Escort SD

Roguevictory wrote:

KNick wrote:
Of course they are. Until, that is, the XO reminds the CO that he has to pay for any that he loses.

No navy in their right mind would impose such a rule. LACs are meant to be expendable. Not as expendable as missile but far more then any hyper-capable warship. Thus a reg which makes CLAC commanders terrified to put their LACS in harm's way would be utterly counterproductive.

Ummm... you *do* realize that was a joke, right?

JohnRoth wrote:

floss wrote:I wonder is it time for the arrival of the escort Superdreadnaught since thr GA uses massive missile salvoes.

A superdreadnaught armed uncomprising for shortrange antimissile work would carry thousands of antimissile missiles and if armed with something like the viper would be a monster close in and if arrayed in a wall on front of the wall of battle would be absolute brilliant in the anti missile role especially if it had escort lacs thet could take control of the counter missiles as the enemy missiles pass them .

To expand on Wierd Harold's reply: the latest tactic of having a hemispherical wall of LACs would work a lot better, simply because it's farther out, so the actual fleet being protected has more time to deal with leakers, and it has a wider field of coverage. LACs are a lot cheaper than SDs.

The ship you're thinking of is called a CLAC.

Plus you can't physically cram all that many CM launchers onto even as SD hull. Probably the Invictus class, which suppressed all broadside MDMs tubes are pushing the limit on how many / how close you can cram them; and it carries 84 CMs in each broadside. The CMs have to have clearance (either laterally or temporally to light off their 10km wide drives w/o mutual interference.

So even if you wanted to build a dedicated escort SD you'd have to go to something like CM pods to get the anti-missile launches up to what a LAC wing can dish out. It only takes 17 Kanatas to exceed the CM tube count of an Invictus's broadside; though it'd take 42 to exceed what the Invictus can launch if it rolls wedge and launches from all tubes (keyhole controlled). But even the original Medusa-class CLACs carried 100 LACs.


Though to be fair the Invictus can sustain it's CM fire for far longer than the LACs. But counterbalancing that the LACs can usually position themselves far enough down the thread axis to erode the incoming missiles before they enter the main fleet's basket; and thinning them out early is more useful than that same number of extra CM in the main basket.

MaxxQ wrote:

Roguevictory wrote:


No navy in their right mind would impose such a rule. LACs are meant to be expendable. Not as expendable as missile but far more then any hyper-capable warship. Thus a reg which makes CLAC commanders terrified to put their LACS in harm's way would be utterly counterproductive.

Ummm... you *do* realize that was a joke, right?

When on the internet its often hard to be certain.

Plus, Remember in these times that having a great number of LAC's instead of much fewer anything 'elses' would seem to be far more important when the dirty hits the air movement device!!!!!

No argument that LAC's give you maximum depth and the ability to protect from several angles of attack and are superior to an all-CM ship.

But...what if you don't have LACs with the Viper? Or CLAC's to take them where you need them?

I could see the Sollies or one of the SDF's (at least some of them), trying something like this (perhaps with a converted cargo ship dropping pods) in an attempt to find a way--any way--to somehow blunt the massive advantage the GA/Manticorian missiles currently have.

But the GA..no need for specialized ships, their defense has been tested in the cauldron of war and found to be effective....for the present.

As for the future...the MWW has yet to tell us....

We shall see...eventually.

Assuming that the SLN has the time to begin work on a wave of new design projects, I can definitely someone at least suggesting this sort of ship. Possibly a classic armchair admiral, a student of history who's convinced that nothing ever really changes once you get down to the fundamentals. Oh, if only the Navy would listen! But the brass hats are so in love with their shiny new ships that they just can't see that the solution to the Manticoran Missile Massacre (TM) was found two thousand years ago. If only they'd read their history, they'd know about something called the Ticonderoga-class cruiser, built to face just such a challenge. A modern day Ticonderoga would surely solve all the SLN's problems. Why, at a single stroke Battle Fleet could be rendered immune to missile attack! The vicious, barbarous Manties would be powerless! Battles would be conducted at energy range again, as they were supposed to be.

You are getting me wrong I ment a sd armed massively with counter missiles .

The problem with lacs is their small magazine size not their capabilities .Think in the terms of shells the lacs first attack the missile storm then when their missiles are exhausted they use their control linkages to control missile volleys launched by the sd. Therebuy enlarging the intercept basket to a far larger area .No stern chases.

The Clacs and the long range podnauts should be as as far as possible back so that their firepower can be deployed effectively without being hammered by enemy fire.

As for putting lacs in harms way the Kantana is built just to do that

Dafmeister wrote:Assuming that the SLN has the time to begin work on a wave of new design projects, I can definitely someone at least suggesting this sort of ship. Possibly a classic armchair admiral, a student of history who's convinced that nothing ever really changes once you get down to the fundamentals. Oh, if only the Navy would listen! But the brass hats are so in love with their shiny new ships that they just can't see that the solution to the Manticoran Missile Massacre (TM) was found two thousand years ago. If only they'd read their history, they'd know about something called the Ticonderoga-class cruiser, built to face just such a challenge. A modern day Ticonderoga would surely solve all the SLN's problems. Why, at a single stroke Battle Fleet could be rendered immune to missile attack! The vicious, barbarous Manties would be powerless! Battles would be conducted at energy range again, as they were supposed to be.

Actually, the SLN has a drop in approach available - they have already developed the Aegis CM control plugs for CA/BC and SD missile tubes to thicken their CM launches.

The Aegis system allows more control channels for CMs at the expense of 2 missile tubes - 1 is plugged with the control plug, a 2nd is used to fire CM canisters.

One could imagine an SD with 1/2 of a broadside filled with control plugs and the other 1/2 filled with CM canisters as an "instant" escort SD. No new design necessary, and minimal yard time.

Of course, SLN SD shipkiller tube cycle times are ~45 seconds, compared to Manty CM cycle times of 8 seconds, so it is possible 1 Aegis plug could control several tubes launching canisters at staggered intervals.

Floss, I understand what you mean, but you're talking about exactly the sort of specialist design that Honorverse navies don't like. You're left with a problematic decision. Do you either

A) include this escort SD (SDE?) in with regular SDs, or

B) build it alongside other SDs that skimp on CM tubes in favour of more offensive firepower?

If you go with option A, you're reducing the firepower of your fleet in favour of defence. It may take longer to kill you, but it'll take you longer to kill your enemy as well, so the benefits are debatable, to say the least.

If you go with option B, you have the same balance of offensive and defensive power, but you've concentrated your defence in fewer hulls, which will be spitting out huge clumps of CMs. If your enemy has decent recon drones (and if you're planning ship designs for your navy, you absolutely have to assume that if you want to do an even marginally competent job), then they'll identify where those clusters are coming from in pretty short order and concentrate their fire on those SDEs, taking them one at a time if need be to overwhelm their defences. Once they've killed or crippled the SDEs, your 'attack' SDs are going to die in very short order.

Theemile wrote:Actually, the SLN has a drop in approach available - they have already developed the Aegis CM control plugs for CA/BC and SD missile tubes to thicken their CM launches.

The Aegis system allows more control channels for CMs at the expense of 2 missile tubes - 1 is plugged with the control plug, a 2nd is used to fire CM canisters.

Are you sure the Aegis is a plug and not a replacement for a missile tube?