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penny wrote:Jonathan, I'd like to start this post off by thanking you for your summary of combat in hyper. The author should include that in the back of his books. Kudos!

I think I incorrectly digested the "ideal conditions" in the above post from OBS. I assumed ideal conditions meant in n-space. Wouldn't that be the most ideal?

Also, this refers to warships. How would this relate to freighters? Whose sensors are seriously myopic.

You're welcome.

To be fair, much of that hyperspace combat information is included at the end of a couple of the books: More Than Honor and Short Victorious War. But it's not laid out quite so much of an A to B comparison; and is buried within their larger appendixes providing background on the universe of the book.
(Also some of the things I mentioned like MDMs, FTL recon drones/fire control weren't yet a thing in those books)


As for the 'ideal conditions'; the context of that quote was clearly hyperspace, not normal space. (For reference here it is again, but with one additional sentence included at the end)

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. Which, of course, meant that astrogation fixes were impossible, and a ship that couldn't see where it was going seldom came home again.

(And I just found a second reference)

Honor of the Queen wrote:Hyper space’s rippling energy fluxes and flurries of charged particles hashed any sensor beyond a twenty-light-minute radius, but the convoy’s clustered light codes were clear and sharp and gratifyingly tight on Honor’s maneuvering display as it approached the hyper limit of Yeltsin’s Star at a comfortable third of light-speed.

But I also repeat my later finding that while sensors could theoretically see something at up to 20 LM, they could only spot the insanely powerful grav waves at up to 8 LM.
It seems wildly illogical that they'd be able to see an active impeller (or sails of a ship within the grav wave) further than they'd be able to see the unimaginably more powerful gravitational signal of a 'wave. (So I suspect the maximum theoretical range at which they can see an active wedge is less than 8 LM)




But also it's clear that ships could see at least somewhat further in normal space. The repurposed recon drone heads Honor was deploying at Basilisk see an active impeller drive at a "range of just over twenty light-minutes" [OBS]; and when Thunder of God was making her run in towards Grayson, under Simon's control, she picked up Honor's little fleet's impellers at "just under twenty-four light-minutes" [HotQ].
And earlier in that book the destroyer HMS Madrigal was able to see the flare of the Masadan fleet's hyperspace emergence at 30 LM (but that's presumably a lot "brighter" than just an impeller wedge)

And those are ships and drones which are a quarter century behind the books' current state of the art.

penny wrote:Do forgive me for snipping some of your post. What do you think about this? I always assumed that not only would the RFN not have the latest generation of ships, but their Navy would appear very small compared to what it actually is. The RFN's main order of battle is being worked up in some system similar to Bolthole. The RFN cannot appear to be a powerhouse so soon. They must withhold the truth about their true order of battle as sincerely as the Peeps did. A large RFN would draw serious attention. And if those are not modern warships with the latest toys, if I were top brass, I would give orders to showcase what they can do. Nobody in the GA should be worried about them. Rightfully so.

Very much agreed that the RFN is above board (to all appearances) and therefore has no hidden yards and no hidden fleet being worked up anywhere. There is no loose thread that the GA may want to poke at (other than the detachment that visits Felix every now and again) which might unravel things that the RF wants to keep secret.

True. All plans have the ability to end up in the crapper. And quickly. But if their hyper combat is successful because their technology and strategy has an advantage initially, then they will be fine. You must believe in your strategy. No need to second guess yourself until the need to second guess yourself.

If they have a tech edge, then sure, the advantage is theirs in the engagements where that edge is of value.

But that doesn't change the balance of the war. As I said, taking out several dozen civilian freighters will not hurt the GA economy much less its war production. Maybe taking several dozen military freighters might put a small crimp in logistics, but those are riskier propositions and likely to be noticed sooner.

He didn't give hints about Galton. He didn't give hints about the entire MAN. Let alone their tech. Not only is there plenty of things of which we were given no hint, a lot of those things came out of left field.

Galton was indeed a surprise because it was so atypical of RFC. But one exception does not make a rule.

He did tell us about the MAN way back, before we heard anything about spider drives, streak drives, Sharks, Ghosts, torpedoes, or monitor-sized ships.

