?

penny wrote:
Remontoire suggested a possible impeller-spider hybrid on the very first page of this thread. So much about the LDs still remain classified. Some possible breakthroughs I leave room for incorporation. We had a thread on possible other ships. These could be purpose built 'hyper raiders' employing the impeller-spider hybrid.

tlb wrote:
I have also mentioned a wedge - spider hybrid, but it would have to be purpose built; an LD is too massive to use a compensator, so it gets no advantage by having a wedge (and the disadvantage of being more visible). The reason I thought such a hybrid might be built was to get the ship in place to attack in spider mode quickly.

The main question about any "hyper raider": is why would it have a spider drive, if the intent is to attack within a gravity wave? The spider could be useful in a rift, but would be laughably slow in a wave.

Jonathan_S wrote:
Thought one thing that we do know about the LDs is their vast size -- hardly an asset for commerce raiding.

If you want to raid commerce you build smaller, cheaper, more numerous destroyers or light cruisers. So you can swarm the area and increase your chances of finding targets. If you want to raid convoys you build battlecruisers -- still affordable in somewhat reasonable numbers and powerful enough to fight their way through most convoy escorts.

I agree with both of you. My post was a bit misleading. I wasn't suggesting that the LDs should be used for commerce raiding. And certainly not for this application. Their size would cancel out any possible acceleration advantage gained from upgrading particle screen technology. What I was saying is that we do not know what surprises and technology will be incorporated into the LD that might be passed down into other ‘purpose-built’ ships. I see no reason that an LD should not also sport a wedge, if hybrids are possible.

Tlb, the reason the spider-drive is important to this commerce raiding strategy is being able to hide in-system and follow targets into hyper. Heck, hyper-raiders can just hang out at the hyper limit. They are sports cars able to run down prey.

Admittedly, this probably depends on the MA enjoying, what, at least a 5-minute advantage in sensor capability? So a hyper raider would need to follow a target within that 20 - 25 minute window? Since sensor ranger in hyper is limited to 20 LM.

I'd like to address a point Jonathan made ...

Why bother? If it's a major system they had to spend months sneaking in, so why hyper out to (maybe) kill an outbound freighter and then have to spend months again sneaking in? Once you've snuck in you'd want more return for the time expended.

I am glad you made that point. And I agree. However, it is also related to another point I've been meaning to make. Akin to the analogy of making spaghetti sauce. If you are going to spend hours cooking spaghetti sauce, then cook a lot of it to use later. Likewise, if you are going to spend months sneaking ships into a system, then sneak in a lot of them. Send along the kitchen sink too. I was thinking about how effective nasty LACs are to capital ships when they can get in close in swarms. And their acceleration is even greater because of the size of the LAC. But if a lot of these hyper raiders spend months on an insertion in important systems of the GA, then there should be enough of them to follow several convoys into hyper.

Another reason to attack in hyper instead of in-system, I hope, is to level the playing field. A spider ship can get its ass shot out from under it by a Q-ship in n-space, etc., etc. Hyper warfare is less risky and at first glance seems to require less firepower???

But I need some help. What weapon would be more effective in hyper if this strategy works? Are ships more vulnerable in hyper? Would a 3-second mounted ship graser do the trick?

BTW. An LD attacking commerce isn't commerce raiding. That's simply business as usual. Brute force. The US Navy doesn't want to use missiles to shoot down drones, but, well, sometimes war is just plain messy. But if an escort and freighters happen to come into an LDs web, and that Captain is a little rusty and has made a tactical error -- as escort Captains may not exactly be Top Guns -- then. Hello. Goodbye.


Late edit:

Thinksmarkedly wrote:
Why do we get only half the usual rate?

Inflation. The pandemic. Feds raising interest rates. I had to squeeze the bejeezus out of Abe to get that! You greedy post pandemic people are always looking for a bargain. I am offering you something for a penny. A dollar is worthless nowadays.

I'll have you know that presently a gallon of orange juice costs more than 3 gallons of gas!!!

penny wrote:Would a 3-second mounted ship graser do the trick?

