Warshawski sail powered rockets?

Hi,
As some guys here like highly speculative speculations, and my mind sometimes comes up with weird thoughts:

Would you think it could be possible to develop a Warshawski sail powered rocket which works within a grav wave?

We already know that wormhole transits (which also use Warshawski sails) always require human attention, just as hyper transits and long range hyper navigation do.

But as impeller driven rockets work in hyper outside of grav waves, could a Warshawski driven rocket be launched and operate within a grav wave to attack other ships or rockets?

Might this open a new avenue for piracy or economic warfare, by easily defending the guard ships of a convoi, and then forcing the unarmed merchant vessels out of the grav wave, so they can be entered? Or could they just "drop out of hyper" back into normal space to evade the attack?

markusschaber wrote:Hi,
As some guys here like highly speculative speculations, and my mind sometimes comes up with weird thoughts:

Would you think it could be possible to develop a Warshawski sail powered rocket which works within a grav wave?

We already know that wormhole transits (which also use Warshawski sails) always require human attention, just as hyper transits and long range hyper navigation do.

But as impeller driven rockets work in hyper outside of grav waves, could a Warshawski driven rocket be launched and operate within a grav wave to attack other ships or rockets?

Might this open a new avenue for piracy or economic warfare, by easily defending the guard ships of a convoi, and then forcing the unarmed merchant vessels out of the grav wave, so they can be entered? Or could they just "drop out of hyper" back into normal space to evade the attack?

Your question has come up before - IIRC the reason we don't see it was a Missile would need to be the size of a small warship to function. I don't think it would need to be the size of a Frigate, but definitely in the LAC range.

Another limiter is the short range of sensors in Hyper - This is a long ranged weapon that could only be used in a medium ranged role.

An attack with a weapon like this would pretty much destroy the traget outright through the collision, or make it so that it got ripped up in the grav wave.

So between it's size, advanced electronics, and the lack of plunder, pirates will not use these. Navies will not use these for the same reason we don't see grav wave optimized combatants - the chance of running into other ships in hyper is so rare, it's not worth building a combatant optimized for it.

Theemile wrote:Your question has come up before

Unfortunately the infodump site is still broken - but it had a saved post from David Weber from 2002 on Warshaski Sail Missiles - his actual statement was (in part)

runsforcelery wrote:You cannot fit a Warshawski sail into any missile. This question has come up several times now. It is impossible to build a Warshaski sail missile at all

While I think you're right that with a large enough (and LAC size might be that) hull you could build an uncrewed platform with the two sets of alpha rings needed to make sails -- I'm not sure you could successfully launch it while already in a grav wave. Your ship is sailing along under its own sails -- but those stick many km out to the side, and you need separation to avoid a sail on sail strike. So you'd need to fire the platform clear of your sails before it could bring up its own. And without sails to stabilize it the grav turbulence and shear would likely destroy the object before it was far enough away to safely bring up its own sails.
So in addition to all the issues I think you correctly raised, I suspect that you'd also have to launch this from outside the 'wave -- and given that ships tend not to ride the fringes of the wave that'd mean you could only engage targets that had just entered or were about to exit the 'wave. Making this oversized (and thus expensive) 'missle' even less useful.

Note that it could be built with off the shelf components, there is no new technology involved. So if weapons makers thought that it would serve a useful purpose, then it would already be in use. But note that among the many battles in the books, I can only remember two main fights that occurred in hyperspace.

It would not necessarily force a ship back to normal space, but a transition from one band to another would be a good defense. It is such a good defense that it is rare for a ship to be trapped outside the hyper-limit, which is why pirates usually hunt for merchants inside that limit.

I have no idea whether it would be possible to build such a thing smaller than Theemile said, but I agree that it is not as useful as you might think.

tlb wrote:Note that it could be built with off the shelf components, there is no new technology involved. So if weapons makers thought that it would serve a useful purpose, then it would already be in use. But note that among the many battles in the books, I can only remember two main fights that occurred in hyperspace.

It would not necessarily force a ship back to normal space, but a transition from one band to another would be a good defense. It is such a good defense that it is rare for a ship to be trapped outside the hyper-limit, which is why pirates usually hunt for merchants inside that limit.

I have no idea whether it would be possible to build such a thing smaller than Theemile said, but I agree that it is not as useful as you might think.

