Attacking Darius:

penny wrote:I think mostly everyone feels the same. Except I don't. And tlb to some extent?

I tend to think getting a graser to fire for 3-seconds in the first place would be the difficult task. Getting it to fire w/o destroying itself is the easy part. Most of the time by the time you've gotten to that stage, you have pretty much figured out what to do to make it more practical. Sometimes it is obvious that the tech isn't available. But sometimes it is available. Like, perhaps, advanced grav pinch technology?

At any rate, getting the thing to fire for 3-seconds was the hard part.

We have no idea how the Honorverse takes stored plasma and converts it into useful power (except for magneto-hydrodynamics; but then why not store electricity, which does not require energy to contain it and is much less dangerous?) For all we know the multi-second graser works by creating an unstable nuclear reaction and at low power will just destroy the firing tube, without creating a beam (high power is needed both to get the beam and to delay the destruction).

It was very difficult to get the thing to work and might be just as difficult to get it to work repeatedly, without self destruction. That is all up to the author. So the question is: will he spend the time to create a device that just duplicates the function of a normal graser up to the point where it damages the ship and hurts the crew?

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:I think mostly everyone feels the same. Except I don't. And tlb to some extent?

I tend to think getting a graser to fire for 3-seconds in the first place would be the difficult task. Getting it to fire w/o destroying itself is the easy part. Most of the time by the time you've gotten to that stage, you have pretty much figured out what to do to make it more practical. Sometimes it is obvious that the tech isn't available. But sometimes it is available. Like, perhaps, advanced grav pinch technology?

At any rate, getting the thing to fire for 3-seconds was the hard part.

We have no idea how the Honorverse takes stored plasma and converts it into useful power (except for magneto-hydrodynamics; but then why not store electricity, which does not require energy to contain it and is much less dangerous?) For all we know the multi-second graser works by creating an unstable nuclear reaction and at low power will just destroy the firing tube, without creating a beam (high power is needed both to get the beam and to delay the destruction).

It was very difficult to get the thing to work and might be just as difficult to get it to work repeatedly, without self destruction. That is all up to the author. So the question is: will he spend the time to create a device that just duplicates the function of a normal graser up to the point where it damages the ship and hurts the crew?

The operative word is "normal" graser. A normal graser does not get a clear shot at an aware target. And a normal graser is not deployed from a glass cannon that needs its attack to be instant and decisive.

G-torps are deployed as sniping weapons. They are not instant delivery spontaneous weapons by design. All hallmarks - and per the needs - of any spider.

But, we'll see. My batting avg. is a high .989.

penny wrote:a normal graser is not deployed from a glass cannon that needs its attack to be instant and decisive.

Why? A normal graser mounted on a Shark could have capital ship power and an attack that was instant and decisive. We have seen that Galton's G-torps were limited against wedges and sidewalls, so what you are hoping is that the Shark can get a shot through an open aspect. In that circumstance, an ordinary graser will do sufficient damage to knock out the target, just as an ordinary graser mounted on a Manticoran LAC did against the unprepared Haven ships.

Unless and until a multi-second graser can be built that does not explode in normal use, the author is not going to mount one on a manned ship. So it mainly will be used on G-torps (or maybe the device I suggested).

Did the books ever say how long a normal shipboard energy mount could fire for?

The references I'm finding are vague, talking about them going to "rapid fire" or "clawing" at enemies. And even if they normally operate in a pulsed mode, could you step down their power and operate them continuously? (And if so, how much would have you have step the power down to increase their continuous operational time?)

The 3-second graserhead in contrasted with the extremely short firing endurance of the bomb-pumped laserhead (which is obviously going to be very short since the nuclear explosion that powers the laser also destroys the lasing rods) -- but, as far as I can recall, is never contrasted to the operating cycle of a shipboard weapon. (Though it is compared to the power of one, with the graserhead producing less power than a CL-grade graser)

Jonathan_S wrote:Did the books ever say how long a normal shipboard energy mount could fire for?

The references I'm finding are vague, talking about them going to "rapid fire" or "clawing" at enemies. And even if they normally operate in a pulsed mode, could you step down their power and operate them continuously? (And if so, how much would have you have step the power down to increase their continuous operational time?)

The 3-second graserhead in contrasted with the extremely short firing endurance of the bomb-pumped laserhead (which is obviously going to be very short since the nuclear explosion that powers the laser also destroys the lasing rods) -- but, as far as I can recall, is never contrasted to the operating cycle of a shipboard weapon. (Though it is compared to the power of one, with the graserhead producing less power than a CL-grade graser)

I remember something from long ago in the forum (I do not remember seeing it anywhere else), which stated that on reduced power the graser could cycle faster to get many more pulses off and this was something that the X-ray laser could not do. I do not think that either could fire continuously.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Sure, just push less power through it. That way, it won't heat up too much to the point of burning itself up, much less catastrophically so.

The question is whether this power is sufficient to make any damage to the target. Is this any better than standard shipboard grasers?

penny wrote:Pushing less power defeats the purpose. You don't want to decrease the "amount of venom" produced.

