Information I'd love to know

crewdude48 wrote:One thing to keep in mind is angular armor thickening. The same amount of armor is literally thicker, the lower the angle you hit it at. If you hit 10cm of armor at a 90 degree angle to its face, your weapon will have to penetrate 10cm. If you hit 10cm of armor at 45 degrees, you have approximately 15cm of armor, and at 30 degrees, about 20cm of armor.* Considering how shallow the hits on the top of a ship must be, almost no armor will still be, from the weapons point of view, almost as much as on the weapons decks.

*I got those numbers from my memory, so I might be slightly off.

Good point. And even a down the throat shot, which is as plunging as fire can get when your wedge is up, can only come in about a 32 degrees angle (150 km back, but 190/2= 95 km above or below). That gives about an 88% boost to armor thickness. (1.88 times the normal depth)

And I'd previously calculated a broadside impact angle of 21 degrees. (And it's probably have to be shallower). But even 21 degrees give a 178% boost to armor thickness. (2.78 times the normal depth)

Theemile wrote:I'm surprised no one has mentioned the sidewalls. They are not shields, they bend and disperse the beam coming in. To what degree we've never been told, but it's significant enough to protect the ship. In short, if the vulnerability is only a few degrees, the sidewalls may make it impossible to make that shot into the top/bottom vitals from the sides while they operate.

I mentioned them in passing in my post where I calculated the broadside impact angle without sidewalls.

But I couldn't incorporate them into the calculation because we don't know how much they deflect beams. (IIRC they also weaken and defocus impacts that do still hit the ship. So the beam is both directly reduced in power and also spread over a wider area reducing it's ability to penetrate armor)

Please everyone do remember the top of the ship is armored. RFC has even said so. It is just not as thick. As, JohnS displayed for you from the broadside angle, needed thickness is 3X less than broadside for worst case and for down the throat max angle shot, it is 2X less needed than broadside.

Actually Down the Throat is much much worse as there is no sidewall to disperse the beams intensity. Please remember that the sidewall is an Honorverse ships MAIN armor. Not its physical armor. So, when ships got Bucklers and bow/stern sidewalls, this is a BIG DEAL. The main reason Oversteggan won against 4 SLN CA's.

Relax wrote:Please everyone do remember the top of the ship is armored. RFC has even said so.

Well they're (lightly) armored on the bigger ships. On some DDs though even the broadsides don't carry any armor; just a little on the hammerheads.

And of course on the wallers and some BCs there's an inner core armor that wraps all the way around. That one can't skimp much on the top/bottom armor because it could be subject to fire that plunged through the broadside and hit the top of the central hull armor.


But as you said, the sidewall (and now bow/stern walls) are the primary 'armor'.

Does anyone know of any technical information regarding lifepods? As in, what part of the ship are pods normally located? How are they protected, hardened, from general battle damage? Their escape route has to be along a tube, which would seem to be vulnerable to back explosions.

We hear of missile tubes being taken out, but never pod tubes. And we hear of "shoals of pods." Exactly where are they located/launched from?

Caught no joy in the Pearls.

Does any of marvelous MaxxQ's renderings show pod tube location?

Late Edit from Ashes of Victory...

The life pod hatches sprang open as the ministers turned the final bend, and two of Ney's assistants were waiting. They threw their charges into the pods, slammed the hatches, and armed the eject sequence, and then they simply stood there, staring at Ney while their chests heaved with exertion.

Also from Ashes of Victory...

He stared back, and his brain whirred. Part of him wanted to launch the pods now, but if those were laser heads and the people who'd launched them had anticipated such a move, the slow pods would be sitting ducks, despite their armor. Better to leave them where they were. A laser head would shred the unarmored yacht like tissue, but the small, well-armored life pods would have an excellent chance of surviving. Ney and his people, none of whom were in skinsuits, would not, but it was the best chance the men they were sworn to protect had. But if it was an old-fashioned contact nuke . . .

If it's a laser head, they've got a chance, Ney thought. Please, God—please let it be a laser head! he prayed, and bowed his head, waiting.

I always wondered who or what determines when to launch the pods? It seems you don't want to launch too late, for obvious reasons. Yet you wouldn't want to launch too early either.

