Requiem
06/12/18 07:40 AM
58.175.193.140
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This is being transcribed here from my post re Thoughts on the Clan Invasion - just in case you don't go into the general section.
Mines – again with a literal definition thinking of a WWII ship contact mine? …. Where there is an engineer there is a way forward – so if the mine is within the K-K Field generated by an incoming Jumpship they are automatically destroyed before they have the chance to inflict damage - OK.
But if they are not within the K-F Filed and are resistant to the stress-wave a Jump causes in the surrounding space (what approx 27Km only?) and it can act like the old Space mines ie. they can detect a ship and move under their own power and may also include stealth amour making it almost impossible to detect after a jump – but that does not really matter considering the range they have to kill a ship and their crew.
Have a read of the webpage entitled Atomic Weapons – re: atomic weapons in space and the following web page
https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/...rder-to-survive
“A one megaton Enhanced-Radiation warhead (AKA "neutron bomb") will deliver a threshold fatal neutron dose to an unshielded human at 300 km”
“The survivability range of nuclear bombs scales (roughly) linearly with bomb yield and as the inverse square of distance between bomb and victim. Meaning a 1 mton bomb would be borderline survivable at a range of ~900 km due to X-ray flux”
Keep reading re NASA's report on Nuclear Weapon Effects in Space.
So how far does a K-F Field expand to? So all I need to be is within say 100miles depending upon the warhead and yield and adios muchacho.
So mines ARE viable weapons in space a K-F filed does not expand out that far but a nuke (depending upon its warhead) even with a warship with heavy shielding will be able to it kill when within their range at a max of approx. 100miles (again depending upon type and yield)!
But if you say their shielding will stop the Neutrino / X-ray Flux, thus you need to be within the main blast to takeout a ship – OK then let us consider using a 50mt Tsar or even the 100mt warhead. These would be able to kill the skip with a blast radius starting at 30Km and going outwards from there – so still mines are a viable weapon against warships you just need them to get within range (that of 30Km / 40Km approx.) and then explode at this range, beyond that of a K-F Filed entry field or their entry shock wave, for a nuke to be very lethal to a warship.
Your thoughts?
Get thee to Coventry … Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious by this daughter of Tharkad … Our army shall march through. Well to New Avalon tonight.
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Karagin
06/12/18 01:04 PM
72.176.187.91
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My group played around with a similar idea, I will ask some of them if they still have their notes etc...
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Maurer
06/13/18 07:14 PM
45.48.53.140
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I doubt a radiation burst would effect a warship too much at that distance (except for anyone on the hull). The only effects would be radiation and EMP, which a warship should have some protection built in. The thickness of a warships armor alone might be able to shield its crew from a high dose of harmful radiation. Detonating it closer might cause some of the radiation to get through.
"Captain! We're completely surrounded on all sides." - Kiff, Futurama
..."Excellent, then we may attack in any direction." - Zapp Brannigan, Futurama
"A fool fights a war on two fronts; only an idiot defends on one." - Fusilier
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happyguy49
06/13/18 07:33 PM
173.239.240.43
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It's also worth pointing out that the way FTL works in the battletech universe, you can actually jump to ANY point, so long as it is not too close to a gravity well. The closest this is normally are the zenith and nadir above and below a star, but you could jump a bit further away if you wanted, especially if you were trying to conceal your entry to a system. This would only add a few hours to your transit burn and enable one to hide. Ideal for invading forces, spies, pirates, and so forth, if you don't know or can't use the systems "pirate points".
Commercial jumpships use the standard 'points' for convenience, economical reasons, and safety. If an accident or hardware fail occurs and you are at a regularly traveled spot help will arrive at some point. And of course many systems have stations at jump points, enabling fast-charging, repair, commerce, personnel/information exchange, etc.
If something bad happens and you are in deep space you are basically dead, unless you made your flight plans known to someone before leaving.
Given all of that, I can't see how 'mining' a jump point would be useful as a defense against unwanted intruders. You could however do something like an automated long range shuttle, with it's entire cargo bay a large nuke, that powers up and suicide-attacks any jump signature it detects. That would have enough of a range to be useful, unlike a mine.