I agree, but that's neither here nor there. You may want to fire a Death Star beam that can incinerate a planet, but you can't do that because you don't have a power source that powerful, you don't have the technology to focus that much energy even if you did, and what's more important, you'd die if you did.

Using the venom analogy: bees. When a bee stings, it dies. It's not a survival trait for the individual bee, but for the hive. That's the same for the 3-second grasers: if the ship could and did fire them, it would die because it would melt and break open. That's more like a bomb than a gun: you don't reuse bombs.

Following the same bee logic, I could see the logic in having this as an optional, last line of defence, either for the defence of an asset that must be defended, or just to spit in the eye of the attackers.

What I don't see is how technologically would work. The regular graser emitters require massive amounts of surface area on regular ships. In the HV, it appears things need to get bigger to get more powerful, so I would expect the 3-second graser emitters to be even bigger. It would be possible to mount them on a ship as big as the Leonard Detweiler... at the expense of something else. So what isn't going to be mounted there instead? A torpedo tube? A CM tube? A PDLC or three? A regular graser that can be fired multiple times?

They'd have to compromise in some aspect. Having something aboard that you can fire exactly once and then you die is not a choice they should make if they could instead have something that they could fire and survive.

Seriously, if grav pinch technology turns out to be the "lifesaver" (pardon the pun) which prevents the graser from exploding, then that same technology will also radiate the enormous energy away from the hull.

Strictly speaking, the two are the same. A laser is just energy, though in a specific form.

I'm not talking about the problem of heating the ship on the inside. I'm talking about the fact that the graser mount itself melted when you fired because its components can't handle that much power. And in melting, it melted the whole side of the ship too, opening it up in a large gash, deforming the outer structure, compromising the stealth and armour.

By "melting" I'm being very generous.

Everyone should stop saying that a Spider should not want to get to energy range. Of course it should! If that is its mission.

Of course it shouldn't. It's a suicide mission if it fails to destroy all its targets within range, or if it takes any damage and there are other targets in the system.

It's also low probability of success, because the chances of detection go up exponentially as it closes. A single "hmm.. that's funny" can ruin its day, causing the loss of the ship and its personnel, and potentially the full shebang of MAlign secrets.

More importantly, there are safer mission profiles.

Besides, by the very nature of its stealth, a Spider very well may find itself in that predicament. Prey unknowingly wanders into a Spider's web. All on its own. Imagine that. Honestly, all on its own prey does that. Can you believe it? A Spider casts a web and waits. "Build it and they will come." That is a Spider's motto.

I'll grant you this could happen, however unlikely it is. That's probably the case of a translation from hyper, because there's no mistaking a wedge ship coming an hour earlier.

But you're describing a scenario where the other party has blundered into energy range and is unaware, so possibly running without sidewalls. Why do you need a 3-second graser aboard for this? Regular grasers will do just fine. I'll even grant that they may have slightly better regular grasers.

And if a 3-second firing one is required, fire out a torpedo. That has the advantage that it could manoeuvre into seeing up the kilt or down the throat of the incoming ship. And as a bonus, the LD gets to survive.

BTW, note how pod-laying superdreadnoughts are no longer designed to enter energy range either.

At any rate, I don't have any reservations that a Spider will have a stinger. Adapting the 3-second firing graser to ship board use is simply the next iteration of the tech. I can see that, even if at one point the Peeps couldn't see the next iteration of any tech.

I agree that's the intention and that's what they should research.

Whether they'll get to it or not is the question. I don't think they will because I don't think the standard mission profiles will call for it.

But in a Spider's world, prey are blind. And blind prey does not fail to deliver themselves to you. In droves. Spiders do not have a shortage of food. Prey is going to be amenable whether the spider is hungry (amenable) or not. So if by the nature of its stealth the Spider is going to find itself in energy range, it cannot deploy a slow acting graser torpedo. Anymore than the GA would choose to use a missile at energy range. Remember, the doctrine of a stealthed enemy will be completely different by inherent design.

All of which runs counter to lighting up a beacon saying "here I am, come kill me."

If the Alphas aboard that ship are designing a trap that brings other ships into their energy range before they can fire a torpedo half an hour before the encounter, they are mighty stupid. You're the one trying to convince us that they won't make egregious mistakes. Then so be it: design a frigging trap that doesn't expose your own ship and compromise your own survival in order to spring it.

And ... it does not matter if using the stinger lights up the sky. It won't matter if an obliterated enemy once knew where you were.

That only works if you've killed all the enemy assets in the system, including any enemy command centre that can fire missiles from pods and every single recon drone. The chance of that is indistinguishable from zero. Or if you're about to translate away and leave the system, "job done," because then you only need to be more than some 5 minutes away from the nearest, significant missile shoal, but you need to be outside the hyperlimit in the first place.

Otherwise, you're going to get missiles raining down on the ship and the ship will take damage. That further compromises its stealth and compromises the next mission -- so it has to limp home for repairs.

So, is this exchange worthwhile for the Alignment?

