Re: Honor Harrington Question?

> > Randy, you've actually talked to David Weber?....

> I'll see if I can dig up his address again. I talked tto him by phone
> once in awhile when I was stationed in Florida, and wrote back and
> forth before that. (Started right after, "Insurection" came out. I
> thought I had all the StarFire stuff, and here was a novel with
> weapons and stuff I had no clue about! I suddenly felt dated! :)
> I need to ask if it's ok to give it out though, so  I willl have to
> try and get my wife to ask. It's a public list after all.
> 
> Randy

Well, if it's private address, I can tell you and you can relay the
message; 
nothing top secret or anything.

My Point to Ponder is this.  In one of the books, he mentions that
fighting 
in hyperspace is very dicey, mainly because your main grav shields are
being 
used for the sails, and missiles are useless because the impeller drive
would 
instantaeneously burn out when fired.  And in the hyperspace battle that

followed, the ships relied on laser fire to blow each other away.  (or 
rather, the Manties got torched saving a convoy of human "cargo" while
the 
Peeps had to disengage 'cuz they lost too many nodes to go after the
convoy, 
but I digress....)

My thought is this: yeah, the missile impellers might not work, but the 
missile launch tubes are over-glorified rail guns/mass drivers.  Why
couldn't 
the ships launch the missiles without impellers and either (A) let the
75 to 
100 ton mass slam into the opposing ship, or (B) modify the warhead to 
detonate by proximity (which, I think they already do)?  The really
cruel 
thing is, Honor's universe detects other ships, etc. by their grav
signature. 
 If the missiles are just thrown out without impeller drives working,
the 
opposing ship won't know what's coming until it's too late.  Sounds like
an 
Honor tactic to me.....

Jeff Shoffner