More from David on Wormhole Assaults

Having thought about the information, the assumptions, the arguments, the counter-arguments, and David's response to the discussion, it strikes me that the furor involved is almost like the plots of the Honorverse books.

1) One or more sides gets incomplete or distorted information.

2) They filter that information through their own perceptions (responsibilities imposed by their position / office, domestic or interstellar politics, professional blinders, points of view, etc.).

3) They make imperfect assumptions that are not fully correct based on that information as filtered through their points of view.

4) They make and implement strategies and plans based on those assumptions.

5) As a result of the implementation of those strategies and plans, the other (opposing or allied) side(s) start back at step 1 and develop countering (in the case of the opposing side(s)) or reinforcing (in the case of the allied side(s)) strategies and plans.

Eventually, the implementation of the strategies, reinforcing strategies and countering strategies in step 5 results in actual weapons fire being exchanged between two or more sides (which may be only a brief exchange of weapons fire, or an actual battle*) as an interstellar incident, which in turn may or may not set off a full-scale interstellar war**.

* Battle is defined in the Honorverse (for the purpose of this post) as a sustained engagement where both sides continue to exchange fire rather than ceasing fire and breaking off the engagement once the initial shots have been exchanged (e.g., Fearless versus Sirius at Basilisk in On Basilisk Station) or where one side is destroyed or moves to surrender following the initial exchange of weapons fire (e.g., Gold Peak versus Byng at New Tuscany in Storm From the Shadows).

** War is defined in the Honorverse (for the purpose of this post) as a full-scale hostile exchange of fire involving large-scale fleet operations and / or multiple battles.

Substitute forums (here, on Baen's Bar, or other discussion boards) for Honorverse and you have a fairly accurate analogy of the situation(s).

Howdy all,

I forgot to mention something I thought about while reading RFC's note.

Mistletoe ought be enable reducing the number of fortresses, as well as having them move further back for more safety, NTM providing more depth or coverage for all the termini controlling forces, while providing a very stealthy sensor check of the arriving inbound which is relayed FTL, before the ship's crew has recovered, when seconds literally count.

Because of the low speeds and distances involved near the WHJ, a much smaller fusion unit could be substituted for the standard recon one, enabling these termini dedicated Mistletoe's to be even more stealthy, in getting close to their targets if necessary.

This ought to reduce the number of forts, NTM mines etc, that are needed to defend against invasion via the termini.

So I'm sorry this is two weeks late. :-)

L

lyonheart wrote:Hi Werrf,

I just want to add a fervent "amen" and "ditto" to your thanking RFC.

Regarding taking San Martin, in my own consideration of the battle years ago, I think the only possible reference to the Trevor Star battle in the textev was in EoH; when HH is considering the news of the peep 'Icarus' claims of destroying 61 waller's, which was by far the biggest lost in the RMN's history, even if she suspected the peep's had exaggerated the numbers by 30-40% (actually IIRC, the RMN waller loss was something like 14-17 and I don't remember now the peep loss).

That left a potential maximum of 47 alliance waller's lost in the biggest battle of the war up to then, ie Trevor's Star.

With such a blank slate, I never figured out how that exactly happened, except that the way too complicated two-pronged assault must have been a very nasty fight, perhaps one or the other TF being early, etc.

Sending a BC through is a lot smarter and far simpler.

So kudos to Hamish for improvising a better plan on the fly, something so smart that some think honorverse males aren't supposed to be able to do... (G:-)

L

Werrf wrote:I'd just like to say that I, personally, both thoroughly trust your Word of God on the Honorverse, but nonetheless I absolutely love reading through these extra chunks you give us. It's like browsing the Wikipedia of the Honorverse.

I know these take time out of your writing, but...it's great. Thank You :)

Weber's explanation of the evolution of combat realities and the lag in doctrine makes perfect sense to me.

Keep in mind that a bomb pumped X-Ray laser mine can have a yield measured in Gigatons as opposed tonafew tens of megatons on a missile.

namelessfly wrote:Weber's explanation of the evolution of combat realities and the lag in doctrine makes perfect sense to me.

Keep in mind that a bomb pumped X-Ray laser mine can have a yield measured in Gigatons as opposed tonafew tens of megatons on a missile.

