How powerful are energy batteries?

jchilds wrote:Didn't the short story The Service of the Sword have some detailed information on energy weapons and what happens when they fire?

There was a bit during the on mount training against the target drone. But it didn't really go into detail about the power levels.

It did take in vauge terms about the pulse rate. Here's what it said

Service of the Sword wrote:Like any shipboard energy weapon, Gauntlet's grasers fired in burstlike pulses, and the laser designators were synchronized to simulate the grasers' normal pulse rate for the exercise. That pulse rate was high enough that a ship-sized opponent couldn't have rotated its wedge in and out of position rapidly enough to avoid significant damage. In the time it took an impeller wedge over a hundred kilometers across to rotate, each graser would have gotten off sufficient pulses to guarantee at least one or two hits, assuming that its targeting solution was accurate.

cthia wrote:30 second recycle rates seem impossibly long for graser fire to be effective. At the rate of engagements, 30 seconds would only afford a couple shots -- at best.

Which is why I proposed long ago that Bolthole should work on increasing rate of fire and time on target (duration).

Well that's why I worded the way I did. No more than 30 seconds for cycle time puts the upper limit on graser cycle before it fires again.

It's possible that grasers, lasers, and PDLC's actually all have identical cycle times, the only differences is power draw, size, and manner of lensing. Ship killers have larger power need and require larger installations, and PDLC have almost no power draw, but are tiny individually and can easily be mounted in clusters to maximize cooling?

[quote="Jonathan_S"][quote="Dafmeister"][quote="Rocket88"]
Would a DN's energy batteries be on par w/ an SD's? I think so. How powerful are energy batteries? [b]VERY.[/b][/quote]

I can't recall where, but I believe it's been stated that the difference in weaponry between a dreadnaught and a superdreadnaught is in the number of mounts - the weapons themselves are identical (within a given generation of ship - a newer DN may have more powerful weapons than an older SD).[/quote]
The (semi-cannonical) Jayen's books seem to support that idea. They don't give graser power levels, but they do give their emitter diameters. (But only cover some pre-war designs)

The RMN [i]King William[/i]-class SP is said to have:
12 Mk85 305 cm Lasers
8 Mk52 410 cm Grasers
38 Mk10 295 cm Lasers
42 Mk91 360 cm Grasers

The RMN [i]Majestic[/i]-class DN in contrast has:
12 Mk85 305 cm Lasers
8 Mk52 410 cm Grasers
36 Mk10 295 cm Lasers
40 Mk91 360 cm Grasers

While the RMN [i]Reliant[/i]-class BC has:
2 Mk49 127cm Lasers
4 Mk15 140 cm Grasers
16 Mk73 105cm Lasers
12 Mk15 140 cm Grasers


The PSN [i]Duquesne[/i]-class SD has: (I assume the number after the backslash is the diameter in cm)
8 L/300 Lasers
12 G/398 Grasers
24 L/280 Lasers
24 G/357 Grasers

The PSN [i]Nouveau Paris[/i]-class DN has:
8 L/325 Lasers
8 G/410 Grasers
20 L/300 Lasers
20 G/375 Grasers
(The fact that this older, smaller, DN, mounts individually heavier energy batteries appears to be due to a change towards missile combat in the newer, larger, SD)


So you can see, at least on the RMN ships, that they mount the exact same energy mounts for SD and DN, just vary the number slightly.[/quote]

Nice post, I SO have to get my hands on those Jayne's books!

I remember reading in TSVW's appendix "Honor Harrington's Navy" something about the ranges of energy weapons: 400,000 to 500,000 km vs. active, undamaged sidewalls and that this was approximately 40% of the effective range against targets w/ out sidewalls (i.e. merchies & the "down the throat" & "up the kilt" shots). So total max range is somewhere in the 1,000,000 to 1,250,000 km range. Does anyone remember what the range was at the firing point during the [u]Battle of Hades[/u] "point Trafalgar?"

Other energy batteries in older BC,s DN's & SD's were the dreaded "Energy Torpedoes", near-lightspeed "packets of plasma" that were useless against sidewalls & limited to about 300,000 km. Are plasma cannons like those found on Manticoran Army M11A2 Grav Tanks similar? Could they be adapted to lighter ships, LAC's or DD's? HOS describes the RMMC's M107 Plasma rifle as having a "line of sight" range in vacuum with minimal energy bleed. Thoughts?

Rocket88 wrote:Nice post, I SO have to get my hands on those Jayne's books!

