pd 1924 - Shape of Beowulf's fleet

My apologies for broaching something in the dead horses thread. But I am not sure a larger LAC, HAC, would be the final design.

Let’s belay that order (Capt. Picard) for hyper capable LACs. And let’s simply consider a whole new approach to LAC design that might be of more interest to a malignant mind and to malignant doctrine. And let’s cut out the luxuries that would be unnecessary for a malignant mind and its malignant design.

Jonathan_S wrote:Now to turn that into any kind of warship add thousands and thousands of tons of weapons, defenses, sensor, fire control, and space for the extra crew to use and maintain all those extra systems.

Let’s assume the Malign has developed their own mini power plant. Forget the thousands and thousands of tons of weapons. This LAC will carry only one weapon. A 3-second firing graser. No missiles so no fire control needed. Not hyper capable so no extra crew.

Let’s also assume that this LAC will be the equivalent of the Japanese kamikaze in its doctrine. They are not concerned with survivability. This is an attritional warship. Losing a LAC or a squadron of LACs for a ship of the wall is acceptable. Since this LAC design is not concerned with survivability, then let’s lose all of the extra fluff mere civilized warriors are concerned with. How much extra battle steel can be shed which only helps to make the LAC more survivable? How much extra battle steel in areas that simply protect against radiation? Let’s lose all of that extra fluff.

There was a Star Trek episode which featured a Kilingon Bird of Prey that was dangerous to its occupants. IINM, it was the prototype design with the cloaking device? The crew were exposed to very high levels of radiation.

The Malign might have genetic defenses against radiation. They might be able to withstand what a mere mortal cannot. Besides, their LACs are only booked for one way trips. I don’t think the MA will attempt to fight a conventional long-protracted war. They need a knockout punch, a short victorious war. The same as any other navy, except I think the MAN has a better chance of a SVW than has ever existed. If they can be made even smaller, and if built in large numbers then these things can be a game changer if successful.

I am not advocating for simply being suicidal. If they can incorporate an impeller/spider-drive hybrid into relatively the same footprint of a regular LAC, then by definition of a LAC it is difficult to target. As a new wrinkle, if the spider-drive cuts in at the opportune moment it might cause any locks to be lost. Add their own Malign ECM.

Since they are designed w/o the extra fluff, then a spider drive might can be built much smaller, especially if it is a specific mission this drive will be tasked for; which might lose some of its features that might not be necessary on a LAC.

For instance, since an LD might need to keep one side of itself towards the enemy then an LD's spider drive might need to be able to move much like a real arachnid; sideways, backwards, etc. Something mere impellers can't do. If so and that ability is eliminated then maybe the drive itself can be designed much smaller.

Consider a very powerful 12-cylinder BMW engine that cuts out 6-cylinders until the extra power is needed. Perhaps there can be a 6-cyl spider-drive for LACs.

Jonathan_S wrote:Now to turn that into any kind of warship add thousands and thousands of tons of weapons, defenses, sensor, fire control, and space for the extra crew to use and maintain all those extra systems.

penny wrote:Let’s assume the Malign has developed their own mini power plant. Forget the thousands and thousands of tons of weapons. This LAC will carry only one weapon. A 3-second firing graser. No missiles so no fire control needed. Not hyper capable so no extra crew.

Let’s also assume that this LAC will be the equivalent of the Japanese kamikaze in its doctrine. They are not concerned with survivability. This is an attritional warship. Losing a LAC or a squadron of LACs for a ship of the wall is acceptable. Since this LAC design is not concerned with survivability, then let’s lose all of the extra fluff mere civilized warriors are concerned with. How much extra battle steel can be shed which only helps to make the LAC more survivable? How much extra battle steel in areas that simply protect against radiation? Let’s lose all of that extra fluff.

Since you seem to be designing a Silver Bullet with a human occupant and a better powerplant, why not remove the occupant and just design a Silver Bullet that hunts enemy ships and has a better powerplant?

The Japanese employed Kamikaze (as I understand) because the culture at the time glorified the warrior that died in battle and (unfortunately for them) attacking the Allied fleet at that time was tantamount to a death sentence anyway. Unless the Malign has developed battle clones, I do not see where there is going to be much enthusiasm for a weapon that has two outcomes: either you fail to find a ship to shoot and return with a massive radiation dose or you do find a ship and are blown to pieces when the three second graser fires.

PS: I do not understand the logic of the various suggestions to put a graser that explodes when it fires on any manned ship.

edit - similar thoughts to tlb who posted as I was drafting this

penny wrote:Let’s assume the Malign has developed their own mini power plant. Forget the thousands and thousands of tons of weapons. This LAC will carry only one weapon. A 3-second firing graser. No missiles so no fire control needed. Not hyper capable so no extra crew.

