anywhere near Beowulf proper during the plebiscite and presumptive "Defense of Beowulf from the SLN" where FTL communications will provide a distinct advantage for the BSDF, even if Mycroft isn't fully up and running.

Weird Harold wrote:

OrlandoNative wrote:We know they have the FTL comm, they used it to talk to Tsang. While the remote platform was probably a standard Hermes buoy, the BSDF flagship at least needed to have a FTL comm suite installed. If the flagship has it, there's no reason the rest of the fleet couldn't/wouldn't; as well.

Not necessarily.

A Hermes Buoy close by relaying to/through a Hermes Buoy close to Tsang's flagship would work just as well. Beowulf's ships don't need the FTL comm suite as long as the area/system is well-seeded with Hermes Buoys.

Or the flagship could have a RMN recon drone on-board or strapped-on externally. We've seen this twice in the Honorverse to supply FTL communications to ships that don't normally have that capability. (Prince Adrian in In Enemy Hands, the Nuncio LACs and Hexapuma's pinnace in The Shadow of Saganami.)

Weird Harold wrote:

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:Or, they just route their comms through one of Truman's ships. Sollies wouldn't know either way.

Rob

That would work for that particular situation, but not for the general "Beowulf has FTL Communications" situation.
Truman won't be anywhere near Beowulf proper during the plebiscite and presumptive "Defense of Beowulf from the SLN" where FTL communications will provide a distinct advantage for the BSDF, even if Mycroft isn't fully up and running.

But, as far as I have seen, Beowulf may not have FTL capability at this time, in general use. Anyway, I was only commenting on the conversation between the Admirals.

Rob

Weird Harold wrote:

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:Or, they just route their comms through one of Truman's ships. Sollies wouldn't know either way.

Rob

That would work for that particular situation, but not for the general "Beowulf has FTL Communications" situation.
Truman won't be anywhere near Beowulf proper during the plebiscite and presumptive "Defense of Beowulf from the SLN" where FTL communications will provide a distinct advantage for the BSDF, even if Mycroft isn't fully up and running.

I think you missed the implication of the discussion. Someone suggested that the fact that the Beowulf commander used a Hermes buoy to talk to Tsang is proof that Beowulf ships already have FTL capability built in. Neo-Bob was only pointing out that this was not necessarily true. So the situation stands--we don't know whether Beowulf has FTL comms on their ships.

kzt wrote:And that it is trivial to do, because in the Honorverse massive revisions to hardware combined with enormous changes to software that controls tens out thousands of missiles that are each capable of killing everyone on a planet don't require full acceptance testing or even detailed regression testing, they can just be popped out and will just work perfectly every time.

And all built to DO-160 Level A standards (mission critical, life critical, it breaks, you (and 2000 of your closest friends), all die). The first time.

SWM wrote:I think you missed the implication of the discussion.

I missed nothing.

Bob was responding to my assertion that two Hermes Buoys could have been used, rather than the BSDF ship(s) having FTL Comms.

To further expand: A freighter load of Hermes Buoys scattered through the Beowulf system would give the BSDF FTL comms (and anyone else with the proper codes.) It would be a much cheaper and faster way of giving the BSDF FTL comms without a SDF-wide modification program.

Weird Harold wrote:

SWM wrote:I think you missed the implication of the discussion.

I missed nothing.

Bob was responding to my assertion that two Hermes Buoys could have been used, rather than the BSDF ship(s) having FTL Comms.

To further expand: A freighter load of Hermes Buoys scattered through the Beowulf system would give the BSDF FTL comms (and anyone else with the proper codes.) It would be a much cheaper and faster way of giving the BSDF FTL comms without a SDF-wide modification program.

Yes, but Bob was saying that your assertion that two Hermes Buoys could have been used was irrelevant to the question which was being discussed up to that point. That question was whether Beowulf ships already had FTL capability built in. Yes, we all know that they could use Hermes buoys as a cheap FTL comm system, but that wasn't what was being discussed.

Thanks, gents, for the interest!

But, I don't think Beowulf would have dropped Hermes Buoys all over the system YET, because I don't think the RMN gave them enough. It is TOO SOON, and just building them if you don't already have a line up will eat up lots of time--as all the engineers will scream about.

Putting FTL (older style) might have been done, but why? Beowulf wasn't intending to shuffle out of the League, and they were avoiding giving the SLN any clues about Manti capability. So, why spend the money to install (and maintain) something you aren't planning to use?

Will they adapt to some method of adding it now? Sure, if the now is Sep/Oct 2022. But there is a limit to how many of these buoys exist, and they are already deployed out with the Fleet, and in RMN sovereign areas. And, unlike a few others here on the boards (total optimists ), I am skeptical of too rapid a change in tech. I think rather than mass introduction of RMN tech, they'll be leveraging the existing (but better) tech first, while Beowulf ramps up; and the ramp-up won't start without funds--so the really BIG muscle up will be after the plebescite, imo.

There. Something different to argue over.
Regards, all.

Rob