?

kzt wrote:[Other then say Excaliber artillery shells and M830A1 anti-helicopter gun rounds, just to name a few off the top of my head?

The acceleration is not really the problem, the big problem is the jerk (first derivative of acceleration) which is how fast it change. Going from zero to 1400m/sec in 10 meters produces a huge jerk as well as absurd acceleration.

But hey, it's been a few thousand years, maybe they forgot how to design stuff?

What is the acceleration those materials withstand? Sincerely curious.

And if the jerk (derivative of acceleration, third derivative of position) is the issue, then you need a lower jerk -- let's say constant --, which means the acceleration itself would increase gradually. Is there a limit in m/s³ that materials can withstand?

cthia wrote:Notwithstanding everything else, I'm assuming the MA will also incorporate conventional missiles. There's nothing that says Lennys or Sharks can't also carry conventional missiles?

Plus, a Lenny could drop off a pod of conventional missiles like the Charles Ward. Long gone when they light off. Or, we're assuming the MA will care about certain missions being suicidal, kamikaze in fashion. If Sharks can get insanely close, though not exactly energy range, and can design a conventional missile like that, losing a Shark to take out a capital ship is worth it. Even if the Shark dies. No?

Indeed I do expect them to have conventional missiles (Cataphracts). But as I said, the big problem with missiles is that you can tell where they came from. With a second launch, you can tell the average velocity vector of the launch platform. And with a third, you can tell the average acceleration too. If the Lenny is doing what you suggested and is at knife-fighting range, then it's close enough for return fire to easily saturate the region and cripple it. Even if it is further out, it's probably close enough for Ghost Riders to be vectored in and surround it. And even if they used a pod, there's the telemetry link to account for: the transmissions from the mothership to the missiles are towards the general direction of enemy force too and angling more and more exactly towards it, which means the GA force can tell with very good accuracy where the transmitter is.

Conclusion: firing missiles is practically a suicide mission for a Lenny Det, with technology as we know it. I'm sure RFC will add a spin to it to make the battles less one sided, but we don't know yet. As far as we can tell, Sharks and LDs are only effective against fixed infrastructure and things that always move predictably. Like a mothball reserve.

A Shark is DN-sized. Losing one to take a GA capital ship is not a good trade-off for the MAlign. The GA can outproduce them and has more capital ships to start with.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:Notwithstanding everything else, I'm assuming the MA will also incorporate conventional missiles. There's nothing that says Lennys or Sharks can't also carry conventional missiles?

Plus, a Lenny could drop off a pod of conventional missiles like the Charles Ward. Long gone when they light off. Or, we're assuming the MA will care about certain missions being suicidal, kamikaze in fashion. If Sharks can get insanely close, though not exactly energy range, and can design a conventional missile like that, losing a Shark to take out a capital ship is worth it. Even if the Shark dies. No?

Indeed I do expect them to have conventional missiles (Cataphracts). But as I said, the big problem with missiles is that you can tell where they came from. With a second launch, you can tell the average velocity vector of the launch platform. And with a third, you can tell the average acceleration too. If the Lenny is doing what you suggested and is at knife-fighting range, then it's close enough for return fire to easily saturate the region and cripple it. Even if it is further out, it's probably close enough for Ghost Riders to be vectored in and surround it. And even if they used a pod, there's the telemetry link to account for: the transmissions from the mothership to the missiles are towards the general direction of enemy force too and angling more and more exactly towards it, which means the GA force can tell with very good accuracy where the transmitter is.

Conclusion: firing missiles is practically a suicide mission for a Lenny Det, with technology as we know it. I'm sure RFC will add a spin to it to make the battles less one sided, but we don't know yet. As far as we can tell, Sharks and LDs are only effective against fixed infrastructure and things that always move predictably. Like a mothball reserve.

A Shark is DN-sized. Losing one to take a GA capital ship is not a good trade-off for the MAlign. The GA can outproduce them and has more capital ships to start with.

