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Non-CLAC hyper-help for LAC's

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Re: Non-CLAC hyper-help for LAC's
Post by kzt   » Sun Dec 14, 2014 12:04 am

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SWM wrote:The Alignment tested their stealth, and weren't able to detect it any more than 1 light-second distance, and they supposedly knew what to look for. I don't remember whether that was tested using active or passive detectors; I assume active, but someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

They didn't specify, but one assumes they used all the sensors they had available.
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Re: Non-CLAC hyper-help for LAC's
Post by Jonathan_S   » Sun Dec 14, 2014 12:12 am

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SWM wrote:Of course, my analysis assumed a 1 degree dispersion for the exhaust beam. We have no textev on how narrow the beam is, so this is all just handwaving. :D

The degree of dispersion would affect the number of drones linearly--that is, a 5 degree dispersion would reduce the number of necessary drones by a factor of 5. On the other hand, a 10 minute warning is pretty minimal. And we should allow for the fact that it is not possible to arrange the drone motion patterns to avoid overlap. And we probably want to allow for 0.8c approach velocities.

But it's enough to get a feel for the numbers.

Also aren't you having the drone maintain a spherical path around the defended object? How much acceleration do you need to hold to even a 10 lm radius sphere at a linear velocity of 0.5c?

Actually I went ahead and calculated it [a=(v^2)/r] and, assuming I didn't screw anything up, you'd need the drone to accelerate at only about 12,746g to stay on path.
Which is actually a lot lower than I'd have guessed, and just might be within the ability of a drone to pull off.
(The number 5,000g sticks in my head, but I think that was a lower, stealthy, accel)
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Re: Non-CLAC hyper-help for LAC's
Post by dreamrider   » Sun Dec 14, 2014 5:23 am

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JeffEngel wrote:So, I'm thinking and wondering again -

Take a DD (or maybe an old CL, CA - it just has to be conveniently around, really) and a handful of LAC's - 6, 8, along those lines. Keep them just outside the hyperlimit. Make sure they're drilled together and the DD at least has a darned good astrogator.

Got a suspicious hyper footprint. LAC's ease up to the DD; DD goes into hyper with them along for it; group moves carefully to a destination matching the footprint; DD translates back down with them; group checks out ghosts in the black hats.

It is admittedly clunky. But is it too clunky to get a response to suspicious hyper footprints that's (1) able to fight through small incursions, (2) able to check out those ghosts well with a lot of sensor platforms and fast ones at that, and (3) not so large or demanding of crucial resources that you couldn't affordably have quite a few of these operating at once? Or am I missing something that bumps it from the merely impractical I'm worried about to just can't happen?


I'm finding it hard to believe that in 7 pages of discussion revolving around this idea that no one has mentioned the KNOWN showstopper, from an example in the books.

In the ONE example that we have of line warships towing LACs into hyperspace, a BATTLECRUISER was just barely able to tuck two (2) old conventional LACs into its maximum expanded hyper field for translation and towing. Those LACs were no more than half the size of current Manticoran and Grayson attack craft.

This is a non-starter. Even with something the size of a Roland, and a lot of study and prep on technique, you could move maybe two LACs this way. More likely one.

dreamrider
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Re: Non-CLAC hyper-help for LAC's
Post by JeffEngel   » Sun Dec 14, 2014 10:15 am

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dreamrider wrote:
JeffEngel wrote:So, I'm thinking and wondering again -

Take a DD (or maybe an old CL, CA - it just has to be conveniently around, really) and a handful of LAC's - 6, 8, along those lines. Keep them just outside the hyperlimit. Make sure they're drilled together and the DD at least has a darned good astrogator.

Got a suspicious hyper footprint. LAC's ease up to the DD; DD goes into hyper with them along for it; group moves carefully to a destination matching the footprint; DD translates back down with them; group checks out ghosts in the black hats.

It is admittedly clunky. But is it too clunky to get a response to suspicious hyper footprints that's (1) able to fight through small incursions, (2) able to check out those ghosts well with a lot of sensor platforms and fast ones at that, and (3) not so large or demanding of crucial resources that you couldn't affordably have quite a few of these operating at once? Or am I missing something that bumps it from the merely impractical I'm worried about to just can't happen?


I'm finding it hard to believe that in 7 pages of discussion revolving around this idea that no one has mentioned the KNOWN showstopper, from an example in the books.

