?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:(Assuming that for sanity of the writer that all ships involved have the same kind of relativity defying properties as wedge driven designs seem to)

Normal ships don't have relativity-defying properties. The passengers aboard a ship experience time dilation just like Special Relativity predicts, measured against the speed of light in the hyper band. This was shown in the books where passengers aboard a ship experience a shorter period during long trips than the outside universe measured (21.6 instead of 27 days, @ 0.6c).

If you meant the long period of acceleration and deceleratiton, during which the Lorentz factor is slowly changing, then yeah, I agree. Of course, people can just round the numbers in speech too. Or they can be wrong too.

Yeah, it was an aside about ignoring the Lorentz factor (gamma) - since as you say they do mention time dilation factors of the ships. This is especially noticeable in missiles at their much higher acceleration and top speed.[1]

RFC has clearly stuck with the simpler Newtonian acceleration formulas - and for understandable reasons. But that does mean that ships and missiles don't "lose" acceleration like relativity says they should.

One way of retconning this is to assume that the wedges somehow siphon enough additional energy from hyper that their power and acceleration increase perfectly offsets the losses due to increasing gamma. But that's just a possible in-universe explanation for why they ignore gamma.

Most likely, against for simplicity of calculation if nothing else, he'll have Spider ships also ignore gamma. But if he wanted to cannonize wedges as special he could have spider drive obey Lorentz while letting wedges continue to ignore it.

[1] We're told an MDM can pull 46,000 gees for 9 minutes, giving it a range from rest of about 65 million km, and a burnout velocity around .8c. Newton agrees.
But ask Lorentz and those numbers give you the far different answers of about 31 million km and .37c. That's be a hell of a rounding difference

tlb wrote:You are confusing things; there are two separate types of nodes: the Beta nodes are used to project the wedge (and sidewalls?), while the Alpha nodes project the sails for use in hyperspace. To have the two sails to take best advantage of hyperspace you need two Alpha rigs, one at the bow and the other at the stern. Unlike the Beta nodes, they do not impose any other shape requirement on the hull.

Though i swear RFC must have misstated it when he said it was the Betas that imposed a specific shape.

Because we know shuttles and pinnaces have single beta rings - and they don't have to stick to starship shape. And that forts similarly don't need alpha nodes and aren't forced to the starship hull profile. But some League freighter designs skipped redundancy and have only alpha nodes and AFAIK they still have to pinch down for their (Alpha only) impeller rings.


Still, even if he misspoke a Spider Ship can always mount sails by simply having the node rings sized and placed as if on a conventionally shaped starship large enough for the entire spider ship to be within it's hull outline. Normal ships don't do that because that forces a larger compensated area, and hence gives you the lower acceleration of that larger ship. (Though RMN/GSN CLACs are 'fatter' than other ships, which reportedly gives them a slightly lower acceleration because of the less efficient hull form) But since spider ships are probably relying on grav plates anyway they wouldn't care about how inefficiently they'd be compensated.

(Though even on a 12 mton ship the one place still having a compensator might be nice is in a grav wave. Those provide such deep grav sumps that ships get 10 times their normal acceleration. 10 times a slow accel might well usefully exceed what their grav plates can give them)

Jonathan_S wrote:

tlb wrote:You are confusing things; there are two separate types of nodes: the Beta nodes are used to project the wedge (and sidewalls?), while the Alpha nodes project the sails for use in hyperspace. To have the two sails to take best advantage of hyperspace you need two Alpha rigs, one at the bow and the other at the stern. Unlike the Beta nodes, they do not impose any other shape requirement on the hull.

Though i swear RFC must have misstated it when he said it was the Betas that imposed a specific shape.

Because we know shuttles and pinnaces have single beta rings - and they don't have to stick to starship shape. And that forts similarly don't need alpha nodes and aren't forced to the starship hull profile. But some League freighter designs skipped redundancy and have only alpha nodes and AFAIK they still have to pinch down for their (Alpha only) impeller rings.


Still, even if he misspoke a Spider Ship can always mount sails by simply having the node rings sized and placed as if on a conventionally shaped starship large enough for the entire spider ship to be within it's hull outline. Normal ships don't do that because that forces a larger compensated area, and hence gives you the lower acceleration of that larger ship. (Though RMN/GSN CLACs are 'fatter' than other ships, which reportedly gives them a slightly lower acceleration because of the less efficient hull form) But since spider ships are probably relying on grav plates anyway they wouldn't care about how inefficiently they'd be compensated.

(Though even on a 12 mton ship the one place still having a compensator might be nice is in a grav wave. Those provide such deep grav sumps that ships get 10 times their normal acceleration. 10 times a slow accel might well usefully exceed what their grav plates can give them)

But over a certain mass point, the compensator doesn't allow a ship to move at all - hence the reason for the grav plates. building a 14 Mton ship isn't an option with a compensator/ wedge combo - it just will not move.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

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?