You have mentioned that before and it is absurd; no one would have a ship mounted weapon that self-destructs on first use. Why blow big holes in your own ship?

In a gravity wave, only energy weapons will work; because the author made it clear that no missile in the Honorverse will mount sails.

PS: A "hyper raider" is only a sports car able to run down prey, if it has a compensator, otherwise even a freighter can out accelerate it.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

penny wrote:Well… just to remain true to mineself, a penny's worth of my thoughts.

Why do we get only half the usual rate?

The MA is not a traditional navy, but y’all keep insisting on judging what they may or may not do upon that flawed assumption that they are a traditional navy, or that they think like a traditional navy even though they have proved from the onset that the traditional ways of thinking, the strategy and even the tactics, must be thrown in the garbage.

The MA cannot afford to meet even a single member of the GA on the GA's terms, much less the entire GA. Even though I have insisted that the RFN will attack alongside the MAN when the shit hits the fan — and that the RFN will not be the paper tiger the SLN turned out to be — does not mean the MAN will wage a traditional war. The MAN needs every advantage they can get.

Agreed.

But just a note that unless the RFN is getting armed from a hidden location, the GA will have good intel on the RFN's capabilities. So not a paper tiger, but also not an unknown tiger.

Why? The RMN withheld major capabilities from the galaxy for a long time. Anyone giving orders or attempting to exceed certain unauthorized performance thresholds aboard a MAN ship simply drops dead. Seriously, I wouldn't bank on that.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:If the RFN is getting armed from elsewhere, then that removes the distinction between the RFN and the MAN. At that point, we should simply argue that the MAN has a conventional, impeller component to their order of battle.

I have argued before Daddy Detweiler was even potty trained that the RFN is at least a defacto part of the MAN.

Sure, no traditional navy saw any need or benefit to approach hyper warfare as a norm or saw that it was worthwhile. But the MA is no traditional navy whose technology is nowhere near traditional. As a matter of fact, the very fact that no other navy would expect an enemy to go all in on an unorthodox state sponsored strategy of commerce raiding in hyper is the very reason it could work. It could completely throw the GA off balance if they began losing ships and commerce and valuable officers in hyper.

And if the MA successfully attacks freighters in hyper delivering crucial materials for the war effort, the GA could become seriously hamstrung.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:I don't think the MAN cannot attack enough freighters serving the GA's military requirements to significantly disrupt the production pipeline. At any point in time, the majority of the matériel is not in shipping between the production systems. And even of what is in transit, a measurable loss would be noticed and cause a shift in patterns, bigger escorts, etc.

Achieving the desired objective of causing a redeployment and thinning the herd traditionally. But you might be right. However, it is possible that even the mighty GA gets at least one specific critical material from way outside of GA space. I would hope Bolthole isn't as dependent, but you never know. At any rate, causing a redeployment and luring smaller forces into your web to defeat in detail works as well.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:Moreover, the biggest nexus of production is the Manticore Binary System, Trevor's Star, and Beowulf. There's usually no hyperspace travel between any of those components. Therefore, a hyperspace attack tactic would not affect any of this at all.

Now, if you couple a sudden attack on freighters with an attack on stored supplies in the systems as well as the production lines (à la Oyster Bay), that changes things.

Phase II?

Thinksmarkedly wrote:And yet, I don't think we'll see a massive hyperspace interception at all. First, Physics: in-universe, it's highly unlikely to generate an interception outside of very few stable points where ships must pass through. Second, the author's bias for the HV: it doesn't look like it's where he wants to take the writing.

The author might have been saving certain 'whine' until its time. The end game of the series is ripe for the author to unleash everything he is saving.

Or, if it is a byproduct of the capabilities of their technology, period. For instance, y’all are considering commerce raiding in hyper executed in the traditional way. Counting on potluck. But. The MA enjoys unprecedented stealth. Their strategy can send ‘hyper raiders’ directly into the enemy’s system and follow their targets into hyper.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:For some reason, it appears that one can't follow ships into hyper. RFC hasn't explained why (there may be some hints in the Long Manoeuvre), but every time a ship translates up, it effectively evades action and can't be re-acquired.

