Attacking Darius:

cthia wrote:But I imagine inside energy range would be considered as absurdly short. But there does appear to be a chance for detection by RDs. I was wrong about that. Unless the Spider can keep its most stealthy face forward of the RD while inside those absurdly short ranges; which may be possible for a Spider that can move in eerie ways. Maybe not move quickly, but well enough.

Also consider that the GA will not have the MA's specially designed sensors.

Consider that the Grand Alliance did see Galton's stealthiest drones. Also that the GA can flood the zone of interest with Ghost Rider drones, so a surrounded spider drive ship does not have the option of keeping "its most stealthy face" toward every drone.

Brigade XO wrote:The Alignment does not appear to have much in the way of conventional warships. Actualy they don't see to have much in the way of conventional starships at all beyond the Streak Drive ones. What they do have is a lot of conventional shipping though holding companies such as Jessyk and more or less cats-paw conventional military ships like Mannheim SDF.
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The Plan had Haven fighting the crippled (and heavily suborned) SL which would leave both broken, much of hunanity in a bad way and the RF was supposed to be gathering up pieces as an alliance of defense againts the chaos supposed to arise from the demise of the SL. No massive fleets of Alignment warships, others would do the work under Alignment management.

After TEiF, we have to reevaluate that because we know the Alignment had conventional warships and a massive military-industrial complex in the form of the Galton Navy and the Galton system. It's inconceivable that Galton would not have been part of the Plan. Yes, it's since been removed from the board, meaning that the chaos would now need to be caused only by stealthed spider ships if that aspect of the Plan continued.

But until last year, it must have been that Galton would be creating some of that chaos. They'd probably be responsible for some false flag attacks in the Haven-League war against either combatant and possibly against some third parties (like the Andermani) to drag them into the fighting. In fact, since we know the MAN didn't have capital ships until less than a decade ago, the Galton Navy must have been the entire chaos-creating part of the Plan.

Which means that the spider ships and LDs may have never been the main force. They'd have been scouts and long-range snipers. Or maybe they just didn't know very well what to do with them.

tlb wrote:Consider that the Grand Alliance did see Galton's stealthiest drones. Also that the GA can flood the zone of interest with Ghost Rider drones, so a surrounded spider drive ship does not have the option of keeping "its most stealthy face" toward every drone.

Also note that this passage talks about passive detection of a Ghost. Against a much bigger target of an LD, the range may be comparatively longer too.

But the important part is the passive detection. Recon drones wouldn't usually do active scans because that would in turn give them away to the enemy, but they may have the capability, or the GA can always churn out an active equivalent to the Ghost Rider. And as a swarm, the deflecting the pings wouldn't work very well for the target ship, since another drone -- including stealthed regular GRs that the target ship wouldn't know is there -- can pick up the reflection.

kzt wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:I don't think the LD can hide from a bunch of recon drones and I don't think it can shoot them down without exposing itself. A fast flyby would no doubt allow it to get the first shot but I don't think it can get that shot without the energy spillage being spotted.

If your ships are on energy range you won’t have to worry about trying to detect the gamma rays. The series of really bright flashes where you ships were will probably be sufficent.

If one ship is in range you're right. With care I think a LD can probably kill any ship out there. What I'm saying is that the ship will be detected in firing and if the target has friends they very well might be able to shoot back. Even if they don't have a perfect bearing sweep grasers across the bit of space where you saw the energy bloom. Now you'll have a bigger energy bloom to aim even better at.

It's like a WWII submarine--a submerged sub was basically guaranteed the first hit. Once it got that hit, though, it was in substantial danger from any destroyers nearby.

cthia wrote:Recon drones simply cannot be the answer. If that were the case, there would really be no need for a great big hulking spider drive system detector. Except maybe for an early warning system.

That's the real mission of a spider drive detector--find the spiders before they are dangerously close.

Loren Pechtel wrote:If one ship is in range you're right. With care I think a LD can probably kill any ship out there. What I'm saying is that the ship will be detected in firing and if the target has friends they very well might be able to shoot back. Even if they don't have a perfect bearing sweep grasers across the bit of space where you saw the energy bloom. Now you'll have a bigger energy bloom to aim even better at.

It's like a WWII submarine--a submerged sub was basically guaranteed the first hit. Once it got that hit, though, it was in substantial danger from any destroyers nearby.

Basically, if the other ships are close enough to shoot back, well they are probably at best dealing with the hole an 8 meter graser put in their ship. So likely any ship that close is at best mission killed.

Basically, if ships are close enough to be able to operate an integrated missile defense system they are close enough to probably blow up real good together.

So flash and a group of ships blows up. OK, draw a 5 light-sceond radius around them. There is an LD somewhere in there. How big is a 5 lightsecond radius sphere?

Well, it has a volume of 14 million cubic KM. And if you assume the attacker was moving at say 10% of C, a minute after the bight flash the search area is now 51 million cubic KM.

It's better than no idea where they are, but it's not enough to allow you to attack them. And if you are not close, well, in ten minutes the sphere of possibility is a light minute in radius. And it does not get get better.

And it's dumping out highly lethal smart homing missiles out the back, so if you want to find exactly where a gaser torp is the hard way, well, I have plan.

*Due to the various ship orientation you probably won't have a sphere, as there are directions where direct fire would have to pass though a wedge. But it's about that bad.

kzt wrote:Basically, if the other ships are close enough to shoot back, well they are probably at best dealing with the hole an 8 meter graser put in their ship. So likely any ship that close is at best mission killed.