This thread is getting away from me. Lots of interesting posts.

I hardly think the MA will launch against a target hours away unless it's a duck.

I imagine spread patterns would be reserved for high priority targets. The Queen's Yacht and Honor's ship would fit that profile.


****** *


Get a load of this . . .

The film adaptation of The Hunt for Red October popularized the magnetohydrodynamic drive as a "caterpillar drive" for submarines, a nearly undetectable "silent drive" intended to achieve stealth in submarine warfare.

A magnetohydrodynamic drive or MHD accelerator is a method for propelling vehicles using only electric and magnetic fields with no moving parts, accelerating an electrically conductive propellant with magnetohydrodynamics. The fluid is directed to the rear and as a reaction, the vehicle accelerates forward.

Theemile wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:(Though even on a 12 mton ship the one place still having a compensator might be nice is in a grav wave. Those provide such deep grav sumps that ships get 10 times their normal acceleration. 10 times a slow accel might well usefully exceed what their grav plates can give them)

But over a certain mass point, the compensator doesn't allow a ship to move at all - hence the reason for the grav plates. building a 14 Mton ship isn't an option with a compensator/ wedge combo - it just will not move.

You're right. I'd forgotten just how fast compensator performance fell of past the critical size. It we assume the MAlign doesn't have improved compensators then the text from 'More Than Honor' would still apply unmodified.

More Than Honor: The Universe of Honor Harrington wrote:Above 8,500,000 tons, warship accelerations fell off by approximately 1 g per 2,500 tons, so that a warship of 8,502,500 tons would have a maximum acceleration of 419 g and a warship of 9,547,500 tons would have a maximum acceleration of 1 g. The same basic curves were followed for merchant vessels.

At 1 g or less even the 10x improvement of a grav wave is worthless.



Though if they had compensators as capable as Manticore's latest I'm not sure how that would change.
I get the impression that critical tonnage might have gone up slower than the acceleration improvements did - since after all the largest ship we've seen is the 8,779,250 ton Harrington II-class, which doesn't exceed the old limit by all that much.

OTOH they may have opted for accel over size and chosen not to use the full practical displacement. But if, and its a huge if, the critical size had increased by the same ratio as the rest of the accel curve, then when Harrington II was laid down critical size would have been up to around 12,000,000 tons!

cthia wrote:Get a load of this . . .

The film adaptation of The Hunt for Red October popularized the magnetohydrodynamic drive as a "caterpillar drive" for submarines, a nearly undetectable "silent drive" intended to achieve stealth in submarine warfare.

A magnetohydrodynamic drive or MHD accelerator is a method for propelling vehicles using only electric and magnetic fields with no moving parts, accelerating an electrically conductive propellant with magnetohydrodynamics. The fluid is directed to the rear and as a reaction, the vehicle accelerates forward.

That will work for a salt water submarine, since seawater conducts electricity; but it has no relevance to something in space, which has no conducting fluid. If you inject a conducting fluid, then perhaps we are talking about a plasma motor.

I remember an article about this in Popular Science when I was much younger.

I'm pointing out the similarity of the overarching concept, not method.

Jonathan_S wrote:[1] We're told an MDM can pull 46,000 gees for 9 minutes, giving it a range from rest of about 65 million km, and a burnout velocity around .8c. Newton agrees.
But ask Lorentz and those numbers give you the far different answers of about 31 million km and .37c. That's be a hell of a rounding difference

That depends on the parameters you input into the calculation. In the "MDMs should last a little longer than they do" thread I started, I used a different assumption. Since posting that, I've found other people had made the same calculations years before, but I don't recall the thread name now to find the post.

My assumption was that the missile sustained the same acceleration for the 9 minutes of its own perceived time, including dilation. For the launching ship, assuming it did not accelerate or decelerate since launching, we'd have:

Newtonian:

• Duration: 540 s
• Range: 65 771 240.2 km (ΔS = (at²)/2)
• Final speed: 243 597 186 m/s ≅ 0.812c (Δv = at)

Relativity:

• Duration: 601.4 s [T = c/a sinh(aτ/c)]
• Range: 69 470 572.1 km [ΔS = c²/a (cosh(aτ/c) - 1)]
• Final speed: 201 159 563 m/s ≅ 0.671c [Δv = c tanh(aτ/c)]

It achieves a lower overall velocity, but because it lasts 11.4% longer, it actually travels further.

cthia wrote:
I have been told that warfare is not a chess match.

TRUE/FALSE

1. Every war is a chess match.
2. All Generals play chess.

If you don't see every battle as a chess match, you've already lost against this opponent.

tlb wrote:Chess is a possible way to learn and develop strategy, but poker and other games can also do that.

Poker and other games can teach you military tactics?

tlb wrote:Differences between war and chess:

At the beginning of a chess game, each side has equal pieces in type and number, in mobility and strength and in positioning. That is almost never true in war.

