Honorverse vs. 40k [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

The Glyphstone

2013-08-25, 10:50 PM

Their avoidance of bombarding planets is more a political/diplomatic thing - in the setting, there's a galaxy-wide treaty that says if anyone deliberately (or through negligence) bombards a planetary population that hasn't been given the chance to surrender, every other space-going faction - primarily the Solarian League, with their reserves of reserves of reserves - are obligated to blot the offending faction off the face of existence. But on the flip side, fleets aren't supposed to use inhabited planets as backdrops to prevent enemies from shooting at them while they fire outwards, so if the Imperium tries it, and there's no Solarian League to enforce the Eridani Edict, the rules might get fuzzy. Though of course, the Imperium has no such compulsions against firing on hostile planets to begin with.

Honorverse ships definitely have the range, but Imperial Navy ships are huge - a Lunar Cruiser is at least four times the size and mass of the largest superdreadnaught Manticore or Haven has, and they're considered mid-range combatants for 40K. Get a group of them together, and it's not impossible that an Honorverse fleet could run itself dry of ammunition before inflicting decisive damage on their titanic opponents, though their range and speed would let them avoid damage of their own.

Ceridan

2013-08-25, 10:50 PM

Something to consider. First, Honorverse primary means of detection are gravitational sensors that detect the distortions made by a wedge. 40k ships don't use them and thus wouldn't be readily detected at missile range.

True the Imperium is vast and ungainly so lets narrow the scope to Ultamar. The Ultramarines and their pocket empire are well led, equipped and trained and far quicker to respond to threats.

Rakaydos

2013-08-25, 10:56 PM

Keep in mind that ammo limits only apply to missile wepons- which early in the war were considered approprite for light combatant, but not enogh to get through the defenses of a "proper wall of battle"- only heavy gamma ray laser weaponry could do much to their defenses, so thats what they were mostly armed with.

The Glyphstone

2013-08-25, 11:01 PM

They do use a lot of sensor drones as well, which extends their reach even if they're limited to lightspeed transmissions. Though even at half their maximum SVW engagement distance, that's still over 3 million kilometers. The longest-range weapon in 40K is a Nova Cannon, listed in Rogue Trader as being effective at up to 40,000KM. That's within range of Honorverse energy batteries - anything smaller than a Nova Cannon will be in range of point defense lasers.

It'll be a knife-range fight either way, since the Imperial ship will be big enough to soak unimaginable amounts of punishment as they close to point-blank range (for the Honorverse), but default combat range for themselves. Even against laser and graser fire, it'll take a lot of hits to burn through their armor, possibly enough to get Manticore or Haven's ships into targeting range - and at energy range, the superdreadnaughts can't shelter behind their wedge, they have to rely on sidewalls.

Forum Explorer

2013-08-25, 11:01 PM

If you're bringing entire political entities into this, and not just fleets, than the stipulation of "short victorius war" level tech is meaningless. By the time the Imperium gets around to assembling a proper crusade, Operation Buttercup will be ready, and Apollo wont be far behind.

That means nothing to me. Please go into detail on what those actually are.

From the little I know, Void Shields should be effective as should the armor, so the Imperial Ships aren't unprotected and should be able to take a decent amount of damage.

The Glyphstone

2013-08-25, 11:06 PM

That means nothing to me. Please go into detail on what those actually are.

From the little I know, Void Shields should be effective as should the armor, so the Imperial Ships aren't unprotected and should be able to take a decent amount of damage.

Operation Buttercup was the decisive campaign that ended the first war, using the newly developed pod-class superdreadnaughts (ships optimized for gigantic missile salvos) and light attack craft carriers. Both were unprecedented technical innovations that effectively steamrolled the less-advanced opposition.

Apollo was a new guidance system developed later, that used tiny FTL transmitters to allow effective real-time command control of missile salvos even at twenty or thirty million kilometers.

Neither are guaranteed to be decisive, since as I said above, Imperial Navy ships are simply so massive and correspondingly heavily armored that I'm not certain even a podnaught could kill them before running dry and having to close to energy range anyways.

Rakaydos

2013-08-25, 11:13 PM

Buttercup was a development that took the Honorverse from throwing 60-100 missiles at a time with an extra heavy (several thousand) first salvo from deployed missile pods, to throwing thousands in every salvo by launching entire pods out of the ships wedge before they fire their missiles. Also, it increased there range to the order of light minutes.

Apollo put a FTL comm and recever in a missile body, so that they could CONTROL these massive salvos over ranges of light minutes, letting them evade defensive fire with the predictive power of computers that simply wouldnt fit in a disposable missile. And the improved warheads in the newest books let even the smaller ships fire weapons that can cut through superdreadnaut armor.

Rakaydos

2013-08-25, 11:16 PM

tyckspoon

2013-08-25, 11:34 PM

Neither are guaranteed to be decisive, since as I said above, Imperial Navy ships are simply so massive and correspondingly heavily armored that I'm not certain even a podnaught could kill them before running dry and having to close to energy range anyways.

Imperial ships are also mostly big for the sake of being big, tho. The vast majority of that bulk doesn't actually do anything except support 40k's "EVERYTHING IS BIG, EVEN BIGGER THAN THAT SERIOUSLY" aesthetic.. having five times the tonnage of an Honorverse craft doesn't mean the, say, command deck is any better protected, or that it has five times the armament available to it.. if the fight is in energy-weapon range or if the Apollo system is being used to provide intelligent control at missile engagement range, then you can concentrate fire on appropriate targets on the Imperial ships and just flat out *ignore* the bulk of their armor.

Not to mention that (based on the Battlefleet Gothic game, at least) the Imperial ships still basically use Age of Sail combat doctrine, which is flat out suicidal when you're engaging an enemy that is both more maneuverable and has figured out how to maneuver in 3 dimensions. It doesn't really matter what kind of firepower or armor the Imperials have when they're being attacked from above and below and their ships can't meaningfully shoot in those directions - as long as the Honorverse combatants can maintain position and put out enough firepower to do harm, they'll win.

Forum Explorer

2013-08-25, 11:35 PM

Also, before buttercup, the standard tactic for a losing Honorverse commander was to put their impenitrable drive between them and the ennemy, and run away at right angles to open the range. If Honorverse energy weapons outrange 40k energy weapons, "Kiting" should be a viable tactic.

Honestly I think that'd be more effective then the barrage. The Imperium's best chance is actually to run the gauntlet of fire and deploy troops to attack the planet itself. I don't know how well the Honorverse does in ground combat but it's where 40K specializes.

Imperial ships are also mostly big for the sake of being big, tho. The vast majority of that bulk doesn't actually do anything except support 40k's "EVERYTHING IS BIG, EVEN BIGGER THAN THAT SERIOUSLY" aesthetic.. having five times the tonnage of an Honorverse craft doesn't mean the, say, command deck is any better protected, or that it has five times the armament available to it.. if the fight is in energy-weapon range or if the Apollo system is being used to provide intelligent control at missile engagement range, then you can concentrate fire on appropriate targets on the Imperial ships and just flat out *ignore* the bulk of their armor.

Not to mention that (based on the Battlefleet Gothic game, at least) the Imperial ships still basically use Age of Sail combat doctrine, which is flat out suicidal when you're engaging an enemy that is both more maneuverable and has figured out how to maneuver in 3 dimensions. It doesn't really matter what kind of firepower or armor the Imperials have when they're being attacked from above and below and their ships can't meaningfully shoot in those directions - as long as the Honorverse combatants can maintain position and put out enough firepower to do harm, they'll win.

Eh, it's hard to say. 40K is meant to only be compared to 40K. And it's deliberately, and infuriatingly, vague on details such as the structure of the ships. One theory, though not canon because of the above, for the ships being so massive is that they are meant to be self-sustaining (to a degree) and thus need to hold thousands of people so the population can breed. As well as the resources needed to keep said people alive.

Battlefleet Gothic is very much a simplification. It even mentions that if you have two ships that intersect (and you aren't doing a ramming action) that it's assumed that the other ship is just above or below the other one. Similarly it's just assumed that the ships basically have 360 firing range when it comes to 'height'. Another simplification is weapon batteries. They are described as hundreds of guns but it's reduced to a single shot? Oh and all weapon batteries are equal to each other, from all the races in damage.

DaedalusMkV

2013-08-25, 11:45 PM

Honestly I think that'd be more effective then the barrage. The Imperium's best chance is actually to run the gauntlet of fire and deploy troops to attack the planet itself. I don't know how well the Honorverse does in ground combat but it's where 40K specializes.

Actually, Honorverse ground combatants are not so far off from Space Marines that they can't fare quite well against anything short of Terminators. The typical Manticoran Marine geared for combat wears powered Battle Armour which is all but impervious to small arms and enhances his strength and agility to superhuman levels. He carries a hand-held Pulser which fires tiny flechettes at hypersonic velocities, with a rate of fire so intense that it is entirely capable of cutting a human being in half, as well as a larger, longer-ranged and commensurately more powerful Pulse Rifle which has on occasion reduced unarmoured victims to little more than thick red slurry. Heavy weapons specialists carry either Tri-barrels, Pulse weapons too large and hefty to be carried by unaugmented humans that fire rounds capable of cutting Battle Armour to pieces at a rate of fire so obscene that it cuts through armoured bulkheads like a saw, or short-ranged Plasma Rifles capable of disintegrating a tank.

In short, the Honorverse can field combatants not much inferior to Space Marines as their standard military force. Anything less tough than a Space Marine gets gibbed on a line-of-sight basis.

Forum Explorer

2013-08-25, 11:54 PM

Actually, Honorverse ground combatants are not so far off from Space Marines that they can't fare quite well against anything short of Terminators. The typical Manticoran Marine geared for combat wears powered Battle Armour which is all but impervious to small arms and enhances his strength and agility to superhuman levels. He carries a hand-held Pulser which fires tiny flechettes at hypersonic velocities, with a rate of fire so intense that it is entirely capable of cutting a human being in half, as well as a larger, longer-ranged and commensurately more powerful Pulse Rifle which has on occasion reduced unarmoured victims to little more than thick red slurry. Heavy weapons specialists carry either Tri-barrels, Pulse weapons too large and hefty to be carried by unaugmented humans that fire rounds capable of cutting Battle Armour to pieces at a rate of fire so obscene that it cuts through armoured bulkheads like a saw, or short-ranged Plasma Rifles capable of disintegrating a tank.

In short, the Honorverse can field combatants not much inferior to Space Marines as their standard military force. Anything less tough than a Space Marine gets gibbed on a line-of-sight basis.

That actually sounds a lot like Tau Battlesuits. Which does mean that Guardsmen would get slaughtered in massive numbers, which generally happens whenever Guardsmen fight. :smallwink:

Rakaydos

2013-08-26, 12:43 AM

That actually sounds a lot like Tau Battlesuits. Which does mean that Guardsmen would get slaughtered in massive numbers, which generally happens whenever Guardsmen fight. :smallwink:

Tau battlesuits is a good comparison... bit where Honorverse really shines is in TACTICAL use of orbital KEW and air support. If the enemy is so crass as to mass forces in the open on the surface, it's hardly a violation if you stick to dropping an impeller drive countermissile into a military formation at over 50% lightspeed, if it doesnt affect civilians.

Near the end of the first book, On Basalisk Sation, a bunch of (alien) aboriginies hopped up on the equivilant of crack cocane throw human-wave style tactics at a singl light cruiser's marine detachment in a prepared position.. And they advance, slowly, at great cost, through the hail of weaponfire... until the drop ships come back around and start bombing.

Forum Explorer

2013-08-26, 12:47 AM

Tau battlesuits is a good comparison... bit where Honorverse really shines is in TACTICAL use of orbital KEW and air support. If the enemy is so crass as to mass forces in the open on the surface, it's hardly a violation if you stick to dropping an impeller drive countermissile into a military formation at over 50% lightspeed, if it doesnt affect civilians.

The Imperium gets a lot of flack for that, but it's actually not true. While trench warfare and large masses of forces happens generally it's much more dynamic then that. Where they'd fortify cities, or on the offense land close to the city and engage from there. They do also have their own air force to fight with as well as mobile anti-air tanks.

But the Space Marines would be the ones to really land in the middle of the enemy territory and begin tearing things up. I don't think one of those countermissiles would be able to be used.

Rakaydos

2013-08-26, 12:55 AM

Forum Explorer

2013-08-26, 01:01 AM

Best part of the missile, though, is it doesnt have to be going 50% when it hits. bombardment weapons are intended to be tunable, specifically to match yield to safety margins.

Another thing to consider though, is what countermissiles would do specifically to DROP PODS. If you're going to dive straight at a planet and launch your troops, your exposing the pods to defensive weaponry designed to handle FAR more challanging targets.

So can it be used in cities and the like or not? :smallconfused:

Now that's a very good point. Drop Pods could get pretty devastated. So in order to win I can see a couple of options for the Imperium. One is teleporting to the Countermissile controls and disabling them before the main assault. Or simply doing a multifaceted assault with guardsmen and Space Marines all coming down at once.

Tavar

2013-08-26, 01:07 AM

Rakaydos

2013-08-26, 01:19 AM

This also brings up another factor: the speed of Honorverse ships themselves. See, their particle shielding is good for protecting against 2 metric ton objects going .6c, which serves as a good reference point for how fast they can go. Considering that they also have a several hundred kilometer wedge which can tear pretty much anything it runs into apart(for an Super Dreadnought it's about 300km, though smaller ships have smaller wedges). Considering the speeds and maneuverability of WH40K ships, I think that "ramming" would be a pretty effective tactic, if a desperate one.

Closest thing in-universe, I think, was the aftermath of the Yawata Strike. A sneak attack from an enemy nobody knew existed turned the massive planetary orbital stations into an "accidental" Colony Drop of wreckage (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ColonyDrop).

Tugs nearby used their wedges to destroy larger chunks of debris, while taking the safteys off the tractor beams they use to move starships to break up other pieces. But it was a BIG space station, building muliple Superdreadnauts and scores of civilian cargo haulers the same size at once, and 6 tugs (the only ships on hand at the moment of the attack)couldnt stop everything. The plananary monach's Palace Defenses stopped most of it that didnt land in an ocean, but the city of Yawata Crossing was out of range (/understatement) and was destroyed completely.

Douglas

2013-08-26, 01:31 AM

I don't think there's much point to discussing how Honorverse ships could interfere with 40k ground assaults. Judging by 40k numbers from a google search, Honorverse ships have around 100 times the acceleration of the fastest 40k ships, and should have a corresponding advantage in speed. From the time a 40k attack fleet comes out of the warp to the time it gets in drop range of a planet, an Honorverse fleet will have at the very least several hours and likely days to deal with them.

If the Honorverse fleet has enough missiles to do the job, it will be over in the flight time of the missiles (significantly less than a single hour) plus maybe a few minutes if it takes multiple salvos. If not, the Honorverse fleet will be able to close to energy weapon range (which is still way beyond anything 40k can shoot) in a tiny fraction of the 40k fleet's flight time and spend the rest of those several hours to days pounding away. On the rare occasions when Honorverse fleets fight each other at such ranges, the battle ends in a matter of minutes at most, sometimes seconds. Sustained fire over hours or days will result in damage thousands of times greater.

The only way a 40k fleet is going to get the chance to drop ground troops on a planet is if it outnumbers the Honorverse fleet by on the order of ten thousand to one, because that's what it will take to soak the damage on the approach and still have anything left.

40k will never get the chance to try applying its ground assault strength because it can't survive the space battle needed to get there.

hamishspence

2013-08-26, 01:33 AM

They do use a lot of sensor drones as well, which extends their reach even if they're limited to lightspeed transmissions. Though even at half their maximum SVW engagement distance, that's still over 3 million kilometers. The longest-range weapon in 40K is a Nova Cannon, listed in Rogue Trader as being effective at up to 40,000KM. That's within range of Honorverse energy batteries - anything smaller than a Nova Cannon will be in range of point defense lasers.

Actually, it's a bit more than that. 1 VU = 10,000 km, and a Nova cannon has a minimum range of 3VU.

The longest ranged conventional weaponry in Rogue Trader, absent archeotech, is about 11VU (110,000 km)

And ships can hit at up to double their effective range- it just becomes very inaccurate.

Rakaydos

2013-08-26, 01:36 AM

40k will never get the chance to try applying its ground assault strength because it can't survive the space battle needed to get there.

to be fair, that's assuming they're attacking a world with a sizable defensive fleet. most independant worlds cant afford anything much bigger than a Destroyer- if the Imperium invaded someplace comparable to, say, pre-alliance Grason, they'd stand a decent chance. (Grason would be a Deathworld by any standard, however)

Rakaydos

2013-08-26, 01:39 AM

Actually, it's a bit more than that. 1 VU = 10,000 km, and a Nova cannon has a minimum range of 3VU.

The longest ranged conventional weaponry in Rogue Trader, absent archeotech, is about 11VU (110,000 km)

And ships can hit at up to double their effective range- it just becomes very inaccurate.

"Lasers were the most common energy weapon. Anti-ship lasers had lenses that ranged from several decimeters to over a meter in diameter; they had effective ranges of about 1,000,000 kilometers (500,000 km against targets with sidewalls). "

That's still about an order of magnatude longer ranged.

Douglas

2013-08-26, 01:46 AM

Something to remember: Honorverse missiles are designed to explode before reaching the target due to the way the drive acts as, essentially, an impenetrable shield. But the drive itself is a very effective weapon against those that lack such shields. First off, the speed these things would go at would seriously damage most things. Not only that, but the drives would essentially tear apart the parts of the ship they struck. This wouldn't be useful against all foes, but for things like the Nids? Very much a game breaker.

This also brings up another factor: the speed of Honorverse ships themselves. See, their particle shielding is good for protecting against 2 metric ton objects going .6c, which serves as a good reference point for how fast they can go. Considering that they also have a several hundred kilometer wedge which can tear pretty much anything it runs into apart(for an Super Dreadnought it's about 300km, though smaller ships have smaller wedges). Considering the speeds and maneuverability of WH40K ships, I think that "ramming" would be a pretty effective tactic, if a desperate one.
As an example of the power of this sort of thing, there is one occasion in the Honorverse books where a tiny little assault shuttle, one of 6 or 8 such craft carried by a ship that is far from specialized towards carrying them, turns on its drive while inside the parent ship. Said ship promptly disintegrates, destroyed both faster and more thoroughly than any normal anti-ship weapon could possibly achieve.

This is not normally used as a weapon because a big ship's much more powerful drive usually protects it - when two active drives of this type approach each other, they interfere which each other and if one is much weaker than the other it promptly gets burned out. No 40k ship would have such protection, so even a tiny Honorverse ship can tear any 40k ship to shreds just by making a close flyby. The same Honorverse drive also provides effective total invulnerability from anything not on a fairly narrow plane oriented with the drive (Honorverse weaponry and tactics put a great deal of effort specifically into getting into that plane and shooting before the target can rotate away), and the drive doesn't have to actually be providing propulsion to give that protection.

So, a dinky little Honorverse frigate would stand a quite good chance of taking out a 40k capital ship by simply accelerating towards it, turning in place to interpose the drive field, and coasting (literally) through the target ship.

to be fair, that's assuming they're attacking a world with a sizable defensive fleet. most independant worlds cant afford anything much bigger than a Destroyer- if the Imperium invaded someplace comparable to, say, pre-alliance Grason, they'd stand a decent chance. (Grason would be a Deathworld by any standard, however)
And in that case there's still no point discussing Honorverse ship interference with 40k ground assault because there's no Honorverse ship present to do anything.

The Glyphstone

2013-08-26, 01:56 AM

Actually, it's a bit more than that. 1 VU = 10,000 km, and a Nova cannon has a minimum range of 3VU.

The longest ranged conventional weaponry in Rogue Trader, absent archeotech, is about 11VU (110,000 km)

And ships can hit at up to double their effective range- it just becomes very inaccurate.

Sorry, I was off by a factor of 10. 1 VU is 10,000KM, and the max range of a Mars Nova Cannon is 40VU, so they're accurate out to 400,000KM. That's pretty respectable, though as quoted above, it's still hideously short-ranged compared to lasers (let alone grasers) firing at a target lacking the beam-bending protection of a sidewall. Void shields could soak the hits, but they wouldn't reduce the effective range the way a sidewall does against laser weapons.

Rakaydos

2013-08-26, 02:31 AM

And in that case there's still no point discussing Honorverse ship interference with 40k ground assault because there's no Honorverse ship present to do anything.

It's more a matter of specifically addressing the tactic of deliberately ramming the (by then completely crippled) battle barge into the planet, in order to deploy ground troops (the 40k universe's specialty) with minimal losses. I think there's been similar stories in the 40k universe. (using wedges as weapons remains devastating in this regard, however.)

Selrahc

2013-08-26, 02:49 AM

The longest ranged conventional weaponry in Rogue Trader, absent archeotech, is about 11VU (110,000 km)

Which actually means double that as a functional maximum range.

Of course: A, this is still very short range to the Honorverse. B, Ghost Rider EW protocols means that the Manticoran fleet will be incredibly hard to target even at normal operating range, let alone max functional range.

Rakaydos

2013-08-26, 02:59 AM

In other news, the Tau empire will open a trade agreement with the Manticore Wormhole Junction, but will be firmly told that while military alliance is possible, amalgamation is strictly off the table.

Also, Treecats vs Watercaste diplomats, round 1, GO!

DaedalusMkV

2013-08-26, 03:27 AM

Also, Treecats vs Watercaste diplomats, round 1, GO!
Tau Empire gains empaths, allowing it to utterly cripple Chaos taint within its territory and institute true thought police. Treecats gain flawless engineered environments and all the food they want. Everyone wins.

HamHam

2013-08-26, 03:52 AM

What sort of FTL does the Honorverse use?

Because the Imperium can potentially drop ships into a solar system right on top of a planet with absolutely no warning in realspace.

hamishspence

2013-08-26, 04:01 AM

In practice though- they tend not to. Dropping out of warp within a system can cause major problems- so normally they drop out at the edge of the system, and go the rest of the way in on plasma drives, taking days or weeks to do so.

Coming out of warp involves a big, rift and a massive burst of energy that can be detected far away.

