Git your pencils out and design me a ship!

Space is big, but it's not _that_ big. At 600g, round trip to the hyperlimit is under 5 hours - and that only if you're trying to cover 1/3 of the arc along the ecliptic and heading for one end of the arc. And looking for 0/0 intercepts at both ends. [I'm too lazy to calculate the details, but it would be entirely feasible to patrol that entire arc and return to base in around 6 hours, moving at .2c. The wonders of impeller drive!] That wide a patrol area would be rather a waste since the vast majority of freighters hyper in as close to a least-time course as they can manage, and pirates won't waste their time hunting for them where they aren't going to be to start with.

Somtaaw wrote:
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The role Skimper initially envisioned for his "customs boat" seemed to be something that could also double as an anti-pirate hunter, which means much of it's duty would be spent around, and slightly beyond the hyper limit. Just a round trip to get from a habitable planet to the hyper limit will be anywhere from 12 to 20 hours. That's already one-third the endurance of a Cimeterre, and one-seventh that of a Shrike-B or Ferret (they conducted week long ballistic insertions during Buttercup is where I get that from).

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Louis R wrote:Space is big, but it's not _that_ big. At 600g, round trip to the hyperlimit is under 5 hours - and that only if you're trying to cover 1/3 of the arc along the ecliptic and heading for one end of the arc. And looking for 0/0 intercepts at both ends. [I'm too lazy to calculate the details, but it would be entirely feasible to patrol that entire arc and return to base in around 6 hours, moving at .2c. The wonders of impeller drive!] That wide a patrol area would be rather a waste since the vast majority of freighters hyper in as close to a least-time course as they can manage, and pirates won't waste their time hunting for them where they aren't going to be to start with.

Somtaaw wrote:
< snip >

The role Skimper initially envisioned for his "customs boat" seemed to be something that could also double as an anti-pirate hunter, which means much of it's duty would be spent around, and slightly beyond the hyper limit. Just a round trip to get from a habitable planet to the hyper limit will be anywhere from 12 to 20 hours. That's already one-third the endurance of a Cimeterre, and one-seventh that of a Shrike-B or Ferret (they conducted week long ballistic insertions during Buttercup is where I get that from).

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The planet manticore is 11.5 LM from the star, the hyper limit is 22 LM. That gives a minimum distance of 10.5 LM, a maximum distance of 33.5 LM from manticore to the hyper limit. that is 189Mkm to 603Mkm

figured on a zero zero intercept at 502G's (5KM/s^2) 189Mkm, for a zero zero intercept to the closest point on the hyper limit (189Mkm) you are looking at 3 hours, 24 minutes. For a zero zero intercepts with the farthest point on the hyper limit, you are looking at about 6 hours 15 minutes. It would be 6 hours 6 minutes if you didn't need to manuver around the sun.

You could use Cimatars if you split the ships in three and worked them in shifts. 2 days on the hyper limit, 4 days off.

More specifically, up to 6 hours traveling to the limit, 2 days patrolling. when relieved up to 6 hours travling back to base. The crew then has a day and a half down time while the base does any maintance needed and restocks the ship. You then have 2 days on standby. Done that way at any given time you have 1/3 of your LAC's on station, 1/3 either traveling or offline, 1/3 at standby in case of a massive attack.

darrell wrote:patrol gist snip for brevity

Problem with that though, your patrol pattern leaves little to no flex for emergency situations. You'd want a minimum of a 50% reserve for life support, just in case of events like being rerouted while returning to base.

A custom's craft should have considerably more dwell time on station, to account for trolling for pirates or just plain lying doggo, and able to pick up survivors and the like. If you're projecting a 3 day patrol itself, the customs & patrol craft would have around 6 days life support for it's designated crew.

So while reading through Shadows of Saganami, I found some great snippets in there regarding the view of policing a system's own space, and some notes about life support. I'll post the direct quotes if anyone wants, but I'll just post the summaries instead for now.

