Wormhole Assault: MA Style

ThinksMarkedly wrote:All those that don't have sidewalls up, yes. Then the LD dies from those that did.

Sidewalls can fall and are definitely not impenetrable. But it takes time to get through one, not to mention that the shots that do penetrate may not do sufficient damage to take the fort out of commission. A single fort outmasses the LD (likely) and has no reason to keep its emissions down. So it will heavily outgun the LD. Which in turn has no sidewalls up. So the LD dies on the first counter battery fire.

Rereading OBS the other day, I found an interesting quote. All the junction forts Always kept their sidewalls up 24/7, and always kept an alert crew at battle stations ( which I assume meant multiple alert crews), and all defensive systems were under automated computer control for instant reaction.

So catching a junction fort unaware with it's pants down will be ... Difficult.

No, the alert forts did that. The ones not on alert status did other things until they rotated onto alert.

kzt wrote:No, the alert forts did that. The ones not on alert status did other things until they rotated onto alert.

I'm snipping because my Kindle reader app won't let me copy paste - feel free to read the full text.

OBS Chapter 5:

Each of those Forts maintained a stand-by Battle Watch and a 360 degree sidewall "bubble" at all times

...

Thus the Forts' duty watches - in Theory, at least - had time to reach full readiness while the weapons accelerated towards them. In practice, Honor suspected, most of them would be coming on-line when the missiles arrived, which was why their point defense (unlike their offensive weaponry) was designed for emergency computer override even in peacetime.

So Forts always had their sidewalls up and defenses in computer control and an alert Battle watch.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:YI don't get the feeling that GA ships are designed for extended energy battles. Nor do they expect energy battles to last very long. The capacitors would be quickly depleted even if the graser could withstand constant fire. They would discharge very quickly against an enemy whose invisibility generates a lot of misses. There is only going to be a very limited amount of energy stored in the mains powering energy weapons.

I'd expect the capacitors are drained after a single shot. That's why they are capacitors. They are recharged from the reactor between shots, so the ammo for energy weapons is just the reactor fuel: if it can generate power, it can fire.

Modulo battle damage and its own lifetime issues. A graser mount might be rated for 1000 shots between heavy servicing. So if the ship is firing them once every 2 seconds, it's risking damage from using the mount after roughly 2000 seconds (that's just over 30 minutes). So it's probably more than 1000 shots, probably an order of magnitude more.

Also I expect there are thermal and possibly other physical issues related to firing a graser. So even if you had the power to fire it more frequently that'd probably dramatically reduce the number of shots it would manage before failure. (Kind of like how the graser torp's graser slags itself by its continuous output - though admittedly it's more lightly built that a shipboard unit). But still, if we take your example of a graser designed for 2,000 shots (at 2 second minimum intervals) and somehow managed to fire it on half second intervals instead I wouldn't be surprise if it failed in under 200 shots.

However, there's no indications in the books that a RMN ship doesn't have sufficient power to run it's full combat load indefinitely - even in energy range - while down one full reactor. (IOW that reactor for redundancy seems to really be only for redundancy; not for providing more than 100% of design power in a combat emergency).

That said, I agree that in a really prolonged energy combat that you might wear out your "guns". Certainly that happened historically with battleships (and some of them were designed with lifetimes as low as a few hundred rounds per barrel when firing armor piercing ammo at full power). IIRC HMS Warspite had to have her gun-barrel linings (which have the guns' rifling) replaced a couple of times after D-Day, as she repeatedly wore out her main guns providing fire support off of Normandy.

Jonathan_S wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:The Wiki doesn't list which flight of the Saganamis Jessica Epps was, but I always thought original. Honor's force wasn't very big and she wasn't in good standing with the Janacek Admiralty, so I've always thought she was given older ships.

The only reason I'd suspected she might have been a -B is that the combat range between her and Hellbard seem to require extended range missiles (ERMs); like the RMN's CA-weight Mk14.

My (apparently now incorrect) understanding is that the Sag-As carried the same Mk13 single drive missiles as the Star Knights (not to mention many of the RMN's other CAs and BCs).

