Hybrid missile/Graser Torp

Are you sure, thatb the Alignement Graser Torpedos had a spider drive?

I know, that a spider drive ship bring the weapons into the manticore system, but I couldn´t remember, that the weapons itself use a spider drive.

The weapons could drop balistic without an own engine or with a wedge like a probe.

To equip the graser torpedos with spider drive is risky. A lot of weapons, one malfunction and the manticorians have a spider drive they can study.

The spider drive is new. Can you actually make the engine so small?

Maldorian wrote:Are you sure, thatb the Alignement Graser Torpedos had a spider drive?

I know, that a spider drive ship bring the weapons into the manticore system, but I couldn´t remember, that the weapons itself use a spider drive.

The weapons could drop balistic without an own engine or with a wedge like a probe.

To equip the graser torpedos with spider drive is risky. A lot of weapons, one malfunction and the manticorians have a spider drive they can study.

The spider drive is new. Can you actually make the engine so small?

From Mission of Honor, chapter 28:

The first wave of each attack consisted of a weapon which was as much a fundamental breakthrough, in its own way, as the Manticoran introduction of the multidrive missile: a graser torpedo which used its own variant of the spider drive. It was a large and cumbersome weapon, with the same trilateral symmetry as the Shark-class ships which had launched it, and for the same reasons.
...
For all its size, it was also a slow weapon. It was simply impossible to fit a spider drive capable of more than a few hundred gravities' acceleration into something small enough to make a practical weapon. As compensation, however, its drive had almost as much endurance as most of the galaxy's recon drones, which gave it an impressive absolute range. And a large percentage of the torpedo's volume had been reserved for systems which had nothing at all to do with propulsion. Whereas the Royal Manticoran Navy had concentrated on improving the efficiency of its standard laser heads, Daniel Detweiler's R&D staff had taken another approach. They'd figured out how to squeeze what amounted to a cruiser-grade graser projector into something small enough to deploy independently.
...
Fitting all that into something the size of a torpedo had required some drastic engineering compromises, and there'd never been any possibility of squeezing in the power supply for more than a single shot. Even if there had been, no one could build a graser that small and that powerful which could survive the power bleed and waste heat of actually firing. But that was fine with the MAN's designers and tacticians. In fact, they were just as happy every graser torpedo would irrevocably and totally destroy itself in the moment it fired, since they weren't looking forward to the day one of their enemies finally captured one intact and figured out how to duplicate it.

Relax wrote:PS: It appears you forget how HV currently works. CM's are the ones "SEEING" the missiles after being steered to approxamite location, and final homing in... With spider Gtorps as target is IMPOSSIBLE. Why only solution is for RD's to be positioned VERY close to the vectors of incoming Gtorps so they can see them and then they relay this position in a general broadcast where the CM's can listen and pick out the correct target. That is why you MUST have the RD shells so close. If you lose lock on target, you have NO TARGET! Spider drives still have plenty of acceleration. Did previous book not say 3000G?

No, you're probably thinking of RMN drones' usual operating speed under stealth. See the MoH quote TLB provided - "simply impossible to fit a spider drive capable of more than a few hundred gravities' acceleration into something small enough to make a practical weapon." Mind you, they could use a cataphract's CM drivestage for the final approach, but then CMs and PDLCs can see them just fine...

If the Alignment stick with spider drive all the way through firing range, then swarms of CMs or even RDs can run over them with their impeller wedges. No more torpedo. Without an active impeller of its own, the torpedo won't even destroy the CM hitting it, which can then intercept multiple torps.