Douglas

2013-08-26, 04:23 AM

What sort of FTL does the Honorverse use?
Hyperspace. Entering or exiting hyperspace too close to a strong gravity source is extremely dangerous, with a rather short interval between "safe" and "guaranteed instant destruction" distances. The minimum safe distance from a star is significantly farther out than any habitable planet is likely to be. Long distance travel may require careful plotting and detailed calculations, but if done right it is perfectly predictable.

Because the Imperium can potentially drop ships into a solar system right on top of a planet with absolutely no warning in realspace.
Do you have a source for that? My google searching has turned up a page (http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Warp-Drive) that says starting a Warp journey safely requires first getting far enough from the star that it takes a few weeks to get there. I haven't managed to find any quote in either direction for the arrival end of things, so my default assumption would be that the same restriction applies.

Also, pretty much every bit of discussion I've ever heard about 40k Warp travel rather strongly indicates that pulling off such precision deliberately is nearly impossible because the Warp is too unpredictable and chaotic.

hamishspence

2013-08-26, 04:25 AM

Juntao112

2013-08-26, 04:28 AM

I've ever heard about 40k Warp travel rather strongly indicates that pulling off such precision deliberately is nearly impossible because the Warp is too unpredictable and chaotic.
This is due to sentient emotions fueling the warp.

Also, demons.

Demons aren't on the list of powers present in this exercise, though, so how stable the warp would be for this is debatable.

Douglas

2013-08-26, 04:34 AM

In Flight of the Eisenstein, the Phalanx drops out of warp in the Sol system, beyond Pluto and the rest of the journey is in realspace. Admittedly it's moving fast- 3/4 of the speed of light in the early stages, slowing down as it approaches the inner system.
I suspect the writer there didn't do the math on that. Assuming my earlier search about 40k acceleration rates is correct and this ship is at the upper end of it - 5 gravities - it would take a fifth of a light year to decelerate from .75c. Pluto's farthest extent is less than 1/2000th of that from the sun. Also, it would take close to half a year.

hamishspence

2013-08-26, 04:37 AM

My guess its it's FFG that got accelerations/decelerations wrong- since Flight of the Eisenstein predates the Rogue Trader game.

Douglas

2013-08-26, 04:47 AM

My guess its it's FFG that got accelerations/decelerations wrong- since Flight of the Eisenstein predates the Rogue Trader game.
The speed and distance figures you list for Flight of the Eisenstein require acceleration upwards of 1000 gravities for the math to work out. Unless 40k tech features inertial compensators with pretty damn impressive capacity, that goes waaaaaaaaaaay beyond merely turning the crew into pancakes. And I've never heard of 40k having that kind of tech before, except maybe for Necrons.

I'm pretty confident the author of that book just made up some numbers and didn't bother with math at all.

Not that this is particularly relevant to the original point, which is whether 40k ships can Warp directly into the inner system. For that, math is irrelevant and I'd say the book is evidence that they can't.

Juntao112

2013-08-26, 04:52 AM

Thought: All the numbers in this thread were ultimately made up.

hamishspence

2013-08-26, 04:53 AM

The same could be said of FFG- with the masses it gives for ships. They don't scale properly- resulting in cruisers with incredibly low average density.

The speed and distance figures you list for Flight of the Eisenstein require acceleration upwards of 1000 gravities for the math to work out.

At .75c, the velocity is 225,000,000 m/s.

A deceleration of 100g would be roughly 1000 m/s/s.

It would take 225000 seconds to decelerate to zero. This corresponds to 62.5 hours. Which isn't incompatible with the timeframe in the book.

HamHam

2013-08-26, 04:56 AM

Do you have a source for that? My google searching has turned up a page (http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Warp-Drive) that says starting a Warp journey safely requires first getting far enough from the star that it takes a few weeks to get there. I haven't managed to find any quote in either direction for the arrival end of things, so my default assumption would be that the same restriction applies.

Also, pretty much every bit of discussion I've ever heard about 40k Warp travel rather strongly indicates that pulling off such precision deliberately is nearly impossible because the Warp is too unpredictable and chaotic.

In Grey Hunter the Wolves enter realspace right on top of a Chaos fleet. It takes them a week to fight their way through to the planet they are trying to get to.

Consistency and the Warp are like oil and water... but the skill of the Navigator does tell, and Space Marines have some of the best.

hamishspence

2013-08-26, 05:08 AM

The speed and distance figures you list for Flight of the Eisenstein require acceleration upwards of 1000 gravities for the math to work out.

100g rather than 1000g is workable.

I did the calculation and it corresponds to roughly 25.3 billion km out- fits well with Pluto being at most 7.2 billion km out.

Forum Explorer

2013-08-26, 05:16 AM

The speed and distance figures you list for Flight of the Eisenstein require acceleration upwards of 1000 gravities for the math to work out. Unless 40k tech features inertial compensators with pretty damn impressive capacity, that goes waaaaaaaaaaay beyond merely turning the crew into pancakes. And I've never heard of 40k having that kind of tech before, except maybe for Necrons.

I'm pretty confident the author of that book just made up some numbers and didn't bother with math at all.

Not that this is particularly relevant to the original point, which is whether 40k ships can Warp directly into the inner system. For that, math is irrelevant and I'd say the book is evidence that they can't.

A couple things, the ship in question (The Phalanx) is one of the most advanced ships of it's time and was built for a Space Marine chapter. It would be one of the few ships that could have said technology.

As for warping into the inner solar system, well it's certainly possible to do. It does require a lot of skill or a lot of luck though. Or some way to rig the warp, or sheer numbers to take the inevitable casualties.

Anyways I want to point out that this is a multiple faction mash up here. So besides the Imperium there is also the Tau and Hive Fleet Levi. Also another Honorverse faction. I assume they don't get along?

I don't know how Tau ships compare to Imperium ships really, but I assume they are slightly more advanced.

The real question is how the Hive Fleet's version of FTL would mess with the Honorverse ships, since the Hive Fleet uses this weird gravity stealth to do stuff. The important thing here is that it not only lets the Hive Fleet go at FTL speeds but it messes with the target it has locked onto. If that's a planet it causes massive earthquakes, and tsunamis as the tides and continents are shifted by the acting force.

hamishspence

2013-08-26, 05:28 AM

I don't know how Tau ships compare to Imperium ships really, but I assume they are slightly more advanced.

They have better torpedoes at least.

Blightedmarsh

2013-08-26, 05:52 AM

What would happen to an honourverse fleet if an imperial ship went to warp when close to them. You can say that 40K have no defenses against the honourverse drive systems but I also think the reverse it true.

Soras Teva Gee

2013-08-26, 06:20 AM

The real question is how the Hive Fleet's version of FTL would mess with the Honorverse ships, since the Hive Fleet uses this weird gravity stealth to do stuff. The important thing here is that it not only lets the Hive Fleet go at FTL speeds but it messes with the target it has locked onto. If that's a planet it causes massive earthquakes, and tsunamis as the tides and continents are shifted by the acting force.

You mean the Narvhal (http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Narvhal)?

Well Honorverse tech isn't going to be effected by something so diffuse that it only occasionally causes natural disaster type event. Their ships deal with hundred far more concentrated forces all the time, this only has scale. You can tell by how planets aren't coming apart.

Also given that they have gravity sensors to detect things like ship wedges this is potentially a big giant signal telling the Navy exactly where to position the Wall before the Hive Fleet gets there.

And though the Star Kingdom hardly needs disasters of course but their urban centers at least display engineering tech that should hold up quite well, and they have an actual functioning leadership that fulfills basic services like this.

Also probably wouldn't even notice on Gryphon.

MLai

2013-08-26, 06:21 AM

We need Fan or somebody in here to give us some numbers on exactly how much damage IoM void shields can tank. Because I know they can tank a helluva lot. No matter how many missiles Honorverse ships can fire at once, or how fast they can move, if their energy output is dinky compared to IoM then they can fire all day and nothing will get through.

Similarly, that ramming maneuver you guys are talking about will need to be able to penetrate void shields to do anything to the physical armour inside it. Void shields also operate by manipulating gravity and spacetime, so I doubt the Honorverse "drives" can just bypass it.

And if the Honorverse vessel slips past the shields, well then that's well inside point-blank range for the IoM vessels.

Fan

2013-08-26, 06:41 AM

The speed and distance figures you list for Flight of the Eisenstein require acceleration upwards of 1000 gravities for the math to work out. Unless 40k tech features inertial compensators with pretty damn impressive capacity, that goes waaaaaaaaaaay beyond merely turning the crew into pancakes. And I've never heard of 40k having that kind of tech before, except maybe for Necrons.

I'm pretty confident the author of that book just made up some numbers and didn't bother with math at all.

Not that this is particularly relevant to the original point, which is whether 40k ships can Warp directly into the inner system. For that, math is irrelevant and I'd say the book is evidence that they can't.

I'll do some calc's later (heading to my oncology class here in 2 or so hours and I always take at least an hour for the math part alone, let alone fact checking.), but it's this point in specifics that I wanted to refute.

40k, as odd and bizzare a monster as it is, is NOT written by people who do not have a solid grasp of math and what things mean. Many of the writer's are weapons or aerospace craft enthusiasts that take themselves and their work FAR FAR FAR too seriously.

James Swallow is one such man. He is not an idiot, the man writes for Star Trek, AND Battlestar Galactica for christ sake.

MLai

2013-08-26, 06:55 AM

Cheesegear

2013-08-26, 08:06 AM

Political powers for this exercise will be...
Star Kingdom of Manticore
Republic of Haven
Ultima Segmentum of the Imperium
The Tau Empire
Hive Fleet Leviathan

...Okay, while I know very little of the Honourverse, what I can tell you is that the Ultima Segmentum contains the Ultramarines, Crimson Fists, Blood Angels, all of the Badab Sector Chapters (13 Chapters), the Maelstrom Wardens (another 4 Chapters) and a whole bunch of Guard regiments. Including all Orbital/Voidcraft support that that generates, and there's at least one Titan Legion - if not more - roaming around the Segmentum, and, of course, the Segmentum Navy.

So, that's lot. Hopefully someone who knows more about the Honourverse and 'pack tactics' may be able to even out the playing field. Can these uber-range/firepower ships of the HV target multiple vessels at once?

The Tau Empire is not a threat. They can fortify their planets fairly well. But as far as eking out more than their fair share, they don't do so well.

Hive Fleet Leviathan has stalemated two dozen Space Marine Chapters and half a dozen supporting Guard regiments. The only reason they continue to be a threat is because they're so spread out, and that they attack worlds that can't be Exterminated (like Chapter homeworlds) meaning that their ground assaults are long and annoying.

What would happen to an honourverse fleet if an imperial ship went to warp when close to them.

Without a Gellar Field...Not very nice things. Warp Lightning, for one. Minor hull damage is a best case scenario. The whole ship gets ripped apart in a worst case scenario.

EDIT: 40K deals in Mandeville Points. A place where it is 'safe' to jump into the Warp, based on the size of the Star in the system and proximity to other planets' gravity wells (for example, entering the Sol System requires you to enter out near Pluto, if you enter closer than that...Things go to Hell in a handbasket in a hurry). It is merely recommended that ships enter/exit the Warp at that Point. But, a 40K ship can enter the Warp anytime, anywhere, doing it near a planet or Star simply isn't recommended because of things that tend to happen to objects near Warp Gates. Entering the Warp nearby another ship without it's Gellar Field up can be - and has been - used as a weapon.

Fan

2013-08-26, 08:18 AM

Without having to do any extensive math, just compare how many megatons-gigatons of TNT explosive power typical Honorverse ship-of-the-line weaponry packs, then compare to IoM ship weaponry.

If they're comparable or Honorverse is superior, then decisive advantage goes to Honorverse, as by dint of superior speed and range they can throw at IoM fleet all day long without getting pummelled in return.

But if Honorverse throws out a lot less explosive power, then it doesn't matter how much range/speed advantage they have. IoM fleet will just soak it all with regenerating void shields until they slowboat on over to the Honorverse homeworld of choice and glass it.

Well.

From what I'm reading on their missiles, they're each capable of producing a nuclear blast in a 25,000 KM radius.

Which would allow us to deduce since the original pair of atomic bombs had about 2.5 miles, (since I don't have time to do real math here, and given the explosion will be a fair amount larger due to not having to deal with the density of air.) we can say that it's roughly 200 times more powerful, which bumps it up to roughly 4 megatons per missile.

Though flatpack missiles tend to throw out 14 missiles per, giving them 56 megatons per volley. Stronger than the strongest nuke ever deployed by humanity.

Impressive, given that they can literally spam these. And the Medusa class literally throws out 200 flatpack pods of these. So that gives them around 10 Gigatons of force per complete volley from a ship.

But... Imperium Weapons and tech puts their shields and weapons in the Terraton range.

It becomes a David V.S. Goliath though, it basically forces the Imperium to maintain at least a sizable fleet around all key planets and the conflict would require them to abandon the Mechanicum completely in order to have a prayer of matching Honorverse production capabilities.

Eventually, the spam outweighs the regeneration function and they die the death of a thousand cuts outnumbered 10:1 if they don't.

However, given there is no hypothetical alliance on either side, I could see the rogue Mechanicum factions beginning to disseminate at least sidewall tech through the standard channels during the time this would take.

However, I could also see the Imperium finding that fighting this new foe plus their old is too much and collapsing under the strain.

hamishspence

2013-08-26, 08:26 AM

Hive Fleet Leviathan has stalemated two dozen Space Marine Chapters and half a dozen supporting Guard regiments. The only reason they continue to be a threat is because they're so spread out, and that they attack worlds that can't be Exterminated (like Chapter homeworlds) meaning that their ground assaults are long and annoying.

Didn't it also stalemate the Ork Empire of Octarius- before gaining ground again and continuing to chew its way through that empire?

In one of the Cain books, Amberley comments rather acidly on Kryptmaan's plan in the footnotes.

Fan

2013-08-26, 08:28 AM

Didn't it also stalemate the Ork Empire of Octarius- before gaining ground again and continuing to chew its way through that empire?

In one of the Cain books, Amberley comments rather acidly on Kryptmaan's plan in the footnotes.

I'm pretty sure that's still a stalemate, each codex just tells you that they're winning now.

hamishspence

2013-08-26, 08:36 AM

The 4e Ork codex doesn't say much about the war- only that the Tyranids are bearing down on the system, and that the Ork warlord is launching a counter-invasion in their direction- but the 5e Tyranid one does:

p31
Using Ghorala as a stepping stone, the Tyranid infestation quickly began to spread once more. The Ork worlds of Derragon and Keltor fell shortly after and even Octarius itself, centre of the Ork Empre, found itself embroiled in war. The Tyranids show no sign of stopping. Despite the machinations of Kryptman and the ferocity of the Orks, the Tyranids were not only surviving the Octarius War, they were thriving in it.

Fan

2013-08-26, 08:39 AM

Cheesegear

2013-08-26, 08:41 AM

It becomes a David V.S. Goliath though, it basically forces the Imperium to maintain at least a sizable fleet around all key planets and the conflict

How many planets?

As I said, the Ultima Segmentum contains 20 Chapters of Marines that I can rattle off, and perhaps even a few more obscure ones. More then a few of these Chapters are Crusade Chapters and have nothing but a sizeable Fleet. Then the Navy itself. Obviously.

Didn't it also stalemate the Ork Empire of Octarius- before gaining ground again and continuing to chew its way through that empire?

Yes, but given that this is thread is only taking into account Imperial assets, I decided to ignore the Orks, as well as a couple of Craftworlds and Yriel's Raiders and Iyanden itself.

RCgothic

2013-08-26, 08:47 AM

In Battlefleet Gothic, 40k ships can withstand being rammed by ships of comparable size. How much energy would be involved in getting struck by a 7.5km battleship at appreciable speeds? That would give an idea of how much damage they can tank.

If we take the range of the nova cannon 150cm as 40,000km, then from Battlefleet Gothic, a battleship on All Ahead Full to ram travels at least 19cm or 5000km per turn.

If the battleship has a similar density to the Iowa class WWII vessel (and it could be a lot heavier - I reckon a Retribution class would sink if it made oceanfall as you don't have to float in space), then we're talking a trillion kg of displacement.

If a turn is an hour, then being hit by a battleship is at minimum being hit by a trillion kg travelling at 1400m/s with energy equivalent to 220Mt at a lower bound. If we assume the battleship is closing, the heavily armoured and shielded prow would soak most of that.

The hull alone could withstand six times more punishment on average, or 1.3GTons of TNT. The void shields withstand 440MT/h.

If the turn is shorter, if a Retribution is used rather than an Emperor or Apocalypse, or the battleship engines are better maintained than the equivalent of four 1s on all ahead full, those numbers get a lot larger.

In Battlefleet Gothic it's a truism that 1vs1 duels take ages because ships have sufficient shielding to absorb the average punishment meted out by a similar ship. That means a Retribution is landing about 440MT/h on target.

But those are just my back of the envelope calcs. Feel free to pick holes.

Fan

2013-08-26, 08:49 AM

In Battlefleet Gothic, 40k ships can withstand being rammed by ships of comparable size. How much energy would be involved in getting struck by a 7.5km battleship at appreciable speeds? That would give an idea of how much damage they can tank.

If we take the range of the nova cannon 150cm as 40,000km, then from Battlefleet Gothic, a battleship on All Ahead Full to ram travels at least 19cm or 5000km per turn.

If the battleship has a similar density to the Iowa class WWII vessel (and it could be a lot heavier - I reckon a Retribution class would sink if it made oceanfall as you don't have to float in space), then we're talking a trillion kg of displacement.

If a turn is an hour, then being hit by a battleship is at minimum being hit by a trillion kg travelling at 1400m/s with energy equivalent to 220Mt at a lower bound. If we assume the battleship is closing, the heavily armoured and shielded prow would soak most of that.

The hull alone could withstand six times more punishment on average, or 1.3GTons of TNT. The void shields withstand 440MT/h.

If the turn is shorter, if a Retribution is used rather than an Emperor or Apocalypse, or the battleship engines are better maintained than the equivalent of four 1s, those numbers get a lot larger.

In Battlefleet Gothic it's a truism that 1vs1 duels take ages because ships have sufficient shielding to absorb the average punishment meted out by a similar ship. That means a Retribution is landing about 440MT/h on target.

But those are just my back of the envelope calcs. Feel free to pick holes.

Lunar Class Cruisers weigh about 30 megatonnes.

hamishspence

2013-08-26, 08:49 AM

The Amberley remark on the Kryptmann gambit was in The Last Ditch:

p260-261

"We should be able to turn this to our advantage," Forres said, with the calm reassurance of total ignorance. If we can manoeuvre the tyranids into confronting the orks, they'll eradicate the green skins and be weakened enough for us to pick off the survivors easily."

"Except that every ork they consume makes the whole swarm stronger," Kasteen pointed out, 1 "not to mention their own casualties. Trying to use the 'nids against the orks is about as sensible as trying to hide a scorch mark in the hearthrug by burning the house down."

1. Which makes her considerably more far-sighted than Inquisitor Kryptmann, whose attempt to pull off the same trick on a galactic scale left an unholy mess for the Ordo Xenos to sort out.

MLai

2013-08-26, 08:58 AM

Lunar Class Cruisers weigh about 30 megatonnes.
Does that mean ballpark figure of an IoM battleship soaking a minimum of 13,200 megatons of conventional ordinance per hour/turn without structural damage?

Fan

2013-08-26, 09:00 AM

Does that mean ballpark figure of an IoM battleship soaking a minimum of 13,200 megatons of conventional ordinance per hour/turn without structural damage?

Well lance yields have been figured to be somewhere in the 1.5-2.6 Terraton range depending on the calc's, and Lance batteries are used to take down void shields.

So it'd take about 10 to 20 medusa class vollies to down voidshields before they'd regenerate.

hamishspence

2013-08-26, 09:01 AM

That figure (30 million tonnes, since "mega" is the "million" prefix) is very, very small considering that a Lunar is 5 km long. I think people did estimates on what a Lunar's volume, and thus density, would be- and it's extremely low.

Not just that- but it's vastly lower in density than a 40K escort ship would be.

I'm not sure if those FFG figures should be taken as reliable.

Selrahc

2013-08-26, 09:02 AM

From what I'm reading on their missiles, they're each capable of producing a nuclear blast in a 25,000 KM radius.

Which would allow us to deduce since the original pair of atomic bombs had about 2.5 miles, (since I don't have time to do real math here, and given the explosion will be a fair amount larger due to not having to deal with the density of air.) we can say that it's roughly 200 times more powerful, which bumps it up to roughly 4 megatons per missile.

Two fairly important points, before you continue building this house of cards.

1. Honorverse doesn't use nukes as combat weapons. It uses x-ray and laser war heads. Nukes are seen as outdated.

2. Explosion radius is not an acceptable way to work out the power of a nuke(Or any explosion!) unless you're actually a specialist in the field. The Tsarabomba 50 megaton nuke had an explosion radius of 35km. A 25000km explosion is so far beyond what human technology can currently do, that we have no way of estimating it. Certainly, a straight 100 times power=100 times radius calculation is in no way adequate.

Fan

2013-08-26, 09:04 AM

Two fairly important points, before you continue building this house of cards.

1. Honorverse doesn't use nukes as combat weapons. It uses x-ray and laser war heads. Nukes are seen as outdated.

2. Explosion radius is not an acceptable way to work out the power of a nuke(Or any explosion!) unless you're actually a specialist in the field. The Tsarabomba 50 megaton nuke had an explosion radius of 35km. A 25000km explosion is so far beyond what human technology can currently do, that we have no way of estimating it. Certainly, a straight 100 times power=100 times radius calculation is in no way adequate.

I was using Nuke Map and placing the explosion is space Selrach.

People have already made programs, though Nuke Map Classic is the only one that allowed for yields to match up to it.

I was also using the explosion FROM a Laser Warhead to get the 25,000 KM figure.

hamishspence

2013-08-26, 09:05 AM

It's bigger than the blast radius of a Rogue Trader Nova Cannon though- which is 10,000 km.

Or rather- that's the radius in which ships, escorts, fighters etc take damage, at least.

Fan

2013-08-26, 09:06 AM

It's bigger than the blast radius of a Rogue Trader Nova Cannon though- which is 10,000 km.

Bigger explosion doesn't always mean a higher concentration of power, but I get what you're saying. Especially since we're talking fusion warheads.

As I said, I just tossed it into space and got the equivalent yield.

