How To Abandon Ship?

BIT O' HUMOR

In formation, it is not advisable to tailgate a Cruiser. You don't want a Cruiser to jettison its reactor and it explodes right in your throat.

"O Fuck! Hardaport!"

While discussing the mechanics of ejecting the core, I began thinking about the mechanics of scuttling a ship. At first I told myself that the core would be part of the self-destruct sequence, but then I remembered something about scuttling charges. Also, aboard a huge SD, unleashing the reactor might not ensure destruction of all vital components. Even aboard any ship, using the core as part of the scuttling sequence might not be effective enough.

Where are the scuttling charges placed throughout the ship that would ensure total destruction of key technology? Missiles, etc. You certainly wouldn't want part of the ship that houses the Apollo missiles and tech to separate into huge intact chunks. The RMN could ill afford examples of molycircs found. Yet there has to be ways to create those brilliant fireballs of explosions witnessed in textev. Bringing up a wedge in a boat bay?

Also, it seems that battle damage could destroy the ability to scuttle...

"Scuttle sequence inoperative." Says computer.

cthia wrote:Where are the scuttling charges placed throughout the ship that would ensure total destruction of key technology? Missiles, etc. You certainly wouldn't want part of the ship that houses the Apollo missiles and tech to separate into huge intact chunks. The RMN could ill afford examples of molycircs found.

Unclear. The term "scuttling charges" only appears 12 times in the entire series and only 7 of those relate to warships shuttling themselves and none of those cases do we see the mechanics of them being set.

The only time the mechanics come up, even peripherally, is at Grendlesbane (in WoH) where the they're talking about the destroying their yards to prevent the RHN from capturing them. ""We don't have time to set scuttling charges," Higgins went on in a harsh, flat voice. "Get every work crew back to the main facility. I want all secure data wiped now. Once you've done that, set the charges and blow the entire computer core, as well." Then the RMN ends up using missiles to nuke all the partially complete ships.

So it seems that at least for a yard the scuttling charges aren't pre-deployed and remotely activatable. That may mean that they're locked up in ammo magazines within the yard complex and have to be distributed before the yard station can be shuttled, or it might just mean that while they're pre-deployed they require a local connection to activate them (making it harder to hack). I'd lean towards the former - you wouldn't want explosives distributed around where they could be tampered with or stolen; you'd want those under lock.

(Obviously the shuttling charges hidden in the PNE ships are different as those are set for remote detonation so the MAlign has the option of covering their tracks)


If they're locked away in ammo magazines then conceivably battle damage could destroy the stored charges. Or a crew might not have time to distribute them to all the necessary areas of the ship if damage blocks access to some areas. On the other hand, if they're locked in magazines you don't need to worry about damage cutting the control links to them and you can readjust the demolition plan based on what's left of the ship at the time you abandon it.

But overall I'd bet this isn't an area of the Honorverse David's spend much time thinking about the details of.

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:Where are the scuttling charges placed throughout the ship that would ensure total destruction of key technology? Missiles, etc. You certainly wouldn't want part of the ship that houses the Apollo missiles and tech to separate into huge intact chunks. The RMN could ill afford examples of molycircs found.

Unclear. The term "scuttling charges" only appears 12 times in the entire series and only 7 of those relate to warships shuttling themselves and none of those cases do we see the mechanics of them being set.

The only time the mechanics come up, even peripherally, is at Grendlesbane (in WoH) where the they're talking about the destroying their yards to prevent the RHN from capturing them. ""We don't have time to set scuttling charges," Higgins went on in a harsh, flat voice. "Get every work crew back to the main facility. I want all secure data wiped now. Once you've done that, set the charges and blow the entire computer core, as well." Then the RMN ends up using missiles to nuke all the partially complete ships.

So it seems that at least for a yard the scuttling charges aren't pre-deployed and remotely activatable. That may mean that they're locked up in ammo magazines within the yard complex and have to be distributed before the yard station can be shuttled, or it might just mean that while they're pre-deployed they require a local connection to activate them (making it harder to hack). I'd lean towards the former - you wouldn't want explosives distributed around where they could be tampered with or stolen; you'd want those under lock.

(Obviously the shuttling charges hidden in the PNE ships are different as those are set for remote detonation so the MAlign has the option of covering their tracks)


If they're locked away in ammo magazines then conceivably battle damage could destroy the stored charges. Or a crew might not have time to distribute them to all the necessary areas of the ship if damage blocks access to some areas. On the other hand, if they're locked in magazines you don't need to worry about damage cutting the control links to them and you can readjust the demolition plan based on what's left of the ship at the time you abandon it.

But overall I'd bet this isn't an area of the Honorverse David's spend much time thinking about the details of.

Thinking about it further, I suppose examples of classified tech can fall into enemy hands from ships they've destroyed as well.

My drill sgt at basic had spent time guarding a nuke weapons depot in Germany. He mentioned they had regular drillls setting up demo charges for rapid emergency destruction of all the weapons. So it all depends on how much of a threat is perceived as to how much focus gets placed on emergency destruction of sensitive equipment.

I would think that loosing (or deliberatly causing it to overload) containment of a fustion reactor would probably vaporize much of something up to the size of a BC.