However, a submarine chooses its prey well. They did not always attack if that particular prey was not the objective. Many times subs had prey in its sights, but let them past preferring juicier, or more appropriate targets. But should prey haphazardly stumble or fly into a Spider's web, what spider does not have a stinger?

Bad metaphor. Spiders don't have stingers; scorpions do. Spiders have chelicerae. They inject venom on victims that are already caught in the web and cannot escape in the first place. And often they wait for the victim to become tired trying to escape.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
BTW, note how pod-laying superdreadnoughts are no longer designed to enter energy range either.

SD(p)s can still fight well in energy range - they actually now have bigger Grasers than classic SDs ever carried (or carry weapons just as big as the largest Grasers classic SDs ever carried). SD(p)s are just no longer optimized for energy combat like classic SDs were. Technology (Both in sensors and warfare) make that design far less optimal for warfighting.

Whihc actually adds to your post - technology has pushed the fighting envelop further out - because the sensors and weapons on a modern combatant make it difficult to reach that range - AND that range is extremely lethal to any who are in it.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:You actually don't want that thing firing anywhere near your hull. Just outside of it is not good enough; it's going to irradiate your hull, burn out your sensors and active stealth camouflage. It will also light up the entire sky of where the fire is coming from, so firing such a weapon would need to be a one-time thing.

So you want to make it mobile. And since you don't want it to light up a wedge that can be seen from clear across the system, you should mount a spider drive on it.

We've described a graser torpedo.

Exactly. The 1st description (limited though it was) had the LDs being able to launch the Graser Torpedos from tubes......doesn't say how but compressed air, mass driver, whatever that doesn't show up as an energy flair from the launching ship. You're back to a stealth weapon, best used in some sort of ambush attack where the launching ship is well away from the weapon when it fires. So far, the G-torps are not being able to be spotted or tracked by their drives so while they can maneuver and - given time & distance- can build up good speed, they aren't built for a gunfight. So no missile exchange and no energy weapons if you want the LD (or other spider involved) not to be spotted, at least from the firing initiation of the grazer at its target.

It is possible that a spider powered ship can do a down-the-throat or up- the-kilt shot at an adversary closing on it (but not yet able to spot it on their sensors) and heavily damage or destroy it's hunter and so slip away. If the geometry and speeds & vectors are right you could do a classic torpedo shot leading your target but at the speeds they are moving in the Honorvers the window would be really tight.

IF you think you have am invisible ship near you (typically in front of your direction ot travel) you might be able to use a variant on the WW II Hedgehog and fire a pattern of weapons to where you THINK your target is going to be based on whatever made you think they were there in the first place. Damage the target and you are going to probably get debris, leakage of air and/or fluids and screw up a portion of it's stealth systems so you get something to use for a hard target contact.

Again, will have to see what RFC is going to show eventually.

Theemile wrote:SD(p)s can still fight well in energy range - they actually now have bigger Grasers than classic SDs ever carried (or carry weapons just as big as the largest Grasers classic SDs ever carried). SD(p)s are just no longer optimized for energy combat like classic SDs were. Technology (Both in sensors and warfare) make that design far less optimal for warfighting.

Whihc actually adds to your post - technology has pushed the fighting envelop further out - because the sensors and weapons on a modern combatant make it difficult to reach that range - AND that range is extremely lethal to any who are in it.

I'm actually going to go further and speculate that the LD's broadsides contain no offensive weaponry. Because they have no wedge to hide two aspects and some of the ship, they are going to need to beef up their defensive weaponry in case they are discovered. So I expect the three broadsides are instead entirely taken by that: PDLCs and CMs mostly, but if there's any remaining space, jammers, shotguns, chaff, bad grammar, kitchen sinks. I'm assuming the spider tractors are mounted on the three keels; if instead they also need to be on broadsides, then there's even less of a reason to mount offensive weapons on them.

The torpedo tubes are mounted exactly like on a submarine: on chase aspects. We were told that the Sharks, at 4 million tonnes, were not big enough to launch torpedoes carried internally, so they most likely can only be fired from chase. That may also be a single aspect (stern), like SD(P)s. Making multiple big holes on the sides so a torpedo can swim out sounds like making the ship a large, thin block of Swiss cheese or, since the floors are oriented like a tower, like a Jenga Tower.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:The torpedo tubes are mounted exactly like on a submarine: on chase aspects. We were told that the Sharks, at 4 million tonnes, were not big enough to launch torpedoes carried internally, so they most likely can only be fired from chase. That may also be a single aspect (stern), like SD(P)s. Making multiple big holes on the sides so a torpedo can swim out sounds like making the ship a large, thin block of Swiss cheese or, since the floors are oriented like a tower, like a Jenga Tower.

We are told the Sharks are pod-layers, for Oyster Bay the pods carried Cataphracts. The G-torps were carried on external racks, since the Sharks were not constructed to carry them internally. Until the G-torps were released, they probably affected stealth; because the racks were a jury rigged solution. Both Cataphracts and G-torps were released outside the range of detection and the pods were towed into the enemy systems.