War with the Solarian League?

On Tue, 15 May 2007 21:58:50 GMT, pyotr filipivich
<phamp RemoveThis @mindspring.com> wrote:

>Okay, so I'm late and catching up, but Brian McDonald
><Brian_knowspam.McDonald RemoveThis @shaw.ca> wrote on Tue, 15 May 2007 00:21:54 GMT in
>alt.books.david-weber :
>>
>>fire was the big killer of wooden ships not cannonballs. to sink a
>>ship you need to hit it below the waterline and that isn't the easiest
>>thing to do with a blackpowder cannon.
>
> Actually, not all that difficult. You fight from the windward side,
>and aim for the hull. His ship will be heeled over a bit, raising what
>would be below the waterline to where it could be hit. If memory serves,
>this as the preferred French Strategy, while the RN chose to "aim high" and
>take out the masts & rigging, thus capturing the hulls.

twas the french who had the notion that chewing up the rigging would
win you battles. the rn felt that killing large numbers of the other
crew and dismounting guns etc would win you battles. a cursory glance
through history will show which theory panned out.

>
>> damage above the waterline
>>other than masts was readily repairable using onboard resources which
>>isn't gonna be the case with modern warships much less starships.
>
> A demasted ship was dead in the water, and rigging new masts was going
>to take a lot of time, and could still leave you in need of a tow.

this is true and why i said "other than the masts"
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Brian McDonald wrote:

> make much of a difference in top end speed.

Ahhh, what you'd be wanting in space is "acceleration".

<G>
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"Offbreed" <offbreed_106 RemoveThis @hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:gNCdnVL2PaG_ktbbnZ2dnUVZ_hKdnZ2d@scnresearch.com...
> Brian McDonald wrote:
>
>> make much of a difference in top end speed.
>
> Ahhh, what you'd be wanting in space is "acceleration".
>
> <G>

Un I'd say true but do these ships have top speed limits? They may under
sail.
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"Brian McDonald" <Brian_knowspam.McDonald RemoveThis @shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:74vh43d0hk532in54n6r7vdb2rrjloapbe@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 14 May 2007 18:47:36 -0500, "deowll" <deowll RemoveThis @bellsouth.net>
> wrote:
>
>
>>> But in the old days pirates wouldn't lose anything but crew so long as
>>> they won. Thus they would fight any battle they could win.
>>>
>>> Now, however, the pirate has to worry about damage to his own ship.
>>
>>You don't think getting hit with a broadside would hurt a wooden hulled
>>sailing ship? Now that is a truly unique point of view.
>>
>>
>>
>
> fire was the big killer of wooden ships not cannonballs. to sink a
> ship you need to hit it below the waterline and that isn't the easiest
> thing to do with a blackpowder cannon. damage above the waterline
> other than masts was readily repairable using onboard resources which
> isn't gonna be the case with modern warships much less starships.


You might be right about them not sinking at least on a calm day. Readily
repairable as in you can do the entire job yourself all the way back to full
operating specs is not likely if you got seriously worked over. You'd need a
dry dock at the least. Then a lot of the crew might not be operational
either.

Patched up after a fashion is more likely unless the damage was minor.
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"Brian McDonald" <Brian_knowspam.McDonald.DeleteThis@shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:ivjk43titb6lt4il2qejb0k1uoaab6vjm0@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 14 May 2007 18:54:23 -0500, "deowll" <deowll.DeleteThis@bellsouth.net>
> wrote:
>
>>They don't land. I'm not even sure all compartments are airtight. They
>>might
>>be able to open up a huge section of hull and use gravity control or even
>>magnitism to empty that compartment in seconds. That most or all of the
>>cargo is in containers shouldn't make it any harder to do.
>>
>>A simple observation here is that if they dumped the cargo the power to
>>mass
>>ratio is going to go sky high.
>>
>>A full cargo ship is slow. An empty one under full power ought to be able
>>to
>>run like a scalded cat.
>>
>>
> i don't know if you can really assume that. we know as a given that
> merchant ships ftl speeds are limited by their engine hardware. their
> n space speeds probably should increase but i think realistically if
> you dumped every smidge of cargo on the ship you aren't going to get
> any more than 2 or perhaps 3x the loaded speed out of a merchant hull.
>
> reasonably it's hard to see how you are going to dump enough cargo to
> make much of a difference in top end speed.

