?

Jonathan_S wrote:However it is unclear how far those are along and if Erewhon has its own initial domestically constructed SD(P)s in service yet. But yes, assuming Torch's intel isn't totally off they've at least started building ships of the wall now.

Uncompromising Honor, ch. 'Presidential Palace and Belinda's Bar, city of Landing; Meroa System' wrote:Commodore François Malinowski's System Patrol was a joke, no more than handful of obsolete light attack craft suitable—barely—for customs patrols [...]
His forty percent chance of kicking Kellog out of the airlock had turned into at least ninety percent. And, far more important than the weapons themselves, he'd been offered the one thing that might let the Resistance make its rebellion stand up: naval support. Not just anyone's naval support either, but the Royal Manticoran Navy's. With the RMN in his skinsuit pocket, he'd known the time had finally come to reclaim Meroa from OFS and its thieving, bloodsucking "elected leaders."

And now this. Now a light cruiser of something calling itself the Mayan Autonomous Regional Sector Navy—and wasn't that a mouthful?—had arrived on Merriwell's doorstep less than two local weeks before his uprising was slated to begin. Arrived to announce that McAnally hadn't been talking to Manticorans at all. That he'd been played by someone whose sole interest tin Meroa was to see uprising crushed as catastrophically as possible. Someone for whom the MRM's bloody destruction wasn't even a primary goal, only "collateral damage" in a strategy focused upon the Star Empire of Manticore and its allies.

cthia wrote:If the gtorps grasers are powered by capacitors then why do they have to be so large, and why were we presented with Detweiler's musings that the micro-fusion reactor secret hasn't been broken.

Heck why should any Navy's missile have needed a reactor if capacitors would suffice. Until the Apollo program's power needs came along anyway.

Uncompromising Honor, SEPTEMBER 1922 POST DIASPORA
Office of the Director of Naval Operations
Gregor Mendel Tower
City of Leonard
Darius System wrote:“And so to business,” Daniel agreed. “There are two or three projects we need to discuss—someplace besides over lunch in a restaurant, I mean—but the main thing is that, as of today, Silver Bullet’s ready for production. We still have a couple of bugs to address, but they’re mostly software issues. The prototype hardware’s performed almost perfectly, and Test and Eval signed off on it yesterday.”
“That’s great!” Benjamin raised one hand in a thumbs-up gesture. “Faster than I expected, too.”
“Well, most of the hardware was pretty much off-the-shelf. We’d already been tweaking the torpedo’s drive for you, and the gravitic sensors are out of our own grav com R and D. The biggest problem was power supply, really. My people haven’t been able to duplicate the Manty micro fusion plants yet. I think they’re on the track, and I’m actually predicting that they’ll pull it off in the next T-year or so, but it won’t be any sooner than that. Assuming Collin’s people don’t manage to steal the plans for us. Any chance of that?”
“’Fraid not.” Benjamin shook his head, his expression much less cheerful than it had been. “I had a report from him a couple of days ago. Apparently, the Manties are rolling up his networks in a big way. We always knew there was a risk of that—once those bastards Zilwicki and Cachat blew the top off, they were bound to start looking under every rock—but this appears to be worse than our worst-case assumptions. So far, we don’t have a clue how they’re doing it, and however they’re pulling it off, they’re obviously working their way down from the top. It seems to be spreading to Beowulf, too, although it looks like it’s going slower there. And I’m afraid we took out his best bet for getting us the kind of info your people need ourselves. Oyster Bay killed a lot of the agents he’d managed to insert into their construction units.”
“I wish I could say I was surprised.” Daniel sighed, then shrugged. “Well, knowing something can be done is two thirds of figuring out how to do it. I wish we’d been paying more attention to the hardware side of things and less to the political and diplomatic side when Collin set up his networks, but I think we’ve at least identified the right paths forward for a lot of their stuff. Now it’s just a case of hammering through, and God knows we’ve got enough motivation!”
He smiled with very little amusement, and Benjamin nodded in both understanding and agreement.
Daniel’s researchers had yet to duplicate most of the cornucopia of hardware which had flowed out of Roger Winton’s long-term prewar R&D. In fact, they hadn’t even identified all of it yet. As Daniel had just suggested, they were making progress—in fact, their rate of progress continued to increase—but they remained far behind and he was unhappily certain the Manties weren’t resting on their laurels. Worse, now they were comparing notes with Haven. There was a reason Sonja Hemphill and Shannon Foraker were right at the top of Collin’s Assassinate As Soon As Possible list. If there were two navies in the galaxy who understood the need to stay ahead of the technological curve, it was the RMN and the RHN, especially under Hemphill and Foraker. It was unlikely, to say the least, that the Alignment was going to overcome the edge in their hardware anytime soon.
“Well, without micro plants of our own,” Daniel continued, “what my people had to do was to throw together a new fuselage big enough to let us graft together the power packs of two Wraiths. It’s…large.”
Benjamin snorted. The Wraith was the Mesan Alignment Navy’s equivalent of the Manty Ghost Rider recon platforms, and without Manticore’s new stealth systems—and their damned thumbnail fusion plants—building something equally hard to see had been a challenge. The good news was that the spider drive’s gravitic signature was incredibly faint compared to conventional impellers, so it didn’t require as much stealthing in the first place. The bad news was that the drive itself took up a lot of space and its plasma-charged accumulators took up almost as much. From the sketchy information they’d been able to assemble on Ghost Rider, a Wraith was probably at least seventy percent bigger than a current generation Manticoran recon drone. It was also much slower and lacked Ghost Rider’s FTL capability, but it was probably at least as difficult to detect, and indications were that its onboard sensors were a bit better even than the RMN’s current hardware.
But if Daniel was talking about something big enough to carry a pair of Wraith power packs, then he was talking about something which was probably at least two or three times as big as the MAN’s graser torpedo…which was already nearly twice the size of a Manticoran Mark 23 MDM. In which case, calling it “large” was something of an understatement, especially from the perspective of the man whose navy would be trying to deploy the damned things.
“How large a ‘large’ are we actually talking about here?” he asked.
“Try sixty-eight meters long and right on eleven and a half in diameter.”
Benjamin winced. That wasn’t quite as bad as he’d feared, but it was still over ninety percent the size of a Manticoran Shrike-class LAC.
“I imagine it’s fair to call that ‘large,’” he said judiciously.
“The final version’s going to be at least a couple of meters longer,” Daniel warned him. “That sixty-eight meters is basically the carrier, the graser, and the power supply. We’ve designed four different nose sections, and I won’t know which one we’re using until I know how the software tweaks finally resolve.” He shrugged. “On the other hand, given that it’s already way too big to fire from anything we’ve got, including Detweiler’s torpedo tubes, I figure a few more meters here or there won’t hurt.”

