Wormhole Assault: MA Style

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Theemile wrote:Gtorps are not pod fired, they are tube fired. The pods are for Cataphracts. Gtorps are too large to fit in pods.

I thought they were too big for tubes too. It sounded like they were bay-launched instead: open the pod bay doors and kick them out. Whether the door is at the rear (or front) like an SD(P) or whether it's a sideways door like on a freighter, it's not important.

The MAlign will be trying to shrink their torpedoes over time, so this may not matter, though.

PS: did we have a character called Hal who couldn't/wouldn't open the pod bay doors?

Here's what the books have to say -

Mission of Honor - Ch. wrote:The torpedo’s size made fitting it into magazines and actually firing it awkward, to say the least, and the Sharks had never been intended to deploy it operationally. For that matter, the Sharks themselves had never been supposed to be deployed “operationally.” The Leonard Detweiler class, which had been intended to carry out this operation, had been designed with magazines and launch tubes which would make it possible to stow and fire torpedoes internally, but none of the Detweilers were even close to completion, and it had required the development of an ingenious external rack system to allow the Sharks to use it for Oyster Bay.

For all its size, it was also a slow weapon. It was simply impossible to fit a spider drive capable of more than a few hundred gravities’ acceleration into something small enough to make a practical weapon. As compensation, however, its drive had almost as much endurance as most of the galaxy’s recon drones, which gave it an impressive absolute range.

(emphasis added)
Sound like the Lenny Dets must have some seriously oversized tubes though for torpedo launching.

Manticore didn't even think it was worth adding the oversized tubes you'd need to broadside launch an Mk 23E. And they deploy their, even larger, ghost rider RDs out of the boat bay. But the books seem to imply a gtorp is even larger that a ghost rider -- so like I said, seriously oversized launch tubes!


Though I don't recall any specific statement that you can't fit a gtorp into a pod. (Though it seems unlikely to fit lengthwise into even a Cataphrace-C length pod)

The only MAlign pods we've seen launch various size Cataphracts [1]. And somewhere else I recall the Lenny Det described as a podlayer; yet it's talking about magazines & tubes for launching its torpedoes. So, whether or not they could be pod launched, they apparently aren't being pod launched.

(And of course anything could be pod launched if you're willing to build a big enough pod )

-------------------------
[1] Well they also had the special pods used for OB that just provided particle shielding for pods of Cataphracts trailing behind them - but those special pods don't appear to have carried any weapons.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Theemile wrote:Gtorps are not pod fired, they are tube fired. The pods are for Cataphracts. Gtorps are too large to fit in pods.

I thought they were too big for tubes too. It sounded like they were bay-launched instead: open the pod bay doors and kick them out. Whether the door is at the rear (or front) like an SD(P) or whether it's a sideways door like on a freighter, it's not important.

The MAlign will be trying to shrink their torpedoes over time, so this may not matter, though.

PS: did we have a character called Hal who couldn't/wouldn't open the pod bay doors?

Jonathan_S wrote:Here's what the books have to say -

Mission of Honor - Ch. wrote:The torpedo’s size made fitting it into magazines and actually firing it awkward, to say the least, and the Sharks had never been intended to deploy it operationally. For that matter, the Sharks themselves had never been supposed to be deployed “operationally.” The Leonard Detweiler class, which had been intended to carry out this operation, had been designed with magazines and launch tubes which would make it possible to stow and fire torpedoes internally, but none of the Detweilers were even close to completion, and it had required the development of an ingenious external rack system to allow the Sharks to use it for Oyster Bay.

For all its size, it was also a slow weapon. It was simply impossible to fit a spider drive capable of more than a few hundred gravities’ acceleration into something small enough to make a practical weapon. As compensation, however, its drive had almost as much endurance as most of the galaxy’s recon drones, which gave it an impressive absolute range.

(emphasis added)
Sound like the Lenny Dets must have some seriously oversized tubes though for torpedo launching.

Manticore didn't even think it was worth adding the oversized tubes you'd need to broadside launch an Mk 23E. And they deploy their, even larger, ghost rider RDs out of the boat bay. But the books seem to imply a gtorp is even larger that a ghost rider -- so like I said, seriously oversized launch tubes!


Though I don't recall any specific statement that you can't fit a gtorp into a pod. (Though it seems unlikely to fit lengthwise into even a Cataphrace-C length pod)

The only MAlign pods we've seen launch various size Cataphracts [1]. And somewhere else I recall the Lenny Det described as a podlayer; yet it's talking about magazines & tubes for launching its torpedoes. So, whether or not they could be pod launched, they apparently aren't being pod launched.

(And of course anything could be pod launched if you're willing to build a big enough pod )

-------------------------
[1] Well they also had the special pods used for OB that just provided particle shielding for pods of Cataphracts trailing behind them - but those special pods don't appear to have carried any weapons.

