FTL missiles

Weird Harold wrote:

darrell wrote:well, exept for the part that the missile won't have crew, or a lot of other things, I would place it at half the size of a dispatch boat, or about the size of a shrike.

Life support, consumables and crew take up a smaller percentage than that in a Dispatch Boat. I'd be surprised if more than 20% of a DB's size was crew related.

How about warsawaski sails?
Bunkerage for many months would also take up a significant volume.
How about the size of a fusion plant?

Lets go about this differently.
A fusion LAC is 40K tons. A frigate, with the same armament is 50K tons. That means that the warsawaski sails and the hyper generator are 10K tons combined, probably about 5K tons each, but with a maximum of 9 tons for military grade hyper generator, and a FTL missile would only need a smaller civilian grade hyper generator.

Honors toy, with limited life support was 11K tons.
That means that life support, crew quarters bunkerage, etc, takes up the majority of space for both a LAC, Frigate, and dispatch boat. We are looking at a maximum of 9k tons for the fusion reactor and wedge.

The warhead and targeting computer is minimal (less toan 100 tons.) Presuming that the wedge is bigger, look at 10-16 K tons for the fusion plant and wedge. With a hyper generator between 5-9K tons, that gives us a FTL missile between 15K-25K tons, which is about half your guess of 40K tons.

With the hyper generator at most 9 tons, (LAC vs frigate, 90% to hyper generator, 10% to warsawaski sails) the fusion plant and wedge at most 10 tons.

The FTL missile would have to have a drive closer to that of a recon drone. On the order of 5,000 G's, but without a missiles burnout and able to accelerate for more than an hour.

darrell wrote:A fusion LAC is 40K tons. A frigate, with the same armament is 50K tons. That means that the warsawaski sails and the hyper generator are 10K tons combined, probably about 5K tons each, but with a maximum of 9 tons for military grade hyper generator, and a FTL missile would only need a smaller civilian grade hyper generator.

Incorrect. The RMN's Highlander LAC and GSN's Faith-class both mass less than 12,000 tons. The Series 282(used for the Q-ships) is 18k. The Shrike, Ferret and Katana all mass around 20,000.

Also, the Warshawski sails uses the same equipement as the impeller drive. I believe Alpha nodes are required(so LACs can't generate sails), but anything with a full set of rings can generate those sails.

munroburton wrote:

darrell wrote:A fusion LAC is 40K tons. A frigate, with the same armament is 50K tons. That means that the warsawaski sails and the hyper generator are 10K tons combined, probably about 5K tons each, but with a maximum of 9 tons for military grade hyper generator, and a FTL missile would only need a smaller civilian grade hyper generator.

Incorrect. The RMN's Highlander LAC and GSN's Faith-class both mass less than 12,000 tons. The Series 282(used for the Q-ships) is 18k. The Shrike, Ferret and Katana all mass around 20,000.

Also, the Warshawski sails uses the same equipement as the impeller drive. I believe Alpha nodes are required(so LACs can't generate sails), but anything with a full set of rings can generate those sails.

I am not aware of anything that says that a Courier boat is 40K tons. The only thing that I can recall about the size of a courier boat comes from ashes of victory.

Quote: Ashes of victory: "Even the biggest pinnace or assault shuttle comes in at well under a thousand tons, though, and a worthwhile LAC has to be in the thirty- to fifty-thousand-ton range just to pack in its impellers and any armament at all. Remember that courier boats in the same size range don't carry any weapons or defenses and just barely manage to find someplace to squeeze in a hyper generator.

Not counting the hyper generator, the rest of the courier ships will be on the order of 10-12K

Option 1: A courier boat is about the same size as a LAC, which means that the warsawaski sail and the hyper generator are roughly the size of a LAC's weapons and defences, on the order of 3K to 5K tons for a military hyper generator, less than that for a civilian hyper generator.

Option 2: A courier boat is somewhere between 30K-50K tons, or approximately 40K tons, which means that a military hyper generator is approximately 30K tons for a military hyper generator, less than that for a civilian hyper generator.

The parts to rebuild the hyper generator on the hali swole was a crate on the order of 10-20 cubit meters, so I tend to believe that a military hyper generator, although large, is not 30K tons. That would mean that a courier boat is about the size of a LAC and a hyper generator is 3-5K tons.