cthia wrote:Thanks for the text Vince. I posted much of it myself elsewhere. I just don't quite follow it all.

For instance, it speaks of using the power packs of two Wraiths. But I don't understand how the spider drive can be powered WHOLLY by a plasma source alone. Does the LD's drive run off of plasma??? I guess that is Weber classified. We talked about plasma capacitors possibly being recharged by a reactor of some sort.

Also, it may have been discussed already, but that passage seems to imply micro-fusion technology would greatly help the grasers. I suppose, perhaps, by reducing the Wraiths humongous size.

However, would the micro-fusion reactors help the LD? At any rate, Daniel seems to think they will break the secret in about a year.

tlb wrote:A Lenny Det most likely has multiple full-size fusion reactors, the same as any major warship. There is no need for a micro-reactor in its operations, except as a power source for its spider drive weapons (such as the graser torpedo, which could make it smaller).

I do not recall any mention of a Wraith-class elsewhere in any book, but I am assuming the it is something like a recon drone. I am sure that RFC has talked about the process, but we never see the plasma capacitors of a missile being charged; presumably each missile tube has a plasma conduit (what RFC likes to call a power cord). It leaves me to guess that a missile pod has the piping to take an external plasma source and channel it to the missiles (even the micro-reactor needs a startup boost.

PS. There is a ship (I believe) named Wraith mentioned at the end of chapter 19 of Mission of Honor; but if it is a ship, then it would have a regular fusion reactor.

tlb wrote:A Lenny Det most likely has multiple full-size fusion reactors, the same as any major warship. There is no need for a micro-reactor in its operations, except as a power source for its spider drive weapons (such as the graser torpedo, which could make it smaller).

I do not recall any mention of a Wraith-class elsewhere in any book, but I am assuming the it is something like a recon drone. I am sure that RFC has talked about the process, but we never see the plasma capacitors of a missile being charged; presumably each missile tube has a plasma conduit (what RFC likes to call a power cord). It leaves me to guess that a missile pod has the piping to take an external plasma source and channel it to the missiles (even the micro-reactor needs a startup boost.

PS. There is a ship (I believe) named Wraith mentioned at the end of chapter 19 of Mission of Honor; but if it is a ship, then it would have a regular fusion reactor.

Jonathan_S wrote:I got the impression that routing plasma to the launch tube was a new requirement for the RMN's Mk16s and Mk23s - for jumpstarting their microfusion plants.

So I suspect plasma capacitors (or "plasma accumulators" as this text excerpt seems to call them) are somewhat less dangerous to charge and keep charged, and so capacitor powered missiles had been changed, before traveling all the way to the launch tube. (Possibly not within the magazine itself; but quite possibly in a charging room next to the magazine, rather than out next to the hull where microfusion reactors are kicked off)

Also, why the question about what the Wraith is? Right in the middle of that quote it explicitly tells us "The Wraith was the Mesan Alignment Navy’s equivalent of the Manty Ghost Rider recon platforms".
It's bigger; they estimate about 70% bigger. It's slower. It uses spider drive. But it's a recon drone.

