pd 1924 - Shape of Beowulf's fleet

Relax wrote:SD as a unit with its ~8M ton limit in the era of FTL controlled missiles is dead. Acceleration requirements are dead. New Grav plates allow 150G, so why bother with the 8Mton limit constraint. Now maybe we just call the "forts" the new SD class. 1 unit does both jobs saving $$$ and logistics.

SDP in current configuration is REALLY dead as soon as the GA nations figure out the MALIGN hyper generator as this is FAR more important than acceleration.

Current tech state of affairs reminds me more along the lines of early Cold War. Lots of surplus ships from previous war and new tech effectively already makes them obsolete.

Jonathan_S wrote:Three issues with just using forts as SD(P)s. (Even after the GA gets their hands on those 150g grav plates)

1) They don't carry hyper generators
2) Their hulls are the wrong shape to carry sails -- optimized for all around spherical fire -- meaning even with a hyper generator they couldn't use wormholes or grav waves
3) In support of that all-around fire optimization they do use up significant internal volume mounting a spherical sidewall generator (something that's not normally tactically useful for an SD)

None of those are to say you couldn't build a monster, say, 16m ton hyper-capable 150g vessel -- but it'd likely be optimized quite differently than your 16m ton forts.

Building a single design to serve both purposes has technical trade-offs and operational issues.
- It's not as good at either role as a purpose built design.
- The new grav plates are bulky and aren't necessarily in a mostly static defensive use like a fort.
- Forts were deliberately built without strategic mobility to preclude temptations to strip those defenses to support operations elsewhere.

The streak drive will be useful for an SD, but not so much for a fort capable of hyperspace travel. The problem is that being limited to gravity plates (even at 150g), once the compensator mass limit is exceeded, means a super heavy ship cannot use the best accelerations that are available in gravity waves.

Would Galton even have had the improved gravity plates, since they were only useful for the spider drive?

PS: The hyperspace capable fort might be more Rugby ball shaped than spherical, but the nodes for the sails could be put on rams to assist in creating the proper geometry.

tlb wrote:The streak drive will be useful for an SD, but not so much for a fort capable of hyperspace travel. The problem is that being limited to gravity plates (even at 150g), once the compensator mass limit is exceeded, means a super heavy ship cannot use the best accelerations that are available in gravity waves.

Would Galton even have had the improved gravity plates, since they were only useful for the spider drive?

Forts (which we saw massive ones at Galton) do require Grav plates for their travel, so advanced plates would allow for better tactical maneuvers in all Forts.

Enough to make it worthwhile?--- <shrug> meh?

The question is - would there be sufficient reason to pour research $$ to invent and develop the advanced plates in a world where the compensator already exists? Or only in one where the Spider Drive requires better plate technology?

In a vacuum, my money would be spent improving the compensator. Even a theoretical breakthrough still requires years of research and product development to make the finding worthwhile. (As anybody deep enough in the industry will attest, for the most part, we're still developing 1930s-50s physics into finished goods and Base Engineering from the 50s through 70s is still being refined in today's products. Yes, new technology is being used, but it takes decades for most concepts to mature to the point where it is a viable product, and then spends more decades slowly refining. There are at least 3-4 Rocket technologies I first heard of in the 80s which are still being developed, are seen as highly viable near-future technologies, but have never been deployed or built into a testable flight configuration in public knowledge (Dr. Franklin Chang-Díaz's VASIMIR Plasma Engine and Rolls Royce/Reaction Engine's SABRE hybrid cycle engine come to mind, let alone the 1950's era nuclear bomblet Orion drive.))

tlb wrote:The streak drive will be useful for an SD, but not so much for a fort capable of hyperspace travel. The problem is that being limited to gravity plates (even at 150g), once the compensator mass limit is exceeded, means a super heavy ship cannot use the best accelerations that are available in gravity waves.

Would Galton even have had the improved gravity plates, since they were only useful for the spider drive?

Theemile wrote:Forts (which we saw massive ones at Galton) do require Grav plates for their travel, so advanced plates would allow for better tactical maneuvers in all Forts.

Enough to make it worthwhile?--- <shrug> meh?

The question is - would there be sufficient reason to pour research $$ to invent and develop the advanced plates in a world where the compensator already exists? Or only in one where the Spider Drive requires better plate technology?