I understand and acknowledge all of your profound points. But I caution your logic in a couple of areas . . .

You wrote: "Who says they can get that close?"

It hasn't been determined that they can't. They haven't even had their maiden voyage. (Albeit that awful author of ours translated into a thread, teased me that they are ready then pulled a Houdini. LOL)

My point is we don't know how close the "Lennys" can get. I know we argued about the effectiveness of their stealth, and I posited it is at least a cut above RMN stealth.*

I'd like to interject the scene where Honor was lying doggo in the wargames with Fearless and popped someone's top with the weapon I dare not name. (Albeit, that weapon's range was considerably greater.) But if I'm right about the MA's stealth being a cut above GA stealth, then my scenario is possible. We don't know if the Lenny's stealth is a lot better than what has been seen. (Or, should that be, what has NOT been seen. LOL)

I think you're also missing another point. Losing a Shark for a capital ship, especially if they can get two or more, is a fair exchange for the MA. You are not allowing for the fact that the MA will be thinking in the same terms as Haven did initially, "A short victorious war." They can't afford to let this thing drag on. And even if the mission fails, the GA still doesn't know where to find them.

The MA just need to take out enough ships during their initial run in to allow them to control the orbitals.

*That argument got heated.

cthia wrote:You wrote: "Who says they can get that close?"

It hasn't been determined that they can't. They haven't even had their maiden voyage. (Albeit that awful author of ours translated into a thread, teased me that they are ready then pulled a Houdini. LOL)

My point is we don't know how close the "Lennys" can get. I know we argued about the effectiveness of their stealth, and I posited it is at least a cut above RMN stealth.*

I'd like to interject the scene where Honor was lying doggo in the wargames with Fearless and popped someone's top with the weapon I dare not name. (Albeit, that weapon's range was considerably greater.) But if I'm right about the MA's stealth being a cut above GA stealth, then my scenario is possible. We don't know if the Lenny's stealth is a lot better than what has been seen. (Or, should that be, what has NOT been seen. LOL)

I think we can assume that MAN stealth technology is better than RMN. HMS Fearless was less than 100,000 from HMS King Roger, a King William-class SD. Though she was two generations from the latest, we can probably assume that the Home Fleet flagship was refitted with upgraded sensors once.

But I'm not sure how comparable those two situations is. In one, we're talking about a pre-war SD, before all the experience from the war in improving sensors against ECM, detecting an 88k tonne light-cruiser. One that was not deemed to be a threat to an SD, so even when it was detected, it was ignored. Once; the tactic never worked again. On the other, we're talking about a post-war capital ship, with the benefit of RHN's best tac witch's experience, detecting a massive warship that is either DN-sized (a Shark) or outweighs an SD by at least a third (a Lenny Det).

I think you're also missing another point. Losing a Shark for a capital ship, especially if they can get two or more, is a fair exchange for the MA. You are not allowing for the fact that the MA will be thinking in the same terms as Haven did initially, "A short victorious war." They can't afford to let this thing drag on. And even if the mission fails, the GA still doesn't know where to find them.

The MA just need to take out enough ships during their initial run in to allow them to control the orbitals

The MAlign needs to take out the yards (again), all of them this time. Otherwise, a 2 or 3 for one is still not an advantageous exchange, since the GA can outproduce them. And taking out 200 capital ships in one stealth exchange is unlikely to the extreme. If those ships are dispersed, then the GA can't know where they are; if they are bunched up, they have mutual protection and we've established that firing gives the Lenny Dets and Sharks' positions away. The attacking force needs to take all ships in the first salvo. And that probably includes all the BCs and possibly CAs too.

One more detail: I don't think the MAlign can take out Bolthole. First, they don't know where it is located and is not likely to figure out soon. Second, even if they do, the Sanctuary system is filled dust:

Dark Fall, ch. IV wrote:Not only that, KCR-126-06 had actually been looked at—sort of—by astronomers over a thousand T-years ago. There wasn’t much to see—the giant and its red dwarf companions had no planets at all, and KCR-125-06-D was so close to a red dwarf itself that the chance of a planet in its liquid-water zone not being tide-locked to it was unlikely in the extreme. In addition, the K8 star was surrounded by an extraordinarily dense interplanetary dust cloud.