And they used many of its systems (including the power storage from a pair of them), drive, and presumably sensors, to build their even larger, long endurance special purpose, Silver Bullet search and attack drones.

tlb wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:I got the impression that routing plasma to the launch tube was a new requirement for the RMN's Mk16s and Mk23s - for jumpstarting their microfusion plants.

So I suspect plasma capacitors (or "plasma accumulators" as this text excerpt seems to call them) are somewhat less dangerous to charge and keep charged, and so capacitor powered missiles had been changed, before traveling all the way to the launch tube. (Possibly not within the magazine itself; but quite possibly in a charging room next to the magazine, rather than out next to the hull where microfusion reactors are kicked off)

Also, why the question about what the Wraith is? Right in the middle of that quote it explicitly tells us "The Wraith was the Mesan Alignment Navy’s equivalent of the Manty Ghost Rider recon platforms".
It's bigger; they estimate about 70% bigger. It's slower. It uses spider drive. But it's a recon drone.

And they used many of its systems (including the power storage from a pair of them), drive, and presumably sensors, to build their even larger, long endurance special purpose, Silver Bullet search and attack drones.

Oops, I should have done more than skim the text before posting, but at least I had the right answer.

We have seen pods being used immediately after being issued from a missile supply ship, which caused me to speculate some time ago that the supply ship must give them a charge as part of the process of unloading (because I find it difficult to image that a supply ship has pods with a full plasma load). Even if missiles and pods have a full charge when initially put on a ship, we know that the charge decays because the Silver Bullets had solar panels (of all things) to keep them topped up; so as part of using them there must be a system to bring back the maximum charge. There is energy used to maintain the plasma containment, if nothing else; unless magazines are wired to do that and also keep the charge up.

I see disadvantages to storing missiles that way, even if the plasma capacitor is amazingly efficient and its charge is long lived at less than full usage. The advantage in war is that the missile (even from a a supply ship) is available for immediate use.

Vince wrote:Regarding missile and reconnaissance drone power systems in the Honorverse:

All Honorverse navies, prior to the RMN invention of the high-output micro-fusion reactor, used plasma capacitors to power the drives of both missiles and reconnaissance drones.

After the RMN invention of the high-output micro-fusion reactor, the RMN had a duopoly (the GSN also had access to the technology) on fusion-powered MDMs, DDMs, and the more capable Ghost Rider reconnaissance drones.

After the Grand Alliance was formed, the RMN began sharing their secrets with the other Grand Alliance navies (RHN, BSDF) and the more loosely aligned IAN, that didn't have the new technology.

Even after the RMN shared the secret of the high-output micro-fusion reactor, the RMN, GSN, IAN and BSDF still have the older plasma capacitor powered missiles and reconnaissance drones in service. (It takes time for all the existing ships using the older systems to be replaced with the newer designs.)

All other navies in the Honorverse still use the plasma capacitors to power the drives of both missiles and reconnaissance drones. No other Honorverse navy has the micro-fusion reactors.

From the Pearls of Weber:

Fission/fusion power reactors

Missile power systems

Single-drive fusion-powered missiles

How big is a recon drone?

Theemile wrote:

Vince wrote:Regarding missile and reconnaissance drone power systems in the Honorverse:

All Honorverse navies, prior to the RMN invention of the high-output micro-fusion reactor, used plasma capacitors to power the drives of both missiles and reconnaissance drones.

After the RMN invention of the high-output micro-fusion reactor, the RMN had a duopoly (the GSN also had access to the technology) on fusion-powered MDMs, DDMs, and the more capable Ghost Rider reconnaissance drones.

After the Grand Alliance was formed, the RMN began sharing their secrets with the other Grand Alliance navies (RHN, BSDF) and the more loosely aligned IAN, that didn't have the new technology.

Even after the RMN shared the secret of the high-output micro-fusion reactor, the RMN, GSN, IAN and BSDF still have the older plasma capacitor powered missiles and reconnaissance drones in service. (It takes time for all the existing ships using the older systems to be replaced with the newer designs.)

All other navies in the Honorverse still use the plasma capacitors to power the drives of both missiles and reconnaissance drones. No other Honorverse navy has the micro-fusion reactors.

From the Pearls of Weber:

Fission/fusion power reactors

Missile power systems

Single-drive fusion-powered missiles

How big is a recon drone?

One other point - the smallest Micro fusion reactor and fuel storage is currently larger than 1 CA class missile capacitor stack, but smaller than 2 CA class missile capacitor stacks. Placing the reactor in any single drive missile or extended drive missile in the DD or CA classes is unfeasible as it cannot fit in the current missile chassis and would require a significantly larger missile (ie, the mk 16 DDM)

From the size (120 Tons) it may be possible to build a single drive capital missile with a fusion reactor - but what would be the use? Due to the reactor handling characteristics, a whole new class of ship would need to be designed to fire them, and no one with such technology will be building a single drive capital missile, when there are smaller missiles available with superior capabilities. (mk 16 DDM), and the ability to add even more in a capital class missile.