Wormhole Assault: MA Style

cthia wrote:Interesting stuff guys. Of course, I was thinking the wedge would only be used in emergencies. While under fire. Hopefully, an LD has already destroyed everything in its vicinity. Like a fleet of sitting ducks in orbit. It may simply need to survive an avalanche of orphaned missiles. Orphaned, but they still have a mind of their own. It could also be used to entice a smaller ship(s) to fire itself dry.

Am I correct that the LD has to rely on grav plates rather than a compensator only because of its massive size? Or, and, it's irregular shape?

At any rate, I always wondered why a ship can't be designed to only compensate part of the ship, which would mainly be the part which houses the crew. If missiles and drones can operate with a wedge and survive, why can't a ship be designed to do so?

Also, while inside bubblewalls, are thrusters inoperative as well? Unlike GA ships, if bubblewalls and sidewalls operate very close to the skin of the ship - if need be - why can't thrusters operate thru traditional "gun ports."

Compensators only work up to a certain mass with dwindling Acel capabilities, after a certain inflection point, the acel quickly drops (I forget the amount, but like 10 tons growth = 1 G acel lost.) Before the advanced comps, the the max was ~8.5 Mtons - the current Cap is now ~10 Mtons. Over that amount, comps won't work, limiting you to grav plate technologies.

Compensators cannot overlap (Authorial Fiat), and any region between compensators becomes a shere point for forces. Any regions outside a compensated field become a shere point when the field is on, going from 0 (inside the field) to 4-600G of force (constantly) in a range of a few centimeters.

For thrusters, nobody said you can't use them with a bubble wall - but you burn through fuel like mad and it's visible for anyone in the system who looks for it. How much fuel do you burn through? Well, going from Honor's escapades at Hades, her Battlecruisers had only 8 hours of fuel - those ships normally have enough fuel for 8+ weeks of cruising on all 3 reactors (plus using their thrusters for docking). So while it's a horribly inaccurate analogy, a few minutes of maneuvering will burn up a day's worth of reaction mass.

Theemile wrote:

cthia wrote:Interesting stuff guys. Of course, I was thinking the wedge would only be used in emergencies. While under fire. Hopefully, an LD has already destroyed everything in its vicinity. Like a fleet of sitting ducks in orbit. It may simply need to survive an avalanche of orphaned missiles. Orphaned, but they still have a mind of their own. It could also be used to entice a smaller ship(s) to fire itself dry.

Am I correct that the LD has to rely on grav plates rather than a compensator only because of its massive size? Or, and, it's irregular shape?

At any rate, I always wondered why a ship can't be designed to only compensate part of the ship, which would mainly be the part which houses the crew. If missiles and drones can operate with a wedge and survive, why can't a ship be designed to do so?

Also, while inside bubblewalls, are thrusters inoperative as well? Unlike GA ships, if bubblewalls and sidewalls operate very close to the skin of the ship - if need be - why can't thrusters operate thru traditional "gun ports."

Compensators only work up to a certain mass with dwindling Acel capabilities, after a certain inflection point, the acel quickly drops (I forget the amount, but like 10 tons growth = 1 G acel lost.) Before the advanced comps, the the max was ~8.5 Mtons - the current Cap is now ~10 Mtons. Over that amount, comps won't work, limiting you to grav plate technologies.

Compensators cannot overlap (Authorial Fiat), and any region between compensators becomes a shere point for forces. Any regions outside a compensated field become a shere point when the field is on, going from 0 (inside the field) to 4-600G of force (constantly) in a range of a few centimeters.

For thrusters, nobody said you can't use them with a bubble wall - but you burn through fuel like mad and it's visible for anyone in the system who looks for it. How much fuel do you burn through? Well, going from Honor's escapades at Hades, her Battlecruisers had only 8 hours of fuel - those ships normally have enough fuel for 8+ weeks of cruising on all 3 reactors (plus using their thrusters for docking). So while it's a horribly inaccurate analogy, a few minutes of maneuvering will burn up a day's worth of reaction mass.

Compared to Honor's smaller BCs at Hades, an LD would undoubtedly be even less efficient with thrusters.