In a vacuum, my money would be spent improving the compensator. Even a theoretical breakthrough still requires years of research and product development to make the finding worthwhile. (As anybody deep enough in the industry will attest, for the most part, we're still developing 1930s-50s physics into finished goods and Base Engineering from the 50s through 70s is still being refined in today's products. Yes, new technology is being used, but it takes decades for most concepts to mature to the point where it is a viable product, and then spends more decades slowly refining.

The problem is that the author has already given us an improvement in the compensator and it only moved the mass limit a bit. There can be programs to improve the current technology, but trying to find different technology usually is the result of an offshoot from research into the basics without any guarantee that unknown results will do something that you want.

Theemile wrote:I believe Relax is calling for the creation of what Weber has classified as "Monitors" in other settings. Essentially, Hyper enabled craft in the Fort size - not necessarily forts, but mobile assets in the same mass class with some of the "big boy" defensive assets only seen today in Forts, and the facilities required for independent, mobile operations, which are not usually built into forts. (The end result would be a ship which puts more of it's mass towards spares, repair assets, food, and crew comfort/size and system redundancy than usually seen in Forts, with a hull form more optimized towards bubble sidewalls, but incorporating sails.)

And the concept has some valid points; look at the last several battles - cutting edge, competent attackers stay over the hyperlimit or only come a light minute or 2 inside the limit. Missiles and fire control have increased range to the point that the attackers can accurately pummel planetary targets from near the hyperlimit, and cycle back and forth for resupply. Attackers who enter the hyperlimit are mouse trapped between planetary defenses and mobile forces.

There's still an upper limit for such a massive ship, which is its ability to go into hyper when surprised by something that it couldn't see. It doesn't want to be mouse-trapped like you're saying. It's going to take 6 to 10 minutes for that, which is enough for anywhere from a DDM to a 4-DM practically without a ballistic phase to arrive. If such a ship arrived in a system, it would be vulnerable to missile shoals within 75 million km, needing to rely on active defences from the escort fleet and its point-defence.

In this environment, Fort scale combatants would have the advantage, able to withstand a magnitude more punishment and spend 3-4x more time between replenishments. So a Monitor - a fort designed for mobile use, would make sense. This doesn't mean that SDs woudldn't necessarily have a place - they could be a maneuver force protecting the flanks of the monitors. and as mentioned, a Monitor force would never go deeply into a hyperlimit until the defenses appeared neutralized, but may use their "Fast Wing" SDs to do probing in force.

"Appeared neutralised" being the effective phrase here. The enemy might have reserves to throw.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:There's still an upper limit for such a massive ship, which is its ability to go into hyper when surprised by something that it couldn't see. It doesn't want to be mouse-trapped like you're saying. It's going to take 6 to 10 minutes for that, which is enough for anywhere from a DDM to a 4-DM practically without a ballistic phase to arrive. If such a ship arrived in a system, it would be vulnerable to missile shoals within 75 million km, needing to rely on active defences from the escort fleet and its point-defence.

I believe when a ship arrives its hyper generator is discharged and so far below Stand-By readiness (though possibly not all the way back to powered down).
RFC's infodump on hyper drives says an 8 mton SD "requires 4 minutes to go from Stand-By to actual translation"
but "from Powered Down to Translation, the same ship would require 32 minutes."

So, maybe after freshly arriving it might take an SD around 12-18 minutes before it could hyper back out. So you might not be able to count of hypering out in 4 minute or so if your appearance immediately draws an overly hostile reaction.



Now how long a 16 mton Monitor would take is an interesting question that we don't have enough info to have confidence in.
We know from the infodump that the minimum delay varies with tonnage - but aren't given enough data point to have confidence in reconstructions of that minimum time delay line/curve.

The 2 we do have is that:
1) the minimum is 30s (even for a DB - say 38,000 tons) and
2) the time for an 8 mton ship.

Hear begins barely supported speculation.
Since we've nothing else to go on If we arbitrarily assume that 38000 tons is where the line/curve inflects up from 30s, AND assume it is roughly linear, then extending that line past the SD would give a 16 mton monitor around 7.5 min from Stand-By to actual translation. But there's so many unknowns in that it can't be relied upon.

Now the one delay we can have more confidence in is wormhole transits. An 8 mton SD would shut down the junction ~102 seconds. A 16 mton monitor would shut it down ~410 seconds (the scaling with the square of tonnage is painful). That's not the end of the world, but roughly quadrupling the transit time of a ship or squadron isn't going to be fun.


