What's the chance of a Streek Drive Super Dreadnought?

Michael Everett wrote:The reason that no major air force currently uses supersonic bombers is quite simple, the amount of fuel required to push said bomber beyond the speed of sound and keep it there has a serious negative impact on the amount of ordnance that can be carried, specially since external ordnance can cause significant drag, thus requiring more fuel etc.

Speed provides limited use for long-range bombers. You typically can only get supersonic at altitude, which exposes you to much faster long range SAMs. The primary limit on turn-around time isn't flight time, it's crew rest and service. So spending an extra fortune on making your bomber supsersonic has a poor return on investment. If you want fast you use missiles.

This may change is they can get a hypersonic vehicle to work, or maybe not. Exposing yourself to every AA laser in line of sight seems like a problem if you have to fly at 80,000 feet.

I can think of at least one scenario where it would be advantageous to mount streak drives on SDs, or any other combatants.

2 forces of SDs or SDPs, Red and Blue. Blue is chasing Red in hyperspace, and is out of energy range and missile range (either out of range because of distance, or because of being in a gravity wave where missiles don't work). Red has standard military hyper drive, Blue has the streak drive. Both have the same acceleration capability (inertial compensator, impellers, mass). Both are at the maximum speed their particle shielding can withstand, so Blue can't close with Red without using the streak drive to go to higher hyper bands.

Blue divides its forces into 2 sections, Blue1 and Blue2. Blue1 stays in the same hyper band that Red is in, keeping Red under observation. Blue2 uses the streak drive to go to higher hyper bands, loosing speed during the translation. Blue2 then accelerates in the highest hyper band to maximum speed, and uses the increased velocity multiplier of the higher hyper band to move ahead of Red.

Blue2 then translates back down to the hyper band Red is in, loosing speed during the translation. Blue2 is now ahead of Red, and the range is closing due to Red traveling faster than Blue2.

Red is now trapped between Blue1 and Blue2, with the range to Blue2 dropping to engagement range (either missile or energy).

Red cannot avoid combat with Blue2 by accelerating at 90 degrees to its base course because both forces have the same acceleration capability. (Whatever Red does, both Blue forces will mirror.)

The best hope for Red is to accept combat with Blue2 and hope that they can defeat or survive the encounter.

Red cannot avoid combat with Blue by changing its speed. The only way for Red to avoid running over Blue2 is by dumping enough speed to stay out of range of Blue2. With the higher base velocity of Red, and equal acceleration capability of both Red and Blue, this won't work. Not only would it not work, but if Red decelerates, it closes the range to Blue1, eventually to engagement range. This gives Red the worst tactical situation, being caught between 2 closing forces.

Red cannot avoid combat with Blue by going to a higher band in hyperspace because it doesn't have the streak drive.

Red cannot avoid combat with Blue by going to a lower band in hyperspace because both Blue forces will do the same, except slightly differently.

Blue2 will drop to the lower band and Red will still be closing to engagement range towards Blue2 with Red still at a higher speed than Blue2 in the lower band.

Blue1 will drop to the lower band as well, but will not do so immediately. Instead it will wait for a short period of time before translating down, taking advantage of the higher velocity multiplier of the hyper band it is in (compared to Red's lower velocity multiplier of the band it dropped into) and the fact that Red lost speed when it dropped to a lower band while Blue1 maintained speed. Blue1 is now either in engagement range of Red, or has at least closed the range significantly.

Blue1 and Blue2 can switch roles until one or both bring Red into engagement range. If Red accepts the engagement with Blue2 and survives (presumably heavily damaged), Blue can repeat the engagement with Blue1, and any Blue2 SDs that are still combat-worthy following the first engagement (assuming they are not needed for search-and-rescue).



A variation of this technique was almost certainly used at 2nd Hancock in Echoes of Honor, where the PRH (Red) forces were almost completely destroyed by the RMN (Blue) forces after the PRH forces scattered, allowing the RMN Shrikes to take down an alpha node (and thus a Warshawski sail) on the PRH battleships. Since we found out in Ashes of Victory during Oliver Diamoto's mental review of the battle that Hancock lay in a gravity wave, this trapped the damaged PRH units in normal space.

The only differences were:

1) The PRH BBs had a higher acceleration than the RMN SDs.

2a) The PRH BBs were trapped in normal space, with a much greater sensor range than hyper space.

2b) The RMN SDs could use the Hancock FTL sensor net, as well as their own shipboard sensors to quickly determine the location and course of the PRH forces before and after popping up into hyper, accelerating, and then translating back down to normal space.

3) The RMN SDs faced PRH BBs. The combat disparity probably enabled the RMN SDs to take on the PRH BBs one-on-one to defeat the enemy in detail.



The obvious counter for Red is to mount the streak drive on its SDPs, letting it go as high in hyper space as Blue. Blue will then never be able to force Red into engagement range, and will eventually break off the pursuit.

Or red could drop to a lower level, change direction and flee without being seen by blue 2. Blue 1 might follow but is weaker than before by half or so and blue 2 wouldn't know where anyone went.

Depending on ship numbers red can either engage blue 1 or continue evading.

Vince, as far as I understand things, each hyperband is essentially a dimension of its own - once a ship enters a higher hyperband, it is no longer physically present in the lower band and therefore cannot engage ships in the lower band. And with how difficult it is to make precise astronavigational computations in hyperspace, it'd be pure luck for a ship in a higher band to translate back into the lower band close enough to engage the enemy ships.

hanuman wrote:Vince, as far as I understand things, each hyperband is essentially a dimension of its own - once a ship enters a higher hyperband, it is no longer physically present in the lower band and therefore cannot engage ships in the lower band. And with how difficult it is to make precise astronavigational computations in hyperspace, it'd be pure luck for a ship in a higher band to translate back into the lower band close enough to engage the enemy ships.

