What about DN(P)s for the GA?

crewdude48 wrote:

wastedfly wrote:We have tons of information in MWW's universe. You have a brain crewdude48; use it. Propose this new and improved system that balances offensive tractored Apollo pod alpha strikes. Stating in thread after thread; NOT INVENTED HERE is not a valid argument.

New defensive systems? Here are a few that were invented right here on this forum. A longer range CM with a grav receiver instead of a laser receiver allowing longer range intercepts. The Naginata drone; an unmanned version of a Katana, smaller, with deeper CM magazines and five to ten times the accel. The Tortuga drones; small drones that fly next to the ship that can rotate to place its wedge parallel to the sidewall, within the ships wedge, a.k.a. "turning turtle." A way to jam the FTL link on the Apollo Control Missile, or maybe just a massive "gravitic noise" generator, to "burn out" (if that is even possible) the reciever.

Yes, they all have issues; I have even argued against the Tortuga drones.

Heck, when the Grand Fleet takes out Yedlin, they might find some cool new piece of tech on the Technodyne mainframe that Battle Fleet was uninterested in, and was classified and forgotten. Improbable but possible.

However, with Hemphill and Foraker working together and with their universe's All-Mighty Being on their side, I do not believe that they will be unable to do something to make GA ships much more survivable. And if they can, DNs that are designed to fight for only twenty minutes will be useless.

And in addition to the fan speculated systems we still haven't seen how the Lorelei decoys are supposed to work (or how well they work).

I'm not sure much more effective longer endurance free flying decoys are going be against Apollo fire, especially if someone managed to get an RD anywhere near them before the firefight starts. But Honor seemed to think they would be, and BuWeap and BuShips by and large aren't composed of idiots; so if they think this is a significant improvement even in the face of Apollo then there's likely something there we don't know about yet. (Of course we know almost nothing about them, so I guess we'll have to see)

Dafmeister wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:I think you misunderstood what wastedfly was saying. He wasn't claiming that a 6MT DN had the same number of defensive emplacements as an 8MT SD.

Rather he was saying consider two different 48MT units of wallers. Because 6MT DNs carry more than 75% the defensive emplacements of 8MT SDs, the 8 DNs in their 48MT wall of battle will have more CM tubes and PDLCs than the 6 SDs in their 48MT wall of battle.


Which is true, as far as it goes.
But since costs don't scale that way, and ships aren't normally allocated to systems by mass, it seems (to me) a largely pointless bit of comparison. The 8 DNs will take longer and cost more to build, then cost more to man and maintain than the 6 SDs.

No, I understood perfectly. I'm saying that (with the proviso that, as I stated, I don't have HoS available at the moment) I don't believe that 48Mt of DN(P)s will carry a worthwhile increase (or perhaps even any increase) in defensive armament over 48Mt of SD(P)s. Certainly not enough to compensate for the inherently weaker hulls.

I admit I hadn't gone back and checked either, but I was pretty sure that HoS had DNs and SDs fairly close in defensive armament.

And logically since the cube-square law means that surface area falls more slowely than internal volume and CM tubes, fire-control link antennas, and PDLCs should be more restricted by surface area than by internal volume you'd expect a DN massing 25% less to have more than 75% the defensive armaments of the SD.

That said I'm surprised by the numbers Hutch posted.
Now my ebook copy of HoS (sadly just the eARC, my final edit copy is a hardcover which I don't have handy) lists the Bellerophon-Class at about 7MT (6,985,250 tons). But even so it's 16% smaller and carries carries 84% the CM tubes and 80% the PDLCs of the Gryphon-class.
At least with those two classes the defensive emplacements are scaling almost linearly with total mass (with PDLCs falling slightly faster than that). So equivalent tonnage of those ships would have basically the same numbers of CM tubes and PDLC emplacements; with a slight edge in the later for the SDs.

