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"And we shall christen this new SD design ..."

The Unfathomables


Do HV missiles incorporate a compensator? They do not have flesh that could turn into paste at enormous accelerations, so no compensator, right? (Although I have always questioned the durability of the hardware at such accelerations, I'll agree to hand wave that away), but what is limiting HV missiles, seemingly, to ~ .8C?

Because it seems like warships actually have the "horsepower" to exceed .8C if their biological counterparts could withstand it.

Could it be possible for the SLN to increase compensator efficiency to approach the current max Accel of missiles?

And how would that bode for missiles?

Relativity and E = MC2 be damned.

In for a handwavium penny. In for a handwavium pound.

This has been a humorous dig at SLN's The Indefatigables.

cthia wrote:Do HV missiles incorporate a compensator? They do not have flesh that could turn into paste at enormous accelerations, so no compensator, right? (Although I have always questioned the durability of the hardware at such accelerations, I'll agree to hand wave that away), but what is limiting HV missiles, seemingly, to ~ .8C?

Because it seems like warships actually have the "horsepower" to exceed .8C if their biological counterparts could withstand it.

Could it be possible for the SLN to increase compensator efficiency to approach the current max Accel of missiles?

And how would that bode for missiles?

They do not have a separate compensator; instead there is a compensator function built into the missile drive. Even the hardware could not withstand the acceleration that the wedge is theoretically capable of generating.

cthia wrote:Do HV missiles incorporate a compensator? They do not have flesh that could turn into paste at enormous accelerations, so no compensator, right? (Although I have always questioned the durability of the hardware at such accelerations, I'll agree to hand wave that away), but what is limiting HV missiles, seemingly, to ~ .8C?

Because it seems like warships actually have the "horsepower" to exceed .8C if their biological counterparts could withstand it.

The speed limit isn't restricted by compensators or acceleration. The limitation comes from the particle shield, the thing that exists to prevent interplanetary dust from becoming a relativistic rain shower.

In the real world, it exists so the relativistic effects would be minimised and RFC wouldn't need to calculate too much. At 0.8c, the Lorentz factor is still 1/0.6, which is perceptible, but since missiles only spend a small fraction of their time at this, it's not a big deal. This shows up when we see long hyperspace trips, as 1.6667 is noticeable time dilation.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:Do HV missiles incorporate a compensator? They do not have flesh that could turn into paste at enormous accelerations, so no compensator, right? (Although I have always questioned the durability of the hardware at such accelerations, I'll agree to hand wave that away), but what is limiting HV missiles, seemingly, to ~ .8C?

Because it seems like warships actually have the "horsepower" to exceed .8C if their biological counterparts could withstand it.

The speed limit isn't restricted by compensators or acceleration. The limitation comes from the particle shield, the thing that exists to prevent interplanetary dust from becoming a relativistic rain shower.

In the real world, it exists so the relativistic effects would be minimised and RFC wouldn't need to calculate too much. At 0.8c, the Lorentz factor is still 1/0.6, which is perceptible, but since missiles only spend a small fraction of their time at this, it's not a big deal. This shows up when we see long hyperspace trips, as 1.6667 is noticeable time dilation.

So the author wouldn't have to calculate too much???

If he has calculated anything at all, it could simply go into a spreadsheet. But I am not hearing a real reason the SLN can't take advantage of the room for improvement in performance left by the author. "At the Olympics," the author has given the performance of HV missiles only an 8. There's room for improvement. Same for warships. The collosal industrial Gorilla that is the SL surely already has the problem solved on paper in the private sector. There simply has never been a problem (pesky NEOBARBS) needing that solution.

A significant improvement in particle shielding seems well within the SLNs capabilities. As a matter of fact, the limitation always seemed absurd to me, flying in the face of the indestructibility of the wedge technology.

cthia wrote:A significant improvement in particle shielding seems well within the SLNs capabilities. As a matter of fact, the limitation always seemed absurd to me, flying in the face of the indestructibility of the wedge technology.

Actually it has been solved, in the form of using a buckler for a particle shield. Not a full bow-wall, which would eliminate much of the maneuverability. It would be interesting to implement that in a missile, because it would also make the missile harder to kill.

But frankly there is no good reason to push to a higher speed for most of manned flight, because you can always go faster by translating up a band in hyperspace (until you hit the limit set by the hyper-generator). So normally you do not want to go much faster than the maximum speed at which you can make a hyperspace transition (0.3c). A manned ship would only want to go faster, while it was trying to escape past the hyper-limit.

Reasons of plot?
In The Excalibur Alternative, RFC shows that he was aware of relativistic matters, when he stated that missiles at 0.9C and above didn't need warheads, as both the velocity and increased mass would make a warhead redundant.

Daryl wrote:Reasons of plot?
In The Excalibur Alternative, RFC shows that he was aware of relativistic matters, when he stated that missiles at 0.9C and above didn't need warheads, as both the velocity and increased mass would make a warhead redundant.

That is not in the Honorverse and it might well be that the author wanted to minimize relativistic effect in the books that we discuss here..

"Reasons of plot" does NOT mean the author cannot do it, instead it implies that he does NOT want to do it.

Daryl wrote:Reasons of plot?
In The Excalibur Alternative, RFC shows that he was aware of relativistic matters, when he stated that missiles at 0.9C and above didn't need warheads, as both the velocity and increased mass would make a warhead redundant.

IOW, my long-standing obsession with the MK-23E choosing to ram a target at the end of its run only has merit at .9C, as recognized by the author.

It’s pretty clear that when he wrote HotQ that the KE aspect of Honorverse missiles were not fully understood. It happens.

Daryl wrote:Reasons of plot?
In The Excalibur Alternative, RFC shows that he was aware of relativistic matters, when he stated that missiles at 0.9C and above didn't need warheads, as both the velocity and increased mass would make a warhead redundant.

cthia wrote:IOW, my long-standing obsession with the MK-23E choosing to ram a target at the end of its run only has merit at .9C, as recognized by the author.

Indeed what you are saying could be taken to mean that there is no merit in ramming for a MK-23E traveling less than .9c. At what point in the motor burn does the missile hit that speed, taking into account the relativistic mass increase?

However what Daryl quoted was a statement that it is unnecessary for an extreme relativistic missile to have a warhead. That is not the same thing as recognizing that your obsession has merit. The author's statement takes no stand on the benefit (or lack) of ramming.