How To Abandon Ship?

tlb wrote:That is an interesting problem; but if the warheads are exploding a thousand kilometers away (what is a good distance to use?) and the blasts attenuate with an R squared law, then is it as bad as you imply?

kzt wrote:Well, to put on my nerdy and continuity fanatic hat, how come the pods get all messed up by radiation?

Example(s), please. Do we know how far away the warheads exploded for the example(s) you cite? If this is always a problem, then Loren Pechtel was right.

tlb wrote:Example(s), please. Do we know how far away the warheads exploded for the example(s) you cite? If this is always a problem, then Loren Pechtel was right.

Based on the commentary in the text, very vulnerable. Enough that you'd use long range kind of unguided missiles to force the other side to use or lose them.

Except at BoM, because reasons.

But at work I can't look up examples, but they are not hard to find.

kzt wrote:

tlb wrote:Example(s), please. Do we know how far away the warheads exploded for the example(s) you cite? If this is always a problem, then Loren Pechtel was right.

Based on the commentary in the text, very vulnerable. Enough that you'd use long range kind of unguided missiles to force the other side to use or lose them.

Except at BoM, because reasons.

But at work I can't look up examples, but they are not hard to find.

Pretty much the entire first war is filled with thoughts about flushing pods before the opponent's first wave hits so the pods are not effected by radiation from the proximity missile detonations.

tlb wrote:Example(s), please. Do we know how far away the warheads exploded for the example(s) you cite? If this is always a problem, then Loren Pechtel was right.

kzt wrote:Based on the commentary in the text, very vulnerable. Enough that you'd use long range kind of unguided missiles to force the other side to use or lose them.

Except at BoM, because reasons.

But at work I can't look up examples, but they are not hard to find.

Theemile wrote:Pretty much the entire first war is filled with thoughts about flushing pods before the opponent's first wave hits so the pods are not effected by radiation from the proximity missile detonations.

No, you misunderstand; we were talking about life pods in the context of abandoning ship, not missile pods. Here is the original quote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:The only reason I would say the final crew shouldn't bail is life pods aren't shielded against the environment that will be outside their ships when the missiles arrive.

I’m suggesting that military shielded and hardened electronics designed to operate around fusion bomb detonations are likely much less susceptible to fatal side effects from large radiation doses than are people in flimsy emergency vehicles.

Hence if it will kill the missiles in pods that are designed to be part of say 20,000 missiles detonating within 2 seconds in a 200,000 km hemisphere it’s going to be a bad day if you are a person in a life raft.

tlb wrote:

tlb wrote:Example(s), please. Do we know how far away the warheads exploded for the example(s) you cite? If this is always a problem, then Loren Pechtel was right.

kzt wrote:Based on the commentary in the text, very vulnerable. Enough that you'd use long range kind of unguided missiles to force the other side to use or lose them.

Except at BoM, because reasons.

But at work I can't look up examples, but they are not hard to find.

Theemile wrote:Pretty much the entire first war is filled with thoughts about flushing pods before the opponent's first wave hits so the pods are not effected by radiation from the proximity missile detonations.

No, you misunderstand; we were talking about life pods in the context of abandoning ship, not missile pods. Here is the original quote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:The only reason I would say the final crew shouldn't bail is life pods aren't shielded against the environment that will be outside their ships when the missiles arrive.

Whoops - sorry.

<Lurkmode - on>

kzt wrote:I’m suggesting that military shielded and hardened electronics designed to operate around fusion bomb detonations are likely much less susceptible to fatal side effects from large radiation doses than are people in flimsy emergency vehicles.

Hence if it will kill the missiles in pods that are designed to be part of say 20,000 missiles detonating within 2 seconds in a 200,000 km hemisphere it’s going to be a bad day if you are a person in a life raft.

Which is why I always thought boats and pods were launched perpendicular to the plane of attack. Plus, if the wedge is down and there is no acceleration, then the unholy hell bearing down on the ship puts the boats and pods within the sphere of collateral damage. Which might seem to demand as much acceleration as possible out of the boats and pods. But then, there's Ajax muddying the waters. Just kick them out and allow them to exit aft of the ship < maximum pod/boat acceleration?

kzt wrote:I’m suggesting that military shielded and hardened electronics designed to operate around fusion bomb detonations are likely much less susceptible to fatal side effects from large radiation doses than are people in flimsy emergency vehicles.

Hence if it will kill the missiles in pods that are designed to be part of say 20,000 missiles detonating within 2 seconds in a 200,000 km hemisphere it’s going to be a bad day if you are a person in a life raft.

I understand your point and I do not have answers, only questions. One thing we do know is than anti-radiation shielding is advanced enough so that a light weight fission reactor can power a LAC. Is it possible that medicine is advanced enough, so that any non-fatal radiation damage can be fixed?

The central question is whether, in a battle, it is safer to stay with a ship that may be about to die or to flee in a life pod? Certainly, if the ship has a compensator or fusion reactor failure, then it is better to be in a life pod even if only one survives. But we do not know what the expected survival percentage is for life pods is in a battle situation.

I also have a question about killing missile pods: it is my impression that the attack on these pods uses short range blast effects. I have no idea if this is the way RFC is writing it.

Picture that your in a warship which has taken enough structural and mechanical damage such that it is in the process of dying. You have enemy missles comming at you and the ships ability to stop them is, at best, massilly degrade, at worst, non existant and not even the wedge is up. You ship has had the crap blown out if it and along with everything elce there is a really good chance that one or more of you nuclear reactor powerplants will lose containment due to any number of systems or structural failures.

Your Captain/commanding officer ordres you to abandon ship. They are really sure you will be better off NOT ON THE SHIP which is probably not going to survive much longere and might vaporize itself with said loss of containment (and the little problems like loss of compensator/grav plating power, air & environmental containment etc and possibly a few serious fires where there is air.

So, do you sit tight and pray that bad things will stop happening or do you get the hell off the ship in a life-pod with might even have a good chance of getting you far enough away from the ship before it does vaporize and give you a place you can survive for X amount of time before you get picked up by somebody's search & rescue?
I think I will vote for getting away from being the target for the incomming weapons and hopefully getting away from it before it becomes a fusion bomb going off. Close counts, you want to be as far away as possible

Brigade XO wrote:So, do you sit tight and pray that bad things will stop happening or do you get the hell off the ship in a life-pod with might even have a good chance of getting you far enough away from the ship before it does vaporize and give you a place you can survive for X amount of time before you get picked up by somebody's search & rescue?
I think I will vote for getting away from being the target for the incomming weapons and hopefully getting away from it before it becomes a fusion bomb going off. Close counts, you want to be as far away as possible

I do not disagree; the problem is that other people in this thread made it sound as though abandoning a ship in a combat environment is an equally bad choice. So in Ajax, where only half the crew could leave by life pod, which half is it better to be in? It is perfectly reasonable to say that escape in life pods is preferable, but we really do not have actuarial numbers.