Anyway, like I said, he still has time to give us the necessary hints and pave the technology ladder to his usual style. So you may be right that the MAlign has more toys to their arsenal that haven't been shown. Heck, I wholeheartedly agree with that, because the LDs don't make sense as they are. There must be more to the strategy. It's just hard to divine what it might be.

I don't think you are looking at the big picture. If this is happening in every important, or somewhat important system then a lot more freighters are disappearing.

I don't think you're looking at a picture big enough.

"Every important or somewhat important system" is several hundred systems. Even if we assume those ships are simple destroyers, there are exactly two Navies in the Galaxy that operate 500 destroyers and that's the SLN and RHN. Both are many-times-over multi-system polities with populations likely over 100 billion for Haven.

If we restrict to just GA's important and somewhat important systems, we must still be talking about 50 systems. Assuming two ships per system, you still need 100 destroyers. And given that some of those systems are pretty far for a trip from Felix, more than likely the MAN needs 100 cruisers (a mix of light and heavy), not destroyers.

Meanwhile, the MAN was started less than 20 years ago and "up until recently had a handful of destroyers and light cruisers." They don't have enough ships to make a dent in the GA economy for the next decade or two, much less that of the entire Galaxy. And if they restrict to the GA, that reduces the time that someone is going to notice something amiss.

But let's go back to my notion of the big picture. Manticore has taken a lot of systems under its wing. These systems will be crying bloody murder about losing shipments. The RMN will have to respond by redeploying forces. Those forces will be dependent on shipments that might never arrive. Even communication between the picket and the MBS could be severed because the MA will surely have no respect for dispatch boats either. And, even though a lot of the traditional strategy and tactics when taking on the MA will have to be flushed down the toilet, much of it will remain the same. Like the need to thin the main battle components out. The MA cannot allow the GA to remain concentrated any more than the Peeps could allow the RMN to, or vice versa.

You're assuming that each destroyer/light cruiser could take several ships in each system. That's not going to happen, because we know insertion is going to be a week-long effort at a minimum, several times that for the more important systems with more traffic. All the GA systems will have LAC patrols and sufficient number of recon drones to make anything in a tighter schedule too risky.

As I calculated above, there's no way the MAN can dedicate 5 light cruisers per system, for a total of 250 ships. They don't have 250 units.

And they're not going to run down dispatch boats. Having a higher speed in hyper is irrelevant if you can't maintain a lock, and any DB worth its name is going to pull higher acceleration than an MAN warship. The MAN may have a higher speed limit, but by the time it has reached that speed, the DB has pulled away so far that it's not in sensor range any more (a DB with military grade particle shielding could reach 0.6c @ 700 gravities in 7.3 hours; an MAN ship pursuing at 500 gravities would take 10.2 hours to reach the same speed, at which point the DB is 52 light-minutes ahead, which is more than double the current sensor horizon).

I am at a loss as to why you think it would be a huge waste of resources. First off, these hyper raiders would be built in adequate numbers to wage war in hyper around the galaxy.

Sure, but if wishes were fishes...

The problem is that you have to account for the time it needs to build such ships. As I said above, there are exactly two navies that operated that many light warships. Per the economics of the HV, Darius and the MAN simply cannot field that many ships.

Then there's the cost of opportunity. During the decades it would take to build this many ships, they're not building the big combatants. And the personnel they dedicate to these hyper raiders are not crewing the big ships either.

And if my suggestion that this strategy would be successful as I think it would be... no loss of ships because of an insurmountable advantage, (more on that later) then it would not be a waste of resources at all. Remember, the GA is not even aware of what is happening and that they are in a war. And when they do, it isn't like those many hyper-raiders cannot be re-tasked for an assault on major systems when the time comes. Or that they cannot undertake a more traditional task or attacks on commerce in-system.

It seems like that they can't. Those are likely to be very small ships. A GA system with a LAC screen can probably take on them.

To be able to retask them to attack a system with a LAC screen, they'd have to be at least cruiser-sized, which makes the proposition even less feasible.

Do consider that during the opening phase of war on major systems, spider-drive ships do not have to sneak in. Let the MBS see the many faint ghost images all over the system. LOL It will not be anything like seeing a plethora of hyper footprints created by wedges where there is no danger of losing track of a single one of them.

