SPOILERS: To End In Fire eARC discussion

Here's what has me bothered. Oyster Bay demonstrated a radically new technology that nobody had an answer for. Nobody in the GA has any firm idea what to even look for. And yet not a single mention during the planning phase of the attack on Galton, no discussion about any special precautions or modifications to the defensive doctrine. Furthermore, not a whiff of it during the actual attack.

I sincerely hope this is a plot point, because otherwise the entire leadership of the Grand Alliance is holding the galaxy's largest idiot ball.

daspletosaurus wrote:Here's what has me bothered. Oyster Bay demonstrated a radically new technology that nobody had an answer for. Nobody in the GA has any firm idea what to even look for. And yet not a single mention during the planning phase of the attack on Galton, no discussion about any special precautions or modifications to the defensive doctrine. Furthermore, not a whiff of it during the actual attack.

I sincerely hope this is a plot point, because otherwise the entire leadership of the Grand Alliance is holding the galaxy's largest idiot ball.

The book ended shortly after the battle. So, there was barely time to analyze what happened and what kind of ... inconsistencies need to be further investigated. So, if they don't find any hints regarding both of the new drive-systems in Galton - they will know (not assume, but know) that there is another source of evil somethere out there - that Galton was only another part of the onion, but not its core.

By the way - Harahap had met one of the Detweiler sons while in service of the Alignment (Benjamin, iIrc). And I doubt they will find a sniff about him in Galton - so, where is he? That is another hint, which should convince the Powers that Be in the GA to look deeper ...

Torlek wrote:Yeah, Galton was retconned in to have something to shoot at. Finding it looked too easy. I didn't love it.

Also, I did not like the O’Hanrahan plotline. She is fanatically loyal enough to accept having her leg shot off. She is somewhat okay with nuking incriminating evidence but not okay with terror bombing nukes. And her motivation is apparently better medical technology, which requires justifies and requires a conspiracy. I get a conspiracy for genetic super philosopher-kings but not for medical technology. Also the story they feed her about the two Engagement offshoots does not make sense. She was on Mesa when the nukes go off and they had enough intelligence to help her dodge those by controlling her hotel choice but did not do anything else because of decision paralysis. And buying that we are just the slightly ruthless offshoot of the Engagement all the really bad things are done by that other offshoot. That woman is supposed to be among the best investigative journalist anywhere and she swallowed that convoluted mess. I get motivated reasoning but this is stretching it.

What got me was Phoebe selling Audrey that there is a THIRD ALignment: The sedate, at home on Mesa Benign Alignment (renamed the Engagement), then the 2 Active Alignments, The Evil Malign Alignment at Galton, and the "Soft and Cozy" Alignment which she supposedly worked for (which just tore her leg off and disfigured her face to give her "street cred"). And she swallowed the whole Evil vs "Soft and Cozy" divide - hook, line, and sinker, even though she knows about the Onion and it's willingness to "shed" a layer - violently, permanently and with prejudice - to protect the inner layers.

Yeah...

Some points on the Graser heads

For anyone not paying attention, the Galton Malign forces have miniaturized the Graser Head weapon to fit on an oversized Cataphract. The weapon is smaller and has less output than the Graser Torp weapon, but can fire continuously for "several seconds". The oversized Cataphract is not described, but it must be at least the C variant in size (Capital missile plus Sprint stage), and possibly larger (Sys-DEf missile plus sprint stage)

What do we know about the Graser head?
1) multi second beam duration
2) Graser beam
a) 500,000km range against sidewalls / 1,000,000km without.
b) more energetic, larger beam than laser head
3) single beam per warhead.
4) use destroys missile/slags weapon.
5) larger than normal warhead

What does this mean?
If a target is moving at .1c and the missile enters attack range moving at .4c, it takes 3.3 seconds for a missile to traverse the 500,000 km "burn through" range of a Graser head - in short, a G-head can start it's engagement at 10x the distance that a Laser head can, and continue it all the way through the engagement zone.

PDLCs have a range of ~120,000 KM give or take, so in this scenario, a G-head missile can fire for over 2.5 seconds before the laser cluster has a chance to engage it. In other words, Laser clusters are pointless against G-heads, other than to limit the duration they can do damage. CM intercept is necessary.

But on the other hand, how effective is the G-head? It's been mentioned that the reason ships historically carried so many energy weapons was the inability to determine where a ship is inside the wedge, as the 2 are loosely bound together and the ship moves about inside a volume relative to the wedge.

