A Rising Thunder – Snippet 10
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Brockhurst looked as if he’d like to object. He hadn’t been a huge fan of the Volley Alpha ops plan when Ivanov first trotted it out, and he still wasn’t. But whether or not he wanted to object, what he actually did was nod.
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“Volley Alpha, aye, Sir,” he said. “I’ll get it set up now.”
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“Coming up on the thirty million-kilometer mark in one minute, Admiral,” Lieutenant Estelle Marker, Rear Admiral Pyun’s staff astrogator announced.
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“Thank you, Estelle,” Pyun acknowledged, and cocked his head at Josette Steinberg. “Status?” he asked.
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“We’re as ready as we’re going to be, Sir.” It wasn’t the most formal readiness report Pyun had ever received, but Steinberg had been with him for almost three T-years. Unlike Battle Fleet, they’d actually accomplished something during that time, too.
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“Halo is deployed and prepared for full activation,” the ops officer continued. “Captain Zyndram reports all missile-defense systems are manned and ready. The rest of the division is green-board, as well. I don’t know what these people think they can hit us with at this range, Sir, but whatever it is, we’re ready for it.”
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“Thank you,” Pyun said, and returned to his contemplation of the master astro display. The distance to the terminus was as ridiculously high as Steinberg’s readiness report implied, and he found himself wishing he shared the ops officer’s dismissal of the range at which the Manties claimed to have devastated Sandra Crandall’s command. For that matter, he was pretty sure Steinberg wished she really and truly disbelieved those claims.
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Whatever else happens, at least the Solarian League Navy knows how to maintain a brave face, he thought.
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The thought amused him, in a black-humor sort of way, yet he’d discovered he vastly preferred Steinberg’s attitude to the panicky response he suspected the Manticoran reports had engendered elsewhere. Not that a little panic wouldn’t do certain Battle Fleet officers he could think of a world of good. At the moment, though —
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“Missile launch!” one of Steinberg’s ratings suddenly announced. “CIC has multiple missile launches at three-zero million kilometers!”
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HMS Sloan Tompkins, like her sisters Bristol Q., Yakolev and Cheetah, was a Saganami-C-class heavy cruiser, and each of them mounted twenty launchers in each broadside. With the RMN’s ability to fire off-bore missiles, that gave them the ability to fire forty-missile strong double broadsides in a single launch, and they were armed with the internally launched Mark 16 dual-drive missile. Because of that, their tubes (and, just as importantly, their fire control) had been designed take advantage of the Mark 16’s drive flexibility and fire what were actually quadruple broadsides — salvos of eighty missiles each, not “just” forty — in order to “stack” their fire and saturate an opponent’s missile defenses.
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At the moment, Hiram Ivanov’s ships had literally dozens of missile pods limpeted to their hulls, as well, and those missile pods were loaded with full capability Mark 23 multidrive missiles, with even more endurance and powered range (and heavier laser heads) than the Mark 16. MDMs were in shorter supply than Mark 16s, though, and Ivanov had no intention of using them up unless he had to. So Volley Alpha used only the cruisers’ internal tubes, and even the Roland-class destroyers attached to his force were mere spectators at the moment. They had barely a quarter of the cruisers’ magazine capacity, and Ivanov had no more intention of wasting their limited ammunition than he did of wasting MDMs.
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Which was why “only” two hundred and forty missiles, launch times and drive activations carefully staggered to bring all of them in as a single salvo, went howling towards Rear Admiral Liam Pyun’s battlecruisers.
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“Two hundred-plus inbound,” Josette Steinberg reported tersely. “Acceleration approximately four-five-one KPS-squared. Activate all Halo platforms now!”
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“Activating Halo, aye, Ma’am!”
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“Damn,” Steven Gilmore said, so quietly only Pyun could possibly have heard him. “That’s got to be a warning shot, Sir!”
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“You think so?” Pyun’s eyes were on the tac display now, watching the scarlet icons of the Manticoran missiles streak towards his command.
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“Has to be, Sir.” Gilmore shook his head. “Even assuming they’ve got the legs to reach us without going ballistic, their targeting solutions have to suck at this range.”
