A HH Tech Question

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Sean D. Hert

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Sep 17, 1999, 3:00:00 AM9/17/99
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Hello All-

I was talking to a friend about the HH universe last night, and he had
a good question- if impeller bands (and sidewalls for that matter) are
impervious to known weapons- like lasers, how can a ship's sensors see
through them to navigate, lock weapons, etc? 'Specially since sensors
are mounted on the "top" and "bottom" of ships?(HH3/SVW)
And how could other ships see, and ID them? Do gravitic sensors work
through the impeller bands?

If these questions are handled in a FAQ or other source, just point
the way and I'll look it up.

Thanks all

Sean D. Hert
po...@netwalk.com
Webmeister, MBG Site: http://www.netwalk.com/~popev/bg/
"Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence"
-Napoleon Buonapart


mike weber

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Sep 17, 1999, 3:00:00 AM9/17/99
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po...@netwalk.com (Sean D. Hert) is alleged to have said, on Fri, 17
Sep 1999 07:58:06 GMT,
:

> Hello All-
>
>I was talking to a friend about the HH universe last night, and he had
>a good question- if impeller bands (and sidewalls for that matter) are
>impervious to known weapons- like lasers, how can a ship's sensors see
>through them to navigate, lock weapons, etc? 'Specially since sensors
>are mounted on the "top" and "bottom" of ships?(HH3/SVW)
>And how could other ships see, and ID them? Do gravitic sensors work
>through the impeller bands?
>
>If these questions are handled in a FAQ or other source, just point
>the way and I'll look it up.
>
A ship's own sensors can look "through" the bands because the ship's
computer knows just how much they distort what's coming through.

Certainly that sort of gravitational distortion of space is going to
be detectable by gravitic sensors, wouldn't you think?
--
"Life's a game where they're bound to beat you, and time's a
trick they can turn to cheat you -- and we only waste it
anyway, that's the hell of it..." -- Paul Williams

<mike weber> kras...@mindspring.com>
Ambitious Incomplete web site: http://weberworld.virtualave.net

Joe Buckley

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Sep 17, 1999, 3:00:00 AM9/17/99
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On Fri, 17 Sep 1999 07:58:06 GMT, an orbiting mind-control laser made
po...@netwalk.com (Sean D. Hert) write:

> Hello All-
>
>I was talking to a friend about the HH universe last night, and he had
>a good question- if impeller bands (and sidewalls for that matter) are
>impervious to known weapons- like lasers,

Actually, the way I've interpreted things, neither sidewall *nor*
drive bands are impervious to energy fire.

The sidewalls, being weaker than the drive bands can be fired
through (witness the 25K km+ standoff range of laserhead fire and the
400K km+ range of shipboard energy fire).

The drive bands themselves *can* be fired through, evidently.

The reason they are considered impenetrable is that a warship
generates *two* drive bands above and two bands below. An aggressor
at low enough range can get good enough reads on the outer band to
compensate for the band distortion and penetrate it with energy fire,
but they can not get good enough data for the second, interior band to
fully compensate for its distortion.
Merchies evidently generate only one set of drive bands, making
them much more susceptible to energy fire through the drive bands, but
even to do that, the aggressor must be at extremely short range.


> how can a ship's sensors see
>through them to navigate, lock weapons, etc? 'Specially since sensors
>are mounted on the "top" and "bottom" of ships?(HH3/SVW)

Well, as Mike said, since the sensors are mounted on the same
platform that is generating the drive bands, its systems can use the
information on the drive band's power settings to compensate for much,
if not all, of the distortion on what EM data gets through the bands.

>And how could other ships see, and ID them?

For warships, generally IDs have seemed to be made on a
class-level basis. "Sir, since the drive strength is <insert
technobable here> and our mass readings are approximately <insert more
stuff here>, then for the observed accel, we're looking at a CA."
That type of thing.

Evidently for warships during peace-time and for non-combatants,
broadcasting an ID beacon is routinely done.

> Do gravitic sensors work
>through the impeller bands?

Yes, but they primarily detect large-scale phenomena - like
another ship's gravitic drive signature.

>If these questions are handled in a FAQ or other source, just point
>the way and I'll look it up.

Not sure if so. (I don't think so.)
Sorry, I don't have the FAQ link handy.

>Thanks all
>
>Sean D. Hert
>po...@netwalk.com
>Webmeister, MBG Site: http://www.netwalk.com/~popev/bg/
>"Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence"
>-Napoleon Buonapart

-JPB

I'm sure David will *gleefully* correct any incorrect
interpretations on my part.

Iain Scott

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Sep 17, 1999, 3:00:00 AM9/17/99
to

Sean D. Hert <po...@netwalk.com> wrote in message
news:37e1f1b7...@news.netwalk.com...

> Hello All-
>
> I was talking to a friend about the HH universe last night, and he had
> a good question- if impeller bands (and sidewalls for that matter) are
> impervious to known weapons- like lasers, how can a ship's sensors see

> through them to navigate, lock weapons, etc? 'Specially since sensors
> are mounted on the "top" and "bottom" of ships?(HH3/SVW)
> And how could other ships see, and ID them? Do gravitic sensors work
> through the impeller bands?
>

> If these questions are handled in a FAQ or other source, just point
> the way and I'll look it up.
>
> Thanks all
>
> Sean D. Hert
> po...@netwalk.com
> Webmeister, MBG Site: http://www.netwalk.com/~popev/bg/
> "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by
incompetence"
> -Napoleon Buonapart
>
Please see OBS, chap3, pages 33 and 34 in my paperback.

