Insanity: Screening elements in the HV

penny wrote:OMG! How can you call that boring!? Can anyone truly imagine a graser-head minefield? I agree; their toys can conspire to raise holy hell in the GA's business as usual itinerary.

In my head, I have always seen LDs deploying minefields as spike strips.

Spider-drive minelayers can throw out "spike strips" in the path of an unsuspecting fleet; after watching their same old routine and unchanging habits in time of peace. Like returning to orbit after wargames. I dunno. Something. But the idea of a graser-head minefield just blows my socks off.

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:OMG! How can you call that boring!? Can anyone truly imagine a graser-head minefield? I agree; their toys can conspire to raise holy hell in the GA's business as usual itinerary.

In my head, I have always seen LDs deploying minefields as spike strips.

Spider-drive minelayers can throw out "spike strips" in the path of an unsuspecting fleet; after watching their same old routine and unchanging habits in time of peace. Like returning to orbit after wargames. I dunno. Something. But the idea of a graser-head minefield just blows my socks off.

Replacing mines with grasers is an interesting idea and one that the GA is pursuing; you will remember that the grasers are being pulled from the captured Solarian ships to do just that. So not an original idea for the Malign. Plus the GA will soon have the technology of the 3 second graser, if they should wish to use them instead.

PS: When you wrote "somebody please tell me, why is it that most posters fail to think that the Mesan Alignment will come up with breakthroughs in current technology?", I did not recognize that you were just complaining that people were rejecting your ideas and thought you misunderstood about them having in fact made "breakthroughs in current technology".

penny wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:But let me throw out a possible weapon development (though kind of a boring one).
Historically minefields have been hard to use effectively because it's hard to put them where an enemy doesn't expect but will still fly through them. The MAlign could potentially kit-bash some of their existing toys into graser-head mines that can get deployed by stealthy Hasta-style self-propelled containers. Combine that with a (sacrificial) decoy platform to fool a GA fleet into thinking they've got a bead on a stealth ship and you might be able to get them moving down a vector where you can quickly lay an extra deadly minefield without detection.

OMG! How can you call that boring!? Can anyone truly imagine a graser-head minefield? I agree; their toys can conspire to raise holy hell in the GA's business as usual itinerary.

In my head, I have always seen LDs deploying minefields as spike strips.

Spider-drive minelayers can throw out "spike strips" in the path of an unsuspecting fleet; after watching their same old routine and unchanging habits in time of peace. Like returning to orbit after wargames. I dunno. Something. But the idea of a graser-head minefield just blows my socks off.

Theemile wrote:Those Solarian Grasers are several thousand tons each - They, and their power supplies, are planned to be mounted in IEWPs (Independant Energy Weapons Platforms), not single use mines.

“Well,” she said now, “if nothing else, we could probably use the grasers for hellacious wormhole ‘minefields.’ Have you seen the design Admiral Foraker came up with for that?”

“No, I haven’t, My Lady. I’ll bet it was . . . interesting, though.”

“Admiral Foraker does have a tendency to think outside the box,” Honor acknowledged with a smile. “In this case, though, what she’s suggested is basically an array of remotely deployed energy weapons. Capital ship-sized weapons, as a matter of fact. She’s thinking something like Moriarty, not Mycroft. In fact, she’s already worked out the quickest way to run up a remote platform tied into the central fire control system of a standard terminus fort.”

“I thought that was what the minefields we already have were for, My Lady.”

“Oh, they are! But those are basically one-shot — either bomb-pumped platforms or IDEWs that get one shot, then have to recharge between engagements. She’s talking about feeding these things with broadcast power for the plasma capacitors. If her numbers hold up, they’d be good for at least five or six full-power shots each before the platforms had to shut down until the maintenance crews could recharge the capacitor reservoirs. So if these Solly grasers are as good as Phil seems to be suggesting, and given the fact that a Scientist-class SD mounts — what? sixty-four? sixty-five? — grasers, stripping a couple of hundred of them could let us build a really nasty defensive array, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, I think you could call it that,” Commander Clayton said, her expression suddenly very thoughtful indeed. The thought of what nine or ten thousand ship-of-the-wall-sized grasers could do to any target emerging from a wormhole terminus — when it could have neither wedge nor sidewalls for protection — was . . . sobering.

tlb wrote:

Theemile wrote:Those Solarian Grasers are several thousand tons each - They, and their power supplies, are planned to be mounted in IEWPs (Independant Energy Weapons Platforms), not single use mines.

