?

cthia wrote:Indeed, but I am considering a missile that has a turbo mode that kicks in right before its final run which quickly accelerates the missile from .8C to damn near light speed. Thousands of missiles accelerating to just under the speed of light at those ranges will be unavoidable once they commit.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:The problem is again that it must shut down the wedge to be a kinetic energy weapon. If it hits with the wedge on, then we know that wedge fratricide will kill the less powerful one, and that's the missile. So it will be ballistic at hit time.

It might be that a wedge powerful enough to get a missile to those speeds, would be as or more powerful than the ship's; with the result of mutual destruction at worst. Just as a counter missile is smaller than an attack missile, but its wedge is at least as powerful.

However, I do not think the missiles internal compensation nor its particle shielding (even using a buckler) would be powerful enough to stand the strain.

How big would a missile have to be, to get an SD strength wedge to use in ramming?

tlb wrote:It might be that a wedge powerful enough to get a missile to those speeds, would be as or more powerful than the ship's; with the result of mutual destruction at worst. Just as a counter missile is smaller than an attack missile, but its wedge is at least as powerful.

However, I do not think the missiles internal compensation nor its particle shielding (even using a buckler) would be powerful enough to stand the strain.

How big would a missile have to be, to get an SD strength wedge to use in ramming?

Using known Honoverse technology? Probably at least the size of a small DN

tlb wrote:How big would a missile have to be, to get an SD strength wedge to use in ramming?

Jonathan_S wrote:Using known Honoverse technology? Probably at least the size of a small DN

So, instead of a ship carrying missiles, this would be a missile carrying a ship; probably in the form of a DB sized control ship, that would attach to the missile and be jettisoned during the attack.

I do not think this is a viable concept, the reload rate is abysmal. Also how many Apollo pods could be built for the cost of one of these?

tlb wrote:

tlb wrote:How big would a missile have to be, to get an SD strength wedge to use in ramming?

Jonathan_S wrote:Using known Honoverse technology? Probably at least the size of a small DN

So, instead of a ship carrying missiles, this would be a missile carrying a ship; probably in the form of a DB sized control ship, that would attach to the missile and be jettisoned during the attack.

I do not think this is a viable concept, the reload rate is abysmal. Also how many Apollo pods could be built for the cost of one of these?

Why is there a need for an SD strength wedge? The tactic of ramming depends on the concentrated energy at impact, not wedge fratricide. The wedge the missile already employs seems sufficient, and it appears to be limited only by particle screen technology. We will assume the SL (or other entities) will make the necessary breakthroughs in particle screen technology or the point is moot anyway.

Wedges seem to be excessively powerful, and a missile's wedge to mass ratio should exceed the wedge / mass ratio of the ship and its wedge. Even if it doesn't, my money is on it not being a problem for a missile's wedge to accelerate the missile to > .9C without breaking a sweat.

cthia wrote:Why is there a need for an SD strength wedge? The tactic of ramming depends on the concentrated energy at impact, not wedge fratricide.

Everything that we have seen in the books points to wedge strength, not on energy at impact. Counter missiles are significantly faster to accelerate and the CM to wedge impact carries enormous energy; yet they are only used against missiles, not other ships. Even the Manticoran missiles used by its LAC's, that essentially have CM bodies, added a laser warhead to be used against ships.

Is there really a good chance that the books to come will have much about Solarian improvements, beyond getting closer to Erewhon levels?

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:Why is there a need for an SD strength wedge? The tactic of ramming depends on the concentrated energy at impact, not wedge fratricide.

Everything that we have seen in the books points to wedge strength, not on energy at impact. Counter missiles are significantly faster to accelerate and the CM to wedge impact carries enormous energy; yet they are only used against missiles, not other ships. Even the Manticoran missiles used by its LAC's, that essentially have CM bodies, added a laser warhead to be used against ships.

Is there really a good chance that the books to come will have much about Solarian improvements, beyond getting closer to Erewhon levels?

But that dependence might be a result of not being able to reach viable ramming speeds. And those speeds, the god of the HV has decreed, apparently begins at ~ .9C.

cthia wrote:But that dependence might be a result of not being able to reach viable ramming speeds. And those speeds, the god of the HV has decreed, apparently begins at ~ .9C.

No, that statement is not part of the Honorverse; it is from a different series of books.

In a news article today it was reported that astronomers became excited when they thought they had seen a jet of material coming from the collision of two neutron stars, travelling at 7 C.
Turned out to be an optical illusion, in that the jet was at about 0.97 C, but photons from its interaction with the interstellar medium were only just faster, so were being observed almost simultaneously.
The universe is stranger than we can imagine.

Daryl wrote:In a news article today it was reported that astronomers became excited when they thought they had seen a jet of material coming from the collision of two neutron stars, travelling at 7 C.
Turned out to be an optical illusion, in that the jet was at about 0.97 C, but photons from its interaction with the interstellar medium were only just faster, so were being observed almost simultaneously.
The universe is stranger than we can imagine.

IINM, I saw that too. It was even modeled on computer how it can happen. Very interesting.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:But that dependence might be a result of not being able to reach viable ramming speeds. And those speeds, the god of the HV has decreed, apparently begins at ~ .9C.

No, that statement is not part of the Honorverse; it is from a different series of books.

Meh. That just means it is a different universe, but still governed by the mind of the same god.