Screening Elements

I suppose one has to consider that there must exist a buffer between your most important asset on the battlefield... like Honor.

Yet there were times when the tactics of the day found the King leading the charge.

cthia wrote:I suppose one has to consider that there must exist a buffer between your most important asset on the battlefield... like Honor.

Yet there were times when the tactics of the day found the King leading the charge.

I suppose that one more astute than I, like myself or me, can argue that if one looks at the entire strategic operation of war as a small scale mockup simulation moved around a huge tabletop with a long pointer, then Honor's entire Eighth fleet and all other fleets can be viewed as more profound screens of the Star Empire.

You end up using your screen (typicaly lighter units) two ways. Scouting out front and preventing enemy platforms from getting within weapons range of your capital units.

We see both in the WW's and in the Honorverse. In both time frames it was a relatively fluid environment. WW I and evolving to WW II was keeping torpedo boats and the mostly submarines off warships and merchant ships. That evolved mostly to keeping aircraft and some subs off your high value targets.
Honorverse has the same progression from light ships to LACs in real-space to cut down on 1st missile weapons and keep the other side from moving around you. What you end up with at this pointis LACs as the initial and greatest depth of defence agains missile weapons. The "screen" of lighter ships ends up augmenting your recon drone envelope for not so much detection but passing along tactical input on statis and probable intent of your enemy. The LACs are so much better at both avoiding missiles (mostly by not getting locked up by the targeting) and engaging closer to the projected engagement envelope to destory enemy missiles.

The analogy of the American football screen breaks down in a naval engagement since you don't have the various pieces at compairable strenghths and end game scenario (in each play rather than the whole game). Your halfback or end does't have to destroy or even seriously harm anything, they just have to cross a line with the ball higher than the ground. Weather thay make it or not, the other "players" are moslty only trying to keep that run (or pass) from being effective, not destroying whatever they get within contact range of.

cthia wrote:

Theemile wrote:Unfortunately, one of the best diagrams explaining the pre-pod screen is in the RMN Jayne's book. It does a good job of showing a Batron with proper screening elements and their positions. Of special note is the inner screen, which has 2 very important jobs:

1) add to the anti-missile fire.
2) to cover the vulnerable wedge aspects of the larger ships

The second is more important; the smaller ships, usually CAs or BCs, are the first line of defense for the larger ship's vulnerable aspects. Their laser clusters, wedges and physical bodies protect to openings in the wall's armor.

I wonder how much more effective Raging Justice would have been if it were properly screened. In the end it still would not have mattered, but more of Honor's ships would have been scratched.

Thanks for this post Themile. It answered a very important question of mine. I was wondering if there were "layers" or just one big defensive line of screens. Because, of course, there is much difference in the acceleration and capabilities of LACs and Cruisers.

For my own clarity, regarding LACs and Cruisers, would the first line of defense be the LACs? Which seems to be representative of text, yet the fastest of the screens would be the Cruisers, yet the Cruisers don't lead the screen. Puzzling.

I suppose the CM defense of the LACs clouds intuition and dictates tactics.

I've been researching to no avail for available screening mechanics. Now I know why. I've got to get my paws on a copy of Jayne's. I think I've got the cash in case my clearance fails.

The modern screen has added a layer. The outer screen is usually made up of recon LACs now, and agumented by the DDs or CLs which originally served as strategic scouting in advance of the fleet. But, a new middle layer of LACs now exists to deal with the missile threat before it hits the core Wall and inner screen. How much the inner screen's positioning now protects the vulnerable aspects of the Wall's wedges has not really been mentioned, especially since in many cases there is not a vulnerable aspect (depending on the navy), or the doctrine is still in flux as the technology has changed.

I'd like to point out that for the formal wall of battle, i.e. something built around a BatRon, rather than a BatCruRon, which can also 'wall' btw (we just never see them do it because we never see a battle where there are several BCs, in concentration, on both sides and nothing heavier), the light elements of the screen are actually behind the wall, despite the fact that their PDCLs weren't strong enought to effectively contribute to the defenses of the capital ships from that position.
As for the outer destroyers and light cruisers, we don't actually see them any longer, yes we see them as scouts, but those, for the RMN anyway, are strategic ones. MWW has noted that one possible direction for the RMN to go is to have battlefleets that have only have scouts and capital ships in terms of hypercapable warships.

cthia wrote:

Theemile wrote:Unfortunately, one of the best diagrams explaining the pre-pod screen is in the RMN Jayne's book. It does a good job of showing a Batron with proper screening elements and their positions. Of special note is the inner screen, which has 2 very important jobs:

1) add to the anti-missile fire.
2) to cover the vulnerable wedge aspects of the larger ships

The second is more important; the smaller ships, usually CAs or BCs, are the first line of defense for the larger ship's vulnerable aspects. Their laser clusters, wedges and physical bodies protect to openings in the wall's armor.

I wonder how much more effective Raging Justice would have been if it were properly screened. In the end it still would not have mattered, but more of Honor's ships would have been scratched.

Thanks for this post Themile. It answered a very important question of mine. I was wondering if there were "layers" or just one big defensive line of screens. Because, of course, there is much difference in the acceleration and capabilities of LACs and Cruisers.

For my own clarity, regarding LACs and Cruisers, would the first line of defense be the LACs? Which seems to be representative of text, yet the fastest of the screens would be the Cruisers, yet the Cruisers don't lead the screen. Puzzling.

I suppose the CM defense of the LACs clouds intuition and dictates tactics.