Though hmm, if that's just the radius in which it can harm 40k ships it might have a much larger damage radius to things without void shields / armor?

Rogue Trader and Battlefleet Gothic seriously need updates.

RCgothic

2013-08-26, 09:10 AM

Lunar Class Cruisers weigh about 30 megatonnes.

I don't accept that figure, because that would give it a density of 1/10th that of an ocean going warship.

Unless it's mostly open space (which makes no sense for a space warship - you want to minimise target profile and empty spaces don't help when buoyancy is irrelevant) that figure just makes no sense.

This is another case of 40k authors not doing the research. Crew numbers is another egregious example. :smallmad:

Fan

2013-08-26, 09:12 AM

I don't accept that figure, because that would give it a density of 1/10th that of an ocean going warship.

Unless it's mostly open space (which makes no sense for a warship - you want to minimise target profile and empty spaces don't help) that figure just makes no sense.

This is another case of 40k authors not doing the research. Crew numbers is another egregious example. :smallmad:

I was going to say it's a case of Rogue Trader being REALLY REALLY OLD.

But Battlefleet Koronus came out in 2011.

hamishspence

2013-08-26, 09:12 AM

Or rather- Fantasy Flight Games writers not doing the research- since those figures come from the Rogue Trader game, rather than GW's Battlefleet Gothic game.

Fan

2013-08-26, 09:14 AM

Or rather- Fantasy Flight Games writers not doing the research- since those figures come from the Rogue Trader game, rather than GW's Battlefleet Gothic game.

Yeah Fantasy Flight's always been bad about that.

Even in their non 40k based games things have always felt off.

I'll have to get my hands on Battlefleet gothic.

RCgothic

2013-08-26, 09:16 AM

The pdf rulebooks are available free on GW's website (http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?catId=cat480005a&categoryId=6700003a&section=&aId=21500018a).

Fan

2013-08-26, 09:20 AM

The pdf rulebooks are available free on GW's website (http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?catId=cat480005a&categoryId=6700003a&section=&aId=21500018a).

Oh! That reminds me.

The new Apocalypse book has official rules for KHORNE LORD OF SKULLS.

So we can finally put the Chaos gods = Omnipotent thing to rest. :V

Squark

2013-08-26, 09:23 AM

Oh! That reminds me.

The new Apocalypse book has official rules for KHORNE LORD OF SKULLS.

So we can finally put the Chaos gods = Omnipotent thing to rest. :V

That's just a giant tank. It's not actually Khorne.

Unless you were joking. In which case I've killed the joke. Again.

hamishspence

2013-08-26, 09:23 AM

:smallbiggrin:

That's not Khorne himself- that's a Khornate daemon engine, called the Khorne Lord of Skulls.

Fan

2013-08-26, 09:24 AM

That's just a giant tank. It's not actually Khorne.

Unless you were joking. In which case I've killed the joke. Again.

:(I thought all caps made it obvious

The model is also 160 dollars, comes unassembled, and unpainted.

Forrestfire

2013-08-26, 09:31 AM

... Why would you want a pre-assembled and painted model? :smallconfused:

Selrahc

2013-08-26, 09:35 AM

Especially since we're talking fusion warheads.

Once again, we aren't talking fusion warheads. We're talking directed energy weapons that happen to be powered from a fusion reaction. A laser head will pump all of its energy out in the direction of the enemy ship, rather than indiscriminately out into space. Nukes were not sufficient to breach sidewalls. Laser heads were.

I was using Nuke Map and placing the explosion is space

Nukemap doesn't have a space setting does it?

Or rather- Fantasy Flight Games writers not doing the research- since those figures come from the Rogue Trader game, rather than GW's Battlefleet Gothic game.

Battlefleet Gothic is rather sparse on direct info on ship sizes. It also worked from the assumption that its Void Unit equivalent was 1000km, rather than 10000km, so all weapon ranges are basically divided by 10.

hamishspence

2013-08-26, 09:43 AM

The range equivalents weren't in the BFG book itself but were given in an article by Andy Chambers somewhere- possibly White Dwarf - but the site that used to have the quote, seems to have been taken down.

A BFG novel, published not long after the game came out (Execution Hour) gave the length of the Dictator-class cruiser in it as 3km.

Fan

2013-08-26, 10:24 AM

I want everyone to know that I'm not arguing against Honorverse here.

I really think they win anyways, and when I have time to do real maths(TM) and look at things seriously, I imagine my figures will be more accurate.

As it stands, even without a firepower advantage I think they win via death by a thousand cuts.

hamishspence

2013-08-26, 10:27 AM

40K ships, whether in BFG or Rogue Trader, have very wide turning circles and very slow turn rates- so Honorverse is likely to have a maneuver advantage.

Douglas

2013-08-26, 11:14 AM

At .75c, the velocity is 225,000,000 m/s.

A deceleration of 100g would be roughly 1000 m/s/s.

It would take 225000 seconds to decelerate to zero. This corresponds to 62.5 hours. Which isn't incompatible with the timeframe in the book.
That is purely Newtonian math. With a speed as high as .75c involved, it is no longer even close to accurate. You have to use relativistic equations instead, and with relativity accounted for speeds that high take a hell of a lot more power to meaningfully change than Newtonian math would make you think.

Now, I admit I didn't actually do the math myself, but I did specifically search for a web site calculator that takes relativity into account.

hamishspence

2013-08-26, 11:18 AM

That is purely Newtonian math. With a speed as high as .75c involved, it is no longer even close to accurate. You have to use relativistic equations instead, and with relativity accounted for speeds that high take a hell of a lot more power to meaningfully change than Newtonian math would make you think.

Yes- but it's not power we're talking about, but deceleration. In this case, 100g.

Rakaydos

2013-08-26, 11:19 AM

Once again, we aren't talking fusion warheads. We're talking directed energy weapons that happen to be powered from a fusion reaction. A laser head will pump all of its energy out in the direction of the enemy ship, rather than indiscriminately out into space. Nukes were not sufficient to breach sidewalls. Laser heads were.

I'm going to have to argue this. In Honor of the Queen our main character is faced with a massive tonnage disparity (heavy cruiser vs Battle Cruiser) such that her weapons were not intended to fight through the shielding and armor her opponent had. (her technical advantages did a bit to even the playing field, as did the fact that the bigger ship had been hijacked by tech-illiterate religius zelots) However, the turning point in the battle came when her fire control officer slipped a conventional "Contact nuke" through their poorly-coordinated defenses.
The damage was far more widespread than long range bomb-pumped-Xray-laser spam, it just had to get a LOT closer in to do anything- and against Honorverse active defenses, that just wasnt going to happen against a competent crew.

Blightedmarsh

2013-08-26, 01:18 PM

The problem with Vs. 40K threads is the nature of 40K. Its setting is not optimized for "power" but for "grimdark". 40K is so grimdark that IT IS GRIMDARK.

For example:

The ships are not big for the sake of tonnage; but rather so that they can cram in tens of thousands of slaves to undermine the backwardness of technology and the futility of human existence.

The naval weapons are not powerful for the sake of power alone. They are powerful for the sake of slagging planets. All this to emphasis the savage brutality of the setting.

The imperial guard is vast not for the sake of mere manpower; it is vast for the sake of making clear the insignificance of human life and the cheepness of human death.

In X Vs 40K; 40K looses; always. By its very nature 40K cant ever win; everyone looses is built into the very DNA of the setting. All 40K can do is make whatever its Vs loose its identity; twisting it into a grimdark parody of itself.

My little pony: friendship with chainswords (https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=my+little+pony+40K&client=firefox-a&hs=5ZN&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=np&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=OpwbUvz3E8vK0AWamoHAAQ&ved=0CDkQsAQ&biw=1366&bih=638)
Smurfomunda: gang warfare (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DarkerAndEdgier?from=Main.GrimDark)
Superman: The last god emperor (https://www.google.co.uk/search?client=firefox-a&hs=jlN&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=np&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ei=DJ8bUrbqJ8nJ0AWvi4H4BA&ved=0CC0QsAQ&biw=1366&bih=638&q=injustice%20superman%20images&orq=injustice++superman+images#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=4gxajyIKGxCAmM%3A%3Bf0dYgAnQigKlFM%3Bhttp%25 3A%252F%252Fyesfindit.com%252Fwp-content%252Fuploads%252F2013%252F04%252Fsuperman-injustice-fzjiyxka.png%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fyesfindit.com%25 2Fgames%252Fsuperman-injustice-3%252F%3B610%3B340)
Harry potter: Inquisitor at large (https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=my+little+pony+40K&client=firefox-a&hs=5ZN&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=np&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=OpwbUvz3E8vK0AWamoHAAQ&ved=0CDkQsAQ&biw=1366&bih=638#channel=np&fp=85177d2ca4155b73&q=harry+potter+40K&rls=org.mozilla:en-US%3Aofficial&tbm=isch&facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=LI4Sd1LPk6b-kM%3A%3B5rCAztRFDxm8IM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Ffc07.d eviantart.net%252Ffs71%252Ff%252F2010%252F339%252F 2%252Ff%252F2fd34f39f786fada2260967272e83e17-d3497aj.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fjoamette.devianta rt.com%252Fart%252FHarry-Potter-40k-188546347%3B600%3B1176)

This honorverse sounds like it could beat the 40Kverse however it probably could not do it without being eaten alive, changed in and of itself. This universe chewed up the Imperium under the living emperor at the height of its power. This universe chewed up mankind at the height of its power in the golden age. This universe took the unassailable power of the Eldar empire and gave them the fall. This universe took the unimaginable power of the old ones and broke them.

The only way this doesn't work is if the thing its Vs is already both grim and dark. You could plonk Mordor down in the eye of terror and you would never notice; hell you could put it in most any hive world and hardly anyone would bat an eye.

The Glyphstone

2013-08-26, 01:37 PM

I have most of the series in text format, and I did a scan to see if I could find yields for missiles:

-Honor of the Queen: A Grayson system-defense platform (in context, incredibly primitive compared to Manticoran tech even early-war) slips a fifty-megaton warhead through the defenses of an enemy cruiser and completely destroys it with a direct hit.
-In Enemy Hands: A State Security naval commander is contemplating the orbital defenses around a prison planet, and muses that despite the minefields being 'thick enough to walk on', a few 'fifty or sixty-megaton' nuclear missile detonations would clear them out quickly.
-In Ashes of Victory, a single-pilot ship's impeller wedge soaks the blast front of a two-hundred megaton nuke.
-In At All Costs, the deployed missile pods of a star system are wiped out by stealthed drones carrying five-hundred megaton warheads.

I can't find any figures on the yields of laser heads, but it seems a decent estimate that light combatant missiles would average around fifty megatons each, and capital ship missiles in the hundreds of megatons each if they loaded all-up nukes. Nuclear weapons are ineffective against sidewalls in-universe and rarely used, though, compared to laser heads that can direct a comparable amount of energy into a more narrowly focused area to punch through the shielding (the 25000 km range isn't a radius burst, but more like a 'nuke beam' created by gravity lenses).

EDIT: Alternately, using
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_yield and the HonorWiki figure that a capital ship missile weighs 80 tons, we can try to get a rough estimate - the two-hundred and five-hundred megaton blasts mentioned above weren't conventional missiles spammed in fleet engagements. At 6 megatons yield/metric ton of payload, we could be looking at anywhere from 120 to 240 megatons per capital missile, assuming a range of 25-50% weight devoted to payload. Cruiser-class missiles are roughly 2/3 as long and heavy based on the graphic http://honorverse.wikia.com/wiki/Missile#Laser_warhead
so this would give us an estimate of 80-160 megatons for the smaller ships.

Well lance yields have been figured to be somewhere in the 1.5-2.6 Terraton range depending on the calc's, and Lance batteries are used to take down void shields.
I'd be uncertain that this is a guarantee of the Shield's defensive capability, rather than some sort of interaction between the lance and the generators - in part because a macrocannon barrage is in fact more effective at stripping void shields than lances despite a far lower damage/projectile ratio. Lances are in fact the worst weapon to use against a shielded ship, if RT is any indication - you go in with the lances against unshielded targets, because lances ignore armor plating.

40K Void Shields don't care about your tonnage yield, they have an almost infinite soak ability - but being hit with multiple projectiles in a closely spaced interval will disable the generator until it can reset/recharge. That's why artillery barrages are the opening-range weapon favored by 40K naval combatants, to overload and disable enemy void shields before closing to lance range - and it happens to be a tactic Honorverse missile swarms are highly suited for. I'm not concerned about Manticore or Haven breaking the shields, but whether they can inflict crippling damage on the five-KM behemoths afterwards.

MLai

2013-08-26, 01:54 PM

The problem with Vs. 40K threads is the nature of 40K. Its setting is not optimized for "power" but for "grimdark". In X Vs 40K; 40K looses; always.
W40K curbstomps Star Trek Federation Of Planets. It also beats Star Wars Empire in conventional warfare as I understand it, but SW aficionados had been debating using unconventional tactics utilizing the superior strategic capabilities of SW's FTL.

The Glyphstone

2013-08-26, 01:55 PM

W40K curbstomps Star Trek Federation Of Planets. It also beats Star Wars Empire in conventional warfare as I understand it, but SW aficionados had been debating using unconventional tactics utilizing the superior strategic capabilities of SW's FTL.

Good thing they're not involved here. That epic debate lasted....three and a half 50-page threads? Let it rest on its laurels in peace.:smallsmile:

Forum Explorer

2013-08-26, 02:12 PM

You mean the Narvhal (http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Narvhal)?

Well Honorverse tech isn't going to be effected by something so diffuse that it only occasionally causes natural disaster type event. Their ships deal with hundred far more concentrated forces all the time, this only has scale. You can tell by how planets aren't coming apart.

Also given that they have gravity sensors to detect things like ship wedges this is potentially a big giant signal telling the Navy exactly where to position the Wall before the Hive Fleet gets there.

And though the Star Kingdom hardly needs disasters of course but their urban centers at least display engineering tech that should hold up quite well, and they have an actual functioning leadership that fulfills basic services like this.

Also probably wouldn't even notice on Gryphon.

I know it's vaguely worded (like always) but the impression I got is that the natural disasters would significantly weaken the defenses of the planet, which implies something a lot more then the occasional natural disaster event.

I'm not expecting too much damage, but rather I'm wondering how having a gravitational force locked on to their drives affect their ability to move. Of course that assumes that the drives are actually generating gravitational forces with a planetary strength.

The Wall? :smallconfused:

The Glyphstone

2013-08-26, 02:16 PM

Jade_Tarem

2013-08-26, 02:17 PM

MLai

2013-08-26, 02:21 PM

Honorverse, meanwhile, has governments that are (usually) more concerned with scientific progress than maintaining a cult of personality and putting faux-Latin names on everything. If the conflict goes on for any length of time, the Honorverse people are likely going to come up with more impressive weapons. If nothing else, they're masters of Reverse Engineering, right?
What is the scale of Honorverse interstellar empire? Because if they're small like Star Trek empires/alliances, they get steamrolled by IoM. Even Star Wars Empire has trouble matching IoM's sheer numbers, IIRC.

Fan says Honorverse has production superior to IoM? This means they're pan-galactic empires?

hamishspence

2013-08-26, 02:22 PM

Additionally, I've never seen tyranids use their gravity tunnels within a star system's limits, and it takes gigantic stationary sensor arrays to detect gravitational disturbances from light-days or light-weeks away, so I don't think Narvhals are going to matter significantly except possibly an early-warning that 'something' is coming.

Older stories, such as the Battle of Macragge as portrayed in Battlefleet Gothic magazine, have Tyranid fleets dropping out of warp to reinforce the existing fleets.

Assuming the story itself is still valid- maybe instead of dropping out of warp, the reinforcements drop out of a gravity tunnel?

The Glyphstone

2013-08-26, 02:24 PM

I'll admit to not being the biggest 40K fan, but if I remember the setting correctly, the universe is, as has been mentioned, Grimdark with a capital everything. The best technology tends to be lost or forbidden or else belongs to heretical xenos, and everything is breaking down. It's a setting where you take your ship in for maintenance because the engines are haunted and the plumbing is clogged with severed human limbs.

Honorverse, meanwhile, has governments that are (usually) more concerned with scientific progress than maintaining a cult of personality and putting faux-Latin names on everything. If the conflict goes on for any length of time, the Honorverse people are likely going to come up with more impressive weapons. If nothing else, they're masters of Reverse Engineering, right?

Sure, but an extended-length conflict also allows the 40K Grimdark ambience to start working its insidious effect on the Honorverse as well. It's a stated fact in-universe that genetic enhancements of strength/intelligence tend to correspond to heightened aggressiveness, as seen running through the Harrington bloodline itself, and they're hardly the only 'genies' present. Awfully juicy targets for Khornate temptation demons. The Legislaturalists of Haven wouldn't blink before authorizing a Demonic Research department to openly make pacts that could improve their war-fighting ability, and even State Security might not turn it down.

What is the scale of Honorverse interstellar empire? Because if they're small like Star Trek empires/alliances, they get steamrolled by IoM. Even Star Wars Empire has trouble matching IoM's sheer numbers, IIRC.

Fan says Honorverse has production superior to IoM? This means they're pan-galactic empires?

Miniscule. Manticore has one three-planet star system, and maybe a dozen or less significant single-planet production nodes, though they aren't horribly inefficient for the sake of grimdarkitude. Haven is much larger, but correspondingly less efficient, so maybe half again the production ability but less than half the per-ship capability. In-universe, though, they're (currently) going toe-to-toe with the Solarian League, an entity of comparable size to the Imperium, and winning (or at least not losing) simply because their tech is so vastly superior. But the SL isn't geared for a total war footing like the IoM, so this is another reason why prolonged conflict is bad.

Older stories, such as the Battle of Macragge as portrayed in Battlefleet Gothic magazine, have Tyranid fleets dropping out of warp to reinforce the existing fleets.

Assuming the story itself is still valid- maybe instead of dropping out of warp, the reinforcements drop out of a gravity tunnel?
Makes sense, but that's still just dropping in-system. Once they get there, they maneuver conventionally, so again it wouldn't be much more than a 'something else is coming' early-warning...maybe. I dunno, this is two branches of very fuzzy Weird Science running headlong into each other.

Jade_Tarem

2013-08-26, 02:31 PM

Sure, but an extended-length conflict also allows the 40K Grimdark ambience to start working its insidious effect on the Honorverse as well. It's a stated fact in-universe that genetic enhancements of strength/intelligence tend to correspond to heightened aggressiveness, as seen running through the Harrington bloodline itself, and they're hardly the only 'genies' present. Awfully juicy targets for Khornate temptation demons. The Legislaturalists of Haven wouldn't blink before authorizing a Demonic Research department to openly make pacts that could improve their war-fighting ability.

Are Temptation Demons a part of this? I was under the impression that only a couple of factions from each universe were attending this particular party. :smallconfused:

The Glyphstone

2013-08-26, 02:34 PM

Are Temptation Demons a part of this? I was under the impression that only a couple of factions from each universe were attending this particular party. :smallconfused:

I dunno, but it's a possibility that can't be ignored. We know the Warp is there, which presumes the existence of demons (or at least the demons in the specific area of the Warp that's within the volume of space listed as participating). But even without demons, a long-term conflict is bad news because of the Imperium's vastly greater gross production ability.

hamishspence

2013-08-26, 02:37 PM

"The Ultima Segmentum" is a big area of space. It also has at least one big warpstorm (The Hadex Anomaly)- assuming that the Eastern Fringe in general is counted as part of it.

EDIT: The 6E Rulebook puts nearly everything in the Ultima Segmentum- Maelstrom, Storm of the Emperor's Wrath, etc, with the other four occupying only a small proportion of galaxy- the western part.

HandofShadows

2013-08-26, 02:45 PM

It's a stated fact in-universe that genetic enhancements of strength/intelligence tend to correspond to heightened aggressiveness, as seen running through the Harrington bloodline itself, and they're hardly the only 'genies' present.

I don't ever recall reading anything like that. Now the genies for the Final War where like that, but not "modern" ones that I can remember.

Fan map of the Honerverse http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/The_Honor_Harrington_Universe.png

HamHam

2013-08-26, 02:46 PM

Miniscule. Manticore has one three-planet star system, and maybe a dozen or less significant single-planet production nodes, though they aren't horribly inefficient for the sake of grimdarkitude. Haven is much larger, but correspondingly less efficient, so maybe half again the production ability but less than half the per-ship capability. In-universe, though, they're (currently) going toe-to-toe with the Solarian League, an entity of comparable size to the Imperium, and winning (or at least not losing) simply because their tech is so vastly superior. But the SL isn't geared for a total war footing like the IoM, so this is another reason why prolonged conflict is bad.

Then they are pretty screwed. The IoM can and will swamp their systems with wave after wave until they either run out of ammo or one Battle Barge gets through and drops Astartes on the planet and then everyone is dead.

Forum Explorer

2013-08-26, 02:47 PM

The Wall of Battle. Weber specifically designed his drive physics so that fleet engagements would mimic Age of Sail tactics, but modified for 3-dimensional environments. So instead of ships forming a 'Line of Battle' with their broadsides, you get ships forming the "Wall of Battle' with similar purpose.

Additionally, I've never seen tyranids use their gravity tunnels within a star system's limits, and it takes gigantic stationary sensor arrays to detect gravitational disturbances from light-days or light-weeks away, so I don't think Narvhals are going to matter significantly except possibly an early-warning that 'something' is coming. It wouldn't have any notable effects on system defense, since Honorverse combatants rely entirely on orbital-based defenses - as they should, because ground-to-space weapons are ridiculous.

I see.

Yes, they can't maintain the gravity tunnels too close to a star. And the less asked about Tyranid conventional propulsion the better. I'm thinking that with some slight modification the Nids might be able to turn their Narvhal's into weapons that strip away the gravity shield the Honorverse uses.

Failing that they are certainly tough enough to soak the damage thrown out by the Honorverse ships and just go eat their planet.

hamishspence

2013-08-26, 02:48 PM

Are we assuming that the Ultima Segmentum benefits from the Astronomicon even though it's not in that segmentum?

Jade_Tarem

2013-08-26, 02:48 PM

I dunno, but it's a possibility that can't be ignored. We know the Warp is there, which presumes the existence of demons (or at least the demons in the specific area of the Warp that's within the volume of space listed as participating). But even without demons, a long-term conflict is bad news because of the Imperium's vastly greater gross production ability.