If you have any evidence that I am wrong, I would be happy to hear it, but by evidence I mean textov or something similar, not your opinion.

darrell wrote:I am not aware of anything that says that a Courier boat is 40K tons. The only thing that I can recall about the size of a courier boat comes from ashes of victory.

Quote: Ashes of victory: "Even the biggest pinnace or assault shuttle comes in at well under a thousand tons, though, and a worthwhile LAC has to be in the thirty- to fifty-thousand-ton range just to pack in its impellers and any armament at all. Remember that courier boats in the same size range don't carry any weapons or defenses and just barely manage to find someplace to squeeze in a hyper generator.

Not counting the hyper generator, the rest of the courier ships will be on the order of 10-12K

Option 1: A courier boat is about the same size as a LAC, which means that the warsawaski sail and the hyper generator are roughly the size of a LAC's weapons and defences, on the order of 3K to 5K tons for a military hyper generator, less than that for a civilian hyper generator.

Option 2: A courier boat is somewhere between 30K-50K tons, or approximately 40K tons, which means that a military hyper generator is approximately 30K tons for a military hyper generator, less than that for a civilian hyper generator.

The parts to rebuild the hyper generator on the hali swole was a crate on the order of 10-20 cubit meters, so I tend to believe that a military hyper generator, although large, is not 30K tons. That would mean that a courier boat is about the size of a LAC and a hyper generator is 3-5K tons.

If you have any evidence that I am wrong, I would be happy to hear it, but by evidence I mean textov or something similar, not your opinion.

First place I'd point you to is this infodump where RFC says "unarmed courier boat with a minimal crew still masses around 40,000 tons".

Also the semi-canonical Jayen's People's Republic Navy gives the following specs for a Facteur-class Courier Boat (RHN)
Mass 38,000 tons
Length 294 m
Beam 31 m
Draught 24 m

Compare to an old style (larger) LAC from House of Steel
Highlander-class
Mass 11,250 tons
Length 138 m
Beam 23 m
Draught 21 m

The quote you mentioned, claiming "worthwhile" LACs were in the 30-50kton range appears to have been addressing the reported"super-LACs"; LACs with heavy beam weapons that could seriously threaten larger warships. Of course nobody (AFAIK) and certainly not Manticore nor Haven built LACs in that size range; nor do I believe it was attempting to claim that anybody should.

It was mostly just expressing that the Peeps couldn't figure out how to build something with the observed capabilities of a Shrike into something even close to the size of a Shrike.

Don't forget that Mass of the Shrike, 282 etc are known to be problematic. The Mass of the Shrike is around 5000 tons using the Highlander LAC and larger ship model. When a ship is half the size of another ship, carries no armour and missiles don't count to the mass of the ship it can't weigh twice as much.

A dispatch boat has a big hyperdrive which takes up a lot of room. A hyperdrive for a MDM 3-4 stage carrying ship could be tiny small Launched with best available data a DB sized ship could carry and fire a couple hundred MDM's. Using built in targeting 'optics' on the MDM said missiles wouldn't be as good as a ship on station but said missiles would be fired at infrastructure. Long ballistic phases make no difference because they only use on board target resolution. A Freighter sized hypersled can carry 10-100's of 1000's of missiles. plus the missiles could have better 'optics' made not to take directions from ships only to act on their own.

5 x 20,000 Mk23 four stage sets of missiles being fired at anything that moves. From 5 different hyperspace entry points into the system with the hypersled blowing up just as the missile fire up their first stage will be confusing and the missiles are hard to hit. 100,000 missiles even accelerating from a dead stop can kill every civilian ship in a system. System pods are useless against such an attack. And the resultant aftermath even if you can stop every missile without losing anything, unlikely, you still don't know who is shooting at you. Much like oyster bay.

Lord Skimper wrote:Don't forget that Mass of the Shrike, 282 etc are known to be problematic. The Mass of the Shrike is around 5000 tons using the Highlander LAC and larger ship model. When a ship is half the size of another ship, carries no armour and missiles don't count to the mass of the ship it can't weigh twice as much.

They are far denser that old-style LACs, and there hasn't been a good explanation provided. However it's fairly easy to think of reasons that they might be.