I used this example before:

At max effective Graser range (500,000 KM), the distance between 2 combatants is roughly the distance between the Earth and the Moon (ok, that's only 385,000 KM, but you get my point)

Anyway, standing on the moon, looking at Earth, your opponent's wedge will be the size of... the state of Ohio. The volume the ship will be moving around is about the size of New York city, and the ship... its the size of the New York City Zoo.

Yes, you have to identify something the size of roughly 2 city blocks out of a city with 40,000 - all under cloud cover (sidewall warpage and ECM).

Now, the G-Head Missile does not have the time to gather data, nor does it have the sensors or computers of a full up star ship to sift through the morass to find the target. Remember it's got a .5c intercept speed against it's target, and it just got to 500,000km, moments earlier it was much further away, and Ohio was that much harder to see - and the speed of ligh limitation means that what is sees when it fires is an image >3 seconds old.. So how well can it actually target it's... target?

The answer is, it random walks it's beam around the probable area. But that means that the beam does not stay on target - it's sweaping around the volume attempting to cover as much of the volume before it dies - in short - it's not attempting to bore through the target like it could - it's just trying to wing it. Against an undamaged target, we're not getting a 3 second stare - we're getting a rapid glance.

But this has an effect on countering them as well. Laserheads did not have to "settle down" on their final course until they were a couple hundred Km out from their target. G-heads will have to find their targets, drop their wedge and stop accelerating >than 500,000 out, because they cannot maneuver while they keep their beam on target. Because of this, CMs will be able to intecept G-head missiles easier in the 600,000 KM range, because they are not maneuvering.

So while G-Heads pushed the defense intercept basket out past the 500,000 mark and invalidates PDCLs (except to limit the damage surviving G-heads do), it actually makes CMs intercepts easier as the missile stop accelerating and bear down on their targets further out >600,000 KM

Theemile wrote:Some points on the Graser heads

For anyone not paying attention, the Galton Malign forces have miniaturized the Graser Head weapon to fit on an oversized Cataphract. The weapon is smaller and has less output than the Graser Torp weapon, but can fire continuously for "several seconds". The oversized Cataphract is not described, but it must be at least the C variant in size (Capital missile plus Sprint stage), and possibly larger (Sys-DEf missile plus sprint stage)

What do we know about the Graser head?
1) multi second beam duration
2) Graser beam
a) 500,000km range against sidewalls / 1,000,000km without.
b) more energetic, larger beam than laser head
3) single beam per warhead.
4) use destroys missile/slags weapon.
5) larger than normal warhead

What does this mean?
If a target is moving at .1c and the missile enters attack range moving at .4c, it takes 3.3 seconds for a missile to traverse the 500,000 km "burn through" range of a Graser head - in short, a G-head can start it's engagement at 10x the distance that a Laser head can, and continue it all the way through the engagement zone.

PDLCs have a range of ~120,000 KM give or take, so in this scenario, a G-head missile can fire for over 2.5 seconds before the laser cluster has a chance to engage it. In other words, Laser clusters are pointless against G-heads, other than to limit the duration they can do damage. CM intercept is necessary.

But on the other hand, how effective is the G-head? It's been mentioned that the reason ships historically carried so many energy weapons was the inability to determine where a ship is inside the wedge, as the 2 are loosely bound together and the ship moves about inside a volume relative to the wedge.

I used this example before:

At max effective Graser range (500,000 KM), the distance between 2 combatants is roughly the distance between the Earth and the Moon (ok, that's only 385,000 KM, but you get my point)

Anyway, standing on the moon, looking at Earth, your opponent's wedge will be the size of... the state of Ohio. The volume the ship will be moving around is about the size of New York city, and the ship... its the size of the New York City Zoo.

Yes, you have to identify something the size of roughly 2 city blocks out of a city with 40,000 - all under cloud cover (sidewall warpage and ECM).

Now, the G-Head Missile does not have the time to gather data, nor does it have the sensors or computers of a full up star ship to sift through the morass to find the target. Remember it's got a .5c intercept speed against it's target, and it just got to 500,000km, moments earlier it was much further away, and Ohio was that much harder to see - and the speed of ligh limitation means that what is sees when it fires is an image >3 seconds old.. So how well can it actually target it's... target?

The answer is, it random walks it's beam around the probable area. But that means that the beam does not stay on target - it's sweaping around the volume attempting to cover as much of the volume before it dies - in short - it's not attempting to bore through the target like it could - it's just trying to wing it. Against an undamaged target, we're not getting a 3 second stare - we're getting a rapid glance.