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“I imagine that’s what Sandra Crandall thought, too.” Pyun showed his teeth. “Assuming the Battle of Spindle really happened, of course.”
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Gilmore started to reply, but a fresh report from Steinberg cut him off.
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“Admiral, assuming these drive numbers hold up, those things are going to be closing at better than a hundred and seventy thousand KPS when they get here.” She looked over her shoulder at Pyun. “It looks like I may’ve been wrong about whether or not they can reach us, Sir.”
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“Time to attack range four minutes, Ma’am,” one of her ratings told her, and she nodded.
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“Halo active,” another rating confirmed.
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“This is not good,” Lieutenant Commander Austell Pouchard muttered under his breath.
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“I think we could all agree with that, Lieutenant,” Commander Hiacyntá Pocock, Belle Poule‘s executive officer observed caustically, and Pouchard grimaced as he realized he’d spoken more loudly than he’d meant to.
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“Sorry, Ma’am,” he said. “But if these numbers—”
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He shook his head, and it was Pocock’s turn to grimace. Pouchard was the flagship’s senior tactical officer. As such, he, like Pocock, was assigned to Control Bravo, the SLN’s equivalent of the Manticoran Navy’s Auxiliary Control. Control Bravo was a complete duplicate of Captain Zyndram’s command deck, tasked to take over if anything unfortunate happened to Control Alpha. Because of that, Control Bravo’s personnel were supposed to be just as completely immersed in the tactical situation as anyone in Control Alpha, poised to assume command instantly in an emergency. In practice, though, there was a tendency for Control Bravo to be just a little detached. To stand back just a bit and watch the flow of a simulation or training exercise, looking for the patterns.
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Except, of course, that this was no simulation.
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Nonetheless, Pouchard had a point. If those incoming missiles could maintain their current acceleration numbers all the way in, stopping them was going to be a copperplated bitch. And somehow she couldn’t convince herself the Manties would have fired a “warning shot” quite so massive. Even with pods, three heavy cruisers couldn’t have unlimited ammunition, and she couldn’t see them expending that many missiles if they didn’t have the legs to reach their targets with maneuver time still on their clocks.
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In theory, a purely ballistic missile with the standoff range of a modern laser head was just as accurate as one which could still maneuver. Even an impeller-drive starship couldn’t produce enough Delta V to change its predicted position sufficiently to get out of the laser head’s effective range basket during the three minutes or so of the missile’s flight. But theory had a tendency to come unglued when it ran headlong into the reality of that same impeller-drive starship’s maneuverability within the range basket coupled with the impenetrability of its impeller wedge. The actual vulnerable aspects of a modern warship were remarkably narrow, unless one could attack the throat of its wedge, and a ship’s ability to make radical maneuvers at four or five hundred gravities could do a lot to deny incoming missiles a favorable angle of attack. A missile which couldn’t maneuver to pursue its target was unlikely, to say the least, to achieve that angle. Which didn’t even consider a ballistic target’s total vulnerability to defensive fire. No. Like an old pre-space wet-navy torpedo at the very end of its run, a missile which had exhausted its drive endurance before reaching attack range represented a negligible threat to any maneuvering target.
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Which was why Hiacyntá Pocock was grimly certain those acceleration numbers were going to stand up.
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“Good telemetry on both the missiles and the Ghost Rider platforms, Sir,” Lieutenant Commander Brockhurst reported. “Halo emissions match Admiral Gold Peak’s reports almost perfectly.”
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Captain Ivanov only nodded. His attention was on his repeater plot.
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“Admiral, CIC’s picking up something –“
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Liam Pyun turned towards Captain Steinberg. The operations officer’s eyes were on a side display, then she looked up at the rear admiral.
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“It’s coming up on the master plot now, Sir,” she said, and Pyun’s eyes darted back to the display. The new icons pulsed to draw the eye, help him separate them out of the clutter, and he frowned.
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“What the hell are those?” he demanded as the absurdly low ranges registered. Those things were less than ten thousand kilometers clear of his flagship!
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“We don’t know, Sir,” Steinberg’ admitted. “All we do know is that they seem to’ve been there all along. They just popped up a second ago when they cut their stealth.”
