A couple of queries about The Weapon That Shall Not Be Named

kzt wrote:Yeah, it wouldn't possibly be effective if it blew the wedges down on a wave of incoming missiles in their last 10 seconds of flight and hence pulled them a few tens of thousand km from where there tiny little computers were planning them to be.

Considering how trivial the fix was, I am pretty sure that missiles are not affected by it.

And, above all, if it was an effective antimissile strategy, why is noone using it?

The E wrote:Considering how trivial the fix was, I am pretty sure that missiles are not affected by it.

And, above all, if it was an effective antimissile strategy, why is noone using it?

Because it's a throwaway thing, not something that David cares about.

And circuit breakers are great, except that missiles cannot restart their wedges. Once it starts and stops it's done. Plus the description in the story had this taking time.

The short story laid out some shortcomings of the system. One, that it's a targeted system, so hitting something as small as a missile is quite difficult. Two, that an omnidirectional pulse is significantly shorter ranged, and thus not not going to affect missiles before they go wedge down. And three, it's not particularly rapid firing.

Duckk wrote:The short story laid out some shortcomings of the system. One, that it's a targeted system, so hitting something as small as a missile is quite difficult. Two, that an omnidirectional pulse is significantly shorter ranged, and thus not not going to affect missiles before they go wedge down. And three, it's not particularly rapid firing.

Lab proof of concept rigs (which is essentially what he was selling) are usually pretty far from the capabilities of a fully developed production class system.

I suppose that, from a distance, it would look like Alpha nodes overloading and blowing up. But localised to one direction, not omni like a real blow would.

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kzt wrote:

Duckk wrote:The short story laid out some shortcomings of the system. One, that it's a targeted system, so hitting something as small as a missile is quite difficult. Two, that an omnidirectional pulse is significantly shorter ranged, and thus not not going to affect missiles before they go wedge down. And three, it's not particularly rapid firing.

Lab proof of concept rigs (which is essentially what he was selling) are usually pretty far from the capabilities of a fully developed production class system.

True. But consider how many things never make it beyond the proof of concept rigs.

I still like it.

I still think several of these discarded tech things, even with countermeasures, are great ways to slow down or stop dead civilian wedge ships. The simple counter measure only works if previously implemented. Given the typical Honorverse cost control on ships of them not even stopping in a system but to coast in and coast out. And to fight pirates they used luck. Occasionally an escort but then the escort never went in with convoys, except in time of war, and often foreign system escorts often turned into privateers.

If you want to raid or privateer or pirate cargo ships the crippler refined or not is perfect. Even the Wayfarer, even with circuit breakers, would be hard pressed when in combat it's wedge dropped just as the missiles approached it.

Given a modern tech redo, the Crippler could be the best box weapon against swarms of missiles. 50 ships one on each if not two or three. Right at CM range when the CM wedge just plows through a dozen plus missiles before running into a wedge and being deleted.

As for the Voldemort. An LAC beta squared has a really powerful wedge, using a bottle or capacitor or even bomb pumped one shot effect the Voldemort could be the awesome weapon it is. With a spider drive...? What does Voldemort do to a bubble sidewall?

Lord Skimper wrote:I still like it.

You would.

If you want to raid or privateer or pirate cargo ships the crippler refined or not is perfect. Even the Wayfarer, even with circuit breakers, would be hard pressed when in combat it's wedge dropped just as the missiles approached it.

...The simple counter measure only works if previously implemented.

And given that the simple counter-measure was *so* simple that they managed to improvise it within a few days using only the internal resources of the ship in question, then your oh-so-perfect wonder weapon becomes completely worthless within a month or two of you first using it. At least against any competent foe, and even if it *were* really a wonder weapon, you don't *need* one against incompetent foes. And all of this is contingent on there actually being a large enough advantage in using the damn thing compared to conventional methods to justify bothering, which there most definitely isn't.

Given a modern tech redo, the Crippler could be the best box weapon against swarms of missiles. 50 ships one on each if not two or three. Right at CM range when the CM wedge just plows through a dozen plus missiles before running into a wedge and being deleted.

I like how everyone seems to assume that you can wipe out swathes of missiles with every crippler shot. The story itself says that it's an *aimed* weapon, and space is big - even the missiles in a single salvo are not flying shoulder-to-shoulder. It also is most definitely *not* rapid firing. Congrats, your wall's crippler shots knocked out the impellers on two dozen incoming missiles, great job. Pity about the other seven thousand eight hundred and forty-three missiles about to murder you.

As for the Voldemort. An LAC beta squared has a really powerful wedge, using a bottle or capacitor or even bomb pumped one shot effect the Voldemort could be the awesome weapon it is. With a spider drive...? What does Voldemort do to a bubble sidewall?

Skimper. READ. THE. PEARLS. You cannot put a grav lance into a LAC. In the words of the author himself (italics original):

David Weber wrote:Guys, I am going to say this one more time and once only. you cannot put a grav lance into anything smaller than a DD or CL. Not "You could put it in if you had more power." Not "We can figure out a way to do this if we only jigger with the tech enough." It cannot be done. Period. End of story.

You are rehashing arguments that were settled by the ultimate god of the setting literally decades ago. Now stop wasting everyone's time and braincells.

MuonNeutrino wrote:

Lord Skimper wrote:If you want to raid or privateer or pirate cargo ships the crippler refined or not is perfect. Even the Wayfarer, even with circuit breakers, would be hard pressed when in combat it's wedge dropped just as the missiles approached it.

And given that the simple counter-measure was *so* simple that they managed to improvise it within a few days using only the internal resources of the ship in question, then your oh-so-perfect wonder weapon becomes completely worthless within a month or two of you first using it. At least against any competent foe

Also the crippler is shorter ranged than even single drive missiles.
So even in the best case example Lord Skimper could have, attacking an armed and defended ship with merchant grade propulsion the crippler still isn't useful because you've got to close to "just over a million kilometers" before you can try to even temporarily knock down the target's wedge. Fight'll be long over by then.

MuonNeutrino wrote:You are rehashing arguments that were settled by the ultimate god of the setting literally decades ago. Now stop wasting everyone's time and braincells.

I'll just leave this here.