?

tlb wrote:It was indirectly a military one, in the sense that it required a war between the two biggest navies in the galaxy, but one that the Renaissance Factor would not be expected to participate in. One wonders if the LD class was intended to slyly assist in shattering the political structures of the two combatants, to help create those remnants which would then opt for neutrality.

It most definitely wasn't, because no one at that time had envisioned the possibility of a spider drive. In the original plan, the havoc to be caused was to be caused using the Galton Navy.

The spider came out of the left field. Clearly the Plan must have got a major revision since the spider was perfected, because there was no call for a monitor-sized torpedo launcher ship. They slotted in its abilities into something a major stealth ship could do.

Which would logically lead to the conclusion that the MAN was not designed to be big at all. Maybe the LDs are exactly what they seem: fragile eggs with one or maybe two possible mission profiles in them. The MAlign has not had sufficient time to adjust to the revolutionary war-fighting technology coming out of the Haven Sector, the invention of the spider, and the loss of Galton. That would mean the only thing the MAlign can do now is pull their horns in and stay hidden for half a century, reevaluating the Plan, and building whatever they need.

Except I don't think that's it or what is going to happen.

penny wrote:<snip>


The only part I knew was being able to use their missile tubes. I thought they'd be able to accomplish mostly everything else on the outside. Like attaching the 3-second graser. And even though it wouldn't be a pod layer, I thought they could affix pods of g-torps to the outside. And they can always limpet pods inside the wedge like the older days for massive Alpha launches. And their revolutionary approach to CMs might be able to eat Manty launches for awhile. They won't be working alone. They do have their own modern wallers, plus the MAN's LDs raising hell as well. And the hyper raiders too. Dunno how they'd solve the accel problem or missile range though.

The 3 second graser will never be shipborn. It only works by taking a very small graser, removing all the safety equipment, adding the biggest power conduit the device could handle, and slapping on all the extra cooling hardware you can find, and deliberately running it until it explodes. Literally... explodes. To use Musk Terms - A Rapid EXPECTED Disassembly.

This is the Honorverse equivalent of taking a gunpowder cannon and stuffing 5-10x the normal powder charge for each shot and firing it as fast as you can load it without swabbing the barrel between shots, over and over again until the gun fails - catastrophically.

Even running the graser for a fraction of that time would severely damage it's components to the point where a second shot couldn't be guaranteed in a tactical scenario, let alone could permanently damage the emitter and power handling hardware to the point where the mount requires a complete replacement after that single firing. And if somehow you could manage to fire 2 shots, you definitely aren't doing a 3rd.

And as mentioned upstream, the 3 sec Graser was most effective against un-armored targets. Against Armored targets (Like any Warship from CA up) a standard Shrike Spinal Graser (150mm Graser with upgraded grav lenses) is much more effective.

penny wrote:What about for defense? I can never remember if a wedge is needed for a bubblewall or sidewall. I was thinking for quite some time that in an emergency no other alternative scenario, an LD can pull in its horns like a turtle and become like an impenetrable fort???

Regular sidewalls need wedges.
Bubble sidewalls do not.
Forts are not impenetrable.

But if a LD want to devote the apparently considerable internal volume needed for a bubble sidewall generator then in an emergency it could throw it up to improve its survivability.

However, the sidewall itself is visible at decent range to FTL grav sensors.
And RFC has said that you can't use a spider drive while a bubble sidewall is active.
So the emergency would have to justify abandoning stealth and hobbling yourself so you can't run away.

(And enough laser-heads can kill right through any sidewall, even a bubble sidewall. The bubble doesn't have vulnerable opening like a ship's throat or kilt; but it's not significantly tougher for a weapon to penetrate than the regular sidewall of an SD)

I concur with the statement that the RF was supposed to be a refuge cover for systems either diving out to the SL or those who wanted to stay out of the -when it erupted- the clash between what was supposed to Haven and the SL

Also concur that while the MSDF is largish for most single systems, it does have a wormhole terminus to defend and nobody who was going to be aiding them (that we know of) from existing systems in the area. Much of what we were shown of the MSDF leadership is essentially a secret society within the MSDF made of up Alphas. What we were shown- not actually that much described- was that the MSDF appears to be made up of ships that are to whatever level they could get using licensed SLN or at least SL tech and I don't recall that they were building any warships themselves. The could relatively easily buy almost-SLN tech ships from Technocyne, particularly since they had friends in lots of places greasing the ways for them.