In Nuncio, they had 11 LAC's, the largest of which was 18 ktons, and the entire Nuncio Space Force massed about 1/3rd of Hexapuma. Ragnhild, as a daughter of a Manticoran shipping company, thought even knowing none of the Talbott Cluster systems had the economic or industrial capacity to build anything like an effective naval force. But that 11 LAC's was pathetic to defend, or even effectively patrolling an entire system.

Nuncio-B's hyper limit is 16.72 light-minutes from it's star, and the planet Pontifex was about 10 light-minutes from the star, the StateSec ships in question came out of hyper high on the eliptic and did so at nearly 45 light-minutes. Abigail Hearn's had set Hexapuma's remote sensor drones at a very complex path that would force any incoming ship to be coming in ballistic at over 0.5c to even hope to only be forced to sneak past one drone, which indicates that a Sag-C has a very large drone stockpile for events like this.

I also found comments comparing the regular Verge pirate to be the least technically capable of their ilk, and in many ways the rowboat-equipped pirates on Earth's coastal seas, and making the average Silesian pirate look like first-line naval units in comparison.

And that even pirates in the Verge like Talbott, carry at least a few RD's, and how Hexapuma with the aid of EWO Bagwell and Ginger Lewis played node games (exactly like Wayfarer did in Marsh against Warnecke) to ensure the pirates wouldn't even bother using an RD.

Regarding life-support, Nuncio committed a total of 6 LAC's to fly out to the 45 light-minute camping freighter, loaded with two companies of Nuncio Army troops, and Hexapuma committed 2 pinnaces loaded with a platoon of Hexapuma's single company. Earlier in the book, the regular battalion a heavy cruiser would have carried is 3 companies and 450ish troops, which made the 6 Nuncio LACs carrying approximately 300 troops plus their naval crews. And that it took them over 15 hours to simply carry out the attack on the freighter, not counting the 2 hours to get back to zero-zero after their high-speed flyby attack, and another 3 hours to search the freighter before they actually spoke to the civilians in the power room.

The hyper-drive/compensator package would have to be Streak Drive specs for a start.

So, just for fun.... crazy ship time.


...an RN CLAC, fully stocked to the deckheads with RMN Shrike B-s, and entirely hull covered with limpeted Mark-16G pods, plus KH-II.... drops into the outer system, drops pods, launches LACs which each grab two pods, and head in system in the Sonja swarm plus towed pods.

Your mission, sir Battle Fleet [and at least moderately competent, compared to what we've seen...] SLN admiral of a big nodal force and shipyard, is to.... ?

SharkHunter wrote:Your mission, sir Battle Fleet [and at least moderately competent, compared to what we've seen...] SLN admiral of a big nodal force and shipyard, is to.... ?

Step one: Take away Sharkhunter's bong and figure out what he's been smoking.

Step two: Eliminate KHII from the scenarios because CLACs don't mount Keyhole units and they aren't transferable even temporarily because half of the system is inboard computers.

Step Three: Is this the first time our hypothetically competent BF Admiral has seen a LAC Swarm? (He presumably would not spot the pods as Shrike-B's would only be held down to conventional (pre-war) LAC accel.

Three A: Yes it is the first time: Send a spread of ships out to meet them in a 1/2 missile range pattern. (each ship can support its neighbors with reasonable time lags and accuracy.) Die nobly as the GA unleashes a Mk-16 missile storm to destroy everything hyper-capable in system.

Three B: No, he's seen this before and miraculously survived to inherit a command from someone who didn't survive. Give orders to scatter and proceed independently to anywhere the GA might have a reason to visit.

--snipping--

Weird Harold wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:Your mission, sir Battle Fleet [and at least moderately competent, compared to what we've seen...] SLN admiral of a big nodal force and shipyard, is to.... ?

Step one: Take away Sharkhunter's bong and figure out what he's been smoking.

