Re: A holistic take on the Ikazuchi
Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2017 1:08 pm
Shadowlogan, if the Alpha is truely a spacecraft it will have manoeuvring thrusters that can provide the impulse needed.
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Jefffar wrote:Shadowlogan, if the Alpha is truely a spacecraft it will have manoeuvring thrusters that can provide the impulse needed.
Arnie100 wrote:I always wondered HOW a Garfish recovered its fighters...
Jefffar wrote:Short legs is a relative term as we at least on one occasion see Alphas conduct a recon mission that appears to travwrse from the moon to the orbital debris field just above the earth and back again including performing such manoeuvres as hiding motionless within the debris.
Jefffar wrote:That they were able to take cover in the debris (which is moving because it is in orbit) shows that they are, in theory at least, capable of some kind of docking manouvre.
Jefffar wrote:So you're agreeing we see the Alpha perform.feats on screen that don't fit the description of a short legged fighter of limited capabilities.
Jefffar wrote:Robotech isn't exactly what one would call a hard sci-fi. The capabilities of any of the mecha at any point in the series are more subject to writer and animators fiat than strict adherence to the rules of physics.
Jefffar wrote:We don't need an equation to justify the Alpha can do these things because we see them do it.
Jefffar wrote:Nothing in that statement disproves that we see the Alpha perform manoeuvres on screen very similar to what it would be required to do during the recovery of an Alpha fighter aboard an Ikazuchi.
Jefffar wrote:We don't see what the final step is, or know exactly where on the Ikazuchi that it gets recovered. But we can say the Alpha is shown to be able to do its part in the dance.
Seto wrote:That's why I suspect the notion that they're ready for another Zentradi attack is misleading... they know from Exedore that the Zentradi are all but wiped out, and the only thing they're likely to encounter might be a few stragglers who could be overpowered with inferior ships using the same numerical superiority tactics that are the UEEF's stock in trade. They're ready for what they'd be able to reasonably expect from what's left of the Zentradi, not what the Zentradi could bring when they were still a functioning military.
Seto wrote:The "recovery trapeze" approach may work for the pre-retrofit model, given that the machinery for it would fit neatly into the spacers between columns of Alphas.
Jeffar wrote:Shadowlogan, if the Alpha is truely a spacecraft it will have manoeuvring thrusters that can provide the impulse needed.
Seto wrote:The Alphas also use their own engines, rather than a catapult, to launch on the pre-retrofit Ikazuchi-class (presumably catapult-assisted on the post-retrofit type), which is also propellant-intensive.
Seto wrote: IIRC at one point one of us did the math and concluded that, to produce that kind of acceleration, the propellant would have to be coming out of the Alpha's engine nozzles at faster than the speed of light to produce the requisite acceleration with the volume available.
Seto wrote:There's also a slight problem in that the animators forgot the Shadow Fighter has no ventral engines to provide forward thrust in Guardian mode... which makes some of the maneuvers they were performing ALSO impossible.
Jeffar wrote:So you're agreeing we see the Alpha perform.feats on screen that don't fit the description of a short legged fighter of limited capabilities.
Arnie100 wrote:I always wondered HOW a Garfish recovered its fighters...
Bamse wrote:LeElf on Deviant Art has an interesting theory on Ikazuchis recovering Alphas involving the dorsal bay folding out Daedalus-style to make a runway. Really quite ingenious.
Jefffar wrote:I'm not saying the Alpha landed in Guardian, just that the Guardian modes manoeuvrability is up to the task of positioning itself prior to landing.
Jefffar wrote:English also have nothing confirming that the Alpha event back in the tube/bunker directly when it landed. We have nothing conclusively telling us how the aircraft were handled aboard ship. Having them fly back into the tubes is just assumption and conjecture.
Jefffar wrote:Remember that there was a point in time where Naval aviation meant landing your seaplane in the water next to your ship and then being lifted aboard by a crane. There's nothing saying the Ikazuchi is a passive part of the landing operation.
ShadowLogan wrote:How small I don't think we can say, but given the statement about the Tri-Star's capability in the Infopedia such a conflict it would appear to be 1:1 (though it should be noted the Tri-Star doesn't exactly qualify what Zentreadi ship types it would hold its own against alone, it could be the Scout for all we know and need assistance to deal with the bigger ships).
ShadowLogan wrote:Which is shown to be empty IIRC. I suppose the gantry's might extend outward. But I would suspect that if they are battloid mode they could land on the general hull and "walk" themselves into the slot faster and easier than lining up for a trapeze or crane if we are talking multiple recoveries.
ShadowLogan wrote:Seto pretty much has it covered. I'm just going to add We never see the Alpha in F mode move like a spacecraft should, it moves like an aircraft.
ShadowLogan wrote:While the Alpha to Shadow version is stated to drop the VTOL engines, and said engine (groin/rear) rotates between F/B and G modes, nothing prevents the Shadow Fighter from having a fixed engine in that location per say.
ShadowLogan wrote:(one of which IINM spawned the Alpha entry getting a revision in the Infopedia that put into place the makes no sense "lack of suborbital altitude" capability).