Nobody was going to fight the SLN. The Alignment plan was for Haven to come into conflict with the SL and that quickly degenerate into an all-out war between the League and Haven. We saw this demonstrated with what happened when the Line terminus was discovered and THE ALIGHMENT -and of course their Mesan lackis and involved transtellars- were confronted with the probability of not only PRH getting defeated by Manticore and the Manticore Alliance but Mesa would shortly encounter it's major fear, that Manticore would decide to deal decisively with genetic slavery at it's precievd source. The RF was activated because Albrect et al was convinced they were coming into the end-game portion (at least shattering the SL) and the RF needed to start forming to become a palatable choice for those looking to get out from the problem that was going to happen with the corrupt SL and it's bureaucracy. Office of Frontier Security was little more than a legalized bunch of extrortionests withe Frontier Fleet as their enforcers

We have been told that Oyster Bay as a massively early rendition of what was supposed to happen much later, probably at the point just before or just after the SL and Haven actually went to war. What was essentially stated was that since the Alignment didn't have the Navy it wanted to do what was needed to take all the targets -for the original plan- then the "test bed" ships would be used in the maximum strikes to take Manticore (and Grayson) down and let Haven take over Manticore. The intent appeared to be to let OFS do what it wanted out in Talbott since it had now become much more valuable with the Lynx terminus but let PRH rebuild itself and use the Manticoreian tech to go after expansion into the League space. Right up to that point, the expectation seemed to be that with Haven holding Manticore (and Grayson) with firm control of the Junction there wasn't going to be a realistic opportunity for the SL to grab the Junction but it would have Lynx and there was a pressure point with Beowulf to cooperate on lowerd transit fees etc.

Now, the RF still has to play the role of sheltering alliance for systems -at least those relatively near it- breaking off from the League and those independent systems fearing the rise of piracy or expansionist neighbors without at least the threat of the involvement of the SLN when OFS arrived to "help/rescue/annex" the system with problems.

Particularly that now the Alignment is spoken of openly and is seen as "a bad thing" the RF can't show up having what is also branded Alignmente tech and tactics.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Note I wasn't talking about sending LACs from the inner system to investigate. In a Tier 1 or 2 system, a hyper emergence a light-hour or so out is investigated by the ready squadron of destroyers, because they are hypercapable ships. And because they are, they can follow the raider through hyperspace. Hopefully given the absurdly short distance they'd arrive at, they can even see the translation upwards and follow, just like the hyper-raider idea itself. So this tactic has again the danger of being used on itself.

Even if they can't see the translation upwards, they will see the new hyper emergence or be told about it via FTL comms. At this point, the DDs have an acceleration advantage in hyper and top speed does not matter. And if the hyper-raider is the size of a cruiser, it takes even longer to translate than the destroyers, which means they would close the gap every time they really tried to insert (as opposed to translating in, recharging and translating out before the destroyers come to investigate).

Though if the Spider ship flees into hyper as soon as the destroyers arrive they won't be able to immediately follow.

They'll have discharged their hyper generators exiting hyper and so won't be able to use them again for probably 15-20 minutes -- which gives the fleeing ship a good head start.