As for the impact of cruiser-grade grasers on dreadnoughts:

SVW wrote:"Sidewalls active! Starboard energy batteries closed up on computer override, sir!" the youthful lieutenant at Tactical said, and Avshari nodded in relief. That decided which way to turn, anyway.
"Bring us hard to port, Helm."
"Aye, aye, Sir. Coming hard to port."
The dreadnought began her turn, and fresh alarms whooped even as she swung.
"Incoming fire!" the tac officer snapped, and lasers and grasers ripped at Bellerophon's suddenly interposed sidewall. Most of them achieved absolutely nothing as the sidewall bent and degraded them, but red lights bloomed on Avshari's damage control display as half a dozen minor hits cratered her massive armour, and this time he knew exactly what to do.

There, one dreadnought took a full broadside from four battlecruisers with low relative velocity. Those BCs could have fired up to forty-eight energy weapons. They only got six through. Even if we consider that all six were grasers and all the lasers fired were useless, it's still a six out of twenty-four hit rate. With shipboard sensors and computers doing the heavy lifting.

1) Shrike Graser is a cruiser grade Graser and it had no problem tearing up SD's.

2) CM's wedges are only any good if they hit something. Space is vast. Gtorp Spider drives see them coming and can dodge. CM's can't see the spider at all. So, can an ancient creaking grandma in a walker dodge a toddler? Most of the time; yes.

As for your quote regarding BC's and DN sidewalls.... lets just say most on the board for going on 2 decades have called that plot handwavium BS as DW has insinuated/said also that Graser mounts, even DD Graser mounts are stronger than Laser heads on missiles.

Of course more plotism happened in UH where 70 old style capital missiles took down the throat shots and did.... nothing so.... yea I think it is safe to say, that the sidewalls are as strong as RFC, DW, 1st space lord needs them to be for the plot at any given time.

Relax wrote:1) Shrike Graser is a cruiser grade Graser and it had no problem tearing up SD's.

Battlecruiser grade grasers, one up on cruisers. And those SDs(actually DNs) were anchored, without any impellers. Even then, it took multiple passes focusing on the unarmoured tops and bottoms to finish them off.

2) CM's wedges are only any good if they hit something. Space is vast. Gtorp Spider drives see them coming and can dodge. CM's can't see the spider at all. So, can an ancient creaking grandma in a walker dodge a toddler? Most of the time; yes.

Meaningless analogy. Creaky grandmas can pull 1mph, maybe 2, whilst toddlers top out at 10-15mph. Let's say the spider drive torp can pull 400g max. It's got to dodge CMs pulling 130,000g. Let's see your granny dodge a toddler moving at 3250mph. Or even more accurately, a horde of toddlers moving at 3250mph.

Relax wrote:Spider drives still have plenty of acceleration. Did previous book not say 3000G?

In theory you could, but performance scales with the size of the vehicle, and spider torps are small and hence limited to a fairly low acceleration. Like under 200 IIRC.

cthia wrote:Oh là là ! Nice thread! I was anticipating a thread like this myself, delving inside MA tech. I'll just post it here . . .

INSIDE MALIGN TECH: STRATEGIC and TACTICAL OPTIONS

SNIPPED

I was wondering what impact it will have on MA tech if they happen to reproduce the Manty micro fusion plant. We all know what impact Grayson's brainchild had across the board on Manty tech.

The Graysons developed the fission plant, not the fusion plant. From HOS:

June 1852 PD
“Jonas, have you seen this article on fusion bottle density?” Roger Winton was looking down at the reader’s display, scrolling for the specific reference he wanted to discuss as he followed a scampering Monroe into Jonas Adcock’s familiar office. “It says here that Grendel University’s getting some unexpected results, and I’m wondering if that ties into what Grierson’s been doing on Raiden. If it does, then—”

They were working on that one a LOOOONNG time, Cthia. And didn't get it into missiles until Ghost Rider circa 1910?

Rob

munroburton wrote:

Relax wrote:1) Shrike Graser is a cruiser grade Graser and it had no problem tearing up SD's.

Battlecruiser grade grasers, one up on cruisers. And those SDs(actually DNs) were anchored, without any impellers. Even then, it took multiple passes focusing on the unarmoured tops and bottoms to finish them off.