Eh ... I think the difference is that a mine isn't limited by size and geometry the same way a missile is, permitting one to have larger, more powerful grav focusing arrays and lasing rods - plus, the grav focusing arrays can be expanded beyond the relatively small diameter they are limited to by missile tubes.
Warhead size isn't as much an issue - remember, later pure sidewall burners/blast nuke missiles had huge yields. I think it was said that some were even in the low gigatons/extremely high megatons.



@Lyonheart - while advances may enable (technically) the numerical reduction of Junction forts, I think it is unlikely that they will significantly reduce the number of forts they field, as punching out ships coming through a wormhole is about as easy as it gets, while someone dropping out of hyper on top of the wormhole hasn't significantly changed. Plus, redundancy is huge - remember, to Manticore/the RMN, Oyster Bay could have included less overkill on what it did hit, while instead including the forts themselves as targets.

Kytheros wrote:Plus, redundancy is huge - remember, to Manticore/the RMN, Oyster Bay could have included less overkill on what it did hit, while instead including the forts themselves as targets.

Forts are very tough targets. Mostly because they run around with bubble sidewall up and their point defense systems in weapons free. Cruiser sized grasers are unlikely to deliver effective damage against their armor past the sidewall and they can kill at least scores to hundreds of missiles.

kzt wrote:

Kytheros wrote:Plus, redundancy is huge - remember, to Manticore/the RMN, Oyster Bay could have included less overkill on what it did hit, while instead including the forts themselves as targets.

Forts are very tough targets. Mostly because they run around with bubble sidewall up and their point defense systems in weapons free. Cruiser sized grasers are unlikely to deliver effective damage against their armor past the sidewall and they can kill at least scores to hundreds of missiles.

Not all of them all the time. They rotate on and off.

Sure, it's a only a cruiser sized graser, but it's not the normal series of pulses, most of which don't hit the target, either - it's a sustained beam.

Kytheros wrote:Sure, it's a only a cruiser sized graser, but it's not the normal series of pulses, most of which don't hit the target, either - it's a sustained beam

That will still mostly miss the target due to distortion from the sidewall and will only get a fraction of its full burn time due to being blasted by point defences or main battery weapons. Graser torps do not seem to be ideally designed for engaging forts or warships as the long burn time of their graser is mostly cancelled out by the fact that firing destroys their stealth making them easy targets for defensive fire.

Swanpowered SDs? Darned, that is so totally going to revolutionise Harringtonverse warfare!


^_^


Seriously though, me, I´m just impressed that RFC goes to such lengths to keep things "inline".

Grashtel wrote:

Kytheros wrote:Sure, it's a only a cruiser sized graser, but it's not the normal series of pulses, most of which don't hit the target, either - it's a sustained beam

That will still mostly miss the target due to distortion from the sidewall and will only get a fraction of its full burn time due to being blasted by point defences or main battery weapons. Graser torps do not seem to be ideally designed for engaging forts or warships as the long burn time of their graser is mostly cancelled out by the fact that firing destroys their stealth making them easy targets for defensive fire.

You're assuming that the fort is at General Quarters or even Battle Stations. You simply can't keep ships, stations, and especially men at that level of readiness indefinitely. At most you're going to have about a third of your forts on alert at any given time. You're going to have a third in either a stand-down/maintenance cycle or full blown overhaul cycle. The remaining forts will be working up to be the alert forts.

As far as destroying a firing graser torpedo; I think you're being way to optimistic. The torpedo lasts for three seconds. A ship being attacked won't know about the torpedo until it is hit. Assuming its firing against a target without sidewalls from 300K clicks out and you react instantly you still take 2/3 of its entire fire duration. One second for the torpedo's fire to reach you and one second for your return fire to reach the torpedo.

I for one don't assume even an instant reaction from the alert forts. Even if you're operating under wartime conditions weapons operating under automatic control have too great a tendency to shoot things you don't want shot. Someone is going to have to push the release button authorizing fire. That takes time. Just ask the USN what can happen when weapons set on automatic decide for themselves that something is a threat.

If you have sidewalls up and the torp has to close to its 50K click burn-through range you're still not likely going stop any of the initial attack. By the time you're sensors create a definitive targeting lock (as distinct from detection) and you release your point defense to automatic the initial wave of the attack is over. Three seconds is an extremely short period of time in a naval combat situation.

People simply can't go from everything is fine to kill everything instantly. It takes time to adjust mental processes. Machines can make that adjustment, but outside of extremely limited circumstances people generally don't trust machines to make those kinds of decisions for some very good reasons. People generally have to expect that they are likely to be shot at to give up that much control.

This is an over two year old thread...