Battle of Spindle

ThinksMarkedly wrote:The moment her [Crandall's] forces were within 65 million km of the MDM launch platforms, they were doomed, regardless of how many attack prongs there were. In fact, they were probably doomed from much further out, if Henke and Terekhov accepted a coasting phase.

Assuming they're inside the hyper limit.
If they're outside the hyper limit and have been there long enough to recharge hyper generators, then the missile flight time is long enough that even SDs have the potential to flee into hyper before the tsunami hits. (Though the chances of Crandall ordering even parts of her fleet to flee from even overwhelming looking missile fire seems nearly non-existent)

Jonathan_S wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:The moment her [Crandall's] forces were within 65 million km of the MDM launch platforms, they were doomed, regardless of how many attack prongs there were. In fact, they were probably doomed from much further out, if Henke and Terekhov accepted a coasting phase.

Assuming they're inside the hyper limit.
If they're outside the hyper limit and have been there long enough to recharge hyper generators, then the missile flight time is long enough that even SDs have the potential to flee into hyper before the tsunami hits. (Though the chances of Crandall ordering even parts of her fleet to flee from even overwhelming looking missile fire seems nearly non-existent)

Indeed, they had to be inside the hyperlimit.

Revising my numbers: they didn't need to be within 65 million km. They were doomed from the moment that their velocity vector made it impossible for them to cross the hyperlimit again before missiles arrived.

If Spindle is similar Manticore, a launch platform in orbit of the planet is about 12 light-minutes from the hyperlimit or 216 million km. A missile's powered envelope is 65.7 million km. If you insert a coasting phase between the second and third stages, the missiles would reach that phase 6 minutes after launch, at 162400 kps, which means they transverse the coasting phase of 150 million km (1 AU) in roughly 15.5 minutes. Total flight time is 24.5 minutes.

That's also the length of time accelerating inwards that was her point of no return (well, a bit more because she was probably doing 80% acceleration and in a time of need could go to 100%).

But the RMN didn't want to tip their hands. IIRC, they waited until Crandall was within 35 million km, so only 2 stages were needed.

Besides variations on what 12 Sag-Cs could do with a $hitload of Apollo pods, The Spindle had 3 other strings in their bow -

1st, the 14 Nikes and their munition ships. They could drop in at any time or any place outside the hyperlimit and launch salvos somewhere in the 1.5 to 3x range the size of the Sag-C max Salvos.

2nd, the -500 LACs in system with their upgraded forward Grasers - the Sollies reaction would have been similar to the Havenite's reaction to LACs at 2nd Hancock's, except there would have been 2x the LACs per capital ship, and veteran crews with war-proven doctrine. And 10000 LAC missiles would have reduced the escorts mightly.

3rd, there still was the Hercules, the 4 CLACS, and the various small conventional ships in the system. Yes, the Hercules was just a single, old, SD, but it's upgrades made it more than a match for any Sollie SD - maybe 2 in a death fight. All the RMN ships could easily out Accel the Sollie ships and choose their fight, giving the CLAC's tube MDMs the ability to pound Sollie ships from distance. Given some pods, the remaing forces could easily pound a couple squadrons of SDs to scrap.

Theemile wrote:3rd, there still was the Hercules, the 4 CLACS, and the various small conventional ships in the system. Yes, the Hercules was just a single, old, SD, but it's upgrades made it more than a match for any Sollie SD - maybe 2 in a death fight. All the RMN ships could easily out Accel the Sollie ships and choose their fight, giving the CLAC's tube MDMs the ability to pound Sollie ships from distance. Given some pods, the remaing forces could easily pound a couple squadrons of SDs to scrap.

We don't actually know how the Hercules would compare to Solly SDs. We know Manticore built ships to be the best of their type and outfight any similar opponent that existed the. But the Samothrace class was the first new SD class in 150 years and was not a full production run. It was Manticore reacquiring the skills to build SDs.

Plus, Hercules was 70 years old at the time. She and some other of her sisters were retained for their command and control systems, not for their fighting capability. Going up against a Scientist may not have been a good idea, despite any upgrades she may have received during her service life.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Plus, Hercules was 70 years old at the time. She and some other of her sisters were retained for their command and control systems, not for their fighting capability. Going up against a Scientist may not have been a good idea, despite any upgrades she may have received during her service life.

The Scientist class wasn't exactly new either. Even without outside support Hercules could probably take one or two Scientists; any stray missile pods lying about would increase that number. No way it could take all 73(?) of Crandall's Scientists at once, though (well, maybe with an unending supply of Apollo pods).

Galactic Sapper wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Plus, Hercules was 70 years old at the time. She and some other of her sisters were retained for their command and control systems, not for their fighting capability. Going up against a Scientist may not have been a good idea, despite any upgrades she may have received during her service life.

The Scientist class wasn't exactly new either. Even without outside support Hercules could probably take one or two Scientists; any stray missile pods lying about would increase that number. No way it could take all 73(?) of Crandall's Scientists at once, though (well, maybe with an unending supply of Apollo pods).

The Sammthraces had been updated ~1890, about the same time as the Victories were built, and about 20 years after the advent of the laserhead. Plus they got repeated upgrades over the years, so they might be the weakest SD in the RMN inventory, but they are much more advanced than a Scientist.