IIRC, the pre-Sag B Edward Saganamis weren't so much a class as a series of prototypes with increasing capabilities and once they got to a good stopping point they called it the -B.

cthia wrote:I always thought an LD can take on a Fort and win, if it fires first discharging massive energy weapons from whatever passes as an LD's knife-fighting range. In fact, imagine an LD which manages to tip-toe inside the concentric shell of Forts. It may be able to take out several Forts at once, from such close ranges in a surprise attack. Sidewalls will fall easily from such close attacks.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:All those that don't have sidewalls up, yes. Then the LD dies from those that did.

Sidewalls can fall and are definitely not impenetrable. But it takes time to get through one, not to mention that the shots that do penetrate may not do sufficient damage to take the fort out of commission. A single fort outmasses the LD (likely) and has no reason to keep its emissions down. So it will heavily outgun the LD. Which in turn has no sidewalls up. So the LD dies on the first counter battery fire.

I'm not so convinced on any of that, under the circumstances that would apply.

It would "normally" take time to get thru a Fort's Sidewalls. But that would be against traditional attacks from a reasonable range - with the most powerful grasers "thus far" known to man. I am positing that the LDs can strike within ranges that no one ever envisioned a Fort would be engaged - with godawful unimaginable energy the universe has not yet seen. Until now. Grasers that may also fire for extended periods. Coordinated with the perfectly timed arrival of 3-sec firing stealthy graser torps.

Also, the Forts - although they can move - are probably stationary until their mobility is needed.

I imagine they have the same laws governing downtime as warships. If their wedges and supporting systems are always active, then any number of them will need shutting down for maintenance.

Also, let's not overlook the eggs (payload) I posit the Spiders can lay within the concentric shell of Forts once it manages to infiltrate. Stealthy graser platforms can slowly maneuver into place then fire from a signal sent from the Spider.

Also, if the MA can design much more powerful grasers with 3/2 times the range (then the MA would have elected to outrange the MA in energy weapons, not missiles), then the forts are screwed. A Spider could then conceivably maneuver into optimum firing position to take out 4 forts at once with a coordinated gtorp / WTF! beam weapon. Remaining forts would be outside of their own engagement range. And, the LD is more maneuverable. Instead of shooting ducks, it will be more like the old boardgame of fox and geese.

OBS Ch. 5 wrote:Each of those Forts maintained a stand-by Battle Watch and a 360 degree sidewall "bubble" at all times

...

Thus the Forts' duty watches - in Theory, at least - had time to reach full readiness while the weapons accelerated towards them. In practice, Honor suspected, most of them would be coming on-line when the missiles arrived, which was why their point defense (unlike their offensive weaponry) was designed for emergency computer override even in peacetime.

In theory. The Fort's automated defense systems will not see stealthy graser torps coming at them. And they will not see an invisible Spider. What will they lock on to, even if they can still target anything? And, the Spider will be maneuvering.

Also, what does full readiness mean? The infinitely bored and complacent crew has to get their heads out of their asses?

Summary: We cannot assume a Fort's Sidewalls can withstand for a single second even an SD's grasers fired from an LD's range. Let alone the more powerful grasers I'm positing possibly firing longer. Mutually coordinated with graser torps.

cthia wrote:It would "normally" take time to get thru a Fort's Sidewalls. But that would be against traditional attacks from a reasonable range - with the most powerful grasers "thus far" known to man. I am positing that the LDs can strike within ranges that no one ever envisioned a Fort would be engaged - with godawful unimaginable energy the universe has not yet seen. Until now. Grasers that may also fire for extended periods. Coordinated with the perfectly timed arrival of 3-sec firing stealthy graser torps.

Sorry, but you can't have your cake and eat it too.

If the LD has power generation for unimaginable energy output for its grasers, it's highly detectable in infrared and other EM emissions. No technology or nature is perfect and can store energy without loss forever without loss (not even superconductors). There's always some leakage. So either those capacitors storing energy for the grasers are leaking energy or the reactors are producing a lot of power, thus heat. A few messages ago you were positing that the LDs would have fewer reactors running while under stealth -- something that makes sense. But if they bring those reactors up to charge the capacitors in a short time, they will run the risk of detection. Even if they trickle-charge the capacitors, as I said, capacitors will leak energy.

