Yet another (crazy) idea.

It's nearly Christmas again so it's time for me to post another one of my ideas;

1) The latest pre-grand-alliance Havenite LACs were nearly 40 kilotons, right?
2) Manticoran LACs of the same period were around 20 kilotons, right?
3) The largest pre-grand-alliance Havenite CLACs could carry 250+ of their larger LACs, right?

This means that with the current tech merging one could design a decent CLAC-type ship with 200 LAC bays and several Keyhole-analogs (one KH2 masses as much as 3 Havenite LACs). And then have each one of said 200 LACs it carries basically be a mantie-tech LAC with an additional 18 kilotons of capital missile box launchers, whether built-in, limpeted or otherwise.



1) LAC's pre-launch, load up on launchers.

2) Fight begins. Maximum controllable salvos launched at minimum possible intervals for control shifts. Say, 1000 missiles each at 20 second intervals.

3) 200 LACs can bring to bear defensively 1600 CM tubes and 1200 PDLCs. That's 8 times more than an Invictus-class podnought.

4) Fight over, LACs and unused box launchers are packed up again.

Belial666 wrote:It's nearly Christmas again so it's time for me to post another one of my ideas;

1) The latest pre-grand-alliance Havenite LACs were nearly 40 kilotons, right?
2) Manticoran LACs of the same period were around 20 kilotons, right?
3) The largest pre-grand-alliance Havenite CLACs could carry 250+ of their larger LACs, right?

I can't find a definitive statement on the Cimeterre's tonnage, but the description of their design in War of Honor given the impression that they're much less 40 ktons.

War of Honor: Chapter wrote:But that, Clapp had pointed out, was also the primary tactical advantage of the LAC. It was just that because it weighed in at thirty or forty thousand tons, people didn't really think of it that way. [snip]
Mitchell Clapp had begun his own design process by going back to a blank piece of paper. Rather than designing a starship in miniature, he'd seen it as an opportunity to design a pinnace on the macro scale. He'd ruthlessly stripped out everything that wasn't absolutely essential to the combat role as he visualized it, and along the way he'd discovered it was possible to save a truly amazing amount of tonnage.

I'm basing it on exactly that "30 or 40 thousand tons" description, and on it being bigger and less miniaturized than Manty LACs. Even the lower end of that range (30kt) would mean the Aviary-class carried 8+ megatons of LACs so cargo-wise, we got what we need; 8 megatons divided by 200 = 40 megatons each, which comes at 22 megatons of manty LAC and 18 megatons of box launchers.



In any event, the requirement here is for the ship to be able to launch all of its missiles in maximum weight, minimum control time salvos, while also being able to mount a credible defense.

Belial666 wrote:I'm basing it on exactly that "30 or 40 thousand tons" description, and on it being bigger and less miniaturized than Manty LACs. Even the lower end of that range (30kt) would mean the Aviary-class carried 8+ megatons of LACs so cargo-wise, we got what we need; 8 megatons divided by 200 = 40 megatons each, which comes at 22 megatons of manty LAC and 18 megatons of box launchers.



In any event, the requirement here is for the ship to be able to launch all of its missiles in maximum weight, minimum control time salvos, while also being able to mount a credible defense.

My reading was that the 30-40k was describing the 'old style' LACs - not the clean-sheet Cimeterre-class design. My reading was that those had the "truly amazing amount of tonnage" saved compared to the 30-40 kton conventional LACs.

I think they were much more comparable to the size of the new Manti Shrikes and Ferrets. (But we probably won't know for sure until the 2nd companion, House of Lies, is released to give up their actual specs)

That's a possibility.



In other news, I wonder though if it's mass or volume that is the actual issue.
For example, if we replaced each LAC in a manty CLAC with a solid block of tungsten of the same dimensions that weighed half a million tons, would the Minotaur-class CLAC still move with those 56 million tons extra mass onboard?
For another example, if a CLAC towed a 200-yard cube of tungsten inside its wedge, would its acceleration be affected by the 160 megatons of extra mass?

The largest pre-grand-alliance Havenite CLACs could carry 250+ of their larger LACs, right?

I don't remember them being that big? anyone got a link on that? but the supercarrier/pod launcher idea has apparently been done to death. I'd posted a thought about making essentially an HMS Chimera II out of HMS Chimera 1, making it a 50/50 ship, call it 4 megatons for each function. Another poster has a similar idea which he called a "Troy class supercruiser" which he won't let go of in spite of being shot down numerous times

Problem is it would take as long to convert the dang things as the GA need to new build one, and weight of metal wise, you get more tactical flexibility with a CLAC, an ammo ship, and 4 SAG-C's. Looking at the missile counts used at Spindle as enabled by Apollo, a dozen SAG-C's, ammo ships, and even just the early CLACs would have still toasted Barnett in Ashes of Victory, let alone the newest CLACs and LAC types.

