Oops

kzt wrote:

crewdude48 wrote:Another idea, inspired by ericth's. Since the SS ships were in the same tac net as our tac witch and her ship, the update she sent might have had the energy weapons on those ships target each other. Again, improbable, but possible.

More likely than the previous post. David has the whole "guns have to be run out" part, so you can't just fire energy weapons without some time taken and alarms going off. There is also some reasonable suggestions that energy weapons have some sort of focusing element that is part of the sidewall. The statesec ships had already raised their sidewalls and armed their energy weapons, so that works.

However in a typical wall deployment their main armament is not aimed at the other ships in the wall.

So I'd still go for the destruct charges. I actually have no idea if David even knows what she did...

The guns on the stte Sec ships weer run outall the time - they were doing overwatch on the untrusted navy, remember?

roseandheather wrote:I've always had the impression that Shannon simply caused the fusion bottle containment systems to fail. Voila - insta-vaporised StateSec SDs. Something about the way they went up so suddenly and so brilliantly just struck me as fusion bottles letting go. That's just me, though.

After carefully pondering the ponderance of the evidence, I vote for self-destruct too. If the self-destruct is a nuke, and/or containment bottle failure. It couldn't just be a normal explosion, because textev gave the explosion at a fireball so "hellishly brilliant that it hurt."

Star Trek has tainted my image of scuttling charges as a chain effect of non-nuclear explosions at key areas of the ship, which doesn't supply an immediate brilliant explosion.

My concern is whether I feel that navies would deploy a nuclear device somewhere about the ship as a means of destruction. Sounds too Victor Cachatish. I wouldn't feel too comfy with a thermonuclear warhead somewhere on my ship while taking battle damage. I know a nuclear warhead has to be armed, but still. I apply the sentiment of John Travolta, "would you mind not shooting at the thermonuclear weapons." Or Colonel Sharp in Armageddon "Get off ... the ... nuclear ... warhead."

Shannon had three months. And no StateSec goon was going to run in Tourville.

cthia wrote:

roseandheather wrote:I've always had the impression that Shannon simply caused the fusion bottle containment systems to fail. Voila - insta-vaporised StateSec SDs. Something about the way they went up so suddenly and so brilliantly just struck me as fusion bottles letting go. That's just me, though.

After carefully pondering the ponderance of the evidence, I vote for self-destruct too. If the self-destruct is a nuke, and/or containment bottle failure. It couldn't just be a normal explosion, because textev gave the explosion at a fireball so "hellishly brilliant that it hurt."

Star Trek has tainted my image of scuttling charges as a chain effect of non-nuclear explosions at key areas of the ship, which doesn't supply an immediate brilliant explosion.

My concern is whether I feel that navies would deploy a nuclear device somewhere about the ship as a means of destruction. Sounds too Victor Cachatish. I wouldn't feel too comfy with a thermonuclear warhead somewhere on my ship while taking battle damage. I know a nuclear warhead has to be armed, but still. I apply the sentiment of John Travolta, "would you mind not shooting at the thermonuclear weapons." Or Colonel Sharp in Armageddon "Get off ... the ... nuclear ... warhead."

Shannon had three months. And no StateSec goon was going to run in Tourville.

In Honor Among Enemies, when the Wayfarer was abandoned and set to self-destruct, they utilized a nuke.

Besides, what's one more nuke, when every shipkiller missile is carrying a multi-megaton nuclear warhead, and your reactors are employing carefully controlled extremely high pressure fusion reactions?

The Humor Hog gets out of the pen.

On the other hand, Shannon could have employed something seemingly innocuous. Like simply changing the menu in the chow hall to beans, and ham and eggs for an entire week and simply applying a spark.

Chopped ham and eggs earned the nickname “H.E.s”—high explosives—because of the bloating and gas they caused.

We all know so well how much the military love serving beans to their soldiers. Or should that be more accurately...

"Ham and MoFos" - Ham and lima beans.
"Beans and baby dicks" - Beans and franks.

Or Shannon could have just timed all of the heating cans to explode at once.

Efforts to improve the taste included troops adding heavy doses of Tabasco sauce or serving the ration hot. Falter, who served in the 101st Airborne and commanded various nuclear weapons units in the Army, tells of a time when his men attempted to heat their ham and lima beans on the engine manifolds of their vehicles.

There was just one problem—the soldier tasked with strapping the C-rations to the engines forgot to punch holes in the cans to release the steam.

“A few miles into our road march the cans started exploding,” Falter said. “We were denied permission to stop, shut off the engines and clean up the mess. In less than five minutes we were subjected to a stink that lingered for days, even after repetitive engine cleanings. It smelled something like ham and lima beans.”

Here's to Shannon, Oops!

If you didn’t have an engine manifold handy, there were “heat tabs” made of a solid fuel called Trioxane to warm food. If troops ran out of heat tabs, there was always C-4.

Yes, C-4 the explosive. When ignited, a small chunk of it burned like Sterno with a steady, hot flame sufficient to heat food and beverages.

To open the cans, C-rations came with what many consider the Army’s greatest invention—the P-38 can opener.

There’s an old war story about a G.I. who attended a USO show where one of the acts was a man who consumed unusual items. As the audience watched, the entertainer chewed glass, gobbled nails and even swallowed swords.

Unperturbed by the spectacle, the soldier turned to a friend sitting next him and asked, “But can he digest C-rations?”

