Next Bolthole devellopment

Valen123456 wrote:While I doubt they will start rolling whole spider drives for quite a few years, they may create a crude "Spider-tractor beam" to prove the concept and allow them to understand the kinds of signature in creates.

Weird Harold wrote:I can't see any reason for the GA to "start rolling whole spider drives" ever. If they can capture a working example, I can't even see them building test-bed examples. Other than stealth, the Spider Drive is pretty much worthless compared to impeller drives. Once the GA figures out that the Spider Drive causes static in FTL comms it won't really have the advantage of stealth either.

Valen123456 wrote:I am not so sure of that, the stealth capability is such a game changer and the Yawata Strike so successful that maybe a few years down the line quite a few navies may start attempting the same methods in various ways. A submarine might be pants in speed/accommodation to most surface ships but their capabilities still make them effective. However in order to find some way of countering a system you need to either have a captured example (as you pointed out) or you have to create your own versions to test it against. All the GA may create is a series of one off tractor nodes through which they try to create a "Spider Leg" so they can see what it does and what they can use to find it. its like trying to track a new type of footprint or tire track when you don't have the original shoe/tire, so you reverse engineer a copy (not a exact metaphor but the point stands).

The Yawata strike was an accident, and didn't have any significant effect on military capability. I think you mean Oyster Bay, although that specific term isn't known to the Manties.

I think Jonathan S's speculation might be right - software updates, or possibly changes to hardware filtering, would let them detect a spider drive in use. High bandwidth FTL communication probably needs a good deal of filtering.

The big thing to remember is that RFC is intending to wrap up this in two more books, with the last one published on the ?? anniversary of the publication of On Basilisk Station in 2018. Whether he manages it remains to be seen, but that doesn't give a whole lot of leeway for more back and forth in the battles.

Longer range and higher intensity energy weapons.

George J. Smith wrote:Longer range and higher intensity energy weapons.

Higher intensity, possibly; longer ranged, probably not.

The range limiter is targeting more than anything else.
Ships move - warships move randomly to avoid being hit. Usually, warships move around inside their wedge to avoid being isolated and hit, with the wedge and sidewalls obscuring the true location of the ship.

I mentioned this before for reference. Imagine shooting from the Moon to Earth. (a convenient distance of about 1 light second, or 1/3 of the max range of a Graser) you are aiming your weapon, which has a beam about the size of an SUV, at New York State (an area which roughly covers the size of the volume covered by a SD's wedge). Specifically, you are aiming to hit inside a volume covered by the area of New York City (This is where the ship "may be"), and the ship is the size of the New York City Zoo in Central Park (or about 2 city blocks.)

This is the normal range where energy battles take place with lasers and Grasers.

Now if you move out to the edge of Graser range, or 3 light seconds, every action takes 6 seconds to happen - light or radar bouncing off the target takes 3 seconds to reach you and your Graser beam takes 3 seconds to reach your aim point. During this time the ship is moving randomly in relation to it's wedge inside that random volume described earlier. And the ship may have slight movement changes in it's base course and velocity, like a WW1 convoy. Any you have no way of predicting where it will be in 6 seconds other than guessing. So you aim your dozen or so weapons to bracket the area, and hope one of them hits.

The further you move past this point the harder aiming becomes. The time between where you knew the wedge was and where it is when the beam strikes gets longer and longer. The Beam widens with range weakening it, and small movements on the craft (people walking) will effect the aim of the beam and the interstellar medium will slowly dissipate it.

David also explains the issue here:
[url]
http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... ngton/77/1[/url]

Was looking at the "pod deployment" thread and realized I had a thought here that ties alot of our "surmises" on Honorverse tech if RFC MWW decided to use what we think as best bets.

Also, what does Manticore have that Haven doesn't that they can take to Bolthole? How to build microfusion reactors that can be placed in missiles and drones, etc., (but those are being built in Beowulf, at least for the time being) Keyhole Tech to read the drones, ACM's, etc., and WAY better computational power for those same ECM drones/penaids, etc.

So let's assume that in terms of speed to build and the fact that Haven's cruiser building yards took a whack at the hands of Eighth Fleet, and assume that ships coming out of Bolthole will have state of the art missile control and Ghost Rider control suites, plus the ability to rack a high number of pods instead of tractoring them, plus Forrester's "Donkey" for deployment. Based on sheer hull size, you'd likely be able to rack near an SD(P)'s loadout onto a Nike size cruiser, drop them into huge single attack salvo with the Donkey's and use the upgraded RMN fire control and ACM's to let that ship pretty much decimate an SLN formation at maybe 10-15 odds before even going to internal missiles.