2) CM's wedges are only any good if they hit something. Space is vast. Gtorp Spider drives see them coming and can dodge. CM's can't see the spider at all. So, can an ancient creaking grandma in a walker dodge a toddler? Most of the time; yes.

Meaningless analogy. Creaky grandmas can pull 1mph, maybe 2, whilst toddlers top out at 10-15mph. Let's say the spider drive torp can pull 400g max. It's got to dodge CMs pulling 130,000g. Let's see your granny dodge a toddler moving at 3250mph. Or even more accurately, a horde of toddlers moving at 3250mph.

Cruiser grade is the same for BC and CA and it still does not matter as both can easily penetrate SD sidewalls unless you wish to postulate that Laser heads are are like SD++++++ in power

No, it is not a perfect analogy, but close because the CM's are blind to the spider. Blind.

Answer this: If the best remote sensing system cannot see a Spider over 300,000km why, uh hem, WHY, are you postulating that the WORST remote sensing platform in the galaxy, a CM, can? A CM must intercept. To intercept it must home-in from its last known vector which comes from ~elsewhere. To home-in on last leg of journey, it must have something to home in on.

Now the Answer may be a MUCH newer bigger CM with the best sensors in the galaxy attached, but currently, such an expensive system does not exist.

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Here is another CRUDE solution that I have not worked out, which seems to have many GLARING logistical problems. Use an DDM/MDM of your own, attach an ~RD sensor package on the end, fire it out there, turn it around, gather speed to try and match or, well, not truly "match" as that would be near impossible, but at least closely match better than a ~stationairy drone or low velocity RD, and try tracking incoming with said MDM RD missile.... How you recover this beast is a big Q, and oh yea it has FTL of course...

Then again, RFC has never said top end acceleration of an RD... we just saw the SLN with 15,000G with 30% in reserve which means 20,000G so if 20k G is possible for SLN and no fusion bottles, I see no reason that the RMN could not as well. The only problem would be timing.

Here is another question, if RMN RD's have fusion core, and normal variable impellers, giving stealth VERY LONG endurance, Is it possible to add a SECOND drive that is fixed acceleration like a DDM/MDM? RD's are already BIG, but their main problem for tracking incoming Spiders is SPEED.

The higher the SPEED = higher swept volume = FEWER RD's required. Gets back to my previous post about # RD's required. This would MASSIVELY cut down on # required.

Just a thought, and No, I have not worked the math. I think the math is ~ sort of there, but logistically it would be a near nightmare until someone got it all programmed into a computer for movement orders. But once programmed in.....

kzt wrote:

Relax wrote:Spider drives still have plenty of acceleration. Did previous book not say 3000G?

In theory you could, but performance scales with the size of the vehicle, and spider torps are small and hence limited to a fairly low acceleration. Like under 200 IIRC.

Have to admit I was remember a couple thousand because 2000G's is equal to 10 KM displacement in 1s which just so happens to be the size of most peoples theoretical CM wedge width as somewhere which I cannot place, in a pearl I think, DW has stated a missile wedge width of about 1km. Dodging 1Km obviously only requires 200G in 1 second.

So, for continuous tracking... and CM sweeping functions... gets back to #RD's req'd for interception as Munro quite rightly pointed out.

Until RMN or somebody comes up with a way to detect a Spider Drive in use, targeting a Graser Trop or a LennyDet class or any other Spider Drive ship is going to be almost by luck or the target doing something like occluding a light source and having that noticed by a sensor on a ship's or System Defense sensor net.

Even something analogous to using a hydrophone to detect a submarine's engine noise or the sounds made by it's disturbance of the water it's passing through would be a fantastic help. Next step would be an analog of sonar, then up to radar.

They are working on it. Grayson is probably also do that and they share information. At this point PRH is as well and it is highly likely that Manticore has shared what they have with the IAE.
The more minds working for as many angles as possible will help.