That's why Bolthole was so important, it let Haven retool really quickly with their stock pile of "SD building supplies" and MDMs. Thing is, the SLN isn't even CLOSE to the PNH fighting ability per ship that "far in the fighting past", let alone current tech with Ghost Rider, etc.

Be interesting to see how Shannon Foraker reverse engineered the MDM missile tech, by the way -- I don't think RFC ever let that nugget out of the vault.

Isn't this fun?

Belial666 wrote:...In other news, I wonder though if it's mass or volume that is the actual issue. For example, if we replaced each LAC in a manty CLAC with a solid block of tungsten of the same dimensions that weighed half a million tons, would the Minotaur-class CLAC still move with those 56 million tons extra mass onboard? For another example, if a CLAC towed a 200-yard cube of tungsten inside its wedge, would its acceleration be affected by the 160 megatons of extra mass?

Tonnage, because the laws of physics still apply. The ships in the HonorVerse get their acceleration from fusion power, driving a wedge that crams a whole lot of tiny particles to near-relativistic speeds creating a propulsion stream. There's also a not-insignificant "drag" component as well because of the fractional C speeds-- that's why putting pods on tow slows the warship or requires more output, aka closer to "maximum military power", etc.

SharkHunter wrote:I don't remember them being that big? anyone got a link on that?

War of Honor, attack on "Tequila" system. 3 Aviary-class CLACs unleash 778 Cimeterres. Since the original Cimeterres were fusion-powered rather than fission-powered, they had to be larger than manty LACs.

SharkHunter wrote:Tonnage, because the laws of physics still apply.

No they don't. In the battle of manticore you had old-style SDs carrying nearly two megatons of towed pods within their wedge with no acceleration loss whatsoever.
The limit on acceleration is not the power of your engine as the wedge effectively draws the majority of its power from a higher-energy dimension; even a low-power civilian wedge is capable of pulling a ship at a couple thousand gravities.
The limit is how well your ship and crew can resist being pancaked by the acceleration. I.e. how good your inertial compensator is at keeping the crew alive.

Belial666 wrote:That's a possibility.



In other news, I wonder though if it's mass or volume that is the actual issue.
For example, if we replaced each LAC in a manty CLAC with a solid block of tungsten of the same dimensions that weighed half a million tons, would the Minotaur-class CLAC still move with those 56 million tons extra mass onboard?
For another example, if a CLAC towed a 200-yard cube of tungsten inside its wedge, would its acceleration be affected by the 160 megatons of extra mass?

Theoretically it's suppose to be some of both but increasing the CLACs mass by 9 fold probably does bad things. That's so far off the end of the acceleration curves that there's no data to even guess if it could move at all; much less by how much.

We haven't seen ships get faster when they drop cargo. Heck a CLAC that launched it's wing should just shed over 2 megatons, that's a third of it's mass. If mass was the only thing that mattered that would be good for a solid 5% improvement in acceleration. So with the launch unit's old compensators just a hair over 17g improvement to your safe accel rate - best guess with the updated compensator we've seen is more like 26g extra. Not a huge amount, but noticeable.

We also haven't seen reference to freighters "massing out" before they fill up. In the current world of shipping that can easily happen, you can hit the max payload for a truck, ship, or plane while it's still mostly empty volume simply from a few very dense objects. But whether that happen in the Honorverse hasn't been directly address (at least not that I can recall)

SharkHunter wrote:The ships in the HonorVerse get their acceleration from fusion power, driving a wedge that crams a whole lot of tiny particles to near-relativistic speeds creating a propulsion stream. There's also a not-insignificant "drag" component as well because of the fractional C speeds-- that's why putting pods on tow slows the warship or requires more output, aka closer to "maximum military power", etc.

No, sorry but you are wrong on quite a few points there.

1. According to Mr. Weber, ships pull 60% or more of the power they use to accelerate from hyper (somehow) through their wedge. He said this when we tried to figure out how much bunkerage an SD would need to accelerate to .8c. (For the record, IIRC, it was more than the mass of the ship.)

2. According to text, the wedge creates a " warped pocket of space" that can accelerate up to lightspeed instantly. However if that was the case compensators would be unnecessary, as would all of the bracing that ships have around their nodes, because the ship and the people in the ship are all in that warped space. We (the forumites) have more or less agreed on what has to be happening to cause the acceleration. The nodes create the two wedges, and an interaction between the wedges cause them to move "forward," dragging the nodes with them, then the nodes drag the rest of the ship with them. Either way, a wedge is definitely not a reaction thruster.

3. A pod does not cause drag in the way you are thinking. Again, from Mr. Weber, the slower max speed is because you have to shoot a tractor and beamed power out of the aft end of your wedge. This restricts how small you can make your aft opening, and the faster you accelerate, the smaller your kilt and bigger your throat. That is why pods towed inside of wedges do not cause you to lose any acceleration.