"Sneaking in" implies being able to be away from the point of emergence when a drone (or a missile) arrives to take a look. The problem is not the fact that the hyper footprint is seen -- the ones for Oyster Bay were. If you arrive within a few light-hours in any Tier 1 or 2 system, the ready squadron can be on you in less than half an hour. 30 min @ 210 gravities gives you 11 light-seconds displacement, which is more than the known range for detecting a spider ship (1 ls), but the defenders are likely going to deploy a lot of recon drones at this emergence point.

They're not going to find all ships... but the law of averages says they are going to find many and take them out. That gives the defenders access to the MAN technology (stealth and spider drive). This is not the best way to start the war.

P.S. I forgot to add that those newer systems will be receiving a lot more freighters than usual. They are under the mighty Manty wing and there's a need for a lot of goods. The commerce raiding strategy will also include yachts and anything else. We are talking about the MA.

Why would the MAN dedicate a warship to take out a yacht that places them out of play for weeks at a time?

Or are you no longer suggesting the hyperspace raider strategy?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:"Sneaking in" implies being able to be away from the point of emergence when a drone (or a missile) arrives to take a look. The problem is not the fact that the hyper footprint is seen -- the ones for Oyster Bay were. If you arrive within a few light-hours in any Tier 1 or 2 system, the ready squadron can be on you in less than half an hour. 30 min @ 210 gravities gives you 11 light-seconds displacement, which is more than the known range for detecting a spider ship (1 ls), but the defenders are likely going to deploy a lot of recon drones at this emergence point.

They're not going to find all ships... but the law of averages says they are going to find many and take them out. That gives the defenders access to the MAN technology (stealth and spider drive). This is not the best way to start the war.

Generally agree, but two quibbles.
1) At that point the hyper-raider would be outside the hyper limit and half an hour is plenty of time for a small ship's hyper generator to recharge. So often if their location appears to be discovered they'll escape away into hyper -- so they'll lose time having to reattempt the insertion later; but maybe not as so many ships.

Still, not all ships will successfully escape, there's a delay (varying by ship size, but even a tiny DB has 30 seconds) between when you hit the button and when translation into hyper actually happens and sometimes there won't be time between realizing you've been detected and when the weapons hit to successfully escape
Though I'm sure there will also be captains who misjudge and eject when they weren't actually detected.

2) Penny also alluded to these raiders possibly playing kzt's favorite trick, instead of sneaking in by emerging at long range pretending to be a sensor ghost and sneaking well away from their emergence before reaction forces can show up to investigate; several units hop in and out of hyper repeatedly much closer in to generate more emergence flairs than can be investigated.
This has some downsides -- they're sure someone's there, as there's no possibility of mistaking this for a sensor ghost; you need extra ships involved that don't stay, so the ships that do stay aren't near the final emergence flares. Some of your ships may be unlucky and have reaction forces pick their actual final emergence to investigate; forcing them to attempt to flee and either rejoin the skipping around or bail entirely. But it potentially lets you get ships in place within a high-tier system without spending months in normal space on each insertion.

Jonathan_S wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:"Sneaking in" implies being able to be away from the point of emergence when a drone (or a missile) arrives to take a look. The problem is not the fact that the hyper footprint is seen -- the ones for Oyster Bay were. If you arrive within a few light-hours in any Tier 1 or 2 system, the ready squadron can be on you in less than half an hour. 30 min @ 210 gravities gives you 11 light-seconds displacement, which is more than the known range for detecting a spider ship (1 ls), but the defenders are likely going to deploy a lot of recon drones at this emergence point.

They're not going to find all ships... but the law of averages says they are going to find many and take them out. That gives the defenders access to the MAN technology (stealth and spider drive). This is not the best way to start the war.

Generally agree, but two quibbles.
1) At that point the hyper-raider would be outside the hyper limit and half an hour is plenty of time for a small ship's hyper generator to recharge. So often if their location appears to be discovered they'll escape away into hyper -- so they'll lose time having to reattempt the insertion later; but maybe not as so many ships.