Of course they will not be single use, but the planned use was to replace the single use mines guarding the wormhole junction. In effect making them multi-use mines for those minefields. From talk at the beginning of Uncompromising Honor

“Well,” she said now, “if nothing else, we could probably use the grasers for hellacious wormhole ‘minefields.’ Have you seen the design Admiral Foraker came up with for that?”

“No, I haven’t, My Lady. I’ll bet it was . . . interesting, though.”

“Admiral Foraker does have a tendency to think outside the box,” Honor acknowledged with a smile. “In this case, though, what she’s suggested is basically an array of remotely deployed energy weapons. Capital ship-sized weapons, as a matter of fact. She’s thinking something like Moriarty, not Mycroft. In fact, she’s already worked out the quickest way to run up a remote platform tied into the central fire control system of a standard terminus fort.”

“I thought that was what the minefields we already have were for, My Lady.”

“Oh, they are! But those are basically one-shot — either bomb-pumped platforms or IDEWs that get one shot, then have to recharge between engagements. She’s talking about feeding these things with broadcast power for the plasma capacitors. If her numbers hold up, they’d be good for at least five or six full-power shots each before the platforms had to shut down until the maintenance crews could recharge the capacitor reservoirs. So if these Solly grasers are as good as Phil seems to be suggesting, and given the fact that a Scientist-class SD mounts — what? sixty-four? sixty-five? — grasers, stripping a couple of hundred of them could let us build a really nasty defensive array, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, I think you could call it that,” Commander Clayton said, her expression suddenly very thoughtful indeed. The thought of what nine or ten thousand ship-of-the-wall-sized grasers could do to any target emerging from a wormhole terminus — when it could have neither wedge nor sidewalls for protection — was . . . sobering.

If they are being fed broadcast power, why would they have to shut down before 7 shots to recharge capacitors?

tlb wrote:

Theemile wrote:Those Solarian Grasers are several thousand tons each - They, and their power supplies, are planned to be mounted in IEWPs (Independant Energy Weapons Platforms), not single use mines.

Of course they will not be single use, but the planned use was to replace the single use mines guarding the wormhole junction. In effect making them multi-use mines for those minefields. From talk at the beginning of Uncompromising Honor

“Well,” she said now, “if nothing else, we could probably use the grasers for hellacious wormhole ‘minefields.’ Have you seen the design Admiral Foraker came up with for that?”

“No, I haven’t, My Lady. I’ll bet it was . . . interesting, though.”

“Admiral Foraker does have a tendency to think outside the box,” Honor acknowledged with a smile. “In this case, though, what she’s suggested is basically an array of remotely deployed energy weapons. Capital ship-sized weapons, as a matter of fact. She’s thinking something like Moriarty, not Mycroft. In fact, she’s already worked out the quickest way to run up a remote platform tied into the central fire control system of a standard terminus fort.”

“I thought that was what the minefields we already have were for, My Lady.”

“Oh, they are! But those are basically one-shot — either bomb-pumped platforms or IDEWs that get one shot, then have to recharge between engagements. She’s talking about feeding these things with broadcast power for the plasma capacitors. If her numbers hold up, they’d be good for at least five or six full-power shots each before the platforms had to shut down until the maintenance crews could recharge the capacitor reservoirs. So if these Solly grasers are as good as Phil seems to be suggesting, and given the fact that a Scientist-class SD mounts — what? sixty-four? sixty-five? — grasers, stripping a couple of hundred of them could let us build a really nasty defensive array, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, I think you could call it that,” Commander Clayton said, her expression suddenly very thoughtful indeed. The thought of what nine or ten thousand ship-of-the-wall-sized grasers could do to any target emerging from a wormhole terminus — when it could have neither wedge nor sidewalls for protection — was . . . sobering.

If they are being fed broadcast power, why would they have to shut down before 7 shots to recharge capacitors?

Theemile wrote:Beamed power is probably too low amperage to quickly refresh a 4.5M Graser for quick shots. Forex - the 1.5m Graser in the Shrike also has 6-7 shots from it's internal capacitors - the onboard fission reactor requires more time than a normal engagement to give the capacitor enough power to fire again. One would assume beamed power, for a far larger weapon,would have similiar difficulties.