I've been researching to no avail for available screening mechanics. Now I know why. I've got to get my paws on a copy of Jayne's. I think I've got the cash in case my clearance fails.

Theemile wrote:The modern screen has added a layer. The outer screen is usually made up of recon LACs now, and agumented by the DDs or CLs which originally served as strategic scouting in advance of the fleet. But, a new middle layer of LACs now exists to deal with the missile threat before it hits the core Wall and inner screen. How much the inner screen's positioning now protects the vulnerable aspects of the Wall's wedges has not really been mentioned, especially since in many cases there is not a vulnerable aspect (depending on the navy), or the doctrine is still in flux as the technology has changed.

Well, it's just my retarded brain carrying too much baggage then sending it in a loop to be refiltered again. This refiltering process inside my head places LACs just under the sentient scale of kamikrazies. You essentially have eggshells screening tanks from other tanks.

Please don't get it twisted - I do NOT like Pavel Young. But, I can understand the human side of his fear when Honor wanted his ships to be held in close in a tightly packed screen.

Young was NOT the type to be a screen and take a bullet for anyone. LET ALONE take missiles for that baseborn B-TCH! (no vowel no foul)

HungryKing wrote:I'd like to point out that for the formal wall of battle, i.e. something built around a BatRon, rather than a BatCruRon, which can also 'wall' btw (we just never see them do it because we never see a battle where there are several BCs, in concentration, on both sides and nothing heavier), the light elements of the screen are actually behind the wall, despite the fact that their PDCLs weren't strong enought to effectively contribute to the defenses of the capital ships from that position.
As for the outer destroyers and light cruisers, we don't actually see them any longer, yes we see them as scouts, but those, for the RMN anyway, are strategic ones. MWW has noted that one possible direction for the RMN to go is to have battlefleets that have only have scouts and capital ships in terms of hypercapable warships.

Makes sense, and something I'd been kind of assuming.

A spot where, when screening a formation of CAs or even BCs might be filled by a DD, would likely be filled by at least a CA while screening SDs. The rough formations are probably similar, but the minimum weight of ship you'd want exposed to hostile fire would vary with the expected weight of that fire. (Modern LACs are a special case because they're surprisingly survivable in the face of MDM fire because they're so far outside the targeting parameters of the missiles, plus have good ECM and point defense)

But the increased range of missile combat also removed some of the uses for the classic screens. When a destroyer charge only had to survive a few mission km it might be worth the risk of dividing the enemy's attention to try and curl around to make down the throat shots (bypassing the sidewalls).

But when you've got to survive 10s of millions of km to do the same against someone carrying MDMs there's virtually no chance of success even if the enemy screen doesn't intervene - so you're unlikely to even risk the attempt (and the enemy's MDMs would likely end any suicidal attempt long before their screen could get involved).

The joys of tactics and strategy having to evolve as technological options change.

I don't have the stories handy. And I've just put to bed a home full of people playing silly games, roasting marshmallows, eating cotton candy, popcorn, brandy... yatta yatta yatta.

Anyways, I don't recall if Honor's ship was screened when she was shot down on Grayson. I suppose sting ships aren't exactly an effective screen from shoulder launched missiles.

Doubtful an airborne ship could have shot Honor down. Yet a shoulder launcher did quite well for itself.

Reminds me of a saying by a well liked engineer...

The more advanced the plumbing the easier it is to plug the drain.

-- Montgomery Scott, USS Enterprise no A, B, C or bloody D.

Jonathan_S wrote:

HungryKing wrote:I'd like to point out that for the formal wall of battle, i.e. something built around a BatRon, rather than a BatCruRon, which can also 'wall' btw (we just never see them do it because we never see a battle where there are several BCs, in concentration, on both sides and nothing heavier), the light elements of the screen are actually behind the wall, despite the fact that their PDCLs weren't strong enought to effectively contribute to the defenses of the capital ships from that position.
As for the outer destroyers and light cruisers, we don't actually see them any longer, yes we see them as scouts, but those, for the RMN anyway, are strategic ones. MWW has noted that one possible direction for the RMN to go is to have battlefleets that have only have scouts and capital ships in terms of hypercapable warships.

Makes sense, and something I'd been kind of assuming.

A spot where, when screening a formation of CAs or even BCs might be filled by a DD, would likely be filled by at least a CA while screening SDs. The rough formations are probably similar, but the minimum weight of ship you'd want exposed to hostile fire would vary with the expected weight of that fire. (Modern LACs are a special case because they're surprisingly survivable in the face of MDM fire because they're so far outside the targeting parameters of the missiles, plus have good ECM and point defense)

But the increased range of missile combat also removed some of the uses for the classic screens. When a destroyer charge only had to survive a few mission km it might be worth the risk of dividing the enemy's attention to try and curl around to make down the throat shots (bypassing the sidewalls).

But when you've got to survive 10s of millions of km to do the same against someone carrying MDMs there's virtually no chance of success even if the enemy screen doesn't intervene - so you're unlikely to even risk the attempt (and the enemy's MDMs would likely end any suicidal attempt long before their screen could get involved).

The joys of tactics and strategy having to evolve as technological options change.

Did Manticore and Haven always have the luxury of screening elements? When their respective navies were relatively small, in size and depth?

I imagine there are small navies now that haven't the luxury of a screen. Where their entire navy indeed is the screen.

cthia wrote:I imagine there are small navies now that haven't the luxury of a screen. Where their entire navy indeed is the screen.

If your navy consists of two destroyers then the idea of a screen is pretty much out the window.