pd 1924 - Shape of Beowulf's fleet

Relax wrote:SD as a unit with its ~8M ton limit in the era of FTL controlled missiles is dead. Acceleration requirements are dead. New Grav plates allow 150G, so why bother with the 8Mton limit constraint. Now maybe we just call the "forts" the new SD class. 1 unit does both jobs saving $$$ and logistics.

SDP in current configuration is REALLY dead as soon as the GA nations figure out the MALIGN hyper generator as this is FAR more important than acceleration.

Current tech state of affairs reminds me more along the lines of early Cold War. Lots of surplus ships from previous war and new tech effectively already makes them obsolete.

Jonathan_S wrote:Three issues with just using forts as SD(P)s. (Even after the GA gets their hands on those 150g grav plates)

1) They don't carry hyper generators
2) Their hulls are the wrong shape to carry sails -- optimized for all around spherical fire -- meaning even with a hyper generator they couldn't use wormholes or grav waves
3) In support of that all-around fire optimization they do use up significant internal volume mounting a spherical sidewall generator (something that's not normally tactically useful for an SD)

None of those are to say you couldn't build a monster, say, 16m ton hyper-capable 150g vessel -- but it'd likely be optimized quite differently than your 16m ton forts.

Building a single design to serve both purposes has technical trade-offs and operational issues.
- It's not as good at either role as a purpose built design.
- The new grav plates are bulky and aren't necessarily in a mostly static defensive use like a fort.
- Forts were deliberately built without strategic mobility to preclude temptations to strip those defenses to support operations elsewhere.

The streak drive will be useful for an SD, but not so much for a fort capable of hyperspace travel. The problem is that being limited to gravity plates (even at 150g), once the compensator mass limit is exceeded, means a super heavy ship cannot use the best accelerations that are available in gravity waves.

Would Galton even have had the improved gravity plates, since they were only useful for the spider drive?

PS: The hyperspace capable fort might be more Rugby ball shaped than spherical, but the nodes for the sails could be put on rams to assist in creating the proper geometry.

tlb wrote:The streak drive will be useful for an SD, but not so much for a fort capable of hyperspace travel. The problem is that being limited to gravity plates (even at 150g), once the compensator mass limit is exceeded, means a super heavy ship cannot use the best accelerations that are available in gravity waves.

Would Galton even have had the improved gravity plates, since they were only useful for the spider drive?

Forts (which we saw massive ones at Galton) do require Grav plates for their travel, so advanced plates would allow for better tactical maneuvers in all Forts.

Enough to make it worthwhile?--- <shrug> meh?

The question is - would there be sufficient reason to pour research $$ to invent and develop the advanced plates in a world where the compensator already exists? Or only in one where the Spider Drive requires better plate technology?

In a vacuum, my money would be spent improving the compensator. Even a theoretical breakthrough still requires years of research and product development to make the finding worthwhile. (As anybody deep enough in the industry will attest, for the most part, we're still developing 1930s-50s physics into finished goods and Base Engineering from the 50s through 70s is still being refined in today's products. Yes, new technology is being used, but it takes decades for most concepts to mature to the point where it is a viable product, and then spends more decades slowly refining. There are at least 3-4 Rocket technologies I first heard of in the 80s which are still being developed, are seen as highly viable near-future technologies, but have never been deployed or built into a testable flight configuration in public knowledge (Dr. Franklin Chang-Díaz's VASIMIR Plasma Engine and Rolls Royce/Reaction Engine's SABRE hybrid cycle engine come to mind, let alone the 1950's era nuclear bomblet Orion drive.))

tlb wrote:The streak drive will be useful for an SD, but not so much for a fort capable of hyperspace travel. The problem is that being limited to gravity plates (even at 150g), once the compensator mass limit is exceeded, means a super heavy ship cannot use the best accelerations that are available in gravity waves.

Would Galton even have had the improved gravity plates, since they were only useful for the spider drive?

Theemile wrote:Forts (which we saw massive ones at Galton) do require Grav plates for their travel, so advanced plates would allow for better tactical maneuvers in all Forts.

Enough to make it worthwhile?--- <shrug> meh?

The question is - would there be sufficient reason to pour research $$ to invent and develop the advanced plates in a world where the compensator already exists? Or only in one where the Spider Drive requires better plate technology?

In a vacuum, my money would be spent improving the compensator. Even a theoretical breakthrough still requires years of research and product development to make the finding worthwhile. (As anybody deep enough in the industry will attest, for the most part, we're still developing 1930s-50s physics into finished goods and Base Engineering from the 50s through 70s is still being refined in today's products. Yes, new technology is being used, but it takes decades for most concepts to mature to the point where it is a viable product, and then spends more decades slowly refining.

The problem is that the author has already given us an improvement in the compensator and it only moved the mass limit a bit. There can be programs to improve the current technology, but trying to find different technology usually is the result of an offshoot from research into the basics without any guarantee that unknown results will do something that you want.

Theemile wrote:I believe Relax is calling for the creation of what Weber has classified as "Monitors" in other settings. Essentially, Hyper enabled craft in the Fort size - not necessarily forts, but mobile assets in the same mass class with some of the "big boy" defensive assets only seen today in Forts, and the facilities required for independent, mobile operations, which are not usually built into forts. (The end result would be a ship which puts more of it's mass towards spares, repair assets, food, and crew comfort/size and system redundancy than usually seen in Forts, with a hull form more optimized towards bubble sidewalls, but incorporating sails.)