That very well might be the case, like you said for whatever reason. It certainly is possible for convoys and fleets to follow each other. It could be that one needs to enter hyper at nearly the same point in space. But absent some quirk, I fail to see why a stealthed ship cannot enter hyper close on the heels of, and follow, a convoy.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:Of course, he's free to change that and allow MAN ships to do so. But why would they? Why not stay in-system, even after a flaming datum has showed up in the sensors of the defenders?

The problem of leaving is that it takes weeks at a minimum to re-insert to repeat the operation. Taking one freighter every two months, however valuable, seems like a waste of warship. Maybe if it could do that to a convoy, so that it could take out half a dozen ships in one go.

See upstream. I suggested an entire convoy could be wiped out. But even a single freighter would be worth it if it only takes one hyper raider amongst the dozens available to destroy it. It only requires one warship to destroy a freighter in n-space.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:But here's a better tactic that they could use with their stealth: attach a bomb to the freighter(s). They can get close enough that launching a drone with the bomb should be doable. The drone doesn't need endurance nor does it need the spider drive: a simple, very low power wedge would suffice to catch up with a freighter that is decelerating anyway to make transition. Attach a dozen bombs to the hull of the freighter, set them on a timer, then rinse and repeat.

Genius! That would work too. Actually, a lot of different tactics would be available for commerce raiding to an entity with the MA's technology.

And if the MA has improved their sensor technology in hyper giving them an edge on GA sensors, then Bob's still ur Uncle. And do remember, I have always suggested that the MA’s sensors could turn out to be better than the GA’s at the end of the day, just in time for the opening phases of war. Since the MAN's stealth is better, then their sensor development might have benefitted. And since the MA is traveling in higher hyper bands where particle density is even higher, then their sensor suites could be marginally better, in hyper.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:See Jonathan's reply why "marginally better" is not enough. "Significantly better" would not be enough either. They'd need a revolutionary improvement in hyperspace sensors.

And even if it has happened, they need to generate an intercept on ships that are likely travelling at 0.5c.

Do they enter hyper traveling at 0.5C? The MAN has significantly upgraded particle screens. Shouldn't they be much faster off the blocks? And if there is no escort, the hyper raiders can enter hyper and follow freighters very closely. I was under the impression that a freighter's sensors can't see their own arses in a clear mirror. Much less one that is distorted.

Higher acceleration and higher top speed in hyper along with marginally better sensors with the ability to follow targets into hyper ‘translates’ into a possible commerce raiding strategy available to the enemy.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:Where did you find higher acceleration? Right now, the best acceleration is in the hands of the GA, with their improved nodes and compensators.

Higher top speed could help. But we'd be talking about a days-long stern chase. Is that a good use of resources?

Not in hyper against the MA's significantly improved particle screens and the spider-drive in impeller mode.

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:Would a 3-second mounted ship graser do the trick?

tlb wrote:You have mentioned that before and it is absurd; no one would have a ship mounted weapon that self-destructs on first use. Why blow big holes in your own ship?

In a gravity wave, only energy weapons will work; because the author made it clear that no missile in the Honorverse will mount sails.

PS: A "hyper raider" is only a sports car able to run down prey, if it has a compensator, otherwise even a freighter can out accelerate it.

I never agreed that a ship mounted version would self-destruct. And I also suggested that a 3-second firing ship mounted version might be able to regulate the firing time to 1-2 seconds that might not slag the graser. But still plenty enough to lay waste to GA ships in hyper which are accustomed to handling microseconds(?) of fire.

Did I miss a memo? Is there a reason a wedge-spider hybrid class ship cannot have a compensator?

Using drones to plant mines on merchant shipping (or even military grade freighters) is certainly plausible if you are using spider drive drones but if you have close to GR recon drone stealth you can certainly sneak in on a merchant ship.
Look at what was done at Hypatia when Gus were used to take out the TUFS freighters which were being used as missiles supply ships. Ok, those were sitting still but you stick a 20 m/t contact nuclear weapon or two on a standard fighter....well.....a half vaporized metal shell carrying cargo and a fusion reactor is going to come apart and unlikely to survive. Doing that from a spider drive ship and the spider can loiter around and keep killing transports/freighers and in some places liners.