However if it waits to see if they've spotted it then, yeah, the DD's would have their hyper generators recharged and ready to go and be able to see their target vanish and chase it into hyper. (I think there's still and issue of having to guess which hyper band it chose to translate into -- pick wrong and I think you've got to wait for your hyper generator to recharge again before guessing again. A hyper-raider probably doesn't have to deal with that because if the departing ship doesn't have any reason to think it's there it's likely going to a very predictable hyper band. But in an evasion scenario you might well pick one randomly to increase your chances of breaking contact)

Jonathan_S wrote:However if it waits to see if they've spotted it then, yeah, the DD's would have their hyper generators recharged and ready to go and be able to see their target vanish and chase it into hyper. (I think there's still and issue of having to guess which hyper band it chose to translate into -- pick wrong and I think you've got to wait for your hyper generator to recharge again before guessing again. A hyper-raider probably doesn't have to deal with that because if the departing ship doesn't have any reason to think it's there it's likely going to a very predictable hyper band. But in an evasion scenario you might well pick one randomly to increase your chances of breaking contact)

Oh, I forgot about the recharge time. So the pursuers are always one recharge behind. But that still doesn't allow insertion, because it presumes the raider didn't translate. The situation isn't going to get any better by doing this again and again, except by luck of a draw causing a navigation mistake.

But if the raiders come with (say) 5 ships and make 5 insertions spread out, a regular Tier 2 system may not have enough ready ships to investigate them all. But it will have moved up to alert status in the inner system.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:However if it waits to see if they've spotted it then, yeah, the DD's would have their hyper generators recharged and ready to go and be able to see their target vanish and chase it into hyper. (I think there's still and issue of having to guess which hyper band it chose to translate into -- pick wrong and I think you've got to wait for your hyper generator to recharge again before guessing again. A hyper-raider probably doesn't have to deal with that because if the departing ship doesn't have any reason to think it's there it's likely going to a very predictable hyper band. But in an evasion scenario you might well pick one randomly to increase your chances of breaking contact)

Oh, I forgot about the recharge time. So the pursuers are always one recharge behind. But that still doesn't allow insertion, because it presumes the raider didn't translate. The situation isn't going to get any better by doing this again and again, except by luck of a draw causing a navigation mistake.

But if the raiders come with (say) 5 ships and make 5 insertions spread out, a regular Tier 2 system may not have enough ready ships to investigate them all. But it will have moved up to alert status in the inner system.

I was assuming that the raider would translate down far enough out that the likely response time from any DesRon ready response force would be at least as long as the raider's recharge time.

Meaning by the time anybody was likely to translate in to investigate the raider should be able to immediately start translating out (which also has some dwell time - but its far faster than the full recharge time).


Of course all of this happens faster for smaller ships (and we don't know whether the "brute force" approach taken with the Streak drive affects any of these recharge or dwell times compared to a normal hyper generator)

Jonathan_S wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Note I wasn't talking about sending LACs from the inner system to investigate. In a Tier 1 or 2 system, a hyper emergence a light-hour or so out is investigated by the ready squadron of destroyers, because they are hypercapable ships. And because they are, they can follow the raider through hyperspace. Hopefully given the absurdly short distance they'd arrive at, they can even see the translation upwards and follow, just like the hyper-raider idea itself. So this tactic has again the danger of being used on itself.

Even if they can't see the translation upwards, they will see the new hyper emergence or be told about it via FTL comms. At this point, the DDs have an acceleration advantage in hyper and top speed does not matter. And if the hyper-raider is the size of a cruiser, it takes even longer to translate than the destroyers, which means they would close the gap every time they really tried to insert (as opposed to translating in, recharging and translating out before the destroyers come to investigate).

Though if the Spider ship flees into hyper as soon as the destroyers arrive they won't be able to immediately follow.

They'll have discharged their hyper generators exiting hyper and so won't be able to use them again for probably 15-20 minutes -- which gives the fleeing ship a good head start.

However if it waits to see if they've spotted it then, yeah, the DD's would have their hyper generators recharged and ready to go and be able to see their target vanish and chase it into hyper. (I think there's still and issue of having to guess which hyper band it chose to translate into -- pick wrong and I think you've got to wait for your hyper generator to recharge again before guessing again. A hyper-raider probably doesn't have to deal with that because if the departing ship doesn't have any reason to think it's there it's likely going to a very predictable hyper band. But in an evasion scenario you might well pick one randomly to increase your chances of breaking contact)

Textev? Range necessitates whether an upward translation can be seen?

In my scenario, I was thinking that the hyper raider could see when the prey hypers out because said prey would disappear from the sensors of a raider who is already very close.