Let’s also assume that this LAC will be the equivalent of the Japanese kamikaze in its doctrine. They are not concerned with survivability. This is an attritional warship. Losing a LAC or a squadron of LACs for a ship of the wall is acceptable. Since this LAC design is not concerned with survivability, then let’s lose all of the extra fluff mere civilized warriors are concerned with. [snip]

I am not advocating for simply being suicidal. If they can incorporate an impeller/spider-drive hybrid into relatively the same footprint of a regular LAC, then by definition of a LAC it is difficult to target. As a new wrinkle, if the spider-drive cuts in at the opportune moment it might cause any locks to be lost. Add their own Malign ECM.

Since they are designed w/o the extra fluff, then a spider drive might can be built much smaller, especially if it is a specific mission this drive will be tasked for; which might lose some of its features that might not be necessary on a LAC.

If it's just going to mount a 3-second graser then why make it crewed? They already had a spider powered system to deliver that payload -- the graser torp.

There's also the small problems that the 3-second graser works by running so long it slags itself, and that it's canonically nowhere near as powerful as the BC-grade graser on a Shrike. So you've got a literally one-shot weapon that's less effective than the RMN's LACs multi-shot one; on a platform that's inevitably going to have to be bigger than the existing graser torp.

(Also if you make a spider drive smaller you make it slower accelerating. Though for a crewed platform that shouldn't matter because even the g-torp, which is smaller than any crewed platform would be, is no more sluggish than grav plates can make survivable for a crew)

Now I guess you could radically redesign the 3 second graser, bulking it up so it doesn't cook itself when operating, and possibly boosting its power. But I don't know if you can get any graser to actually survive a multi-second continuous burn at weapons grade power levels. (Or, if you could, how long it'd need to cool down before repeating the feat)

And even if you can firing a weapons grade graser draws a glowing line in space right back to your location (space isn't a perfect vacuum, especially around starships which are never perfectly free of outgassing and tiny leaks, and dumping x-rays of that power through it is going to light up every particle in the beam's path). Which is a bit of a problem since a spider ship is totally lacking in sidewalls. So unless it's hitting something smaller enough to catastrophically kill in under a second there's going to be time for the target to fire back -- and without a bow wall (or any sidewall) to protect it even PDLCs could tear a spider-LAC apart. Attritional indeed.

And if it's likely not to survive its first attack then there's little reason to reengineer the graser for multiple shots, nor much reason to build a crewed platform for it. That'll inevitably be more expensive and time consuming that just building a graser torp (even ignoring the time and cost of getting trained crew to operate it) -- and that only pays off if the crewed unit is significantly more effective or you can expect significant reuse of it. Otherwise even if you built a bigger and more powerful 3 second graser you'd be better off just building a bigger graser torp to deliver it. (And, bonus, a bigger graser torp would be a bit higher acceleration as it'd have room for more spider-drive emitters) Sure you can carry fewer weapons if they're larger, but for a given 3-second graser an unmanned torp is always going to be smaller than a manned LAC; and so you can carry more torps than LACs on whatever hull was going to be carrying them.

penny wrote:My apologies for broaching something in the dead horses thread. But I am not sure a larger LAC, HAC, would be the final design.

Let’s belay that order (Capt. Picard) for hyper capable LACs. And let’s simply consider a whole new approach to LAC design that might be of more interest to a malignant mind and to malignant doctrine. And let’s cut out the luxuries that would be unnecessary for a malignant mind and its malignant design.

Jonathan_S wrote:Now to turn that into any kind of warship add thousands and thousands of tons of weapons, defenses, sensor, fire control, and space for the extra crew to use and maintain all those extra systems.

Let’s assume the Malign has developed their own mini power plant. Forget the thousands and thousands of tons of weapons. This LAC will carry only one weapon. A 3-second firing graser. No missiles so no fire control needed. Not hyper capable so no extra crew.

Let’s also assume that this LAC will be the equivalent of the Japanese kamikaze in its doctrine. They are not concerned with survivability. This is an attritional warship. Losing a LAC or a squadron of LACs for a ship of the wall is acceptable. Since this LAC design is not concerned with survivability, then let’s lose all of the extra fluff mere civilized warriors are concerned with. How much extra battle steel can be shed which only helps to make the LAC more survivable? How much extra battle steel in areas that simply protect against radiation? Let’s lose all of that extra fluff.

There was a Star Trek episode which featured a Kilingon Bird of Prey that was dangerous to its occupants. IINM, it was the prototype design with the cloaking device? The crew were exposed to very high levels of radiation.

The Malign might have genetic defenses against radiation. They might be able to withstand what a mere mortal cannot. Besides, their LACs are only booked for one way trips. I don’t think the MA will attempt to fight a conventional long-protracted war. They need a knockout punch, a short victorious war. The same as any other navy, except I think the MAN has a better chance of a SVW than has ever existed. If they can be made even smaller, and if built in large numbers then these things can be a game changer if successful.

I am not advocating for simply being suicidal. If they can incorporate an impeller/spider-drive hybrid into relatively the same footprint of a regular LAC, then by definition of a LAC it is difficult to target. As a new wrinkle, if the spider-drive cuts in at the opportune moment it might cause any locks to be lost. Add their own Malign ECM.