In the ONE example that we have of line warships towing LACs into hyperspace, a BATTLECRUISER was just barely able to tuck two (2) old conventional LACs into its maximum expanded hyper field for translation and towing. Those LACs were no more than half the size of current Manticoran and Grayson attack craft.

This is a non-starter. Even with something the size of a Roland, and a lot of study and prep on technique, you could move maybe two LACs this way. More likely one.

dreamrider

I hadn't been sure of that myself a thread or two previously, when it seemed to be treated as definitely not that harsh a problem.

Someone else is going to have to check this, as I don't have the entire Honorverse searchable at my fingertips, but was the bottleneck there towing through hyper or translation into and out of hyper? I had thought it was the securing and towing end, since those LAC's weren't suitable for moving right along on their own in hyper.

Also, in Honor Among Enemies, I seem to recall Wayfarer's LAC's escorting Artemis translating up or down in hyper bands with it, or plans for it at least. There may be a mention there, or at least indirect evidence, for how many they managed at a time or if it was an issue.
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Re: Non-CLAC hyper-help for LAC's
Post by n7axw   » Sun Dec 14, 2014 10:45 am

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SWM wrote:
n7axw wrote:The other thought I had was focused a bit more on the stealth.
I wonder about a sonar system based on ultra low frequency. The concept here would be that the stealth would be designed to defeat high tech methods but might be vulerable to something a bit more primitive. Manticore could experiment with its own stealth.

Don

Manticore already uses radar and lidar for active detection measures. Testing on their own stealth wouldn't be very useful since the Alignment stealth uses a different technology.

The Alignment tested their stealth, and weren't able to detect it any more than 1 light-second distance, and they supposedly knew what to look for. I don't remember whether that was tested using active or passive detectors; I assume active, but someone please correct me if I'm wrong.


To be sure. But my point is just what might be available to use for detection that it wouldn't normally be regarded as something that needed to be defended against? No system is complete proof against everything.

IIRC, not even the Alignment is completely confident of its stealth. In that conversation with his dad who had suggested sending the sharks to Trevor's Star to attack the Manties fleet, he cautions that the stealth might not be proof against the ghost rider drones and that against alert defenses, the chances of detection would be stronger.

So my thought is that the key to the situation would be to start thinking outside of the box.

Don
Last edited by n7axw on Sun Dec 14, 2014 11:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Non-CLAC hyper-help for LAC's
Post by munroburton   » Sun Dec 14, 2014 10:56 am

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dreamrider wrote:I'm finding it hard to believe that in 7 pages of discussion revolving around this idea that no one has mentioned the KNOWN showstopper, from an example in the books.

In the ONE example that we have of line warships towing LACs into hyperspace, a BATTLECRUISER was just barely able to tuck two (2) old conventional LACs into its maximum expanded hyper field for translation and towing. Those LACs were no more than half the size of current Manticoran and Grayson attack craft.

This is a non-starter. Even with something the size of a Roland, and a lot of study and prep on technique, you could move maybe two LACs this way. More likely one.

dreamrider


We do have a second example - in a short story, the Andermani Grand Admiral took two LACs with his SD flagship to solve a crisis.

It's clearly a starter. If a sub-million tons battlecruiser can tow two LACs and then a small superdreadnought can tow at least two... well, I'd say that the ability to do that is dependent on how far out one pushes one's hyperdrive generator.

I figure those create a spherical field effect centred about the hyper generator, which is not necessarily at the middle of a ship. So for a battlecruiser, the field is up to 1km in diameter. Ships have dimensions like those: 712 × 90 × 80 m

You could fit between five and ten modern LACs(smaller, denser than older ones) along each broadside and perhaps a lot more if the LACs are stacked.

I've seen the technique mentioned before as a retreat tactic - using warships to pull LACs out without exposing one's CLACs more than necessary. Useful if said CLACs are slow hogs, like the Havenites'.
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Re: Non-CLAC hyper-help for LAC's
Post by Jonathan_S   » Sun Dec 14, 2014 11:57 am

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dreamrider wrote:I'm finding it hard to believe that in 7 pages of discussion revolving around this idea that no one has mentioned the KNOWN showstopper, from an example in the books.

In the ONE example that we have of line warships towing LACs into hyperspace, a BATTLECRUISER was just barely able to tuck two (2) old conventional LACs into its maximum expanded hyper field for translation and towing. Those LACs were no more than half the size of current Manticoran and Grayson attack craft.

