?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:..snip..
There's one problem with this: the GA doesn't now they have 3x acceleration. It's possible Simões knew that the spider had limited acceleration, but from what we've seen I don't think he knew much more than the existence of the technology. Everything was kept compartmentalised.

I think it can be inferred from the simple fact that using the spider-drives means no wedge, and no wedge means no sump which means they have to rely on gravplates to counteract acceleration.

It has been mentioned before, spider-ships in general tend to be stealthy glass-cannons which can be mitigated quite thoroughly with some changes in ship doctrine. The only time spider-ships makes sense is for stealth-assaults and never ship to ship combat.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:..snip..
There's one problem with this: the GA doesn't now they have 3x acceleration. It's possible Simões knew that the spider had limited acceleration, but from what we've seen I don't think he knew much more than the existence of the technology. Everything was kept compartmentalised.

Joat42 wrote:I think it can be inferred from the simple fact that using the spider-drives means no wedge, and no wedge means no sump which means they have to rely on gravplates to counteract acceleration.

It has been mentioned before, spider-ships in general tend to be stealthy glass-cannons which can be mitigated quite thoroughly with some changes in ship doctrine. The only time spider-ships makes sense is for stealth-assaults and never ship to ship combat.

Does anyone know enough about the spider drive to know that they do not use a compensator? So is that inference even possible?

cthia wrote:Would a non-periodic course change be enough to stop a sniper at his most extreme distance?

If the sniper's bullet took hours to reach the target, yes.

A non-periodic course change isn't going to be enough. For starters, you don't know the LD's range. You have to constantly zig zag.

Yes, constantly for the foreseeable future.

The Manties don't run scared worth a damn. But against this foe, he may have to just RUN. And again, we must not forget the LD may be forcing, corraling, the prey like lions. And let's not forget the torpedo spread pattern. Which is why I said it would be interesting if the LD launched a spread of torps. On this 3D battle field.

A spread of torpedoes has a better chance that one of them will have a targetting solution. But is it a good use of resources to have 20 torpedoes out to hit a single warship? That is flying likely in formation and will leave the rest intact?

tlb wrote:Does anyone know enough about the spider drive to know that they do not use a compensator? So is that inference even possible?

Read chapter 11 of ART. The discussion about the spider-drive doesn't specifically mention what Simões told them about it, but it seems he told them enough for them to realize how it was used in the attack on Manticore and why they couldn't detect it.

It's also mentioned elsewhere that Simões doesn't know the specifics of the drive, only the principle of it, which means he most assuredly knows that a ship under spider-drive don't use a wedge hence the compensator can't be used which limits acceleration to what grav-plates can handle.

Joat42 wrote:It's also mentioned elsewhere that Simões doesn't know the specifics of the drive, only the principle of it, which means he most assuredly knows that a ship under spider-drive don't use a wedge hence the compensator can't be used which limits acceleration to what grav-plates can handle.

That's an assumption, because he might not know if there's something else that allows for higher acceleration. In fact, we are making that same assumption, though we do know that the Sharks were limited in acceleration too.

But it might be a sufficiently plausible assumption that adopting a "never stay in one course for more than 2 hours" policy.

cthia wrote:I'm certain ships practice evasive maneuvers, but in the midst of battle. Not as a matter of course. I don't mean to imply there isn't an occasional course change just in case. But, a course change every so often is not a zig zag pattern. Constantly adopting a zig zag pattern will drive a fleet crazy. (Especially the wet navy.) And, maintaining the practice, even after it is adopted, will always be subject to the laziness, irresponsibility, arrogance, and the weight of the human element.

Even during WWII they started deploying automated zig-zag steering (one example is the Chelsea Zig-Zag Clock). In the Honorverse it'd be a simply matter of programming to make all ships in a formation automatically randomly zig zag, and intership secure communications and flocking behavior to keep adequate separation distance. So if the programming exists it's no harder, nor disruptive, to engage it during a routing transit than it is to engage it during combat.

On the other hand, zig-zag worked because of the long transit time of the unguided torpedoes of the day. If you make any significant course change you'd be outside the predicted area and when the torpedoes arrived, up to 8 minutes after launching, they'd sail past harmlessly. It became an ineffective tactic in the face of the early homing torpedoes - deployed by both sides by the end of WWII. When the torpedo could adjust for your course change you needed a different defense (and thus by the end of WWII you also saw deployment of the first towed decoys to lure the torpedo onto the decoy instead of the ship)

Against even the relatively low acceleration of a grazer torp I don't think zig-zag is going to be all that helpful.

cthia wrote:Would a non-periodic course change be enough to stop a sniper at his most extreme distance?

Depends entirely on whether or not the course change kept you more than a mile from where he's set up.


Against submarines there were 2 different course change tactics. The operational level evasive routing - that's your non-periodic course change.
This can work in two ways. It works best when they have good reason to believe (spies, code breaking, radio direction finding, patrol aircraft report, etc.) that there are submarines in a given area. They then order the convoys to take a new course that 'happens' to keep them well clear of that zone. But even if you don't know where the subs are now randomizing the course of each convoy makes it harder for the enemy to guess where to stick their subs. Sometimes they get lucky and you come into range, sometimes they just see an ocean empty of ships.

And then there was the tactical level zig-zag. That was to try to be where the torpedo wasn't after a sub had already gotten close enough to launch. But that's much smaller total deviation in course, but more frequently and larger heading changes (it's just that you zig back before deviating your overall course too far) The equivalent zig-zag can work against snipers. At the maximum range you specified the bullet may spend up to 10 seconds in flight between the gun and target. A human can move significantly more than one body width in 10 seconds - so its back to guessing where the target will be when the unguided projectile arrives; guess wrong and you miss.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Joat42 wrote:It's also mentioned elsewhere that Simões doesn't know the specifics of the drive, only the principle of it, which means he most assuredly knows that a ship under spider-drive don't use a wedge hence the compensator can't be used which limits acceleration to what grav-plates can handle.

