Insanity: Screening elements in the HV

penny wrote:I only mentioned it because the appropriate characters involved in The New Tuscany Incident(?) said that there was no detected energy weapon that caused the destruction of the space station; Giselle? IINM.

tlb wrote:That is because the explosion of the space station Giselle was the result of an internal nuclear device, not a beam weapon.

Jonathan_S wrote:I think it's more specifically relevant that the SLN flagship's CIC was making their determination based on recognizing the weapons signature of a contact nuclear explosion; rather than making it on eliminating the possibility of energy weapons fire.

If, instead, they'd said 'it's couldn't be the Manties, we saw no missile nor any energy weapons fire' then Penny might have a stronger case. Phrased that way it would be clear that the SLN CIC was confident they would have seen energy fire and ruled the Manties out on lack of that evidence. (And thus support Penny's belief that energy weapons fire is more traceable than spider emitter tractors)

But as actually written they don't seem to have even needed to consider energy weapons fire. They saw a nuclear explosion and so whether or not energy fire might be detectable was moot; they already knew it wasn't caused by energy fire.

So this incident actually provides no evidence one way or the other for how stealthy graser fire might be.

There are completely different signatures between an internal explosion, an external explosion and the strike of an energy beam weapon. Nuclear explosions have byproducts that are not the result of electro-magnetic energy beams.

If the destruction is due to an internal explosion, then slow motion will show the sides breaking out and releasing the internal plasma.

If the destruction is due to an external contact explosion, then obviously the blast is first visible and then the pressure exerted on the structure will cause it to break up. If the missile buries itself first, then the impact followed by the explosion will show.

If the destruction is due to an energy beam, then the first images will be of the beam converting the impact point to plasma and digging its way in. The initial effects are highly visible, but much more confined than an explosion.

If I have any of this wrong, I am sure there will be corrections presented.

Theemile wrote:

The grav lance is the ship's impeller wedge which has been focused to generate the gravitic equivalent of an old row galley's ram. It cannot be generated without an impeller wedge and, just to knock this notion on the head one more time, as well, it cannot be generated by a LAC because there's no place to put the generators. So unless your cruiser-sized (or larger) spider drive ship wants to pull up within less than 100,000 km of its target, turn off its spider drive, and power up an impeller wedge (which, among other things, means it has to be equipped with both the spider and impeller nodes), this is not going to happen.

And I leave it to you to figure out what would happen during the 40 minutes or so it would take for the aforesaid spider drive ship to turn off it's spider, turn on it nodes, and cycle them from cold, through standy, to readiness, and then active. Complete cycle could be a little less than 40 minuites --- haven't checked my notes --- but not a heck of a lot less.

Can we please retire brilliant attempts to recycle a thoroughly dead end bit of technology now?


"Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as Piglet came back from the dead.

On this front I have always wondered if you could take a cruiser hull, rip literally everything out of it except for the Grav-lance, and use it as a LAC-sized torpedo. A RFSIT if you will. (Really Fucking Stupid and Impractical Torpedo)

The only reason I think this might be possible is because of this -

Hell, you probably couldn't fit it into a LAC, if you were going to have anything like, oh, say a crew on board, much less sidewall generators, EW, or point defense!

- which indicates that if you didnt mount those, you could.

Do I just want torpedo bombers in the HV?

maybe

give me my LACs carrying torpedoes, damnit

Jonathan_S wrote:

tlb wrote:That is because the explosion of the space station Giselle was the result of an internal nuclear device, not a beam weapon.

I think it's more specifically relevant that the SLN flagship's CIC was making their determination based on recognizing the weapons signature of a contact nuclear explosion; rather than making it on eliminating the possibility of energy weapons fire.

If, instead, they'd said 'it's couldn't be the Manties, we saw no missile nor any energy weapons fire' then Penny might have a stronger case. Phrased that way it would be clear that the SLN CIC was confident they would have seen energy fire and ruled the Manties out on lack of that evidence. (And thus support Penny's belief that energy weapons fire is more traceable than spider emitter tractors)

But as actually written they don't seem to have even needed to consider energy weapons fire. They saw a nuclear explosion and so whether or not energy fire might be detectable was moot; they already knew it wasn't caused by energy fire.

So this incident actually provides no evidence one way or the other for how stealthy graser fire might be.

Any beam is going to have reflectivity and cause out-spalling when it hits the surface of the target - As described in IFF, armor is made of microscopic layers of reflective, ablative and hardened materials, reflecting the beam, absorbing energy, and cooking off. Any beam strike will visible by the action on the target surface and the material ejected from the target surface, as well as the reflected/difracted rays. It's more an after image of the strike, than a glimpse of the beam itself.