Sean D. Hert

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Sep 17, 1999, 3:00:00 AM9/17/99
to
>>
>Please see OBS, chap3, pages 33 and 34 in my paperback.


Thanks, that's exactly what I was looking for.

Jason Hatter

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Sep 17, 1999, 3:00:00 AM9/17/99
to
On 17 Sep 1999, in alt.books.david-weber, mike weber
kras...@mindspring.com proclaimed
<37e2136c...@news.mindspring.com>:

>A ship's own sensors can look "through" the bands because the
>ship's computer knows just how much they distort what's coming
>through.

Which makes me wonder if having several Warlord-class cruisers, the
Manties will be able to make shorter work of them...
--
Jason
http://www.concentric.net/~towonder/
Sailor Moon V at http://www.concentric.net/~towonder/fanfic.shtml
Sith Lords should learn to stay away from wells.

larry pollack

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Sep 17, 1999, 3:00:00 AM9/17/99
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In article <19990918015641...@ngol05.aol.com>,
dwebe...@aol.com says...

> It is possible for sensors to get a read through the impeller bands, but
> it is a very poor one. Remember in HotQ, when Honor is using the belly band of
> FEARLESS to interdict incoming missile fire while she heads in to "suicide"
> range of THUNDER FOF GOD? She specifically says something to Rafe Cardones (I
> don't recall the precise quote, and I'm stuck in NM without the books in front
> of me) about having to accept that they won't be able to run as good a plot on
> incoming fire through the belly bands.

here's the quote

"We should be able to run a fair plot on Salidin with our belly radar,
Rafe, but tracking missiles though the grav band will be difficult"


Larry

mike weber

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Sep 18, 1999, 3:00:00 AM9/18/99
to
towo...@concentric.net (Jason Hatter) is alleged to have said, on 17
Sep 1999 12:44:29 PDT,
:

>On 17 Sep 1999, in alt.books.david-weber, mike weber
>kras...@mindspring.com proclaimed
><37e2136c...@news.mindspring.com>:
>
>>A ship's own sensors can look "through" the bands because the
>>ship's computer knows just how much they distort what's coming
>>through.
>
>Which makes me wonder if having several Warlord-class cruisers, the
>Manties will be able to make shorter work of them...

No -- because what i meant was the ship's computers know what the
wedge is *at*this*very*moment*, not generically what it is.
--
"Anyone who slaps a 'this page is best viewed with Browser X' label on a
Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the Web,
when you had very little chance of reading a document written on another
computer, another word processor, or another network." (Tim Berners-Lee
in -Technology Review-) ((mike weber/kras...@mindspring.com))

DWeber8145

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Sep 18, 1999, 3:00:00 AM9/18/99
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In article <+yLiN2OzIl1nJs...@4ax.com>, Joe Buckley
<Da...@mediaXOUTone.net.invalid> writes:

>
> I'm sure David will *gleefully* correct any incorrect
>interpretations on my part.
>

Gleefully? Did you say *gleefully?* How--oh, how!--could you so cruelly misread
my sweet and gentle personality as to think such a thing?!

Actually, there's a lot of "almost right" here.

(1) Firing Through Impeller Bands: This is *theoretically* possible for
*extremely* powerful weapons at zippo range. The weapon is going to lose an
awful lot of umph, however, once it starts redshifting as it crosses the
gravity interface. There will be major targeting problems, as well. Trying to
localize your intended victim with sufficient precision to target a pinpoint
weapon like a laser of a graser on him through the impeller band's distortion
will be very difficult, even if you do have an approximate read on its power.
This is why I continue to refer to impeller bands as "impenetrable by any known
weapon," because--in practical terms--that's precisely what it is.

(2) Sidewalls, Impeller Bands, and Sensors: Sidewalls contain "gunports" for
senrors as well as for weapons. While sensor and message arrays are mounted
atop the hull, they do not normally operate through the impeller bands, but
through the sidewalls. Note that a warship is a very tiny object compared to
the internal volume of its wedge, and that sidewalls stretch from top to bottom
of the wedgfe bands, which means that any sidewall is a pretty immense vertical
barrier. It's entirely possible to put ports for things like, say, message
transmission well "above" or "below" the plane of the ship in question, and
this is routinely done.

It is possible for sensors to get a read through the impeller bands, but
it is a very poor one. Remember in HotQ, when Honor is using the belly band of
FEARLESS to interdict incoming missile fire while she heads in to "suicide"
range of THUNDER FOF GOD? She specifically says something to Rafe Cardones (I
don't recall the precise quote, and I'm stuck in NM without the books in front
of me) about having to accept that they won't be able to run as good a plot on
incoming fire through the belly bands.

One of the reasons for braodside-to-broadside fire has always been the
need to keep one's best sensor capability, as well as one's direct fire
weapons, aimed in the direction of the enemy. One of the goodies from Ghost
Rider, though it hasn't been brought up in the books yet (and so is NOT a
spoiiler for AoV), is a radical improvement in recon and sensor drones, coupled
with an IMMENSE improvement in FTL transmission rates. You still can't get
precise, real-time targeting data at extreme ranges, but you can get a much
better (and closer to current) tactical picture. And, at shorter ranges, the
drones can be deployed above and below the plane of the impeller bands to give
a ship genuine 360-degree sensors capability.

David

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