Assuming they get to keep it. In the Honorverse, it's child's play to bust a planet, or any relatively stationary structure - just accelerate a chunk of something up to a significant fraction of light speed, do the calculations, and let it fly. The reason they don't is due to the Eridani Edict, which I think was brought up already.

If it comes down to "As long as we have planets, you'll eventually all submit," I don't think that the Manticorans and Havenites would stick to the rules of the Edict - especially as there's no Solarian League around to enforce it.

Edit: Once again, I'm not a 40K expert. If there are seriously more ships in the IoM than there are bullets in the Star Kingdom of Manticore, then yes, the Honorverse will get steamrolled.

The Glyphstone

2013-08-26, 02:54 PM

I don't ever recall reading anything like that. Now the genies for the Final War where like that, but not "modern" ones that I can remember.

Fan map of the Honerverse http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/The_Honor_Harrington_Universe.png

The ones in the Final War were outright sociopaths, but both main characters in the Harrington line are shown to have severe tempers (Alfred is an outright berserker, according to his short story), and Honor wonders if this is because of her genes at one point after being told that intelligence enhancements were shown to correspond to aggressiveness. I can't remember exactly which book it's discussed in, somewhere in the latter half of the mainline novels.

I see.

Yes, they can't maintain the gravity tunnels too close to a star. And the less asked about Tyranid conventional propulsion the better. I'm thinking that with some slight modification the Nids might be able to turn their Narvhal's into weapons that strip away the gravity shield the Honorverse uses.

Failing that they are certainly tough enough to soak the damage thrown out by the Honorverse ships and just go eat their planet.
There is a weapon in-setting called the 'Grav Lance' that sets up a destructive harmonic with an enemy ship's impeller wedge and can shut it down (from the cripplingly short range of a hundred thousand kilometers, but still). So it's not unprecedented that Tyranids could bio-engineer something similar, and if they do, it's extremely valuable because the gravity shields are also their main propulsion units.

Edit: Once again, I'm not a 40K expert. If there are seriously more ships in the IoM than there are bullets in the Star Kingdom of Manticore, then yes, the Honorverse will get steamrolled.
Maybe not more ships than bullets, but they can replace losses much faster, and as I'd said before, 40K ships take a lot of killing.

Rakaydos

2013-08-26, 03:08 PM

There is a weapon in-setting called the 'Grav Lance' that sets up a destructive harmonic with an enemy ship's impeller wedge and can shut it down (from the cripplingly short range of a hundred thousand kilometers, but still). So it's not unprecedented that Tyranids could bio-engineer something similar, and if they do, it's extremely valuable because the gravity shields are also their main propulsion units.

Note that not even a grav lance cant disable even a civilian Impeller wedge- it only works on Gravity Sidewalls.

There's another system that shows up in a short story that can bring down a civilian drive wedge, but is useless against a military grade wedge due to double layers allowing them to dampen the harmonic.

And while manticore is a single system, it has more gross system product than any 5 other systems thanks to the trade generated by a nearby wormhole nexus.

Blightedmarsh

2013-08-26, 03:09 PM

Question: How big is a hive fleet? Hundreds of ships, Thousands? Millions?

Rakaydos

2013-08-26, 03:13 PM

Maybe not more ships than bullets, but they can replace losses much faster, and as I'd said before, 40K ships take a lot of killing.

Eh, I would argue that once the void shields are down (something missilespam is more than cappable of) the nature of an impeller wedge would allow it to be used as a devastation weapon vs the imperium. Even using the new MArine codex definition of grav weaponry, it's using all those megatonnes of armor against the ship carrying it, ripping it apart from the inside while hiding behind a band of focused gravity measured in the billions of Gs

tyckspoon

2013-08-26, 03:13 PM

Maybe not more ships than bullets, but they can replace losses much faster, and as I'd said before, 40K ships take a lot of killing.

A 5km warship is not a fast construction project. I question the idea that the Imperium can replace ships as fast as the Honorverse can put them down, especially in the Cruiser and Battleship classes (it's almost certainly the slowest way to build one, but a Feral World required 11 years to supply enough material to construct a single Lunar-class.) The Imperium is pretty good at militarizing manpower, not so much naval resources. Unless somebody can find a reference somewhere for the production speed of a proper Forge World/Stardock for making ships.. I suspect it's still on the order of years.

(Mind, the Honorverse faction/s are still going to get ground out via attrition if they can't establish a manufacturing beach-head or stable supply line with which to repair, re-equip, and reinforce. If they *do* have that, I don't think the Imperium can concentrate enough force reliably enough to crack them, the vagaries of Warp travel being what they are.)

Forum Explorer

2013-08-26, 04:04 PM

Question: How big is a hive fleet? Hundreds of ships, Thousands? Millions?

It varies as the definition of a hive fleet is basically a fleet of Tyranid ships.

Hive Fleet Levi? Tens of millions of ships.

A 5km warship is not a fast construction project. I question the idea that the Imperium can replace ships as fast as the Honorverse can put them down, especially in the Cruiser and Battleship classes (it's almost certainly the slowest way to build one, but a Feral World required 11 years to supply enough material to construct a single Lunar-class.) The Imperium is pretty good at militarizing manpower, not so much naval resources. Unless somebody can find a reference somewhere for the production speed of a proper Forge World/Stardock for making ships.. I suspect it's still on the order of years.

(Mind, the Honorverse faction/s are still going to get ground out via attrition if they can't establish a manufacturing beach-head or stable supply line with which to repair, re-equip, and reinforce. If they *do* have that, I don't think the Imperium can concentrate enough force reliably enough to crack them, the vagaries of Warp travel being what they are.)

It's the sheer number of worlds that allow for the construction. Also a Feral World is basically stone age tech. They likely be lucky to have a population of a million or so people. That's a horrible example of what the Imperium's building capacity is. However sticking true to the policy of 'we refuse to give you clear fluff' it's also the only example of what the Imperium's naval building capacity is. :smallsigh: That I know of.

It's worth noting that the Imperium depends a lot on shipping resources around so it has a massive trade fleet. Which is armed. The Honorverse guys would likely only see them on the defense however.

Fan

2013-08-26, 04:11 PM

A 5km warship is not a fast construction project. I question the idea that the Imperium can replace ships as fast as the Honorverse can put them down, especially in the Cruiser and Battleship classes (it's almost certainly the slowest way to build one, but a Feral World required 11 years to supply enough material to construct a single Lunar-class.) The Imperium is pretty good at militarizing manpower, not so much naval resources. Unless somebody can find a reference somewhere for the production speed of a proper Forge World/Stardock for making ships.. I suspect it's still on the order of years.

(Mind, the Honorverse faction/s are still going to get ground out via attrition if they can't establish a manufacturing beach-head or stable supply line with which to repair, re-equip, and reinforce. If they *do* have that, I don't think the Imperium can concentrate enough force reliably enough to crack them, the vagaries of Warp travel being what they are.)

Keep in mind, a feral world is also one that has no industrial base, the metals were mined with stone pick axes, and carried up by hand cart.

The Imperium also has a million worlds, so they could afford to lose even a couple hundred daily, I imagine Forge Worlds only take a week at most to create a Lunar Class Cruiser and are working on more than one at once.

Whereas things like Mars.. well.. they produce Titan Legions in decades as side projects, and Archaeotech Artillery in months.

Also, I'm home now, so I'll get on that math for the warheads, but even without the firepower edge it'd be a hard fight for 40k.

Cheesegear

2013-08-26, 04:29 PM

Interestingly enough, just today Black Library released Index Astartes; Battle Barges. So, maybe that will have more information?

Fan

2013-08-26, 04:31 PM

Interestingly enough, just today Black Library released Index Astartes; Battle Barges. So, maybe that will have more information?

Welp, I'll have to go pick that up.

Dear god Gamesworkshop prices though. I weep everytiem. 76 dollars for the new Apocalypse book.

hamishspence

2013-08-26, 04:35 PM

It appears to be an ebook not a print book- still looks expensive though.

Selrahc

2013-08-26, 04:38 PM

Hive Fleet Levi? Tens of millions of ships.

Uh. Really?

The Imperium probably has substantially less than a million warships*, all told. And the Imperium is by a large cut, the biggest space power currently extant. Has it really been confirmed that the Nids outnumber them by several orders of magnitude?

*The Imperium is split into Sectors (http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Sector#.UhvEMz9gGJA)of 200 light years cubed. That means there might be around ~1000 sectors. Each sector has a battlefleet (http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Battlefleet#.UhvERD9gGJA) of around 50 ships, as a baseline. More important sectors might have a larger fleet. If we take the average battlefleet as 120 ships, to account for more important sectors, then that leaves us with 120 thousand ships. Each segmentum will also have an overall fleet, and a lot of ships will be part of offensive or defensive military operations that might be outside of either the segmentum or sector fleets. So call it double. 250000 war ships. The other arms of the Imperium outside the Imperial Navy will also have fleets. The ~1000 Astartes Chapters, The Mechanicus Explorator Fleets (http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Explorator_Fleet#.UhvJxj9gGJA), the Rogue Traders, the Inquisition. Each of those will be relatively small compared to the Imperial Navy, but let's be generous and add on another 100000. That takes us to 350000.

Even being very very generous, I would struggle to go above half a million actual warships currently in service.

Forum Explorer

2013-08-26, 04:45 PM

Uh. Really?

The Imperium probably has substantially less than a million warships*, all told. And the Imperium is by a large cut, the biggest space power currently extant. Has it really been confirmed that the Nids outnumber them by several orders of magnitude?

*The Imperium is split into Sectors (http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Sector#.UhvEMz9gGJA)of 200 light years cubed. That means there might be around ~1000 sectors. Each sector has a battlefleet (http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Battlefleet#.UhvERD9gGJA) of around 50 ships, as a baseline. More important sectors might have a larger fleet. If we take the average battlefleet as 120 ships, to account for more important sectors, then that leaves us with 120 thousand ships. Each segmentum will also have an overall fleet, and a lot of ships will be part of offensive or defensive military operations that might be outside of either the segmentum or sector fleets. So call it double. 250000 war ships. The other arms of the Imperium outside the Imperial Navy will also have fleets. The ~1000 Astartes Chapters, The Mechanicus Explorator Fleets (http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Explorator_Fleet#.UhvJxj9gGJA), the Rogue Traders, the Inquisition. Each of those will be relatively small compared to the Imperial Navy, but let's be generous and add on another 100000. That takes us to 350000.

Even being very very generous, I would struggle to go above half a million actual warships currently in service.

If the Hive Fleet was focused purely on the Imperium the Imperium would lose.

Luckily a full half of the Nid's have been bogged down in Orks (which is going to create a huge problem because whoever wins is going to be super powerful). The Eldar, Dark Eldar, and Tau are all also fighting the Hive Fleet. The Hive Fleet actually avoids Necrons, which do occasionally hunts down splinters of it and eradicates them.

hamishspence

2013-08-26, 04:45 PM

Sectors (http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Sector#.UhvEMz9gGJA)of 200 light years cubed. That means there might be around ~1000 sectors.

That might depend what figure you're using for total number of worlds, and number of worlds per sector.

While around 1 million is the usual figure, FFG has occasionally been using a figure of billions of worlds in the Imperium.

The Glyphstone

2013-08-26, 04:46 PM

There has to be at least a million worlds, because of the whole 'less than one Marine for each Imperial world' thing.

hamishspence

2013-08-26, 04:49 PM

Yup- and if you count Marine support staff, there may be closer to 2 million than 1 million Marines.

That said, there's a lot of debate over just how many marines there are in addition to the base 1000: Captains, bodyguards, command staff and so forth.

Forum Explorer

2013-08-26, 04:49 PM

Oh and I forgot to mention a good way the Imperium can fight Nids is to basically kill as many as possible in a space battle, retreat, blow up the world so the Nid's can't recover their losses. Then keep doing this.

GloatingSwine

2013-08-26, 04:52 PM

Uh. Really?

The Imperium probably has substantially less than a million warships*, all told. And the Imperium is by a large cut, the biggest space power currently extant. Has it really been confirmed that the Nids outnumber them by several orders of magnitude?

Yes, but the hive fleet isn't all in one place. It's spread out over quite a large volume of space, with multiple incursions happening some distance apart from each other.

The hive fleets seen so far are only a splinter of the main fleet, which is still travelling through the dark space between galaxies on the way to its next meal....

(reasons why you are doomed no. 203847)

Tavar

2013-08-26, 04:55 PM

You know, the forge world thing might be a problem for the Imperium. If the Honorverse figures out where these fanatics are coming from, and realizes the real nature of the threat, they could likely do quite a bit of damage by striking the Forgeworlds.

Rakaydos

2013-08-26, 04:58 PM

In Worlds of Honor 5, I think, there is an article about armor and naval weaponry from a technical perspective. The gist being that since their partical screens. Are assumed to be able to handle any reasonable projectile weapon as a -side effect- of protecting from space debris at over half lightspeed, and their gravity sidewalls deflect and disperse, but do not stop energy (lance) weaponry, their armor is designed to stop beams powerful enough to flash-ionize pertty much any concevable material, refracting the energyand ablating to absorb the energy before it can reach the vital areas of the ship.

Also, in Storm from the Shadwes, I believe Zilwinki talks about some of the technical spect of the new laser head warheads and lenses, which might be relevant to this conversation. The gist being, IIRC, that the warheads arnt particularly large, but that they concentrate nearly the entire force of the bomb into a double-handful o individually aimed 1- shot Lance-equivilant weapons, shotgunning acrosss space to bracket the enemy.

Soras Teva Gee

2013-08-26, 05:00 PM

If we take the range of the nova cannon 150cm as 40,000km, then from Battlefleet Gothic, a battleship on All Ahead Full to ram travels at least 19cm or 5000km per turn.

I know the Nova Canon is pretty much the biggest single weapon in 40k and totally not stolen from the Yamato but unless its significantly outranged this poses a certain tactical issue.

Namely that Imperial ships (and anything comparable) wouldn't even be able to match Honorverse energy weapon range which is around 100,000 km. And said energy weapons are much more powerful then the missile detonation ones. Honor gets sent to Basilisk Station to start the book because her Fearless was shamefully gutted with experimental weapons that need to get well inside energy range... and a light cruiser is obliterated in seconds by ships of the wall in energy range. So her best trickery can only win once before they do just that.

While famous for the million missile barrages of later on the Honorverse starts with "real" wall of battle combat being defined by said walls advancing into energy range and blasting the hell out of each other because its the only thing broadly that works on a superdreadnaught. (Which given their impeller wedges meant any looser could just tilt ship and go home make naval combat a grueling matter of attrition)

Point of it all though is well... ship mounted lasers and grasers don't have ammo either.

I know it's vaguely worded (like always) but the impression I got is that the natural disasters would significantly weaken the defenses of the planet, which implies something a lot more then the occasional natural disaster event.

If it get picked up in the literature with say specific examples and becomes "a thing" for Tryanids it can poke through the ambiguity. This feels very sidebar which says the incidence is fairly low to me.

What is the scale of Honorverse interstellar empire? Because if they're small like Star Trek empires/alliances, they get steamrolled by IoM. Even Star Wars Empire has trouble matching IoM's sheer numbers, IIRC.

Fan says Honorverse has production superior to IoM? This means they're pan-galactic empires?

Their production is superior in that they actually have tech that works efficiently and that they strive continually to improve... and actually do so over the course of a few years. Honorverse and the Star Kingdom of Manticore play the "hey we're actually good at what we do" card.

The Imperium has raw numbers sure, but its efficiency at every level is so very terrible. You run into things like by the time the idea of this punk system with crazy new tech is out there penetrate the bureaucracy needing more then a couple regiments and a few fleet escorts.... the Manticore Navy has been actively raiding for years to collect info and is up to their multi-drive missiles and missile pods because all that stuff was totally in the R&D pipe.

And they say have learned of the Astronomicon. And promptly sent a large fleet to Terra to beat the Imperium at a stroke. Probably lead by a certain Lady who just felt she pointed out the obvious.

Or maybe for lesser superiority they just smash everything nearby in the Imperium keeping the whole thing off balance enough that there's never a sufficient response mustered in the face of all the other threats being fought at once. And Manticore become the new Tau of the setting, maybe crushable but way too much effort to actually do.

A 5km warship is not a fast construction project. I question the idea that the Imperium can replace ships as fast as the Honorverse can put them down, especially in the Cruiser and Battleship classes (it's almost certainly the slowest way to build one, but a Feral World required 11 years to supply enough material to construct a single Lunar-class.) The Imperium is pretty good at militarizing manpower, not so much naval resources. Unless somebody can find a reference somewhere for the production speed of a proper Forge World/Stardock for making ships.. I suspect it's still on the order of years.

Given that they consider it better to keep millennial old vessels in service we can probably gather the Imperium only builds ship very very slowly.

Which only makes sense when you consider that everything in the Imperium rather mirrors the condition of its leader.

hamishspence

2013-08-26, 05:06 PM

I know the Nova Canon is pretty much the biggest single weapon in 40k and totally not stolen from the Yamato but unless its significantly outranged this poses a certain tactical issue.

Namely that Imperial ships (and anything comparable) wouldn't even be able to match Honorverse energy weapon range which is around 100,000 km. .

The FFG ship ranges are beefed up a bit compared to the BFG ones (at least the ranges based on that old article Andy Chambers wrote, which I can't find any more).

Standard weaponry for a Lunar would be Mars-pattern batteries & lances (combat range 60,000 km, maximum range 120,000 km)

A nova cannon would have a standard range of 400,000 km, and a maximum range of 800,000 km.

Aotrs Commander

2013-08-26, 05:12 PM

Soras raises an interesting point. If the Honorverse (which I know nothing beyond this thread about) has superior FTL technoogy to the Imperium (and given the terrible, terrible and unreliable method of FTL transit available to the Imperium, that does seem plausible...) and the former have access and ability to planet-bust - a crazy strike right at the heart of the Imperium might be the key.

Unless I am totally wrong, teh Emprah is on Earth and on lifesupport - is it not plausible to kill him with kinetic bombardment weapons (relying on their speed to make a strike before - quite probably - being wiped out by the Imperial defences.) Wouldn't, that, like, completely and utterly screw the Imperium (since the Emperor, from what I read in the distance past, supposedly guides his people through the warp, not too mention the loss of protection). The Honorverse might not survive the immediate fall-out, I suppose (asuming the Imperium lasts long enough issue any kind of assault), but wouldn't like like, be pretty much IT for the 40K universe?

I mean, you wouldn't necessarily have to kill him directly, just knobble today's or this week's supply of however many million psykers needed to keep him going.

(I assume that Emperor must have some sort of protection against attacks via the Warp-capable vessels or something, otherwis one would imagine you'd never bother to attack anywhere except Earth, because you'd only need to be lucky once, either that or it's sufficiently far from the it's safe: which might not be true for the Honorverse's FTL, depending on how it works.)

Selrahc

2013-08-26, 05:14 PM

Yes, but the hive fleet isn't all in one place. It's spread out over quite a large volume of space, with multiple incursions happening some distance apart from each other.

Right, but if Hive fleet Leviathan has tens of millions of ships, it could aford to send a hundred thousand ships to each encounter, and not just destroy, but utterly crush any local opposition. No matter how much you spread it out, 10 million ships is probably at least 5 times as many warships as exist throughout the entire rest of the galaxy.

The hive fleets seen so far are only a splinter of the main fleet, which is still travelling through the dark space between galaxies on the way to its next meal....

Sure. And I can see the main hive fleet having a ridiculous number of ships when it arrives. It's hive fleet Leviathan specifically having that many that I'm questioning.

EDIT:

Soras raises an interesting point. If the Honorverse (which I know nothing beyond this thread about) has superior FTL technoogy to the Imperium (and given the terrible, terrible and unreliable method of FTL transit available to the Imperium, that does seem plausible...) and the former have access and ability to planet-bust - a crazy strike right at the heart of the Imperium might be the key.

Theoretically plausible, with a large enough task force, but this combat doesn't include Terra at all. Just Ultima Segmentum.

HamHam

2013-08-26, 05:14 PM

And they say have learned of the Astronomicon. And promptly sent a large fleet to Terra to beat the Imperium at a stroke. Probably lead by a certain Lady who just felt she pointed out the obvious.

The defenses around Holy Terra are the best in the Imperium. Lost technologies, enough psychic power to destroy armies...

It's not going to be easy to take.

Tavar

2013-08-26, 05:14 PM

Something that needs to be considered: how fast can these things track? I mean, consider Mass Effect: their primary weapon will deal damage at any range. The issue they run into is that the speed of the weapon limits at what range it is still effective. Considering that WH vessels seem to accelerate at much slower speeds(even if they move at similar speeds to Honor Verse ships, which isn't a given), and they might have significant issues using their weapons against Honorverse ships.

Soras Teva Gee

2013-08-26, 06:19 PM

The FFG ship ranges are beefed up a bit compared to the BFG ones (at least the ranges based on that old article Andy Chambers wrote, which I can't find any more).

Standard weaponry for a Lunar would be Mars-pattern batteries & lances (combat range 60,000 km, maximum range 120,000 km)

A nova cannon would have a standard range of 400,000 km, and a maximum range of 800,000 km.

Well that's better but umm checking and I was wrong... see I mucked up a decimal on the energy ranges in my head

They're apparently 1,000,000 km max and 500,000 km optimum for sidewalls. (http://honorverse.wikia.com/wiki/Space_Weapons_Technology#Laser)

So umm...

Soras raises an interesting point. If the Honorverse (which I know nothing beyond this thread about) has superior FTL technoogy to the Imperium (and given the terrible, terrible and unreliable method of FTL transit available to the Imperium, that does seem plausible...) and the former have access and ability to planet-bust - a crazy strike right at the heart of the Imperium might be the key.

I'm a bit suprised Lich, you might like them. Since they're all about crazy huge space battles, that actually have a sense of scale. I don't know whether Horatio Hornblower IN SPACE is a plus or minus for you though.

And its really just a function of having a single world being actually critical to operation of the an empire, and space not being something you can close. Thus requiring active defense, so open a military disparity enough and the rest just works itself out.

Theoretically plausible, with a large enough task force, but this combat doesn't include Terra at all. Just Ultima Segmentum.

