The big problem of late Honorverse

Loren Pechtel wrote:Remember, in the Honorverse you don't need a fission trigger for a fusion bomb. There's very little to distinguish a fusion reactor from a fusion bomb. Thus your bombs are disguised as perfectly ordinary fusion reactors, a not-uncommon commodity.

It's worse than that. It looks like a box of electronic parts.

Loren Pechtel wrote:There was no way to make them work harder--by then we had seen how effective Apollo was, on offense a GA fleet is unstoppable. My only problem with the attack on the reserve is the kill percentage--getting a higher kill percentage than the percent of missiles that survived the defense fire means they must have assigned more than one missile per target--but they didn't have enough to fire two missiles per target. The only way I can see to pull this off is if each beam from a missile was assigned to a different target, spreading out the damage. We have never seen anyone do this before and there's no real reason to do it here--the important aspect is showed their defenses are powerless against her missiles. The percent of beams that hit matters (showing how lethal her missiles are), the actual number of kills is irrelevant.

You're assuming Reserve One had all the 8000 SDs in reserve. The very fact that it's "One" implies there's at least a "Two". If One had 4000 units, then the GF could have assigned more than two per target (I don't remember how many missiles were fired).

ThinksMarkedly wrote:You're assuming Reserve One had all the 8000 SDs in reserve. The very fact that it's "One" implies there's at least a "Two". If One had 4000 units, then the GF could have assigned more than two per target (I don't remember how many missiles were fired).

According to the text in Uncompromising Honor, about 1800 shipkillers... with hundreds of SLN ships having a shot to take them out with over 200,000 counter missiles. RFC also states that Reserve One had "thousands of obsolescent superdreadnoughts parked in the 24 equidistantly spaced clusters riding Jupiter Orbit with Ganymede". With the text stating that 1200 shipkillers hitting their targets, we've got an impossibility.

Now then, let's assume that instead of less than 3000 missiles, the GA fired 2700 pods, with the same listed proportion of penaids, etc. Now we've got about 7x more shipkillers. In theory, maybe those thousands all get hits... by 1-2 missiles each. We're told that it takes hundreds of laser-head hits to destroy an SD, and while there are these are defenseless, (no wedges up), without wedges so it wouldn't take much to wreck them, so I'll give you that. But the count is still too low.

So let's "re-edit" the launch to assume that all of the GA pod-layers fires off enough pods to total 10,000 shipkillers, sets the right time on targets to bring the salvo(s) in together, and just to mix it up, and also fires enough other missiles towards the active SLN ships, forcing them to respond to that threat... with those missiles all preset to blow up a few seconds before impact, sort of a Zunker maneuver that doesn't even target wedges. Now I might be willing to buy off that 90% of the obsolescent reserve of thousands of SDs are wrecked by the missiles the SLN ships wouldn't have even known to target.

Now we've got a battle sequence that doesn't stretch the boundaries of credibility nearly as much. And we resume the text right at the same time and place, with Maridor Haeckle's surprise that he himself is not dead.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:There was no way to make them work harder--by then we had seen how effective Apollo was, on offense a GA fleet is unstoppable. My only problem with the attack on the reserve is the kill percentage--getting a higher kill percentage than the percent of missiles that survived the defense fire means they must have assigned more than one missile per target--but they didn't have enough to fire two missiles per target. The only way I can see to pull this off is if each beam from a missile was assigned to a different target, spreading out the damage. We have never seen anyone do this before and there's no real reason to do it here--the important aspect is showed their defenses are powerless against her missiles. The percent of beams that hit matters (showing how lethal her missiles are), the actual number of kills is irrelevant.

You're assuming Reserve One had all the 8000 SDs in reserve. The very fact that it's "One" implies there's at least a "Two". If One had 4000 units, then the GF could have assigned more than two per target (I don't remember how many missiles were fired).

There were six SLN reserves, Reserve One was the largest.

SharkHunter wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:You're assuming Reserve One had all the 8000 SDs in reserve. The very fact that it's "One" implies there's at least a "Two". If One had 4000 units, then the GF could have assigned more than two per target (I don't remember how many missiles were fired).

According to the text in Uncompromising Honor, about 1800 shipkillers... with hundreds of SLN ships having a shot to take them out with over 200,000 counter missiles. RFC also states that Reserve One had "thousands of obsolescent superdreadnoughts parked in the 24 equidistantly spaced clusters riding Jupiter Orbit with Ganymede". With the text stating that 1200 shipkillers hitting their targets, we've got an impossibility.

Now then, let's assume that instead of less than 3000 missiles, the GA fired 2700 pods, with the same listed proportion of penaids, etc. Now we've got about 7x more shipkillers. In theory, maybe those thousands all get hits... by 1-2 missiles each. We're told that it takes hundreds of laser-head hits to destroy an SD, and while there are these are defenseless, (no wedges up), without wedges so it wouldn't take much to wreck them, so I'll give you that. But the count is still too low.