It seems that there would be many times where hundreds of pods are filled, ready to launch but the launch order never came and the pods and occupants were destroyed.

I can also envision scenarios where pods were launched unnecessarily.

cthia wrote:I always wondered who or what determines when to launch the pods? It seems you don't want to launch too late, for obvious reasons. Yet you wouldn't want to launch too early either.

It seems that there would be many times where hundreds of pods are filled, ready to launch but the launch order never came and the pods and occupants were destroyed.

I can also envision scenarios where pods were launched unnecessarily.

I'd suspect they could be launched from one or more central control stations and on-site. The on-site launch systems are critical, since any other system may have failed and the life pod still be relevant and necessary to launch. And when you're launching life pods, very possibly the only person's judgment that can be communicated effectively at the time is one of the people in the pod or right outside the hatch.

Launching too early isn't much of a problem. Someone in a pod isn't at their duty station, so it's not like you're pulling someone away by launching. Launching in the midst of violent maneuvers isn't a choice idea, but the suffering out of that's all going to fall on the launch-ee, whose choice in launching it presumably was.

JeffEngel wrote:

cthia wrote:I always wondered who or what determines when to launch the pods? It seems you don't want to launch too late, for obvious reasons. Yet you wouldn't want to launch too early either.

It seems that there would be many times where hundreds of pods are filled, ready to launch but the launch order never came and the pods and occupants were destroyed.

I can also envision scenarios where pods were launched unnecessarily.

I'd suspect they could be launched from one or more central control stations and on-site. The on-site launch systems are critical, since any other system may have failed and the life pod still be relevant and necessary to launch. And when you're launching life pods, very possibly the only person's judgment that can be communicated effectively at the time is one of the people in the pod or right outside the hatch.

Launching too early isn't much of a problem. Someone in a pod isn't at their duty station, so it's not like you're pulling someone away by launching. Launching in the midst of violent maneuvers isn't a choice idea, but the suffering out of that's all going to fall on the launch-ee, whose choice in launching it presumably was.

Escape pods can definitely be launched from the pods themselves. Randy Steilman planned to desert the Wayfarer with his buddies aboard an escape pod, after setting a diversionary explosion.

JeffEngel wrote:

cthia wrote:I always wondered who or what determines when to launch the pods? It seems you don't want to launch too late, for obvious reasons. Yet you wouldn't want to launch too early either.

It seems that there would be many times where hundreds of pods are filled, ready to launch but the launch order never came and the pods and occupants were destroyed.

I can also envision scenarios where pods were launched unnecessarily.

I'd suspect they could be launched from one or more central control stations and on-site. The on-site launch systems are critical, since any other system may have failed and the life pod still be relevant and necessary to launch. And when you're launching life pods, very possibly the only person's judgment that can be communicated effectively at the time is one of the people in the pod or right outside the hatch.

Launching too early isn't much of a problem. Someone in a pod isn't at their duty station, so it's not like you're pulling someone away by launching. Launching in the midst of violent maneuvers isn't a choice idea, but the suffering out of that's all going to fall on the launch-ee, whose choice in launching it presumably was.

SWM wrote:Escape pods can definitely be launched from the pods themselves. Randy Steilman planned to desert the Wayfarer with his buddies aboard an escape pod, after setting a diversionary explosion.

This seems risky though. What would prevent very frightened, Pavel Young-like, officers from ill-advised precipitous launches?

cthia wrote:

SWM wrote:Escape pods can definitely be launched from the pods themselves. Randy Steilman planned to desert the Wayfarer with his buddies aboard an escape pod, after setting a diversionary explosion.

This seems risky though. What would prevent very frightened, Pavel Young-like, officers from ill-advised precipitous launches?

What prevents them from eating a pulser dart? Good bye, good riddance. Mark that pod to pick up last.

cthia wrote:

SWM wrote:Escape pods can definitely be launched from the pods themselves. Randy Steilman planned to desert the Wayfarer with his buddies aboard an escape pod, after setting a diversionary explosion.

This seems risky though. What would prevent very frightened, Pavel Young-like, officers from ill-advised precipitous launches?

JeffEngel wrote:What prevents them from eating a pulser dart? Good bye, good riddance. Mark that pod to pick up last.

Apples and oranges. Fear vs. cowardice.