At any rate, should I digest that the grav shear problem which would exist between two separate compensators would also exist between a compensated section of a ship and an uncompensated section? IOW, it is better for an object to either be completely compensated, or completely uncompensated, like missiles and drones. I can see that, a destructive tug-of-war would exist at the critical junction.

Anyway, if an LD deploys a wedge, it could be used for emergency defensive purposes only, and not for propulsion. (Although propulsion is a proponent of defense and offense). A Fort isn't exactly maneuvering when it is firing either. Why can't a wedge be raised and lowered in-between incoming salvos?; if indeed an LD deploys wedges and if indeed they can be brought up quickly.

Yes, an SD has several reactors as well, but as I posited upstream, most of the available power from those reactors are used to feed power-hungry systems (especially during battle stations) that an LD may not have.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:A wedge might make a discovered and under fire spider ship slightly more survivable. Even if it mounts a bubble sidewall we're told the spider drive can't work while one's active; so if attacked and it pops a up a bubble it then can't maneuver or flee. But if they put in the wasteful entire extra drive system, plus full sets of powerful sidewall generators, then a spider ship that came under fire could potentially switch over to wedge, raise sidewalls, and try to fight its way out.
The 150g (or somewhat more if you're willing to force the crew into acceleration couches and lose most of their ability to perform damage control) that its grav plates can give you is pitifully low acceleration for a warship trying to flee. But it's infinitely better than no acceleration at all, which is what its spider drive could provide while sidewall protected.

In theory you're right.

In practice, I see two problems, one at each moment. The first is when to turn that wedge and sidewalls on: powering impeller nodes up from cold takes time. I don't think we've been told how much that is on modern ships, only the 45 minutes from Travis' time, but a 15-minute delay is reasonable. The problem is that if there is such a delay, the ship may not have time to bring the wedge and sidewalls up in time to protect itself or run away. I suppose it could have hot nodes instead, ready to bring the wedge up in a minute or less, but all signs point to those having gravitic leakage and therefore being detectable at some distance. This goes back to my previous post: RMN sensing tech on gravitics is second to none, so keeping hot nodes is a gamble.

The second moment is the running away. As you said, the ship is limited to 150 gravities due to its lack of compensators. And I agree that 150 gravities is infinitely better than zero (literally; it's a division by zero). But like divisions by zero, the value you get after undoing may not be useful: 150 gravities can't outrun Travis' destroyers, much less modern ships. If the threat was significant enough that it had to bring the wedge and sidewalls up, can the ship run away?

RFC has made it clear that one doesn't throw destroyers at SDs, so I suppose we wouldn't send CLs, DDs or LACs on an LD: it's going to be deadly even with just CMs and onboard mounts. But any of those can fire DDMs and command MDMs from pods. Against a Keyhole-enabled Nike or something better, the mobility isn't going to buy you almost anything.

Excellent points.
I didn't think the wedge to flee would be very useful (specifically I didn't think it would be useful enough to justify installing) - but I'd overlooked the start-up time issue.

As you rightly point out that is another massive nail in the coffin of this idea. By the time you know you're detected you almost certainly don't have time to bring the wedge online.


This went from 'I can't see the minor potential benefits outweighing the costs' to 'I can't see any practical benefits given its massive limitations'

cthia wrote:
Anyway, if an LD deploys a wedge, it could be used for emergency defensive purposes only, and not for propulsion. (Although propulsion is a proponent of defense and offense). A Fort isn't exactly maneuvering when it is firing either. Why can't a wedge be raised and lowered in-between incoming salvos?; if indeed an LD deploys wedges and if indeed they can be brought up quickly.

Yes, an SD has several reactors as well, but as I posited upstream, most of the available power from those reactors are used to feed power-hungry systems (especially during battle stations) that an LD may not have.

Wedges don't respond quite that quickly - you would also have the added complication of raising and lowering the Spider or bubble wall. all take time to transition to from an off setting and none can work in coordination with any other.

Also lowering a wedge is the Honorverse equivalent of surrendering - like a fighter lowering it's landing gear is in modern combat or a sailing ship dropping it's Standard was pre-1900. So lowering it and raising it is dirty pool - though the MAN probably wouldn't care (though be the first to whine when it is done to them.)

