Non-CLAC hyper-help for LAC's

fallsfromtrees wrote:

SWM wrote:The situation in question was checking out a potential hyper transit at 1 light-month from the system primary. So the LACs are only 1 light-month from home. They can FTL comm for help, and wait for another ship to come pick them up.

Do we have any evidence that the FTL comm works over a distance of 1 light month?

Probably doesn't, although maybe in the original morse code mode it could. IIRC it takes a chain on Hermes bouys to replay FTL comms from the Junction back to Manticore and that's a mere 7 light hours.

But even worst case you figure they could send another hypercapable ship out to take a look if they hadn't had someone hyper back with a status update after a couple days.

JeffEngel wrote:RMN LAC's have bunkerage for a long, long time. Food may be an issue, particularly without preparation. But getting back in that case isn't too bad - accelerate up to .8c, coast, decelerate, get home in a month and a half, two months (I am so not calculating that when I'm tired), with a little subjective time off from relativity.

Still though, if something popped the hyper-ride, you would wonder if it wouldn't've popped the LAC's too. Maybe, maybe not. Certainly they are at a maneuver disadvantage out there versus a hypercapable unit, able to microjump ahead of them or away as it likes. But for any mission like this, there's a canary in the mine aspect to it: if the DD does not report back, you can assume it's not a ghost, it is serious, it is hostile, it can probably be found, drop a lot more on it now. That will incidentally give the LAC's another ride back.

A LAC could run for weeks, but not the months it would take to get back on their own from 1 light-month out.

fallsfromtrees wrote:Do we have any evidence that the FTL comm works over a distance of 1 light month?

No, we don't, and you're right, it probably doesn't. It takes the massive arrays to detect a transit at that distance, and that's orders of magnitude more powerful than FTL comm.

They would probably have to wait until someone came to see why they hadn't reported in. But Manticoran LACs have the endurance for that.

SWM wrote:The situation in question was checking out a potential hyper transit at 1 light-month from the system primary. So the LACs are only 1 light-month from home. They can FTL comm for help, and wait for another ship to come pick them up.

So why is there the chain of ftl transmitters needed to communicate to the junction and between manticore A& B?

SharkHunter wrote:Now there's a truly curious concept but flawed. Given the fission pile etc. and the fact that once you're up to speed, all you need to maintain is your particle shielding, would you get home in a LAC under any circumstances?

Problem is interstellar distances even in the Honorverse are measured in light years. So as a LAC without the hyper multiplier, you're stuck in whatever system you were dropped off, because it would take you years to get to the next nearest star and I think the crew starved to death in the mean time.

SWM wrote:The situation in question was checking out a potential hyper transit at 1 light-month from the system primary. So the LACs are only 1 light-month from home. They can FTL comm for help, and wait for another ship to come pick them up.

JeffEngel wrote:RMN LAC's have bunkerage for a long, long time. Food may be an issue, particularly without preparation. But getting back in that case isn't too bad - accelerate up to .8c, coast, decelerate, get home in a month and a half, two months (I am so not calculating that when I'm tired), with a little subjective time off from relativity.

snip

The time dilation at .8c is 1.67 so your flight time (from the point of view of the universe is about 5 weeks divided by 1.67 gives about 3 weeks of physical time for the crew. Possible if the crew goes to immediate rationing, and actually has three weeks worth of supplies on board, but it's gonna be tight.

fallsfromtrees wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:RMN LAC's have bunkerage for a long, long time. Food may be an issue, particularly without preparation. But getting back in that case isn't too bad - accelerate up to .8c, coast, decelerate, get home in a month and a half, two months (I am so not calculating that when I'm tired), with a little subjective time off from relativity.

snip

The time dilation at .8c is 1.67 so your flight time (from the point of view of the universe is about 5 weeks divided by 1.67 gives about 3 weeks of physical time for the crew. Possible if the crew goes to immediate rationing, and actually has three weeks worth of supplies on board, but it's gonna be tight.

Does water get recycled on a LAC, or a skinsuit? 3 weeks with little food is survivable for healthy people, and this isn't going to assume zero food aboard. Given how long a RMN LAC can go without more fuel, and their use in system patrols, I'd figure they're stocked pretty well normally for at least days or a week or more out on their own comfortably. That'd make water the worst of it.

I don't think the concern would actually arise often in this situation, but it's an interesting line of speculation for its own sake.

Crew of 10. 20 tons of supplies - food, water and oxygen - are enough for them for a year, without recycling. That's less than a thousandth of the mass of the LAC. Heat is taken care of by that fission reactor that lasts 20 years.

The suggestion is similar to sending a WW II escort carrier out to hunt for U-boats. That did work, both from the stand point of killing at least some U-boats and for keeping said U-boats a combination of too far away from convoys to attack them and constantly having to manuver to keep from getting killed.