So, no, I don't think the LD can get to less than 1-light-second without being detected by a fort (at all!), much less with weapons hot. Even if it could, I don't think a single LD can take out all forts with 100% certainty. As I said, any that survives will kill the LD.

The redeeming quality is the long-firing graser. If the MAlign can make that work on an LD, that would be a game-changer. So far, however, we've only seen it on a weapon that self-destructs in the process. A 12-million tonne LD is a huge investment, so mounting ship-melting weapons on them is counter-intuitive. But still remember that the fort will fire back within these 3 seconds, so even a long-firing graser does not help completely if it is interrupted by being destroyed by defence.

Also, the Forts - although they can move - are probably stationary until their mobility is needed.

Agreed.

I imagine they have the same laws governing downtime as warships. If their wedges and supporting systems are always active, then any number of them will need shutting down for maintenance.

Agreed too, though the posts by others above are somewhat confusing. From some posts, it sounded like all forts would be on active status around the Junction during the pre-war period. I don't think that's likely.

I think far more likely is that anywhere between a quarter and three quarters are at active status, with sidewalls up. The remainder is down for maintenance, crew rotation, resupply. The sidewall generators will be down (allowing resupply and crew ships to dock) while the engineering crews do maintenance.

What's not in dispute:

a) a significant fraction of the forts were kept at battle stations with bubblewalls up;

b) this was during a period without declared war, albeit with a hostile nation one transit away;

c) the hostile nation was not known to have good stealth technology and employ sneak tactics;

d) this was with pre-war hardware.

All this to say that I see absolutely no reason why the Junction Fort Command would be any less relaxed than they were 20 years ago.

Also, let's not overlook the eggs (payload) I posit the Spiders can lay within the concentric shell of Forts once it manages to infiltrate. Stealthy graser platforms can slowly maneuver into place then fire from a signal sent from the Spider.

We've "litigated" the possibility of sneaking in among dozens of forts and hundreds of ships. Setting that aside, if a capital ship could manoeuvre into position, I don't dispute that it would graser torpedoes to augment its power and fire at each target individually. In fact, I would argue (have argued!) the LD would not fire any of its shipboard weapons, and use only expendable torpedoes.

Also, if the MA can design much more powerful grasers with 3/2 times the range (then the MA would have elected to outrange the MA in energy weapons, not missiles), then the forts are screwed. A Spider could then conceivably maneuver into optimum firing position to take out 4 forts at once with a coordinated gtorp / WTF! beam weapon. Remaining forts would be outside of their own engagement range. And, the LD is more maneuverable. Instead of shooting ducks, it will be more like the old boardgame of fox and geese.

See above on the improbability of a massive ship-mounted graser that does not compromise the stealth.

This tactic you're talking about here has a completely different geometry than what we've discussed for the past 30 pages. Instead of sneaking inside the concentric shells and closer to the Junctions, you're suggesting that the LDs attack from outside. This has the advantage that they may be able to do that from outside the hyperlimit too, thus hyper out (though such a ship would take 5 minutes to do so, with mightily detectable emissions in that period).

But if it is in range of 4 forts from outside their range, that also means it's also not in range of any other forts. So to take down 48 forts, you need 12 platforms. I would do this with torpedoes. If you insist on using LDs for this, we're talking about bringing a squadron and a half of LDs into the single most trafficked volume of known space, and each ship increases the chance of accidental detection.

This also precludes any high-speed pass attack. In order to range on all or most forts, there's no other possibility than surrounding, meaning each every platform (LD or graser) is at low speed relative to their targets and loitering there waiting for all the others to reach range.

In theory. The Fort's automated defense systems will not see stealthy graser torps coming at them. And they will not see an invisible Spider. What will they lock on to, even if they can still target anything? And, the Spider will be maneuvering.

Also, what does full readiness mean? The infinitely bored and complacent crew has to get their heads out of their asses?

I think that means crews and powering up the offensive weapons. Defences will be on automatic and powered up at all times.