Still, speed of popping into hyper hasn't been a key tactical ability in most battles. Though it was implicit in Honor's tactics at Galton and Sol (staying back outside the hyper limit -- accepting the low but increased risk of being jumped at close range in exchange for the ability to hyper out from an overwhelming strike)
One issue with it is (if I'm right about needing extra recharge time after leaving hyper) is it can't easily be repeated. You can quickly evade one strike, but if you come back it seems it'd be much longer before you'd be ready to evade another.

So I don't know if slow hyper entry alone is enough reason to nix a slow monitor concept.

Jonathan_S wrote:Still, speed of popping into hyper hasn't been a key tactical ability in most battles. Though it was implicit in Honor's tactics at Galton and Sol (staying back outside the hyper limit -- accepting the low but increased risk of being jumped at close range in exchange for the ability to hyper out from an overwhelming strike)
One issue with it is (if I'm right about needing extra recharge time after leaving hyper) is it can't easily be repeated. You can quickly evade one strike, but if you come back it seems it'd be much longer before you'd be ready to evade another.

So I don't know if slow hyper entry alone is enough reason to nix a slow monitor concept.

Some time ago, when Manticore was erecting prefab forts at various junctions, I thought that it would make more sense if they were completely built at Manticore with hyperspace capability. Then there would be no period of vulnerability when the parts were being put together; instead the fort would arrive completely loaded and ready to go. Finally, if the need went away, they could return home or move on to a new assignment. Any remaining prefab forts would be built under the watchful eyes of at least one hyperspace capable fort. In extremis, this hyperspace capable fort could be the last friendly ship to retreat through a wormhole, effectively limiting pursuit by locking the wormhole for an appreciable amount of time.

tlb wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Still, speed of popping into hyper hasn't been a key tactical ability in most battles. Though it was implicit in Honor's tactics at Galton and Sol (staying back outside the hyper limit -- accepting the low but increased risk of being jumped at close range in exchange for the ability to hyper out from an overwhelming strike)
One issue with it is (if I'm right about needing extra recharge time after leaving hyper) is it can't easily be repeated. You can quickly evade one strike, but if you come back it seems it'd be much longer before you'd be ready to evade another.

So I don't know if slow hyper entry alone is enough reason to nix a slow monitor concept.

Some time ago, when Manticore was erecting prefab forts at various junctions, I thought that it would make more sense if they were completely built at Manticore with hyperspace capability. Then there would be no period of vulnerability when the parts were being put together; instead the fort would arrive completely loaded and ready to go. Finally, if the need went away, they could return home or move on to a new assignment. Any remaining prefab forts would be built under the watchful eyes of at least one hyperspace capable fort. In extremis, this hyperspace capable fort could be the last friendly ship to retreat through a wormhole, effectively limiting pursuit by locking the wormhole for an appreciable amount of time.

Go back to SFTS - even though the modules were prefab, it took several months of final construction to complete the forts. The modules took significant time to integrate and turn into a working fort - that's why there was concern that Crandall might attack the junction - the 12 modular forts @ Lynx were not complete yet, and required a dozen Medusas to cover the forts until complete - (Adm. Blayne's Medusa Fleet was deployed to Lynx as a reaction to Crandall's fleet and was there from the time of the Battle of Spindle (deployed ) until way after BoMa - Blayne's fleet was listed as one of the possible reaction forces to BoMA)

Prefab is being used in a similiar manner to a pre-fab house in the US. The majority of the work is completed in a factory, but a significant remainder is required to be finished onsite. (Power, water and sewage hookups, connecting and leveling the modules, drywalling and carpeting the transitions, building any add ons (garage, decks, outside steps), errecting and attaching the roof and roof spars, and completing any interior spaces not able to be made in the factory (adding rooms in the 2nd floor attic spaces.)

My current house (Built 5 years ago) was built out of flat modules built in a factory and assembled onsite - each wall module was ~8'x10', with the framing, cladding, windows, doors and insulation all installed at the factory. A floor was built out of pre-made manufactured trusses at the site(over the foundation/basement, then the first floor modules were assembled and connected to the deck, followed by each floor then the pre-made trusses and the roof. I was told the method saved ~1.5 months of construction on site - the build still took ~9 months to complete for a 4,000 sq foot house, even though every major part was constructed in a factory and just "assembled" onsite.