But this has an effect on countering them as well. Laserheads did not have to "settle down" on their final course until they were a couple hundred Km out from their target. G-heads will have to find their targets, drop their wedge and stop accelerating >than 500,000 out, because they cannot maneuver while they keep their beam on target. Because of this, CMs will be able to intecept G-head missiles easier in the 600,000 KM range, because they are not maneuvering.

So while G-Heads pushed the defense intercept basket out past the 500,000 mark and invalidates PDCLs (except to limit the damage surviving G-heads do), it actually makes CMs intercepts easier as the missile stop accelerating and bear down on their targets further out >600,000 KM

Well, well, well. I posited putting the longer firing graser head on conventional missiles in the "?" thread. I'm certain others did as well. I don't think we missed many possibilities in that thread. The notion was brushed aside because it was pointed out that the g-torp engages at a lower velocity to get the bulk of its firing time on target. I countered that by pointing out the ability to start firing way beforehand which will engage the entire length of a target. I think I called it "strafing fire!"

Also, those missiles could be fired in a pack, like GA missiles in packs of eight. A couple lead graser torps may be designed to spread a dispersed beam for several seconds which should have the effect of clearing the field of CMs for the immediately trailing attack.

cthia wrote:

Theemile wrote:Some points on the Graser heads

For anyone not paying attention, the Galton Malign forces have miniaturized the Graser Head weapon to fit on an oversized Cataphract. The weapon is smaller and has less output than the Graser Torp weapon, but can fire continuously for "several seconds". The oversized Cataphract is not described, but it must be at least the C variant in size (Capital missile plus Sprint stage), and possibly larger (Sys-DEf missile plus sprint stage)

What do we know about the Graser head?
1) multi second beam duration
2) Graser beam
a) 500,000km range against sidewalls / 1,000,000km without.
b) more energetic, larger beam than laser head
3) single beam per warhead.
4) use destroys missile/slags weapon.
5) larger than normal warhead

What does this mean?
If a target is moving at .1c and the missile enters attack range moving at .4c, it takes 3.3 seconds for a missile to traverse the 500,000 km "burn through" range of a Graser head - in short, a G-head can start it's engagement at 10x the distance that a Laser head can, and continue it all the way through the engagement zone.

PDLCs have a range of ~120,000 KM give or take, so in this scenario, a G-head missile can fire for over 2.5 seconds before the laser cluster has a chance to engage it. In other words, Laser clusters are pointless against G-heads, other than to limit the duration they can do damage. CM intercept is necessary.

But on the other hand, how effective is the G-head? It's been mentioned that the reason ships historically carried so many energy weapons was the inability to determine where a ship is inside the wedge, as the 2 are loosely bound together and the ship moves about inside a volume relative to the wedge.

I used this example before:

At max effective Graser range (500,000 KM), the distance between 2 combatants is roughly the distance between the Earth and the Moon (ok, that's only 385,000 KM, but you get my point)

Anyway, standing on the moon, looking at Earth, your opponent's wedge will be the size of... the state of Ohio. The volume the ship will be moving around is about the size of New York city, and the ship... its the size of the New York City Zoo.

Yes, you have to identify something the size of roughly 2 city blocks out of a city with 40,000 - all under cloud cover (sidewall warpage and ECM).

Now, the G-Head Missile does not have the time to gather data, nor does it have the sensors or computers of a full up star ship to sift through the morass to find the target. Remember it's got a .5c intercept speed against it's target, and it just got to 500,000km, moments earlier it was much further away, and Ohio was that much harder to see - and the speed of ligh limitation means that what is sees when it fires is an image >3 seconds old.. So how well can it actually target it's... target?

The answer is, it random walks it's beam around the probable area. But that means that the beam does not stay on target - it's sweaping around the volume attempting to cover as much of the volume before it dies - in short - it's not attempting to bore through the target like it could - it's just trying to wing it. Against an undamaged target, we're not getting a 3 second stare - we're getting a rapid glance.

But this has an effect on countering them as well. Laserheads did not have to "settle down" on their final course until they were a couple hundred Km out from their target. G-heads will have to find their targets, drop their wedge and stop accelerating >than 500,000 out, because they cannot maneuver while they keep their beam on target. Because of this, CMs will be able to intecept G-head missiles easier in the 600,000 KM range, because they are not maneuvering.

