Attacking Darius:

kzt wrote:If the reactor is to dangerous for humans to be near, that means it is radiating large amounts of gamma rays and/or neutrons. I don't suppose there is any way that you could detect a gamma ray or neutron source or the increase in temperature caused by the structure of the ship absorbing some of this vast amount of radiation that is pouring through it?

If it's radiating neutrons you have a big problem with neutron activation of the drone--it's going to come home radioactive. Thus it pretty much must be gamma radiation.

However, current gamma ray detection has major problems with focusing--the gamma ray telescopes have very, very low pixel counts. Even a substantial gamma source isn't going to be able to be pinpointed even if you can tell it's out there somewhere.

cthia wrote:Besides, you can't expect the sidewalls to always be up, when the complacent fools don't always have the wedges up.

tlb wrote:It is true that on a normal ship, the sidewalls are never up if the wedge is down.

cthia wrote:But my point is that the sidewalls do not automatically go up just because the wedge is up, or they wouldn't have had to snap on in that incident Jonathan referred to when the Peeps jumped Bellerophon.

Hey, I am just as incredulous as you are that it isn't a double switch down in engineering. Throw the switch to snap the wedge on and the sidewalls come on.

It makes sense that the sidewalls aren't always up if there is a matter of wear and tear, and since there has always been plenty of time to get them up. But a new sheriff is in town now. And he and his deputies really need a short victorious war.

I expect that in wartime the sidewalls are always brought up after the wedge is up. Bellerophon is different because it is not cruising in wartime, as I said.

In wartime things are done such that wear and tear are not the highest priority. It is no good saving the sidewall generators if you are ambushed with the walls down. To illustrate there is the Warshawski flare generated to fool Warnecke's people in Honor Among Enemies, chapter 29:

It had taken all eight forward alpha nodes to project a suitable power pulse, and Honor expected BuShips to speak to her firmly for taking a good thousand hours off their projected service life, but it had been worth it. Or, she corrected herself, it seemed to have been worth it so far.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:Besides, you can't expect the sidewalls to always be up, when the complacent fools don't always have the wedges up.

tlb wrote:It is true that on a normal ship, the sidewalls are never up if the wedge is down.

cthia wrote:But my point is that the sidewalls do not automatically go up just because the wedge is up, or they wouldn't have had to snap on in that incident Jonathan referred to when the Peeps jumped Bellerophon.

Hey, I am just as incredulous as you are that it isn't a double switch down in engineering. Throw the switch to snap the wedge on and the sidewalls come on.

It makes sense that the sidewalls aren't always up if there is a matter of wear and tear, and since there has always been plenty of time to get them up. But a new sheriff is in town now. And he and his deputies really need a short victorious war.

I expect that in wartime the sidewalls are always brought up after the wedge is up. Bellerophon is different because it is not cruising in wartime, as I said.

In wartime things are done such that wear and tear are not the highest priority. It is no good saving the sidewall generators if you are ambushed with the walls down. To illustrate there is the Warshawski flare generated to fool Warnecke's people in Honor Among Enemies, chapter 29:

It had taken all eight forward alpha nodes to project a suitable power pulse, and Honor expected BuShips to speak to her firmly for taking a good thousand hours off their projected service life, but it had been worth it. Or, she corrected herself, it seemed to have been worth it so far.

I understand that, but there is no war now. Do you think sidewalls are up on all GA ships now?

Again, my point is when the LDs first attack, they will have the element of surprise in their toy box. After the first flaming datum, no doubt sidewalls will be up. But that may be a day late and a task force, squadron, or fleet short.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:Sidewalls don't come up until needed. Probably in a few seconds. Wear and tear must be significant. At any rate, even though the wedge may be up, the sidewalls aren't unless battle has been joined. Which means a Spider that has creeped oh so close could take out the Salamander. That is an acceptable sacrifice.

What is your source for this? I did find one case in HotQ where a Masadan LAC damaged a Manticoran destroyer that did not have its sidewalls up. But there the ships did not realize that they were in a warzone. Otherwise I would expect any naval ship to have sidewalls up whenever the wedge was up.

Perhaps I am wrong; if so, that will become the new standard procedure after the first ship is lost.

There was this DN, that suddenly had a BC squadron confront it. It was traveling with the sidewalls down until the AI said ‘Yikes, can I kill them?’

That is apparently standard bractice. So is shutting down the wedge when you are in orbit or otherwise neither planning to go anywhere or fight.

cthia wrote:I understand that, but there is no war now. Do you think sidewalls are up on all GA ships now?

Again, my point is when the LDs first attack, they will have the element of surprise in their toy box. After the first flaming datum, no doubt sidewalls will be up. But that may be a day late and a task force, squadron, or fleet short.

I do not know; but I expect that they will be for a while longer; until things settle down. Certainly there will be a point were it will seem like peace time and the sidewalls could go down.

You may not have noticed, but I had some questions in "Why are you still alive?" thread.

1. Do we think that the leaders at Darius are going to stick with the cover story that it was Galton that was "bad" and Darius is a hiding place of the paranoid "good" guys?
2. Isn't the sacrifice of Galton, with all the evidence planted there, only understandable in the context of that cover story?
3. So, if the forces from Darius start using the Leonard Detweiler ships to destroy things; doesn't that make the sacrifice of Galton meaningless, by exposing that there is at least one more pocket of "evil"?