Not that it should come to that, but my point was there were multiple other layers to the Spindle defense that never needed to be used. There was still the Nikes with 1.5-3x the firepower of the Sag-Cs, the LACs with the same firepower as SAG-cs ( or more), and finally the remaining forces, which probably could deal with a squadron or 2 on their own without pods.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

gclarkii wrote:On the subject of ramming at a sidewall, has anyone considered that the incoming missile has a wedge of it own and sidewalls are not at the very outside of the ships wedge. And as far as I know, a starship's wedge is just little bit more powerful than a missiles', at wedge impact the missile will vaporize. And as far as radiation from that event goes, how wide is a ship's wedge? A general fireball(however energetic it might be) is not going to effect something 50, 100, 150 kilometers from where it's at, especially in space. A laserhead only works because of the focusing/amplification of the rods, and it is aimed to boot.

Here I disagree. When the missile is doing over .7c I think it's still going to be devastating to the ship behind (assuming it's pointed right) even if it's vaporized. Lets say that sidewall is 100km out from the ship. The vaporized material hits in less than half a millisecond--how much spreading out is it going to do in that time? And remember that the vaporized missile has several orders of magnitude more energy than the warhead.

I think a correctly aimed ram kills any ship out there, the existence of the programming in the missiles will force the enemy to ensure it can never be used which means they must roll wedges against all attacks and thus impair their defenses.

And again, there were 1500 orphaned 23E's and at least 5000 orphaned dazzlers and dragons teeth with nothing else to do.

SharkHunter wrote:Say for example that Crandall pops over the hyper limit with about half a dozen superdreadnoughts, sufficient cruisers to look good, etc. and does the exact same thing... warning Spindle blah blah blah, and at the time limit, all of her remaining ships pop across the hyper limit from three divergent directions to the planet... a much more difficult battle ensues.

Loren Pechtel wrote:This wouldn't be any harder. Whether the fleet is together or dispersed makes no difference, they're still hammered to bits before they enter their effective range. Popping in behind them had no effect on the battle, it was just to keep them from running.

Hopefully I left the right quotes in place. Keeping in mind that both Crandall and Filerata obligingly show up "in the trap", and I don't have too much trouble with RFC's authorial choices there... I don't think for a second that there's any path where the SLN achieves much, but a divergent attack can still amass overwhelming forces to avoid defeat in detail. But I still argue that the battle could have been made much more difficult.

Not because of the parts of 10th Fleet with Henke, but because the Sag Cs are out of position relative to the stash of missiles near the planet, have to focus their attentions on enemies on divergent threat axis. An example: say the SLN has a couple squadrons of SDs pop across the hyper limit with their attack axis effectively behind the populated planets and in system infrastructure from the Sag C's where the RMN can't just toss a poopload of pod-launched missiles past the home team's turf... and a more interesting battle ensues.

Thoughts?

SharkHunter wrote:Not because of the parts of 10th Fleet with Henke, but because the Sag Cs are out of position relative to the stash of missiles near the planet, have to focus their attentions on enemies on divergent threat axis. An example: say the SLN has a couple squadrons of SDs pop across the hyper limit with their attack axis effectively behind the populated planets and in system infrastructure from the Sag C's where the RMN can't just toss a poopload of pod-launched missiles past the home team's turf... and a more interesting battle ensues.

Thoughts?

With multiple drives and good telemetry the defending fleet can simply dog-leg the missiles around the planet and other infrastructure. Launch them thirty degrees or whatever off axis until the first drive burns out well past the obstruction then reorient them on the invading fleet and activate the second stage. They'd give up some range and accuracy but they could certainly hit the invaders regardless of which way they came in.

SharkHunter wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:Say for example that Crandall pops over the hyper limit with about half a dozen superdreadnoughts, sufficient cruisers to look good, etc. and does the exact same thing... warning Spindle blah blah blah, and at the time limit, all of her remaining ships pop across the hyper limit from three divergent directions to the planet... a much more difficult battle ensues.

Loren Pechtel wrote:This wouldn't be any harder. Whether the fleet is together or dispersed makes no difference, they're still hammered to bits before they enter their effective range. Popping in behind them had no effect on the battle, it was just to keep them from running.

Hopefully I left the right quotes in place. Keeping in mind that both Crandall and Filerata obligingly show up "in the trap", and I don't have too much trouble with RFC's authorial choices there... I don't think for a second that there's any path where the SLN achieves much, but a divergent attack can still amass overwhelming forces to avoid defeat in detail. But I still argue that the battle could have been made much more difficult.

Not because of the parts of 10th Fleet with Henke, but because the Sag Cs are out of position relative to the stash of missiles near the planet, have to focus their attentions on enemies on divergent threat axis. An example: say the SLN has a couple squadrons of SDs pop across the hyper limit with their attack axis effectively behind the populated planets and in system infrastructure from the Sag C's where the RMN can't just toss a poopload of pod-launched missiles past the home team's turf... and a more interesting battle ensues.

Thoughts?

Any other vector other than the cone closest to the hyperlimit greatly increases the distance (and Transit time) to the planet. In the Sol system, the distance from the close hyper locus to Earth is ~12 light minutes, but coming out of hyper opposite from the planet is ~32 light minutes (opposite side of the sun). Given the duration of each Transit (even the close one) and the lack of stealth moving a couple dozen SDs at speed entails, one of the other pincers of Spindle's defense couple easily move to interdict, or the CAs could reposition to face both.