Independent Energy Weapons Platforms are more of a permanent defensive emplacement, where as mines "can" be a temporary area denial solution. So Shannon's IDEWs with Solarian around a junction - sure, dumped in the middle of space in the middle of an engagement, probably not. However, a mine with a missile graserhead, sure.

Theemile wrote:Beamed power is probably too low amperage to quickly refresh a 4.5M Graser for quick shots. Forex - the 1.5m Graser in the Shrike also has 6-7 shots from it's internal capacitors - the onboard fission reactor requires more time than a normal engagement to give the capacitor enough power to fire again. One would assume beamed power, for a far larger weapon,would have similiar difficulties.

Independent Energy Weapons Platforms are more of a permanent defensive emplacement, where as mines "can" be a temporary area denial solution. So Shannon's IDEWs with Solarian around a junction - sure, dumped in the middle of space in the middle of an engagement, probably not. However, a mine with a missile graserhead, sure.

tlb wrote:

Theemile wrote:Beamed power is probably too low amperage to quickly refresh a 4.5M Graser for quick shots. Forex - the 1.5m Graser in the Shrike also has 6-7 shots from it's internal capacitors - the onboard fission reactor requires more time than a normal engagement to give the capacitor enough power to fire again. One would assume beamed power, for a far larger weapon,would have similiar difficulties.

Independent Energy Weapons Platforms are more of a permanent defensive emplacement, where as mines "can" be a temporary area denial solution. So Shannon's IDEWs with Solarian around a junction - sure, dumped in the middle of space in the middle of an engagement, probably not. However, a mine with a missile graserhead, sure.

I can accept that beamed power might take a long time to recharge the capacitors, but I find it difficult to accept that the platform has to shut down until the "maintenance crews could recharge the capacitor reservoirs". Particularly when we are talking 9 to 10 thousand platforms in the midst of an engagement. Why not a mini fusion reactor on each and the beam power keeps the startup capacitor topped off until an engagement starts, then the reactor fires up and recharges the capacitors until the action is over? Only afterwards is a maintenance crew required.

The missile graser head is also a one shot proposition. I expect that these graser platforms would be unlikely to be used in a temporary situation; but only because of limited numbers, not because they might be less useful (I expect that they would be more useful).

tlb wrote:

Theemile wrote:Beamed power is probably too low amperage to quickly refresh a 4.5M Graser for quick shots. Forex - the 1.5m Graser in the Shrike also has 6-7 shots from it's internal capacitors - the onboard fission reactor requires more time than a normal engagement to give the capacitor enough power to fire again. One would assume beamed power, for a far larger weapon,would have similiar difficulties.

Independent Energy Weapons Platforms are more of a permanent defensive emplacement, where as mines "can" be a temporary area denial solution. So Shannon's IDEWs with Solarian around a junction - sure, dumped in the middle of space in the middle of an engagement, probably not. However, a mine with a missile graserhead, sure.

I can accept that beamed power might take a long time to recharge the capacitors, but I find it difficult to accept that the platform has to shut down until the "maintenance crews could recharge the capacitor reservoirs". Particularly when we are talking 9 to 10 thousand platforms in the midst of an engagement. Why not a mini fusion reactor on each and the beam power keeps the startup capacitor topped off until an engagement starts, then the reactor fires up and recharges the capacitors until the action is over? Only afterwards is a maintenance crew required.

The missile graser head is also a one shot proposition. I expect that these graser platforms would be unlikely to be used in a temporary situation; but only because of limited numbers, not because they might be less useful (I expect that they would be more useful).

tlb wrote:I can accept that beamed power might take a long time to recharge the capacitors, but I find it difficult to accept that the platform has to shut down until the "maintenance crews could recharge the capacitor reservoirs". Particularly when we are talking 9 to 10 thousand platforms in the midst of an engagement. Why not a mini fusion reactor on each and the beam power keeps the startup capacitor topped off until an engagement starts, then the reactor fires up and recharges the capacitors until the action is over? Only afterwards is a maintenance crew required.

penny wrote:I'm guessing what the maintenance crews have to do is shut down the platforms to replace (or top off) the plasma. Do note "capacitor reservoirs."