Non-CLAC hyper-help for LAC's

SWM wrote: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.

Jonathan_S wrote:

SWM wrote: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.

I believe in the evac scenario we both brought up that the plan would be for the LACs to use their own tractors to tractor onto the SD(P).

The Peep warships only had to fully zone the LACs because the Masadan LACs were towed, unmanned, outside the tow ships' compensator field (which is why on one a tank broke loose and cannonballed through the interior).

My assumption is that they had to be towed because they were too slow, and had too low endurance to fly themselves in formation with the Peep ships. Although there may have been a grav wave to content with, which the LACs certainly couldn't fly themselves through. (Plus if they flew themselves then they could all come across in one ferry mission, and then it couldn't be a plot mechanism for having the BC out of the system )

But in the evac scenario the LACs can (briefly) fly themsevles through hyper. They wouldn't have navigation optimized for it (no hyper log) but as long as they can follow a starship that knows where its going, and everyone stays clear of grav waves we've seen that they can operate once in hyper. And in this can they only need to do so until they hook up with the CLACs again. So number of shipboard tractors is fairly irrelevant.


That said, I expect that in the interval between the development of pods, and the invention of the self-tractoring pods, that ships did get built (or refit) with more and more tractors.

JeffEngel wrote: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.

Honor Among Enemies, Chapter 39 wrote:"Thank you. Now, about the LACs. They're a new model, and the six of them can probably stand up to a heavy cruiser for you if they have to. They don't have hyper generators or Warshawski sails, however. They can't enter a grav wave, and you'll have to take their crews off and destroy them when you begin translating."

Honor Among Enemies, Chapter 41 wrote:"That's it, Skipper." Annabelle Ward's voice was hushed. "I don't know what happened, but both impeller signatures went off the plot almost simultaneously."
"We didn't just lose the range?"
"No, Ma'am. They just . . . vanished."
Fuchien looked at Sukowski. It was possible one or both of the other ships had survived, but both had clearly lost their drives, and that was a bad sign.
"Skipper, we don't have anything at all on sensors," her exec pointed out in the low voice, of a man who hated what he heard himself saying, and Fuchien nodded. Lady Harrington's orders had been clear, and she and Wayfarer had bought Artemis the chance to escape. But Artemis was also the only ship which knew what had happened to Wayfarer and the Peep battlecruiser—or, at least, where it had happened.
"We can't leave," someone said, and Fuchien turned in shock, for it was Klaus Hauptman. Her employer faced her, his face gaunt and his eyes haunted, but there was something behind the shame in them now. He shook his head, then looked at the other officers on her bridge—and at his daughter—and went on in a quiet, almost humble tone none of them had ever heard.
"I . . . haven't handled this well. If I hadn't held Artemis in New Berlin for the freighters, we would've crossed the rift up in the epsilon bands, and the Peeps never would have seen us. As for the way I spoke to Lady Harrington—"
He paused and shook his head again, and his voice was a bit stronger when he resumed.
"But that's beside the point now. We know where Wayfarer went off the plot, and we know what her vector was. If there's anyone left alive aboard her—or aboard the Peep, I suppose—we're the only people who can help them."
"I can't possibly justify taking Artemis over there," Fuchien said flatly. "First, the Peep may have survived, and her damage may be repairable. We could sail right into her broadside, and I cannot risk all the people aboard this ship. Secondly, it would take hours for us to make the flight, whatever happened, and every minute we spend under power increases the chances another Peep will come along and spot us."
"I realize that, but we can't simply abandon them."
"We don't have a choice, Sir!" Fuchien's voice was harsh, and her eyes flickered with anger. Anger directed irrationally at Hauptman for making her say what she knew was true. "And, Sir, you may be this ship's owner, but I am her captain."
"Please, Captain." More than one eye widened in disbelief at the pleading in Hauptman's voice. "There has to be something we can do!"
Fuchien started to snap back, then closed her mouth and settled for a grim headshake. Hauptman's shoulders slumped, and the stricken look in his eyes hit Harold Sukowski like a hammer. He has to do something, the captain thought. He's hard, arrogant—a copper-plated son-of-a-bitch, but he understands responsibility, and Lady Harrington rubbed his nose in it. And so— Sukowski glanced at Stacey Hauptman —did making a fool of himself in front of his daughter. But Maggie's right. We can't risk the ship, however much we all wish we—
His thoughts chopped off, and he frowned. He heard Fuchien and Hauptman continuing to speak, but they sounded distant and far away as his brain worked at frantic speed.
"I'm sorry, Sir," Fuchien said at last, her voice much gentler than it had been. "I truly am. But there's nothing we can do."
"Maybe there is," Sukowski murmured, and every person on the bridge swung to stare at him. "We can't take Artemis out on SAR, no," he went on, "but there may be another way."

***Snip***

"Skipper! Skipper!"
Honor jerked, jumping half out of her skin as the urgent voice blurted from her skinsuit com. It was Scotty Tremaine, mounting sensor watch in his pinnace with Horace Harkness, and she'd never heard such urgency in his voice.
"Yes, Scotty?"
"Skipper, I've got the most beautiful sight in the goddamned universe out here!" Scotty half-shouted, swearing in her hearing for the first time in her memory. "It's gorgeous, Skipper"
"What's 'gorgeous'?" she demanded.
"Here, Skipper! Let me relay to you," he said instead of answering directly. Honor looked at Cardones in bafflement, and then another voice came over her suit com.
"Wayfarer, this is Harold Sukowski, approaching from your zero-two-five, three-one-niner," it said. "I am aboard LAC Andrew with your Lieutenant Commander Hunter, with John, Paul, Thomas, and five shuttles in company. James and Thaddæus are keeping an eye on Artemis, but we thought you might like a ride home."

