Honor: Pimp My Ride

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:Thanks for the info tlb. Theemile.

I wasn't aware that Sidewalls don't go up until needed either. It just seems like at the moment you hyper into a hostile system, or a hostile force hypers into your system, or simply because your skin is crawling or Honor is rubbing her Pinnochio -- it seems the Sidewalls, the Bow Walls and the Buckler should be activated. What if a ship is lying doggo, in stealth? As Honor did in the wargames. As the Sharks and LDs undoubtedly will do.

When hypering in to a hostile system you haven't scouted previously, you should be cleared for action. That is, sidewalls up, bucklers up, crew in shipsuits (not uniforms). On a CLAC, the ready squadron should be aboard their ships and ready to launch.

How long does it take to bring each of them up? I got the feeling the time is significant, as far as the bow walls are concerned. So I'm going to assume I can apply it across the board.

I don't remember reading anyone say how long it is, but I've always got a feeling it's rather quick, but not instantaneous.

Not specifically the bow wall, but a waller's sidewalls snapped on very quickly in that incident just before the war that when the 4 Havenite BCs inadvertently jumped Bellerophon at energy range. Oops. With a peacetime bridge crew under the command of a fairly junior officer she still got her sidewalls up before the BCs figured out their mistake and opened fire. To me that implies sidewalls can energize in a second or two at most.

tlb wrote:I cannot find text that explains things. However it is possible that a buckler does impose some limits on changes in acceleration or maneuver, without the complete elimination of changes for a full bow wall.

I don't think it would lower accel. But here's how it was described in SoS (where we first saw it)

Shadow of Saganami wrote:Hexapuma's bow wall could be brought up in two stages. The second stage was the original wall that completely sealed the front of her wedge, protected against fire from any angle or weapon, and reduced her acceleration to zero. The first stage wasn't a complete wall, however. It was a much smaller, circular shield, its diameter less than twice the ship's extreme beam. It offered no protection against beams coming in from acute angles, and a laserhead could actually slip right past it before detonating. But against the energy weapons of a single target, Hexapuma could place that defense directly between her hull and the enemy . . . and continue to accelerate at full efficiency.

Full efficiently doesn't sound like she's slowed.
Though I cast a bit of a skeptical eye on the "acute angles" statement. With a diameter of less than twice the ship's beam then assuming a normal sidewall stand-off range it only provides a protective cone with angle less that .5 degrees from dead ahead! That's just a very small shield to try to hide a very big object behind.

If it had 1/10th the normal standoff that'd improve to almost 3 degrees from dead ahead. And if it had a minuscule 100 meter standoff that'd protect the ship's bow from fire over 21 degrees off dead center (which sounds quite good); however the aft (with its nodes exposed to off axis fire coming from ahead) is still protected from less than +/- 7 degrees deviation from dead ahead.

No mater how close the sidewall is (and the closer it is to the ship, the less effective it is. There's a reason normal sidewalls are 10 km out from the ship's side) the ship has to be pointed pretty much directly at the threat for the buckler to cover it. Still some coverage is better than none.


And I can think of one reason a ship might not want a bow wall up until the enemy fires (especially for an enemy restricted to towed pods). If up against an enemy that doesn't suspect you have them, by keeping them in the dark that gives a minor chance that they'll pick a sub-optimal targeting strategy -- telling their missiles to go for the open throat; which you can then close once it's too late to change orders. If you know the enemy has a 2 stage bow/stern wall you know you have to send missiles simultaneously both ahead and astern of them in order for one set to only have to deal with the narrow coverage of a buckler. If all the missiles that aren't going straight at the sidewall pick the same end to attack then the ship can bring up their full wall and entirely seal off that aspect; degrading the missile's effectiveness.
Still, that's a small advantage - and only works against an enemy that's unaware of your ship's capabilities.

That quote is actually from chapter 24 of Shadow of Saganami, not from Storm from the Shadows.

After I could not find the quote, it took me too long to realize that I should look in the book where Hexapuma did the fighting.