Since they are designed w/o the extra fluff, then a spider drive might can be built much smaller, especially if it is a specific mission this drive will be tasked for; which might lose some of its features that might not be necessary on a LAC.

For instance, since an LD might need to keep one side of itself towards the enemy then an LD's spider drive might need to be able to move much like a real arachnid; sideways, backwards, etc. Something mere impellers can't do. If so and that ability is eliminated then maybe the drive itself can be designed much smaller.

Consider a very powerful 12-cylinder BMW engine that cuts out 6-cylinders until the extra power is needed. Perhaps there can be a 6-cyl spider-drive for LACs.

We know that ton for ton (on the smaller ships at least), The spider drive takes up more mass and volume than an impeller and compensator does. (the Frigate sized ghost is unarmed, while a frigate is... armed like a frigate - and same would be true of a LAC.) Placing both drive systems in such a vessel would be even more massive, not less.

Also, the smaller the spider drive, the less power it has - a LAC sized vessel may not be able to max out it's grav plates for all we know.

penny wrote:Let’s assume the Malign has developed their own mini power plant. Forget the thousands and thousands of tons of weapons. This LAC will carry only one weapon. A 3-second firing graser. No missiles so no fire control needed. Not hyper capable so no extra crew.

My first reaction when reading this, like the others above, was "so, a crewed torpedo?"

Let’s also assume that this LAC will be the equivalent of the Japanese kamikaze in its doctrine. They are not concerned with survivability. This is an attritional warship. Losing a LAC or a squadron of LACs for a ship of the wall is acceptable. Since this LAC design is not concerned with survivability, then let’s lose all of the extra fluff mere civilized warriors are concerned with. How much extra battle steel can be shed which only helps to make the LAC more survivable? How much extra battle steel in areas that simply protect against radiation? Let’s lose all of that extra fluff.

That doesn't work quite like the Japanese kamikaze, because there was little option for the Japanese then. Aeroplanes did not fly by themselves, there were no drones, there was no other way to deliver a weapon to USN ships. The MAlign is not limited by those constraints: while RFC has put a limit on uncrewed hyperspace ships or transitions (mostly for plot reasons), n-space robotic remotely- or autonomously-operated vessels do exist.

Moreover, the culture is not at all similar. Others have said above that the Japanese culture did value a warrior who died in battle. I would think the MAlign is the exact opposite: like Patton said, their job is not to die for their cause, but to make "some other dumb bastard die for his (cause)." This is especially true of a race who already consider themselves superior, so self-sacrifice will not be a guiding factor. That is not to say they won't die if necessary - just look at the spied and agents - but the MAlign wouldn't design a highly-attritional operation on its own people if there's an option.

The Malign might have genetic defenses against radiation. They might be able to withstand what a mere mortal cannot. Besides, their LACs are only booked for one way trips. I don’t think the MA will attempt to fight a conventional long-protracted war. They need a knockout punch, a short victorious war. The same as any other navy, except I think the MAN has a better chance of a SVW than has ever existed. If they can be made even smaller, and if built in large numbers then these things can be a game changer if successful.

The argument has some reason: they want to win and win quickly. What's missing from your analysis is the alternative: the torpedo. Please explain how a spider LAC on one-way missions is a superior tactical solution than torpedoes.

Consider a very powerful 12-cylinder BMW engine that cuts out 6-cylinders until the extra power is needed. Perhaps there can be a 6-cyl spider-drive for LACs.

So, a 25-gravity ship? How is it going to run down pinnaces, let alone warships pulling 20-30x that acceleration?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Others have said above that the Japanese culture did value a warrior who died in battle. I would think the MAlign is the exact opposite: like Patton said, their job is not to die for their cause, but to make "some other dumb bastard die for his (cause)." This is especially true of a race who already consider themselves superior, so self-sacrifice will not be a guiding factor. That is not to say they won't die if necessary - just look at the spied and agents - but the MAlign wouldn't design a highly-attritional operation on its own people if there's an option.

I agree, that is why I suggested battle clones. The human equivalent of the dogs that the Soviet Union trained to carry bombs under tanks in WW2 (my understanding is that they unfortunately trained them using Soviet tanks, instead of German ones).

Theemile wrote:Also, the smaller the spider drive, the less power it has - a LAC sized vessel may not be able to max out it's grav plates for all we know.

I touched on that in passing, and I think it would be able to.
(Well, unless they seriously scrimped on the drive to make room for other systems)

A manned platform necessarily needs to be larger than a graser torp, and my understanding is even a gtorp's drive is already quick enough to max out the full emergency accel of a MAlign gravplate. After all, that's only 310g (with the crew experiencing 9 gees)

Mission of Honor wrote:For all its size, it was also a slow weapon. It was simply impossible to fit a spider drive capable of more than a few hundred gravities’ acceleration into something small enough to make a practical weapon

Since "a few" is usually about 3... anything larger than a gtorp should be able to pull that 310g and nearly incapacitate its crew


(Mind you, that's still anemic acceleration for a warship. These days a Shrike is probably pushing 900g -- and without impairing the combat effectiveness of the crew)