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Requiem
06/13/18 07:34 PM
58.175.193.140
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Refer above - it can act like the old Space mines ie. they can detect a ship and move under their own power and may also include stealth amour making it almost impossible to detect after a jump - so why not give it a serious range to manoeuvre once the auto sensors lock on.
Not all nukes are the same – you must consider the type of nuke and what was its yield as a 1MT and a 100MT warhead are two completely different animals in magnitude - or the 500MT that this also included in the game .
Case in point what is the melting point of Ferro-Carbide armour on a Mjolnir? As about 85% of the energy released is in thermal energy.
Quote: Depending on the yield and type of the weapon, the external temperature of the fireball is about the same as that of the Sun, some 6,000° C (5,778 K).
The internal temperature can vary between 10,000,000 and 150,000,000° C.
Thierry Etienne Joseph Rotty, studied at University of Antwerp
Refer: https://www.quora.com/How-much-heat-is-generated-in-a-nuclear-and-a-hydrogen-bomb-blast
Therefore a direct hit (or within the 30KM range of the Thermal Energy) by even a 50MT Tsar - adios muchachos!
Get thee to Coventry … Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious by this daughter of Tharkad … Our army shall march through. Well to New Avalon tonight.
Edited by Requiem (06/13/18 07:42 PM)
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Cray
06/13/18 07:54 PM
97.101.136.19
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Quote:
But if they are not within the K-F Filed and are resistant to the stress-wave a Jump causes in the surrounding space (what approx 27Km only?) and it can act like the old Space mines ie. they can detect a ship and move under their own power and may also include stealth amour making it almost impossible to detect after a jump – but that does not really matter considering the range they have to kill a ship and their crew.
Standard jump points have two problems for mines:
1) They are millions, if not tens of millions, of kilometers across. BT weapon ranges are 900km max, and sensor ranges are mostly a few hundred thousand kilometers. You'd need billions of mines to blanket a standard jump point, and the minefield trick only works once. After that, JumpShips would use anywhere else around the proximity limit of a star system at slightly worse navigational rolls (see StratOps hyperspace travel rules, or prior books like AT2R, BattleSpace, and ye ancient DropShips & JumpShips).
2) Standard jump points are not in orbit around the star, so all the mines need some stationkeeping mechanism - like a fusion engine - to avoid falling into the star. Fusion plumes tend to give away "stealth" mines, as do light sails (see TacOps).
The place to deploy mines are L1 pirate points, which do have quasi-stable orbits and the valid jump area might be less than a few hundred hexes across.
Quote:
Have a read of the webpage entitled Atomic Weapons
Canon nuclear weapon rules would be more applicable. See: Interstellar Operations (p. 17), or JHS:3072, or Liberation of Terra. Nukes are not area effect weapons in space in BT. WarShip armor shrugs of kilotons of energy from non-nuclear weapons and aren't much more bothered by proximity detonations of nukes.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
Edited by Cray (06/13/18 07:56 PM)
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Requiem
06/13/18 09:12 PM
58.175.193.140
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Questions –
1. Repositioning and re-targeting minefields – The area of the Nadir entry zone is huge however when travelling from the Jumship to the target world you are, for all intense and purposes moving into a large cone moving from the bottom to the point (the world ) – Thus shrinking the area down from a huge area to a very small (galactically speaking) area – thus these mines could be used as an area anti-invasion-dropship screen as they get close to a valuable world.
So what I am saying is this if you know the initial direction you need to go to get to the Nadir point (for example) could you put a mine a few thousand KM from the planet, on the way to the Nadir point / the world depending on the direction you are travelling, but would still allow the mine an effective area to lock onto Dropships or incoming warships? and could even be positioned to screen pirate points at the same time?
2. Protection for space stations and recharge stations / Jumpship - Warship production maintenance facilities – just far away but still able to detect - lock on – pursue and detonate? Could this also be a use for the mine?
3. Could they be fitted to a warship - like a squadron of drones buzzing around it - all controlled from the bridge - go out 1000 Km and in the event the warship is attacked they are the first defensive screen - detonate in the midst of attacking fighters / Dropships etc - think of it like a planet with many moons around it providing the ship with an atomic screen? - thus if not used they just return to the hanger ..... for use later?
Your thoughts please?
Get thee to Coventry … Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious by this daughter of Tharkad … Our army shall march through. Well to New Avalon tonight.
