tlb wrote:But a microjump creates a signal in grav sensors as you return to normal space, so the stealth will not affect first detection and then the fleet can shoot before the arrivals can react.
kzt wrote:They know a bunch of things just jumped in due to the energy flare. The MA ships don’t show up on their sensors. And you’d microjump with relative velocity. Lets assume 1000km sec, so it is 100 km sec. In 20 milliseconds the ship is clear of anyone shooting at the bright flash. And maybe they dump a few gigaton scale fusion bombs too, for the sensor overlad effect. How long does it take to get the grasers on a GA ship ready to fire and permission granted? A second at least, maybe multiple seconds?
What is the MA doing in that time? Remember that this assumes they are within 30,000 km from where they planned, so they already have a loaded and pre-programmed automatic fire plan just waiting for targets when the pop out of hyper. So they star shooting within about 20ms. So the most threatening GA ships are dead before they even have processed they are under attack.
And for optimum effectiveness this would be slightly after the second wave of graser torps. Where the MA ships are there to complete the destruction that was unleashed about 5 seconds earlier, so you already have dozens of ship reactors failing with their petaton scale fireballs.
Whether or not they show up on sensors depends on whether they show up on radar, which will immediately be turned on.
Is that speed enough to be called a crash translation? Because if it is we have seen the effects in Echoes of Honor:
We have also seen a translation on top of an SD in The Short Victorious War:Chapter 36 wrote:Task Group 12.4.1, composed of Task Force 12.4's superdreadnoughts and their screening light cruisers, exploded out of hyper into n-space in brilliant, multipeaked flashes of azure transit energy barely a hundred and eighty thousand kilometers outside the twenty-two-light-minute hyper limit of the GO star known as Basilisk-A. It was a phenomenally precise piece of astrogation, but Javier Giscard was unable to appreciate it properly as he fought the mind-wrenching, stomach-lashing dizziness the crash translation sent smashing through him. He heard others on Salamis' flag bridge retching and knew thousands of other people throughout his flagship's huge hull were doing the same, and even through his own nausea, he reflected on how vulnerable his task group was in that moment. His ships' crews were as completely incapacitated as he himself for anywhere from ten seconds to two full minutes, depending on the individual. During those seconds and minutes, only the ships' automated missile defenses were available to stave off attack, and had any hostile vessel been in position to take advantage of that brief helplessness, the price could have been catastrophic.
Chapter 14 wrote:"Hyper transit! I'm reading an unidentified hyper footprint!" Athena's tac officer snapped. His surprise showed in his voice, but he was already bent over his panel, working the contact.
"Where?" Commander Gregory demanded sharply.
"Bearing zero-zero-five, zero-one-one. Range one-eight-zero million klicks. Christ, Skipper! It's right on top of Bellerophon!"
* * *
"Contact! Enemy vessel bearing oh-five-three, oh-oh-six, range five-seven-four thousand kilometers!"
Pierre jerked in his command chair and twisted toward his ops officer's sudden, unanticipated report. They should be eleven light-minutes from their target! What the hell was the woman talking about?!
"Contact confirmed!" Selim's tac officer called out, and then— "Oh, my God! It's a dreadnought!"
Disbelief froze the admiral's mind. It couldn't be—not way the hell out here! But he was already turning back to his own display, and his heart lurched as it showed him CIC's confirming identification.
"Put us back into hyper!"
"We can't translate for another eight minutes, Sir," Selim's white-faced captain said. "The generators are still cycling."
Pierre stared at the captain, and his mind whirled like a ground-looping air car. The man's words seemed to take forever to register, while his ships closed with the enemy at over forty thousand kilometers per second, and the admiral swallowed around an icy lump of panic. They were dead. They were all dead, unless, just possibly, that dreadnought's crew was as shocked as he was. He had a clear shot down the front of her wedge if he could get his ships around to clear their broadsides, and they couldn't possibly have been expecting him to appear in their face. If they took long enough reacting, long enough getting to battle stations—
"Hard a port!" he barked. "All batteries, fire as you bear!"
* * *
"Sweet Jesus, they're Peeps!" Bellerophon's junior tactical officer whispered. The Book didn't like enemy reports like that, but Lieutenant Commander Avshari felt no inclination to criticize. After all, The Book didn't envision this lunatic sort of situation, either.
The lieutenant commander watched his status boards' green lights turn amber and red and wished to hell the Captain would get here. Or the Exec. Or anybody senior to him, because he didn't have a clue and he knew it. This was supposed to be a milk run, a good opportunity for junior watch keepers to get a little bridge time on their logs, but he was a communications officer, for God's sake—and one whose Academy tactical scores had been a disaster, to boot! What the hell was he supposed to do next?
"Sidewalls active! Starboard energy batteries closed up on computer override, Sir!" the youthful lieutenant at Tactical said, and Avshari nodded in relief. That decided which way to turn, anyway.
"Bring us hard to port, Helm."
"Aye, aye, Sir. Coming hard to port."
The dreadnought began her turn, and fresh alarms whooped even as she swung.
"Incoming fire!" the tac officer snapped, and lasers and grasers ripped at Bellerophon's suddenly interposed sidewall. Most of them achieved absolutely nothing as the sidewall bent and degraded them, but red lights bloomed on Avshari's damage control display as half a dozen minor hits cratered her massive armor, and this time he knew exactly what to do.
"Ms. Wolversham, you are authorized to return fire!" Bellerophon's com officer barked the order straight from The Book, and Lieutenant Arlene Wolversham punched the button.
* * *
Admiral Pierre swallowed a groan as the dreadnought snapped around and her sidewall swatted his broadsides contemptuously aside. He'd never seen a ship that size maneuver so rapidly and confidently. She'd taken barely ten seconds to bring her sidewalls up and get around—her captain must have the instincts and reactions of a cat!
He could see his intended prey's impeller signature in his display now, millions of kilometers astern of the dreadnought, and realized intuitively what had happened. His intelligence had been perfect, but he'd blundered into an unscheduled departure. A stupid, routine transit there'd been no way to predict. And now there was no way to evade the consequences.
"All units, roll ship!" he barked, but even as he snapped out the order, he knew it was futile this deep into the enemy's missile envelope. Even if his ships rolled up behind their wedges in time to evade the dreadnought's beams, it would only delay the inevitable, require her to kill them with laser heads, instead. . . .
And then he realized they weren't going to manage even that much.
* * *
HMS Bellerophon's broadside opened fire, and enough energy to shatter a small moon flashed through the "gunports" in her starboard sidewall.
A quarter-second later, Battlecruiser Divisions 141 and 142 of the People's Navy ceased to exist.
So maybe you are correct, but we will not know until RFC writes that scene.