While sinking (and in one case capturing) a U-boat was a goal of the tactic, the primary mission really was to keep the subs away from the convoys. Killing them was a bonus if you could just keep them from sinking you cargo ships.

The use of LAC equivalent vessels or smaller (think YP or "converted" fishing boats or yacht type vessels) worked close to land (or the system edge) where the small vessels major weapon is the communication system to call for something to come kill the intruder or at least beat at it and drive it out of striking range of you shipping. The coastal patrol ships might have mounted .50cal machine guns but that really wasn't a major concern for a sub which- since they weren't going to waste a torpeado on a 60' boat- could use it's deck gun to smash the boat from distance. The problem for the sub was the 1st aircraft with depth charges or just bombs and then something like a DE or a DD running out with active sonar and attempting beathing the snot out of the sub if not killing it. Either way, you keep the sub away from your shipping.

LACs, if they can find the Spider Drive ship, could engage it. How are you going to find it? If you manage to transport 8 LACs out to where the System Sensor Net said the footprint happened, what do you use for a search pattern? Do you pair up the LACs and then sweep some sort of pattern in FOUR seperate directions? There are a lot more than 4 and you have to presume your nominal target is trying to move away from that point of emergence from hyperspace. If one of you LACs find a target, they have to call for help and the target can always jump away into hyperspace- where the LACs can't follow.

You end up better served with what was shown in the initial search for the Oyster Bay strike force. Several Destroyers which can search, move around in hyper of one makes a contact and calls for assistance (and it would), and engage with weapons of longer reach and more power.

Brigade XO wrote:The suggestion is similar to sending a WW II escort carrier out to hunt for U-boats. That did work, both from the stand point of killing at least some U-boats and for keeping said U-boats a combination of too far away from convoys to attack them and constantly having to manuver to keep from getting killed.

While sinking (and in one case capturing) a U-boat was a goal of the tactic, the primary mission really was to keep the subs away from the convoys. Killing them was a bonus if you could just keep them from sinking you cargo ships.

The use of LAC equivalent vessels or smaller (think YP or "converted" fishing boats or yacht type vessels) worked close to land (or the system edge) where the small vessels major weapon is the communication system to call for something to come kill the intruder or at least beat at it and drive it out of striking range of you shipping. The coastal patrol ships might have mounted .50cal machine guns but that really wasn't a major concern for a sub which- since they weren't going to waste a torpeado on a 60' boat- could use it's deck gun to smash the boat from distance. The problem for the sub was the 1st aircraft with depth charges or just bombs and then something like a DE or a DD running out with active sonar and attempting beathing the snot out of the sub if not killing it. Either way, you keep the sub away from your shipping.

LACs, if they can find the Spider Drive ship, could engage it. How are you going to find it? If you manage to transport 8 LACs out to where the System Sensor Net said the footprint happened, what do you use for a search pattern? Do you pair up the LACs and then sweep some sort of pattern in FOUR seperate directions? There are a lot more than 4 and you have to presume your nominal target is trying to move away from that point of emergence from hyperspace. If one of you LACs find a target, they have to call for help and the target can always jump away into hyperspace- where the LACs can't follow.

You end up better served with what was shown in the initial search for the Oyster Bay strike force. Several Destroyers which can search, move around in hyper of one makes a contact and calls for assistance (and it would), and engage with weapons of longer reach and more power.

As your analogy hints at the LACs are more like coastal patrol boats than aircraft.

Plus with submarines simply forcing them to dive (to avoid being seen by aircraft) made them much slower, shorter ranges, and sharply cut their circle of observation - so even causing a sub you never saw to dive made it much less likely to intercept, or even see, the shipping you're protecting.

The same doesn't appear to apply to Spider Drive ships. Even if they cut acceleration and coast they're still going just as fast as they were and still have the same sensor range. So simply having a searcher in the area doesn't hamper them as much as it would a WWI / WWII sub.

Brigade XO wrote:LACs, if they can find the Spider Drive ship, could engage it. How are you going to find it? If you manage to transport 8 LACs out to where the System Sensor Net said the footprint happened, what do you use for a search pattern? Do you pair up the LACs and then sweep some sort of pattern in FOUR seperate directions? There are a lot more than 4 and you have to presume your nominal target is trying to move away from that point of emergence from hyperspace. If one of you LACs find a target, they have to call for help and the target can always jump away into hyperspace- where the LACs can't follow.

You end up better served with what was shown in the initial search for the Oyster Bay strike force. Several Destroyers which can search, move around in hyper of one makes a contact and calls for assistance (and it would), and engage with weapons of longer reach and more power.

All right - so we end up with the previously noted problem of sheer detection of the spider drive ships by anything, and the problem of searching and fighting out beyond the hyperlimit by anything without its own hypergenerator.

The spider drive detection issue is likely to get helped sooner or later, and isn't an issue in case the quarry is an impeller drive ship. The independent hyper one - yeah, that's likely to remain. All right, that settles that to my satisfaction at least. Thanks!