So let's "re-edit" the launch to assume that all of the GA pod-layers fires off enough pods to total 10,000 shipkillers, sets the right time on targets to bring the salvo(s) in together, and just to mix it up, and also fires enough other missiles towards the active SLN ships, forcing them to respond to that threat... with those missiles all preset to blow up a few seconds before impact, sort of a Zunker maneuver that doesn't even target wedges. Now I might be willing to buy off that 90% of the obsolescent reserve of thousands of SDs are wrecked by the missiles the SLN ships wouldn't have even known to target.

Now we've got a battle sequence that doesn't stretch the boundaries of credibility nearly as much. And we resume the text right at the same time and place, with Maridor Haeckle's surprise that he himself is not dead.

Why not just use contact nukes?. No defenses, no wedges, no sidewalls. 4-5 contact nukes per ship should do the purpose much better than 100 laserheads could.

Heck, for that matter, just use missile wedges to rip everything up, fly patterns through the reserve, and gave them blow once they had flown through the fornation if they survived. Send a couple randomized patterns through, and that should be it.

SharkHunter wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:You're assuming Reserve One had all the 8000 SDs in reserve. The very fact that it's "One" implies there's at least a "Two". If One had 4000 units, then the GF could have assigned more than two per target (I don't remember how many missiles were fired).

According to the text in Uncompromising Honor, about 1800 shipkillers... with hundreds of SLN ships having a shot to take them out with over 200,000 counter missiles. RFC also states that Reserve One had "thousands of obsolescent superdreadnoughts parked in the 24 equidistantly spaced clusters riding Jupiter Orbit with Ganymede". With the text stating that 1200 shipkillers hitting their targets, we've got an impossibility.

We don't know how capable the defences were around Jupiter. It wouldn't be all too surprising to find out they were even less capable than what Filareta had, since who in their sane mind would attack the Sol System? So 200k CMs might just be a mass of useless crap and they could have killed less than 100 of the GF's shipkillers.

Also, I don't remember the hundreds of SDs being in orbit of Jupiter. There were 400 or so of them in the Sol System, which got scuttled after the end of the evacuation (bringing the SLN's total losses to 900 active SDs), but I don't think they were in position to defend Ganymede and Reserve One. But there must have been some, so let's say it's some 80 in position. The next problem is that they may not have been the newest SDs in the SLN -- Filareta took all of them with him.

I'd revise up the number of shipkillers remaining to hit anything to at least 1600, even without retconning.

Now then, let's assume that instead of less than 3000 missiles, the GA fired 2700 pods, with the same listed proportion of penaids, etc. Now we've got about 7x more shipkillers. In theory, maybe those thousands all get hits... by 1-2 missiles each. We're told that it takes hundreds of laser-head hits to destroy an SD, and while there are these are defenseless, (no wedges up), without wedges so it wouldn't take much to wreck them, so I'll give you that. But the count is still too low.

That's actually likely. The GF was something like 540 SD(P)s. To fire only 1800 shipkillers, we're talking about 5 shipkillers per ship. That would be 1 pod per ship, with 5 shipkillers in each pod. Even if we reduce to half the fleet firing, that's still a way-too-low launch ratio of 2 pods per ship.

If they fired 3000 pods, that's about 5.5 pods per ship, or less than 1% of the ammo available to the GF (an Invictus has 1074 pods aboard).

So let's "re-edit" the launch to assume that all of the GA pod-layers fires off enough pods to total 10,000 shipkillers, sets the right time on targets to bring the salvo(s) in together, and just to mix it up, and also fires enough other missiles towards the active SLN ships, forcing them to respond to that threat... with those missiles all preset to blow up a few seconds before impact, sort of a Zunker maneuver that doesn't even target wedges. Now I might be willing to buy off that 90% of the obsolescent reserve of thousands of SDs are wrecked by the missiles the SLN ships wouldn't have even known to target.

Now we've got a battle sequence that doesn't stretch the boundaries of credibility nearly as much. And we resume the text right at the same time and place, with Maridor Haeckle's surprise that he himself is not dead.

Here's a question: against unpowered, non-evading targets, the pH will approach 1 for any missile that survives the CM launch and PD. But what's the pK?

There's no ammo aboard the mothballed ships to explode. There's no reactor to lose containment. And probably not a lot of atmosphere to vent and make shrapnel hurricanes. And we're still talking about 6 million tons of material to vaporise.

I suppose the missiles could get a shot clean through and slice the ship up. The material that does get vaporised becomes a hot plasma that itself will cause more destruction before it cools down.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Here's a question: against unpowered, non-evading targets, the pH will approach 1 for any missile that survives the CM launch and PD. But what's the pK?

There's no ammo aboard the mothballed ships to explode. There's no reactor to lose containment. And probably not a lot of atmosphere to vent and make shrapnel hurricanes. And we're still talking about 6 million tons of material to vaporise.

I suppose the missiles could get a shot clean through and slice the ship up. The material that does get vaporised becomes a hot plasma that itself will cause more destruction before it cools down.

Depends on what the missile hits the target with.