Theemile wrote:Go back to SFTS - even though the modules were prefab, it took several months of final construction to complete the forts. The modules took significant time to integrate and turn into a working fort - that's why there was concern that Crandall might attack the junction - the 12 modular forts @ Lynx were not complete yet, and required a dozen Medusas to cover the forts until complete - (Adm. Blayne's Medusa Fleet was deployed to Lynx as a reaction to Crandall's fleet and was there from the time of the Battle of Spindle (deployed ) until way after BoMa - Blayne's fleet was listed as one of the possible reaction forces to BoMA)

Prefab is being used in a similiar manner to a pre-fab house in the US. The majority of the work is completed in a factory, but a significant remainder is required to be finished onsite. (Power, water and sewage hookups, connecting and leveling the modules, drywalling and carpeting the transitions, building any add ons (garage, decks, outside steps), errecting and attaching the roof and roof spars, and completing any interior spaces not able to be made in the factory (adding rooms in the 2nd floor attic spaces.)

It also seems kind of similar to how the Ardleigh Burke destroyers are built (though it's not unique to them). Sections of the ship are built away from it's building slip/dry dock, complete with most of their equipment and systems, and then transported to the building slip/dry dock and craned into place. But once in place there is still tons of welding to do to join them up, and lots or work hooking systems together, connecting wiring, pipes, etc.

The difference is we're not stockpiling Ardleigh Burke sections for later rush jobs. But the need to spend non-trivial amounts of time hooking each section to the rest of the ship would seem to reflect what would be needed to assemble pre-fab fort sections.

Theemile wrote:Go back to SFTS - even though the modules were prefab, it took several months of final construction to complete the forts. The modules took significant time to integrate and turn into a working fort - that's why there was concern that Crandall might attack the junction - the 12 modular forts @ Lynx were not complete yet, and required a dozen Medusas to cover the forts until complete - (Adm. Blayne's Medusa Fleet was deployed to Lynx as a reaction to Crandall's fleet and was there from the time of the Battle of Spindle (deployed ) until way after BoMa - Blayne's fleet was listed as one of the possible reaction forces to BoMA)

Prefab is being used in a similiar manner to a pre-fab house in the US. The majority of the work is completed in a factory, but a significant remainder is required to be finished onsite. (Power, water and sewage hookups, connecting and leveling the modules, drywalling and carpeting the transitions, building any add ons (garage, decks, outside steps), errecting and attaching the roof and roof spars, and completing any interior spaces not able to be made in the factory (adding rooms in the 2nd floor attic spaces.)

Jonathan_S wrote:It also seems kind of similar to how the Ardleigh Burke destroyers are built (though it's not unique to them). Sections of the ship are built away from it's building slip/dry dock, complete with most of their equipment and systems, and then transported to the building slip/dry dock and craned into place. But once in place there is still tons of welding to do to join them up, and lots or work hooking systems together, connecting wiring, pipes, etc.

The difference is we're not stockpiling Ardleigh Burke sections for later rush jobs. But the need to spend non-trivial amounts of time hooking each section to the rest of the ship would seem to reflect what would be needed to assemble pre-fab fort sections.

It is my impression that many ships are built that way these days; the difference is that the ship sections are being put together in a shipyard, whereas the forts were being assembled at the position of need (so in a danger zone).

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Theemile wrote:I believe Relax is calling for the creation of what Weber has classified as "Monitors" in other settings. Essentially, Hyper enabled craft in the Fort size - not necessarily forts, but mobile assets in the same mass class with some of the "big boy" defensive assets only seen today in Forts, and the facilities required for independent, mobile operations, which are not usually built into forts. (The end result would be a ship which puts more of it's mass towards spares, repair assets, food, and crew comfort/size and system redundancy than usually seen in Forts, with a hull form more optimized towards bubble sidewalls, but incorporating sails.)

And the concept has some valid points; look at the last several battles - cutting edge, competent attackers stay over the hyperlimit or only come a light minute or 2 inside the limit. Missiles and fire control have increased range to the point that the attackers can accurately pummel planetary targets from near the hyperlimit, and cycle back and forth for resupply. Attackers who enter the hyperlimit are mouse trapped between planetary defenses and mobile forces.