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“Cut their stealth?” Captain Gilmore repeated. “You mean the Manties got recon platforms that close to us without our ever even seeing them?”
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“That’s what it looks like,” Steinberg grated harshly. “And I doubt they just dropped their stealth for no reason at all. They want us to know they’re there.”
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“Ma’am,” one of her assistants said, “we’re picking up grav pulses all over the place. Dozens of point sources.”
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“Are these” — Pyun used a light pointer to jab at the new icons in the master plot — “some of those point sources, Chief Elliott?”
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“Uh, yes, Sir. I think they are,” the chief petty officer acknowledged.
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“Oh, shit,” Gilmore muttered.
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The Sollies have just discovered that they brought a butter knife to a gun fight. :-)
More a peashooter to an artillery duel
Guess the so-called “so-called Battle of Spindle” really happe
A shame none of the Solarian ships are named John Segwick. His last words would be appropriate.
Hmm. I would think that the SLN survivors (which will presumably include the frieghter – although it doesn’t have a feed on the tactical situation that we know of, so probably doesn’t count) will come away from this knowing about a few of Manticore’s goodies – Ghost Rider recon drones (that can get to 10,000 km without being seen, and have FTL com ability), 30M km missile range with good targeting, and a willingness to crush SLN foes like the bugs they are. At this range, do you think any warships will escape?
If you can’t wait till monday to find out, go to Baen Books and read the chapter. Everyone who posted so far will be surprised.
I think that showing Pyun the ghost rider platforms indicates that this is a demonstration of what might happen if Pyun doesn’t go away…quickly. So this is, in effect, a warning shot, but also a bit more than that: it may be what Honor did to Tourville at the Battle of Manticore, but without the surrender demand, just a “go away” demand. Otherwise Ivanov would have used more firepower.
It is also a Weberian example of what must be happening in a lot of other places. Laocoon II is being implemented.
He’s not really giving anything away that the Sollies haven’t already seen. Or at least should have deduced. Anybody any to bet on the chances of reports by surviors of this engagement actually being read instead of creatively misfiled?
as dave o said, ya’ll are going to really enjoy the next snippet!
“Survivors”? Seems to me the Sollies don’t have much choice but to strike their wedges. Now I’ll have to go to baen and see….
@8 hank – My thought was that, if they aren’t captured, they will have more credibility. It will help that Byng and Crandall were known to be idiots, while Pyun here seems like he would have a better reputation (and seems to have at least some reputation for doing his job, even if he thinks the orders are idiotic). Will it matter? Will the League survive long enough to care? Find out in this and later books! (This ad brought to you by a some fan.)
Minor query, are these snippets covering anything not already provided at http://www.baenebooks.com/chapters/A9781451638066/A9781451638066_toc.htm?
Ah. Good old ‘Oh Crap’ moment. One of the main reasons I read Weber.
Bewildered, these snippets will go beyond the sample chapters.
Everything they are showing right now, is not even half operation buttercup era offensive technical inovations. Which even with accurate sensor information they aren’t going to be able to duplicate for years. The solarians aren’t prepared in the slightest for Manticoran LACs and CLACS. Then factor is denfensive innovations that they haven’t even had to show including Bow and stern walls, Modern Missle defense, Key hole, The full functionality of Apollo. Not to even beginning mention The Havenite capabilities and production power which will only get enhanced with a open dialog between the two queens of R&D.
I hope Lacoon II has CLAC raids on some the aforemention Battlefleet Reserve depots, the five hundred SD they stand to lose in Manticore will hurt but if they can hit a couple of Depots with Cold SD’s that would really destabilizing to the solarian government without the outrage of the population over dead spacers.
Ronzo, just my opinion (as I don’t know anything official) but CLAC raids on the Reserve depots would go beyond what Lacoon II is intended for.
Those attacks would be a greater act of war than Lacoon II will be.
There have been arguments for and against such actions, but as I understand Lacoon II it is beyond what Manticore plans at this time.
Additional comment, IIRC the Reserve depots are all in Core systems of the Solarian League.