Step Three: Is this the first time our hypothetically competent BF Admiral has seen a LAC Swarm? (He presumably would not spot the pods as Shrike-B's would only be held down to conventional (pre-war) LAC accel.

Three A: Yes it is the first time: Send a spread of ships out to meet them in a 1/2 missile range pattern. (each ship can support its neighbors with reasonable time lags and accuracy.) Die nobly as the GA unleashes a Mk-16 missile storm to destroy everything hyper-capable in system.

Three B: No, he's seen this before and miraculously survived to inherit a command from someone who didn't survive. Give orders to scatter and proceed independently to anywhere the GA might have a reason to visit.

Not smoking... just bored with the standard tactical threads and having a bit of fun trying to kick the tactical tires and light some new fires. With a quick aside about KHII to note that duh, Mk-16 pods don't have ACM's anyway. Was thinking about another thread. Meant to suggest an SD(p)'s full set of tactical links, preconfigured to manage the LAC towed missiles.

But your conclusion is the same as mine. That said, I think even most of the SLN admirals would not have a clue what the Manties were up to until the CLAC commander says something along the lines of "those first two sceening BC's abandon now or KA-Bang, and then have the 8-10 LACs cut loose with their towed pods. Of course, said admiral doesn't think much. Until those two BC's and one flagship gets toasted.

About which time the CLAC commander suggests that whoever is next in command consider option surrender.

SharkHunter wrote:So, just for fun.... crazy ship time.


...an RN CLAC, fully stocked to the deckheads with RMN Shrike B-s, and entirely hull covered with limpeted Mark-16G pods, plus KH-II.... drops into the outer system, drops pods, launches LACs which each grab two pods, and head in system in the Sonja swarm plus towed pods.

Your mission, sir Battle Fleet [and at least moderately competent, compared to what we've seen...] SLN admiral of a big nodal force and shipyard, is to.... ?

From the Admiral's perspective the good news is that the Keyhole (which the CLAC wouldn't have anyway) is pretty useless if the CLAC is following proper doctrine and staying well clear of combat. It's going to be too far back for even FTL fire control (which the Mk16s can't use anyway) to reach.

Also LACs towing pods are both slow and "loud". The extra work to tow the pod behind the wedge screws up their power levels and stealth. So the SLN can see them coming (for once).

Now if the SLN Admiral only has SDMs he's still screwed unless he takes advantage of the LACs reduced acceleration to run away.
But if he's got Cataphracts, and uses them correctly, he's got a better chance.

Launch cataphracts very early to force the LACs into a use-'em or lose-'em situation before they reach effective Mk16 range. (Your hit probabilities will also suck, but you don't need many hits to strip away any unused towed pods)

At that point the SLN Admiral will think things are looking up, he's got his nodal force of SDs, BCs, etc against LACs. And he's now got the missile range advantage. Won't do him much more good, unless he's got enough Cataphracts onboard or in pods to completely deplete the CMs and/or Vipers of the approaching LACs, but at least he gets the change to fire weapons at beyond the enemies range to respond. So unless the LACs break off the fight seems like it'll inevitably end up in energy range. At which point the SLN formation will probably get torn up, but it'll inevitable take some LACs with it - they're just too vulnerable in energy range to all escape unscathed.

Jonathan_S wrote:Now if the SLN Admiral only has SDMs he's still screwed unless he takes advantage of the LACs reduced acceleration to run away.

This coming from the guy with the spreadsheets, exactly how many pods would a Shrike or Katana have to be towing, to reduce it's top acceleration from the ~800 gravity range, to somewhere a Frontier Fleet battlecruiser's going to be able to "run away" from the LACs?

I'm thinking, only about oh, 30 or 40 pods limpeted up against the LAC's, so we'd need a freighter or a full up podnought shadowing the CLAC to deploy enough pods that they'd be notciably slowed enough, FF can actively maneuver whether accepting action at all, or flat running away.