Holy Terra is part of every Segmentum for it lives in the Hearts of its Citizens!

Somewhat more seriously it is because of the Astronomicon, if that's not there you can't navigate worth a damn and it ceases to the Ultima Segmentum but a far flung collection of lesser enclaves.

Gnoman

2013-08-26, 06:43 PM

Well that's better but umm checking and I was wrong... see I mucked up a decimal on the energy ranges in my head

They're apparently 1,000,000 km max and 500,000 km optimum for sidewalls. (http://honorverse.wikia.com/wiki/Space_Weapons_Technology#Laser)

So umm...

Grav Lance range is 100,000km. That's likely what you were thinking of.

Jade_Tarem

2013-08-26, 06:52 PM

Theoretically plausible, with a large enough task force, but this combat doesn't include Terra at all. Just Ultima Segmentum.

So... The Warhammer 40K ships are allowed to attack all of the Honorverse planets, but the Honorverse ships *aren't* allowed to attack all of the WH40K planets? That doesn't seem like a terribly fair assessment of comparative military might and tactical savvy. If the WH40K ships are using something in some other part of their galaxy to guide their ships, then I'd hope that the Manticoran navy could at least have a *chance* to attack it...

The defenses around Holy Terra are the best in the Imperium. Lost technologies, enough psychic power to destroy armies...

It's not going to be easy to take.

Manticore doesn't have to take it, just destroy it.

The Glyphstone

2013-08-26, 07:02 PM

So... The Warhammer 40K ships are allowed to attack all of the Honorverse planets, but the Honorverse ships *aren't* allowed to attack all of the WH40K planets? That doesn't seem like a terribly fair assessment of comparative military might and tactical savvy. If the WH40K ships are using something in some other part of their galaxy to guide their ships, then I'd hope that the Manticoran navy could at least have a *chance* to attack it...
There's a quote by David Weber meant to illustrate scale in the setting, that goes something along the lines of 'if the Solarian League is the United States of America, then Manticore and Haven are each one county in California'. the SL is also a pan-galactic (mostly) arrangement of planets, so it's probably the best analogue we'll get to the Imperium. That's the size differential we're talking about.

Manticore doesn't have to take it, just destroy it.

He might mean 'take' as in 'take on'. Even if Sol's defenses aren't capable of actually repelling a Manticoran fleet (they might be, since as mentioned, Sol is where they keep the really weird stuff), the defenses there are so thick that you couldn't just appear and pop a few missile salvos off to crack the planet. You'd have to destroy enough to actually clear a path, and pretty much everything in Sol down to the ore freighters would gladly eat a missile to prevent it from hitting Terra.

Not necessarily impossible, but they'd need an unimaginable amount of missiles and beams, and even those can't fend off psychic attacks.

Forum Explorer

2013-08-26, 07:14 PM

Not to mention more advanced worlds do have void shields over cities and the like. It doesn't make them invulnerable to bombardment but it does make them significantly tougher. Terra would naturally have the most advanced in the Imperium, barring Mars perhaps. It's also the last place they'd want to lose any ships, because then the ships would end up right at Mars to be reverse engineered. The Imperium may be fanatics but they'd still jump all over a form of FTL that didn't involve the warp.

Lamech

2013-08-26, 08:05 PM

Rakaydos

2013-08-26, 08:25 PM

Okay, I remember hearing something about nuke blast radius in space. ... There is no such thing. In space if you set off a nuke, you'll create a burst of light. Probably chuck out some particles too at really high speeds. There is no shockwave though. Those particles and photons don't get weaker, they just get fewer. And the amount of particles through a area of space falls off as the inverse of distance squared. If something can raise the temperature by a degree at 10,000 kilometers, it will make temp spike to 100,000,000 degrees in a kilometer.

On a similar note, having a nuke explode 100 kilometers off is much less damaging than taking a hit from a laser with a percent of the energy.

Honorverse missiles are a development of bomb pumped Xray Laser (http://www.ask.com/wiki/Project_Excalibur?o=2800&qsrc=999&ad=doubleDown&an=apn&ap=ask.com). (From the link):" the device consisted of a small nuclear bomb surrounded by multiple rods made of a material that served as an x-ray gain medium, releasing x-rays when "pumped" by incident photons. Each rod would function as a separate x-ray laser. The x-ray laser would be optically pumped by the extremely high density of high energy photons that appear in the first nanoseconds of a nuclear detonation. The pumped medium would emit a pulse of coherent x-rays, in the direction of the long axis of the rod. Unlike optical lasers, in which the light is reflected by mirrors at the ends and makes multiple passes through the gain medium, in the x-ray laser the x-ray pulse is generated in a single pass through the rod. The calculations showed that the extremely high gain and high energy pulse from the lasers would occur before the detonation destroyed the lasers and the rest of the satellite. If large numbers of gain media rods were used, each pre-aligned to point at a missile, then a large number of missiles could be destroyed in one fell swoop."
In setting, this is furthur enhanced by a "Grav lens", redirecting the photons emitted by the atomic detonation as to furthur enhance the output of the lasing rods. Basically, it turns the full force of a fusion bomb (and not just the half that's pointed at the enemy, either) at 30 meters, and applies it to the target in the form of a dozen lasers, which can apply the same energy to the target at a range of thousands of KILOmeters.

Tavar

2013-08-26, 08:37 PM

Hmm....I guess you have the following:
Tier 0 Systems: Systems of incredibly regional, if not Imperium wide, importance. Large chance of Dark Age tech, and large amounts of normal forces, Possibly lots of Psykers. Sol, Original Chapter Homeworlds, Very Important Forge Worlds. Very risky to Raid.

Tier 1 Systems: Forge Worlds, successor chapter homeworlds, Guard or Navy marshalling centers. Heavy Defenses, some chance of Dark Age Tech and Psykers. Somewhat Risky to Raid, essentially impossible to attack without full concentration.

Tier 2 Systems: Feeder Systems. Feed resources to Tier 0-1 systems, or to Imperrium forces(Agri worlds, mining worlds, guard/SM recruiting worlds). Will have normal PDF/SDF, and will also receive mainline reinforcements ASAP. Also a decent chance to encounter mainline forces there for unrelated reasons. Easy to Raid, possible to attack and hold for some time.

Tier 3 Systems: Backwaters. Held Mainly because they're humanity, but don't provide much if anything to the Imperium as a whole. Likely have little beyond PDF/SDF, but will eventually receive mainline reinforcements. Likely trivial to attack, but not necessarily worth it.

With that framework, the Honorverse system is somewhat obvious: hit the feeder worlds, and transports, driving trade and resource flow to a halt. This weakens the more important worlds, and also gives you a chance to draw out isolated groups, which you can then take out. Use superior maneuverability to evade large reaction forces.

If you're brave, patrolling space around Tier 1 systems, and hit transports/small convoys when entering the system.

The Glyphstone

2013-08-26, 09:00 PM

Okay, I remember hearing something about nuke blast radius in space. ... There is no such thing. In space if you set off a nuke, you'll create a burst of light. Probably chuck out some particles too at really high speeds. There is no shockwave though. Those particles and photons don't get weaker, they just get fewer. And the amount of particles through a area of space falls off as the inverse of distance squared. If something can raise the temperature by a degree at 10,000 kilometers, it will make temp spike to 100,000,000 degrees in a kilometer.

On a similar note, having a nuke explode 100 kilometers off is much less damaging than taking a hit from a laser with a percent of the energy.

Hence why nuclear-tipped missiles are considered so much less effective than laser heads- they have to make physical contact with the hull of the ship before detonating, so that the shockwave has a medium to travel through.

With that framework, the Honorverse system is somewhat obvious: hit the feeder worlds, and transports, driving trade and resource flow to a halt. This weakens the more important worlds, and also gives you a chance to draw out isolated groups, which you can then take out. Use superior maneuverability to evade large reaction forces.

Haven could do this, but Manticore is hampered by the need to protect the Manticore system itself. Like the IoM and Sol, it's a system that simply must be defended - but in Manticore's case, because the space stations there are its primary, if not its sole, source of manufacturing and construction. Without the Manticore system, their production and repair lines are crippled, so they have to leave sufficient strength defending the system to fend off any assault that might hit it.

Forum Explorer

2013-08-26, 09:00 PM

The Glyphstone

2013-08-26, 09:07 PM

A fleet of sixty capital ships (plus lighter units for screen at a 1.0-2.0-to-1 ratio) is considered a major concentration for Honorverse combatants. The single largest fleet action in their recorded history was roughly four hundred capital ships on each side. That four hundred ships, for Haven, was a third of its total fleet strength, and a bit more than half of Manticore's, but this was also much further along in the timeline than the OP looked for initially.

Diplomacy could end up a valid outcome. The only sticking point might be the treecats, but Imperial doctrine over xenos gets fuzzy when it comes to non-spacefaring indigens. They're not given any compassionate consideration, but the Imperium also doesn't devote campaigns to wiping out aliens who can't possibly pose a threat to humans. The adoption bonds could definitely end up a sticking point, and likely an irresolvable one.

Gnoman

2013-08-26, 09:31 PM

Prior to Project Ghost Rider (pod-based superdreadnoughts for massive salvos and multiple-drive missiles for even more massive range) and the later Apollo guidance system (FTL fire control, allowing the full electronics suite of the SD(P) for ECCM and targeting instead of relying on what could be crammed into a missile body), the ~4000 mothballed SDs of the Solarian League's Battle Fleet were considered the proverbial 1000 pound gorilla that NOBODY dared to even think of bringing down upon them. (After said projects, that fleet was nothing but a collection of defenseless targets.)

That said, it is impossible to overstate the truly massive amount of firepower that even the old-style ships the OP presumes can dish out. Their high-yield contact nukes (so obsolete in-universe that they are primarily used as warning shots, although luck, good strategy, or an idiotic opponent can sometimes allow hits against a modern sidewall) and bomb-pumped X-ray lasers (which by themselves have a 25,000 km effective standoff range, meaning that's the closest the missile has to get) are considered extremely weak compared to the weeakest energy weapon mounted on warships, to the point where missiles were a skirmishing weapon used to harass an enemy wall of battle as you tried to bring your own wall into energy range where you can deal some real damage.

Not only that, but all Honorverse ships are invulnerable from above and below due to the impeller wedge. Not invulnerable as in "ludicrously difficult to damage it", but invulnerable as in "a 500 megaton nuclear explosion won't even be noticed". They are also extremely maneuverable, able to generate hundreds of gravities worth of accelleration even on the largest of ships *without* Grayson's improved compensators.

In other words, each individual unit represents a massive amount of concentrated firepower, so raw numbers can be quite misleading.

jseah

2013-08-26, 09:31 PM

Given the rate at which Honorverse develops tech, it would not be unlikely that they could indeed take on Sol in a single decapitation strike. Politics willing.

The first thing to note is that space is big. And has lots of empty volume.
Second thing to note is that they have reactionless drives and ridiculously high-c velocities.

All it takes is one specially constructed frigate-sized missile to come screaming in (more likely more than one from multiple angles) from outsystem, with military grade particle screens (or even special purpose constructions sacrificing tonnage for strength). Honorverse ships are not exactly small, and one going at 80-90% light hitting a planet effectively glasses it. Re-entry being made wedge-on to the planet, the ship could easily survive to hit the ground, upon which IoM-earth goes bye-bye.

The Imperium could have thousands and even millions of ships in Earth orbit and despite each being 5km long, the chance that even a non-evading planet-buster missile hitting one by accident is close to nil.

Interception is impossible.
Imperium sensors being what they are, the first thing they will see is the incoming missiles crossing Mars orbit at full speed, due to arrive in less than 5 minutes. If the Imperium relies on lightspeed sensors, sensors on Earth have their warning time cut by 90% due to lightspeed delay, leaving you less than 30 seconds from detection to impact.
Imperium range being what it is, the missiles flash across engagement volumes in less than a second. Not to mention the problems with targeting an object with a relative velocity at c-fractional speeds.
Target profile being what it is (impenetrable wedges), you have to hit that tiny side-wall area, right at the point it flashes past you.

The IoM has to defend more than just the Emperor. The Astronomican is a giant cavern under the Himalayas. That collapses, and the IoM is just as screwed.

The operation will involve more than one missile, and not just in the plane of the ecliptic.

The only thing preventing that strike is intelligence (which will come quickly) and the Honorverse's governments not being politically willing to glass a Hive World.
Which will happen the moment the IoM glasses even one planet as the Eridani Edict allows retaliation strikes. If it's Manticore, then the Star Kingdom is dead and the Peeps blow Sol away; vice versa the other way around, except the Peeps will survive the loss of a planet, even their capital.

Unlike the IoM, the two Honorverse factions have ridiculously fast R&D turnovers. It is well-within their capabilities to design and produce something like a planet-buster capital ship-sized missile that doesn't push any of their engineering capabilities... within months perhaps.

Tavar

2013-08-26, 09:48 PM

Haven could do this, but Manticore is hampered by the need to protect the Manticore system itself. Like the IoM and Sol, it's a system that simply must be defended - but in Manticore's case, because the space stations there are its primary, if not its sole, source of manufacturing and construction. Without the Manticore system, their production and repair lines are crippled, so they have to leave sufficient strength defending the system to fend off any assault that might hit it.
While it's hampered, I'd point out that they have a truly huge number of ships.

Question is how big is the Honorverse's military? Or rather how many locations can they feasibly strike while maintaining a big enough defense to protect themselves?

Haven and Manticore are both human civilizations right? So while an initial war is likely, if the two prove to difficult to outright crush then diplomacy is legitimate avenue for the Imperium to take. Also the fact they are human would mean that the Imperium would not be using planet busters on the offense or defense.

Here's a link to both Manticore's and Haven's forces. (http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/site/entry/Harrington/105/1) The chart's from the point of A Short Victorious War, so it should be accurate.

Considering that many of these places it would only need to use orbital bombardment, it could easily send each destroy to a separate world(if decently defended, it would break off, but otherwise it would attack). This would be incredibly risky, however, and more a sign of desperation than anything else. I imagine what's more likely to happen would be a Light Task force going for raids on T 3-4, and if it's actually an 'invasion' they would visibly use something similar, with heavy reinforcements waiting outside the system in stealth.

As for what that actually means...
Say 2 Battle Cruisers, 4 Cruisers(light and heavy), and 4 Destroyers for a Light Task Force.

The Reinforcements would be another Light Task force or 2, plus a Squadron or so of Capital Class Ships.

Peep groupings would be larger, at least partially because they can afford to use more ships.

These forces could also increase in size: Remember, while Manticore has to protect it's home territories, in canon it had about 120 ships of the wall deployed elsewhere, including in offensive operations.

The only thing preventing that strike is intelligence (which will come quickly) and the Honorverse's governments not being politically willing to glass a Hive World.
Which will happen the moment the IoM glasses even one planet as the Eridani Edict allows retaliation strikes. If it's Manticore, then the Star Kingdom is dead and the Peeps blow Sol away; vice versa the other way around, except the Peeps will survive the loss of a planet, even their capital.
That's true if they want to do such a plan against Earth, but something else needs to be said: the Eridani Edict does not actually forbid planetary bombardment. What it actually does it forbid the bombardment unless several things have been met.

Basically, you need to control the Orbital/destroy space defenses. Then you can call a Planet to surrender. If it does, then that's that. If it doesn't, instead of assaulting the planet, and taking severe losses, you can then use orbital strikes to destroy defenses. Now, you still can't just destroy cities without cause, but if there is a troop concentration there? Or Anti Air Defenses? Yeah, you can take those out from orbit.

Basically, the Edict is a rule of war regarding sieges: as long as the city surrenders before the Sack, you follow certain rules. If not, and you have to sack it, anything goes.

Soras Teva Gee

2013-08-26, 10:15 PM

There's a quote by David Weber meant to illustrate scale in the setting, that goes something along the lines of 'if the Solarian League is the United States of America, then Manticore and Haven are each one county in California'. the SL is also a pan-galactic (mostly) arrangement of planets, so it's probably the best analogue we'll get to the Imperium. That's the size differential we're talking about.

Of course then the last few books happened.

And the whole "running out of bullets" is very much on Manticore's mind even more so then with Haven. Given that all their tech of the last couple decades has been mostly towards missiles that matters because the Solarion's still have comparable energy weapon tech and sidewalls. And of course impeller wedges.

Of course the difference here is that for the ranges the Manties seemingly don't even need said bullets.

You have to get into completely invincible Imperium vessels to still win. Not survive a hit, Honorverse runs on spam fire because everything can do that. You need superheavy energy weapons or hundreds of missiles to beat down a sidewall, and that's with their modern "pen-aids" weakening said sidewalls.

He might mean 'take' as in 'take on'. Even if Sol's defenses aren't capable of actually repelling a Manticoran fleet (they might be, since as mentioned, Sol is where they keep the really weird stuff), the defenses there are so thick that you couldn't just appear and pop a few missile salvos off to crack the planet. You'd have to destroy enough to actually clear a path, and pretty much everything in Sol down to the ore freighters would gladly eat a missile to prevent it from hitting Terra.

Not necessarily impossible, but they'd need an unimaginable amount of missiles and beams, and even those can't fend off psychic attacks.

Well the decapitation strike is something that only works in case of a complete disparity of force to nullify horrendous material advantages and only because the fact that Terra is a keystone with the Astonomicon can't be hidden. Manticore could roll over Earth in its own universe pretty easy, but doing so really would get them anywhere in the long run and in the short run drastically hurt their politcal angles.

However to put it bluntly space combat only exists in the Honorverse because of the Eridani Edict making planets off limits and everyone thinking this a good idea even if their crazy enough to mess with the Solarion League. Because it protects plants and well...

Planets can't really be defended because planets can't dodge.

You can forget because they don't mention it much, but Honorverse vessels zip around their star systems at velocities measured as percentages of the speed of light, max poking around seems to be .8c or so. It would be (and most importantly in known to be) trivial for them to engage in kinetic bombardment of ridiculous scale.

And in the Honorverse anything worth doing is worth having a superdreadnaught spam a couple hundred times. At once. Possibly every few seconds.

Tavar

2013-08-26, 10:24 PM

However to put it bluntly space combat only exists in the Honorverse because of the Eridani Edict making planets off limits and everyone thinking this a good idea even if their crazy enough to mess with the Solarion League. Because it protects plants and well...

It's not just the Solarion league. Pretty much every power besides them also supports it(because it greatly favors the strong over the weak).

But, more importantly, the Edict doesn't make planets off limits. Using Orbital artillery is completely fine, going by the Edict. It simply can't be indiscriminate, and you need to control the space around the planet first(and have called the government to surrender). In fact, the Edict makes only space matter because it doesn't protect the planets: it protects the attacker, by saying that if you use orbital strikes in certain ways, that's completely fine. And even then, there's some need for ground combat. Just, well, less than in other universes.

Also, just to support your argument about killing planets: a cargo shuttle could, if going max speed, be equivalent to the popular conception of a Dino Killer.

jseah

2013-08-26, 10:26 PM

That's true if they want to do such a plan against Earth, but something else needs to be said: the Eridani Edict does not actually forbid planetary bombardment. What it actually does it forbid the bombardment unless several things have been met.

Basically, you need to control the Orbital/destroy space defenses. Then you can call a Planet to surrender. If it does, then that's that. If it doesn't, instead of assaulting the planet, and taking severe losses, you can then use orbital strikes to destroy defenses. Now, you still can't just destroy cities without cause, but if there is a troop concentration there? Or Anti Air Defenses? Yeah, you can take those out from orbit.

Basically, the Edict is a rule of war regarding sieges: as long as the city surrenders before the Sack, you follow certain rules. If not, and you have to sack it, anything goes.
I doubt the Eridani Edict covers Exterminatus. The IoM try pulling that one and the Peep and Manticore governments would have no trouble convincing their citizens to pull the trigger for an extermination war that they can win.

Tavar

2013-08-26, 10:33 PM

My point was that there's often this idea that the Edict forbids planetary bombardment, when it does nothing of the sort. It simply regulates when it can be used, and using it to destroy defenses is a legitimate use.

Yes, retaliatory strikes are allowed(which you'll note I acknowledge in my post). But those aren't the only circumstances.

jseah

2013-08-26, 10:39 PM

Soras Teva Gee

2013-08-26, 10:47 PM

It's not just the Solarion league. Pretty much every power besides them also supports it(because it greatly favors the strong over the weak).

True enough but I think you could go down the scale of "the weak" to say independent planets in Silesia or where ever and they would still think it a good idea.

Leaving only the downright crazy or the insignificant that can't even hold a planet. Like Masada.

And even then, there's some need for ground combat. Just, well, less than in other universes.

I tend to think that "ground combat" in Honorverse tends to be more along the lines of policing and occupation then what we tend to think of in terms of combat.

Precisely because yeah you can just bombard anything more serious from orbit.

Also, just to support your argument about killing planets: a cargo shuttle could, if going max speed, be equivalent to the popular conception of a Dino Killer.

Load it with some AI for a crazy flight path and set it spining while it goes and I'm a little skeptical the Imperium could do much of anything to stop it.

They aren't exactly fans of precision weaponry after all.

Well, it's just that whatever the IoM does regarding bombarding planets is probably going to cross the line of the Eridani Edict. The IoM is not one for discriminating military and civilian targets, even if not going for Exterminatus.

Certainly not but it raises the question of how they could even get into the position to abuse any civilians.

Because they come into the system, are run down by the Navy and told to heave-to. The Imperium says something like "Die Heretic Die!" and we start a space battle.

Rakaydos

2013-08-26, 10:50 PM

Dammit, I want to copy and paste the entirety of the "short story" technical article "An Introduction to Modern Starship Armor Design" from Worlds of Honor 5. It breaks down Honorverse weaponry and tactics, and thus how the armor is designed to handle it.

Some notes: Solarians might still have some gigaton-range contact nukes in their inventories, optimized to output Xray band radiation to vaporize hull armor in a vacuum. These were rendered less than economical by the invention of the Countermissile, but still.

Mark 13 Anti Ship missile was a standard heavy cruiser/battlecruiser weight weapon around the era specified. It is 12m long, weighs 78 tons, capable of a maximum 88,000g acceleration and carrying a 15 megaton pure-fusion warhead, a grav lense to point the entire radiation output in one direction, 6 3-meter independantly targettted laser submunition vehicals. The radiation spike from the warhead detonation (ALL the radiation, like a shaped charge explosive) pulses through the laser rods, focusing over a kilotons of energy from EACH laser in less than a square meter, before the explosing vaporizes the lasers themselves.