Still, not all ships will successfully escape, there's a delay (varying by ship size, but even a tiny DB has 30 seconds) between when you hit the button and when translation into hyper actually happens and sometimes there won't be time between realizing you've been detected and when the weapons hit to successfully escape
Though I'm sure there will also be captains who misjudge and eject when they weren't actually detected.

2) Penny also alluded to these raiders possibly playing kzt's favorite trick, instead of sneaking in by emerging at long range pretending to be a sensor ghost and sneaking well away from their emergence before reaction forces can show up to investigate; several units hop in and out of hyper repeatedly much closer in to generate more emergence flairs than can be investigated.
This has some downsides -- they're sure someone's there, as there's no possibility of mistaking this for a sensor ghost; you need extra ships involved that don't stay, so the ships that do stay aren't near the final emergence flares. Some of your ships may be unlucky and have reaction forces pick their actual final emergence to investigate; forcing them to attempt to flee and either rejoin the skipping around or bail entirely. But it potentially lets you get ships in place within a high-tier system without spending months in normal space on each insertion.

Yes, I do like kzt's tactic performed weeks or months before the real battle begins.

But on top of that, afterwards during a full-scale invasion with a brand new enemy represented by the RFN barreling down on you, that is when these new purpose built ships play their real game. That would draw LACs away from the real battle. If the RMN can even spare the LACs. And how can LACs be sent to investigate so many ghost images during the heat of battle. And even if the repurposed hyper raiders remain, remember they cannot be readily seen because they are stealthy. Drones will be shot down alerting the RMN that something is definitely out there. But these raiders have deposited little toys, and the 1-3 second firing ship mounted energy weapons will make short work out of the few LACs that can be spared and spread out to chase so many ghosts.

In the face of a full scale invasion by the MAN and the RFN's ships hypering in, I doubt the RMN would have the time or resources to investigate ghost images happening all over the system at the same time so many impeller signatures are hypering in.

In summary, during a full scale invasion spider-drive ships don't really need to worry about prolonged insertions.

penny wrote:But on top of that, afterwards during a full-scale invasion with a brand new enemy represented by the RFN barreling down on you, that is when these new purpose built ships play their real game. That would draw LACs away from the real battle. If the RMN can even spare the LACs. And how can LACs be sent to investigate so many ghost images during the heat of battle. And even if the repurposed hyper raiders remain, remember they cannot be readily seen because they are stealthy. Drones will be shot down alerting the RMN that something is definitely out there. But these raiders have deposited little toys, and the 1-3 second firing ship mounted energy weapons will make short work out of the few LACs that can be spared and spread out to chase so many ghosts.

In the face of a full scale invasion by the MAN and the RFN's ships hypering in, I doubt the RMN would have the time or resources to investigate ghost images happening all over the system at the same time so many impeller signatures are hypering in.

In summary, during a full scale invasion spider-drive ships don't really need to worry about prolonged insertions.

I am curious then on how you see the Renaissance Factor now? In the original plan, the Haven Sector would fight the Solarian League and both would fall to pieces; which would be peacefully swept up by the neutral worlds of the Renaissance Factor, who offered security in a galaxy gone mad.

But here you are suggesting that the forces of the Renaissance Factor will be just another fleet in a galaxy wide conquest by the Malign, who have stopped pretending that their military threat ended with Galton's conquest.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
It seems like that they can't. Those are likely to be very small ships. A GA system with a LAC screen can probably take on them.

To be able to retask them to attack a system with a LAC screen, they'd have to be at least cruiser-sized, which makes the proposition even less feasible.

To add - the Mesan navy in 1922 during the invasion said their intel stated that a GA LAC (they didn't state which model) had the combat power of a Mesan Light Cruiser. We can assume that Mesa had a good baseline of conventional hardware for the rest of the RF navies. The standard Manty LAC patrol for a system was 2 wings (~212 ships). That's alot of Light cruisers. Not to mention they usually have system Pods to back them up, as well as hyper forces.

penny wrote:Yes, I do like kzt's tactic performed weeks or months before the real battle begins.