Note that Detweiler mused that they needed a decade or more to let things settle down and get the plan back on track.
4. So how do the Leonard Detweiler ships fit into this grand design, if they should not be used until after several decades of retrenchment?

cthia wrote:Sidewalls don't come up until needed. Probably in a few seconds. Wear and tear must be significant. At any rate, even though the wedge may be up, the sidewalls aren't unless battle has been joined. Which means a Spider that has creeped oh so close could take out the Salamander. That is an acceptable sacrifice.

tlb wrote:What is your source for this? I did find one case in HotQ where a Masadan LAC damaged a Manticoran destroyer that did not have its sidewalls up. But there the ships did not realize that they were in a warzone. Otherwise I would expect any naval ship to have sidewalls up whenever the wedge was up.

Perhaps I am wrong; if so, that will become the new standard procedure after the first ship is lost.

kzt wrote:There was this DN, that suddenly had a BC squadron confront it. It was traveling with the sidewalls down until the AI said ‘Yikes, can I kill them?’

That is apparently standard practice. So is shutting down the wedge when you are in orbit or otherwise neither planning to go anywhere or fight.

Bellerophon is different because it was not cruising in wartime, as I have said a couple of times in this thread.

If you mean the destroyers that Byng shot up, when talking about wedges being down in orbit; it is my understanding that is part of diplomatic protocol when visiting a neutral sovereign system. Note that Byng's ships also had wedges and sidewalls down, from Storm from the Shadows, chapter 41:

Nor was his mind particularly comforted by the Solarian battlecruisers' actions. None of them had their wedges or sidewalls up, but close visual observation—and at a range of under five thousand kilometers it was possible to make a very close visual inspection, even without resorting to deployable reconnaissance platforms—made it evident that their energy batteries were manned.

Do you have any other examples in mind?

tlb wrote:Do you have any other examples in mind?

Well there was that overconfident idiot, Commodore Yeargin, at Adler who had her whole command in orbit around Samovar with wedges and defenses down.

She seems to have assumed that the limited coverage of FTL recon drones would alert her to any Peep forces -- and Tourville and Shannon Foraker briefly and fatally showed her how utterly wrong that assumption was.

Okay, Shannon had one of the very first uses of Peep towed pods on her side, which made the surprise blow more lethal, but she still got a BC raid undetected, and screaming in at over 125,000 KPS on ballistic, to within 2.4 million km from the inattentive alliance ships! Not only did none of the Alliance CAs get their wedges or sidewalls up before the Peep's missiles hit; but only one got any CMs off before dying!

That was unquestionably RMN (and GSN) ships at time of war with all defenses down, and with no diplomatic reason for doing so. (We don't know whether or not they had warm or cold impellers; but it didn't actually matter because Foraker got the attack in so close that it was all over in far less time than even warm nodes could bring up the wedge)

There is the RMN fleet at the Beowulf side of the WH who needed 30 minutes to get their wedges up. What stealthy threat?

tlb wrote:Do you have any other examples in mind?

Jonathan_S wrote:Well there was that overconfident idiot, Commodore Yeargin, at Adler who had her whole command in orbit around Samovar with wedges and defenses down.

She seems to have assumed that the limited coverage of FTL recon drones would alert her to any Peep forces -- and Tourville and Shannon Foraker briefly and fatally showed her how utterly wrong that assumption was.

Okay, Shannon had one of the very first uses of Peep towed pods on her side, which made the surprise blow more lethal, but she still got a BC raid undetected, and screaming in at over 125,000 KPS on ballistic, to within 2.4 million km from the inattentive alliance ships! Not only did none of the Alliance CAs get their wedges or sidewalls up before the Peep's missiles hit; but only one got any CMs off before dying!

That was unquestionably RMN (and GSN) ships at time of war with all defenses down, and with no diplomatic reason for doing so. (We don't know whether or not they had warm or cold impellers; but it didn't actually matter because Foraker got the attack in so close that it was all over in far less time than even warm nodes could bring up the wedge)

kzt wrote:There is the RMN fleet at the Beowulf side of the WH who needed 30 minutes to get their wedges up. What stealthy threat?

As for Commodore Yeargin, the saying is "you can't fix stupid"; I assume that if she had survived, then there would have been a court martial waiting for her. Unfortunately stupid orders are not necessarily illegal ones and so still need to be obeyed.

For KZT's example I will need to reread the relevant text. I am guessing it is in A Rising Thunder, as part of Admiral Filareta's attack on Manticore? It is possible to be overly terse.

If you are saying that there will always be stupid commanders, such as Santino or Yeargin; then I have to agree. But if you are saying that after a warning of war is given, that it is navy policy to sail around with sidewalls down or in uncertain circumstances to bring wedges down because you are in orbit; then I strenuously disagree. Even if nothing bad happens, I will hope that complacent commanders are judged negatively over such bad behavior. I still have not gotten to KZT's example, to see the justification.

This begs the question, do Forts always have their wedges and sidewalls up?

I think I recall reading somewhere that the Forts are always manned and ready to go. I think textev says the wedges are always up. But are the sidewalls always up as well?

A protocol of always keeping the wedges up will gobble up sprockets, sockets, cogs and nodes like Pac Man chomping on bits. Add to that the same protocol of always keeping the sidewalls up as well must have the Forts performing an ever sychronized dance of rotating fresh stock.

That may be yet another chink in the link, if wedges and walls are down while the Forts are retiring.

.