As an Xray beam (like the standard energy mount "Lasers" of the honorverse, but not their higher frequency cousins, the gamma ray "Grasers") they are absorbed by a number of common armor materials. It vaporizes, atomizes, and then ionizes the armor. As these beams are in the terajoule to petajoule range, (within their narrow focus) this vaporization and ionization actially sends a shockwave through the target, often ripping apart the armor from the inside, and turning the armor itself into a plasma exactly as dense as the armor was. The beam itself has been observed to punch holes clear through stony iron asteroids dozens of meters across. (according to the article- and this is a mere cruiser's weapon, not a full wall of battle shipkiller, and LONG before the newest enhanced lenses from the recent books)

the article goes on to talk about how to best armor against this kind of threat. Honorverse ships of the wall can survive petawatt to exawatt range energy hits- not without damage, but by diffracting and ablating it while bleeding off the resultant plasma in a controlled way, forcing the enemy to burn off the armor to get to the ship's vitals.

Tavar

2013-08-26, 10:59 PM

Well, it's just that whatever the IoM does regarding bombarding planets is probably going to cross the line of the Eridani Edict. The IoM is not one for discriminating military and civilian targets, even if not going for Exterminatus.
I don't think that's really true. Yes, they're not careful about minimizing casualties, but neither do they want needless Human casualties, especially since such tactics would make the world unprofitable(which is something that is concerning). Moreover, the Honorverse would likely surrender(in keeping with the Edict), and so bombardment would be unlikely to occur from a 'normal' invasion.

Forum Explorer

2013-08-26, 11:01 PM

I doubt the Eridani Edict covers Exterminatus. The IoM try pulling that one and the Peep and Manticore governments would have no trouble convincing their citizens to pull the trigger for an extermination war that they can win.

And I doubt they'd use Exterminatus. 40K fans like to brandish that about, but it's actually meant to be used as a sort of last resort. For example pretty much no Tau world has been hit with Exterminatus by the Imperium because the Imperium believes it can one day take those worlds back and that the Tau aren't gaining a huge advantage against it.

In comparison the Nid's can only be stopped by burning the worlds as the Nids invade.

So against a human civilization? They wouldn't use it.

Soras Teva Gee

2013-08-26, 11:35 PM

On Exterminatus aside from how it actually is only rarely consider for the more exotic options its seriously not like Inquisitors to authorize that just grow on trees. Its noted that most of the time the fleet just goes to town, something only possible when you control space and aren't under a naval threat yourself.

It would also be extremely out of character for the Imperium to consider Exterminatus before what would be effectively too late, since its the sort of thing you would need to surprise the Manties with before they understood your capabilities. And that would be a highly unusual degree of subtlety for anyone confronting the completely new, much less the Imperium.

The Glyphstone

2013-08-26, 11:36 PM

Yeah, Exterminatus is very rarely used because of how it's irreversible. They'd rather wage a decades-long war with millions of Guardsman casualties than just sterilize the planet. Indiscriminate planetary bombardment against anything that hasn't surrendered is more their style.

Douglas

2013-08-27, 12:18 AM

Yes- but it's not power we're talking about, but deceleration. In this case, 100g.
On the contrary, acceleration (or deceleration, which is really the same thing) is affected. A ship traveling at .75c that decelerates at 100g according to its own sensors and reference frame will be decelerating much slower than that according to a stationary observer.

...and now I'll go read the 3 pages that popped up since I last visited.

HamHam

2013-08-27, 12:47 AM

Interception is impossible.
Imperium sensors being what they are, the first thing they will see is the incoming missiles crossing Mars orbit at full speed, due to arrive in less than 5 minutes..

More likely they know months in advance because a strike like that on Terra is gonna create a warp disturbance so big every psyker with the slightest precognitive ability will be able to sense it.

jseah

2013-08-27, 12:57 AM

They will know its coming, but not how, nor where (Mars or Earth?) nor who is responsible.

Probably not even that it's a near-c missile. Try getting that out of the Tarot.

HamHam

2013-08-27, 12:59 AM

They will know its coming, but not how, nor where (Mars or Earth?) nor who is responsible.

Probably not even that it's a near-c missile. Try getting that out of the Tarot.

This isn't something you need the Tarot for. It's not the sort of thing you need a Farseer for either.

Rakaydos

2013-08-27, 01:08 AM

This isn't something you need the Tarot for. It's not the sort of thing you need a Farseer for either.

What, that all the precogs say the unthinkable is about to happen, that the emperor is about to be killed and the astronomicon destroyed?

I'd expect mass executions for heresy first, followed by blaming Chaos, before expecting some strange human worlds to attack through the teeth of terra's defenses.

Forum Explorer

2013-08-27, 01:09 AM

Well, it's just that whatever the IoM does regarding bombarding planets is probably going to cross the line of the Eridani Edict. The IoM is not one for discriminating military and civilian targets, even if not going for Exterminatus.

They can be. It's more likely that they'd just be brutal in a ground assault rather then depend on orbital bombardment.

They will know its coming, but not how, nor where (Mars or Earth?) nor who is responsible.

Probably not even that it's a near-c missile. Try getting that out of the Tarot.

Perhaps. It could very well tell them who the threat is from. And that would be enough for the Imperium to launch a desperate and serious attack to keep the Honorverse people reeling so that they couldn't send a ship off to Terra. Also how fast is their FTL?

Rakaydos

2013-08-27, 01:17 AM

They can be. It's more likely that they'd just be brutal in a ground assault rather then depend on orbital bombardment.

Perhaps. It could very well tell them who the threat is from. And that would be enough for the Imperium to launch a desperate and serious attack to keep the Honorverse people reeling so that they couldn't send a ship off to Terra. Also how fast is their FTL?

Depends on the geography of hyperspace- but generally, the top speed of a non-streak drive equipped courier craft is roughly 3,500c, relative to the universe. Slow, heavy freighters with a weaker hyper generator are limited to 2500c

The Glyphstone

2013-08-27, 01:30 AM

2500C is also the standard hyperspace cruising speed for a warship that hasn't cut its safety interlocks, so that's a safe value to use.

Cheesegear

2013-08-27, 01:39 AM

The Glyphstone

2013-08-27, 01:55 AM

While I can't go into specifics about numbers because I don't know anything the Honorverse (Amazon is selling Kindle editions for free, so I picked up the first few this morning), what I can say is...

...Is the funniest thing I've seen all day.

There's actually an in-universe quote from an admiral thinking pretty much this. I can't remember who, but the gist of it was that he regarded friendly planets as irritating tactical defense problems and enemy planets as juicy targets that couldn't run away.

Actually, the quote is from another one of Weber's books, Path of the Fury/In Fury Born; and goes:

Born and raised in one of the Solarian belter habitats, Treadwell saw Imperial Worlds as inconveniently immobile defensive problems and other people's planets as fat targets that couldn't run away. Not relevant to the thread, but amusing and true.

Rakaydos

2013-08-27, 01:56 AM

While I can't go into specifics about numbers because I don't know anything the Honorverse (Amazon is selling Kindle editions for free, so I picked up the first few this morning), what I can say is...

...Is the funniest thing I've seen all day.

It's true, though. the Honorverse idea of a deep space fortress is a ship "Only" capable of a hundred gravities of accell, while being bigger, more heavilly armed, and even more armored than a superdreadnaut. When discussing the ablative nature of starship armor, it was noed in passing "It IS possible to to equip a spacecraft with such a huge mass of armor to "shrug off" enemy fire. These craft are common enough to have their own special name. It is "fort""

which is something to consider in the Short Victorious War time frame, in that Manticore had enough Fortresses to make short work of 80 superdreadnauts appearing in a simultaneous mass transit from a wormhole (that being the wormhole's maximum capacity) bridging the two warring nations- and the enemy knew they were there, so they never used it.

Douglas

2013-08-27, 02:09 AM

...Is the funniest thing I've seen all day.
Well, it's true. Provided, of course, that you're talking about defending against an opponent willing to inflict Exterminatus-level damage.

Honorverse tech is capable of at least close to the .99c variant of this (http://what-if.xkcd.com/20/), and the only defense against that is dodging it. It is extremely easy to dodge - even a 40k cargo ship could dodge it with no trouble - but it is practically impossible to block and does world-ruining amounts of damage. It is the reason every non-imbecilic defense planner in the entire Honorverse gives his defenses at least a token propulsion capability, and has them do minor random position shifts at intervals less than the setup time of such a strike.

Rakaydos

2013-08-27, 02:10 AM

Actually, the quote is from another one of Weber's books, Path of the Fury/In Fury Born; and goes:
. Not relevant to the thread, but amusing and true.

Ah, the one where the main character could kill Space marine Terminators! And the starships generated their own personal black holes to fall toward as their drive sysem, incidently protecting them from all weaponry from the front as long as they kept accelerating.

Still not as OP as Dahak, though.

RCgothic

2013-08-27, 02:17 AM

Uh. Really?

The Imperium probably has substantially less than a million warships*, all told.

*The Imperium is split into Sectors (http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Sector#.UhvEMz9gGJA)of 200 light years cubed. That means there might be around ~1000 sectors. Each sector has a battlefleet (http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Battlefleet#.UhvERD9gGJA) of around 50 ships, as a baseline. More important sectors might have a larger fleet. If we take the average battlefleet as 120 ships, to account for more important sectors, then that leaves us with 120 thousand ships. Each segmentum will also have an overall fleet, and a lot of ships will be part of offensive or defensive military operations that might be outside of either the segmentum or sector fleets. So call it double. 250000 war ships. The other arms of the Imperium outside the Imperial Navy will also have fleets. The ~1000 Astartes Chapters, The Mechanicus Explorator Fleets (http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Explorator_Fleet#.UhvJxj9gGJA), the Rogue Traders, the Inquisition. Each of those will be relatively small compared to the Imperial Navy, but let's be generous and add on another 100000. That takes us to 350000.

Even being very very generous, I would struggle to go above half a million actual warships currently in service.

Another figure that makes no sense. Less than 1 warship per 4 planets, really? Considering that the Imperium is one vast open frontier that needs patrolling and at total war? If you consider fleet concentrations, that barely makes 1 warship per 10 planets. I'd consider that figure a minimum for cruiser-weight vessels. When you throw in frigates, destroyers, transports, picket ships and system defence vessels you'd need to be talking 10's of millions. The larger systems would be swarming with craft required to protect and patrol the thousands of civilian craft present.

The Glyphstone

2013-08-27, 02:18 AM

Ah, the one where the main character could kill Space marine Terminators! And the starships generated their own personal black holes to fall toward as their drive sysem, incidently protecting them from all weaponry from the front as long as they kept accelerating.

Still not as OP as Dahak, though.

That's no moon. That's a battlecruiser.:smallcool:

It's off topic, but personally, I thought Fasset Drives (the black hole engines) were actually a fairly nifty idea - once you get past the technical handwave of how they're generated in the first place. The fact that Weber's never explained exactly how an impeller drive gives propulsion has always bugged me a little, but the Fasset Drive is easy to understand how it's supposed to work.

And to be fair, the main character pretty much was a Space Marine Terminator (with jump jets), at least when she was wearing her battle armor. And almost as augmented-up as a Marine outside the armor too. Weber looooves his power armor.:smallsmile:

Tavar

2013-08-27, 02:19 AM

Ah, the one where the main character could kill Space marine Terminators! And the starships generated their own personal black holes to fall toward as their drive sysem, incidently protecting them from all weaponry from the front as long as they kept accelerating.

Still not as OP as Dahak, though.

It's not that the Main character could kill them. It's that a significant part of the armed forces could probably kill them. Cadre would just do it better.

The Black Hole engines are pretty funny, though. Though, I think they're actually in some ways weaker than other verses. Yes, black holes, but that's only one direction protected, and their protections from other directions seems pretty basic.

Edit: I thought the Impellers worked much the same way: it's gravity, after all, so it would seem to pull you in one direction.

The Glyphstone

2013-08-27, 02:22 AM

And since they sat in front of the ship, you couldn't attack someone without decelerating (or detect them with your sensors, since you had a black hole in the way). Added an interesting wrinkle to space combat.

But again, I digress. If we want to keep chatting about Weber's various books, I can shunt this off into a new thread, but it'll just confuse everyone who hasn't read them or the Honorverse books.

Forum Explorer

2013-08-27, 02:37 AM

Another figure that makes no sense. Less than 1 warship per 4 planets, really? Considering that the Imperium is one vast open frontier that needs patrolling and at total war? If you consider fleet concentrations, that barely makes 1 warship per 10 planets. I'd consider that figure a minimum for cruiser-weight vessels. When you throw in frigates, destroyers, transports, picket ships and system defence vessels you'd need to be talking 10's of millions. The larger systems would be swarming with craft required to protect and patrol the thousands of civilian craft present.

That's not counting System Defense Ships. Warp engines take up a lot of power and are difficult to build. So as a result most major systems (basically Imperial world or higher in tech level) have a small fleet of warships that aren't warp capable. They are mostly for anti-pirate/anti-raiding but they are still capable of going into full on naval battles.

It's also not counting the absolutely massive trade fleets. Don't have a clue on how many that is, it's just a massive amount.

Even then though, yeah that number doesn't make sense. It's not the first or the last time that'll happen in 40K

HandofShadows

2013-08-27, 02:52 AM

Unlike the IoM, the two Honorverse factions have ridiculously fast R&D turnovers. It is well-within their capabilities to design and produce something like a planet-buster capital ship-sized missile that doesn't push any of their engineering capabilities... within months perhaps.

No R&D needed as they already have missiles that can do the job. The only thing Honorverse ships have to do to kill a planet is show up someplace outside the system and fire their missiles. It does not matter if their drives burn out before reaching the target planet since the don't need to manouver (they head in balistic). You can fire at ranges where it would take a *week* for the missils to hit their (planetary) target.

Douglas

2013-08-27, 03:50 AM

The only thing Honorverse ships have to do to kill a planet is show up someplace outside the system and fire their missiles.
It's not quite that easy. The ships themselves have to accelerate up to high speeds before launching in order to give the missiles higher base velocity.

But that just means it takes an extra few hours, maybe a day, to set up. They can still do it from way beyond any reasonable sensor range, and once the missile's en route there's not much anything can do to stop it.

Soras Teva Gee

2013-08-27, 02:26 PM

There's actually an in-universe quote from an admiral thinking pretty much this. I can't remember who, but the gist of it was that he regarded friendly planets as irritating tactical defense problems and enemy planets as juicy targets that couldn't run away.

Actually, the quote is from another one of Weber's books, Path of the Fury/In Fury Born; and goes:
. Not relevant to the thread, but amusing and true.

You were right the first time I was paraphrasing a quote along those lines, it was merely relating to other targets. Either the outer defenses or Hancock Station I can't remember exactly.

And this was speaking of less ridiculous forms of kinetic bombardment.

which is something to consider in the Short Victorious War time frame, in that Manticore had enough Fortresses to make short work of 80 superdreadnauts appearing in a simultaneous mass transit from a wormhole (that being the wormhole's maximum capacity) bridging the two warring nations- and the enemy knew they were there, so they never used it.

I seem to remember it working out to more like half that number personally. For 80 SDs I would think White Haven would have elected for taking his fleet to Basilisk at once instead of forcing the shuffle maneuver to be worked out.

Another figure that makes no sense. Less than 1 warship per 4 planets, really? Considering that the Imperium is one vast open frontier that needs patrolling and at total war? If you consider fleet concentrations, that barely makes 1 warship per 10 planets. I'd consider that figure a minimum for cruiser-weight vessels. When you throw in frigates, destroyers, transports, picket ships and system defence vessels you'd need to be talking 10's of millions. The larger systems would be swarming with craft required to protect and patrol the thousands of civilian craft present.

Well for what its worth taking the Milky Way

100,000 ly across
7,853,982,000 ly² in area
40,000 ly² per sector (200 ly x 200 ly)

Thus potentially

196,349.55 potential sectors.

Of course the Milky Way is not a flat object being roughly 1000 ly thick. I have exactly zero interest in trying to work out that volume and whether the Imperium is 1-5 sectors along the z axis.

Even ignoring depth and making substantial cuts into that potential (I already used the low figure for the Milky Way's diameter) were already way the hey over that 1000 sector figure.

Though for what its worth it sometimes sort of quietly acknowledged some of the time that all the real business of defending the galaxy, by sheer numbers falls to the PDFs. The Guard and Fleet are backups, and the Marines are irrelevant white elephants.

The Glyphstone

2013-08-27, 03:54 PM

Selrahc

2013-08-27, 04:53 PM

Even ignoring depth and making substantial cuts into that potential (I already used the low figure for the Milky Way's diameter) were already way the hey over that 1000 sector figure.

You're right. I was cutting the diameter up into 200ly cubes rather than the circumference(Or the radius, or the volume). Doh.

Trying to calculate it more accurately would also have to take into account empty areas between the spiral arms, and it's likely that sectors are non-contiguous. Unless the more recent "billions of planets" estimate is correct.

I still think tens of millions of ships for the currently active Tyranid hives is ludicrous, because I've never seen a 40k space battle that involved more than a few hundred ships. With a more common "major" conflict involving 20 or so.

hamishspence

2013-08-27, 05:10 PM

Aotrs Commander

2013-08-27, 05:11 PM

Note that there are "only" approximately 100 billions stars in the galaxy Depending on the number of stars (and star systems, since generally, stars are more often found in pair or three than on their own) and how many planets they have, there is an upper limit to those "billions" and it's probably quite low billions; depending on what the actual count of "planet" is by the Imperium (if it means "any lump of rock/gas/ice that's in a syste we control", that's very different (and more reasonable) than "any inhabited world") and depending how much of a share of the galaxy the Imperium actually has (verses what everybody else has verses the number of unclaimed/unexplored planets/systems).

Selrahc

2013-08-27, 05:27 PM

The Battlefleet Gothic Magazine version of the Battle of Circe involved over 200 Imperial navy warships, the Ultramarine fleet, and at least two Tyranid fleets, the second of which had hundreds of large bioships accompanied by many smaller ones.

The absolute largest fleet I've seen deployed in a single planetary conflict is the Ork Fleet at Armageddon (http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Armageddon_Ork_Forces#Orbital_support). Presumably the Imperial fleet was a similar size, as it took orbital supremacy in the latter stages of the conflict. This means the total space fleet size was over 1000 war ships (Kroozers, Roks and Space Hulks for the Orks).

hamishspence

2013-08-27, 05:31 PM

Aotrs Commander

2013-08-27, 05:43 PM

The figure for number of stars in galaxy varies a bit depending on who's writing. I'm told (by Lexicanum) that the classic 40K 1st edition Rogue Trader rulebook (p130) gives it as 400 billion stars.

Even in real life (for the actual Milky Way galaxy) the number of stars in it is a tricky figure to pin down- and is always only an estimate.

Wiki-ing it, it does appear that estimates have risen since I last looked; apparently as of January this year, it was estimated that 17% of solar systems have an Earth-sized planet, which is a lot more than I would have guessed. Even with a low-estimate of 17 billion Earth-sized worlds (not of all of which would be habitable, of course, but a number that is likely to be bias upwards because sci-fi), that's still a lot or potential worlds, plenty enough for the Imperium to have a handful of billion. (Given as they said "billion" and not "tens of billions" one would assume still single-digit billions.)

hamishspence

2013-08-27, 05:59 PM

The first FFG fluff paragraph mentioning billions of worlds (A Galaxy of Guns) was in more than one book- but in the Rogue Trader rulebook it's on page 114:

A Galaxy of Guns:
The Imperium is vast, and amongst its billions of inhabited worlds there are countless forge worlds, factories, craftsmen, artificers and blacksmiths turning out weapons and armour. As can be imagined, this produces a practically limitless variety of makes, patterns, and brands...

Other references tend to just mention "billion worlds"

Rogue Trader: Hostile Acquisitions - p118
Coddled by the Machine God
Nearly all of the souls inhabiting the billion worlds of the Imperium of Man are reliant on the blessings of the Omnissiah in their daily lives. Indeed no small portion is dependent on the Machine God for their very survival. It is not an exaggeration to say that the very existence of the galaxy-spanning Imperium is thanks, in part, to the efforts of the Machine cult and the being they revere.

Ronnoc

2013-08-27, 06:19 PM

Lamech

2013-08-27, 07:11 PM

The Lensman verse would like a word. :smallbiggrin:The Culture would also like a word. As would Star Ruler.

Fan

2013-08-27, 07:29 PM

The Culture would also like a word. As would Star Ruler.

As would Celestials, as would Immortals, as would The Kree, as would The Skrulls, as would Pre Crisis Kryptonians, as would New Kandor, as would Viltrumites.

Tavar

2013-08-27, 07:40 PM

The absolute largest fleet I've seen deployed in a single planetary conflict is the Ork Fleet at Armageddon (http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Armageddon_Ork_Forces#Orbital_support). Presumably the Imperial fleet was a similar size, as it took orbital supremacy in the latter stages of the conflict. This means the total space fleet size was over 1000 war ships (Kroozers, Roks and Space Hulks for the Orks).

I'm not sure that's a good comparison. The Orks(and Nid's) are very focused on Numbers in order to make up for sometimes lackluster tactics and strategy. I could easily see it as being more that the Orks need more of a given class of ships to equal an equivalent number of Imperial ships.

Remember, the tabletop is supposed to be optimized for being a fun, tactical tabletop. The numbers and equivalencies shown from it are not considered the "true" numbers and equivalencies.

jseah

2013-08-27, 09:49 PM

It should be apparent that in any prolonged conflict, the Manties and Peeps would shift towards increasing their range advantage for energy weapon mounts. (where prolonged for the M&Ps is maybe a decade, which is about equivalent to a slow blink from the IoM)

After all, they have no point in developing greater missile tech unless their war is still continuing. Which has good reasons not to:

1. The Peep's main reason for antagonism with the Manty is one of economic pressure. The Peoples need to expand and keep expanding. Manties are a nice fat juicy target that isn't the Solarian League.