Zendikarofthewest wrote:On this front I have always wondered if you could take a cruiser hull, rip literally everything out of it except for the Grav-lance, and use it as a LAC-sized torpedo. A RFSIT if you will. (Really Fucking Stupid and Impractical Torpedo)

The only reason I think this might be possible is because of this -

Hell, you probably couldn't fit it into a LAC, if you were going to have anything like, oh, say a crew on board, much less sidewall generators, EW, or point defense!

- which indicates that if you didnt mount those, you could.

Do I just want torpedo bombers in the HV?

maybe

give me my LACs carrying torpedoes, damnit

And this is why for a long while the Grav Lance was nicknamed The Weapon That Shall Not Be Named TWTSNBN.

No. It can't be shrunk like that.
And yes, it's been argued over here for literally years until RFC expressed a wish that he'd never included it in the books


A light cruiser (or a modern big destroyer) is the smallest thing to mount a powerful enough drive to power the lance. Stripping out the rest of the internals doesn't let you significantly shrink the ship -- not if you want to keep the same drive power. And you need drive power for the lance to work -- it's basically an (very large) engineering system that extends a spur off the wedge to impact the target's sidewall.

A weaker wedge (such as a LACs) won't have enough power for such a spur to disrupt a target warship's sidewalls -- not that you could fit the enormous grav lance hardware into a LAC. Squeezing it into a light cruiser costs it most of its magazines and broadside.

(And given how much more recon and LAC screen a modern fleet has, and how much combat range has improved, sneaking an impeller powered ship the size of a modern destroyer to within a quarter million km of a worthwhile target is vanishingly unlikely. (And it's chances of escaping the wrathful consorts who can keep it until missile for for upwards of 60 million km means its chances of surviving even if it did are basically zero)

Just not going to happen!

Theemile wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:I think it's more specifically relevant that the SLN flagship's CIC was making their determination based on recognizing the weapons signature of a contact nuclear explosion; rather than making it on eliminating the possibility of energy weapons fire.

If, instead, they'd said 'it's couldn't be the Manties, we saw no missile nor any energy weapons fire' then Penny might have a stronger case. Phrased that way it would be clear that the SLN CIC was confident they would have seen energy fire and ruled the Manties out on lack of that evidence. (And thus support Penny's belief that energy weapons fire is more traceable than spider emitter tractors)

But as actually written they don't seem to have even needed to consider energy weapons fire. They saw a nuclear explosion and so whether or not energy fire might be detectable was moot; they already knew it wasn't caused by energy fire.

So this incident actually provides no evidence one way or the other for how stealthy graser fire might be.

Any beam is going to have reflectivity and cause out-spalling when it hits the surface of the target - As described in IFF, armor is made of microscopic layers of reflective, ablative and hardened materials, reflecting the beam, absorbing energy, and cooking off. Any beam strike will visible by the action on the target surface and the material ejected from the target surface, as well as the reflected/difracted rays. It's more an after image of the strike, than a glimpse of the beam itself.

True. I was just trying to point out that none of that visible signature of a graser strike appears to be part of CICs analysis in the Saltash incident. They didn't have to rule out an energy weapon because it was self-evidently an internal nuclear explosion.

But I do agree that if a graser hits a warship anybody with a good look is going to be able to tell it was an energy weapon hit and not some other kind of weapon. (Well, I suppose a laserhead's impact might look similar; but you'd have the big 'flash' of the nuke going off nearby to clue you in that it came from a laserhead not a shipbord energy mount)

How visible an energy weapon that misses might be could be a bit of a different question. It should still cause some effects; and it hits space dust, micrometiorites, and the like, but they might not be easily noticeable.

And if a meter wide energy weapon beam hits something as relatively small as a recon drone you might not be so easily able to see the kind of ejecta and beam scattering you'd see for it hitting a big warship's armor. So I'm not sure how different it would look if a GR drone got swatted by a spider emitter or a graser.
Either way you'd see the drone vaporize (rupturing it's microfusion power plant is enough to ensure that) -- but the damage might be so overwhemling it might be hard to pick a specific weapon signature out of it.

Jonathan_S wrote:And this is why for a long while the Grav Lance was nicknamed The Weapon That Shall Not Be Named TWTSNBN.

No. It can't be shrunk like that.
And yes, it's been argued over here for literally years until RFC expressed a wish that he'd never included it in the books


A light cruiser (or a modern big destroyer) is the smallest thing to mount a powerful enough drive to power the lance. Stripping out the rest of the internals doesn't let you significantly shrink the ship -- not if you want to keep the same drive power. And you need drive power for the lance to work -- it's basically an (very large) engineering system that extends a spur off the wedge to impact the target's sidewall.