Since we cannot speak to what power systems are actually like and how much the Spider actually uses (remember, as far as we know it cannot siphon power from over the alpha wall like a Wedge can.), what the actual ship needs for power is hard to call. This is still a ship somewhere from 1.5-2.5x that of a SD; it will still need gobs of power - maybe more.

Theemile wrote:

cthia wrote:
Anyway, if an LD deploys a wedge, it could be used for emergency defensive purposes only, and not for propulsion. (Although propulsion is a proponent of defense and offense). A Fort isn't exactly maneuvering when it is firing either. Why can't a wedge be raised and lowered in-between incoming salvos?; if indeed an LD deploys wedges and if indeed they can be brought up quickly.

Yes, an SD has several reactors as well, but as I posited upstream, most of the available power from those reactors are used to feed power-hungry systems (especially during battle stations) that an LD may not have.

Wedges don't respond quite that quickly - you would also have the added complication of raising and lowering the Spider or bubble wall. all take time to transition to from an off setting and none can work in coordination with any other.

Also lowering a wedge is the Honorverse equivalent of surrendering - like a fighter lowering it's landing gear is in modern combat or a sailing ship dropping it's Standard was pre-1900. So lowering it and raising it is dirty pool - though the MAN probably wouldn't care (though be the first to whine when it is done to them.)

Since we cannot speak to what power systems are actually like and how much the Spider actually uses (remember, as far as we know it cannot siphon power from over the alpha wall like a Wedge can.), what the actual ship needs for power is hard to call. This is still a ship somewhere from 1.5-2.5x that of a SD; it will still need gobs of power - maybe more.

Agreed. We cannot speak about the energy demands of an LD. However, like subs, I'd wager the demand is much lower at battle stations than GA ships.

No, wedges don't currently work that way. But if I am correct that their startup time is a function of available power fed to it by the reactors, that could change. And while "running silent" an LD should have more available power to channel to the wedge. It could also deploy much larger arrays of high energy capacitors ...

I always maintained that the MA might be willing to accept more serious compromises in ship design as far as the long-term safety of the crew is concerned. Breakthroughs may come easier if human sacrifices are required and accepted. It reminds me of how breakthroughs in automobile prices shocked the industry, but then it was determined it was made possible at the expense of auto emissions. It was the same with electronics coming out of Asia. They were able to clone US electronics much cheaper, but only at the expense of "emissions." The devices aren't exactly safe around pacemakers. Or, traditionally intrinsically safe devices, well, aren't.

The MA could accept serious compromises that endanger their crew in the long run. Compromises not even a certain Oscar Saint-Just would accept. But compromises that would allow what appears to be breakthroughs.

There's no indication that wedge start-up times are a function of available power.

All we're told is

On Basilisk Station wrote:. It took almost forty minutes to bring your impeller wedge up from a cold start; by starting with hot nodes, you could reduce that to little more than fifteen minutes.

Note that bringing the wedge up from hot nodes is still nearly twice as long and it takes an MDM to cover its entire powered range. If you don't snap your wedge on until someone launches at you you're very unlikely to be far enough away for the wedge to come up before their first salvo or three hits.

Shadow of Saganami wrote:Then he'd shut down to the absolute minimum impeller strength. He would have liked to shut down completely, but even with hot nodes at standby he would have been looking at a significant delay in bringing the wedge back up. So instead he'd held it at the barest possible maintenance level, which would let him bring it back to full power in less than eighty seconds if he needed to.

[ex-SLN BC]

War of Honor wrote:She turned her head, letting her gaze sweep over the nearest ships of her gathered task force. They floated in orbit about the planet Sidemore, the space-going equivalent of a fleet anchored in a safe harbor, but she'd been pleased when she arrived to find that Rear Admiral Hewitt had insisted upon maintaining a heightened state of readiness. All of his vessels' parking orbits had been carefully arranged to avoid any problems with wedge interference if it was necessary to bring up their impellers quickly. And he'd also seen to it that at least one of his battle squadrons' impeller nodes had been hot at all times. The ready duty rotated among his squadrons on a regular basis, but his precaution meant that its units could bring up their wedges in as little as thirty to forty-five minutes.

