Changes in Battle tactics outside planetary hyper limits

StealthSeeker wrote:So then the defenders have to come up with a tactic to counter that kind of siege. But what? I keep saying mines but people don't seem to like that idea. But there has to be something.

It seems obvious to me that the obvious counter to an attacker that keeps jumping to hyperspace is to set a trap for them. It would depend on hyperspace conditions -- a grav wave lurking about would make things difficult, for example -- but a single destroyer or cruiser lurking in hyper with a shoal of MDM pods could be a very nasty surprise to someone seeking to avoid missiles in N-space.

Jonathan_S wrote:Thought guess the flip side we haven't discussed yet is that smaller ships can cycle their hyper drives significantly quicker. So if the targeted cruisers aren't inside a hyper limit, and happened to have their generators on standby, they could jump out in less time than it takes the Catalhract to cover 20 million km: now defenders couldn't keep all their hyperdrives on permanent standby. But if they take turns being the alert ship and the "off duty" ships are hiding then the alert ship probably could keep its hyper generator on standby throughput its alert rotation.

Well, yes. However you may have noted that I planned on this and have ships waiting in hyper.

And now we get into hyper metaphysics.

So the reason you travel FTL on Alpha is that Alpha space is compressed by 60some to 1, so you are not really FTL on alpha, you are just traveling 60some times as far. This means that Alpha is 60some times smaller than RealSpace, right?

See The Universe of Honor Harrington: "Once a vessel enters hyper, it is placed in what might be considered a compressed dimension which corresponds on a point-by-point basis to "normal-space" but places those points in much closer congruity. "

So if I can get accuracy of plus or minus 18some million km in a hyperspace transition that means on Alpha I'm accurate by plus or minus 300,000 km or so. So if you hyper transit from real space to Alpha and a SL SD that can only get to within plus or minus 18 million km trying to attack you is waiting there, that SD is plus or minus 300,000 (or so) km away from you on alpha. And you are very deep inside it's energy envelope.

Important hyper metaphysics note: I have talked to a couple of Bu9 folks who agree this is fully logical way that Hyper needs to work, they are not willing to say that David agrees with this.

Or how about this option for a kind of "defence" against the siege of a wormhole.... let the SLN have it!

Now, before letting the SLN take control of the wormhole you would have to send a "messenger" ship back to the other end to let them know what was going on. That way they could be prepared to blast ships that try to follow through the wormhole to their side.

But I'm serious, let the SLN try to establish a static standing defence of the wormhole, then use all the siege tactics against them. The RMN has smaller ships that can be more nimble in their use of hyper jumps, they have longer range missiles. They could launch the missiles, stick around and guide them to their destination, and still have time to jump out of the way of any return fired missiles.

Suddenly nobody wants to "sit" on top of a Wormhole and try to defend it. Everything becomes a cat and mouse game of manoeuvre, like tanks on a massive battle field of rolling hills.

Wouldn't that be an interesting change up of things???

Well the thing I see, If Manticore just sits on the wormhole junction, then all the SLN has to do is drop a division of SDs right on top of them and blast them with grazer fire. If however, the Manties try to scatter in a globe at extended missile range then the SLN just needs to drop a tin-can in a few light minutes out, do a passive scan for a while, then jump back over the alpha wall & have a couple of SD drop next to each defender and pick them off singly with grazers and no mutual defense formations. Either way - nasty - and the Manties, with their missile emphasis, don't have the energy weapons, except on a few hundred SDs they turn their noses up at.

MAD-4A wrote:Well the thing I see, If Manticore just sits on the wormhole junction, then all the SLN has to do is drop a division of SDs right on top of them and blast them with grazer fire. If however, the Manties try to scatter in a globe at extended missile range then the SLN just needs to drop a tin-can in a few light minutes out, do a passive scan for a while, then jump back over the alpha wall & have a couple of SD drop next to each defender and pick them off singly with grazers and no mutual defense formations. Either way - nasty - and the Manties, with their missile emphasis, don't have the energy weapons, except on a few hundred SDs they turn their noses up at.

It doesn't matter how many energy weapons you have. The attacker almost always will pull the trigger first, as they are all keyed up and ready for the fight and the defender is in day 63 of boredom.

MAD-4A wrote:Well the thing I see, If Manticore just sits on the wormhole junction, then all the SLN has to do is drop a division of SDs right on top of them and blast them with grazer fire. If however, the Manties try to scatter in a globe at extended missile range then the SLN just needs to drop a tin-can in a few light minutes out, do a passive scan for a while, then jump back over the alpha wall & have a couple of SD drop next to each defender and pick them off singly with grazers and no mutual defense formations. Either way - nasty - and the Manties, with their missile emphasis, don't have the energy weapons, except on a few hundred SDs they turn their noses up at.

Not exactly true. Manticoran ships are missile heavy, but the energy weapons they carry are all larger on a class for class basis, copying from Grayson. So Battlecruisers carry SD grasers, cruisers are carrying BC grasers, and even a Rolan Destroyers are packing 5 larger than usual lasers.