Thoughts?

The Spider Drive would provide for a really good stealthed scout ship. It is exactly what the Ghost ships were. They were moving around- very quietly- in both the Manticor and Grayson systems doing the recon to plot the targets and activity withing the systems.

Not so good if they get spotted too far from the hyper-limit to get away. We never did get any information of the Sharks and Ghosts exiting either system.

Brigade XO wrote:The Spider Drive would provide for a really good stealthed scout ship. It is exactly what the Ghost ships were. They were moving around- very quietly- in both the Manticor and Grayson systems doing the recon to plot the targets and activity withing the systems.

Not so good if they get spotted too far from the hyper-limit to get away. We never did get any information of the Sharks and Ghosts exiting either system.

Mission of Honor, Chapter 35, scene 2 is where Albrecht welcomes the Sharks back to Darius and congratulates them on the success of their mission.

I seriously doubt that we'll see Bolthole making spider drive ships for any purpose than research - and even then, if they can figure out how to detect them from what Herlander and possibly Zack McBryde can tell them, they're not going to bother. They're going to be going after the Streak Drive first, since that's a more generally useful operational capability.

The first thing to come out of Bolthole will be a new series of warship classes. These will basically be last-generation Manticoran designs with streak drive, more sensor platforms, and probably a few other twists that Hemphill and Foraker come up with. I'm not expecting anything spectacular, and frankly, it won't be necessary.

I predict that the new class of SD(P) will be the Alliance class.

Meshakhad wrote:The first thing to come out of Bolthole will be a new series of warship classes. These will basically be last-generation Manticoran designs with streak drive, more sensor platforms, and probably a few other twists that Hemphill and Foraker come up with. I'm not expecting anything spectacular, and frankly, it won't be necessary.

I predict that the new class of SD(P) will be the Alliance class.

I like the Alliance class. Sounds promising.

And maybe a ship or two named after Eloise or Elizabeth?

A ship named after Hemphill? Perhaps that'd be too self-aggrandizing, egotistical, yatta yatta yatta...

cthia wrote:

Meshakhad wrote:The first thing to come out of Bolthole will be a new series of warship classes. These will basically be last-generation Manticoran designs with streak drive, more sensor platforms, and probably a few other twists that Hemphill and Foraker come up with. I'm not expecting anything spectacular, and frankly, it won't be necessary.

I predict that the new class of SD(P) will be the Alliance class.

I like the Alliance class. Sounds promising.

And maybe a ship or two named after Eloise or Elizabeth?

A ship named after Hemphill? Perhaps that'd be too self-aggrandizing, egotistical, yatta yatta yatta...

None named after living people. But there will be RHNS Roger III and HMS Javier Giscard.

cthia wrote:

Meshakhad wrote:The first thing to come out of Bolthole will be a new series of warship classes. These will basically be last-generation Manticoran designs with streak drive, more sensor platforms, and probably a few other twists that Hemphill and Foraker come up with. I'm not expecting anything spectacular, and frankly, it won't be necessary.

I predict that the new class of SD(P) will be the Alliance class.

I like the Alliance class. Sounds promising.

And maybe a ship or two named after Eloise or Elizabeth?

A ship named after Hemphill? Perhaps that'd be too self-aggrandizing, egotistical, yatta yatta yatta...

Meshakhad wrote:None named after living people. But there will be RHNS Roger III and HMS Javier Giscard.

But that didn't last long...

wiki wrote:
The naming of United States Navy vessels for living people was common in early decades of American history, but by World War II, the Navy had firmly established a practice of naming ships for people only after they had died. In 1969, a Navy panel decreed that warships would no longer be named after living persons. That lasted until 1974, when President Richard Nixon announced the naming of an aircraft carrier after United States Representative Carl Vinson. Since then, ships such as the Arleigh Burke, Henry M. Jackson, Bob Hope, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Gabrielle Giffords have been named for people still alive at the time.

And a precedent has already been set with the GSN Honor Harrington. The cat and her person's out of the bag now. May as well roll-ship with it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U ... _Americans