The RFN (still mostly Mannerheim SDF) might be producing a bunch of its own SL tech weapons and or buy them from Technodyne. To this point they don't seem to have any of the MA tech like Streak Drive and given that Technodyne actually was producing Cataphracts by the time Filerta came at Manticore with Raging Justice those could legitimately be in their weapons mix, at least in pod variation. I don't recall we were told where Mannerheim sourced its warships but it is possible that they maintain their own repair yards and produce most if not all the replacements parts. Remember that they do have one end of a wormhole bridge so there is traffic and it (both the Astro Control area and the orbital infrastrutue of the system) would be reasonable for them to at least license the manufacturing of what they need for the SDF and be able to supply shipping in need of parts or repairs.

I have though that the MSDF/RFN would stick with the part of The Plan to be a focus and source of refuge for systems looking to get either out of or avoid being sucked into the SL They were to be an alternative with teeth to keep opportunists away from member systems. They would NOT be operating in conjunction with the Alignment plans to attach systems or show any connection to them. Clearly the intelligence and spy operations- as cloaked in legitimate business and or diplomatic connections to the various systems within the RF can feed information and tech (industrial spying is always a good resource) but the RF would be doing nothing that even hints at supporting the military/pirate operations of the Alignment. Subversion by changing the moral philosophy and conditioning the citizenry of the RF member systems to swing into holding the cultural views and plans of the Alignment over time has become even more important.

penny wrote:Another reason to attack in hyper instead of in-system, I hope, is to level the playing field. A spider ship can get its ass shot out from under it by a Q-ship in n-space, etc., etc. Hyper warfare is less risky and at first glance seems to require less firepower???

But I need some help. What weapon would be more effective in hyper if this strategy works? Are ships more vulnerable in hyper? Would a 3-second mounted ship graser do the trick?

Well there's in hyper and then there's in grav wave.

In just hyper (aka in a rift) it's just like maneuvering or fighting in normal space with three exceptions.
1) Given time your enemy might changes hyperbands to evade (just like they could if fighting outside the hyper limit). Given the velocity bleed that effectively takes an attacker out of the fight -- the defender is going to way over the (sensor) horizon before the attacker can make back up the lost velocity.

2) Sensor range is shorter, less than 20 LM. But that's still well beyond practical weapons range (even Apollo is normally used at less than 5 LM)

3) FTL comms and fire control should be less effective, because the ratio between the speed of light in the current hyper band and the speed of light along the next higher hyperwall is smaller. So you can't play tricks quite as well with Apollo and Ghost rider fine tuning your attacks.

But otherwise wedge (and same accel as in normal space), sidewalls, decoys, CMs, MDMs, pods, LACs, etc. all work just like in normal space.


And then there's fighting in a grav wave, where acceleration under sail and compensator is nearly 10x what the same ship could pull under wedge and compensator. (But top speed is no different). In the wave no wedge, no sidewalls (unless somebody brought along a bubble sidewall), no missiles/CMs, no decoys, no LACs. It's energy weapons only, with no defenses - so they're lethal starting at a million km. Mutual kills are very likely.
Your tactical choices are basically do you fight bow on with fewer weapons, but only your hammerhead exposed past the foresail, or do you fight broadside on where your whole hull is exposed but you've got many more energy mounts.
(Lose one sail and need to be towed clear, lose both sails and you'll be lost to the wave with all hands)


Since the 3-second (self-destructing) grasers are only known to be mounted on missiles or torpedoes there's no known way to use those in a grav wave. But they'd be just as usable in a rift as they are in normal space. (Except if a ship saw them coming they could change hyper bands and leave the torps or missiles behind.