And you don't realize why that is? Chess is designed to be a game that determine the strengths of a superior intellect. Not the strengths of a bigger economy, bigger naval budget, bigger production lines., etc. The SLN vs RMN was not a battle of the minds.

I routinely played without my Queen.

you wrote:Each side can see everything being done by the other. That is almost never true in war.

It isn't true in chess either. An opponent can only see the pieces you move. Not the strategy and tactics you have up your sleeve.

tlb wrote:The total number of units on each side can never more than the initial total. Only pawns can be promoted. That is almost never true in war, provided there are resources to draw upon. The number of units can increase and all can be upgraded.

Additional piece are not needed to determine the superior force, or to bring the match to it's conclusion. In chess.

tlb wrote:There are only the two opponents. That need not be true in war; look at WW2, there were three parties in the Allies and three parties in the Axis, each with their own plans and strategies.

Just two opponents need not be true in chess either.

I know players who routinely play several games at once. Speed chess! Try that in war.

tlb wrote:Each side takes each turn alternately. That is almost never true in war; ever move is a scramble and there can be multiple moves from each party on a side simultaneously.
Sounds like a chess match with my almost 2-yr-old niece.

George Eliot wrote:Fancy what a game of chess would be if all the chessmen had passions and intellects, more or less small and cunning; if you were not only uncertain about your adversary's men, but a little uncertain also about your own; if your knight could shuffle himself on to a new square by the sly; if your bishop, at your castling, could wheedle your pawns out of their places; and if your pawns, hating you because they are pawns, could make away from their appointed posts that you might get checkmate on a sudden. You might be the longest-headed of deductive reasoners, and yet you might be beaten by your own pawns. You would be especially likely to be beaten, if you depended arrogantly on your mathematical imagination, and regarded your passionate pieces with contempt. Yet this imaginary chess is easy compared with the game a man has to play against his fellow-men with other fellow-men for his instruments.

Definitely sounds like a game with my young niece who refuses to believe a horse can't jump much farther than the rules say, or that it's hoof can't KICK every other pieces butt.

cthia wrote:
I have been told that warfare is not a chess match.

TRUE/FALSE

1. Every war is a chess match.
2. All Generals play chess.

If you don't see every battle as a chess match, you've already lost against this opponent.

Poker and other games can teach you military tactics?

And you don't realize why that is? Chess is designed to be a game that determine the strengths of a superior intellect. Not the strengths of a bigger economy, bigger naval budget, bigger production lines., etc. The SLN vs RMN was not a battle of the minds.

I routinely played without my Queen.

It isn't true in chess either. An opponent can only see the pieces you move. Not the strategy and tactics you have up your sleeve.

Additional piece are not needed to determine the superior force, or to bring the match to it's conclusion. In chess.

Just two opponents need not be true in chess either.

I know players who routinely play several games at once. Speed chess! Try that in war.

Poker and other games can teach you strategy, but they will not teach you tactics; but then chess does not teach military tactics either.

Military battles are not just won by superior intellect, but also by material advantage; which the beginning of chess eliminates. So your statements are an acceptance that war and chess are different. To repeat: only the pawn can be promoted in chess, but in war everything can be upgraded if there are resources. The armies that ended WW2 were all significantly changed; the Axis Powers for the worse due to lack of resources, while the Allies for the better.

In chess every move is made on the board in a way that is visible to the opponent. Remember the maxim that Honor keeps repeating;

'Surprise' is what happens when someone's seen something all along . . . and thought it was something else.

Some of that is possible in chess; but in war there are also spies and so on, to help uncover the enemies hidden strategy. There is no equivalent to code breaking in chess.

The fact that war can allow additional pieces means the measure of superior force can change, unlike in chess.

Spreed chess, multiple games at once, handicapping by leaving out a piece are all interesting and measure how good someone is at chess.

George Eliot wrote:Fancy what a game of chess would be if all the chessmen had passions and intellects, more or less small and cunning; if you were not only uncertain about your adversary's men, but a little uncertain also about your own; if your knight could shuffle himself on to a new square by the sly; if your bishop, at your castling, could wheedle your pawns out of their places; and if your pawns, hating you because they are pawns, could make away from their appointed posts that you might get checkmate on a sudden. You might be the longest-headed of deductive reasoners, and yet you might be beaten by your own pawns. You would be especially likely to be beaten, if you depended arrogantly on your mathematical imagination, and regarded your passionate pieces with contempt. Yet this imaginary chess is easy compared with the game a man has to play against his fellow-men with other fellow-men for his instruments.

The point of this quote is that being a wartime leader and sending men into battle requires skills that are NOT needed in chess. It is quite possible that Jefferson Davis' intellect was every bit as good as Lincoln's, but he fundamentally lacked the leadership skills and the Confederacy lacked the resources that were required to win the war. General Lee's intellect was probably better that that of General Grant; but Grant was better able to marshal the resources needed to win.