Besides the fear/rage that any Manticore attack into those systems would cause, from everything DW has said such systems will be hard to attack even with Manticore’s high tech advantages.
Such attacks, even against the depots, would mean great losses of lives/ships for Manticore and would not have the results that Manticore would like.
Such attacks might bring an end to the current “war” but would make the Core Systems prepare for later wars that Manticore could lose.
Great. Thanks Drak.
As for attacking the core\the systems being too hard even with the Manty tech advantage, is that true now? DW said that the Solarians were the 800lb Gorilla and would crush the Manties if ever roused. Several books and Manty advances later and they’re roused, but they don’t look like a 800lb Gorilla, maybe an 800lb baby … :) Perhaps without Apollo it’d be difficult, with Apollo …
I haven’t heard DW saying that with Apollo it would be *easy*.
It might succeed with Apollo but without Apollo it would be harder than you think is possible.
As for being “aroused”, as long as the Solarian League stays together, it can afford losing wars (not battles) but Manticore can’t afford to lose one war.
Even now, the Grand Alliance can not take/hold all of the Solarian League so the Solarian League would be able to prepare for the next war.
Re: Sollie reserve fleet
ISTR mention that Battle Fleet active SD’s are obsolescent by Manty/Peep standards ca the start of the 1st Havenite War (ca ASVW.) Now picture the drain on Solly industry to bring the reserve units up to even that standard. For ex: 2/3 of the reserve SD’s would have to have auto-cannons replaced by Laser Clusters. Every LC used for that would be one that isn’t being used to upgrade the active units. Not to mention the drain on manpower & yard space. Now consider what other systems may be the equivalent of stone axes and bear skins!
Might be better for Manticore/Haven/et. al. to let Sollies pour money/time/resources down the reserve rathole than wasting strength to destroy ships that, even if they get them up to current BF standards, will still be hopelessly obolete. It’s new construction, assuming BF ever gets it’s thumb out and realizes they need to do complete redesign, that would pose a real threat. And by the time the Sollies get a clue, do the R&D, create & build new designs and then get them worked up we could be talking 5-10 years. Wonder where the Sepoy Mutiny will be by then, not to mention the MA’s plans & whatever Manticore & Co. have done.
I really can’t see any reason to go after the solly Reserve Fleet.
hank
What I’m wondering is will Manticore concentrate all of it’s industrial rebuilding efforts on the Old Kingdom or will they accelerate programs in the Cluster and Silesia? Could be some real advantages to the latter.
hank
Hank, David Weber has made it clear that Manticore will concentrate its rebuilding where it is easist to defend.
The Cluster/Quadrant is the closest part of the Star Empire to the Solarian League.
None of the Quadrant systems and the Silesia systems have the defenses of Manticore A.
Plus in the near future, there’s the concern about the level of political corruption in the Quadrant and in Silesia.
There would be people there with the “need to know” about new industry who could not be trusted.
These people could very well sell Manticore’s high-tech secrets to the highest bidders.
Of course, it will be hard enough to train new workers in the Manticore A system without the problems of the lower educational standards among the population of the Quadrant and Silesia.
While in time the educational standards of both the Quadrant and Silesia will come up to Manticore standards, Manticore needs people now with those standards of education.
Don’t anybody forget Haven. Their SD’s are only about 1 generation behind Manticore. That probably means 4 or 5 generations more advanced than the Sollies. And their infrastructure is intact, and largely safely hidden. And they haven’t lost any trained people. Don’t forget the Anderman Empire either. I expect to eventually see combined fleet operations by both of them and Manticore. In which case, the Sollies edge in numbers is vastly reduced.
It will be interesting to see how quickly the good guys can match Mesa’s innovations.
@24 They don’t absolutely need to match Mesa’s innovations. Mesa has basically only achieved 2 things:
1) A wedge-less ship (effectively a stealth technology)
2) The Graser torpedo
for (1), they only need to neutralize it, which means detect it. Once that’s done, they spider drive ships are slower and poorly shielded, aka sitting ducks. With knowledge of how they’ve done it, its possible that existing RMN ships would be able to do a poor-man’s spider drive too: they already have about 20 tractor beams, which is probably enough if the RMN can enhance their power sufficiently.