What do you think happens when a massive ship moves through a dense interplanetary dust cloud? It'll cause a current of dust, which can probably be detected. The spider itself will probably cause disruption in the dust.

cthia wrote:SD(P)s are eggshells.

They really aren't. Yes they've got a bit less structural strength due to having this giant cylinder bored out of their aft end. And yes some of their internals aren't as widely separated as in a conventional SD (because they got pushed forward and out by the intrusion of the pod bay. But in most respects they're at least 90% as tough and survivable as a conventional SD.

Now you wouldn't want to give up 5 - 10% toughness without good reason. So yes, there was some initial griping about their (relative) fragility. But they're still some of the toughest ships in existence. Hardly an eggshell. (Now Maya's converted freighter ammo ships they used in conjunction with the Marksmen-class; those were eggshells).

To be fair they turned out to be more prone to a golden BB shot penetrating the after pod doors than expected. first generation SD(P)s were especially vulnerable to that. The Invictus class much less so as they wrapped the walls of the pod bad with another layer of armor - limiting the damage that could come through the bay into the guts of the ship. That golden BB shot is still capable of wrecking the majority of their stored missiles - in a way a classic SD isn't vulnerable to - but the SD(P)'s defenses and maneuverability aren't affected by loss of it's offensive weapons. So I still wouldn't call it an eggshell.

Now BC(P)s, relative to BCs, could more fairly be tarred with that brush.

cthia wrote:Because the Lenny Dets can get so close to targets, distances never before envisioned, is it possible to design a missile with outrageous acceleration? A missile that shoots it's wad quickly? The MA are notorious for turning concepts on its ear, to fit their technology and doctrine.

Isn't that pretty much the description of a CM drive? Admittedly those have to trade off being small enough to carry is large numbers, but it's a missile with the highest acceleration compatible with the size and being able to last 60 seconds. And most of them managed to generate between 1 and 1.5 million km range; for all that short overpowered acceleration.
To achieve that same range on a drive that burned out in half the time you'd need 4 times the acceleration (damned exponential time factors). The MAlign's made some amazing breakthroughs on their missile drive power, but they're not up to 4x everybody else's. And 1.5 million km is scary close to try to sneak your massive spider ship that lacks sidewalls.

At one point, curved tubes and drivers were considered for the "top" and "bottom" of a warship, in order to pack more launchers into a ship, allowing for a larger broadside. But this was deemed impractical, as the tonnage required was enormous. The idea was made obsolete by the re-introduction of the missile pod.

How enormous a tonnage is required for that? The Lennys are enormous.

They also don't have wedges, so there's no need to curve missiles around to avoid launching them into the wedge. The could (and presumably do) mount missile tubes on all 3 of their faces. And their Cataphracts should be capable of the same off bore firing tricks the RMN can do. So if their chase fire control can handle it they should be able to fire all three broadsides toward or aft using just the off-bore missile capability without any need for curving missile tubes.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Indeed I do expect them to have conventional missiles (Cataphracts). But as I said, the big problem with missiles is that you can tell where they came from. With a second launch, you can tell the average velocity vector of the launch platform. And with a third, you can tell the average acceleration too. If the Lenny is doing what you suggested and is at knife-fighting range, then it's close enough for return fire to easily saturate the region and cripple it. Even if it is further out, it's probably close enough for Ghost Riders to be vectored in and surround it. And even if they used a pod, there's the telemetry link to account for: the transmissions from the mothership to the missiles are towards the general direction of enemy force too and angling more and more exactly towards it, which means the GA force can tell with very good accuracy where the transmitter is.

Though during Oyster Bay the Ghosts dropped fire control relays.