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/beans- ... 8f1ca8943c
.

cthia wrote:

roseandheather wrote:I've always had the impression that Shannon simply caused the fusion bottle containment systems to fail. Voila - insta-vaporised StateSec SDs. Something about the way they went up so suddenly and so brilliantly just struck me as fusion bottles letting go. That's just me, though.

After carefully pondering the ponderance of the evidence, I vote for self-destruct too. If the self-destruct is a nuke, and/or containment bottle failure. It couldn't just be a normal explosion, because textev gave the explosion at a fireball so "hellishly brilliant that it hurt."

Star Trek has tainted my image of scuttling charges as a chain effect of non-nuclear explosions at key areas of the ship, which doesn't supply an immediate brilliant explosion.

My concern is whether I feel that navies would deploy a nuclear device somewhere about the ship as a means of destruction. Sounds too Victor Cachatish. I wouldn't feel too comfy with a thermonuclear warhead somewhere on my ship while taking battle damage. I know a nuclear warhead has to be armed, but still. I apply the sentiment of John Travolta, "would you mind not shooting at the thermonuclear weapons." Or Colonel Sharp in Armageddon "Get off ... the ... nuclear ... warhead."

Shannon had three months. And no StateSec goon was going to run in Tourville.

Why add another nuke to the ship when the last missile in the magazine can be a special one with no interlocks (or software removable ones) or maybe the last nuke in every magazine for redundancy.

That would definitely fit the bill for something the TAC could "easily" access and a secured self destruct mechanism.

Kytheros wrote:Small craft have physical failsafes preventing wedge activation while they're too close to another ship, especially while inside one.
I fully expect that missiles would have the same sort of failsafes for their drives as well as similar failsafes on the warheads themselves.

My money's on futzing with reactor containment.

At least in the case of small craft that failsafe was no better than the sensors it was hooked up to. Harkness took a brute force approach and severed the connection to the sensors -- but given that the design can't tell the difference between "nothing connected" and sensor "unplugged" I wouldn't bet anything on it being immune from subtler hacks that leave the sensors physically connected but lying about what they see. (Or less plausibly alter the failsafe's acceptance criteria so a ship's boat bay - or missile tube - look exactly like a "safe-to-start" condition)

Now it could well be that that's not how Shannon approached the problem. But I don't have a lot of faith in those failsafes against deliberate malicious actions - even with only remote access.

Theemile wrote:Why add another nuke to the ship when the last missile in the magazine can be a special one with no interlocks (or software removable ones) or maybe the last nuke in every magazine for redundancy.

That would definitely fit the bill for something the TAC could "easily" access and a secured self destruct mechanism.

Then you have the problem of keeping track of the special missile, including whether you fire it or not if you are shooting yourself dry against an enemy, and the magazines are unlikely to be optimally placed to ensure the destruction of sensitive systems (it is surprising how much can survive even close proximity to a nuclear blast).

IMO using dedicated destruct devices that you don't have to worry about accidentally shooting at the enemy and can be placed in optimal locations is a better option

Jonathan_S wrote:

Kytheros wrote:Small craft have physical failsafes preventing wedge activation while they're too close to another ship, especially while inside one.
I fully expect that missiles would have the same sort of failsafes for their drives as well as similar failsafes on the warheads themselves.

My money's on futzing with reactor containment.

At least in the case of small craft that failsafe was no better than the sensors it was hooked up to. Harkness took a brute force approach and severed the connection to the sensors -- but given that the design can't tell the difference between "nothing connected" and sensor "unplugged" I wouldn't bet anything on it being immune from subtler hacks that leave the sensors physically connected but lying about what they see. (Or less plausibly alter the failsafe's acceptance criteria so a ship's boat bay - or missile tube - look exactly like a "safe-to-start" condition)

Now it could well be that that's not how Shannon approached the problem. But I don't have a lot of faith in those failsafes against deliberate malicious actions - even with only remote access.

IIRC, Harkness needed both physical and software mods. Also - as far as the physical mods go, there would be less in the way of anti-tamper contingencies, because only a madman would even want to try in the first place. The safeties are more to protect against idiots or people who are too fast on the activation button, not so much deliberate intent to bring the wedge up inside a ship.

Joat42 wrote:

crewdude48 wrote:Another idea, inspired by ericth's. Since the SS ships were in the same tac net as our tac witch and her ship, the update she sent might have had the energy weapons on those ships target each other. Again, improbable, but possible.

Using weapons to destroy a ship takes time, even if the ship doesn't have an active wedge.

It does take time, just not much of it, remember that though these are SD's and so are very well armored the weapons are also modern SD energy weapons and a wedge safety perimeter is only a few hundred kilometers. These weapons can fire half a million kilometers, at even a thousand no force exept an impeller wedge will stop them.

BrigadeΔ wrote:

Joat42 wrote:Using weapons to destroy a ship takes time, even if the ship doesn't have an active wedge.

It does take time, just not much of it, remember that though these are SD's and so are very well armored the weapons are also modern SD energy weapons and a wedge safety perimeter is only a few hundred kilometers. These weapons can fire half a million kilometers, at even a thousand no force exept an impeller wedge will stop them.

However fast energy weapons at point blank range would be, it would not be consistent with the description of the SS SDs' demise.

Also ... when Foraker wrote her killware, she would have had no way of knowing that the SS SDs would have their guns out and ready to go when she needed to push the button on them. Plus, there's the possibility that the on-mount crews could have overridden computer control, albeit highly improbable.