For one the fission plant, bring mostly heavy metals and fluids, is denser than the fusion plant on a old-style LAC and much denser than the large hydrogen tanks (even liquid hydrogen is less dense than water, about 14 times less, much less lead or uranium).
Also we know that the new LACs were designed with less crew, so the need to devote less volume to crew quarters, ward rooms, galleys, etc, etc. All those crew centered areas are pretty low density because they've got lots of open space for the crew.
Also we know that New LACs aren't designed to normally operate for as long away from maintence support, and much of their weapons are designed for repair from outside, while docked in a base or CLAC. So again, if you're willing to cut back on starship style internal maintence you can delete los of access corridors, which again do to their open nature are low density compared to equipment.


Now I don't know how whether these are what RFC was thinking of when he set the density of the new LACs so high, but at least they should show that there could be quite reasonable explanations.

Lord Skimper wrote:Don't forget that Mass of the Shrike, 282 etc are known to be problematic. The Mass of the Shrike is around 5000 tons using the Highlander LAC and larger ship model. When a ship is half the size of another ship, carries no armour and missiles don't count to the mass of the ship it can't weigh twice as much.

The LAC's are shorter and fatter, but about the same volume and mass as an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine. I don't find that unreasonable.
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Firepower is not a thousand bullets that miss - it's one bullet that hits.

Imaginos1892 wrote:

Lord Skimper wrote:Don't forget that Mass of the Shrike, 282 etc are known to be problematic. The Mass of the Shrike is around 5000 tons using the Highlander LAC and larger ship model. When a ship is half the size of another ship, carries no armour and missiles don't count to the mass of the ship it can't weigh twice as much.

The LAC's are shorter and fatter, but about the same volume and mass as an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine. I don't find that unreasonable.
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Firepower is not a thousand bullets that miss - it's one bullet that hits.

All you need to do is fill the space which could be used as a corridor or wardroom with a big honking graser - and suddenly, something with the same exterior dimensions is much heavier.

darrell wrote:I am not aware of anything that says that a Courier boat is 40K tons. The only thing that I can recall about the size of a courier boat comes from ashes of victory.

Quote: Ashes of victory: "Even the biggest pinnace or assault shuttle comes in at well under a thousand tons, though, and a worthwhile LAC has to be in the thirty- to fifty-thousand-ton range just to pack in its impellers and any armament at all. Remember that courier boats in the same size range don't carry any weapons or defenses and just barely manage to find someplace to squeeze in a hyper generator.

-- snip--

Option 2: A courier boat is somewhere between 30K-50K tons, or approximately 40K tons, which means that a military hyper generator is approximately 30K tons for a military hyper generator, less than that for a civilian hyper generator.

The parts to rebuild the hyper generator on the hali swole was a crate on the order of 10-20 cubit meters, so I tend to believe that a military hyper generator, although large, is not 30K tons. That would mean that a courier boat is about the size of a LAC and a hyper generator is 3-5K tons.

If you have any evidence that I am wrong, I would be happy to hear it, but by evidence I mean textov or something similar, not your opinion.

Well by your own evidence, the absolute smallest DB at 30 ktons, because LAC's are approximately the same size, yet carry the weapons that a DB does not.

War of Honor, Chapter Twenty wrote:Mitchell Clapp had begun his own design process by going back to a blank piece of paper. Rather than designing a starship in miniature, he'd seen it as an opportunity to design a pinnace on the macro scale.
-snip-
He'd started out by accepting a life support endurance of only ninety-six hours rather than the weeks and months which most LAC designers insisted upon.

Pre-Shrike LAC's carried similar sized hydrogen bunkers compared to real starships, which cut into the weapons mass they carried. Which means if LACs and DB's are pretty close to identical sized, LAC single-shot box launchers occupied enough mass to swap out for a hyper generator.


You're definitely right that hyper generator's can't be truly large installations, but volume doesn't necessarily correlate with weight or mass. We never were told exactly how the hyper generator on the Hali Swole was made of, only that it took a while for whats-his-name to McGyver machine the replacement they needed.

With the availability of counter-grav virtually everywhere, low-volume, but high-mass objects would become the norm, rather than the exception. Manticoran shipyard techs use what could be described as enclosed, exo-skeletons with counter-grav push & tractor pullers, that was early in HotQ (can't quite find the quote) compared to Grayson's using brute muscle strength, which could imply honorverse ships are built out of something a little more dense than the steel we use today.