I guess the MAlign does things their own way, see the oversized 2-stage CMs they used at Galton. It's possible that they'd build weapons platforms large enough to mount sails -- though that means a "missile" or "torpedo" that's larger than a LAC. (Also, you'd have to launch them before entering the wave, because while you're protected by your sails, anything you launch isn't and it has to get hundreds of km clear before it can bring up its own sails -- something that nothing can survive. So sure, if the MAlign wants to build something the size of a CLAC that carries fewer than 100 sail-torps, and launches them before entering a grav wave, they might be able to use them to attack enemy shipping there. (Though it'd be cheaper, and more flexiably, to simply build a bubble-wall equipped raider if you really want to customize for fighting in a grave wave. At that point your energy mounts are still lethal at a million km, while your sidewall reduces your enemy's energy range to half of that)

penny wrote:

Thinksmarkedly wrote:See Jonathan's reply why "marginally better" is not enough. "Significantly better" would not be enough either. They'd need a revolutionary improvement in hyperspace sensors.

And even if it has happened, they need to generate an intercept on ships that are likely travelling at 0.5c.

Do they enter hyper traveling at 0.5C? The MAN has significantly upgraded particle screens. Shouldn't they be much faster off the blocks? And if there is no escort, the hyper raiders can enter hyper and follow freighters very closely. I was under the impression that a freighter's sensors can't see their own arses in a clear mirror. Much less one that is distorted.

No, they definitely don't enter hyper at 0.5c. No ship can survive entry at above 0.3c. And most ships enter hyper significantly slower -- and that's before the velocity bleed slows them down even more.



A slow freighter coming from Manticore might be moving at about 0.09c (26,051 KPS) when it reaches the hyper limit. And if it translates all the way up to the Delta bands it'd be down to under 20 KPS thanks to bleeding off velocity as it crosses 3 hyper walls.

On the other extreme, a Wolfhound-class DD could be up over 0.17c (52,333 KPS) on the run from Manticore to the hyper limit. So it'd translate into the Delta bands with only about 39 KPS.
(I used the Delta bands again to make an apples to apples comparison, but a warship in that much of a hurry would go straight to the Theta bands and lose even more velocity; down to just 1 KPS)

And fast freighters or larger warships would fall in a spectrum between those numbers. Of course this is all based around about an 11 LM run to the hyper limit. You'd obviously have a bit more velocity if you took a longer run-up.

But given how much velocity you lose in translating up (or down) the hyper bands you're better off getting into hyper sooner and doing your acceleration in your final hyper band. (And always heading for the closest side of the hyper limit, even if your destination is the other way. Best to make that U-turn after already getting into hyper*)

So, yes, if you can follow them closely into hyper and have an acceleration advantage you should be able to run them down. In fact way back in OBS Honor contemplates possibly having to do that against Sirius (though that seems to be the only time the books talk about chasing someone into hyper). Though Honor worried that Peep forces might be close enough that even making it into hyper might be enough to complete Sirius's mission; and a bit later on we get this quote

On Basilisk Station wrote:Without the [destroyed forward] alpha node, Fearless couldn't reconfigure her forward impellers for Warshawski sail. If Sirius broke through into hyper-space and reached the Tellerman, she would run away from Fearless at over ten times the cruiser's maximum acceleration . . . and Honor couldn't follow her into the wave on impellers alone, anyway.

There'd be no point in worry about what happens if Sirius reached the grav wave if you weren't able to chase her that far across the rift.

----
* Unless you're one of the pre-impeller hyper-scouts. In which case you had to build up to 0.3c in normal space, where your hydrogen scoops works, translate into the beta bands, and then use as much of your stored fuel as you dare in your fusion torch to get some velocity back; then coast to your destination.

Jonathan_S wrote:

On Basilisk Station wrote:Hyper-space wasn't like normal-space. The laws of relativistic physics applied at any given point in hyper, but as a hypothetical observer looked outward, his instruments showed a rapidly increasing distortion. Maximum observation range was barely twenty light-minutes under ideal conditions; beyond that, the gravity-warped chaos of hyper and its highly charged particles and extreme background radiation made instruments utterly unreliable.

And we know from IEH that radar and passive sensors are far more strongly affected.

Remember when Wanderman pulled off his little trick to get gravitics back up during a combat sim? Without her grav sensors Wayfarer wasn't able to see a (simulated) enemy that was within missile range!!. Radar and EM passives couldn't see a ship a mere "one-point-five million klicks". (5 lightseconds)
So it seems in hyper that grav sensors have something like 240x the range of anything else.