Your problems in disposing of a ship to prevent capture of technology would be from damage from which the reactors on a ship go into auto-shutdown rather than go off in a nuclear explosion. When you build a nuclear power generation operation you attempt to make it such that problems make or allow it to shut down to prevent it from exploding. Gas explosions and power overloads may be damaging or very distructive but actualy going to a full nuclear detonation where the reactors goes off like a weapon is going obliterate the reactor and a ship it is contained in.
Reactor shut-down would be the default operation for problems, not letting it run away with the reaction.

Brigade XO wrote:I would think that loosing (or deliberatly causing it to overload) containment of a fustion reactor would probably vaporize much of something up to the size of a BC.

Your problems in disposing of a ship to prevent capture of technology would be from damage from which the reactors on a ship go into auto-shutdown rather than go off in a nuclear explosion. When you build a nuclear power generation operation you attempt to make it such that problems make or allow it to shut down to prevent it from exploding. Gas explosions and power overloads may be damaging or very distructive but actualy going to a full nuclear detonation where the reactors goes off like a weapon is going obliterate the reactor and a ship it is contained in.
Reactor shut-down would be the default operation for problems, not letting it run away with the reaction.

We don't actually know what scuttling means. Yes, in the current navy, we set off charges or open pipes, etc., to have ship sink.

Different in space. We know from textev that computers get wiped and cores destroyed. For warships key weapon systems are destroyed. I think much of the rest of the destruction would come through implosion. A major explosion would threaten life pods.

If a reactor core went, that would do damage for quite a few klicks and we've seen that happen in battle. I doubt a ship would be blown up completely if its crew was still close by.

Of course, some ships might take the risk but how realistic would it be? If I was an engineer on board a ship, would I want to take out the whole crew?

We have seen several instances where otherwise undamaged freighters in convoy have been destroyed after the crews abandoned ship to keep the enemy (usually the Peeps) from getting the cargos. Wipeing the computer cores and slagging some systems/equipment wouldn't be enough to do that. Setting to reactor(s) to overload and lose containment after a short window to allow the crew abandoing the ship by shuttle or whatever ship's boats and lift ponds would work.

ldwechsler wrote:We don't actually know what scuttling means. Yes, in the current navy, we set off charges or open pipes, etc., to have ship sink.

Different in space. We know from textev that computers get wiped and cores destroyed. For warships key weapon systems are destroyed. I think much of the rest of the destruction would come through implosion. A major explosion would threaten life pods.

If a reactor core went, that would do damage for quite a few klicks and we've seen that happen in battle. I doubt a ship would be blown up completely if its crew was still close by.

Of course, some ships might take the risk but how realistic would it be? If I was an engineer on board a ship, would I want to take out the whole crew?

The most detailed description, still seen from the outside and based on broad area sensor reading from the RMN ships in the general area (nobody was running a detailed sensor sweep on the freighter when she was scuttled) is is SftS.

Storm from the Shadows Ch 39 & 40 wrote: the Hélène Blondeau's icon was abruptly replaced with the flashing crimson symbol that indicated a spreading sphere of wreckage, flying outward from the point in space at which a ship had just blown up.
[[snip of a number of pages]]
Hélène Blondeau had been destroyed by an internal explosion. Or, to be more precise, the freighter had been destroyed by a single explosive event consisting of eight—not the seven Denton had identified—simultaneous detonations equidistantly spaced throughout her volume. It hadn't been a sequence of explosions spreading, however rapidly, from a single initial site, which would have been the case with almost any conceivable "natural" catastrophe . . . and would definitely have been the case if they had been the result of energy fire or a missile strike impacting on the hull. The only way that so many detonations could have occurred simultaneously throughout the volume of a ship that size was as the result of very carefully placed scuttling charges.

In this case it was enough to break the ship into pieces, but the 8 points of origin imply the fusion reactor wasn't used to blow the ship.

But since this was apparently a planned false flag operation to blame Manticore for the destruction of the New Tuscan freighter we don't know if this represents a typical scuttling of a freighter, much less if it's at all representational of scuttling a warship.

[/quote]In this case it was enough to break the ship into pieces, but the 8 points of origin imply the fusion reactor wasn't used to blow the ship.

But since this was apparently a planned false flag operation to blame Manticore for the destruction of the New Tuscan freighter we don't know if this represents a typical scuttling of a freighter, much less if it's at all representational of scuttling a warship.[/quote]

Exactly, this was designed to look like multiple missle or energy weapon strikes on the ship. Note it was described as energy fire or missles strikes IMPACTING on the hull. There were 8 seperate sources of the explosion which combined to destroy the ship. Not the powerplant running away, deliberate fire to destroy the ship from the outside. But, you could get the same result from putting blasting charges (some kind of "conventional" explosives up to but not including micro tactical nukes) that are going to blow the ship apart. That should effectivly create a lot of blast and explosive decompression damage to the cargo as well as the structure. Which is why pirates have been shown fireing a warning shot to get a surrender or having to be very careful about what weapons they actualy use (and where they aim) to damage the ship and get it to surrender. At the very least you would like to be able to take away your prize under it's own power and blowing up not only the propulsion systems (and scramming the reactor) and smashing a lot of the cargo doesn't make for much of a payday for the pirate.