This is a non-starter. Even with something the size of a Roland, and a lot of study and prep on technique, you could move maybe two LACs this way. More likely one.

dreamrider
That's because you misremembered.
The BC barely had enough tractors to zone 2 LACs to tow them, unmanned, through hyper. But it's hyper field could extend out 6km (as could the hyper field of the DD)
Honor of the Queen: Chapter 17 wrote:Valentine had pointed out that both Thunder and Principality had far more powerful hyper generators than any Masadan starship. In fact, their generators were powerful enough to extend their translation fields over six kilometers beyond their own hulls if he redlined them. That meant that if they translated from rest, they could take anything within six kilometers with them when they did.

It this case I assumed the that LAC would still be manned, and would fly along under their own power once in hyper.

(Incidentally, RFC at one point mentioned a similar emergency plan if a RMN raiding force with detached CLACs had to retreat under fire. The LACS would all limpet themselves to the SD(P)s, who would hyper jump everybody out, then the LACs could detach and fly themselves in formation with the SD(P)s to the rendezvous with their CLACs)
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Re: Non-CLAC hyper-help for LAC's
Post by fallsfromtrees   » Sun Dec 14, 2014 12:20 pm

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The discussion about sonar (which obviously won't work) triggered another thought however.

Let us posit a mechanism utilizing the alpha wall (similar to the way the FTL comm works), that establishes a standing wave in normal space that is detectable by a sensor to be developed by Foraker and Hemphill. Any mass moving through this standing wave will disturb the wave, resulting in the detection of the mass. (This is similar to the mechanism used in many alarm systems where there is a standing ultrasonic wave in the room that is disturbed by anything moving in the room). This perhaps gives us a long range detector for the spider drive ships, since it is the disturbance of the wave caused by the mass of the ship that triggers the alarm.

Just a thought.
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Re: Non-CLAC hyper-help for LAC's
Post by SWM   » Sun Dec 14, 2014 12:36 pm

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dreamrider wrote:I'm finding it hard to believe that in 7 pages of discussion revolving around this idea that no one has mentioned the KNOWN showstopper, from an example in the books.

In the ONE example that we have of line warships towing LACs into hyperspace, a BATTLECRUISER was just barely able to tuck two (2) old conventional LACs into its maximum expanded hyper field for translation and towing. Those LACs were no more than half the size of current Manticoran and Grayson attack craft.

This is a non-starter. Even with something the size of a Roland, and a lot of study and prep on technique, you could move maybe two LACs this way. More likely one.

dreamrider

The limitation there on how many LACs they could take with them was the number of tractors on the ship. They had to use multiple tractors per LAC, and could only manage to pull 2 LACs.

Modern Manticoran and Havenite ships have greatly increased the number of tractors, because of the need to haul pods. Modern ships can carry a lot more LACs. David has said that if LACs had to escape a system during a raid and couldn't get to the CLAC, the emergency plan was to tractor them to whatever ships were available, get them to hyper, then transfer the crews and abandon the LACs.
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Re: Non-CLAC hyper-help for LAC's
Post by fallsfromtrees   » Sun Dec 14, 2014 2:09 pm

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SWM wrote:
dreamrider wrote:I'm finding it hard to believe that in 7 pages of discussion revolving around this idea that no one has mentioned the KNOWN showstopper, from an example in the books.

In the ONE example that we have of line warships towing LACs into hyperspace, a BATTLECRUISER was just barely able to tuck two (2) old conventional LACs into its maximum expanded hyper field for translation and towing. Those LACs were no more than half the size of current Manticoran and Grayson attack craft.

This is a non-starter. Even with something the size of a Roland, and a lot of study and prep on technique, you could move maybe two LACs this way. More likely one.

dreamrider

The limitation there on how many LACs they could take with them was the number of tractors on the ship. They had to use multiple tractors per LAC, and could only manage to pull 2 LACs.

Modern Manticoran and Havenite ships have greatly increased the number of tractors, because of the need to haul pods. Modern ships can carry a lot more LACs. David has said that if LACs had to escape a system during a raid and couldn't get to the CLAC, the emergency plan was to tractor them to whatever ships were available, get them to hyper, then transfer the crews and abandon the LACs.

Actually, I got the impression that Manticore ships hadn't added a lot of tractors - their solution was to put a tractor on each pod instead.
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