If the ready squadron sees the raider it might be because the spider-drive has not been activated. If that is the case, the ready squadron would assume the raider has hypered out after the spider-drive is activated.

But if this is a hyper raider who has tricks up its sleeve, is it really going to run? If it has a 3-second firing energy weapon and has the acceleration advantage because of upgraded screens... and sensors are significantly better, then why would it necessarily run? It is optimized for hyper warfare. I disagree with Theemile on the possibility of a 3-second firing energy weapon. More on that later.

But the spider-drive works in hyper, and the raider has an accel advantage in impeller mode and adequately upgraded sensors. (I'm changing that from marginally or significantly to adequately, more on that below.)*

A raider in hyper with DDs giving a stern chase can simply out accelerate them to the point where their sensor range becomes iffy. The raider then drops pods of stealthy spider-driven g-torps awaiting the DDs to catch up. The DDs will be too busy flexing their muscles and showing off their alleged accel advantage to properly scan for traps. Says the spider to the flies. Bye bye DDs.

Or, a raider could certainly lie doggo in hyper where sensors are even more iffy. Lying doggo in hyper should work even better than lying doggo in n-space. Especially with spider technology. Plus, with the smart paint there will be no eye contact before the engagement. A 3-second firing energy weapon from inside your pajamas is going to roast your nuts. Running into an ambush of mine-like g-torps is going to make a hell of a display of flaming datum.

And do consider that subs work in packs. If when raiders are hypering in their sensor ghosts are too faint to discern the number of ships, and or if the raider is part of a pack and it sees its comrade has to run, the pack can enter hyper ahead of the chase and spin a web, says the spider to the incoming flies!

*Upstream I accused the hyper raiders of enjoying a marginal increase in sensor range. I was thinking that a mere marginal increase in sensor range would be adequate based on the battle of the Mutarra Nebula between Kirk and Khan.

Kirk took his badly wounded ship into the Nebula to level the playing field. Sensors are severely limited in a nebula and it came down to who sees the other first. So, within weapons range I thought in hyper it would come down to who sees the other first.

https://youtu.be/JbL1bD2lRkQ?feature=shared

But!

If the hyper raider is a hybrid, why can't it also have a streak drive where it simply selects a band where the pursuers cannot follow?

.

Theemile,

Nobody in their right mind envisioned a 3-second firing missile. Same as nobody in their right mind envisioned tractors as powerful as the ones found on a spider-drive.

You might prove to be right in the end, but just for clarity, I am not suggesting trying to scale a g-torp up to capital ship size, or use the mechanics of a g-torp to work as a capital ship fired weapon. I am suggesting taking the concept of an extended firing missile and applying that to a prolonged firing ship mounted weapon. Imagine if the GA energy weapons could fire for 3 or even more seconds! Even before the RMN developed better lensing technology, I presume their existent energy weapon would have become just as devastating if not more if it could fire for 3-seconds even without better lensing technology. What could be learned from the concept of the g-torp and applied to capital ship mounted energy weapons? Even if the MAN has to completely scrap the inner workings of the g-torp for a more permanent solution. And who is to say the result won't even exceed the g-torp's 3-seconds!

If you are going to be quick to say it is impossible, ask yourself if you would have believed a 3-second firing missile would have been possible before the MAN showed you it is? In the face of missiles that only fire for mere milliseconds.

In summary. I am not suggesting reengineering the innards of a g-torp and scaling it up. I am talking about borrowing the notion and applying it to a capital ship’s energy weapon. It's okay to abandon the current drawing board and start anew.

It just ain't a bad ass spider if it doesn't have a deadly bite. Especially since flies are always buzzing around not looking where they are going. Spiders and spider web are just so darn hard to see.

P.S. And do note that the MAN is an ambitious lot. They like to think big. A cruiser grade energy weapon? Nah! They are shooting for the moon. Pardon the pun. An LDs energy weapon is as a capital ship mounted energy weapon should be. It just entertains you a bit longer. Ok, more than a bit. Ok, a lot more than a bit.