Have you looked at how 2 or three times the speed would compare to a warship
or improvised pirate hull some of which once were merchant ships?

Besides the pirate wants the cargo. My memory is they normally couldn't sell
the captured ships back into legal use. Running off chasing an empty ship
and abandoning the cargo is going to be a hard choice if the pirates thank
they can do some sort of recovery.
 >> Stay informed about: War with the Solarian League? 

Okay, so I'm late and catching up, but Don Sample <dsample.DeleteThis@synapse.net>
wrote on Wed, 16 May 2007 12:50:07 -0400 in alt.books.david-weber :
>In article <gNCdnVL2PaG_ktbbnZ2dnUVZ_hKdnZ2d.DeleteThis@scnresearch.com>,
> Offbreed <offbreed_106.DeleteThis@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Brian McDonald wrote:
>>
>> > make much of a difference in top end speed.
>>
>> Ahhh, what you'd be wanting in space is "acceleration".
>
>And acceleration is limited by how good your compensator is, not how
>much your ship masses, so dumping cargo doesn't do you any good.

Which brings you right back to the problem that "warship" (and smaller
ships fitted as 'warships') have higher accels than freighters. Ton for
Ton Warships have more of their capacity dedicated to propulsion than
Merchants, been that way since people sailed on water.
--
pyotr filipivich
The two oldest cliches in the book are "The Good Old Days were
better." and "After all, these are Modern TImes."
 >> Stay informed about: War with the Solarian League? 

"pyotr filipivich" <phamp DeleteThis @mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:ec1n43p3fbunp4u6cqr2dr0ubtbtsklvfq@4ax.com...
> Okay, so I'm late and catching up, but Don Sample <dsample DeleteThis @synapse.net>
> wrote on Wed, 16 May 2007 12:50:07 -0400 in alt.books.david-weber :
>>In article <gNCdnVL2PaG_ktbbnZ2dnUVZ_hKdnZ2d DeleteThis @scnresearch.com>,
>> Offbreed <offbreed_106 DeleteThis @hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Brian McDonald wrote:
>>>
>>> > make much of a difference in top end speed.
>>>
>>> Ahhh, what you'd be wanting in space is "acceleration".
>>
>>And acceleration is limited by how good your compensator is, not how
>>much your ship masses, so dumping cargo doesn't do you any good.
>
> Which brings you right back to the problem that "warship" (and smaller
> ships fitted as 'warships') have higher accels than freighters. Ton for
> Ton Warships have more of their capacity dedicated to propulsion than
> Merchants, been that way since people sailed on water.

Yeah but a partly empty sea going container ship can still haul butt faster
than a full one. They have plenty of horse power.\

A big semi with a full load may have trouble with acceration but drop the
trailer and how fast can one move?

Without friction or some such to slow them down a HH universe merchant ship
should be able to haul butt much faster than when a lot more mass. Of course
this isn't the way they normally travel. Empty merchant ships don't make
much money.


> --
> pyotr filipivich
> The two oldest cliches in the book are "The Good Old Days were
> better." and "After all, these are Modern TImes."
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On Wed, 16 May 2007 06:02:27 -0700, Offbreed
<offbreed_106.RemoveThis@hotmail.com> wrote:

>Brian McDonald wrote:
>
>> make much of a difference in top end speed.
>
>Ahhh, what you'd be wanting in space is "acceleration".
>
><G>

you just go ahead and be right. see if i care in the least.
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On Wed, 16 May 2007 12:50:07 -0400, Don Sample <dsample DeleteThis @synapse.net>
wrote:

>In article <gNCdnVL2PaG_ktbbnZ2dnUVZ_hKdnZ2d DeleteThis @scnresearch.com>,
> Offbreed <offbreed_106 DeleteThis @hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Brian McDonald wrote:
>>
>> > make much of a difference in top end speed.
>>
>> Ahhh, what you'd be wanting in space is "acceleration".
>
>And acceleration is limited by how good your compensator is, not how
>much your ship masses, so dumping cargo doesn't do you any good.


there's probably a reserve of compensator capacity but being merchies
it's prolly not that big a reserve. you would get some benefit out of
tossing cargo but not enough to justify the trouble.
 >> Stay informed about: War with the Solarian League? 