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Cray
06/13/18 09:46 PM
97.101.136.19
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Quote:
Questions –
1. Repositioning and re-targeting minefields – The area of the Nadir entry zone is huge however when travelling from the Jumship to the target world you are, for all intense and purposes moving into a large cone moving from the bottom to the point (the world ) – Thus shrinking the area down from a huge area to a very small (galactically speaking) area – thus these mines could be used as an area anti-invasion-dropship screen as they get close to a valuable world.
I like the thinking, but if you can arrive scattered over an area millions of kilometers across then the possible flight paths to the destination planet are likewise scattered by millions of kilometers. And the planet, of course, moves steadily around the sun. Not fast for a planet like Earth, but smaller stars will have their habitable planets circling around millions of kilometers in days. Ovan (see A Time of War) has a 16-day year, for example.
On the other hand, you can stick mines around the planet. After all, that's where everyone's headed, right? You won't have universal coverage of a planet (too big for BT's weapon ranges), but most attackers are going into orbit. If you keep a few hundred capital missile-type mines in equatorial low orbit and a single polar low orbit, they'll HAVE to cross those bands while they're in a position to drop troops or bombard the planet.
And, again, you should be able to cover L1 pirate points. Those are nasty because, for example, the Terra-Luna L1 point is just a few hours from Terra at 1G, as opposed to days.
Quote:
2. Protection for space stations and recharge stations / Jumpship - Warship production maintenance facilities – just far away but still able to detect - lock on – pursue and detonate? Could this also be a use for the mine?
Yes. Clouds of pre-deployed teleoperated missiles would be a rules-compatible way of handling this, too.
Quote:
3. Could they be fitted to a warship - like a squadron of drones buzzing around it - all controlled from the bridge - go out 1000 Km and in the event the warship is attacked they are the first defensive screen - detonate in the midst of attacking fighters / Dropships etc - think of it like a planet with many moons around it providing the ship with an atomic screen? - thus if not used they just return to the hanger ..... for use later?
Within the rules, your two options are:
1) Teleoperated capital missiles, which can be launched at targets well beyond normal weapons range but are limited by their fuel
2) Space mines, which are an alternate payload for screen launchers. They work very much like "enter the hex and take damage." But their problem is that they don't follow the ship if it makes a change in course or velocity.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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Requiem
06/14/18 06:25 AM
58.175.193.140
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Thankyou, This gives me "evil ideas" to use against my gamers if the situation arises.
and I think this will also give many others ideas as well! Teleoperated capital missiles this seems like a very interesting idea.
Get thee to Coventry … Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious by this daughter of Tharkad … Our army shall march through. Well to New Avalon tonight.
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Cray
06/14/18 06:16 PM
67.8.230.40
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Quote:
and I think this will also give many others ideas as well! Teleoperated capital missiles this seems like a very interesting idea.
Teleoperated missiles are in...TacOps?, while Strategic Operations is stuffed with optional capital missile rules like "bearings only" launches, off-axis launches, and so on.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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Requiem
06/14/18 10:43 PM
58.175.193.140
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So how about this ….
A very small cost effective space station with one escape vehicle for the crew – is used as an early warning detection facility above the planet it is protecting – once they detect an incoming invasion fleet the operators within the station sick their mobile nuclear mines on the enemy fleet (though when in storage they are kept in a geo-stationary orbit – a no go fly zone protected by the military) – they are used to delay / break up / damage the incoming enemy fleet.
As for the operators within the station once they release the “hounds” on the enemy fleet they bug out ASAP – as if someone sent nukes at you, you can bet their first target would be that small space station that sent them after them - hence the reason why these space stations need to be cost effective, you may need to replace them every couple of years if they are above an important world.
The only thing you wouldn’t skimp on is the electronics used to run all the detection equipment (how about designing it so these are within an escape vessel so that once the operators punch out the more expensive equipment goes with them – The nuclear mines by now are acting independently of the station as they have closed on the enemy fleet).
Thoughts?
Get thee to Coventry … Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious by this daughter of Tharkad … Our army shall march through. Well to New Avalon tonight.
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ghostrider
06/14/18 11:56 PM
66.74.61.223
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Had thought about using mines, like laying them behind you as you moved or fled from another unit, but this does give me some ideas that might work, or inspire something better.
