New LAC's

C. O. Thompson wrote:I haven't looked in on this thread for a while but... as I am re-reading the entire Honor series in anticipation of the next book and while I wait for the end of winter, it occurred to me that LAC's would be more effective if they had grasers for and aft that each could pivot 180 degrees off the line of travel so that (for example) a LAC could engage a target a few degrees to port or starboard and the graser would pivot to maintain contact and lock on the same spot (say on a SD/P) till the point where the LAC was passing 90 degrees of the target then the aft graser would engage and continue contact on target till the LAC passed the target completely.
I think this would have the effect of punching a hole through or slicing a significant length of the target.

If they had 300 control channels for MDMs and carried 200 pods they would be more effective too.

C. O. Thompson wrote:I haven't looked in on this thread for a while but... as I am re-reading the entire Honor series in anticipation of the next book and while I wait for the end of winter, it occurred to me that LAC's would be more effective if they had grasers for and aft that each could pivot 180 degrees off the line of travel so that (for example) a LAC could engage a target a few degrees to port or starboard and the graser would pivot to maintain contact and lock on the same spot (say on a SD/P) till the point where the LAC was passing 90 degrees of the target then the aft graser would engage and continue contact on target till the LAC passed the target completely.
I think this would have the effect of punching a hole through or slicing a significant length of the target.

If someone else has already posted this idea, I'm not trying to steal your idea, only with 12 pages pf posts, I did not see it.

hmm it doesn't seem to have made it into the pearls but I seem to recall David having some negative things to say about turret mounted energy weapons in the honorverse. And I don't really see any way to get 180 degree traverse without something like a turret.

It would be hard to mount that on a full sized starship, much less in a LAC where the grazer probably runs 50% or more of its length. (Much less mounting 2 of them in a LAC)
But I'll say this; I don't recall anyone combining the ideas of energy turrets with LACs before... So it's original; but I think impractical to attempt.

If you speak about turrets for enery weapons you have to think diffrent as for our current normal guns! It could be, that the energy weapon is in the ship with his full lenght, but a kind of periscope is outside and drive the energy ray into different directions!

I work with a laser cutting maschine in my Job! There are some mirrorrs and lenses who drive the laser ray to the target Point!

Don´t know if you can do that with a graser ray,too! But somewere in the books they are talking about gravitaion lenses so, maybe it is the same Basics!

Man, you must really like exclamation marks. You do know that you shouldn't end every sentence with one, yes? Normal periods are perfectly sufficient; exclamation marks are FOR! EMPHASIS!

Maldorian wrote:If you speak about turrets for enery weapons you have to think diffrent as for our current normal guns! It could be, that the energy weapon is in the ship with his full lenght, but a kind of periscope is outside and drive the energy ray into different directions!

Something like that. What is actually happening is that there are powerful gravitation emitters set up around the aperture of the weapon which bend the beam onto the desired heading.

A lens focuses a laser beam. It can also have a slight aiming effect, but that effect is only a couple of degrees.

A mirror reflects a beam, sending it off in another direction, usually without it's destruction in the process.

Mirrors are not lenses. if there was something that would be able to reflect graser or high frequency IR laser beams than warships would be coated in it and there would be no need for armor.

Maldorian wrote:If you speak about turrets for enery weapons you have to think diffrent as for our current normal guns! It could be, that the energy weapon is in the ship with his full lenght, but a kind of periscope is outside and drive the energy ray into different directions!

I work with a laser cutting maschine in my Job! There are some mirrorrs and lenses who drive the laser ray to the target Point!

Don´t know if you can do that with a graser ray,too! But somewere in the books they are talking about gravitaion lenses so, maybe it is the same Basics!

darrell wrote:A lens focuses a laser beam. It can also have a slight aiming effect, but that effect is only a couple of degrees.

A mirror reflects a beam, sending it off in another direction, usually without it's destruction in the process.

Mirrors are not lenses. if there was something that would be able to reflect graser or high frequency IR laser beams than warships would be coated in it and there would be no need for armor.

Maldorian wrote:If you speak about turrets for enery weapons you have to think diffrent as for our current normal guns! It could be, that the energy weapon is in the ship with his full lenght, but a kind of periscope is outside and drive the energy ray into different directions!

I work with a laser cutting maschine in my Job! There are some mirrorrs and lenses who drive the laser ray to the target Point!