Seto wrote:The absence of a visible engine would tend to be a bit of a problem... though IIRC the Shadow Fighter entry does mention those engines being out-and-out removed.
glitterboy2098 wrote:the complaints about the alpha and it's orbital travels is false though. you can have the Delta-V for trans lunar trips, but still lack the thrust levels required to reach orbit. look at the Saturn V. the third stage had enough Delta-V to put the Command/Service Module onto a trans-lunar orbit.. but it would be unable to boost said module into low earth orbit on its own, requiring the first two stages.
glitterboy2098 wrote:in space travel, a long slow burn with a lower thrust engine is actually more efficient in terms of Delta-V than a short energetic one by a high thrust engine. the higher the thrust levels, the more wasteful of energy and reaction mass the engine tends to be.
glitterboy2098 wrote:the complaints about the alpha and it's orbital travels is false though. you can have the Delta-V for trans lunar trips, but still lack the thrust levels required to reach orbit.
glitterboy2098 wrote:in space travel, a long slow burn with a lower thrust engine is actually more efficient in terms of Delta-V than a short energetic one by a high thrust engine. the higher the thrust levels, the more wasteful of energy and reaction mass the engine tends to be.
ShadowLogan wrote:The Shadow Fighter is mentioned to drop the VTOL engines yes, but it doesn't say they are replaced with a non-VTOL engine in either bay. However there are a few propulsion engine options that might work with the visuals, but the use of said engine types* would be pure speculation at this point given the supporting material.
ShadowLogan wrote:True thrust is a potential pit-fall, but if one is using the OSM specs the Alpha does have enough thrust (even if we ignore the OSM spec, the official line is the Alpha has a high-thrust to weight ratio which can be taken to be greater than 1).
glitterboy2098 wrote:my point is that just because it has the Delta-V is sufficent for translunar travel has no bearing on whether it can go from ground to orbit.
glitterboy2098 wrote:i can easily see the VF-1 having a ratio of over 3. fusion rockets are enormously powerful. the main reason it would be limited once it got up there would just be fuel.. since it uses the same fuel for remass and reactor fuel (and the same engines as rockets and powersupply), by the time it reaches low orbit it would have drained most of its fuel for use as remass, and wouldn't be able to do much else without running out of power. (thus the advent of the booster rocket system to get it up there without using its own internal fuel.)
glitterboy2098 wrote:the Alpha on the otherhand might well just have more efficient engines (probably plasma, given the fluff for other PC powered mecha) making the best use of the limited remass tankageonboard*. lower thrust (and thus lower atmospheric speeds and no ability to get to orbit) but decent Delta-V. it just takes longer to effect an orbital change.
glitterboy2098 wrote:*not really has a lot of room for it, being smaller and having missile launchers packed in everywhere other mecha might fit a fuel tank.
Seto wrote:With nothing said WRT replacement of the removed engines, the safest assumption is that there was no replacement for those engines...
Seto wrote:Back-of-the-envelope math puts the T/W ratio at around 1.7241, but as noted above raw maximum thrust only counts as long as your propellant holds out or you're low enough in the atmosphere that you can use intake air as propellant. The Alpha's problem is, as Harmony Gold itself notes, a matter of insufficient propellant. (Remedied, as they note, by the addition of the Beta and its sizable onboard fuel tanks.)
glitterboy2098 wrote:my point is that just because it has the Delta-V is sufficent for translunar travel has no bearing on whether it can go from ground to orbit.
glitterboy2098 wrote:an ion drive can be built with enough delta-V to reach the moon (or mars, or even freaking pluto) but because the thrust is so low, it would be unable to get to orbit.
ShadowLogan wrote:I agree that would be the safe assumption that we treat it as an Animation Error until HG says otherwise, but it is not necessarily the only option (HG could "clarify" the issue after all, I'm not holding by breath for that to happen anytime soon though).
ShadowLogan wrote:And as noted, TSC's Wolf Recon depiction (assuming Apollo trip time and not something more energetic/shorter) flies in the face of that statement as the major maneuvers quickly add-up to showing the required Delta-V (and thus propellant load). The series itself doesn't provide anything like logical flight equal to Wolf Recon, but it does suggest that Sub-Orbital flight (minimum) is possible under its own power and comparing it to real-world systems.
ShadowLogan wrote:What should be done at this point is to take HG's Alpha statement as a general blanket statement, but amend it to allow for limited (earth) orbital flight within certain parameters (which the footage suggest, and a restriction I don't object to) and suborbital flight is possible (suborbital altitude to me is more of a non-sense phrase, you can be at an orbital altitude, but still not have sufficient velocity to be in orbit at said altitude which makes one suborbital by default). What the Beta would allow is a much wider operating parameters before requiring refuelling (among other things).
Jefffar wrote:Short legs in space is a relative term
Jefffar wrote:Remember the OSM had the Horizontal etc attacking from Mars. The Alpha's short range may be that it can't make this trip on its own (hence the carrier craft). Getting from Earth to the Moon is a very small fraction of this distance.