If you are going to pimp Honor's ride, does that mean that her ride is a brothel?

tlb wrote:That quote is actually from chapter 24 of Shadow of Saganami, not from Storm from the Shadows.

After I could not find the quote, it took me too long to realize that I should look in the book where Hexapuma did the fighting.

Oops. That's what I got for posting while distracted.

cthia wrote:You'd think so. It is why I'm bewildered as to why Lessem waited until a Solly avalanche was headed his way before the bow walls go up ...

UH wrote:"Missile defense Reno, aye, sir." Wozniak replied. "Missile Defense has good tracking says from the Ghost Riders, and bow walls are active...now." He looked over his shoulder and smiled at the commodore. "I think these people are in for a surprise, Sir."

It very well may be instantaneous, but it still seems reckless to wait until the enemy launches before activating bow walls. As I said, what if there is a ship lying doggo. I know replacing components too soon is wasteful, but so too is replacing crew, too soon.

You can't manoeuvre with bow walls up. You wait until the last moment to bring them up. Until then, you're evading or closing or fleeing.

cthia wrote:You'd think so. It is why I'm bewildered as to why Lessem waited until a Solly avalanche was headed his way before the bow walls go up ...

UH wrote:"Missile defense Reno, aye, sir." Wozniak replied. "Missile Defense has good tracking says from the Ghost Riders, and bow walls are active...now." He looked over his shoulder and smiled at the commodore. "I think these people are in for a surprise, Sir."

It very well may be instantaneous, but it still seems reckless to wait until the enemy launches before activating bow walls. As I said, what if there is a ship lying doggo. I know replacing components too soon is wasteful, but so too is replacing crew, too soon.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:You can't manoeuvre with bow walls up. You wait until the last moment to bring them up. Until then, you're evading or closing or fleeing.

Note also that the Sollies saw that they were dropping bow or stern walls from one ship at a time to clear telemetry channels, so the bow or stern wall limits communication when up.

Thanks guys.

@Jonathan. Your remark about keeping the enemy in the dark about your having bow walls makes sense. In fact, I think it's what storyline meant about the Sollies being surprised. But the textev about "the bow walls coming up right about...now," seems to suggest 5-10 seconds.

Could the Sollies sensors have actually detected the bow wall, especially not ever having encountered one?

cthia wrote:Could the Sollies sensors have actually detected the bow wall, especially not ever having encountered one?

Since it is physically the same as a sidewall (except for the way it limits acceleration because of its placement), there is no reason to think that they cannot. As I just said in the previous post, the Sollies in the UH event at the wormhole are talking about it going down for telemetry and then up again.

tlb wrote:Since it is physically the same as a sidewall (except for the way it limits acceleration because of its placement), there is no reason to think that they cannot. As I just said in the previous post, the Sollies in the UH event at the wormhole are talking about it going down for telemetry and then up again.

If you know what you're looking for and you're close enough, you can probably detect it. But at first it won't occur to you to scan for that. When the Shrikes were first used against the PN during the Second Battle of Hancock, the PN officers noticed that they would stop accelerating for a while but didn't understand why either. When faced against the SLN at the Ajay-Prime Warp Bridge, the RMN hid the loss of acceleration by stopping at a pre-determined position.

tlb wrote:Since it is physically the same as a sidewall (except for the way it limits acceleration because of its placement), there is no reason to think that they cannot. As I just said in the previous post, the Sollies in the UH event at the wormhole are talking about it going down for telemetry and then up again.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:If you know what you're looking for and you're close enough, you can probably detect it. But at first it won't occur to you to scan for that. When the Shrikes were first used against the PN during the Second Battle of Hancock, the PN officers noticed that they would stop accelerating for a while but didn't understand why either. When faced against the SLN at the Ajay-Prime Warp Bridge, the RMN hid the loss of acceleration by stopping at a pre-determined position.

True, but after the salvo had almost no effect. the SLN officers talked about the bow (and stern) walls and what they had observed. So after they understood what happened, they could observe the walls going up and down. They just had not paid attention before, because it was outside their experience; but they did understand it afterwards.