>Are the Manticore vessels (ie 3-km long super dreadnoughts) different
>than they were in the books? I'd think a wall of battle using those
>ships could even give an SDF class vessel a run for it's money.

Not really - they're not maneuverable enough and they (mostly) can't shield fore or aft. Even a third rate UF navy has ships that could get into those zones and just rip the ships apart.

>And how do grasers (standard energy armament for Manticorian vessels)
>work? They seem to be able to penetrate shields in the book series,
>but since UF uses many different technologies, I'm not sure how they
>stack up against other vessels, IE Starfleet/GENOM/WDF.

Grasers are to Gamma Radiation what Lasers are to Light. Basically more powerful energy weapons but not by a huge amount. Presumably above a certain level, Grasers are more efficent than Lasers so Graser = big energy gun and Laser = small energy gun in the Honor Harrington books. Baen's forum probably has some threads discussing this sort of thing.

drakensisthered

So I simply said one of the great trite truths: "There is generally more than one side to a story." - Corwin, Roger Zelazny's 'Courts of Chaos'