So while G-Heads pushed the defense intercept basket out past the 500,000 mark and invalidates PDCLs (except to limit the damage surviving G-heads do), it actually makes CMs intercepts easier as the missile stop accelerating and bear down on their targets further out >600,000 KM

Well, well, well. I posited putting the longer firing graser head on conventional missiles in the "?" thread. I'm certain others did as well. I don't think we missed many possibilities in that thread. The notion was brushed aside because it was pointed out that the g-torp engages at a lower velocity to get the bulk of its firing time on target. I countered that by pointing out the ability to start firing way beforehand which will engage the entire length of a target. I think I called it "strafing fire!"

Also, those missiles could be fired in a pack, like GA missiles in packs of eight. A couple lead graser torps may be designed to spread a dispersed beam for several seconds which should have the effect of clearing the field of CMs for the immediately trailing attack.

No packs, each missile is fired independently with no control missile or coordinating network, just like all standard missiles do - but 10,000 missile salvos have a quality all of their own....

No ship strafing; strafing (or as I called it, random walk) would have to be done on the entire probable volume, not just the ship, because the ship's location cannot be localized in advance - think the game "battleship" with 1 destroyer and a board 20x the size in both dimensions. No dispersed beam, only full beam mentioned - a dispersed beam hitting the sidewalls would just disperse it further for less capability.

A cataphract Graserhead actually makes more sense than a 3+ drive MDM - the higher your final velocity, the less time you have to target and Fire the Graser. (<2 sec duration.)

Another point I didn't stress enough, while smaller then the device on the Gtorp, these are HUGE weapons. These missiles are not fire from any tube, and the pods are not dropped from any SD(p). They are pre-positioned pods, and from the description, the missiles were simply too large to be placed in podlayer pods.

Theemile wrote:What got me was Phoebe selling Audrey that there is a THIRD ALignment: The sedate, at home on Mesa Benign Alignment (renamed the Engagement), then the 2 Active Alignments, The Evil Malign Alignment at Galton, and the "Soft and Cozy" Alignment which she supposedly worked for (which just tore her leg off and disfigured her face to give her "street cred"). And she swallowed the whole Evil vs "Soft and Cozy" divide - hook, line, and sinker, even though she knows about the Onion and it's willingness to "shed" a layer - violently, permanently and with prejudice - to protect the inner layers.

Yeah...

Audrey O'Hanrahan accepts really necessary violence for the greater good (see her monologue about the allied terror bombing of Germany and Japan in the world war pre-diaspora) and she clearly wants to believe in her cause so I am not surprised she immediately fell for the explanation - this belief enabled her to fool Honor and the treecats as she truly now believes that the Alignment, or at least one Alignment is indeed evil, guilty of all the atrocities we know etc; otherwise her doubt would have been caught at some point and she wouldn't have had the opportunity to be in the defeat of Galton not to speak that now she has a prime place in the investigation to follow there; now of course it remains to be seen if being on the ground in Galton (and in the archives there etc) will fit in with her belief and her knowledge about the Alignment(s).

My bet is still on Zach and Gail (and the Darius resistance we have been introduced at the end of the book) to somehow escape and spill the beans so to speak...

cthia wrote:Hopefully, we won't have to wait three more years for the next one

Lurking and tiptoeing on cotton.

Don't know where that is headed, but I always maintained that a GA breakthrough would come from inside the MA. Perhaps someone named Crazy Ivan will deliver a Spider to the GA named Red October.[/quote]

That would be Crazy Eddie (see "The
Mote in God's Eye")--the kind of person who would call for a strike of the garbage collector's union when a City is already overflowing with rotting garbage in two weeks of 106º summer heat.

So, I bought the october bundle from Baen. It includes the first half of the "To End in Fire" EArc, with the full EArc available on October 5th. Some of the comments on this post indicate that some readers have read the entire book. Uh... how? The comments about O'Hanrahan fooling Honor, and the comments about a battle at Galton, are waaay past what I've gotten in the first half of the Earc. Explanations?

Kurremkarmerruk wrote:So, I bought the october bundle from Baen. It includes the first half of the "To End in Fire" EArc, with the full EArc available on October 5th. Some of the comments on this post indicate that some readers have read the entire book. Uh... how? The comments about O'Hanrahan fooling Honor, and the comments about a battle at Galton, are waaay past what I've gotten in the first half of the Earc. Explanations?

What you bought was the October webscription (https://www.baen.com/w202110-october-20 ... undle.html). The _To End in Fire_ eArc is purchased on a different page (https://www.baen.com/categories/advance ... -earc.html). Note that the prices are different as well ($18 vs $15).