Like you said, if it is an eggshell, its attacks must be quickly decisive. And if two or three of these things are somehow mounted on an LD and fires simultaneously for several seconds within spider web range... well, escape pods not applicable.

penny wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Though if the Spider ship flees into hyper as soon as the destroyers arrive they won't be able to immediately follow.

They'll have discharged their hyper generators exiting hyper and so won't be able to use them again for probably 15-20 minutes -- which gives the fleeing ship a good head start.

However if it waits to see if they've spotted it then, yeah, the DD's would have their hyper generators recharged and ready to go and be able to see their target vanish and chase it into hyper. (I think there's still and issue of having to guess which hyper band it chose to translate into -- pick wrong and I think you've got to wait for your hyper generator to recharge again before guessing again. A hyper-raider probably doesn't have to deal with that because if the departing ship doesn't have any reason to think it's there it's likely going to a very predictable hyper band. But in an evasion scenario you might well pick one randomly to increase your chances of breaking contact)

Textev? Range necessitates whether an upward translation can be seen?

In my scenario, I was thinking that the hyper raider could see when the prey hypers out because said prey would disappear from the sensors of a raider who is already very close.

I believe that's correct. We're told that the upward hyper translation does not produce a flare in the band (or normal space) you're leaving. (Logically it should create a flare in the band it arrives into -- from the energy/velocity that bled off during the translation. But we have no specific text-ev for that)

So to know they'd translated into hyper I think you'd have to be tracking them and see them disappear. (And if you were only tracking a ship's wedge and it disappeared I don't think you'd know whether they'd translated or just cut its wedge - but if you were tracking the hull itself and it disappeared you'd be pretty confident they'd translated)

penny wrote:If the ready squadron sees the raider it might be because the spider-drive has not been activated. If that is the case, the ready squadron would assume the raider has hypered out after the spider-drive is activated.

Assuming this is a hybrid raider and they were tracking only the wedge, then yes I think that's right. The wedge disappears outside the hyper limit and you have to assume they might have hypered out unless you had some other way to tell it was still there (optical track on the hull, passive sensors seeing its radar or other emissions -- though for those you have to wait out the lightspeed lag to see if they cease when the wedge disappeared).

penny wrote:But if this is a hyper raider who has tricks up its sleeve, is it really going to run? If it has a 3-second firing energy weapon and has the acceleration advantage because of upgraded screens... and sensors are significantly better, then why would it necessarily run? It is optimized for hyper warfare. I disagree with Theemile on the possibility of a 3-second firing energy weapon. More on that later.

But the spider-drive works in hyper, and the raider has an accel advantage in impeller mode and adequately upgraded sensors. (I'm changing that from marginally or significantly to adequately, more on that below.)*

What to upgraded screens have to do with improved acceleration? Acceleration isn't limited by particle/radiation screening -- only top speed is. And top speed only comes into play after hours of acceleration.

Now if the raider is going after a merchantman, then sure, military grade impellers and compensators would give a warship an accel advantage over the commercial grade one a merchant would presumably be carrying. But that's nothing to do with screens; and doesn't give this hyper-raider any acceleration advantage over somebody with military grade drive -- much less somebody with GA improved compensators.

penny wrote:
A raider in hyper with DDs giving a stern chase can simply out accelerate them to the point where their sensor range becomes iffy. The raider then drops pods of stealthy spider-driven g-torps awaiting the DDs to catch up. The DDs will be too busy flexing their muscles and showing off their alleged accel advantage to properly scan for traps. Says the spider to the flies. Bye bye DDs.

Even the LD isn't supposed to be carring pods of g-torps! How big (read: expensive, limited numbers, reduced accel under wedge/sail) do you think this raider is going to be?
Even a (IIRC) 4 mton Shark couldn't carry g-torps internally; and it is a full-up pod layer carrying pods of Cataphracts. (But apparently the g-torp couldn't fit in there)

Penny wrote:If the hyper raider is a hybrid, why can't it also have a streak drive where it simply selects a band where the pursuers cannot follow?

It absolutely could. That does mean it got chased off and needs to sneak back in; but using the Iota or Kappa bands will absolutely break pursuit. (At least until the GA cracks the secret of the streak drive themselves)