Nathan should be breveted to Commodore
Something will have to happen at some point. When more and more jump capable warships are entered into the service, then it will become an issue at some point. Currently, its not an issue though. Wouldn't be surprised if it is put off until the second season.
Mike and Apoc,
Going to dispute your logic on the .9c attacks for a second Apoc, sorry ;).
If an object travelling at or near the speed of light hit another object the resulting explosion would be catastrophic. From my understanding the kinetic rounds being used on the Aurora are a type of Depleted Uranium (or similar) round. The resulting damage caused by a round of this sort connecting with another target at any factor of a speed below it would almost be guaranteed to be fatal, especially if the shot were placed mid-ship.
The only problem I would see with this tactic, however, is the fact that at near relativistic speeds you would begin to see time dilation, essentially the Aurora would be travelling too fast to be able to lock on to another target. This could be countered theoretically.
Mike- As a Navy boy myself, you're exactly right. This should have happened immediately upon finding the Celestia and should have been in the Navy Regulations as some sort of contingency upon the death of a Flag officer. While Apoc is correct in saying that Nathan has more time in service, which allows him to be in "command" of the fleet, he does not have the authority to order someone of the same rank, or a captain of another ship (of any rank, as i recall Cameron not being a Captain) to follow a specific plan of action. However, due to him being the highest ranking officer known to be surviving, he should immediately be promoted (or brevet promoted provided someone with more authority than him is found that can authorize his promotion) to Flag rank. I would argue that he should be promoted to Rear Admiral (2 Star/O-8) as this provides him significant mobility in the actions he can take - mobilizing the militaries of Earth, assuming command of a Fleet (Commodore is to assume command of only a Flotilla), as well as the authority bestowed upon the rank of a Rear Admiral. If there is no other higher ranking member of the Armed Forced to be found, his rank should immediately be promoted to O-9 or CNO (Chief of Naval Operations).
Just my thoughts.
Dispute away!
Biggest problem is hitting the target at all, but also, the problem with high speed projectiles, is that they usually just penetrate the object. Now this would be a little different for something traveling at speeds you could get in space. It would do a ton of damage if it hit at all, but that doesn't mean that it would destroy the ship/battle platform completely. It would all depends on where it hit.
The amount of energy an object has, is in reference the speed and the mass of the object in reference to the speed and mass object that it hit. That being said, if the object is big enough, even a 1,000 kg object traveling at .9c may do considerable damage, but the object may still survive. A near miss may take out the objects shields completely, but leave the ship intact and let them have the time to fix their shields.
Some quick math shows that a 1,000 kg object traveling at 99% the speed of light, would have the force of 132 gigatons of TNT. Not anywhere near the energy produced by the KKV's we see in Frontier's saga, but it would get you point across if it hit something. I don't believe railgun ammo had a weight up to 1,000kg, but I would guess that it would only be a fraction of a 1,000kg or 1.1 ton in weight for each round. At 100kg, or 220 lbs, the force would be down to 13.2 gigatons. Still a crap load of energy, but depending on where it hit, the ship could survive. Still think it would be to hard to get a hit on a moving target. And if you miss, where did the projectile go? To kill some unsuspecting space station?
At 99% the speed of light, I'm pretty sure that even protons and other material in space would start bombarding the projectile and possibly destroy it before it ever hit its final target.
Edit: I don't know much about the navy, but after reading up on Commodore, it seems that if they accepted all aspects of of our history, they would of also had the Commodore role. Which it is mentioned in Episode 10, at the end of chapter 6, but never expanded upon later.
All arguments make perfect sense, however, remember two things. First, the rail gun rounds are not traveling at .99c. Far from it, so you need to scale down your math considerably.
Second is that you're using today's tech to measure against. Would a rail gun round traveling at even half light destroy something like a modern battleship with a single round? Probably. But these aren't modern day battleships that are being shot at.
Anyone who designs and builds rail guns on their ships is also going to design hulls/defenses for such rail guns.
One of the reasons that the Aurora was originally designed with engines that can rapidly accelerate her was to be able to OUTRUN weapons fire. Luckily, she got a jump drive. Outrunning rail gun fire is no longer necessary.
When it comes to hitting the target, that depends on the target in question. Hitting a ship that is 1 km long and dodging would be hard for a .9c projectile. Hitting a 40 Km big target that can barely move, much easier. Of course, Getting something to go that fast is a challenge.
I think that if you get something to go fast enough to penetrate the hull, it needs to explode
@Ryk-
The projectile leaving a ship in motion already carries the same speed of said ship. In surface warfare this is not the case as there are countering factors such as wind, inertia, gravity, etc, but in space this would not be an issue. The kinetic rounds would carry the same speed they were launched at (supposedly faster than the ship as they need to have speed to separate from the rail drivers) and would not lose speed or energy until they run into something to stop them. If a round were to hit a target at .9c it would not only puncture the target but also release all the energy it carries throughout the remainder of the ship - this would cause structural weaknesses to be created throughout the hull and internals of the ship from the resulting release of energy.
Also, another thing to keep in mind. All the rounds being fired in every battle CONTINUES at the same speed in a linear line until it is stopped, so at this point i would be concerned about jumping around with all those rounds flying everywhere. Just some food for thought.
Also - Commodore was removed from being an active rank in 1982. It is, however, being used in the UK still.
Yes, the rounds also carry the speed of the vessel that launched them. Then there is also the closure rate between the attacker and the target, and the target could be going away from the attacker, or at an oblique angle, etc...
Point is, there are a lot of variables to consider, not the least of which hulls that were probably designed to absorb much of a projectile's kinetic energy.
