Originally published at: Hold the Eggs | The Eldraeverse
Bacon Maneuver: A stealth tactic used by sailing masters with no sense of self-preservation, the Bacon Maneuver involves hiding a small starship within the drive wake of a larger vessel. Large, multiple-drive craft often have “sweet spots” close in where the drive plumes have not yet impinged on one another, and thus in which a small vessel can lurk without being instantly immolated by the larger vessel’s torches. In such a position, the small starship relies on the “white-out” of sensors looking directly at the drive plume to conceal its own presence. Carrying this out is fraught with a number…
The question is, how does the small craft sneak up to the large one and snuggle into the sweet spot in the first place?
With extraordinary care.
In practice, most applications of the Bacon Maneuver involve a cooperating larger craft, like sneaking a scout or a starfighter in hidden in a freighter’s drive plume, the freighter captain either being hired by Admiralty Intelligence or persuaded to cooperate by the application of generous bribes.
The ones which aren’t involve making your way in there in close-orbit space or during CQC (a trick best left to AKVs only), taking advantage of the fact that the larger ship’s sensors are at their least effective trying to see through their own drive plume. This is about as good an idea as it sounds like.