The size limiter will be the minimum size of the Alpha nodes. Most LACs seemed to run purely on beta nodes - not just because they are subspace only ships, but because Alpha nodes were dimensionally 3x the size in every dimension to the Beta nodes required to balance them (and commensurately mass intensive). It's quite possible there is a floor to how small the nodes can be built - and we know from David's text - no "Missile sized" platform will be able to field them.

Theemile wrote:The size limiter will be the minimum size of the Alpha nodes. Most LACs seemed to run purely on beta nodes - not just because they are subspace only ships, but because Alpha nodes were dimensionally 3x the size in every dimension to the Beta nodes required to balance them (and commensurately mass intensive). It's quite possible there is a floor to how small the nodes can be built - and we know from David's text - no "Missile sized" platform will be able to field them.

True - but we know from Jaynes of the 38,000 ton Facteur-class courier boat (294x31 meters[1]), which obviously has full sets of alpha nodes (plus presumably also beta nodes), a hyper generator, crew, life support, and a fusion reactor with weeks to months of fuel bunkerage.

An uncrewed suicide ship (which is really more what this'd be) would be somewhat smaller as it doesn't need the hyper generator, nor life support, crew, beta nodes, and only needs power for short periods. (Heck it can draw power from the grav-wave through its sails; so if you can solve the launching issue you could also delete the fusion reactor and bunkerage and just rely on capacitors to bring up the sails and start drawing power)


But (assuming you still had to use the same sized Alpha nodes) I don't know how much deleting the rest would let you shrink the platform towards the size of even a classic LAC 11,250 tons (138x23m); much less a Shrike 20,250 tons (but just 71x20m)...

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[1] Just using length and (max) beam, ships are normally slightly beamier than they are tall - making a somewhat oblate tapered cylinder.

Theemile wrote:The size limiter will be the minimum size of the Alpha nodes. Most LACs seemed to run purely on beta nodes - not just because they are subspace only ships, but because Alpha nodes were dimensionally 3x the size in every dimension to the Beta nodes required to balance them (and commensurately mass intensive). It's quite possible there is a floor to how small the nodes can be built - and we know from David's text - no "Missile sized" platform will be able to field them.

Jonathan_S wrote:True - but we know from Jaynes of the 38,000 ton Facteur-class courier boat (294x31 meters[1]), which obviously has full sets of alpha nodes (plus presumably also beta nodes), a hyper generator, crew, life support, and a fusion reactor with weeks to months of fuel bunkerage.

An uncrewed suicide ship (which is really more what this'd be) would be somewhat smaller as it doesn't need the hyper generator, nor life support, crew, beta nodes, and only needs power for short periods. (Heck it can draw power from the grav-wave through its sails; so if you can solve the launching issue you could also delete the fusion reactor and bunkerage and just rely on capacitors to bring up the sails and start drawing power)


But (assuming you still had to use the same sized Alpha nodes) I don't know how much deleting the rest would let you shrink the platform towards the size of even a classic LAC 11,250 tons (138x23m); much less a Shrike 20,250 tons (but just 71x20m)...

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[1] Just using length and (max) beam, ships are normally slightly beamier than they are tall - making a somewhat oblate tapered cylinder.

Just looking at pictures online: a Ghost Rider missile is about 30 meters long, so tripling all dimensions would put it between the classic LAC and the Shrike. But a Ghost Rider missile is more than 50% bigger than a capital missile and much, much bigger than a counter missile. However, why does tripling the node size require tripling all other dimensions?

Frankly, I think the author said that just to keep people from discussing this very possibility.

@ tlb.
His universe, his rules.

Daryl wrote:@ tlb.
His universe, his rules.

I quickly learned in college the phrase "You just don't understand the physics" meant "I really don't understand the Physics either, can't explain them to you, but someone of authority told me this with confidence."

Personally, I like that the physical "rules" are established, even if sometimes arbitrary.

Daryl wrote:@ tlb.
His universe, his rules.

Theemile wrote:I quickly learned in college the phrase "You just don't understand the physics" meant "I really don't understand the Physics either, can't explain them to you, but someone of authority told me this with confidence."

Personally, I like that the physical "rules" are established, even if sometimes arbitrary.

I was not denying "His universe, his rules", instead I was explicitly stating it.

I was a Physics student also, one main thing that I have never understood was my perceived "conflict" between the Big Bang and blackhole theories. If everything at the beginning was concentrated in one place, then isn't that a blackhole? Does that mean the universe is bounded by an event horizon?