[This implies that even with hot nodes a battle squadron still takes 30-45 minutes to bring up their wedge; compared to the 15 minutes an old light cruiser can.

In Enemy Hands wrote:Unlike the Manties, Tourville's officers had known their drives and defensive systems would be needed, and they'd been at standby for over fifteen hours, but even with hot impeller nodes, they would need at least another thirteen minutes to bring their wedges up.

[note there's no indication of how long they've already been bringing the wedges up for; but even partway through the process it'll take another 13 min.


The only time we seem to have seen wedges snap on instantly has been as part of an ambush (Fearless in the wargames against Home Fleet; Honor's ships at Cerberus). But there the attacker has the advantage of picking their moment to attack; so (at some risk of the powering up up nodes' signal leaking through their stealth field) they can carefully time when to start the wedge activation sequence so it completes just as, or very shortly after, they attack.


Wedge activation times don't seem to have improved from Travis Long's time (I didn't bother digging up and posting the quotes from those books, but it's still in the 40 minute range for cold nodes). And in fact the few indications we have are that larger ships take longer to bring up their nodes. Yet those larger ships have far more total power generation capability; and when activating nodes to maneuver out of orbit they're not running any of their power-hungry sub-systems (energy mounts, sidewalls, missile launchers, ECM, etc.) so if available power was the key element of wedge start-up speed we'd expect to see a battle squadron able to bring their wedges up from hot nodes in less than the 15 minutes a CL seems to be able to, yet Honor is happy that the RMN forces at Sidemore have a battle squadron with hot nodes because that'll allow them to bring the wedge up quickly; but quotes a time similar to what a CL would take from cold nodes - over twice what it needs with warm nodes.


So very little evidence; but what little we have hints that ship size (and hence wedge size) is far more likely to be the primary factor controlling wedge startup time than available power is.


Also note that it seems to take 80 seconds simply to ramp a wedge up from minimal possible power to full power. 80 seconds is forever at energy range, it's less time that a Viper needs to hit a target at 3 million km, while a Mk16 or Mk32 could hit a target 2.8 million km away in that time. I suspect (but don't know) that you'd need the wedge to be significantly more than minimal possible power before sidewalls would be usable/effective. That again make very close range engagements very risky; no mater how stealthy you are. And if it takes 80 seconds to bring an already active wedge up to power it's got to take far longer to got from even hot nodes of no wedge up to a useful wedge.

Jonathan_S wrote:There's no indication that wedge start-up times are a function of available power.

All we're told is

On Basilisk Station wrote:. It took almost forty minutes to bring your impeller wedge up from a cold start; by starting with hot nodes, you could reduce that to little more than fifteen minutes.

Note that bringing the wedge up from hot nodes is still nearly twice as long and it takes an MDM to cover its entire powered range. If you don't snap your wedge on until someone launches at you you're very unlikely to be far enough away for the wedge to come up before their first salvo or three hits.

Shadow of Saganami wrote:Then he'd shut down to the absolute minimum impeller strength. He would have liked to shut down completely, but even with hot nodes at standby he would have been looking at a significant delay in bringing the wedge back up. So instead he'd held it at the barest possible maintenance level, which would let him bring it back to full power in less than eighty seconds if he needed to.

[ex-SLN BC]

War of Honor wrote:She turned her head, letting her gaze sweep over the nearest ships of her gathered task force. They floated in orbit about the planet Sidemore, the space-going equivalent of a fleet anchored in a safe harbor, but she'd been pleased when she arrived to find that Rear Admiral Hewitt had insisted upon maintaining a heightened state of readiness. All of his vessels' parking orbits had been carefully arranged to avoid any problems with wedge interference if it was necessary to bring up their impellers quickly. And he'd also seen to it that at least one of his battle squadrons' impeller nodes had been hot at all times. The ready duty rotated among his squadrons on a regular basis, but his precaution meant that its units could bring up their wedges in as little as thirty to forty-five minutes.

[This implies that even with hot nodes a battle squadron still takes 30-45 minutes to bring up their wedge; compared to the 15 minutes an old light cruiser can.