A single laserhead would seem to have a pretty low pK against a mothballed SD. It'd do some serious localized damage - and might get lucky and punch out something critical like enough nodes to keep the drive from working - but it's a huge ship with ~10 fairly small holes smashed through it.

A single contact nuke would do more widespread damage, though probably not as deep into the hull as the lasers from the laser head. Very unlikely the target would be totally destroyed, but also unlikely it'd be at all combat capable without major yard time.

But a wedge hit? That'd tear the target to pieces, and even the fairly small wedge of a missile is at least a couple km wide - that's larger than any dimension of an SD. Wedge contact missiles were the most dangerous ship killer until the sidewall was developed - everything else is a weaker compromise; trading off raw destructive ability in order to actually have a chance to work against/through a sidewall. So I'd rate that as a pK near 1 - you'd have to be really unlucky to bring your missile wedge into contact with even an SD in a way that didn't devastate the majority of the target.

Jonathan_S wrote:Depends on what the missile hits the target with.

A single laserhead would seem to have a pretty low pK against a mothballed SD. It'd do some serious localized damage - and might get lucky and punch out something critical like enough nodes to keep the drive from working - but it's a huge ship with ~10 fairly small holes smashed through it.

A single contact nuke would do more widespread damage, though probably not as deep into the hull as the lasers from the laser head. Very unlikely the target would be totally destroyed, but also unlikely it'd be at all combat capable without major yard time.

But a wedge hit? That'd tear the target to pieces, and even the fairly small wedge of a missile is at least a couple km wide - that's larger than any dimension of an SD. Wedge contact missiles were the most dangerous ship killer until the sidewall was developed - everything else is a weaker compromise; trading off raw destructive ability in order to actually have a chance to work against/through a sidewall. So I'd rate that as a pK near 1 - you'd have to be really unlucky to bring your missile wedge into contact with even an SD in a way that didn't devastate the majority of the target.

Depends on how the SDs are stored, as well. Are they all just in a parking orbit or are they docked in clusters such that a single missile or wedge could hit several ships? I can't think of any other way 1249 missiles could kill multiple thousands of SDs.

The SL Reserve ships are in storage. They are NOT being readied for deployment as Kingsford and co have figured out that they are not any practical use for either fighting the GA nor use in Opperation Buccaneer.

While they may have one power source operating, they are IN STORAGE. Mothballed. Even if some were being worked on with upgrades prior to Fillerta's attack, that would have been stopped. The Fleet has been scrambling to pull together BC class ships and get any in reserve or in for maintence back into service. You can presume they are doing the same for various smaller crusiers. So there isn't anybody working on SDs they are busy trying to get BCs in workable condition.
So, do they have wedges that are on standby or, if they have any serious power available does the equipment required to create a wedge have to be 1st turned on and then powered up?
Probably it's shut down. Heck there isn't likely to be crews on any of them. Station keeping in the reserve is a nice stabile obit somewhere.
And the GA is going to know exactly what ships have or do not have power, which have the wedge on standby, which are showing any emission of any kind- like active tactical sensors even if they don't have anything powered up even for station-keeping. Anything that looks like it will have any kind of active or passive defence will get suitable treatment. Those with no power or defence are only going to need one laser head.

One laserhead against an unprotected ship is going to be bad news. Even if there is NO fusion plant operating- and power/plazma conduits charged with energy- the energy strikes from a laserhead are going to burn/stab their way through armor and everything else and the secondary effects -with NO ACTIVE damage control and the ship not in GQ state with all that internal sealing and blast doors in place- the damage will propagate in all sorts of directions
Modern laser heads work with the nuclear explosion being focused theough MULTIPLE laseing rods ejected just prior to detonation and targeted on a single ship. Lets say 4 rods- so, agains an UNPROTECED SD, you are going to get 4 separate hits on the target.
At that point, even if there is not the flash of a reactor loosing containment, that ship is going to be little more than scrap. It's also going to no longer going to be in that nice stable obit as- at best- outgassing from the vaporizing of metal and other things by the nuclear lances is going to push the ship out of it's orbit.
How much of a SLN SD that has just had that much damage and NO DAMAGE CONTROL post hits is going to be usable for more than feeder stock to a smelter?

I'm almost supprised the question of who is going to deal with all that metal now moving on more or less random vectors (plus the debris) wasn't mentioned.

SharkHunter wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:You're assuming Reserve One had all the 8000 SDs in reserve. The very fact that it's "One" implies there's at least a "Two". If One had 4000 units, then the GF could have assigned more than two per target (I don't remember how many missiles were fired).

According to the text in Uncompromising Honor, about 1800 shipkillers... with hundreds of SLN ships having a shot to take them out with over 200,000 counter missiles. RFC also states that Reserve One had "thousands of obsolescent superdreadnoughts parked in the 24 equidistantly spaced clusters riding Jupiter Orbit with Ganymede". With the text stating that 1200 shipkillers hitting their targets, we've got an impossibility.

If the beams of a missile can be independently targeted we could put a beam on every ship this way. Those beams will be unopposed and most will not even strike armor but neither is there anything on those ships to go boom, I'm not at all sure one beam is a kill.