It would be a matter of calculating time, acceleration, velocity loss and speeds for Blue2 to intercept Red.

Also, don't forget, Blue1 will be continually keeping Red under observation while Blue2 translates up, accelerates, and then translates back down. Once Blue2 is back in the same hyper band with Red and Blue1, Blue1 can pass that information to Blue2.

Vince wrote:I can think of at least one scenario where it would be advantageous to mount streak drives on SDs, or any other combatants.

2 forces of SDs or SDPs, Red and Blue. Blue is chasing Red in hyperspace, and is out of energy range and missile range (either out of range because of distance, or because of being in a gravity wave where missiles don't work). Red has standard military hyper drive, Blue has the streak drive. Both have the same acceleration capability (inertial compensator, impellers, mass). Both are at the maximum speed their particle shielding can withstand, so Blue can't close with Red without using the streak drive to go to higher hyper bands.

Blue divides its forces into 2 sections, Blue1 and Blue2. Blue1 stays in the same hyper band that Red is in, keeping Red under observation. Blue2 uses the streak drive to go to higher hyper bands, loosing speed during the translation. Blue2 then accelerates in the highest hyper band to maximum speed, and uses the increased velocity multiplier of the higher hyper band to move ahead of Red.

I hope Blue is much more powerful than Red. Otherwise when half the Blue force splits off Red might risk reversing course to take on a suddenly over-matched Blue1. Allowing them to either attempt to defeat all of Blue in detail, or simply inflict disproportionate casualties before breaking contact.

Of course Blue1 could also jump into a higher hyper band where Red can't follow, but good luck hooking back up with Blue2 and getting the combined Blue force back on Red's trail.


Splitting your forces in the face of the enemy can so easily go wrong.

Vince wrote:I can think of at least one scenario where it would be advantageous to mount streak drives on SDs, or any other combatants.

Aside from the tactical flaws others have pointed out, a single scenario is NOT sufficient to make any new technology viable.

Streak Drives have limited advantages for ships that do not, and have never, relied on speed to be effective. Being able to cover a wider volume for a nodal force "a week's travel" from its furthest responsibility, but that is only as advantageous as the speed of the messenger telling them they need to respond. That's why Streak Drives are more advantageous to smaller ships like couriers and scouts.

Vince wrote:

hanuman wrote:Vince, as far as I understand things, each hyperband is essentially a dimension of its own - once a ship enters a higher hyperband, it is no longer physically present in the lower band and therefore cannot engage ships in the lower band. And with how difficult it is to make precise astronavigational computations in hyperspace, it'd be pure luck for a ship in a higher band to translate back into the lower band close enough to engage the enemy ships.

It would be a matter of calculating time, acceleration, velocity loss and speeds for Blue2 to intercept Red.

Also, don't forget, Blue1 will be continually keeping Red under observation while Blue2 translates up, accelerates, and then translates back down. Once Blue2 is back in the same hyper band with Red and Blue1, Blue1 can pass that information to Blue2.

Well, that is more or less true, it only applys if red continues running at the same speed in the same direction. Red could do many things to make the blue forces life's harder. The quickest thing that pops into my head is drop a band or two. This would make it almost impossible any sort of intercept to be achieved.

Weird Harold wrote:

Vince wrote:I can think of at least one scenario where it would be advantageous to mount streak drives on SDs, or any other combatants.

Aside from the tactical flaws others have pointed out, a single scenario is NOT sufficient to make any new technology viable.

Streak Drives have limited advantages for ships that do not, and have never, relied on speed to be effective. Being able to cover a wider volume for a nodal force "a week's travel" from its furthest responsibility, but that is only as advantageous as the speed of the messenger telling them they need to respond. That's why Streak Drives are more advantageous to smaller ships like couriers and scouts.

I'm with you on this one, Harold. Superdreadnoughts simply are not intended to run away from an opposing force, unless they are badly outnumbered. They are designed to stand their ground and pound the crap out of their opponents.

Unless EVERYONE start building streak-capable superdreadnoughts, I don't see the necessity to do so. It might be a good idea for smaller ships that do rely on speed, but in their case warship designers will have to decide whether it's worth the reduction in those ships' already severely limited magazine capacity.

Weird Harold wrote:

Vince wrote:I can think of at least one scenario where it would be advantageous to mount streak drives on SDs, or any other combatants.

Aside from the tactical flaws others have pointed out, a single scenario is NOT sufficient to make any new technology viable.

Streak Drives have limited advantages for ships that do not, and have never, relied on speed to be effective. Being able to cover a wider volume for a nodal force "a week's travel" from its furthest responsibility, but that is only as advantageous as the speed of the messenger telling them they need to respond. That's why Streak Drives are more advantageous to smaller ships like couriers and scouts.

Once again, if everything you said was ture, than SDs would have merchant class hyperdirves instead of millspec ones.

Having streak drives in your SDs will give you a significant strategic advantage over your enemy. If you found a chink in your enemy's deployments, you could take advantage of it much faster, and therefore more reliably, than a force without it. And if you found a weakness in your own line, you could redress it faster than the enemy could exploit it.

A streak drive in an SD will give you a huge force multiplier strategicly for, I suspect, only a tiny decrease tacticly. Even if the hyper generator on an SD is twice the size of a dispatch boat (the entire DB, not just the generator) doubling the size would take it from 1% ships mass to 2%. That is not all that much of a penalty for such a huge increase in strategic speed.