Actually, just looking a bit further in OBS I'm not sure what you could actually see, even in ideal conditions, at 20 LM.

Because later on it said this

On Basilisk Station wrote:the latest generation detectors could detect a grav wave at as much as eight light-minutes and spot turbulence within a wave at up to half that range.

If your grav detectors can only see something as powerful as a grav wave at 8 LM I don't see how they could possible see the far weaker grav signal of a wedge anywhere near as far.
But we know from the must later HAE book that radar and (non-gravity) passives can't see a target in even the (relatively) low particle density of the Selkar rift at 1.5 million km -- so the 20 LM couldn't have been those types of sensors.


So we might need to radically dial back the practical sensor distance for tracking or intercepting ships in hyper. Unfortunately I'm not sure how to narrow down that actually useful range.

Jonathan_S wrote:So, yes, if you can follow them closely into hyper and have an acceleration advantage you should be able to run them down. In fact way back in OBS Honor contemplates possibly having to do that against Sirius (though that seems to be the only time the books talk about chasing someone into hyper).

Does this count, when it is the cruisers chasing and then trapped? In The Short Victorious War there is a successful destruction of three light cruisers that had been picketing Seaford 9:

Chapter 29 wrote:So far, things had gone exactly as planned. They'd been shadowed, as expected, from the moment they pulled out of Seaford, but the three light cruisers watching over his force had gotten just a bit too confident. Commander Ogilve and five of his squadron mates had left ten hours before the rest of the fleet, and, unlike the Manties, they'd already known what course Rollins intended to follow. The Manties had known they were safely outside Rollins' range until Napoleon and her consorts suddenly appeared behind them, pinning them against the task force. It had been a massacre; in fact, the first of them had been destroyed without getting off a single answering broadside.

tlb wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:So, yes, if you can follow them closely into hyper and have an acceleration advantage you should be able to run them down. In fact way back in OBS Honor contemplates possibly having to do that against Sirius (though that seems to be the only time the books talk about chasing someone into hyper).

Does this count, when it is the cruisers chasing and then trapped? In The Short Victorious War there is a successful destruction of three light cruisers that had been picketing Seaford 9:

Chapter 29 wrote:So far, things had gone exactly as planned. They'd been shadowed, as expected, from the moment they pulled out of Seaford, but the three light cruisers watching over his force had gotten just a bit too confident. Commander Ogilve and five of his squadron mates had left ten hours before the rest of the fleet, and, unlike the Manties, they'd already known what course Rollins intended to follow. The Manties had known they were safely outside Rollins' range until Napoleon and her consorts suddenly appeared behind them, pinning them against the task force. It had been a massacre; in fact, the first of them had been destroyed without getting off a single answering broadside.

Probably.
I assume the CLs had been picketing in normal space from outside Seaford 9's hyper limit -- and likely outside it's 12-(light)minute (past the hyper limit) sovereign space (but probably within its 12 (light)hour extended space; basically like its exclusive economic zone). Because that's the only way they be able to observe anything.

But it did say the CLs were shadowing "from the moment they pulled out of Seaford" and that presumably means the system, not some planet within it. And leaving the system is basically synonymous with entering hyper.



From a practical matter it shouldn't have been impossible to orchestrate an ambush of the CLs from hyper, while they were still within normal space. But if they had their hyper generators on full standby (as they should if picketing an enemy system) they'd only have to evade/survive for maybe a minute or so before they could hyper out. (While the force that just came from hyper would have to wait probably more than 10 minutes while their hyper generators recharged before they could attempt to follow back into hyper). So to actually kill them you'd likely need to emerge within energy range; which would require you to be both lucky and good.

That said, even pulling off the in hyper ambush you need to get them fast before they can evade into some other band (or all the way to normal space) -- otherwise you've likely got to spread your forces across all the accessible bands to find the fleeting enemy before they can evade or hide. (Mind you, even chasing them off into a lower hyper band would likely have allowed Rollings to reach Hancock before the CLs could have brought warning)