I remember reading in TSVW's appendix "Honor Harrington's Navy" something about the ranges of energy weapons: 400,000 to 500,000 km vs. active, undamaged sidewalls and that this was approximately 40% of the effective range against targets w/ out sidewalls (i.e. merchies & the "down the throat" & "up the kilt" shots). So total max range is somewhere in the 1,000,000 to 1,250,000 km range. Does anyone remember what the range was at the firing point during the Battle of Hades "point Trafalgar?"

Other energy batteries in older BC,s DN's & SD's were the dreaded "Energy Torpedoes", near-lightspeed "packets of plasma" that were useless against sidewalls & limited to about 300,000 km. Are plasma cannons like those found on Manticoran Army M11A2 Grav Tanks similar? Could they be adapted to lighter ships, LAC's or DD's? HOS describes the RMMC's M107 Plasma rifle as having a "line of sight" range in vacuum with minimal energy bleed. Thoughts?

A quick look at my ebook copy shows "With only minimal steering burns to adjust her own trajectory, her ships would split the interval between the two Peep forces almost exactly in half: seven hundred and seventy k-klicks from the lead force, and seven hundred and thirty from the trailer." (Where she'd originally been planning for a standoff range of somewhere between 600,000 and 900,000 km). So well within the energy range against targets not protected by sidewalls; but not insanely close.

As to the e-torps. We've had discussions and certainly you should be able to fit some onto a DD. After all after being gutted to add the grav-lance the old CL Fearless, which was not much larger than a modern DD (in 1905ish), mounted multiple in each sidewall. But they'd still displace weapons more likely to be used in normal combat (missiles or energy mounts). A BC, or especially a waller can afford to give up a mount or two to carry a few weapons that might be useful if they manage to batter down an opponents sidewall. But in a DD you'd be giving up a non-trivial percentage of your broadside to mount that same special situation only weapon.
Then for LACs, at least modern LACs, the consensus here leaded toward it not being possible. There was reasonable arguments that the plasma fired by the e-torp was tapped from the fusion reactor(s) of the warships; and since modern LACs don't carry fusion reactors they have no handy plasma source to fuel e-torp launchers. (And even back when they did use fusion plants they were notoriously low endurance; so mounting weapons that siphon off even more of your fuel seems a poor idea. Even leaving aside that LACs are less likely than even DDs to be able to batter down a target's sidewalls. (Though I guess slightly better changes of swarming from enough angles to get a bow or stern shot. Though keep in mind that old-style LACs had maximum accelerations lower than even SDs - so a far cry from what we've become used to now. Of course now first line navies mount bow and stern walls; making a successful e-torp attack all that much less likely)

Minor data point: A Call to Arms. The battle against the mercenary fleet there is a discussion of the cycle time of the lasers. I don't recall the answer but it was only a few seconds--but that was long enough to pull their rabbit out of a hat.

Jonathan_S wrote:The (semi-cannonical) Jayen's books seem to support that idea. They don't give graser power levels, but they do give their emitter diameters. (But only cover some pre-war designs)

The RMN King William-class SP is said to have:
12 Mk85 305 cm Lasers
8 Mk52 410 cm Grasers
38 Mk10 295 cm Lasers
42 Mk91 360 cm Grasers

The RMN Majestic-class DN in contrast has:
12 Mk85 305 cm Lasers
8 Mk52 410 cm Grasers
36 Mk10 295 cm Lasers
40 Mk91 360 cm Grasers

While the RMN Reliant-class BC has:
2 Mk49 127cm Lasers
4 Mk15 140 cm Grasers
16 Mk73 105cm Lasers
12 Mk15 140 cm Grasers


The PSN Duquesne-class SD has: (I assume the number after the backslash is the diameter in cm)
8 L/300 Lasers
12 G/398 Grasers
24 L/280 Lasers
24 G/357 Grasers

The PSN Nouveau Paris-class DN has:
8 L/325 Lasers
8 G/410 Grasers
20 L/300 Lasers
20 G/375 Grasers
(The fact that this older, smaller, DN, mounts individually heavier energy batteries appears to be due to a change towards missile combat in the newer, larger, SD)


So you can see, at least on the RMN ships, that they mount the exact same energy mounts for SD and DN, just vary the number slightly.

Rocket88 wrote:Nice post, I SO have to get my hands on those Jayne's books!