Don´t know if you can do that with a graser ray,too! But somewere in the books they are talking about gravitaion lenses so, maybe it is the same Basics!

One issue with physical lenses and mirrors at these energies - Light has momentum. Bouncing a beam off a mirror will impart significant momentum onto the mirror - and a beam with enough energy to split a small planet will impart a massive amount of physical energy into said mirror. Even bouncing the beam will be like bouncing a ball off a brick wall - it will still "hit" the wall in the process.

The bending of light in a (physical) lens is a factor of light slowing in the medium, imparting some of it's energy as the light is slowed during the passage. In addition, a fair amount of light is reflected at the interface of the lens (the greater the lens effect of the material, the more the reflection) and this reflection, like that of the mirror, will impart energy into the lens as it is reflected.

kzt wrote:

Relax wrote:Bottom line:

You do not need a fusion power source to start a micro fusion bottle reactor.

In theory. I don't think David agrees with your theory.

In theory, you did not read the last few posts up thread. You know, those pesky posts using DW's quoted pearls which state emphatically that said pod micro fusion plant powers capacitors which THEN dump power for startup into the MK16/23 micro fusion bottles?

In short, a micro fusion reactor cannot dump power fast enough to start a micro fusion reactor itself. Has to use a capacitor. Ergo, fusion is not required, just a power source and a giant honking capacitor.

Which, oh-by-the-way is rational.

Jonathan_S wrote:

C. O. Thompson wrote:I haven't looked in on this thread for a while but... as I am re-reading the entire Honor series in anticipation of the next book and while I wait for the end of winter, it occurred to me that LAC's would be more effective if they had grasers for and aft that each could pivot 180 degrees off the line of travel so that (for example) a LAC could engage a target a few degrees to port or starboard and the graser would pivot to maintain contact and lock on the same spot (say on a SD/P) till the point where the LAC was passing 90 degrees of the target then the aft graser would engage and continue contact on target till the LAC passed the target completely.
I think this would have the effect of punching a hole through or slicing a significant length of the target.

If someone else has already posted this idea, I'm not trying to steal your idea, only with 12 pages pf posts, I did not see it.

hmm it doesn't seem to have made it into the pearls but I seem to recall David having some negative things to say about turret mounted energy weapons in the Honorverse. And I don't really see any way to get 180 degree traverse without something like a turret.

It would be hard to mount that on a full sized starship, much less in a LAC where the grazer probably runs 50% or more of its length. (Much less mounting 2 of them in a LAC)
But I'll say this; I don't recall anyone combining the ideas of energy turrets with LACs before... So it's original; but I think impractical to attempt.

I think I see what you are saying but I am not sure I stated my concept well enough... On one hand we have the power plant and amplifiers for a graser and on the other we have the "head" which presumably would be much smaller than the power supply. If the head could be made to pivot so that the beam could be held on the same point of contact... each head would only track less than 90 degrees while discharging energy... as a graphic, I picture placing a foot ball on the 50 yard line and holding the beam on it while the LAC overflew at full speed... after the forward mounted graser reached the limit of the 90 degree arc, the aft weapon would take over.
By the time the LAC passed, there would be a hole burned into the 50 yard line that would be significant... like maybe reaching far enough to melt the goal posts...
Each of the Grasers would cover less that half of the total range of motion.

Hey, I have been wrong before and I learned to take constructive criticism fairly well

The energy level is so absurdly high that the path from source to the emitter needs to be linear. Nothing physical can survive that power level. So you could in theory move the entire weapon, but keep in mind you need to have absurd pointing accuracy (accurate like .001 mm accuracy) to hit a target at hundreds of thousands of km range. So pivoting a 10,000 ton 50 meter long graser with that kind of accuracy seems very hard.

kzt wrote:(accurate like .001 mm accuracy) to hit a target at hundreds of thousands of km range. So pivoting a 10,000 ton 50 meter long graser

It is worse than that. See my post up above. If mount is 1m long the accuracy in Grasers placement is 1nm at ~500,000km

So, if 50m long swivel mount is used, its accuracy would require 50nm of placement accuracy. 0.00005mm. So, if your broadside is sunward, your mount is screwed due to thermal expansion.

Of course the mount is not the problem. The lens is... Same problem today's limitations on high powered lasers are. The lens. Until someone fixes this problem, lasers as CIWS are not going to happen.