A question about the battle of Saltash

Jonathan_S wrote:And even then only because they were hiding the thrusters' giant energetic plasma bloom by attacking "out of the sun".

Even the most myopic braindead automated system would notice that kind of plasma flare against the out-system cosmic background. I'm sure alarms would be going off in that scenario even if the sensor techs were all off on a coffee break .


Basically I think the SLN would have to be astronomically lucky and have the Mantie's drop out within SDM range of the ships lying doggo to have a chance to inflict even a semi-successful ambush.

Even at SDM ranges - the Manties would respond with their missiles set to sprint at extreme SDM ranges and still hit the SLN ships first, AND punch out 2+ salvoes for every one the SLN BC launches (SD on SD is 5 launches to 1).

Really, the intercept would need to be at energy range or just outside it to even the scales or tip them the SLN's way.

Is there a difference between the limit of how far in to a system you can jump into real space vs jumping into hyper space? Now as a matter of good sense you want to be able to reenter hyper as quickly as you can if you spot trouble.

pnakasone wrote:Is there a difference between the limit of how far in to a system you can jump into real space vs jumping into hyper space? Now as a matter of good sense you want to be able to reenter hyper as quickly as you can if you spot trouble.

Technically, no.

Practically, ships will make translation into realspace some distance away from the actual hyper limit, as running into the limit is about as survivable as hitting the ground at supersonic speed is for the average chicken egg.

Going into hyper is obviously a different matter, it's easier to gauge whether or not you're outside of the limit when you can actually measure your distance to the local sun.

The E wrote:

pnakasone wrote:Is there a difference between the limit of how far in to a system you can jump into real space vs jumping into hyper space? Now as a matter of good sense you want to be able to reenter hyper as quickly as you can if you spot trouble.

Technically, no.

Practically, ships will make translation into realspace some distance away from the actual hyper limit, as running into the limit is about as survivable as hitting the ground at supersonic speed is for the average chicken egg.

Going into hyper is obviously a different matter, it's easier to gauge whether or not you're outside of the limit when you can actually measure your distance to the local sun.

Actually, iirc, if you try to translate down into normal space JUST inside the hyperlimit, you bounce back into hyper violently, having lost a lot of velocity and gained a lot of extra wear on the hardware. The further in, the tougher it goes until the splat theE mentioned above.

It would be nice if the illustrious author gave the SLN *one* officer who is smart enough to win a battle with the RMN despite his technical inferiority. Yes, it might be very difficult.

phillies wrote:It would be nice if the illustrious author gave the SLN *one* officer who is smart enough to win a battle with the RMN despite his technical inferiority. Yes, it might be very difficult.

when even the SDM equipped manty ships have more range then the solly ships (if no pods) then i would put it closer to extremely difficult

Dauntless wrote:

phillies wrote:It would be nice if the illustrious author gave the SLN *one* officer who is smart enough to win a battle with the RMN despite his technical inferiority. Yes, it might be very difficult.

when even the SDM equipped manty ships have more range then the solly ships (if no pods) then i would put it closer to extremely difficult

Not to mention better sensors, accel, drones, and communications.

Personally, I think the RMN is going to get hit once or twice, But it's going to take Posleen type overkill to do so.

Theemile wrote:

The E wrote:Technically, no.

Practically, ships will make translation into realspace some distance away from the actual hyper limit, as running into the limit is about as survivable as hitting the ground at supersonic speed is for the average chicken egg.

Going into hyper is obviously a different matter, it's easier to gauge whether or not you're outside of the limit when you can actually measure your distance to the local sun.

Actually, iirc, if you try to translate down into normal space JUST inside the hyperlimit, you bounce back into hyper violently, having lost a lot of velocity and gained a lot of extra wear on the hardware. The further in, the tougher it goes until the splat theE mentioned above.

IIRC it's the outer 20% of the diameter of the hyper limit that has the survivable "bounce" characteristic.


Also, you tend to enter n-space with residual in-system velocity. So if you did drop out of hyper just at the limit you'd have to kill that velocity and get back outside the limit before you could jump back out.

If I didn't screw the math up, a worst case would be starting from a military ship's full speed in the Alpha bands (0.6c) heading directly in-system; that ship would carry 14,380 km/s velocity in n-space (92% velocity loss). But at 500g that velocity would take 48 minutes to cancel out; during which time you'd have moved about 62 million km into the system. Then it would take an additional 83 minutes to get retrace your path back to the hyper limit. (So 2h 11m before you could hyper back out) The good news is that you'd still be way way below the speed limit to reenter hyper; so at least you wouldn't have to waste more time slowing down again.

Most ships wouldn't carry anywhere near that much velocity into an unscouted potentially hostile system; but you've still got to take some time to reverse course if you drop out at the limit with inbound velocity.

But even if you made a 0/0 transition right on the limit you'd have to wait until your hyper generators recycled; which could take maybe 16 minutes or so for an SD (less than from full powered down, but more than from standby; since obviously the capacitors would be discharged by the transition to n-space. That said smaller ships would be able to jump out substantially sooner).
The same would be true if you deliberately offset you exit far enough back that your generator would be ready to use before you actually crossed the limit. That way your residual velocity need not be canceled and your course reversed before escaping. OTOH any defenders get that much longer to see you coming should you decide it's safe enough to proceed on into the system proper.

pnakasone wrote:Is there a difference between the limit of how far in to a system you can jump into real space vs jumping into hyper space? Now as a matter of good sense you want to be able to reenter hyper as quickly as you can if you spot trouble.

The info can be found in the books. from "more than honor" attempting to translate into hyperspace inside the hyper limit or above .3 C caused instant destruction of the ship.

attempting to translate into normal space inside the hyper limit but near the edge causes the destruction of the ship.

attempting to translate into normal space inside the hyper limit but deeper in system (or planet, in the case of some gas giants) caused the ship to bounce back into hyperspace.

munroburton wrote:For my money, any SLN ambush with a chance of succeeding is going to rely on shotgunning battle squadrons into normal space in the hopes one of them will emerge within energy range of the enemy formation. If they pull it off, that single battle squadron has more short-range firepower than two squadrons of Invictuses. Which, by the way, can no longer engage with missiles because they don't have shipboard launchers and the SLN would be close enough to blow up missile pods before they could fire.

It'd still be a losing engagement for the SLN, but they'd be at least inflicting as much damage as the Peeps did during Fourth Yeltsin. Assuming the GA formation doesn't simply roll wall and withdraw into a hyper limit to build range once its CO realizes what the SLN CO is trying to do, that is.

Whether they realize it or not it's still the proper strategy if they live long enough to do it. It would take an extreme bit of luck to pull it off, though--and the odds are more than 100,000:1 that they end up in missile range (I'm assuming the use of all three stages. Chop a zero off that if they restrict themselves to two stages) but not energy range and get smashed. How many times can they try it? I think the Sollies run out of ships to send long before they get a single bit of luck.