Okay, so I'm late and catching up, but "deowll" <deowll.TakeThisOut@bellsouth.net>
wrote on Wed, 16 May 2007 19:39:02 -0500 in alt.books.david-weber :
>
>"Offbreed" <offbreed_106.TakeThisOut@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:gNCdnVL2PaG_ktbbnZ2dnUVZ_hKdnZ2d@scnresearch.com...
>> Brian McDonald wrote:
>>
>>> make much of a difference in top end speed.
>>
>> Ahhh, what you'd be wanting in space is "acceleration".
>>
>> <G>
>
>Un I'd say true but do these ships have top speed limits? They may under
>sail.

As I understand it, yes and no. There is no top speed limit (aside
from the speed of light), but practical matters like radiation shielding
put a defacto top speed on stuff. I seem to recall that the military
limits itself to .80 c at the top end, but they have "tons" of radiation
shielding. Merchants, again, having other priorities, have lesser
shielding, and hence, lesser allowable top end speeds.

Hmmm, I need to get my handy calculator out, and see what sort of "speed"
limits we are talking about. I.e. how fast can a ship accelerating at 200
g reach .80 c, and what about relativistic effects there?

tschus
pyotr

>
>
--
pyotr filipivich
The two oldest cliches in the book are "The Good Old Days were
better." and "After all, these are Modern TImes."
 >> Stay informed about: War with the Solarian League? 

In article <gafp43ten9ictumak5pfl9ijk0jb408ffg DeleteThis @4ax.com>,
pyotr filipivich <phamp DeleteThis @mindspring.com> wrote:
>Okay, so I'm late and catching up, but "deowll" <deowll DeleteThis @bellsouth.net>
>wrote on Wed, 16 May 2007 19:39:02 -0500 in alt.books.david-weber :
>>
>>"Offbreed" <offbreed_106 DeleteThis @hotmail.com> wrote in message
>>news:gNCdnVL2PaG_ktbbnZ2dnUVZ_hKdnZ2d@scnresearch.com...
>>> Brian McDonald wrote:
>>>
>>>> make much of a difference in top end speed.
>>>
>>> Ahhh, what you'd be wanting in space is "acceleration".
>>>
>>> <G>
>>
>>Un I'd say true but do these ships have top speed limits? They may under
>>sail.
>
> As I understand it, yes and no. There is no top speed limit (aside
>from the speed of light), but practical matters like radiation shielding
>put a defacto top speed on stuff. I seem to recall that the military
>limits itself to .80 c at the top end, but they have "tons" of radiation
>shielding. Merchants, again, having other priorities, have lesser
>shielding, and hence, lesser allowable top end speeds.
>
>Hmmm, I need to get my handy calculator out, and see what sort of "speed"
>limits we are talking about. I.e. how fast can a ship accelerating at 200
>g reach .80 c, and what about relativistic effects there?
>
>tschus
>pyotr

The relativistic effects aren't too bad at .8 c, I get a tau of only .6.
So ignoring relativistic effects on time (at most I'll be off by a factor of 1.7),
I get about 34 hours at 200g to reach 0.80c.
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On Wed, 16 May 2007 19:39:02 -0500, "deowll" <deowll.RemoveThis@bellsouth.net>
wrote:

>
>"Offbreed" <offbreed_106.RemoveThis@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:gNCdnVL2PaG_ktbbnZ2dnUVZ_hKdnZ2d@scnresearch.com...
>> Brian McDonald wrote:
>>
>>> make much of a difference in top end speed.
>>
>> Ahhh, what you'd be wanting in space is "acceleration".
>>
>> <G>
>
>Un I'd say true but do these ships have top speed limits? They may under
>sail.
>
>
water based ships have a max speed based on horsepower and hull cross
section and length. the physics isn't exactly intuitive in the matter
as i found out in a scientific american article years ago (not that i
could follow the math of course).
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On Wed, 16 May 2007 19:54:35 -0500, "deowll" <deowll.DeleteThis@bellsouth.net>
wrote:




>
> A big semi with a full load may have trouble with acceration but drop the
>trailer and how fast can one move?
>

>> --
>> pyotr filipivich
>> The two oldest cliches in the book are "The Good Old Days were
>> better." and "After all, these are Modern TImes."
>

semi top ends are limited by the gearing in their transmissions.
without rebuilding the whole tranny and assorted rear ends etc the top
end isn't going to change much loaded or not. how fast you get to the
top end would improve nicely though.

we should stop using analogies based on wet ships because the physics
is mucho different from star ships.
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