Basically, if ships are close enough to be able to operate an integrated missile defense system they are close enough to probably blow up real good together.

Then don't operate as integrated missile defence. They don't need to be within energy range of each other. But their missiles will be well in range of the target.

Of course, the drawback is that now they're vulnerable to missile attack, from pods deployed by that LD ahead of time, before it was found. A single pod won't be enough to mission kill any of those ships, especially since they will be coming in at very low velocity. We're talking about deploying maybe 5 pods / 50 missiles per destroyer or light-cruiser.

So flash and a group of ships blows up. OK, draw a 5 light-sceond radius around them. There is an LD somewhere in there. How big is a 5 lightsecond radius sphere?

5 light-seconds? Why do you ned 1.5 million km for this? Energy range against unprotected aspects (kilt and throat) is less than 1 million; against sidewalls it's at best 150,000 km. Ok, we don't know what a 3-second graser can do to such sidewalls, but firing from 3 light-seconds away would mean a 3-second delay in reacting to the target ship's evasive manoeuvres, which means it won't be easy to actually keep the 3 seconds on target.

And besides, if all the ships blew up from energy weapons from the same platform, each explosion forms a sphere of where the source could be. So you quickly calculate the intersection of where that could be and you can easily reduce it to a sphere maybe 50,000 km in radius.

And I bet you that grasers can be detected by the effect they have on the solar wind and interplanetary dust in their paths. Especially if there were multiple beams, and even more so if those were in multiple directions. Firing grasers thus means that any ship outside of energy range has now a VERY good locus for its missiles.

No, the best tactic for an LD is not to fire its onboard weapons at all. Those are for last resort. It needs to have deployed pods and torpedoes ahead of time, so those can fire without revealing where the source ship is at.

Well, it has a volume of 14 million cubic KM. And if you assume the attacker was moving at say 10% of C, a minute after the bight flash the search area is now 51 million cubic KM.

The velocity here doesn't matter either if you can see the beam and it lasts a non-negligible amount of time. You can infer the base velocity of the ship when it fired. So you calculate a volume co-moving with that base velocity.

It's better than no idea where they are, but it's not enough to allow you to attack them. And if you are not close, well, in ten minutes the sphere of possibility is a light minute in radius. And it does not get get better.

I think it is. And support ships would be within 10 million km, so their missiles can strike within 3 minutes.

A 5-destroyer squadron like Zavala took to Saltash can put 120 missiles in space within 1 minute.

And it's dumping out highly lethal smart homing missiles out the back, so if you want to find exactly where a gaser torp is the hard way, well, I have plan.

That is a problem, indeed. See above.

Unless opening the pod bay doors compromises stealth.

kzt wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:If one ship is in range you're right. With care I think a LD can probably kill any ship out there. What I'm saying is that the ship will be detected in firing and if the target has friends they very well might be able to shoot back. Even if they don't have a perfect bearing sweep grasers across the bit of space where you saw the energy bloom. Now you'll have a bigger energy bloom to aim even better at.

It's like a WWII submarine--a submerged sub was basically guaranteed the first hit. Once it got that hit, though, it was in substantial danger from any destroyers nearby.

Basically, if the other ships are close enough to shoot back, well they are probably at best dealing with the hole an 8 meter graser put in their ship. So likely any ship that close is at best mission killed.

Basically, if ships are close enough to be able to operate an integrated missile defense system they are close enough to probably blow up real good together.

So flash and a group of ships blows up. OK, draw a 5 light-sceond radius around them. There is an LD somewhere in there. How big is a 5 lightsecond radius sphere?

You're assuming it can engage all the ships at once. Knowing the threat they're not going to allow that. It's easy enough, just ensure there is no point that gives them a clear shot at any more ships than necessary. Off the top of my head I think they can ensure no point can bear on more than three ships and note that they will have a nearly perfect picture of where the ship is if it takes that shot. Everyone else fires grasers into the area as they bear. The LD does a lot of damage but dies in the process.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:And I bet you that grasers can be detected by the effect they have on the solar wind and interplanetary dust in their paths. Especially if there were multiple beams, and even more so if those were in multiple directions. Firing grasers thus means that any ship outside of energy range has now a VERY good locus for its missiles.

This. No matter how stealthy the LD is I don't believe a shipkiller graser shot can be hidden. So long as anything with eyes (including recon drones) is about the beam will be identified. Fire multiple beams and you have an origin. Given the resolution we have seen to date I think they have plenty of accuracy to ensure return fire hits the origin--the only escape would be if they can zig enough before the beams arrive. Note that the low power and lack of a wedge greatly limit the ability of a LD to zig.

Loren Pechtel wrote: It's easy enough, just ensure there is no point that gives them a clear shot at any more ships than necessary. Off the top of my head I think they can ensure no point can bear on more than three ships and note that they will have a nearly perfect picture of where the ship is if it takes that shot. Everyone else fires grasers into the area as they bear. The LD does a lot of damage but dies in the process.

So you'll have some ships accelerating in the x axis, some accelerating in the y-axis and some in the z-axis? Can you explain how that works for a squadron?

And I'll point out that this is not exactly what they have done. Sitting there with their wedges down is what they have actually done, because they know they will always have many minutes to bring them up.