In Enemy Hands wrote:Unlike the Manties, Tourville's officers had known their drives and defensive systems would be needed, and they'd been at standby for over fifteen hours, but even with hot impeller nodes, they would need at least another thirteen minutes to bring their wedges up.

[note there's no indication of how long they've already been bringing the wedges up for; but even partway through the process it'll take another 13 min.


The only time we seem to have seen wedges snap on instantly has been as part of an ambush (Fearless in the wargames against Home Fleet; Honor's ships at Cerberus). But there the attacker has the advantage of picking their moment to attack; so (at some risk of the powering up up nodes' signal leaking through their stealth field) they can carefully time when to start the wedge activation sequence so it completes just as, or very shortly after, they attack.


Wedge activation times don't seem to have improved from Travis Long's time (I didn't bother digging up and posting the quotes from those books, but it's still in the 40 minute range for cold nodes). And in fact the few indications we have are that larger ships take longer to bring up their nodes. Yet those larger ships have far more total power generation capability; and when activating nodes to maneuver out of orbit they're not running any of their power-hungry sub-systems (energy mounts, sidewalls, missile launchers, ECM, etc.) so if available power was the key element of wedge start-up speed we'd expect to see a battle squadron able to bring their wedges up from hot nodes in less than the 15 minutes a CL seems to be able to, yet Honor is happy that the RMN forces at Sidemore have a battle squadron with hot nodes because that'll allow them to bring the wedge up quickly; but quotes a time similar to what a CL would take from cold nodes - over twice what it needs with warm nodes.


So very little evidence; but what little we have hints that ship size (and hence wedge size) is far more likely to be the primary factor controlling wedge startup time than available power is.


Also note that it seems to take 80 seconds simply to ramp a wedge up from minimal possible power to full power. 80 seconds is forever at energy range, it's less time that a Viper needs to hit a target at 3 million km, while a Mk16 or Mk32 could hit a target 2.8 million km away in that time. I suspect (but don't know) that you'd need the wedge to be significantly more than minimal possible power before sidewalls would be usable/effective. That again make very close range engagements very risky; no mater how stealthy you are. And if it takes 80 seconds to bring an already active wedge up to power it's got to take far longer to got from even hot nodes of no wedge up to a useful wedge.

Cthia was asking about cycling the wedge on and off between salvos - the low end salvo time is 8 seconds for Manty DD-BC legacy missiles. Mk 16s require 18 seconds, RMN Mk 19 Capital missiles averaged 30 seconds per salvo (It could have actually been better, but that was missile planning)and SLN Intolerant BCs had a 45 second cycle, while Nevadas and late build Intolerants had a 35 second cycle time. The SLN Capital missile is guessed to be 45sec or more because of this.

So if we cycle the wedge like cthia mentioned, (intercept a salvo, drop wedge, do whatever, raise wedge, intercept salvo) the cycle will take >160 seconds - any launcher on full launch mode will slip in multiple hits in the cycle of the wedge. Heck, a single drive missile inside 80% max range can launch and intercept inside of the cycle time.

So we are back to how we think the Alignment is going to use the LDs and and other Spider Drive ships in the future. Running them inside the hyper limit of a system puts them in very real danger of being rundown if discovered as the acceleration they can stand (with only compensators with a 150g ability) since you would have to stick really close to the inside of the hyper limit to make much use of that against even SLN current level tech.

The only Spider ship we see inside a hyper limit (unless I misread the chapters) in the Oyster Bay attacks was a Ghost. That is one relatively small and seriously stealthy ship and it wasn't all that close to the targets, using recon drones to do the heavy work and sending the targeting information out to the sharks on tight beam communications.

So,Spider warships appear to be primarily ambush hunters, in that they hang outside the hyper limit and send their weapons in primarily in packages similar to pods on ballistic courses or use the GT to motor -again, relatively slowly- in using their Spider drives till they are in position and then essentially self destruct though overload using those massive grazers.