The station becomes a central point for space craft, shuttles or fighters, even missiles, for controlling them like an sds system, but the operators are closer to the action. The craft could remove life support as it would be a drone, yet the only way the enemy would know is when the suicide on the ships. A small back up system could be used so they keep on target if they enter an ecm zone heading towards the ships.
Ecm to help hide it, but sooner or later you will know where the signals are coming from.
If done right, you could use a relay satellite(s), and the station would be a refueling one, to hide it's true purpose. Even service invaders, allowing a better intel of what they have for ships. Ie, 3 normal overlords, meaning a mech regiment is likely.
If you want to be real nasty, suited saboteurs could be sent out to set charges on those ships. Take out a thruster when the ship is trying to land comes to mind.
Almost ironic. Have the invaders pay you for your looking them over and having explosives put on their ships.
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Requiem
08/01/18 08:32 AM
58.175.193.140
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On the 19th of June 3080 the Warship Vendetta (a Quixote-class Warship gifted to the Taurian Concordat by the WOB) attempted to raid the Clyde Shipyards at Firgrove – after emerging from the jump point it had emerged into – or moved into – a minefield of some kind ……
OK ….can anyone explain what these were then?
Get thee to Coventry … Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious by this daughter of Tharkad … Our army shall march through. Well to New Avalon tonight.
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Cray
08/01/18 05:54 PM
97.101.136.19
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Quote:
On the 19th of June 3080 the Warship Vendetta (a Quixote-class Warship gifted to the Taurian Concordat by the WOB) attempted to raid the Clyde Shipyards at Firgrove – after emerging from the jump point it had emerged into – or moved into – a minefield of some kind ……
OK ….can anyone explain what these were then?
In other words, it jumped close to a shipyard, within reasonable range of active minefields covering a very small volume of space. Like I said earlier in this thread:
Quote:
Quote:
Author: Requiem
2. Protection for space stations and recharge stations / Jumpship - Warship production maintenance facilities – just far away but still able to detect - lock on – pursue and detonate? Could this also be a use for the mine?
Yes. Clouds of pre-deployed teleoperated missiles would be a rules-compatible way of handling this, too.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
Edited by Cray (08/01/18 05:56 PM)
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Requiem
08/01/18 08:40 PM
58.175.193.140
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However as written "after emerging from the jump point it had emerged into – or moved into – a minefield of some kind ……"
It ran into a minefield after emerging from the jump point - I read this as either at the zenith or the nadir of a star's gravity well and not a pirate point that is very close to Shipyards.
If you jump to the Shipyards isn't this a little too reckless? one misstep and you could find the ship in the middle of a very damaged shipyard considering the damage the re-emergence of a ship does on the surrounding space.
and wouldn't it have been written differently if it was a pirate point jump within close proximity to the Shipyards?
Thus it is my belief this "mine-filed" could be considered to be something we have yet to be told about. - A new secret weapon?
Get thee to Coventry … Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious by this daughter of Tharkad … Our army shall march through. Well to New Avalon tonight.
Edited by Requiem (08/01/18 08:42 PM)
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ghostrider
08/02/18 04:36 PM
66.74.61.223
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Use of pirate points is more dangerous then jumping near a ship yard for navigation.
I would think most ship yards are very well known to those jumping into the system.
I could see where one might think all shipyards are around worlds, and none would be a jump points, but there have been a few things that suggest some do exist there.
The Olympus Station states they are deployed near jump points to service jumpships and dropships.
It would be logical to think they could actually build some given time and a lack of need for service on other ships.
Given the issues with jumping in a system's gravity, I would think jumpship ship yards would be at a point, that they did not have to use their station thrusters to move to a safe distance to jump.
And using a pirate point to jump out would be foolish if not down right stupid. Some only open up as certain times as a world moves into position.
That also doesn't cover damage to the ship yards if you aren't far enough away, or even taking out some support craft that wasn't able to clear the jump wash.
One point to the writing of the minefield. There is no time stated, so it implies immediately after the jump, but may well have been a few hours. The emerged part of that statement is an issue. It may have been written to add some excitement to the fluff. Then again, they may have come up with a ship that deploys the mines on command.
The official site would be more likely to tell you.
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