2. Supposing they find an even bigger and fatter target all around them, with a repressive political system that even the Manties will have no qualms in letting the Peeps "liberate" them.
- There is no love lost between the Star Empire and the Solarian League, which is like the better behaved little brother of the Imperium. And the People's Republic is like a similar scale down (in both scale and atrocity-level) from the Solarian League.
--- Next to the Imperium, the Peeps look like charmingly cute communists.
- This goes doubly true if the Star Empire is also under attack from the Imperium, even if the IoM unknowingly sticks to the letter of the Eridani Edict.

3. Suppose that this entity is so militarily different that even the Peeps will roll over local opposition (the IoM system-defense being what it is). Guaranteeing that expansion will be much easier than targeting the tech-equivalents at Manticore.
- And vice versa, Manticore will have other things to worry about than breaking a tooth over trying to continue the war. Like the matter of an Imperial crusade appearing at their figurative doorstep. Or that the Peeps, if it gets big enough from absorbing IoM worlds, will finally crush them if they do not also expand.

I have no trouble conceiving of a situation where the Star Empire and the People's Republic come to, at least, a temporary ceasefire for a decade or two while they nibble at all the nearby IoM systems.

There's also the matter of that experimental weapon Honor got to trial, to take down sidewalls at knife range. While that weapon isn't any use against the IoM, the weapon in the books was used to enable the use of the 300 kkm ranged plasma cannons, which are utterly terrifying... except against sidewalls due to being self-contained plasma that disrupted on gravity *technobabble*. Ridiculously high damage and low reload time.

I recall she melted an entire light cruiser with one salvo from a dinky Q-ship.

It wouldn't be too difficult to use a few missiles to knock IoM void shields flat and then let the plasma cannons rip. Especially with the way that Honorverse ships can tank like nobody's business by turning sideways if things got too hot.

Rakaydos

2013-08-27, 10:24 PM

I recall she melted an entire light cruiser with one salvo from a dinky Q-ship.

Otherway around- she melted a large and heavilly armed Qship with a light cruiser- and had taken out a superdreadnaut twice in the fleet simulations, thanks to Honor's tactical ingenuity.

The Glyphstone

2013-08-27, 10:34 PM

She also killed a light cruiser with a Q-ship, but that was in a different book and used the prototype missile pod spam, not the plasma torpedos.

Tavar

2013-08-27, 10:40 PM

It should be apparent that in any prolonged conflict, the Manties and Peeps would shift towards increasing their range advantage for energy weapon mounts. (where prolonged for the M&Ps is maybe a decade, which is about equivalent to a slow blink from the IoM)

After all, they have no point in developing greater missile tech unless their war is still continuing. Which has good reasons not to:
...Snip....

I recall she melted an entire light cruiser with one salvo from a dinky Q-ship.

It wouldn't be too difficult to use a few missiles to knock IoM void shields flat and then let the plasma cannons rip. Especially with the way that Honorverse ships can tank like nobody's business by turning sideways if things got too hot.

I'm not so sure. The Higher end missile tech gives some very nice bonuses(remember, against the Imperium, missiles actually have a good chance of making contact, and thus be extremely destructive. The more advanced systems just make this easier.

Also, a point about Contact Nukes: considering the mechanisms regarding Impellars, they wouldn't actually be "in contact". One impellar cannot exists for long while inside another. Nukes would be effective because they are essentially "shaped charges". By this I mean that through tech(specifically, something akin to a grav lance) the explosion is directed in one direction.

Energy torps are a good point. They're substantially shorter ranged(300k max), though, but inside, that range? Very effective. The situation you mentioned is probably the less impressive one: One light cruiser has utterly destroyed a purpose built military Q-ship(so, stronger armor, etc), and more impressively a Super Dreadnought. The latter was an exercise, and involved shenanigans to get the thing in position, but the ship was 'destroyed', and the light cruiser got away, despite being within range of the fleet.

In fact, I imagine that the H-verse would essentially strip the missiles/maybe some energy batteries from their light combatants, and add Energy topedoes. That would give them the power to take out the 40k ships, and while they would risk some return fire, these can interpose their main impellars with ease.(they re-orient themselves 90 degrees in about a minute, and only a few degrees would likely be necessary to prevent being left a target).

Otherway around- she melted a large and heavilly armed Qship with a light cruiser- and had taken out a superdreadnaut twice in the fleet simulations, thanks to Honor's tactical ingenuity.
Wasn't it only once?

The Glyphstone

2013-08-27, 10:50 PM

Yeah, it was once. That was part of the problem, that no amount of tactical skill could protect a tiny ship with the grav lance once the enemy knew it was out there and kept a watch for it. So it became a one-off fluke victory, made the admiral who came up with the idea look like an idiot, and got Honor banished to the backwaters as punishment.

Plasma torpedos will indeed wreck Imperial ships, though. They're extremely rapid fire rate might make them effective against void shields as well.

Rakaydos

2013-08-27, 10:52 PM

Wasn't it only once?

only once that they survived doing it. when remarking on the failures that followed, it is said that they "only took someone with them" once or twice.

In any case, the Shrike class Lacs would be a priority, and possibly outfitting a few with energy torpedos would give a good amount of damage against IoM while still being useful for when the shrike maneuvers for a down the throat shot against honorverse foes as well.

Tavar

2013-08-27, 10:53 PM

To be fair, latter books/notes reveal that the Admiral in question had no part in the banishment(and actually would have opposed it, on the grounds that putting a failed test-ship into an actual combat zone is retarded).

only once that they survived doing it. when remarking on the failures that followed, it is said that they "only took someone with them" once or twice.

In any case, the Shrike class Lacs would be a priority, and possibly outfitting a few with energy torpedos would give a good amount of damage against IoM while still being useful for when the shrike maneuvers for a down the throat shot against honorverse foes as well.
That doesn't mean that those they took down were a SD. It's more likely to be Destroyers/Cruisers.

As for the LAC's, I don't know if they would be developed. They could very well be, but against stuff like the Imperium, the normal Honorverse ships might just provide more bang for the buck, as it were.

Also, regarding the Peeps, I forsee the rebellion happening much like in canon, but the Resulting goverment would have a different enemy to target(one that's much worse), and so would move for closer ties to Manticore, not the least because Manticore would also provide a decent way to reform their own structure.

jseah

2013-08-27, 10:56 PM

Apologies on the bad recall. >.> At least I remembered that plasma torps existed.

Still, the point was that one could easily imagine the Manties, having ended their missile tech-race with the Peeps, would start trying to raise the range of their energy weapons.

Things like the plasma torpedoes, since unlike sidewalls which are hard to disable even with energy weapon fire, IoM shields have to go away before you can touch the armour.

One could easily imagine a soup-ed up plasma torpedo battery waiting for the grasers (basically a lance) to down void shields. When the void shields go finally go poof, the plasma torps open up and it's bye bye ship.

Or something even more creative. There's no apparent shortage of creative genius in the Honorverse, what with Sonja and Foraker kicking around. Just gotta love that point where Foraker blows up the State Sec ships by hacking their fusion reactors...

Those familiar with the Culture-40k thread would note the new Tau system kinetic-missile defence and draw a few parallels to Moriaty. (and also a very similar scene depicted in Charles Stross's Singularity Sky)

There's also little toys like the single-shot graser drone that was deployed in the Yawata Strike. Although that wasn't Manty or Peep work.

The Honorverse changes battle doctrines like actors change clothing. Handcrafted for every situation.
If, or I should say once, they find a doctrine that works against the much slower-adjusting IoM, they steamroll badly.

Soras Teva Gee

2013-08-27, 10:58 PM

I'd give the Marines a little more credit than that. Sure, there's ridiculously too few of them, but their whole symbology and mythology is built up to where they can easily have a disproportionate effect on a war compared to their physical presence. Sure, a squad of them might show up to assassinate some enemy commander or whatever, but the real effect is the morale boost that the Imperial Guard and PDF troopers doing the real heavy lifting get from knowing the Angels of the Emperor have come to 'save' them. Even the rumor that they're on their way can inspire the grunts to fight harder, whether or not they actually show up in time.

You have to take my flat figure, assume the the Imperium picks up no net z-axis depth and from various other missing chunks is only at approximately 50% levels of coverage. Leaving most of the galaxy to the Orks, and races we don't hear about much because they are like the Tau without an army list

That pretty conservative estimate in my books.

That is the number you have to get under to equal 1 single Marine per sector.

A hypothetical morale boost from the idea their out their is the only effect they can have. Until GW caves to the obvious and decides there are actually "countless" chapters this will remain so. Doesn't matter how effective they are they're literally aren't enough of them.

And at least a portion of them spend time doing things like playing Space Hulk for real. Which is such a waste of time it should be heresy. :smallwink:

Not entirely relevant to this fight - though Space Marines > Manticoran Marines if they ever go head-to-head in a boarding action or something.

Well Manticoran Marines would be something like Sister of Battle armed with Tau weapons. Not that that would make automatically work out mechanically but its their basic approach.

And I say Tau weapons because they're as shooty as the rest of the Honorverse and aren't firing anything comparable to modern weapons. Pulser pistols (the side arms) fire 3mm rounds at 2000 m/s and the 'darts' explode too. I vaguely recall that if you get hit in the hand you might survive to get a replacement for your arm. If you were holding your arm out.

Heavy weapons include a shoulder fired impeller wedge missiles. Various stuff around but we don't see it much, only the first book has a land battle and that's a light cruiser Marine compliment slaughtering natives with single shot rifles which in their power armor (probably direct from Heinlein) they were verging on completely invincible too.

You're right. I was cutting the diameter up into 200ly cubes rather than the circumference(Or the radius, or the volume). Doh.

Trying to calculate it more accurately would also have to take into account empty areas between the spiral arms, and it's likely that sectors are non-contiguous. Unless the more recent "billions of planets" estimate is correct.

I still think tens of millions of ships for the currently active Tyranid hives is ludicrous, because I've never seen a 40k space battle that involved more than a few hundred ships. With a more common "major" conflict involving 20 or so.

Yeah but now we can do it as a percentile figure out the galaxy as a whole. Multiply for how deep/thick the Imperium is versus how much coverage it has. Lots of way to play those numbers for the interested. I dare say we should go below say 40,000 sectors at the most conservative though. :smallwink:

As for the tens of millions, well if its the Tyranids and they are taking the same approach they do planetside they might have lots and lots but the Imperium when it has the Fleet in position slaughters them like animals.

Somebody could check Battlefleet Gothic or some such I guess to see what they actually pack for armament versus size. Logic from the outside would suggest a need for the Tyranids to act as their own logistics.

But logic and Tryranids are not friends, because more or less the faction... shouldn't work.

2. Supposing they find an even bigger and fatter target all around them, with a repressive political system that even the Manties will have no qualms in letting the Peeps "liberate" them.

Not without qualm I'd think, but the Peeps have the basic manpower to occupy far more worlds then the Star Kingdom does. And they'd value the alliance (or even a non-aggression pact) far more then something the Peeps would just be able to do without allying with the Star Kingdom.

I recall she melted an entire light cruiser with one salvo from a dinky Q-ship.

Well to be fair said Q-ship was loaded with SD class weaponry.

Given though that even the lightest naval vessels can tank nukes all day it says a lot about the intensity of the heavy energy weapons, and by extension what beasts the heavy warships are.

Rakaydos

2013-08-27, 11:01 PM

There's also little toys like the single-shot graser drone that was deployed in the Yawata Strike. Although that wasn't Manty or Peep work.

The Mesan Alignment issomething of a special cast- they've got an entirely different Drive tech that turns a lot of the assumptions of the Honorverse on it's head.

Which reminds me- honorverse ships in universeare supposed to mantain a radar watch out to, what was it, a million KM? How does THAT compare to IoM energy weapon range?

Tavar

2013-08-27, 11:03 PM

I'm pretty sure the Range limitations on the weapons are actually a function of time to target. Basically, those weapons are as fast as they can be, and are un-guided. The 100k is essentially the longest range you can fire and still have a chance to hit a target, given the Hverse acceleration rates. Against lower accelerations, I imagine it would have a greater range.

Rakaydos

2013-08-27, 11:05 PM

Given though that even the lightest naval vessels can tank nukes all day it says a lot about the intensity of the heavy energy weapons, and by extension what beasts the heavy warships are.

I wouldnt say they can tank nukes all day- the I think there's only been two contact nuke hits in the entire series so far, but when they did hit, they were FAR more devastating than the laserheads (mainly in not being limited to 12 1-meter diamiter holes)

The Glyphstone

2013-08-27, 11:11 PM

only once that they survived doing it. when remarking on the failures that followed, it is said that they "only took someone with them" once or twice.

In any case, the Shrike class Lacs would be a priority, and possibly outfitting a few with energy torpedos would give a good amount of damage against IoM while still being useful for when the shrike maneuvers for a down the throat shot against honorverse foes as well.

I don't know if that would be possible with their current tech. Plasma torpedo generators work because they can draw directly from the ship's main fusion reactors for energy to form their packets. A Shrike runs a much smaller fission pile (for saving weight, not for improved power generation) and still needs its capacitors to fire the graser. A torpedo-armed Shrike might not be able to sustain the fire rate of a torpedo generator without rendering itself powerless, and unlike the graser, it can't fire torpedos through a bow wall.

I wouldnt say they can tank nukes all day- the I think there's only been two contact nuke hits in the entire series so far, but when they did hit, they were FAR more devastating than the laserheads (mainly in not being limited to 12 1-meter diamiter holes)
They can 'tank' anything as long as they take it on the wedge, but that also grossly limits their offensive firepower (eliminates it entirely without Keyhole remote platforms). Hits that actually get through the sidewalls and onto the armor, especially nuke hits, tend to cause severe damage.

Soras Teva Gee

2013-08-27, 11:19 PM

The Mesan Alignment issomething of a special cast- they've got an entirely different Drive tech that turns a lot of the assumptions of the Honorverse on it's head.

Two drives, the streak and the spider. The former is just hyper on steroids suggeesting the whatever math they use had a break through on Mesa.

The spider drive is more interesting. Apparently it works with tractor beams so focused they open little hyperportals that can be latched onto and so quite seriously crawl through space. At a mere 100g or so. Apparently can be detected but you have to know what you are looking for and for the moment only the Mesan Alignment does.

And the boats with 'em need a very tight stealth suit for all their normal emissions. Oyster Bay was almost blown beforehand a couple of times just by chance because the boats do have other emissions they just control the vector for them and be sure its all shooting out toward nowhere in particular.

Of course that's why even Mesa figures the whole thing would only work once and made it count.

I wouldnt say they can tank nukes all day- the I think there's only been two contact nuke hits in the entire series so far, but when they did hit, they were FAR more devastating than the laserheads (mainly in not being limited to 12 1-meter diamiter holes)

The ships no. The sidewalls are what I was referring to.

Though as always the active point defense is nothing to sneer at either.

jseah

2013-08-27, 11:22 PM

For a more realistic take on what happens to an actual contact nuke:
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacegunconvent.php

Under the Impulsive Shock and Nuke vs Spacecraft sections. Essentially, if you actually got a nuke missile hitting your armour, not just standoff explosion, you're basically dead.

Even if you're a gigantic 5km long IoM ship, the shockwave will just propagate down your ship and keeps bouncing around until the energy is all deposited. The whole ship rings like a bell, with predictable consequences for any squishy bits inside.

That's maybe for one of our RL whimpy city-killers. Not the gigantic fusion-bottles of the Honorverse.

Come to think of it, why doesn't 40k use contact nukes either? They might be harder to land than the smaller more agile conventional kinetic rammers, but one hit is a guaranteed kill.

Tavar

2013-08-27, 11:33 PM

Have we actually seen any contact nukes, IE, nukes going off with physical contact with the hull? From my understanding, the closest we've seen are the ones in Honor of the Queen, which were not in contact. What happened there is like what I described above: essentially a shaped nuclear explosion. Vastly more destructive than laser heads, but shorter ranged, and not as destructive as a nuclear devise going off next to you.

I mean, Weber is usually pretty good about that sort of thing: see his Starfire series, where if a nuke hits without shields/drive fields (both of which prevent physical contact) in-between it and the ship, it's pretty much a one hit KO.

MLai

2013-08-27, 11:37 PM

Come to think of it, why doesn't 40k use contact nukes either? They might be harder to land than the smaller more agile conventional kinetic rammers, but one hit is a guaranteed kill.
Isn't W40K IoM spaceship weaponry quite outdated in concept anyways? Like, no near-c mass drivers, slow acceleration, bla bla. It's the only reason why smaller but more forward-thinking civilizations such as Honorverse can overpower IoM so dramatically, reflecting IRL history when emergent nations with new tech steamroll old large stagnant empires.

Rakaydos

2013-08-27, 11:38 PM

Honor also got one through against the Q ship in the first book, I think. After the war officially began, contact nukes stopped really being used.

Tavar

2013-08-27, 11:43 PM

Honor also got one through against the Q ship in the first book, I think. After the war officially began, contact nukes stopped really being used.

Contact Nukes stopped long before that: It's noted that Nukes are essentially only used as Warning shots, and have been for some time. I think they key was the invention of the Countermissile, which increased the range in which you could intercept missiles, and was greatly effective, reducing missiles to the Skirmisher roll they played until Missile pods were introduced(at which point you could finally get salvo's, at least initially, that could swamp enemies).

As for the use in the first book, I'll admit I forgot that one. Have to check if it was an actual contact, or just that it got close enough.

DaedalusMkV

2013-08-27, 11:44 PM

Come to think of it, why doesn't 40k use contact nukes either? They might be harder to land than the smaller more agile conventional kinetic rammers, but one hit is a guaranteed kill.

They do, actually. It's just that firing off huge volleys of nukes is very expensive, and it's very difficult in-universe to predict when your Macrocannon barrage is going to actually knock out the enemy Void Shields, which is why Lances tend to be the opportunistic "Their shields are down, so let's put a huge hole in them!" thanks to propagating at lightspeed.

As such, Atomic Macrocannon shells are rare and expensive and bounce right off a Void Shield exactly as you'd expect, but if they do make actual contact with a ship all kinds of horrible things happen to it. The fact that they tend to measure in the high megaton range and can shatter a Hive in one shot does not help.

@ Tavar:
A contact nuke hits unprotected hull in Ashes of Victory, during Haven's Hassan operation, and turns its target (a civilian ship, admittedly, if an armoured one with excellent active defenses) into, essentially, an expanding cloud of gas and superfine debris.

Juntao112

2013-08-27, 11:49 PM

Isn't W40K IoM spaceship weaponry quite outdated in concept anyways? Like, no near-c mass drivers, slow acceleration, bla bla.

The Nova Cannon (http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Nova_cannon#.Uh2BHxusgdo) is a mass driver which propels the projectile to near-light speeds.

Tavar

2013-08-27, 11:49 PM

@ Tavar:
A contact nuke hits unprotected hull in Ashes of Victory, during Haven's Hassan operation, and turns its target (a civilian ship, admittedly, if an armoured one with excellent active defenses) into, essentially, an expanding cloud of gas and superfine debris.
Ah. Thank you, but I mean a situation where it hits the hull and does not destroy them.

DaedalusMkV

2013-08-27, 11:56 PM

Ah. Thank you, but I mean a situation where it hits the hull and does not destroy them.

Oh. Nope, that never happens. Not that we have a huge pool of direct hits from contact nukes to go around, though.

The Glyphstone

2013-08-28, 12:01 AM

Nope. On Basilisk Station has a few near-hits that causes major damage. Honor of the Queen has 1 direct nuke hit that utterly obliterates its target, and one near-hit that causes severe damage. Ashes of Victory has one direct contact hit that annihilates its target. I can't recall any actual contact hits that didn't one-shot what they hit.

jseah

2013-08-28, 12:09 AM

Not even in 40k? =P

The Glyphstone

2013-08-28, 12:10 AM

MLai

2013-08-28, 01:25 AM

The Nova Cannon (http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Nova_cannon#.Uh2BHxusgdo) is a mass driver which propels the projectile to near-light speeds.
If that's the case, then:

(1) Why does the Nova Cannon have a "maximum range"?
(2) Why are the Honorphiles here acting as if only the Honorverse can do horrible things (to Terra) using near-c mass drivers? It sounds like IoM has the same thing. Why even bother with orbital bombardment when a single Nova Cannon from outside the star system is all you need?

Or is the Nova Cannon limited by plot in order to have a playable tabletop game?

hamishspence

2013-08-28, 01:25 AM

There are only two Navy-centric books in the entire Black Library lineup I know of (as opposed to Marine/Guard/Cain books that happen to include a skimmed-over fleet battle). Neither of them have atomic projectiles.
Even in Rogue Trader they're painted as something uncommon- used for blowing up hives.

If that's the case, then:
(1) Why does the Nova Cannon have a "maximum range"?

Might be a case of "maximum range over which they can control and detonate the projectile. It's not a contact weapon or a proximity fuse weapon- you fire it, and detonate it at the range you choose.

Juntao112

2013-08-28, 01:34 AM

Given that they fire the projectile at a target moving with variable speeds whose position is determined via elctromagnetic radiation, which propagates at the speed of light, it is possible that at larger ranges there is too much discrepancy between the image of the target and its position to accurately hit it.

Rakaydos

2013-08-28, 01:51 AM

Something to consider with the nova gun a well- Honorverse considers c-fractional missile strikes as difficult to stop, but not impossible if you're postioned right. I would not put it past them to be able to shoot down the nova gun charge before detonation, at least some of the time.

The Glyphstone

2013-08-28, 01:59 AM

MLai

2013-08-28, 02:48 AM

It's been brought up repeatedly by the 'Honorphiles' that the Imperium can conduct Exterminatus on planets quite easily, if you read through the thread.
I've been following this thread and the impression I got was that IoM fleet would have to drop out of warp outside of the star system they're attacking, and then they would never make it to the enemy homeworld to conduct orbital bombardment.
Because if Honorverse empires cannot stop IoM from glassing worlds, then there's no war. IoM has billions of worlds; Honors have a dozen. By simple attrition Honors will be homeless after the 1st wave.

Nova Cannons, however, are not the means of doing it, since as mentioned above, they're not a dumb-fire impact projectile.
For the purposes of glassing planets (which cannot dodge and therefore there is no "maximum distance for accuracy"), they can switch to impact projectiles. Even stagnant IoM should be capable of that much adaptation.

