How do spider drive SD(P)'s fight?

What keeps hitting me is OB really didn't NEED the Sharks or the LDs.

OK - hold with me for a second.

"Legimate" Freighters lining up to use the wormhole disgorged the Frigate sized Ghosts for thier scouting mission - and no one noticed.

Why not use freighters to drop off the Graser torps in a similiar manner as the ghosts? over a week or 2 they could be dropped off by passing various, unrelated freighters and move to a pre-arranged, out of the way rendevous point, then together swarming the stations at pre-arranged times weeks later. The Ghosts would still need to do last minute recon and build the guidance platform, but no LDs and no Sharks. No worry of a deep space intercept. No 2 month accel to .2C. No way to figure out who dropped them off from the annonymous 2 month old traffic lists.

the sails project radially in the plane of the nodes.

armour schemes based on sails start with the assumption that the only direction safe from incoming fire is the plane of the sail. IOW, that they aren't there at all. in single-ship duels, it might be possible to prevent your opponent firing at your flanks, but i wouldn't count on it. in multi-ship battles, trying to do that is a great way to get a graser through a power room: in most situations there will be somebody who can get a shot at your side.

JeffEngel wrote:Thanks. Hmmm. Warshawski sails can be put up in normal space; you do that just before going through a wormhole. They're also used much as wedges are in (rare) grav wave battles as invulnerable plates.

Sooo... could spider drive ships be counting on using Warshawski sails in normal space as part of their defenses? It's odd that they wouldn't have an armor scheme to take advantage of that - and I'm curious where the sails appear relative to the ship - but it sounds like something they could possibly have available to account for a readiness to use them against other capital ships.

1) no foreign traffic in Manticore B. ergo no way to include Weyland in the attack. not at all a good idea.

2) very high chance of attracting the attention of Customs. this would be a classic smuggling technique, so you can take it for granted that it is being looked for. given the shear numbers of torpedoes that would be needed - and the number was large enough that OB's planners didn't even try to use them for more than a few critical elements of the strike - and thus the number of ships involved, you can take it for granted that somebody would be caught with their hatches open. also a rather dubious notion when setting up a surprise attack.

Theemile wrote:What keeps hitting me is OB really didn't NEED the Sharks or the LDs.

OK - hold with me for a second.

"Legimate" Freighters lining up to use the wormhole disgorged the Frigate sized Ghosts for thier scouting mission - and no one noticed.

Why not use freighters to drop off the Graser torps in a similiar manner as the ghosts? over a week or 2 they could be dropped off by passing various, unrelated freighters and move to a pre-arranged, out of the way rendevous point, then together swarming the stations at pre-arranged times weeks later. The Ghosts would still need to do last minute recon and build the guidance platform, but no LDs and no Sharks. No worry of a deep space intercept. No 2 month accel to .2C. No way to figure out who dropped them off from the annonymous 2 month old traffic lists.

SWM wrote:

Louis R wrote:It wouldn't surprise me at all if the response of an LD to being shot at would be to raise its wedge and side walls

There's no reason to assume that ships this big aren't big enough to be dual drive, particularly if the conclusion that Warshawski sails are essential to safe navigation in hyper is correct. While a sail-only node probably would be smaller than a standard alpha node, the difference may not be great, and building in the configuration mechanism anyway is a good idea. For that matter, the Sharks could well have alpha nodes - they can clearly move independently in hyper - which suggests the possibility that the Ghosts _are_ too small to have the space for them, since it seems that they can't.

We aren't assuming that the Detweilers aren't dual drive--we know that they aren't. David has said that the tri-lateral shape required by the spider drive ships is incompatible with the tapered cylindrical shape required by an impeller wedge.

However, Warshawski sails do not require the cylindrical shape. It is entirely possible for a spider ship to have alpha nodes and generate Warshawski sails. Since Warshawski sails are required for control entering a wormhole, and David has said that spider ships can enter wormholes, we assume that spider ships do in fact have Warshawski sails (though there is the possibility that the Alignment has discovered some alternative method of control while entering a wormhole).

But we know that Detweilers cannot have both a spider drive and impeller drive.

On the other hand, he's also said that they have sails, and impeller ring capability.

I suspect, however, that the workaround involves extendible nodes for the impeller rings, and is probably not very efficient.

Kytheros wrote:

SWM wrote:We aren't assuming that the Detweilers aren't dual drive--we know that they aren't. David has said that the tri-lateral shape required by the spider drive ships is incompatible with the tapered cylindrical shape required by an impeller wedge.

However, Warshawski sails do not require the cylindrical shape. It is entirely possible for a spider ship to have alpha nodes and generate Warshawski sails. Since Warshawski sails are required for control entering a wormhole, and David has said that spider ships can enter wormholes, we assume that spider ships do in fact have Warshawski sails (though there is the possibility that the Alignment has discovered some alternative method of control while entering a wormhole).

But we know that Detweilers cannot have both a spider drive and impeller drive.

On the other hand, he's also said that they have sails, and impeller ring capability.

I suspect, however, that the workaround involves extendible nodes for the impeller rings, and is probably not very efficient.

Yes--impeller rings for generating Warshawski sails. As I already said. Not for generating impeller wedges.

1) The restriction doesn't matter. The freighters were near the terminus, not Manty A - The Ghosts had to go to both systems and recon and build the firecontrol platforms. The Graser Torps are autonomous so could "swim" to both systems, given sufficient time, like the Ghosts. They appear to have at leasst a 6-8 week endurance.

2) As was the 2 freighters dropped off a dozen 50K ton ships - why not 60 10Kton Graser torps?