You're right that a graser is quite a different thing than a missile. A missile is visible via FTL from very far away and moves much slower than the speed of light, especially in the pre-war period. The forts could see the grasers before they hit, if a Ghost Rider did range and send via FTL. However, that's not useful information, since a graser beam cannot be stopped: it will impact. The only defence is the bubblewall, which is already up anyway. Those are the strongest bubblewalls known to exist.

What I am saying is that any forts that survive will have sufficient information to pin-point to a very high degree of accuracy where the beams came from and the base velocity of that platform. Yes, the attacker will be evading, but the 2-3 seconds between firing and return fire arriving are not enough to get very far away. All it takes is one return graser grazing the ship for its stealth to be compromised. Once that happens, destroyers and LACs can take over.

Summary: We cannot assume a Fort's Sidewalls can withstand for a single second even an SD's grasers fired from an LD's range. Let alone the more powerful grasers I'm positing possibly firing longer. Mutually coordinated with graser torps.

I agree we cannot make that assumption, but I fire back that we can't assume the opposite either. As I said, those are the strongest bubblewalls known to man. The MAN knows this and maybe their graser torps are dimensioned to penetrate those. I sincerely doubt such a long-firing, high-powered weapon can be mounted on a ship or that it wouldn't compromise stealth.

I've said time and again: a high-speed pass with graser torpedoes makes far more sense.

cthia wrote:I imagine they have the same laws governing downtime as warships. If their wedges and supporting systems are always active, then any number of them will need shutting down for maintenance.

Yes. That's why the Manticoran Binary System at one point had probably about five billion tons of forts floating around, if not even more(their entire mobile fleet in 1905 massed 2.3 billion). It was required to honour the threat of a mass wave attack by Haven's battleships.

They shut 200 down after securing Trevor's Star - and that wasn't all of them, only what was required to honour the threat of a mass wave coming through that terminus.

It's a bit strange how little they're featured in the Honorverse for all that bulk, but that's probably because they're simultaneously so incredibly dangerous to attack and so easy to stay away from.

There are, according to David, forts in orbit around the major planets in Manticore A & B. They both didn’t detect the torpedoes and were ignored by them. And the crew were apparently so busy smoking crack that they never got around to helping control the aftermath, instead leaving it the tugs instead of using their grasers, tractors or launching their hundreds of LACs.

Or whatever. It’s apparently Schrödinger's forts in the Honorverse.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:I don't get the feeling that GA ships are designed for extended energy battles. Nor do they expect energy battles to last very long. The capacitors would be quickly depleted even if the graser could withstand constant fire. They would discharge very quickly against an enemy whose invisibility generates a lot of misses. There is only going to be a very limited amount of energy stored in the mains powering energy weapons.

I'd expect the capacitors are drained after a single shot. That's why they are capacitors. They are recharged from the reactor between shots, so the ammo for energy weapons is just the reactor fuel: if it can generate power, it can fire.

Modulo battle damage and its own lifetime issues. A graser mount might be rated for 1000 shots between heavy servicing. So if the ship is firing them once every 2 seconds, it's risking damage from using the mount after roughly 2000 seconds (that's just over 30 minutes). So it's probably more than 1000 shots, probably an order of magnitude more.

Jonathan_S wrote:Also I expect there are thermal and possibly other physical issues related to firing a graser. So even if you had the power to fire it more frequently that'd probably dramatically reduce the number of shots it would manage before failure. (Kind of like how the graser torp's graser slags itself by its continuous output - though admittedly it's more lightly built that a shipboard unit). But still, if we take your example of a graser designed for 2,000 shots (at 2 second minimum intervals) and somehow managed to fire it on half second intervals instead I wouldn't be surprise if it failed in under 200 shots.

However, there's no indications in the books that a RMN ship doesn't have sufficient power to run it's full combat load indefinitely - even in energy range - while down one full reactor. (IOW that reactor for redundancy seems to really be only for redundancy; not for providing more than 100% of design power in a combat emergency).

