What will Admiral Higgins' next command be?

darrell wrote:
who said hemphill was no longer in charge of weapons bureau?

since weapons bureau was at wayland which no longer exists, it has to move somewhere. Why not move weapons bureau to bolthole lock, stock and barrel.

Sonja Hemphill could still be technically in charge of Bu Weaps but someone would still be in charge within the Manticore System. And Weyland was not the only place for BuWeaps. Her office is located on Manticore and there is lots of other locations where BuWeaps has shops and labs.

I just thought Alan Higgins would be due a term as a Space Lord.

kenl511 wrote:

darrell wrote:
who said hemphill was no longer in charge of weapons bureau?

since weapons bureau was at wayland which no longer exists, it has to move somewhere. Why not move weapons bureau to bolthole lock, stock and barrel.

Sonja Hemphill could still be technically in charge of Bu Weaps but someone would still be in charge within the Manticore System. And Weyland was not the only place for BuWeaps. Her office is located on Manticore and there is lots of other locations where BuWeaps has shops and labs.

I just thought Alan Higgins would be due a term as a Space Lord.

Frankly I am in violent favor of anything that keeps my poor Allen away from people shooting at him. And therefore from the universe yet again crushing him under its bootheel.

roseandheather wrote: SNIP

Frankly I am in violent favor of anything that keeps my poor Allen away from people shooting at him. And therefore from the universe yet again crushing him under its bootheel.

pokes head above parapet and peers around cautiously ...

Technically speaking - did people actually get to shoot directly at him?

isaac_newton wrote:

roseandheather wrote: SNIP

Frankly I am in violent favor of anything that keeps my poor Allen away from people shooting at him. And therefore from the universe yet again crushing him under its bootheel.

pokes head above parapet and peers around cautiously ...

Technically speaking - did people actually get to shoot directly at him?

well, not yet anyways. But only because he had the brains to know that "pulling a Pavel Young" is the right thing to do, and not cowardice.

*flees from the wrath of rose*

Little bit of necro here but did textev ever confirm that Allen Higgens is still alive post oyster bay?


I am glad I live 3,000 miles from rose.

darrell wrote:who said hemphill was no longer in charge of weapons bureau?

since weapons bureau was at wayland which no longer exists, it has to move somewhere. Why not move weapons bureau to bolthole lock, stock and barrel.

Because no matter how chummy Haven and the SEM are right now, moving your principal military R&D establishment to a place that you can't control isn't a very good strategy.

Not to mention that I'm pretty sure one of the reasons why Manty R&D worked so well is because they're at the heart of the SEM, able to work with and through any number of Manticoran companies and universities, plus all the quick access to what's happening in Solarian space granted by the wormhole junction.

Somtaaw wrote:

isaac_newton wrote:pokes head above parapet and peers around cautiously ...

Technically speaking - did people actually get to shoot directly at him?

well, not yet anyways. But only because he had the brains to know that "pulling a Pavel Young" is the right thing to do, and not cowardice.

*flees from the wrath of rose*

Don't be ridiculous. He didn't pull a Pavel Young.

Young wouldn't've destroyed the shipyards ... or pulled out as many technical experts as Higgins managed, if any. Or Young would've tried to flatten everything, yards and habitat sections without an evacuation.

The E wrote:

darrell wrote:who said hemphill was no longer in charge of weapons bureau?

since weapons bureau was at wayland which no longer exists, it has to move somewhere. Why not move weapons bureau to bolthole lock, stock and barrel.

Because no matter how chummy Haven and the SEM are right now, moving your principal military R&D establishment to a place that you can't control isn't a very good strategy.

Not to mention that I'm pretty sure one of the reasons why Manty R&D worked so well is because they're at the heart of the SEM, able to work with and through any number of Manticoran companies and universities, plus all the quick access to what's happening in Solarian space granted by the wormhole junction.

Agree on both counts.
There may be some joint workspaces, probably quite a few, actually, at Bolthole, but Manticoran military R&D is going to remain centered in Manticoran controlled space.

And, I believe that it's been stated, either as a Word of God, or in the House of Steel short story, or both, that Manticore was fully exploiting the wormhole network to get the best information and new research advances it could lay hands on from everywhere it could.
This makes me wonder just how the hell standard SLN deployed missile impellers are better than 1920 Manticoran deployed missile impellers. Not in terms of run time, but in terms of acceleration.
I don't see how standard SLN missiles have better accel than current Manticoran missiles after the decades of R&D, and Weber only knows much money, Manticore poured into the subject. I could maybe see SLN missiles having a bit better accel than pre-war RMN missiles ... but now? No way in hell does that make any kind of sense to me.

Kytheros wrote:Agree on both counts.
There may be some joint workspaces, probably quite a few, actually, at Bolthole, but Manticoran military R&D is going to remain centered in Manticoran controlled space.

And, I believe that it's been stated, either as a Word of God, or in the House of Steel short story, or both, that Manticore was fully exploiting the wormhole network to get the best information and new research advances it could lay hands on from everywhere it could.
This makes me wonder just how the hell standard SLN deployed missile impellers are better than 1920 Manticoran deployed missile impellers. Not in terms of run time, but in terms of acceleration.
I don't see how standard SLN missiles have better accel than current Manticoran missiles after the decades of R&D, and Weber only knows much money, Manticore poured into the subject. I could maybe see SLN missiles having a bit better accel than pre-war RMN missiles ... but now? No way in hell does that make any kind of sense to me.

SLN R&D probably had quite a large budget in absolute terms. Possibly larger than the RMN's entire budget.

What to spend it on? They can't try anything too radical or they end up pulling a HMS Dreadnought and making their entire fleet obsolete overnight by their own hands. Tiny incremental advances sounds about right. That and letting military contractors pocket the rest.

Kytheros wrote:I don't see how standard SLN missiles have better accel than current Manticoran missiles after the decades of R&D, and Weber only knows much money, Manticore poured into the subject. I could maybe see SLN missiles having a bit better accel than pre-war RMN missiles ... but now? No way in hell does that make any kind of sense to me.

That's an engineering choice. Just as half-power doubles run-time and range; acceleration is a trade-off with run-time and range. Manticore chose a different balance of those factors than the SLN chose.

Weird Harold wrote:

Kytheros wrote:I don't see how standard SLN missiles have better accel than current Manticoran missiles after the decades of R&D, and Weber only knows much money, Manticore poured into the subject. I could maybe see SLN missiles having a bit better accel than pre-war RMN missiles ... but now? No way in hell does that make any kind of sense to me.

That's an engineering choice. Just as half-power doubles run-time and range; acceleration is a trade-off with run-time and range. Manticore chose a different balance of those factors than the SLN chose.

Well Manticore put their focus into extending drive runtimes (ERM, LERM, MK31 CM/Viper) or 'the baffle' to enable true MDMs.
But the SLN Javelins have the same runtimes as any other normal SDM, 60 or 180 seconds; depending on power setting. Which means their slightly higher acceleration gives them slightly more, not less, range than Manticore's remaining SDMs.

It's possible that if Manticore had focused on higher accel for the same range, rather than greatly increased endurance for the same accel that they'd have even faster SDMs; but that's hard to know. But within the SDM design space higher accel doesn't seem like a trade-off...