Interesting points Jonathan. But in the RMNs case, shouldn't we factor in what the lost in displacement would cost them, i.e., other hull mounted accoutrements? We don't know that that would be the case on an LD. In fact, the LDs shape could actually turn out to be a fortuitous design element.*

Also, I wouldn't put too much stock into the notion that an LD's triangular shape and spindly legs comes at a cost in weapons ordnance. They are Alphas. And who is to say what the size of the Spider's legs are. They could be equivalent to the massive tree trunks found on some athletes. Moreover, an LD operates inside the enemy's reach. They can open up already in knife-fighting range. I'd like to know what a more powerful ship graser can do from knife-fighting range.

At any rate, you'd have to admit that the thought of very stealthy pod-fired 3-sec hell-storms sounds frightening. Enough to make Honor come out of retirement.

Plus! I always thought that the ECM of a ship that big and that close can scramble your eggs for you, let alone your sensors.

Late edit:
*E.g., the spider legs could house huge mass drivers that can launch even massive gtorps with ease.

kzt wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
If that lane is 20000 km long (and it seems it is longer) and each ship is separated from the next by 200 km for safety, that's 100 ships that can fit. But the ship itself is less than 1.5 km long (after the Great Ship Resizing) so you could pack them even more tightly if needed. It wouldn't for SDs, since you can only get about 35 of them through in a mass transit, but suppose they have to be in the same 10% height of the cylinder so the transit actually takes place.

True, but for a mass transit they all have to be in roughly the same place.

Not that David has expressed with in any detail as to how big the WH entry point is. It clearly isn't a 1 km radius, but is it 5km, 150 km or 500 km?

Because, in a mass transit, all ships emerge simultaneously, and not piecemeal. No?

And, I suppose we have to assume the nature of the junction spits them all out at the exact same velocity (and position if you ask me) since they are tailgating upon transit.

cthia wrote:Interesting points Jonathan. But in the RMNs case, shouldn't we factor in what the lost in displacement would cost them, i.e., other hull mounted accoutrements? We don't know that that would be the case on an LD. In fact, the LDs shape could actually turn out to be a fortuitous design element.*

Also, I wouldn't put too much stock into the notion that an LD's triangular shape and spindly legs comes at a cost in weapons ordnance. They are Alphas. And who is to say what the size of the Spider's legs are. They could be equivalent to the massive tree trunks found on some athletes. Moreover, an LD operates inside the enemy's reach. They can open up already in knife-fighting range. I'd like to know what a more powerful ship graser can do from knife-fighting range.

At any rate, you'd have to admit that the thought of very stealthy pod-fired 3-sec hell-storms sounds frightening. Enough to make Honor come out of retirement.

Plus! I always thought that the ECM of a ship that big and that close can scramble your eggs for you, let alone your sensors.

Late edit:
*E.g., the spider legs could house huge mass drivers that can launch even massive gtorps with ease.

We can say how big the Spider's "Legs" are. Spider ships do not have any physical "Legs" - they have 3 spines of emitters that arcs across the surface of the ship laterally. The "legs" are the emitted energy from the tractor emitters that grab the alpha wall. It's kinda hard to "mount" anything in there since they have no physical space independent of their size.

Jonathan_S wrote:Here's what the books have to say -

Mission of Honor - Ch. wrote:The torpedo’s size made fitting it into magazines and actually firing it awkward, to say the least, and the Sharks had never been intended to deploy it operationally. For that matter, the Sharks themselves had never been supposed to be deployed “operationally.” The Leonard Detweiler class, which had been intended to carry out this operation, had been designed with magazines and launch tubes which would make it possible to stow and fire torpedoes internally, but none of the Detweilers were even close to completion, and it had required the development of an ingenious external rack system to allow the Sharks to use it for Oyster Bay.

For all its size, it was also a slow weapon. It was simply impossible to fit a spider drive capable of more than a few hundred gravities’ acceleration into something small enough to make a practical weapon. As compensation, however, its drive had almost as much endurance as most of the galaxy’s recon drones, which gave it an impressive absolute range.

(emphasis added)
Sound like the Lenny Dets must have some seriously oversized tubes though for torpedo launching.

Manticore didn't even think it was worth adding the oversized tubes you'd need to broadside launch an Mk 23E. And they deploy their, even larger, ghost rider RDs out of the boat bay. But the books seem to imply a gtorp is even larger that a ghost rider -- so like I said, seriously oversized launch tubes!


Though I don't recall any specific statement that you can't fit a gtorp into a pod. (Though it seems unlikely to fit lengthwise into even a Cataphrace-C length pod)

The only MAlign pods we've seen launch various size Cataphracts [1]. And somewhere else I recall the Lenny Det described as a podlayer; yet it's talking about magazines & tubes for launching its torpedoes. So, whether or not they could be pod launched, they apparently aren't being pod launched.

(And of course anything could be pod launched if you're willing to build a big enough pod )

-------------------------
[1] Well they also had the special pods used for OB that just provided particle shielding for pods of Cataphracts trailing behind them - but those special pods don't appear to have carried any weapons.

If we stretch definitions somewhat, there is a launch tube even larger than the MAlign's torpedo launchers. Being somewhat reductionist, a CLAC is a ~100-cell box launcher with each tube capable of throwing(and recovering) a 20,000 ton torpedo.