For (2), well they probably need to learn to make smaller grasers so that they can mount them on a torpedo, but they don’t need the long firing times, nor do they need the spider drive to be effective.
The big question in my mind is how good is the MAN electronic warfare?
I don’t know if anyone has covered this, but aren’t about 40000 Manticoran dockyard workers prisoners? After the battle of Grendelsbane I think. There wasn’t enough time to evacuate them.
They may be a bit out of date but they have the skills and could be used as a core on which to rebuild.
Scott, Tum, te, tum, te, tum . . . . [Wink]
@25 About Shark stealth. I recently read Lost Fleet series, and it combined with some other things has convinced me that Stealth is impossible, since even with today’s tech it should be possible to detect any vessel going trough space from considerable distance, simply because any ship crewed by humans would be 300K warm compared to rest of the space around it that’s a LOT colder (10K or so). Sooo am I missing something or is this an Acceptable Break from Reality in order to introduce stealth.
4th Dimension, you are “missing something” in part.
First, the designeers of the Spider drive ships were aware of the problem of ship’s heat and had taken action to reduce the threat.
Second, in the Honorverse the main method of detecting spaceships at long-range is the ship’s wedge.
I suspect that detecting wedges is possible at ranges far greater than the range of detecting the ship’s heat.
Normally a warship don’t turn off their wedges when trying to sneak into a star systems (just keeping it on low power).
So when Honorverse navies are looking for warships sneaking into a star system, they depend on detecting low power wedges.
Now David Weber has made it clear that the spider drive warships *could* be detected (if not easily) now that Manticore and others knows that a wedgeless ship drive exists.
Considering that David Weber included a description of the means that spider-drive ships use to make heat-detection harder, I suspect that heat detection may be part of the method used to spot spider-drive ships.
IMO it won’t be the only way because your “considerable distance” may be “close range” in Honorverse terms.
@25 MTO: You forgot 3) the Streak Drive; 4) homing systems – admittedly of limited use; 5) Cataphract missiles – admittedly lesser than RMN and RHN MDMs; and 6) the ‘Detweiler’ class ships.
for 3): Simoes did work the project so crossover of the technology should be rapid.
for 4) and 5): intrinsic limitations make them a sideline at best.
for 6): you’ve got a SD/SD(P) equivalent arrmed with MDMs, graser torpedoes, remote targeting (not in Apollo/Keyhole class yet though), and near-invisible to standard warship sensors – think a modern fast attack or even ballistic sub armed with Tomahawks, super-cavitating torpedoes, and tactical nuclear missiles. GA’s only advantage is their intrinsic defensive vulnerability and MAlign is working hard to reduce that as much as possible.
additionally for 1): thinking of them as submarine-equivalents, spider drive ships will require a futuristic version of ASW (Anti-Submarine Warfare) to be developed just as LAC/CLAC introduction required versions of AAW (Anti-Air Warfare) to be developed. And the spider drive is an application of alternative physics, so standard tractor systems have nothing to do with it.
Nice catch by Scott. I’ll also point out that part of Manticore’s problem was that they didn’t have the infrastructure to rebuild the infrastructure. Well, Haven’s might need a bit of tinkering, but even shipping industrial units from Haven industrial sectors (which are, after all, accustomed to and practiced at replacing the effects of Honor’s handiwork) would cut the time frame immensely.
Oh yeah, as far as “rebuilding in the home system”–after what has happened, why in the world wouldn’t Manticore build their own “Bolthole”?
And as far as taking all of DW’s progression’s logically, I wouldn’t count on it. For example, his recurring theme of “If we take workers off half the ships to complete the other half, they’ll be done sooner but the remainder delayed”. Well, if the former is true, then double the amount of workers would ALSO be available for the latter half of ships…as with any writer, he goes by what serves to advance the plot best in his own mind. He’s also balancing three separate but intertwined story threads which, if something significant or surprising occurs in one, must be accounted for in the others as well.
It has also always struck me to wonder why “his” RMN keeps obsolete ships in service. It seems to me that the flagship in Talbott would man two or three modern SD by itself. The same parallel for an obsolescent cruiser or destroyer.