Next question.....does all of this presuppose that the LD's and things the size of Sharks and Ghosts with Spider Drives are towed out from builders slips and eventualy out to the hyper limit of Darius for trials and deployments other than checking out the operations of the drives and other equipment in early shakedown work well in the system? If so, then they may later be met by tugs to bring them back inside the hyper limit after deployments for maintenance etc. It's either that or build maintenance facilities outside the Darius hyper limit and don't spend the time to return the ships to in-system orbital facilities for work or repairs and resupply. Kind of like whatever yard facilities might be out at the Manticore Junction or near any high traffic wormhole bridge where you want to get things fixed before you go into a wormhole or discover some problem (that you have just survived) when you come out of one.

Brigade XO wrote:Next question.....does all of this presuppose that the LD's and things the size of Sharks and Ghosts with Spider Drives are towed out from builders slips and eventualy out to the hyper limit of Darius for trials and deployments other than checking out the operations of the drives and other equipment in early shakedown work well in the system? If so, then they may later be met by tugs to bring them back inside the hyper limit after deployments for maintenance etc. It's either that or build maintenance facilities outside the Darius hyper limit and don't spend the time to return the ships to in-system orbital facilities for work or repairs and resupply. Kind of like whatever yard facilities might be out at the Manticore Junction or near any high traffic wormhole bridge where you want to get things fixed before you go into a wormhole or discover some problem (that you have just survived) when you come out of one.

I don't see a point to using tugs for this. If there are enemy forces in the Darius system that could intercept you on the way to your yards / dock you've got much, much, bigger problems. (And a tug wouldn't help if there were) - so getting trapped within the hyper limit shouldn't be a concern at their home base. (And if there is hostile action there you wouldn't want the yards and bases outside the hyper limit where they're most vulnerable)

As for transit time considerations; well 150g is low acceleration for the Honorverse but it's pretty quick overall. We don't know how far Darius is from it's hyper limit but if we take the 11 LM Manticore is from its hyper limit as typical, a spider ship at 150g can cover that distance to a zero-zero intercept in just 6.5 hours; while an RMN ship able to pull 600g still takes 3.25 hours. 4 times the acceleration but only half the time.

And given the compensation issues a tug, no mater how powerful, can't move a Lenny Det any faster than the grav plates can protect it. (Though a Ghost you might be able to extend a compensation field around and generate a slightly higher acceleration).


So while I agree that an LD would need a very compelling reason to justify heading much inside the hyper limit of a hostile system I see no reason to either place its base outside the Darius hyper limit or to mess about with towing it from the hyper limit to Darius.

Brigade XO wrote:Next question.....does all of this presuppose that the LD's and things the size of Sharks and Ghosts with Spider Drives are towed out from builders slips and eventualy out to the hyper limit of Darius for trials and deployments other than checking out the operations of the drives and other equipment in early shakedown work well in the system? If so, then they may later be met by tugs to bring them back inside the hyper limit after deployments for maintenance etc. It's either that or build maintenance facilities outside the Darius hyper limit and don't spend the time to return the ships to in-system orbital facilities for work or repairs and resupply. Kind of like whatever yard facilities might be out at the Manticore Junction or near any high traffic wormhole bridge where you want to get things fixed before you go into a wormhole or discover some problem (that you have just survived) when you come out of one.

I don't see a point to using tugs for this. If there are enemy forces in the Darius system that could intercept you on the way to your yards / dock you've got much, much, bigger problems. (And a tug wouldn't help if there were) - so getting trapped within the hyper limit shouldn't be a concern at their home base. (And if there is hostile action there you wouldn't want the yards and bases outside the hyper limit where they're most vulnerable)

As for transit time considerations; well 150g is low acceleration for the Honorverse but it's pretty quick overall. We don't know how far Darius is from it's hyper limit but if we take the 11 LM Manticore is from its hyper limit as typical, a spider ship at 150g can cover that distance to a zero-zero intercept in just 6.5 hours; while an RMN ship able to pull 600g still takes 3.25 hours. 4 times the acceleration but only half the time.

And given the compensation issues a tug, no mater how powerful, can't move a Lenny Det any faster than the grav plates can protect it. (Though a Ghost you might be able to extend a compensation field around and generate a slightly higher acceleration).


So while I agree that an LD would need a very compelling reason to justify heading much inside the hyper limit of a hostile system I see no reason to either place its base outside the Darius hyper limit or to mess about with towing it from the hyper limit to Darius.