Honorverse ramblings and musings

Weird Harold wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Ok, which means they have FTL control for less than 8 lightminutes. (Honor's 'bluff' shot against Tourville during the BoM) [the two numbers I have handy for Apollo are: Lovat being in-range at 3+ LM and BoM being out of range at 8 LM; so the direct range should be somewhere between them]

So even if Fileretta was slightly inside the hyperlimit at the closest point of approach to Sphinx he'd still be well outside direct Apollo range of the orbital forts.

You're forgetting that the System Defense variant is a four-drive missile -- which should have a powered range 133% of a ship-borne three-drive Apollo.

Also, System defense missiles should be "bigger" than ship-borne missiles, so range should be 150-200% of a three drive Apollo. The FTL transceiver would have to have better range to manage powered range of the System Defense Variant, so the Hyper Limit (from Sphinx at the time of Filareta's Folly) would probably be in range or nearly in range.

Jonathan_S wrote:Ok, which means they have FTL control for less than 8 lightminutes. (Honor's 'bluff' shot against Tourville during the BoM) [the two numbers I have handy for Apollo are: Lovat being in-range at 3+ LM and BoM being out of range at 8 LM; so the direct range should be somewhere between them]

So even if Fileretta was slightly inside the hyperlimit at the closest point of approach to Sphinx he'd still be well outside direct Apollo range of the orbital forts.

Weird Harold wrote:You're forgetting that the System Defense variant is a four-drive missile -- which should have a powered range 133% of a ship-borne three-drive Apollo.

Also, System defense missiles should be "bigger" than ship-borne missiles, so range should be 150-200% of a three drive Apollo. The FTL transceiver would have to have better range to manage powered range of the System Defense Variant, so the Hyper Limit (from Sphinx at the time of Filareta's Folly) would probably be in range or nearly in range.

Jonathan_S wrote:I know the system defense variants have the extra drive. But I don't know (no text-ev either way) that they have a longer range transceiver. And they were pretty much conceived in a package with Mycroft to stretch their FTL fire control widely across the inner system)

And to get, what's probably more than a doubling the effective range, (to get to the 10 LM reach from Sphinx to the hyper limit) seems like it'd take a massively larger transmitter. (Since even FTL ripples should follow some kind of inverse power law)


But Oyster Bay may well have interrupted the deployment of those around the Manitoran system; leaving the Forts a little short-ranged for FTL control. At least for system defense; they'd still have plenty of range for planet or junction defense.

Storm From the Shadows, Chapter 12 wrote:"With the Apollo missile itself—we've officially designated the ship-launched version the Mark 23-E, partly in an attempt to convince anyone who hears about it that it's only an attack bird upgrade—" the cursor moved to the third missile "—the situation's a bit more complicated. As I say, it's an entirely new design, and we're looking at some bottlenecks in getting it into volume production. The system-defense variant—the Mark 23-F—is another all-new design. Aside from the drives and the fusion bottle, we had to start with a blank piece of paper in each case, and we hit some snags getting the new transceiver squared away. We're on top of those, now, but we're still only beginning to ramp up production. The 23-F is lagging behind the 23-E, mostly because we've tweaked the transceiver's sensitivity even higher in light of the longer anticipated engagement ranges, which increased volume requirements more dramatically than we'd expected, but even the Echo model is coming off the lines more slowly than we'd like. When you factor in the need for the original Keyhole control platforms to be refitted to the Keyhole-Two standard, this isn't something we're going to be able to put into fleet-wide deployment overnight. On the other hand—"

Vince wrote:Admiral Hemphill's briefing to Admiral Gold Peak on Apollo in:

Storm From the Shadows, Chapter 12 wrote:"With the

cthia wrote:So, are you all saying that the forts could have destroyed Filareta's force or no?

Because, as I've said, IIRC, the advisement to Elizabeth was, paraphrasing, "the forts are online Elizabeth, and each of them (techno mumbo jumbo), so the only thing in question is how long it'll take to turn any SLN fleet to space dust."

I'm sorry I cannot find that particular passage. I thought it in ART, but either I'm missing it or it's in another.

But the point from the passage I'm referencing made it clear that the forts could deal with any SLN force that could soon be thrown at them. It doesn't seem likely that the SLN could just hyper in on a certain course and remain clear of the forts. Or what good are they or the summation given to Elizabeth?

It's not nice to lie to Mother Nature. And Elizabeth is Mother Nature — being such a force of nature.

cthia wrote:So, are you all saying that the forts could have destroyed Filareta's force or no?

Because, as I've said, IIRC, the advisement to Elizabeth was, paraphrasing, "the forts are online Elizabeth, and each of them (techno mumbo jumbo), so the only thing in question is how long it'll take to turn any SLN fleet to space dust."

I'm sorry I cannot find that particular passage. I thought it in ART, but either I'm missing it or it's in another.

But the point from the passage I'm referencing made it clear that the forts could deal with any SLN force that could soon be thrown at them. It doesn't seem likely that the SLN could just hyper in on a certain course and remain clear of the forts. Or what good are they or the summation given to Elizabeth?

It's not nice to lie to Mother Nature. And Elizabeth is Mother Nature — being such a force of nature.

cthia wrote:So, are you all saying that the forts could have destroyed Filareta's force or no?

Because, as I've said, IIRC, the advisement to Elizabeth was, paraphrasing, "the forts are online Elizabeth, and each of them (techno mumbo jumbo), so the only thing in question is how long it'll take to turn any SLN fleet to space dust."

I'm sorry I cannot find that particular passage. I thought it in ART, but either I'm missing it or it's in another.

But the point from the passage I'm referencing made it clear that the forts could deal with any SLN force that could soon be thrown at them. It doesn't seem likely that the SLN could just hyper in on a certain course and remain clear of the forts. Or what good are they or the summation given to Elizabeth?

It's not nice to lie to Mother Nature. And Elizabeth is Mother Nature — being such a force of nature.

thinkstoomuch wrote:A few things to consider about using the forts around Sphinx.

One even a capacitor MDM would have ranged the SLN forces at emergence. They were ~18 million kms from Sphinx.

Next Honor was 2 million kms closer than the planet to the SLN.

Third as of January there were only 8,000 system defense pods available to Grayson. I would assume that a like number were available for each planet's forces.

Lastly, for my purposes most important. It really appears that Manticore has a philosophical (almost pathological) aversion to using orbital defenses as the tend to cause anything that misses them to come to close to a planet. Except of course as a last ditch thing.

So could the Sphinx Fortresses have engaged the SLN damn straight. But given all of the above, why.

Have fun,
T2M