But on top of that, afterwards during a full-scale invasion with a brand new enemy represented by the RFN barreling down on you, that is when these new purpose built ships play their real game. That would draw LACs away from the real battle. If the RMN can even spare the LACs. And how can LACs be sent to investigate so many ghost images during the heat of battle. And even if the repurposed hyper raiders remain, remember they cannot be readily seen because they are stealthy. Drones will be shot down alerting the RMN that something is definitely out there. But these raiders have deposited little toys, and the 1-3 second firing ship mounted energy weapons will make short work out of the few LACs that can be spared and spread out to chase so many ghosts.

In the face of a full scale invasion by the MAN and the RFN's ships hypering in, I doubt the RMN would have the time or resources to investigate ghost images happening all over the system at the same time so many impeller signatures are hypering in.

In summary, during a full scale invasion spider-drive ships don't really need to worry about prolonged insertions.

I'll remind you that the 3 second grasers are specifically noted as being significantly less powerful than the spinal graser of a Shrike.

It fires for longer, but its overall power is less. (So it'll slice better against unarmored targets, but it don't do the same level of damage to an armored or sidewall protected one in 3 seconds as the Shrike does in (presumably) less than one)

Ships armed with some non self-destructing variant of them (if such a thing can be built) can still hurt or kill LACs -- but getting into an energy range fight with LACs that have more powerful weapons, and are sidewall/bowwall protected, isn't going to be fun. If you don't kill the LAC before it (or its friends) can respond you're likely to have a very bad, if mercifully short, day.



But yes, a full scale invasion would nicely distract from any raiders you wanted to slip in. (But that invasion fleet better be a hell of a lot tougher than Galton's defenses, much less it's fleet, were -- or they better be set up as a pure decoy with time for their hyper generators to recover and them to flee before the system defenses get them)

Theemile wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
It seems like that they can't. Those are likely to be very small ships. A GA system with a LAC screen can probably take on them.

To be able to retask them to attack a system with a LAC screen, they'd have to be at least cruiser-sized, which makes the proposition even less feasible.

To add - the Mesan navy in 1922 during the invasion said their intel stated that a GA LAC (they didn't state which model) had the combat power of a Mesan Light Cruiser. We can assume that Mesa had a good baseline of conventional hardware for the rest of the RF navies. The standard Manty LAC patrol for a system was 2 wings (~212 ships). That's alot of Light cruisers. Not to mention they usually have system Pods to back them up, as well as hyper forces.

Now that is shocking! But I think it might be a bit misleading, and I don't think it really applies here. The RMN does not have an unlimited supply of LACs. And even the large navies of the RMN and the RHN had limited resources and they had to pick what systems would get the largest contingency of ships. Graded by their importance (or political pressure I presume, since Basilisk Station was inadequately protected) most systems will have limited pickets. The MAN will simply pick systems that are least defended.

At any rate, hyper warfare does not include attacking systems directly. All the firepower in-system that has to remain in-system will be useless against hyper warfare.

.

Jonathan_S wrote:

penny wrote:Yes, I do like kzt's tactic performed weeks or months before the real battle begins.

But on top of that, afterwards during a full-scale invasion with a brand new enemy represented by the RFN barreling down on you, that is when these new purpose built ships play their real game. That would draw LACs away from the real battle. If the RMN can even spare the LACs. And how can LACs be sent to investigate so many ghost images during the heat of battle. And even if the repurposed hyper raiders remain, remember they cannot be readily seen because they are stealthy. Drones will be shot down alerting the RMN that something is definitely out there. But these raiders have deposited little toys, and the 1-3 second firing ship mounted energy weapons will make short work out of the few LACs that can be spared and spread out to chase so many ghosts.

In the face of a full scale invasion by the MAN and the RFN's ships hypering in, I doubt the RMN would have the time or resources to investigate ghost images happening all over the system at the same time so many impeller signatures are hypering in.

In summary, during a full scale invasion spider-drive ships don't really need to worry about prolonged insertions.

I'll remind you that the 3 second grasers are specifically noted as being significantly less powerful than the spinal graser of a Shrike.