If a Lenny Det dropped one of those along with a shoal of pods it could move reasonably far away, off axis of the expected launch, and control the launch and flight through that fire control relay. The control signals the targgeted ships would hear would be from the relay, because they wouldn't be in the signal path between relay and Lenny Det.

That should let it reasonably safely lay down a single-shot minefield of Cataphract pods and control their attack without undue risk to itself. Though it wouldn't want to launch any follow-up salvos from it's own tubes - since as you explained that'd expose it far too much. Best to use graser torps for that.

kzt wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:I don't think there's any material that can withstand absurd accelerations un-compensated. It's like hitting a solid wall at high speeds, every nanosecond.

Other then say Excaliber artillery shells and M830A1 anti-helicopter gun rounds, just to name a few off the top of my head?

The acceleration is not really the problem, the big problem is the jerk (first derivative of acceleration) which is how fast it change. Going from zero to 1400m/sec in 10 meters produces a huge jerk as well as absurd acceleration.

But hey, it's been a few thousand years, maybe they forgot how to design stuff?

Missile acceleration is higher than what gun-rated electronics can stand.

Lacs were never meant to close with SDs

Lenny Dets were never meant to close with Planets

Lenny's are not ship to ship weapons. Warships are only part of their bigger picture. A Lenny wants to achieve a zero/zero intercept with targets. Preferrably planets, For all intents and purposes, "We have managed to bring a warship into your garage. We control the orbitals, because when we open fire, it's not going to matter if you know where the missiles are coming from. It'll be too late to do a damn thing about it.

Galactic Sapper's notion clues you in as to why.

Galactic Sapper wrote:Alliance micro fusion generators would make grazer torpedoes much worse and potentially allow them to be scaled down as well as given much more range. The possibility of grazer torps the size of MDMs should be terrifying.

Remontoire provides the mechanism . . .

Remontoire wrote:What about a grazer impeller hybrid of the two types though? Seems to me the spider drive grazer torps used in oysterbay wearn't designed to be practical ship to ship main combat weapons, they were surprise attack stealth weapons.

Absolutely. In fact, if the Lennys can get as close as I imagine to a target, game over. I think the Lennys can achieve an invisible zero/zero intercept with the planet.

If a Lenny's Debt can get that close to targets, they could use impeller drives to launch graser torps at much higher than normal accelerations due to unprecedented proximity. There is no more need to loaf trying to coast unobtrusively into a system. They will be smuggled into systems, within the cargo holds of Trojans.

At any rate, don't fool yourself. When this thing lights off, well, Merry Christmas. At that point, the MA won't care if an opponent can see where the missiles are coming from. "We'll even leave the light on for ya, so you can look death in the eye."

'Tis my dish served cold.

We've managed to sneak a Trojan horse into your garage. Instead of soldiers pouring out, pods of impeller-powered graser torps unleash their fire and brimstone.

HELL HATH TRULY COME TO DINNER

&

IT HATH NO FURY THAN A DETWEILER SCORNED

cthia wrote:Absolutely. In fact, if the Lennys can get as close as I imagine to a target, game over. I think the Lennys can achieve an invisible zero/zero intercept with the planet.

Which planet? Are you suggesting they can come stealthily all the way to within energy weapons range of Manticore, Haven or Grayson?

Also, the phrase is "control the orbitals". Being in orbit (and you can be in orbit at 1 million km out) is not controlling it. The planetary defences and other ships around the same planet can still shoot back. We don't know what defences planets have besides the space stations and ships -- do they have orbital weapon platforms (OWPs)? I seriously doubt that even an LD can get closer than 1 million km of a planet with a lot of ship traffic and a swarm of Hermes buoys and Ghost Rider drones without being spotted. If the space stations are taken out before the LD crosses the 1 million km mark, the entire system goes to alert even earlier.

The LDs will definitely have a lot of point defence, but without a wedge, they have a major defence issue. And without a gravity sump, an LD is also very limited in evasive manoeuvres it can pull. I maintain that their purpose is something RFC has still not seen fit to reveal to us.