A weaker wedge (such as a LACs) won't have enough power for such a spur to disrupt a target warship's sidewalls -- not that you could fit the enormous grav lance hardware into a LAC. Squeezing it into a light cruiser costs it most of its magazines and broadside.

(And given how much more recon and LAC screen a modern fleet has, and how much combat range has improved, sneaking an impeller powered ship the size of a modern destroyer to within a quarter million km of a worthwhile target is vanishingly unlikely. (And it's chances of escaping the wrathful consorts who can keep it until missile for for upwards of 60 million km means its chances of surviving even if it did are basically zero)

Just not going to happen!

To add - This is all covered in the Dead Horses post - I recommend reading those.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Theemile wrote:
Any beam is going to have reflectivity and cause out-spalling when it hits the surface of the target - As described in IFF, armor is made of microscopic layers of reflective, ablative and hardened materials, reflecting the beam, absorbing energy, and cooking off. Any beam strike will visible by the action on the target surface and the material ejected from the target surface, as well as the reflected/difracted rays. It's more an after image of the strike, than a glimpse of the beam itself.

True. I was just trying to point out that none of that visible signature of a graser strike appears to be part of CICs analysis in the Saltash incident. They didn't have to rule out an energy weapon because it was self-evidently an internal nuclear explosion.

But I do agree that if a graser hits a warship anybody with a good look is going to be able to tell it was an energy weapon hit and not some other kind of weapon. (Well, I suppose a laserhead's impact might look similar; but you'd have the big 'flash' of the nuke going off nearby to clue you in that it came from a laserhead not a shipbord energy mount)

How visible an energy weapon that misses might be could be a bit of a different question. It should still cause some effects; and it hits space dust, micrometiorites, and the like, but they might not be easily noticeable.

And if a meter wide energy weapon beam hits something as relatively small as a recon drone you might not be so easily able to see the kind of ejecta and beam scattering you'd see for it hitting a big warship's armor. So I'm not sure how different it would look if a GR drone got swatted by a spider emitter or a graser.
Either way you'd see the drone vaporize (rupturing it's microfusion power plant is enough to ensure that) -- but the damage might be so overwhemling it might be hard to pick a specific weapon signature out of it.

The initial beam will reflect off the outer armor, and each type of beam does have specific frequencies which should identify it. Whether the reflected beam is obscured by the larger explosion or is strong enough to be visible at a distance is a different question.

Jonathan_S wrote:And this is why for a long while the Grav Lance was nicknamed The Weapon That Shall Not Be Named TWTSNBN.

No. It can't be shrunk like that.
And yes, it's been argued over here for literally years until RFC expressed a wish that he'd never included it in the books


A light cruiser (or a modern big destroyer) is the smallest thing to mount a powerful enough drive to power the lance. Stripping out the rest of the internals doesn't let you significantly shrink the ship -- not if you want to keep the same drive power. And you need drive power for the lance to work -- it's basically an (very large) engineering system that extends a spur off the wedge to impact the target's sidewall.

A weaker wedge (such as a LACs) won't have enough power for such a spur to disrupt a target warship's sidewalls -- not that you could fit the enormous grav lance hardware into a LAC. Squeezing it into a light cruiser costs it most of its magazines and broadside.

(And given how much more recon and LAC screen a modern fleet has, and how much combat range has improved, sneaking an impeller powered ship the size of a modern destroyer to within a quarter million km of a worthwhile target is vanishingly unlikely. (And it's chances of escaping the wrathful consorts who can keep it until missile for for upwards of 60 million km means its chances of surviving even if it did are basically zero)

Just not going to happen!

Sadge. Maybe a graser torpedo on crack then, stuffing as powerful an impeller and warhead onto it. I know it aint practical, but haha funny torpedo bomber

Zendikarofthewest wrote:Sadge. Maybe a graser torpedo on crack then, stuffing as powerful an impeller and warhead onto it. I know it aint practical, but haha funny torpedo bomber

If you are just making these suggestions for laughs, then put them in the Honorverse Humor thread where the rest of us do not have to see them.

tlb wrote:If you are just making these suggestions for laughs, then put them in the Honorverse Humor thread where the rest of us do not have to see them.

Most of it isnt - I genuinely think some of their R&D divisions would look into miniaturizing grasers - but its overall impractical. Doesnt mean it might not be developed, especially by smaller powers eager to find some sort of level playing field.