And the concept has some valid points; look at the last several battles - cutting edge, competent attackers stay over the hyperlimit or only come a light minute or 2 inside the limit. Missiles and fire control have increased range to the point that the attackers can accurately pummel planetary targets from near the hyperlimit, and cycle back and forth for resupply. Attackers who enter the hyperlimit are mouse trapped between planetary defenses and mobile forces.

There's still an upper limit for such a massive ship, which is its ability to go into hyper when surprised by something that it couldn't see. It doesn't want to be mouse-trapped like you're saying. It's going to take 6 to 10 minutes for that, which is enough for anywhere from a DDM to a 4-DM practically without a ballistic phase to arrive. If such a ship arrived in a system, it would be vulnerable to missile shoals within 75 million km, needing to rely on active defences from the escort fleet and its point-defence.

In this environment, Fort scale combatants would have the advantage, able to withstand a magnitude more punishment and spend 3-4x more time between replenishments. So a Monitor - a fort designed for mobile use, would make sense. This doesn't mean that SDs woudldn't necessarily have a place - they could be a maneuver force protecting the flanks of the monitors. and as mentioned, a Monitor force would never go deeply into a hyperlimit until the defenses appeared neutralized, but may use their "Fast Wing" SDs to do probing in force.

"Appeared neutralised" being the effective phrase here. The enemy might have reserves to throw.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:There's still an upper limit for such a massive ship, which is its ability to go into hyper when surprised by something that it couldn't see. It doesn't want to be mouse-trapped like you're saying. It's going to take 6 to 10 minutes for that, which is enough for anywhere from a DDM to a 4-DM practically without a ballistic phase to arrive. If such a ship arrived in a system, it would be vulnerable to missile shoals within 75 million km, needing to rely on active defences from the escort fleet and its point-defence.

I believe when a ship arrives its hyper generator is discharged and so far below Stand-By readiness (though possibly not all the way back to powered down).
RFC's infodump on hyper drives says an 8 mton SD "requires 4 minutes to go from Stand-By to actual translation"
but "from Powered Down to Translation, the same ship would require 32 minutes."

So, maybe after freshly arriving it might take an SD around 12-18 minutes before it could hyper back out. So you might not be able to count of hypering out in 4 minute or so if your appearance immediately draws an overly hostile reaction.



Now how long a 16 mton Monitor would take is an interesting question that we don't have enough info to have confidence in.
We know from the infodump that the minimum delay varies with tonnage - but aren't given enough data point to have confidence in reconstructions of that minimum time delay line/curve.

The 2 we do have is that:
1) the minimum is 30s (even for a DB - say 38,000 tons) and
2) the time for an 8 mton ship.

Hear begins barely supported speculation.
Since we've nothing else to go on If we arbitrarily assume that 38000 tons is where the line/curve inflects up from 30s, AND assume it is roughly linear, then extending that line past the SD would give a 16 mton monitor around 7.5 min from Stand-By to actual translation. But there's so many unknowns in that it can't be relied upon.

Now the one delay we can have more confidence in is wormhole transits. An 8 mton SD would shut down the junction ~102 seconds. A 16 mton monitor would shut it down ~410 seconds (the scaling with the square of tonnage is painful). That's not the end of the world, but roughly quadrupling the transit time of a ship or squadron isn't going to be fun.


Still, speed of popping into hyper hasn't been a key tactical ability in most battles. Though it was implicit in Honor's tactics at Galton and Sol (staying back outside the hyper limit -- accepting the low but increased risk of being jumped at close range in exchange for the ability to hyper out from an overwhelming strike)
One issue with it is (if I'm right about needing extra recharge time after leaving hyper) is it can't easily be repeated. You can quickly evade one strike, but if you come back it seems it'd be much longer before you'd be ready to evade another.

So I don't know if slow hyper entry alone is enough reason to nix a slow monitor concept.

Jonathan_S wrote:Still, speed of popping into hyper hasn't been a key tactical ability in most battles. Though it was implicit in Honor's tactics at Galton and Sol (staying back outside the hyper limit -- accepting the low but increased risk of being jumped at close range in exchange for the ability to hyper out from an overwhelming strike)
One issue with it is (if I'm right about needing extra recharge time after leaving hyper) is it can't easily be repeated. You can quickly evade one strike, but if you come back it seems it'd be much longer before you'd be ready to evade another.

So I don't know if slow hyper entry alone is enough reason to nix a slow monitor concept.

Some time ago, when Manticore was erecting prefab forts at various junctions, I thought that it would make more sense if they were completely built at Manticore with hyperspace capability. Then there would be no period of vulnerability when the parts were being put together; instead the fort would arrive completely loaded and ready to go. Finally, if the need went away, they could return home or move on to a new assignment. Any remaining prefab forts would be built under the watchful eyes of at least one hyperspace capable fort. In extremis, this hyperspace capable fort could be the last friendly ship to retreat through a wormhole, effectively limiting pursuit by locking the wormhole for an appreciable amount of time.