So even if you somehow manage to drop a battlecruiser in energy range of a Roland, even coming across with exactly zero velocity will still be spending a few seconds for the computers to go from "blind" to sorting the normal space information. In that few seconds, a Roland that's within 500km is going to roll up on her side to deny you any energy weapon shots, and go to computer override point-defense as she scrambles to action stations. Even with a Scientist SD, you cant possibly launch enough missiles to override a mere Roland destroyer's point defense, and she's rolled on her side in the seconds it took your computers to go from blind, to information sorted, passed the information to computer operated energy weapons and fired.

During tSVW, the Bellerophon dreadnought managed a 90 degree turn AND got her sidewalls up against Admiral Edward Pierre's four battlecruisers and returned fire. Admiral Pierre's goal was almost exactly the sort of ambush the SLN would be trying to do against a wormhole, and if a DN can snarl around a full 90 degrees, get sidewalls activated, and close up her grasers on computer control in under 30 seconds, a destroyer can do at least the turn even faster.


And during the First Battle of Solon, Honor smelled a rat and ordered her carriers to hyper out before Giscard could spring his ambush, and even Giscard shrugged it off and said

"Actually catching them that far outside the limit would have been problematical, at best, Marius," he said. "You know how hard it is a to plot a hyper jump this short. And they weren't exactly likely to be sitting there with their hyper generators off-line and their impeller nodes cold. Unless we'd translated down right on top of them, they'd have had time to get into hyper before we could range on them."

So even if you try to do a hyper translation against wormhole defenders, either they're going to roll on their side and deny your energy weapons and force you to try (badly) with a missile duel at point blank, or they're just going to translate into hyper themselves and move on you before coming back into normal space at optimal missile range.

You have the automated fire control in weapons free at transit. There are no decisions to be made, no orders to be issued. It will kill anything not positively ID as friendly. So it's best if their navigation is accurate....

Somtaaw wrote:During tSVW, the Bellerophon dreadnought managed a 90 degree turn AND got her sidewalls up against Admiral Edward Pierre's four battlecruisers and returned fire. Admiral Pierre's goal was almost exactly the sort of ambush the SLN would be trying to do against a wormhole, and if a DN can snarl around a full 90 degrees, get sidewalls activated, and close up her grasers on computer control in under 30 seconds, a destroyer can do at least the turn even faster.

Just s correction. Bellerophon only turned a few degrees, nowhere close to 90. But given the engagement angles a few degrees was all it took to interpose the leading edge of the sidewall. (Since those extend to the front if the wedge, about 150 km forward of a waller, you don't need much of a turn to skew the vulnerable unoritected throat away from an enemy.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:During tSVW, the Bellerophon dreadnought managed a 90 degree turn AND got her sidewalls up against Admiral Edward Pierre's four battlecruisers and returned fire. Admiral Pierre's goal was almost exactly the sort of ambush the SLN would be trying to do against a wormhole, and if a DN can snarl around a full 90 degrees, get sidewalls activated, and close up her grasers on computer control in under 30 seconds, a destroyer can do at least the turn even faster.

Just s correction. Bellerophon only turned a few degrees, nowhere close to 90. But given the engagement angles a few degrees was all it took to interpose the leading edge of the sidewall. (Since those extend to the front if the wedge, about 150 km forward of a waller, you don't need much of a turn to skew the vulnerable unoritected throat away from an enemy.

7.75 degrees 150 KM vs 10 KM, or less than 8 degrees.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:During tSVW, the Bellerophon dreadnought managed a 90 degree turn AND got her sidewalls up against Admiral Edward Pierre's four battlecruisers and returned fire. Admiral Pierre's goal was almost exactly the sort of ambush the SLN would be trying to do against a wormhole, and if a DN can snarl around a full 90 degrees, get sidewalls activated, and close up her grasers on computer control in under 30 seconds, a destroyer can do at least the turn even faster.

Just s correction. Bellerophon only turned a few degrees, nowhere close to 90. But given the engagement angles a few degrees was all it took to interpose the leading edge of the sidewall. (Since those extend to the front if the wedge, about 150 km forward of a waller, you don't need much of a turn to skew the vulnerable unoritected throat away from an enemy.

I suspect that even with near-perfect engagement geometry, most RMN ships would be able to get a sidewall or buckler in the way in time. Worst case scenario, the RMN ship has to go to a full bow-wall, and finish its skew turn on thrusters. Unless the RMN ship is too old to have been refitted with bow-wall technology. Or stern-walls, I suppose.


That being said, I have rather more faith in the competence levels of Admiral Pierre and his crews than I do in the vast majority of SLN types. Well, most Battle Fleet types anyways. Frontier Fleet is actually probably somewhat similar to the Legislaturalist PRHN skill level.
Point is, they were aiming for single drive missile range on an entirely different ship, and Bellerophon's being in energy range was a total fluke. I also have more faith in the the PRHN crews that went for the Basilisk terminus and missed.
I expect that single drive missile range is probably extremely good navigation. And, I'd expect that the slower a ship is when exiting hyperspace the more accurate it's going to be, so for maximum accuracy, you're probably leaving hyper and reentering realspace with an extremely low velocity.