RCgothic

2013-08-28, 02:59 AM

If that's the case, then:

(1) Why does the Nova Cannon have a "maximum range"?
(2) Why are the Honorphiles here acting as if only the Honorverse can do horrible things (to Terra) using near-c mass drivers? It sounds like IoM has the same thing. Why even bother with orbital bombardment when a single Nova Cannon from outside the star system is all you need?

Or is the Nova Cannon limited by plot in order to have a playable tabletop game?

It's certainly not beyond the technology of the Imperium to sit at the Oort cloud of whatever system and sling c-sabots at a planet in enough quantity that some would get through.

Is it a standard tactic? No, because usually they're capable of fighting their way to the planet and conducting a conventional bombardment. It might require refitting a few ships, but that isn't beyond their capabilities either.

I think IoM vessels have the power to go toe to toe with honorverse ones, the only problem is negating the range advantage. Torpedoes might be useful in that respect, having no maximum range.

Juntao112

2013-08-28, 03:04 AM

In Rogue Trader and Battlefleet Gothic, torpedos do have maximum range, though how much of that is gameplay/story segregation, technological limitations, or a case of sci-fi writers have no sense of scale (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScifiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale) is unknown.

I mean, the 40k Baslisk artillery has a range on the tabletop in the hundreds of feet, but that's obviously far closer than the actual unit can fire.

HamHam

2013-08-28, 03:11 AM

I've been following this thread and the impression I got was that IoM fleet would have to drop out of warp outside of the star system they're attacking, and then they would never make it to the enemy homeworld to conduct orbital bombardment.
Because if Honorverse empires cannot stop IoM from glassing worlds, then there's no war. IoM has billions of worlds; Honors have a dozen. By simple attrition Honors will be homeless after the 1st wave.

It's not like there is anything physically stopping them from putting a virus bomb or cyclonic torpedo on an intercept course from outside the solar system. Either a very small number that are shielded from easy detection in the hopes of slipping through, or a whole lot of them to overwhelm the defenses. Or smuggle one in.

Tavar

2013-08-28, 03:19 AM

Torpedoes are considered slow by WH40K standards, and would be very susceptible to both the Hverse point defense/counter missiles, and also simply turning the wedge.

Keeping in mind that while the vessels themselves are usually not much longer than a kilometer or so, the wedges are hundreds of kilometers across(width wise, and about twice that length wise). So, it's going to be a real pain to attack them.

Also, defeating C-fractional strikes, while not easy for all planets, would be pretty easy for main ones: fly an impeller vessel into the path, and let the gravity bands to the rest. Also, while the Imperium could do this, as soon as they did so the Hverse could start to retaliate, and their methods for doing so are about as good, and the Imperium has much less ability to stop said attacks. Even if planetary void shields are a thing, they can't be common, and striking feeder worlds/T1 worlds that lack them would be enough to do serious damage.

But more pertinent is that the Imperium would not be using these tactics for some time: remember, even the Tau(who aren't even Human) have yet to see a world subjected to Exterminatus. The Imperium would come to conquer first, and that would likely give the Hverse time to respond with more conventional strategies, which could put the Imperium on the back foot.

HamHam

2013-08-28, 03:27 AM

Torpedoes are considered slow by WH40K standards, and would be very susceptible to both the Hverse point defense/counter missiles, and also simply turning the wedge.

Keeping in mind that while the vessels themselves are usually not much longer than a kilometer or so, the wedges are hundreds of kilometers across(width wise, and about twice that length wise). So, it's going to be a real pain to attack them.

Also, defeating C-fractional strikes, while not easy for all planets, would be pretty easy for main ones: fly an impeller vessel into the path, and let the gravity bands to the rest. Also, while the Imperium could do this, as soon as they did so the Hverse could start to retaliate, and their methods for doing so are about as good, and the Imperium has much less ability to stop said attacks. Even if planetary void shields are a thing, they can't be common, and striking feeder worlds/T1 worlds that lack them would be enough to do serious damage.

The Imperium could lose that fight 100 worlds to 1 and still be the last ones standing.

If you want to be all hard scifi about this, the simple fact is that it's not like they can physically block even a fraction of the space around a planet, and if you insulate the active components properly (and it's not like a virus bomb is going to have a ton of those anyway) the external emissions could be practically zero. Seeing a small, cold, dark, and fast moving object in space is very very hard. Send a dozen each from a different angle...

There really is no defense against that.

Rakaydos

2013-08-28, 03:28 AM

I think it was decided that in a stand up battle, the honorverse ships had every advantage- and that the IoM's best chance lay in rushing the planets, either to get drop pods off for a proper ground war or to use as cover.

It was also mentioned that the honorverse will not bombard planets FIRST. However, once the IoM glasses a single planet, all the gloves will come off.

In ground combat, Honorverse Marines are somewhere near the powerlevel of Tau battlesuits. They also have SIGNIFICANTLY better support-by-fires, with precision orbital strikes able to take out a single building without damaging beyond the city block, and shuttles taking out guards surrounding a sports field without the guards being able to kill a single hostage on the field. However, they dont wear power armor 24-7... teleporting terminators are a particular threat if they can get in range. Land Raiders and Titans are effectively dead on arrival, if there's any missiles left on the drop shuttles. Drop pods are asking for point defence lasers.

the only thing the IoM has going for it is size. If haven or manticore (whichever was NOT the target of the first exerminautus) takes out the Astronomicon, the IoM will never be able to concentrate the forces needed to crush them.

Douglas

2013-08-28, 03:39 AM

Seeing a small, cold, dark, and fast moving object in space is very very hard.
If the Honorverse has any reason to suspect such a thing might have even the slightest chance of being attempted, the Manticore system will in short order be so thoroughly blanketed in sensor platforms that a piece of gravel couldn't get through undetected.

That might be an exaggeration, but not by all that much. The Manticorans take the security of their home system very seriously, and they have the technological, industrial, and material resources to do that.

Anywhere else, yeah if the Imperium is capable of it with sufficient accuracy then it'll probably work. The cost of a sensor network that thorough would be too high to deploy on any lesser system.

The Glyphstone

2013-08-28, 04:22 AM

MLai

2013-08-28, 04:29 AM

If the Honorverse has any reason to suspect such a thing might have even the slightest chance of being attempted, the Manticore system will in short order be so thoroughly blanketed in sensor platforms that a piece of gravel couldn't get through undetected.
You can say that, but do the books ever describe Manticoran sensor technology which allows you to extrapolate to that conclusion? For example, how do Manticoran ship sensors usually work (i.e. what principle)?

Anywhere else, yeah if the Imperium is capable of it with sufficient accuracy then it'll probably work. The cost of a sensor network that thorough would be too high to deploy on any lesser system.
If IoM reduces Manticore down to 1-2 planets, the fight is over anyways.

At any rate, I also think IoM would first try conventional fleet tactics. However, if as a previous poster speculated, Manticore/Haven started expanding into IoM space while steamrolling IoM conventional resistance, and have shown that despite being human there can be no negotiation, then the gloves do come off.

And if the gloves come off in that fashion, Manticore/Haven is dead. They can bluster about how now they're no longer restrained by the Edict all they want, it's a billion+ worlds versus their dozen, both sides sporting c-fractional spam.

The Tau have so far not merited Exterminatus because IoM knows they don't have the FTL capability to become a threat outside of their small locality. That's not the case with Manticore/Haven.

Aotrs Commander

2013-08-28, 04:34 AM

Blightedmarsh

2013-08-28, 04:55 AM

The thing about exterminatus is the imperium doesn't usually use it against orks; even though they know full well that it is pretty much the only way they have to remove an ork infestation from a world. They tend to reserve its use against "moral" (ie daemonic) threats and nids. An I think they do it against nids primarily because a planet is all but glassed when the nids are done with it anyway.

This is not however the honerverse Vs IoM but the honorverse Vs 40K. I think that they could beet IoM in space combat. However humanity was not always in its current sorry state. During the dark age of technology humanity was much more advanced and yet it fell far and fast to its age of strife levels. How does the honorverse match up against the Dark age humanity and what is to prevent it falling to much the same threats as the pre-imperial civilizations did?

DaedalusMkV

2013-08-28, 04:57 AM

(The Tau might, though, I suppose.)

The Tau would no more destroy a perfectly inhabitable planet than Manticore would; far too wasteful for the Etherials' tase. The only orbital bombardment they do is precision strikes; if you needed more than that to take it, clearly you weren't ready to attack in the first place. If they wind up facing a situation where desperation-tactics like that are the only way to achieve victory they'll just withdraw, regroup and start plotting the long-game instead. The Etherials are perfectly willing to let a conquest take centuries as long as it gets them a productive world instead of a smoking ash-heap.

In this case, the Tau Empire respond to encountering Manticore and Haven by flying right up to the Manties and offering a peace treaty and extensive trade opportunities. If Haven attacks them to try and hijack their economy, they call in allies and start self-destructing their colonies on the way out to make the strategy pointless and inflict maximum losses in exchange. There is no war between the Honorverse and the Tau, at least not until the Tau are absolutely confident they've reached technological and military parity. They're too smart for that, and the Honorverse is too sane to kill them off just because they exist.

RCgothic

2013-08-28, 05:11 AM

Relativity is brilliant.

If you fire from Pluto a sabot at 0.99c, it will transit to the inner solar system in under 6h50m.

If you spot it IMMEDIATELY upon launch, the light from the launch has been in transit for 6h46m. Congratulations, you now have four minutes to do something about it.

A 1kg sabot at 0.99c is about 130Mt and you'd get four minutes warning.
A 1kg sabot at 0.999c is about 500Mt and you'd get 24 seconds warning.
A 1kg sabot at 0.9999c is about 1.5Gt and you'd get 2.4 seconds warning.
A 1kg sabot at 0.99999c is about 5Gt and you'd get a quarter of a second warning.

Which are apparently energy values within the capabilities of both sides.

Basically, if we escalate to that level it becomes rocket tag, or the one with a planetary shield wins.

Saph

2013-08-28, 05:26 AM

If you spot it IMMEDIATELY upon launch, the light from the launch has been in transit for 6h46m. Congratulations, you now have four minutes to do something about it.

Unless you have FTL comms.

Guess what one of the major R&D breakthroughs in the first few Honor Harrington novels was? :smallbiggrin:

Selrahc

2013-08-28, 05:57 AM

Unless you have FTL comms.

40k also has FTL sensors, so popping up on the edge of a system and letting lose a salvo will probably get some response. I'm not sure whether it would be an effective response or not...

hamishspence

2013-08-28, 06:08 AM

I don't know the specifics of Warp transit work, whether they can pick any point or whether it's more like point-to-point from "jump gates" as it were. Or what their non-FTL crusing speeds are. )

In Rogue Trader, non-FTL cruising speeds - using the normal process for any merchant ship- is about 1/100 the speed of light, once the gentle acceleration up to speed is complete.

The fastest non-FTL Imperial ship speed seen so far in a novel, was the previously mentioned Phalanx in Flight of the Eisenstein (0.75c).

In ship to ship combat in the Rogue Trader game though- it's more like 5 VU per half hour for a cruiser (100,000 km/hour) and twice that for the faster Imperial destroyers like the Cobra.

This is very slow compared to 1/100c (3,000 km/second, 10.8 million km/hour) - which is the cruising speed at the edge of the system before reaching the point where the ship can jump into the warp.

Brother Oni

2013-08-28, 06:43 AM

Unless you have FTL comms.

Unless the spotter is sitting at ground zero, which was RCgothic point about relativity. FTL comms isn't going to help much, but FTL sensors would.

I'm unfamiliar with the Honor-verse - do they have that level of tech?

Selrahc

2013-08-28, 07:01 AM

I'm unfamiliar with the Honor-verse - do they have that level of tech?

No. They don't have FTL scanners. What they do do however, is put in place sensor networks to strategically cover the system. If something appears, the scanner network will probably notice it within 2 minutes, at which point it will use its FTL comms to pass on the message. So with a prexisting sensor network, FTL comms=FTL sensors.

Aotrs Commander

2013-08-28, 07:06 AM

The Tau would no more destroy a perfectly inhabitable planet than Manticore would; far too wasteful for the Etherials' tase.

I meant the Tau, being for what I gather, being of a more outward-looking and flexible mindset, might be able to conceive of the idea more readily (using it is, as you say entirely another matter), whereas I can't see most Imperial commanders as protrayed being able to think that far outside of their usual box...

In Rogue Trader, non-FTL cruising speeds - using the normal process for any merchant ship- is about 1/100 the speed of light, once the gentle acceleration up to speed is complete.

The fastest non-FTL Imperial ship speed seen so far in a novel, was the previously mentioned Phalanx in Flight of the Eisenstein (0.75c).

In ship to ship combat in the Rogue Trader game though- it's more like 5 VU per half hour for a cruiser (100,000 km/hour) and twice that for the faster Imperial destroyers like the Cobra.

This is very slow compared to 1/100c (3,000 km/second, 10.8 million km/hour) - which is the cruising speed at the edge of the system before reaching the point where the ship can jump into the warp.

Aside from that outlier, then, really quite slow.

(Heck, the comparitively low tech of the fairly hard Sci-fi Lost fleet books typically fought at 0.1-0.2c (though they had targetting issues if next closing speed was close to the latter end.)

How does Honorverse FTL work (again it is "where they like" or via "jump-points") and how do their nonFTL speeds match up?

HandofShadows

2013-08-28, 08:20 AM

Tavar

2013-08-28, 09:19 AM

Its a bit complicated due to speeds not really being mentioned in favor of accelerations. As previously mentioned at length, their particle shielding is capable of negating any damage from a 2 metric ton object going .6c. That seems a good benchmark.

Soras Teva Gee

2013-08-28, 09:26 AM

The IoM definitely could conduct c-fractional extra-solar bombardment of planets. They could also open trade negotiations with the Tau for safe, reliable AI, devote more resources to raising the quality of life of all their citizens, give their infantry high-quality weapons and armor instead of mass-produced drek, and support said infantry with actual orbital bombardment instead of conducting long ground campaigns. But none of that is in-character for the Imperium of Man, any more than the .99c stealthed projectiles are.

So if we have to resort to that as an opening tactic (it's not going to be a retaliatory tactic, because no Honorverse captain or admiral is going to willingly conduct a planetbusting as a first strike), it seems like we should be including a tacit admission that they can't win as they are in canon, and that we've moved to the 'what do we have to change so they can win' stage of these threads.

Pretty much this. Perhaps especially in 40k's case if you have to get out of character you have lost.

Because if they were doing the things they "could" be doing they wouldn't have nearly the problems they do. The joke of course is that they don't because they really can't.

Which of course makes sense when you consider that the Imperium does not in fact have "science" among its abilities they have the Cult of the Machine. Is lurking about the edge of the system for the time needed to get up to high velocities and target a planet based on its orbital dynamics a ritual practice dating back to the Great Crusade? Unless the answer is a clear yes then it becomes an open question of if they could pull it off.

Least that's me. I always hold that the IoM is not in fact a functioning state but rather the corpse of one. I find that the Emperor as Fisher King holds up pretty well in describing everything.

This is not however the honerverse Vs IoM but the honorverse Vs 40K. I think that they could beet IoM in space combat. However humanity was not always in its current sorry state. During the dark age of technology humanity was much more advanced and yet it fell far and fast to its age of strife levels. How does the honorverse match up against the Dark age humanity and what is to prevent it falling to much the same threats as the pre-imperial civilizations did?

Honorverse does not use the Warp. That removes the primary cause right there. Also thus far they have so help me shown little taste for robots. And would likely give a lecture on the silly misconceptions of a 'rise of the robots' and why it can't happen.

So you basically don't have compatibility. The Dark Age of Technology was still much softer sci-fi then the Honorverse strives to be.

Modify the primary cause to the hyper suddenly becoming unusable and their economy would undergo a violent collapse of course, which would have political effects but starts to really roll the dice to get down to "forgetting science" like happened in 40k.

Unless the spotter is sitting at ground zero, which was RCgothic point about relativity. FTL comms isn't going to help much, but FTL sensors would.

I'm unfamiliar with the Honor-verse - do they have that level of tech?

As people have noted, you put an FTL comm on a normal sensor drone and you have an FTL sensor. Maybe not precisely real time, but with space being really effing huge its still enough time to take actions for anything that can take action.

For lesser distances you will already have been observed and into the maneuver phase of the battle where say the wall of battle is moving to intercept your vector will be presenting you with a wall of impeller wedges and active counter measure suites if you want to start missile dueling them and have missile of similar maneuverability range to their own.

How does Honorverse FTL work (again it is "where they like" or via "jump-points") and how do their nonFTL speeds match up?

Honorverse hyper works coincidentally a lot like the age of sail. Generally can go where you want though there's various in-universe wrinkles to that. Travel time can be quite variable and is in the "weeks and months" category for stuff without a wormhole depending on how far you want to go.

However every star has a "hyper limit" that you can't travel inside without killing yourself. Varies from star to star but generally you can count on ending up in the outer system with a couple hours of travel to reach the important stuff. The Star Kingdom occupies a binary system with three planets totally not like a certain island kingdom on Earth, and you can go between planets like flying commercial air today.

And since they appreciate how effing big space is that should tell you that those couple of hours mean non-FTL speeds are very appreciable to percentages of the speed of light with hundreds over gravities of acceleration.

Top safe absolute velocity with poking around some net threads was quoted as .8c or so but its been a while since I read the books to confirm that. Technically possible to go higher if you don't mind risking spontaneous explosions from hitting something or breaking your systems so you can never slow down and stuff.

HamHam

2013-08-28, 11:12 AM

Which of course makes sense when you consider that the Imperium does not in fact have "science" among its abilities they have the Cult of the Machine. Is lurking about the edge of the system for the time needed to get up to high velocities and target a planet based on its orbital dynamics a ritual practice dating back to the Great Crusade? Unless the answer is a clear yes then it becomes an open question of if they could pull it off.

Their understanding of orbital mechanics is just fine.

The Inquisition, Deathwatch, and similar organisations are very good at using unconventional methods to eliminate threats to the Imperium.

Brother Oni

2013-08-28, 11:14 AM

No. They don't have FTL scanners. What they do do however, is put in place sensor networks to strategically cover the system. If something appears, the scanner network will probably notice it within 2 minutes, at which point it will use its FTL comms to pass on the message. So with a prexisting sensor network, FTL comms=FTL sensors.

That works, although the only potential weakness is that you need an absolute bucketload of sensors.

Spoilered for off topic:

Let's suppose we have a network of sensors set up on the average orbit of Pluto (39.5AU radius), giving us ~5.5 hrs warning at c.

That would give us a sphere of surface area: 4*pi*39.52 = 19607 AU2 or 4.4x1020 km2.

Assuming we have probes set up 4 light minutes apart (2 light minutes radius), a back of an envelope calculation indicates we need (very, very roughly) at least 1.1x105 sensors to cover the space.

I'm not saying that the Honor-verse couldn't manage it, just pointing out it's a fair few sensors needed.

Aotrs Commander

2013-08-28, 11:30 AM

Honorverse hyper works coincidentally a lot like the age of sail. Generally can go where you want though there's various in-universe wrinkles to that. Travel time can be quite variable and is in the "weeks and months" category for stuff without a wormhole depending on how far you want to go.

However every star has a "hyper limit" that you can't travel inside without killing yourself. Varies from star to star but generally you can count on ending up in the outer system with a couple hours of travel to reach the important stuff. The Star Kingdom occupies a binary system with three planets totally not like a certain island kingdom on Earth, and you can go between planets like flying commercial air today.

And since they appreciate how effing big space is that should tell you that those couple of hours mean non-FTL speeds are very appreciable to percentages of the speed of light with hundreds over gravities of acceleration.

Top safe absolute velocity with poking around some net threads was quoted as .8c or so but its been a while since I read the books to confirm that. Technically possible to go higher if you don't mind risking spontaneous explosions from hitting something or breaking your systems so you can never slow down and stuff.

Right, so Honorverse easily wins the utility of FTL, then, and their crusing speeds are significantly higher on average than 40K's.

Though there is evidence some 40K vessels might be able to reach comparable speeds, and if the Imperium was actually in a position to be able to do R&D (and had the mindset to think about it), they might be able to try to purpose-build something. (Though, as Soras said, if 40K was actually societally/mentally capable of using all it's vast capabilities in a way that wasn't frequently pants-on-head ridiculous, it would have solved all it's own problems millenia ago...)

In the main, though, then, it appears the Honorverse can run literal rings around the 40K ships and can possibly strike from attitudes that Warp-capable ships can't (depending on whether there's actual "fixed" warp-gates (for the given value of "fixed", given Chaos, of course!) as it were, or whether you just have to get to a radius beofre you can enter the Warp.)

I know, incidently, even less about non-Warp FTL systems in 40K (I understand the Nekrons don't use the Warp at all), so I can't currenly speak to how that measures up.

Douglas

2013-08-28, 11:43 AM

That works, although the only potential weakness is that you need an absolute bucketload of sensors.

Spoilered for off topic:

Let's suppose we have a network of sensors set up on the average orbit of Pluto (39.5AU radius), giving us ~5.5 hrs warning at c.

That would give us a sphere of surface area: 4*pi*39.52 = 19607 AU2 or 4.4x1020 km2.

Assuming we have probes set up 4 light minutes apart (2 light minutes radius), a back of an envelope calculation indicates we need (very, very roughly) at least 1.1x105 sensors to cover the space.

I'm not saying that the Honor-verse couldn't manage it, just pointing out it's a fair few sensors needed.
Which is why only the Manticore system would be likely to ever deploy such a network. But for the security of Manticore itself, 100000 sensor platforms is a paltry expense.

Now for some more concrete numbers, I just looked up the detection ranges in the final battle of Echoes of Honor, notable because it is one of the very rare occasions when detection is done by active radar-analogue systems rather than gravitic detection of Honorverse gravitic drives. The probes would need to be more like 3 light seconds apart, multiplying the number needed compared to 4 light minutes by 6400. So, 640 million sensor platforms to cover a system out to the orbit distance of pluto. This is, I believe, still within the defense budget of Manticore, but it would be a major expense. If the Solarian League comes along for the vs conflict and is somehow convinced of the danger (the Solarian League suffers from perpetual political paralysis), they could put similar measures in place to protect Earth and a few other core systems. Everywhere else, it's beyond the available resources.