There's still an upper limit for such a massive ship, which is its ability to go into hyper when surprised by something that it couldn't see. It doesn't want to be mouse-trapped like you're saying. It's going to take 6 to 10 minutes for that, which is enough for anywhere from a DDM to a 4-DM practically without a ballistic phase to arrive. If such a ship arrived in a system, it would be vulnerable to missile shoals within 75 million km, needing to rely on active defences from the escort fleet and its point-defence.

In this environment, Fort scale combatants would have the advantage, able to withstand a magnitude more punishment and spend 3-4x more time between replenishments. So a Monitor - a fort designed for mobile use, would make sense. This doesn't mean that SDs woudldn't necessarily have a place - they could be a maneuver force protecting the flanks of the monitors. and as mentioned, a Monitor force would never go deeply into a hyperlimit until the defenses appeared neutralized, but may use their "Fast Wing" SDs to do probing in force.

"Appeared neutralised" being the effective phrase here. The enemy might have reserves to throw.

Lets partially reframe my argument:
***Most planets are Geographically 200-250Mkm inside their hyperlimit***

WITH FTL control(60X multiplier), this means distance equivalent of shooting from ~4Mkm without FTL. In other words, Anyone crossing a hyperlimit with a capital ship of any kind, be it an SDP or a Fort/Monitor, should be court martialed instantly for RAGING incompetence!!!... such as Honor at Galton.

NEXT topic: Sure, A bigger ship will require longer to recharge their hypergenerator... SO what? Who cares? You can't go into hyper if you cross the hyperlimit anyways. Missiles from orbit require ~30minutes to get to where you are. Who cares if your charge time is even 8 minutes(2X an SDP)? If they have a ready squadron outside the hyperlimit... So what? Who cares? If you cannot handle a squadron of wallers within 5~10 minutes of your own translation outside the hyperlimit then you should have NEVER been there to begin with and should instantly be brought to courts martial! If you cannot handle a swarm of Pre-deployed pods within 60Mkm of you being fired, you should NEVER have been there to begin with and should instantly be brought to courts martial! Why? Not smart enough to send in scouting first for said deployed pods. One truly has to question that Admirals sanity if you just jump in blind screaming UNDELLEEEEEEEEEE!!! like the fool SLN...

The entire argument about hypergenator charge time is a strawman argument.

Next argument: Forts are NOT spherical, nor rugby shaped. Nor would you want them Spherical or rugby shaped unless you were wanting to dual with Grasers... Unless you are sitting outside the hyperlimit at a wormhole junction, Graser duals do not exist. DW has also stated forts have impellers. Which means their tops and bottom are protected via impeller just like any other impeller drive ship. In fact, they could have double sets of impellers since they do not exactly have to be efficient(loss of mass of course). They happen to have a spherical sidewall potential(backup if their impellers get destroyed???)... Though why you would want a spherical sidewall for anything other than back up is a head scratcher and rather odd when DW has ALSO stated that sidewall strength can be easily increased with just using stronger generators and the biggest difference between capital ships and lower classes of ships. Distinction here is somewhere there might be a mass conservation cross over between sidewall generator strength and a spherical sidewall, but you would lose your impellers so... Ugg why? Graser duals requiring better lines of fire such as the old spherical forts have disappeared for anything outside of junction defense and here more than likely, Graser Mines in abundance would be cheaper.

Next argument: You need the military acceleration in Hyperspace. Lets look at that. Vast majority of time is spent either crossing hyper bands after which your velocity goes to ~zero each time you cross or cruising at max portion of speed of light(0.7c = 210,000km/s for military and 0.6c for cargo). Since DW has constant acceleration in his universe(sorry Einstein take a hike ) @500G requires 42,000s or 700 minutes or 11hours to hit 0.7c. Fastest DD, 750G? 800G now? would require ~7.3hours. A 150G fort would require ~33hours. Manticore to Grayson(a short hop) required? 5 days in Delta bands(fort acceleration)... ugg memory here(HotQ) and Truman bouncing off iota Wall in reverse required? 40ish hours? So there is something to be said for acceleration in hyperspace as a requirement for deployment of offensive or even defensive assets. Of course, can ~halve this time by a certain new hypergenerator, but that is neither here nor there as both ship types would obtain it. This last point as far as I am concerned would be the BIGGEST reason to not build, as THEMILE typed: Monitors.