Harrington ship question

[The Oz]

I should have said that I think you can't have a sidewall just "hanging" in space: it has to be "attached" to something else of a gravitic nature, either another sidewall or an impeller wedge.

The sidewall bubbles that forts use are "tied" to themselves, since they are a sphere.

I wonder how those bubble sidewalls work (or don't work) when the forts use their impeller drive? Do they switch back and forth from regular sidewalls to bubbles when they turn the drive on and off? Do they use the same sidewall generators? Lots of questions here.

 

[Libris]

I assumed that forts were space stations and did not have impeller drives and kinda just hung there in space (presumably they have thrusters though for station keeping). That was why they were "forts" and not mega-superdreadnoughts.

John Robertson

 

[Richard Saunders]

Hello Libris.
No the forts can move under impeller drive (it says so in Basilisk) when the discription of what forts do to protect the gates is described it says that as forts are destroyed other forts move into the gaps, and all forts must move toward the exit point of the invaders, Yes not very fast but they do move.
Bye.

 

[Richard Saunders]

Hello.
Forgot to put this in the last message.
The first two Harrington books are for FREE on the Baen site and you can bye the rest for 5$ each there as well (thats $5 american).
Thats $55 for all 13 Harrington books.
Baen has lotts of FREE books on there site.
AND the books are in RTF (rich text format=Word).
No copy protection EXCEPT your HONOUR no pun intended.
No i dont work for Baen i just think they should be encouraged to continue to give books away to tempt you into bying others.
Bye.

 

[vutpakdi]

Originally posted by Lionel Deffries:
Hello.
Forgot to put this in the last message.
The first two Harrington books are for FREE on the Baen site and you can bye the rest for 5$ each there as well (thats $5 american).
Thats $55 for all 13 Harrington books.

Even better. One of the hardcover versions of one of the recent mainline books (War of Honor, I believe), had a CD with ebook versions of all (I think) previous Harrington books along with a bunch of other free e-books from other Baen authors.

Ron

 

[BetterThanLife]

Actually it looks like someone did that, it may have been the Andies or the Solies. (Andies in War of Honor as I recall but it could have been Sollies in the last Anthology.) You can't launch vertically and the pods bolted to the hull on top and bottom were facing out with the Broadsides. Though the Ghost Rider Missiles didn't need to have the Launcher facing the target directly. (Part of the New LAC/Ghost Rider development package so chaser armament is less essential later. The Top and bottom tubes would be limited if facing fore or aft as they have to be spaced far enough apart so as to not destroy each other when they bring their wedges up. (Comments from the first book on spacing of missile tubes. And on the design of the Smaller ships designed and built by the Graysons.)

I agree that you should be better able to change the direction of the missile after launch however remember that if you launch 90 degrees off angle to the target you have lots of accelleration to overcome to change the vector of the missile and you are wasting fuel.You will have to kill its initial accelleration away from your target and generate a new vector towards the target. You will be at a major accelleration disadvantage compared to a target that is broadside on to you.

Roll ship end over end? Your accelleration would still have to be along the long axis of the ship. So it would be difficult to continue pursuit with this maneuver.

As for approaching Stern first, are you accellerating or decellerating towards the target. If you are accellerating you are limited to bow on, if you are decellerating then you are stern on if you are doing neither why not yaw the ship and come in side on.

Originally posted by Lionel Deffries:

And i have no problem with his method.
So the gap at the front is wider than the back.
SO it would be safer to back into battle and you could actualy get a higher missile count if you mounted tubes on the top and bottom of the hull facing backwards (you launch them with thrusters programed to fire until they clear the skirt then the drive cuts in and they target the enemy), If you what to target forward you do the same with the missiles told to fly around the drive bands (over and under so they dont interfere with standard missile launches). Also how come they dont appear to be able to fire missiles of target (the launcher has to be facing the target) Yes in the last book the Manties can but not very far of angle. Launch the missile with a baring and then tell it to turn on its sensors OR control the missile at launch (they do update the ECM & ECCM in flight so updating trajectory at launch cant be that hard).
Until next time.
Bye.

 

[Richard Saunders]

Originally posted by Bhoins:
[QB] Actually it looks like someone did that, it may have been the Andies or the Solies. (Andies in War of Honor as I recall but it could have been Sollies in the last Anthology.) You can't launch vertically and the pods bolted to the hull on top and bottom were facing out with the Broadsides. Though the Ghost Rider Missiles didn't need to have the Launcher facing the target directly. (Part of the New LAC/Ghost Rider development package so chaser armament is less essential later. The Top and bottom tubes would be limited if facing fore or aft as they have to be spaced far enough apart so as to not destroy each other when they bring their wedges up. (Comments from the first book on spacing of missile tubes. And on the design of the Smaller ships designed and built by the Graysons.)

----------------------------------------------
It was in one of the anthologies the one with the peeps invading Cilisia.
Why do you need to kill launch speed to change direction, use a guass gun to launch with just enough speed to clear the ship then light the engine.
If your accelerating you have the same speed as the ship and all the opening at the front of the ship to go through. If firing backwards you have the slope of the hull and a smaller opening to go through, but it's still only programing of the missiles.
If your decelerating the missiles end up going faster than the side launched missiles.
Isn't the spacing for damage mitagation not wedge problems, Wedges are kilometers across so any missile will destroy another (i always assumed that missiles where launched at a stagered rate, somethin like the cylinders on a car).
Stick the top and bottom missile tubes on rotating launches so they face in any direction when outside the hull, That way if your deceling you just drop them and they accel (under your decel) away with thrusters makeing shore they dont hit the wedge.
You could launch them facing backwards or forwards or even sidways, just not up or down.

---------------------------------------------
I agree that you should be better able to change the direction of the missile after launch however remember that if you launch 90 degrees off angle to the target you have lots of accelleration to overcome to change the vector of the missile and you are wasting fuel.You will have to kill its initial accelleration away from your target and generate a new vector towards the target. You will be at a major accelleration disadvantage compared to a target that is broadside on to you.

Roll ship end over end? Your accelleration would still have to be along the long axis of the ship. So it would be difficult to continue pursuit with this maneuver.

-----------------------------------------
Dont understand - i think they ment spin on the long axis not end over end.
--------------------------------------------

As for approaching Stern first, are you accellerating or decellerating towards the target. If you are accellerating you are limited to bow on, if you are decellerating then you are stern on if you are doing neither why not yaw the ship and come in side on.

--------------------------------------------
All battles have one side either acellerating out to meet the enemy who is accel in to engage or both sides decelling for a meeting engagement.
So basicaly every battle except for a hit and run fast pass is started as a decel battle before everyone turns their ships side on to engage.
Sneaky thought - at extreme range flip topways to the enemy, launch every missile you have on delay activation with 1/4 targeting the top and 1/4 targeting the bottom wedge.
At active intercept range activate your missiles.
If he rolls the ship to interpose his wedge then he cant fire at the missiles going for the top and bottom of his wedge until they clear his wedge (far to close) if he dosn't roll the ship he has 1/2 your total missiles closing on him and if he has enough to stop them you are seriously outclassed to start with and even Harrington is going to get creamed.
Yes she did beat bigger ships by bluff and skill and a lot of luck.
Bye.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Lionel,
I was thinking that stern on being normal mode of engagement the way you phrased the approach Stern on because there is less of an opening. Doing that you would have to roll ship along the x axis to interpose wedges between you and the enemy. Not that it isn't possible, just funny looking.