I remember reading in TSVW's appendix "Honor Harrington's Navy" something about the ranges of energy weapons: 400,000 to 500,000 km vs. active, undamaged sidewalls and that this was approximately 40% of the effective range against targets w/ out sidewalls (i.e. merchies & the "down the throat" & "up the kilt" shots). So total max range is somewhere in the 1,000,000 to 1,250,000 km range. Does anyone remember what the range was at the firing point during the Battle of Hades "point Trafalgar?"

Other energy batteries in older BC,s DN's & SD's were the dreaded "Energy Torpedoes", near-lightspeed "packets of plasma" that were useless against sidewalls & limited to about 300,000 km. Are plasma cannons like those found on Manticoran Army M11A2 Grav Tanks similar? Could they be adapted to lighter ships, LAC's or DD's? HOS describes the RMMC's M107 Plasma rifle as having a "line of sight" range in vacuum with minimal energy bleed. Thoughts?

Although I can't give bore-sizes for the weapons, I *can* say that the numbers of weapons per ship are different in House of Steel. AFAIK, only Tom Pope has any real idea on the aperture of the various weapons, but for the blocked-in grasers I have on my Star Knight mesh, the bore is 140cm.

Basically, what I'm saying is that Jayne's has been superceded by HoS as far as weapons counts, but it's anybody's guess as far as size (except for missiles). My spreadsheet (from Tom, which is what he used for HoS) doesn't give weapons dimensions - only counts per broadside/chase.

MaxxQ wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:The (semi-cannonical) Jayen's books seem to support that idea. They don't give graser power levels, but they do give their emitter diameters. (But only cover some pre-war designs)

The RMN King William-class SP is said to have:
12 Mk85 305 cm Lasers
8 Mk52 410 cm Grasers
38 Mk10 295 cm Lasers
42 Mk91 360 cm Grasers

The RMN Majestic-class DN in contrast has:
12 Mk85 305 cm Lasers
8 Mk52 410 cm Grasers
36 Mk10 295 cm Lasers
40 Mk91 360 cm Grasers

While the RMN Reliant-class BC has:
2 Mk49 127cm Lasers
4 Mk15 140 cm Grasers
16 Mk73 105cm Lasers
12 Mk15 140 cm Grasers


The PSN Duquesne-class SD has: (I assume the number after the backslash is the diameter in cm)
8 L/300 Lasers
12 G/398 Grasers
24 L/280 Lasers
24 G/357 Grasers

The PSN Nouveau Paris-class DN has:
8 L/325 Lasers
8 G/410 Grasers
20 L/300 Lasers
20 G/375 Grasers
(The fact that this older, smaller, DN, mounts individually heavier energy batteries appears to be due to a change towards missile combat in the newer, larger, SD)


So you can see, at least on the RMN ships, that they mount the exact same energy mounts for SD and DN, just vary the number slightly.

Rocket88 wrote:Nice post, I SO have to get my hands on those Jayne's books!

I remember reading in TSVW's appendix "Honor Harrington's Navy" something about the ranges of energy weapons: 400,000 to 500,000 km vs. active, undamaged sidewalls and that this was approximately 40% of the effective range against targets w/ out sidewalls (i.e. merchies & the "down the throat" & "up the kilt" shots). So total max range is somewhere in the 1,000,000 to 1,250,000 km range. Does anyone remember what the range was at the firing point during the Battle of Hades "point Trafalgar?"

Other energy batteries in older BC,s DN's & SD's were the dreaded "Energy Torpedoes", near-lightspeed "packets of plasma" that were useless against sidewalls & limited to about 300,000 km. Are plasma cannons like those found on Manticoran Army M11A2 Grav Tanks similar? Could they be adapted to lighter ships, LAC's or DD's? HOS describes the RMMC's M107 Plasma rifle as having a "line of sight" range in vacuum with minimal energy bleed. Thoughts?

Although I can't give bore-sizes for the weapons, I *can* say that the numbers of weapons per ship are different in House of Steel. AFAIK, only Tom Pope has any real idea on the aperture of the various weapons, but for the blocked-in grasers I have on my Star Knight mesh, the bore is 140cm.

Basically, what I'm saying is that Jayne's has been superceded by HoS as far as weapons counts, but it's anybody's guess as far as size (except for missiles). My spreadsheet (from Tom, which is what he used for HoS) doesn't give weapons dimensions - only counts per broadside/chase.