And again, there aren't any rail gun rounds flying around (in my stories) at 0.9c. In fact, the speeds that they are usually flying around at are < 0.01c.
You're right that the rail gun rounds will continue relatively unimpeded, as there is no friction in a vacuum. But there is gravity, which can alter the course of those rounds. Also, within the hour, most of those rounds would be long gone. A few days later, most of them would be out of the immediate area. But you are right that they would pose a hazard. However, as only large masses cause problems during a jump, rail gun rounds would not.
The point I'm trying to make is that all this talk of rail gun rounds doing so much damage is a bit off base. As I said, they're not traveling at the types of velocities that you are all assuming they are traveling at.
I now return to editing book 12. 🙂
@Ryk -
Thanks for allowing us to get you off topic for a bit, hope it helped with the writing process.
As for the second part I brought up, are we going to see some new brass on Nathan's shoulder soon? 😉
@Ryk-
The projectile leaving a ship in motion already carries the same speed of said ship.
Correct.
In surface warfare this is not the case as there are countering factors such as wind, inertia, gravity, etc, but in space this would not be an issue.
Wind and even simple friction due to the atmosphere are factors that slow down a projectile. Gravity will undoubtedly angle it downwards. However, inertia is not a factor on Earth any more than anywhere in outer space.
The kinetic rounds would carry the same speed they were launched at (supposedly faster than the ship as they need to have speed to separate from the rail drivers) and would not lose speed or energy until they run into something to stop them.
Quite true again. But that's also true on Earth or any other planet. Only that gravity will move the missiles downward until, eventually, they'll simply fall onto the ground. And, of course, friction will cause them to lose speed because they "run into" the atmosphere to stop them.
(Sorry, I don't know how to word it any better. English is not my native language.)
You explained it well.
Every object creates a gravity well, the more massive the object the deeper and larger the gravity well.
The black hole in "the Expanse" had a huge deep gravity well and almost sucked Capt. Scott & crew in.
A grain of sand in deep space also creates a microscopic gravity well.
A rail gun slug / missile (once out of fuel) will travel in a straight line until it reaches a gravity well. Then what happens depends on the strength (depth) of the gravity well versus the mass and speed of the object. It might change course slightly or it might make a hard turn and get sucked in.
Dispute away!
Biggest problem is hitting the target at all, but also, the problem with high speed projectiles, is that they usually just penetrate the object. Now this would be a little different for something traveling at speeds you could get in space. It would do a ton of damage if it hit at all, but that doesn’t mean that it would destroy the ship/battle platform completely. It would all depends on where it hit.
Exactly, the ability to hit is the key factor here, all this talk about .99c is meangless in 99% of ship to ship combat, because you basically shooting blind, and unless the other ship is stationary or moving on strict predetermined path, any basic maneuver will cause you to miss.
As for high speed projectiles, don't forget pressure differential. Punching a hole in a spaceship would be similar to punch a hole in deep underwater sub, which ~would suffer the same fate to an empty can under the weight of your foot. That why i always imagined space battles with whole crew suited up and air pressure reduced across the whole ship for the duration of the fight.
Second is that you’re using today’s tech to measure against. Would a rail gun round traveling at even half light destroy something like a modern battleship with a single round? Probably. But these aren’t modern day battleships that are being shot at.
Anyone who designs and builds rail guns on their ships is also going to design hulls/defenses for such rail guns.
There are no modern battleships 😉 Precisely because of their vulnerability against cheap missiles. I don't recall anything in our universe that would change that equation, helping spaceship hulls to deal with the extra punishment. (Even if the cost of the armor would dwarf the cost of the rest of the ship, and reduce its acceleration considerably it would still be vulnerable). IMO the only hope is the creative use of shields.
As for high speed projectiles, don’t forget pressure differential. Punching a hole in a spaceship would be similar to punch a hole in deep underwater sub, which ~would suffer the same fate to an empty can under the weight of your foot.
That depends. If the hull is built quite massively, this shouldn't happen.
There's this little experiment I used to do when still a child - it involves a Coke can (or the can of any other beverage, really) and you standing on it. If the can is undented, it will carry you. But put a small dent in its side and step on it again - CRUNCH! 😉
On another note, the difference in pressure between 1 Earth atmosphere (in the ship) and outer space (vacuum) is less than the pressure difference of 1 Earth atmosphere (in a submarine) and several hundred Earth atmospheres under water. (You have to calculate the pressure of one Earth atmosphere for every 10 meters / 30 feet the submarine is below the surface.)
A further difference lies in the direction the deformation would take place: While a can is easily folded inward, folding it outward (as would be the case for a star ship) would mean that the material has to be ripped apart or gashed or whatever because the surface would have to expand, too.
And don't forget how thick the outer wall of the Aurora or any other ship is. How many feet was it, does anybody remember the actual numbers? (I think they might be in part 1...)
According to Ryk, Aurora designed like a ~Kinder egg, you got the massive layered armor on the outside, with the actual ship on the inside i.e. a self contained living capsule with all critical systems built around it. That armor is MASSIVE, iirc several meter deep, layered thing. So while I agree with what you said, I doubt there will be a lot of reinforcement on the inside and so if something is strong enough to punch through, it will be very unfortunate to the compartment it will penetrate, besides most modern munition are designed to penetrate the outer armor and detonate inside and air will only help its burn.
Sadly, Kinder Eggs are deemed dangerous in the States as the capsule and small toy are considered a choke hazard.
http://m.therecord.com/news-story/2607917-couple-detained-for-smuggling-kinder-eggs-into-u-s-/
Kinder eggs are pretty cool.