Seto wrote:Logically, we would've expected there to be a ship somewhere just offscreen that ferried them into the area and recovered them to return to ALuCE base, given that the series depicts the Beta (and its capacious fuel tanks) as a necessary addition to the Alpha in order to make a one way trip from Luna to Earth... a much more forgiving course in terms of delta-v budget than going the other way. If the Alpha were capable of making the one-way trip in any reasonable timeframe, there wouldn't have been any reason for the UEEF to send so many Ikazuchi-class and Garfish-class ships to ferry them directly to Earth's orbit. Especially glaring given how vulnerable those ships are... and the operating profile we're told applied to both the UEDF/ASC and UEEF carriers. These aren't long-range, high-endurance space fighters meant for long-range cruises or patrols... they're short-ranged fighters meant to be launched from a carrier in close proximity to an enemy ship or planet. They didn't really need long-range cruise capability, because they had fold-capable ships to ferry them directly to the target.
Jeffar wrote:Short legs in space is a relative term.
Jeffar wrote:Remember the OSM had the Horizontal etc attacking from Mars. The Alpha's short range may be that it can't make this trip on its own (hence the carrier craft). Getting from Earth to the Moon is a very small fraction of this distance.
ShadowLogan wrote:If we go with the external support material to establish the Alpha's performance there are actually a few logical options all of which have issues IMHO:
1. "single transport of some kind" (Garfish, Ik, Horizon). BUT we know the available ship types can all land at ALUCE, why send the fighters ahead solo when you could just land the ship (ep84/85 does have all 3 NG ship types lifting from the facility). A shuttle could have been used to ferry Marucs & Alex down more effectively (and probably rotate other personnel down at the same time).
ShadowLogan wrote:2. They used Betas for part of the transit, and left them in orbit (or they had them and omitted are treated as an AE OR evidence the UEEF has S.E.P technology -HHGTTG/LTUE ). The main problem here is there is no indication that the UEEF even uses the Beta in such a fashion. The closest we come is Sent OVA (AFAIK) on the test flight, but that was more of a field switch and a test flight. Marcus/Alex VF-6 cockpit displays DO show information on a connected Beta (IINM, but that could be an AE as they aren't seen)
ShadowLogan wrote:4. The Shadow Device itself can be used as a form of propulsion on its own or a "propulsion enhancer", which can be inferred from dialogue (TSC/series) and AotSC. But this means the (non-Super) Shadow Alpha should be in theory more agile than a regular unit, something I don't think we see, not to mention still remove the "short-legs in space".
ShadowLogan wrote:If these aren't compelling reasons the UEEF could have simply devoted the resources from ship building to building more Betas to augment every Alpha, even IF we ignore TSC (which sounds like a better idea every day).
ShadowLogan wrote:Jeffar wrote:Short legs in space is a relative term.
Yes it is, but we have some indication of how "short" those legs are given that it can't reach orbit from Earth's surface w/o assistance. That means that the total Delta-V (range determiner) available to the Alpha MUST fall under a fixed threshold (IIRC ~8kps, more if we consider velocity loss due to atmospheric drag and gravity on the trajectory or even specific orbital inclinations it will be a bit more).
Seto wrote:Presumably they would want to keep the reconnaissance operation as unobtrusive as possible, given that they would already have had reason to suspect that the Invid could still see a ship with a shadow field stealth system using regular optical sensors... but sending Shadow Fighters at all doesn't make sense, as they're not reconnaissance craft and not outfitted with any special detection systems. A shadow field-stealthed Garfish-class with the sensor pod would've made more sense...
Seto wrote:Using Betas for the transit is one of the more likely explanations, though the Betas displayed on the MFD in the cockpit during that sequence is a clear animation error since it shows them docked when no Betas are actually docked at that time.
Seto wrote:Seems unlikely... in the series they don't mention any kind of performance enhancement in connection with the shadow stealth feature. The way it's described isn't even consistent between those two versions, given that in the series the description makes the stealth out to be passive stealth as a result of design changes to the fighter's power plant, whereas in the OVA it's active stealth by way of an ersatz cloaking device.
The OVA and Prelude do indicate that shadow fields can be used for gravitational field damping, though the only occasion on which we see one used to escape a gravity well made it a fold system the active agent and the shadow field merely helped the fold bubble form properly. It would have been an interesting potential explanation... instead of anti-grav, a form of gravity-exemption for shadow stealthed craft that would permit them to ignore gravity wells. Kind of an inverse version of the Inertia Store Converter from Macross. 'course it would still be problematic, given that Marcus and Alex's shadow fighters are shown to have shadow fields turned off during the Wolf Recon scene. It would've had interesting implications for ships too...
Seto wrote:Probably less, given that the Alpha/Shadow fighter isn't using propellant fro the onboard tanks for the entire ascent either... for a good chunk of that it's using intake air instead, so the propellant limitations are probably significantly less than that ~9kps they'd need to launch to orbit from the surface and it STILL can't get there.