It fires for longer, but its overall power is less. (So it'll slice better against unarmored targets, but it don't do the same level of damage to an armored or sidewall protected one in 3 seconds as the Shrike does in (presumably) less than one)

Ships armed with some non self-destructing variant of them (if such a thing can be built) can still hurt or kill LACs -- but getting into an energy range fight with LACs that have more powerful weapons, and are sidewall/bowwall protected, isn't going to be fun. If you don't kill the LAC before it (or its friends) can respond you're likely to have a very bad, if mercifully short, day.



But yes, a full scale invasion would nicely distract from any raiders you wanted to slip in. (But that invasion fleet better be a hell of a lot tougher than Galton's defenses, much less it's fleet, were -- or they better be set up as a pure decoy with time for their hyper generators to recover and them to flee before the system defenses get them)

I remember that discussion. I still reserve my vote even pending clarity of that statement. I am not certain that sidewalls can even withstand the spinal graser of a shrike if fired for 3-seconds.

But do consider that we are talking about a ship mounted version that should be much more powerful, and does not need to self-destruct for security.

I simply see a major difference between a powerful LAC mounted version of a capital ship's energy weapon than a powerful ship mounted version of a 3-second firing g-torp. A g-torp that could use a better energy source.

Late edit:

Keeping with the gist of this thread, imagine the GA getting their hands on the research that would enable their energy weapons to fire for 3-seconds.

What is the duration for capital ship energy weapons anyway? Anyone know?

penny wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:I'll remind you that the 3 second grasers are specifically noted as being significantly less powerful than the spinal graser of a Shrike.

It fires for longer, but its overall power is less. (So it'll slice better against unarmored targets, but it don't do the same level of damage to an armored or sidewall protected one in 3 seconds as the Shrike does in (presumably) less than one)

Ships armed with some non self-destructing variant of them (if such a thing can be built) can still hurt or kill LACs -- but getting into an energy range fight with LACs that have more powerful weapons, and are sidewall/bowwall protected, isn't going to be fun. If you don't kill the LAC before it (or its friends) can respond you're likely to have a very bad, if mercifully short, day.



But yes, a full scale invasion would nicely distract from any raiders you wanted to slip in. (But that invasion fleet better be a hell of a lot tougher than Galton's defenses, much less it's fleet, were -- or they better be set up as a pure decoy with time for their hyper generators to recover and them to flee before the system defenses get them)

I remember that discussion. I still reserve my vote even pending clarity of that statement. I am not certain that sidewalls can even withstand the spinal graser of a shrike if fired for 3-seconds.

The text seems very clear on this

Mission of Honor wrote:The power of the torpedo’s graser wasn’t remotely comparable to that of the weapon mounted by current-generation Shrikes, yet it was more powerful than any single bomb-pumped laser head.

Mission of Honor wrote:a bomb-pulsed laser had a burst endurance of barely five thousandths of a second; a laser torpedo’s graser’s endurance was a full three seconds ... and it had a burn-through range against most sidewalls of over fifty thousand kilometers.

Mind you, a modern RMN laser-head also had a sidewall burh-through range of 50,000 km - so nearly as far. That's thanks to the improved grav lensing, such as went into the Mk16G missiles; boosting the burn-through range from 30,000 km to 50,000 km.

Note, as a comparison, a ship's energy mount is expected to achieve burn-through at range's around a full order of magnitude more -- at about 500,000 km! (Now if you're talking about a DD or even a BC graser against a waller's sidewall you'll need to be a bit closer to have much effect; but still the Shrike should be able to burn-through an SD's sidewall at 7-8 times the range a graser-torp can.

But yes, if the MAlign solved the melting itself down problem for shipboard use they could presumably also scale it up to approach BC grade like the Shrike's graser.

On the other hand RFC's energy weapons are strongly affected by range. That's why laser-heads (or the graser torp) which are so vastly weaker than a shipboard mount can still hurt enemy ships -- the shipboard weapons are normally firing at the far longer ranges mentioned and so much of their effect seems to vanish along the way. A graser torp firing from 50,000 km is likely doing about as much damage as a shot from a Shrike firing from 400,000 km; despite being (in the words of the author) not even "remotely comparable to" the Shrike's graser.

So a shipboard version of the 3 second graser, if and when such a thing could be built, is also likely have to be used from longer ranges than the g-torp fires -- which will offset much of any increase in power in that mount.