That said, I agree that in a really prolonged energy combat that you might wear out your "guns". Certainly that happened historically with battleships (and some of them were designed with lifetimes as low as a few hundred rounds per barrel when firing armor piercing ammo at full power). IIRC HMS Warspite had to have her gun-barrel linings (which have the guns' rifling) replaced a couple of times after D-Day, as she repeatedly wore out her main guns providing fire support off of Normandy.

Both of you may be on to something.

1. Graser mains might actually be quickly recharged after a single shot.

But if they are recharged after each shot, then they are totally reliant upon being recharged after each shot. Which means they are totally useless while sitting in orbit. So, when the LD announces itself in orbit, GA ships are going to be caught with cold impellers and cold mains. And the wedge needs everything ALL of the reactors can produce. Which begs the question of whether charging the wedge can be paused and resumed where it left off. If not, all is lost in orbit. You may argue that that would be a moot point anyway. But it doesn't have to be if mains didn't totally discharge after a single shot.

At any rate, if you are correct, it plays into the notion of much more powerful grasers mounted on an LD quite well. If an LD has 6-7 reactors, and if I'm right that it only needs a single reactor, then 5-6 reactors are available to feed enormous power into hellfire energy weapons. Which brings me to ...

munroburton wrote:I don't see why they would need that many. Reactors are scalable. If your ship needs five hundred terawatts to fly(& fight & all the rest of it), you can basically use twelve 50-terawatt reactors or three 250-terawatt reactors.

But I think past a certain point, having too many reactors becomes too dangerous. They are things opponents would quite like to hit, after all. Each one has to be protected from all sides(especially in a spider ship, which can't skimp on ventral/dorsal armour).

Well, I've made the point as to how so many could be put to use to support such unprecedented energy weapons to augment its unprecedented stealth. Although I agree with you that the LD does not need more than a single reactor normally. But ThinksMarkedly is right that that would imply an increased need to dissipate heat which would detract from the super stealth equation. This is one area I can envision where the GA's smaller reactors would be a boon to MA stealth. Smaller reactors allow them to be installed much closer to whatever they feed, which allows for shorter power cables between the reactors and main capacitors (MAINS). Shorter cables would eliminate a lot of the leakage from heat, as power cables are usually one of the biggest culprits. They also account for less efficiency. So you'd have to consider that the MA has somehow managed to achieve their undecedented stealth without the smaller powerplants.

Munroburton has also brought up another significant point in that safety decreases with additional reactors. But I posited a looooong time ago that the MA would undoubtedly be willing to take far greater risks in ship design than their GA counterparts. Sacrificing pawns is for the Honor of the King. 'OUCH'

Also, do recall that I posit quick-start reactors, which would minimize the time an LD has to generate so much excess heat.


2. And, there most probably are issues with constant fire.

But that only intensifies my notion of an MA breakthrough. The MA may use gravity in different ways to focus and contain the beams.

My point is that the MA has already achieved a game changing 3-second firing gtorp, which implies that centuries of research may have gone into the attempt. Certainly they have learned something from the endeavor. Moreover, we cannot assume that the 3-second firing gtorps aren't a byproduct of longer firing shipboard grasers. It could turn out to be a simple... which came first, the chicken or the egg.

Additionally, we cannot dismiss the possibility that the gtorps slag after firing is an intentional design element to preserve certain secrets.

kzt wrote:There are, according to David, forts in orbit around the major planets in Manticore A & B. They both didn’t detect the torpedoes and were ignored by them. And the crew were apparently so busy smoking crack that they never got around to helping control the aftermath, instead leaving it the tugs instead of using their grasers, tractors or launching their hundreds of LACs.

Or whatever. It’s apparently Schrödinger's forts in the Honorverse.

I totally agree. It is the human element. Hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year nothing happens.

Humans become complacent, distracted. They are flirting with their coworkers, or actually getting luckier in the storeroom. Computers have the watch. But they won't detect what they aren't designed to see. Will even the average non-Forakerian masseuse be so studious AND astute - ever mindful and attentive - to massage icky data? If there is even a windfall of minute icky data.


In close encounters just like a Spider, I wonder if the LD's angle of attack matters. She may be more stealthy approaching prey from certain vectors, inasmuch as her disturbances (ripples in gravity) may be more detectable in the same plane with her on long range insertions.