The reason so few Graser torps were used and so many Cataphracts were used is the limited carriage capability of the Sharks - only 2-3 Graser torps apiece in external racks. The Caphract pods were a much discussed, unwanted concession necessitated by moving Oyster Bay up before the LD's were available. There was a great concern the "dumb" cataphracts could cause a EE event - not because they cared about lives, but because of the political fallout it would generate.

So a freighter or two, without the Sharks's limitations, could have carried many times more Graser Torps than all the Sharks used in the Manticore. I'm not talking about 10's of ships (unless you snuck them in 2 at a time), I'm only talking about 2-4 more freighters, at the most, over 2-3 weeks. Customs won't inspect because you are not stopping at a Manty planet or transferring cargo, just using the wormhole, and won't see the Torps because of the stealth. At worst, they capture a partly empty freighter and intern it while checking it's bonafides and looking for floating contraband which has long since disappeared. Heck - a dropped crate of contraband would be a good cover if they were caught. There is a risk, yes, but no more than that taken by the hyper footprint of the Sharks.

Louis R wrote:1) no foreign traffic in Manticore B. ergo no way to include Weyland in the attack. not at all a good idea.

2) very high chance of attracting the attention of Customs. this would be a classic smuggling technique, so you can take it for granted that it is being looked for. given the shear numbers of torpedoes that would be needed - and the number was large enough that OB's planners didn't even try to use them for more than a few critical elements of the strike - and thus the number of ships involved, you can take it for granted that somebody would be caught with their hatches open. also a rather dubious notion when setting up a surprise attack.

Theemile wrote:What keeps hitting me is OB really didn't NEED the Sharks or the LDs.

OK - hold with me for a second.

"Legimate" Freighters lining up to use the wormhole disgorged the Frigate sized Ghosts for thier scouting mission - and no one noticed.

Why not use freighters to drop off the Graser torps in a similiar manner as the ghosts? over a week or 2 they could be dropped off by passing various, unrelated freighters and move to a pre-arranged, out of the way rendevous point, then together swarming the stations at pre-arranged times weeks later. The Ghosts would still need to do last minute recon and build the guidance platform, but no LDs and no Sharks. No worry of a deep space intercept. No 2 month accel to .2C. No way to figure out who dropped them off from the annonymous 2 month old traffic lists.

Theemile wrote:What keeps hitting me is OB really didn't NEED the Sharks or the LDs.

OK - hold with me for a second.

"Legimate" Freighters lining up to use the wormhole disgorged the Frigate sized Ghosts for thier scouting mission - and no one noticed.

Why not use freighters to drop off the Graser torps in a similiar manner as the ghosts? over a week or 2 they could be dropped off by passing various, unrelated freighters and move to a pre-arranged, out of the way rendevous point, then together swarming the stations at pre-arranged times weeks later. The Ghosts would still need to do last minute recon and build the guidance platform, but no LDs and no Sharks. No worry of a deep space intercept. No 2 month accel to .2C. No way to figure out who dropped them off from the annonymous 2 month old traffic lists.

They also need the Ghosts to do the initial espionage work, which determined the targets of the torpedos and missile pods. That took many weeks.

But yes, I think you're right. They could have done Operation Oyster Bay as it was executed without the Sharks or Detweilers. It makes me wonder if the original plan included something even bigger for the Detweilers to do. Take out the Junction forts, perhaps?

Louis R wrote:1) no foreign traffic in Manticore B. ergo no way to include Weyland in the attack. not at all a good idea.

It's a lot less than the distance they flew from the actual drop off point. They appear be perfectly capable of navigating from the junction to Manticore B. It just makes timing more complex.

What you lose are the strikes at the actual construction platforms and other orbital sites other then the stations. I suspect that is how things like the RMN's main supply of stored missiles got all blowed up.

But it would be a totally devastating attack even without the missile pods, and if they had executed it two months earlier the RMN would now have a large fleet of 90% complete ships. 90% complete ships that are missing all the parts that allow them to be effective combat vessels, like missiles and sensors.

All together, that would have been a huge win for the MAN.

Louis R wrote:the last i checked, the taper was dictated by the requirements of the alpha nodes, and the wide variation in the angle of the taper suggests that it's there as much for simplicity of construction as it is for drive physics. in fact, if you look at the published drawing of the Agamemnon, you'll notice that the minimum hull section is well forward of the aft ring, which actually sits in a bit of a trench. if that drawing is wrong, i'm afraid i missed the memo

No, it is the beta nodes and the impeller wedge that requires the taper. See this post by David Weber, specifically the paragraph:

(7) It is the beta nodes and the generation of the impeller wedge which require the reduction in cross-section were the ring is mounted. A spherical hull form with a pinched-in belt could produce the same effect. So could mounting the beta nodes on rams or pods, but in that case you'd be generating a wedge that would be enormously greater in size than you actually require unless (of course) you were extending the ram directly astern or ahead along the axis of the vessel far enough to create the proper beta note geometry even though the actual hull of your vessel was "short and stubby" or "fat and round" compared to the normal warship spindle shape. Trying to design a warship that way, of course, would be hideously inefficient and expensive — both economically and in terms of the vessel's ability to do its job — so no one does it. That doesn't mean it couldn't be done for something else, however.

Now, I don't blame you for not knowing this, since it was only mentioned in an old post here on the forums. The text in the books does not make this point clear.

--snipping--

kzt wrote:What you lose are the strikes at the actual construction platforms and other orbital sites other then the stations. I suspect that is how things like the RMN's main supply of stored missiles got all blowed up.

Question... My understanding is that the stored missile supply is intact, but that the ability to produce any MORE was taken out. Did I miss something?