Honor Among Enemies, Chapter 42 wrote:She hadn't been able to believe it when Sukowski turned up. For all the brave front she'd projected, she'd known—not thought; known—they were all going to die. Changing her mind had been hard, even with the proof right in front of her, and then her elated relief had been replaced by a deep, terrible anger that Sukowski and Fuchien and her own detached LAC skippers could have run such an insane risk after Wayfarer had paid such a terrible price to buy Artemis' escape.
She'd known at the time that her fury was born of her own whipsawed emotions, but the knowledge hadn't been enough to keep her from feeling it, and the haste with which Sukowski and Lieutenant Commander Hunter had begun explaining that they weren't really running a risk would have been hilarious had she been even one or two centimeters closer to rational.
And, in fact, they had been careful. Artemis had dropped the LACs and her shuttles and then translated very cautiously down to the alpha bands without using her impellers at all—possible for such a slow translation, though only the best ship handler and engineer could have pulled it off—and hidden in the lower bands while Sukowski led the search mission towards Wayfarer's last known position. The LACs' sensors were inferior to those of a battlecruiser, but their impeller signatures were far weaker, as well; they would have seen any Peep long before the Peep could detect them in return, and all of them had been prepared to shut their own wedges down instantly.
It was Sukowski who'd plotted their search pattern, and he'd done a good job. But they would probably have missed Wayfarer's inert hulk if Scotty Tremaine and Horace Harkness hadn't picked them up on passive and guided them in, and Honor still woke shivering when she considered the odds against their success. Yet they'd done it. Somehow, they'd done it, and the four LACs and five long-range shuttles had lifted every surviving crewman—Manticoran and Peep alike—off Wayfarer.
The chance that anyone would stumble across her before she blundered into a grav wave and broke up was less than minute, but Honor had made sure no one would. She'd set the nuclear demolition charge herself, with a twelve-hour delay, before she went aboard Andrew with Sukowski and Hunter.
Space had been tight enough she'd ordered all baggage abandoned, but MacGuiness and her surviving armsmen had somehow smuggled the Harrington Sword and Key, her .45, and the golden plaque commemorating her record-setting sailplane flight at the Academy aboard Andrew. She'd picked up her holocube of Paul personally, but that was all she had left of everything she'd taken aboard—that, and her life, and Nimitz . . . and Samantha.
The return flight to Artemis had been nerve wracking for everyone. Linking back up with something as small as a flight of LACs and shuttles after twice translating through two distinct sets of hyper bands was the sort of navigational feat legends were made of, but Margaret Fuchien had pulled it off. Artemis had risen slowly back into the delta bands, like a submarine surfacing from deep water, and she'd hit within less than two hundred thousand kilometers of Fuchien's estimated position. After that, it had been a straightforward if anxious proposition to drop back down into normal-space and spend ten days making repairs before creeping stealthily back up to the gamma bands and heading back for New Berlin. There'd been plenty to do, and Honor had thrown herself into assisting Fuchien in every way she could. Artemis' captain had been grateful, but Honor had known the real reason. Miraculous as Sukowski's rescue had been, exhausting activity had been her only refuge from her dead.

Vince wrote:Wayfarer's LACs couldn't escort Artemis when it translated between hyper bands In Honor Among Enemies. This may have been because no one thought of the possibility (Honor would have known about it from Yeltsin) or more probably due to the damage to Artemis's hyper generator when it was first attacked by Kerebin.
[snip]
Although that brings an interesting point (continuity error or David just deciding to not provide / eliminate an infodump?). Because only 4 of the 6 LACs that Wayfarer assigned to watch over Artemis, plus 5 long range shuttles came back to pickup the survivors of the battle between Wayfarer and Achmed. Possibly the 2 missing LACs held station near where Artemis translated down and then back up the hyper bands, as no mention is made of them being carried up and down the hyper bands by Artemis. And if they were, that contradicts what Honor said to Captain Fuchien in the above quote.

kzt wrote:AFAIK, it's the grav wave that's a problem. The LACs would be torn into very small pieces by the grav wave, even inside the hyper envelope.

SharkHunter wrote:

kzt wrote:AFAIK, it's the grav wave that's a problem. The LACs would be torn into very small pieces by the grav wave, even inside the hyper envelope.

Without sails they can't even enter hyper-- and it's stated in multiple places that LACs are strictly sub-light, which I have taken as mostly limiting them to whatever system they were dropped off in. Example being Sol to the Centauri system is over five light years, at .8C even with time dilation that's at least a four year journey, and the pile has to stay operational at some level for life support and particle shielding. Oxygen scrubbing, etc. makes that possible... but what does the crew eat? and 4 years in the plotted Honorverse means they'd never abandon a LAC crew to that fate. Thoughts?

SharkHunter wrote:
Without sails they can't even enter hyper-- and it's stated in multiple places that LACs are strictly sub-light, which I have taken as mostly limiting them to whatever system they were dropped off in.

Theemile wrote:(Could a LAC leave a system on it's own? was a 2 month discussion on the board about 4 years ago)

Jonathan_S wrote:

Theemile wrote:(Could a LAC leave a system on it's own? was a 2 month discussion on the board about 4 years ago)

That kind of depends on what you mean by "a system"
A LAC (even an old style one) should be perfectly capable of going Manticore A to Manticore B through n-space. That's only a few days flight.