That's an assumption, because he might not know if there's something else that allows for higher acceleration. In fact, we are making that same assumption, though we do know that the Sharks were limited in acceleration too.

But it might be a sufficiently plausible assumption that adopting a "never stay in one course for more than 2 hours" policy.

Not really an assumption. No wedge, no sump - limited acceleration unless we are talking about "drones" sans the meatbags which changes things. Although, the MAlign could have come up with better gravplates that's magnitudes better than what's currently available - which would mean better acceleration.

There's a lot that can be inferred from knowing a technology exists and some of the theoretical background underpinning it.

The spider-ships do have nodes and compensators, without them they can't jump to/from hyper - but they can't be used for what the ships where designed for: Stealth and surprise attacks.

Joat42 wrote:It's also mentioned elsewhere that Simões doesn't know the specifics of the drive, only the principle of it, which means he most assuredly knows that a ship under spider-drive don't use a wedge hence the compensator can't be used which limits acceleration to what grav-plates can handle.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:That's an assumption, because he might not know if there's something else that allows for higher acceleration. In fact, we are making that same assumption, though we do know that the Sharks were limited in acceleration too.

But it might be a sufficiently plausible assumption that adopting a "never stay in one course for more than 2 hours" policy.

Joat42 wrote:Not really an assumption. No wedge, no sump - limited acceleration unless we are talking about "drones" sans the meatbags which changes things. Although, the MAlign could have come up with better gravplates that's magnitudes better than what's currently available - which would mean better acceleration.

There's a lot that can be inferred from knowing a technology exists and some of the theoretical background underpinning it.

The spider-ships do have nodes and compensators, without them they can't jump to/from hyper - but they can't be used for what the ships where designed for: Stealth and surprise attacks.

As suggested, I read chapter 11 of ART; but all that it says is that Harlander knew that the spider drive exists and might have additional detail. What it does not say specifically is that he had any knowledge of performance or possible ties to a compensator. We only know that it cannot use a compensator because RFC told us. Simões would not not necessarily have gotten to that level of detail. We do not think he knows enough to allow the GA to build one.

As an aside, do the books say that there actually is a compensator on a spider ship for hyperspace use? Since grav-plates would also work there.

Jonathan_S wrote:Against even the relatively low acceleration of a grazer torp I don't think zig-zag is going to be all that helpful.

Depends, really. A few things are being forgotten in this LD-are-crazy-good party going in here.

Impeller ships can outrun a grazer torpedo. Long range launches would be a lot like trying to hit a 30 knot ship with a 25 knot homing torpedo: great if they just walk into it all fat and happy, iffy to impossible if they even get a whiff of it coming in.

Grazer torpedoes have to get within kissing range to get through a sidewall. While they have the power of a cruiser/BC grazer, they don't have the same ability to shoot through a sidewall and actually hit the ship inside. I can't find the reference at present, but IIRC the range shooting through a sidewall is about a tenth of that of a shipboard weapon. 30-50k kilometers, not 400k-ish.

In combination with that second point, a grazer torpedo isn't terribly well suited for a high speed closing attack on a ship with an active wedge and sidewalls. A high crossing velocity along with narrowed firing angles caused by the wedge and the enormously long firing time means it's very unlikely a torpedo is going to get its maximum output on target for long. Laser heads have far less power overall, but that power being delivered in a few microseconds means it either all hits or all misses. Not so for a torpedo. An SD taking a slash from a torpedo grazer is going to know it's been kissed, but the inability to focus the damage on one particular area of the target's hull is really going to mess with the actual damage done to the target.

tlb wrote:As an aside, do the books say that there actually is a compensator on a spider ship for hyperspace use? Since grav-plates would also work there.

That is one of the big question marks - without alpha nodes and a comp, how does a spider ship use a Grav Wave or a wormhole? We know the shape of an Honorverse ship is dicatated by the placement of the dual node rings required to make sails. Dual Sails are required for Grav wave and wormhole travel, and the compensator is required to travel in a Grav Wave as a sump for the energy siphoned off from the sails - and to keep the folks in the ship from squishing at 1700 or so Gs of acceleration.

So since a spider ship is a different shape, you can't have the required dual node rings required for the sails, etc, etc.

Over the years dozens of ideas have been thrown out to explain this: Do spider ships also mount a single drive ring and comp in addition to the spider drive? Can they have a 2nd nod ring which is run out on an arm? Have they made another drive breakthrough in conjunction with the streak drive? Can the Spider interact with Grav waves?

Having a 2nd drive system seems wasteful, especially in smaller ships. We've never heard about any other drive breakthrough that would explain the capability.

Once again, More questions and assumptions. And as KZT pointed out in an adjacent way, we're assuming capabilities of an unknown moving target in the future, determining capabilities 3-4 years in the future from what we saw in last year's (pre-production) model. The Shark strike proved that their main ideas worked, but you know they found things that didn't work, and their engineers are busy correcting those problems, and working on the next iteration of all the hardware.

So I'm hesitant to say anything beyond what we "know" - and I'm putting an asterisk next to that. And we know any analogy only works so far - what part of the analogy work and what is taking it too far - could we say that just because Spider ships are submarine analogs, are their only active sensors on a stalk that only can point in one direction at a time? Or is that too much?