Understood; hence why I labeled Jayne's "semi-canonical" :d

Though in this specific case the only difference in the quoted weapons counts I see for those 5 classes is HoS has the King Williams with a pair fewer lasers is each chase armorment (so a total of 4 less "Mk85 305 cm Lasers") But I take your point that BuNine may have had reason to resize some of the energy mounts even though that level of detail didn't get published in HoS. [And I carefully said "quoted" because some of the specs I didn't quote for those ship were more significantly changed between Jayne's and HoS]


Still, it supports that (at least at one time) David was accepting of the idea that DNs and SDs mounted at least largely similarly power energy mounts; just in differing numbers.

Jonathan_S wrote:Still, it supports that (at least at one time) David was accepting of the idea that DNs and SDs mounted at least largely similarly power energy mounts; just in differing numbers.

That does make sense though. That should make it easier to understand why Manticore built so many more DN's pre-SVW, just to get some waller, instead of only accepting SD's to counter Havenite SD's.

If DN's and SD's carried similar weapons before the return of missile combat, then the only true differences was size, number of weapons, and ease of building. Sacrificing the first two for the latter turned out not so bad for Manticore. Their DN's were generally captained better, and fought nearly as well as their larger cousins in Havenite service. Even with experience, if your weapons just weren't as capable, you're going to have a lot harder time breaking even... and Manticore spent the first 4 or 5 years smashing Peep fleets without breaking a sweat.

All depends on whether they are D, C, AA, AAA or P9

Jonathan_S wrote:

Rocket88 wrote:Nice post, I SO have to get my hands on those Jayne's books!

I remember reading in TSVW's appendix "Honor Harrington's Navy" something about the ranges of energy weapons: 400,000 to 500,000 km vs. active, undamaged sidewalls and that this was approximately 40% of the effective range against targets w/ out sidewalls (i.e. merchies & the "down the throat" & "up the kilt" shots). So total max range is somewhere in the 1,000,000 to 1,250,000 km range. Does anyone remember what the range was at the firing point during the Battle of Hades "point Trafalgar?"

Other energy batteries in older BC,s DN's & SD's were the dreaded "Energy Torpedoes", near-lightspeed "packets of plasma" that were useless against sidewalls & limited to about 300,000 km. Are plasma cannons like those found on Manticoran Army M11A2 Grav Tanks similar? Could they be adapted to lighter ships, LAC's or DD's? HOS describes the RMMC's M107 Plasma rifle as having a "line of sight" range in vacuum with minimal energy bleed. Thoughts?

A quick look at my ebook copy shows "With only minimal steering burns to adjust her own trajectory, her ships would split the interval between the two Peep forces almost exactly in half: seven hundred and seventy k-klicks from the lead force, and seven hundred and thirty from the trailer." (Where she'd originally been planning for a standoff range of somewhere between 600,000 and 900,000 km). So well within the energy range against targets not protected by sidewalls; but not insanely close.

As to the e-torps. We've had discussions and certainly you should be able to fit some onto a DD. After all after being gutted to add the grav-lance the old CL Fearless, which was not much larger than a modern DD (in 1905ish), mounted multiple in each sidewall. But they'd still displace weapons more likely to be used in normal combat (missiles or energy mounts). A BC, or especially a waller can afford to give up a mount or two to carry a few weapons that might be useful if they manage to batter down an opponents sidewall. But in a DD you'd be giving up a non-trivial percentage of your broadside to mount that same special situation only weapon.
Then for LACs, at least modern LACs, the consensus here leaded toward it not being possible. There was reasonable arguments that the plasma fired by the e-torp was tapped from the fusion reactor(s) of the warships; and since modern LACs don't carry fusion reactors they have no handy plasma source to fuel e-torp launchers. (And even back when they did use fusion plants they were notoriously low endurance; so mounting weapons that siphon off even more of your fuel seems a poor idea. Even leaving aside that LACs are less likely than even DDs to be able to batter down a target's sidewalls. (Though I guess slightly better changes of swarming from enough angles to get a bow or stern shot. Though keep in mind that old-style LACs had maximum accelerations lower than even SDs - so a far cry from what we've become used to now. Of course now first line navies mount bow and stern walls; making a successful e-torp attack all that much less likely)

Besides the size difference of the weapons between a tank and a Starship (tons vs ktons) you also have a vast difference in the range the weapons are used at - Tanks have a range measured in kilometers or 10s of Kilometers on the ground (100s if they have anti-orbital capabilities) - Knife fighting range for starships is 100,000 KM.