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Title Posted
PICAs and military manpower needs Feb 2008
Climax to the Battle of Manticore Jan 2008
Baron High Ridge's fate Dec 2007
<em>Saganami-C</em> vs a pre-war superdreadnought Dec 2007
Safeholdian ship design Mar 2007
Pre-war alliance strategy Feb 2007
Deep-penetration & commerce raiding strategy Feb 2007
Deep-penetration strategy Feb 2007
Strategic attrition Feb 2007
<em>Nike </em>(big BC) clarification Nov 2006

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Pearls of Weber

A collection of posts by David Weber containing background information for his stories, collected and generously made available Joe Buckley.

The Mesan Spider Drive

  • Series: Honorverse
  • Date: March 17, 2009

…To the nameless Fly who sent me the e-mail pointing out (a) that the Mesan spider-drive ships mounting the attack on Manticore couldn't possibly tank enough reaction mass for the mission and (b) that the flare of their fusion drives would completely negate any stealth advantages of the spider drive itself, I will simply say that the spider drive ships do not use reaction drives. The scout ships do use reaction thrusters to propel themselves out of the freighter bays in which they were transported to Manticore, but we've seen Honorverse impeller drive ships using reaction thrusters to maneuver lots of times before. In short, this is not going to be a case of Honor's tactics at Cerberus, although some of the same "blind spots" which afflicted General Chernock's units at Cerberus do have parallels in Manticore's preparedness. (And, no, one of those blind spots is not a failure to look for visual cues from little things like massed fusion thrusters.)