Me, I’m kinda curious as to whether those four hundred Sollie wallers are told to “Go away” by the Havenites, or simply surrendered and subsumed. What would the Manticorans use 400 obsolete wallers for but scrap metal? I guess that’s “on top of the ones they already own”?
Well, at least the next generation of Mantie wallers will have the benefit of Simoes input, and won’t be totally obsolete before they’re ever built. Like certain galleys…
@30 ET1swaw:
Yes, I did forget those, but:
3) Streak drive is tactically limited. It makes transit times about 30% faster going by the honorverse wiki. That’s not insignificant, but access to the various wormholes under RMN control strategically addresses that somewhat.
4) I missed those. Gonna need to re-read about them. Sounds like they’ll have better targetting than the sollies, but probably not better than the havenites. They’re not blooded like the havenites, either, AFAIK.
5) a hack. A poor one at that. They are totally outclassed by MDM, IMO.
6) We’ll see how David writes it, but so far, there are only 28 shark-class training ships, and fewer Detweiler-class ships, so their advantages better be OVERWHELMING, but its not likely that they are. Their forces are top secret (meaning few people), from a single star system, with basically no battle experience. They’ll be up against the RMN, RHN, and probably a few others. They’ll have a disadvantage in range, EW, ECW, and possibly production capability (not sure about this one, we’ll see how it plays out. Oyster-bay was clearly intended to give them the production upper-hand, but we’ll see how they under-estimated the manties RSN, I’m sure).
I’m not sure I agree with you about needing new doctrines. I guess it depends on detection. If they can’t detect the spider-drive ships, it will require new doctrine to engage them, but if they’re easily detected once they know what to look for, spider drives are sitting ducks: hit them hard, fast, with whatever you can dump on them (assuming their EW is good). Hit-rates and kill-rates would be through the roof for wedge-less targets. In the long run, I suspect that the spider-drive will be more interesting for stealth LACs than for capital ships…
From the wiki: “The system used a number of tractor/pressor beams of unprecedented power to pierce and tractor on to the “Alpha Wall” boundary between N-space and hyperspace.” I think I keep internally ignoring the “unprecedented”, but that hardly means its “alternate physics”. The question boils down to how much stronger a tractor beam you need? 10x? 100x? And what does it take to increase the strength of a tractor beam? If no-one has ever built a stronger beam because it wasn’t usefull, then its possible they just need to up the juice, or double the number of coils of something or other.
Or not, cause if its too easy, there won’t be a book to read.
From the snippet:
HMS Sloan Tompkins, like her sisters Bristol Q., Yakolev and Cheetah, was a Saganami-C-class heavy cruiser, and each of them mounted twenty launchers in each broadside. With the RMN’s ability to fire off-bore missiles, that gave them the ability to fire forty-missile strong double broadsides in a single launch, and they were armed with the internally launched Mark 16 dual-drive missile. Because of that, their tubes (and, just as importantly, their fire control) had been designed take advantage of the Mark 16′s drive flexibility and fire what were actually quadruple broadsides — salvos of eighty missiles each, not “just†forty — in order to “stack†their fire and saturate an opponent’s missile defenses.
(paragraph deleted)
Which was why “only†two hundred and forty missiles, launch times and drive activations carefully staggered to bring all of them in as a single salvo, went howling towards Rear Admiral Liam Pyun’s battlecruisers.
I’ve re-read this passage several times now, and I know I’m missing something. If each ship fired 80 missiles in quadruple broadsides, then only 3 ships fired (3×80=240) or there were actually 320 missiles fired. Since I assume DW can do simple math, which three ships fired?
@Robert, it stated earlier that the division was one ship short…so there were only three cruisers present.
Okay. Back in Snippet 7. I went back and reread it. Thanks for pointing that out.
Inconsistent, why would Mantie’s be so concerned about missile count and then show the Frontier forces the Reece platforms? I assume that they are hoping to get the Sollies to strike their wedges, but if so and concerned about the missile s then why not just target one apollo pod on them and send half at max acceleration the other half lagging behind, when the first attack missiles are in range of flagship detonate them and resume attack with remaining 4?