As for MAlign graser torpedoes, they mass approximately the same as pods don't they? The dimensions may be different, but the actual launching process shouldn't be more challenging than launching pods. Or even larger LACs.

cthia wrote:
Because, in a mass transit, all ships emerge simultaneously, and not piecemeal. No?

And, I suppose we have to assume the nature of the junction spits them all out at the exact same velocity (and position if you ask me) since they are tailgating upon transit.

Actually, no, we have never been told exactly how the wormhole transit mechanism happens for mass transit, and we cannot assume they all have the same velocity and vector. One of the basic rules of Mass Transit (and the reason it is rarely used) is it is possible for ships in a mass transit to exit in the same physical space and explode.

Jonathan_S wrote:Sound like the Lenny Dets must have some seriously oversized tubes though for torpedo launching.

And seriously oversized structural weak points as a consequence? It's after all a tunnel from the outside to the magazine inside. And if it's big enough to fire a gtorp from, it might be big enough to be targeted from a missile. Especially after the first LD is destroyed in combat and its wreckage is analysed for the design.

Though I don't recall any specific statement that you can't fit a gtorp into a pod. (Though it seems unlikely to fit lengthwise into even a Cataphrace-C length pod)

Sure, but one to a pod? Maybe two? That's not worth it, since you gain nothing from the efficiency of having pods in the first place. And besides, I simply don't see an alpha launch of torpedoes happening. It's not their tactical purpose. They are meant to be fired from far away and in stealth, so the number that you fire simultaneously is pretty much irrelevant.

cthia wrote:Plus! I always thought that the ECM of a ship that big and that close can scramble your eggs for you, let alone your sensors.

ECM is not a factor of ship size, at least not above the point where the computers required to do the electronics can fit. Given the size of HV ships, I doubt anything above CL or even DD would lack for space, but the rules from RFC seem to say that they actually do.

Either way, the point is that the computers embarked on an LD don't have to be bigger to be better at ECM. And we know Manticore has better tech than anyone else in the Galaxy, so their ECM is second to none.

The size of the ship can actually become a negative contribution past a certain value. I suspect that the LD is right at the edge of diminishing returns, though. The MAlign, for all of their lack of experience in building warships, can easily test their ships. Which they have done.

LD and other MAN ECM is more predicated on their stealth nanocoating and the very silent drive.

munroburton wrote:As for MAlign graser torpedoes, they mass approximately the same as pods don't they? The dimensions may be different, but the actual launching process shouldn't be more challenging than launching pods. Or even larger LACs.

It's never stated. IIRC, David only mentions that a CA graser is about 3000 tons, and the graser warhead is comparable to that in power. So it seems likely to me that the torpedoes are in the 10,000+ tons range.

But it certainly seems highly unlikely they are less than the estimated 5000 tons of a modern RMN pod.

And, given that the Sharks were easily deploying 3000-6000 ton pods it seems more unlikely that a torpedo is in that range.

Theemile wrote:We can say how big the Spider's "Legs" are. Spider ships do not have any physical "Legs" - they have 3 spines of emitters that arcs across the surface of the ship laterally. The "legs" are the emitted energy from the tractor emitters that grab the alpha wall. It's kinda hard to "mount" anything in there since they have no physical space independent of their size.

Without Jayne whispering sweet nothings in my ear, it seems I am influenced by lesser ladies of ill repute. Namely, the drawing found on the wiki. I assumed the legs on the drawing act as the tractors emitting energy. Thanks for clearing that up Theemile.

Late edit: ...

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:Plus! I always thought that the ECM of a ship that big and that close can scramble your eggs for you, let alone your sensors.

ECM is not a factor of ship size, at least not above the point where the computers required to do the electronics can fit. Given the size of HV ships, I doubt anything above CL or even DD would lack for space, but the rules from RFC seem to say that they actually do.

Either way, the point is that the computers embarked on an LD don't have to be bigger to be better at ECM. And we know Manticore has better tech than anyone else in the Galaxy, so their ECM is second to none.

The size of the ship can actually become a negative contribution past a certain value. I suspect that the LD is right at the edge of diminishing returns, though. The MAlign, for all of their lack of experience in building warships, can easily test their ships. Which they have done.

LD and other MAN ECM is more predicated on their stealth nanocoating and the very silent drive.

I'm not disputing that since you are cavorting with Jayne behind my back. But I was under the impression the RMN's brood of missiles have such hellacious ECM because of their enormous power budget. The RMN soon realized the ship itself can benefit from the same ECM as their missiles. Which made me wonder why the ECM of other warships isn't as formidable, since the ship itself has a huge power budget. Personally, I don't expect the MA to be as short-sighted with its ECM ... being the LD is as close to an eggshell as you can get. And, well, other navies wouldn't develop their warship's ECM to affect other ships when in knife-fighting range because they wouldn't expect to get to knife-fighting range without it being a moot point. And because missiles are a moot point at that range, at least for other navies.

Which would include traditional knife-fighting ranges and the LD's knife-fighting range.