Like I said, I'm surprised.
Though what we don't know is what the maximum number would be that could be placed on each size hull. The newer designs seem to show that the 1900 PD era ships carried far less than the max number of mounts you could cram onto a hull their size.

crewdude48 wrote:New defensive systems? Here are a few that were invented right here on this forum. A longer range CM with a grav receiver instead of a laser receiver allowing longer range intercepts. The Naginata drone; an unmanned version of a Katana, smaller, with deeper CM magazines and five to ten times the accel. The Tortuga drones; small drones that fly next to the ship that can rotate to place its wedge parallel to the sidewall, within the ships wedge, a.k.a. "turning turtle." A way to jam the FTL link on the Apollo Control Missile, or maybe just a massive "gravitic noise" generator, to "burn out" (if that is even possible) the reciever.

IIRC, all those are Lord Skimper's ideas and are rife with his willful ignorance of what is and isn't possible in the Honorverse.

A CM with a grav receiver would be the size of an Apollo control missile -- because, you know, the ACM is so big because they couldn't cram FTL comm into anything smaller.

A remote control Katana is probably technically possible but would lose much of the flexibility of a manned Katana -- eg they'd be easy targets for counter-battery fire.

The "Drone turned sideways" is borrowed from the Travis Long short story and the trick only worked because of the low speed of that era's missiles and the specific attack geometry of that particular battle. Advocates of the concept choose to ignore that Travis Long was totally blind while the missile's wedge was in position.

Weird Harold wrote:

crewdude48 wrote:New defensive systems? Here are a few that were invented right here on this forum. A longer range CM with a grav receiver instead of a laser receiver allowing longer range intercepts. The Naginata drone; an unmanned version of a Katana, smaller, with deeper CM magazines and five to ten times the accel. The Tortuga drones; small drones that fly next to the ship that can rotate to place its wedge parallel to the sidewall, within the ships wedge, a.k.a. "turning turtle." A way to jam the FTL link on the Apollo Control Missile, or maybe just a massive "gravitic noise" generator, to "burn out" (if that is even possible) the reciever.

IIRC, all those are Lord Skimper's ideas and are rife with his willful ignorance of what is and isn't possible in the Honorverse.

A CM with a grav receiver would be the size of an Apollo control missile -- because, you know, the ACM is so big because they couldn't cram FTL comm into anything smaller.

A remote control Katana is probably technically possible but would lose much of the flexibility of a manned Katana -- eg they'd be easy targets for counter-battery fire.

The "Drone turned sideways" is borrowed from the Travis Long short story and the trick only worked because of the low speed of that era's missiles and the specific attack geometry of that particular battle. Advocates of the concept choose to ignore that Travis Long was totally blind while the missile's wedge was in position.

Actually that first one was mine. It was based off the thought that maybe a receive only FTL antenna designed to work over < 5 million km might be radically smaller than the ACM's transmit/receive FTL communicator designed to work over 65 million km.

(Transmitting seems to need something akin to a customized drive node, receiving can be done with a normal grav sensor)

Though I also specifically said I wasn't sure if it was technically possible; just that it was an interesting possibility. And, if possible, could be very effective even without an FTL comm link from the CM back to the ship.



The others though I take no responsibility for. I think the remote control Katana was Skimper's, though I think the drone turned sideways was from someone else (and also, I believe, predated the Travis Long short story. I specifically recall reading that one and groaning that it gave ammo to the people advocating for wedge shield drones)

Jonathan_S wrote:I admit I hadn't gone back and checked either, but I was pretty sure that HoS had DNs and SDs fairly close in defensive armament.

And logically since the cube-square law means that surface area falls more slowely than internal volume and CM tubes, fire-control link antennas, and PDLCs should be more restricted by surface area than by internal volume you'd expect a DN massing 25% less to have more than 75% the defensive armaments of the SD.

That said I'm surprised by the numbers Hutch posted.
Now my ebook copy of HoS (sadly just the eARC, my final edit copy is a hardcover which I don't have handy) lists the Bellerophon-Class at about 7MT (6,985,250 tons). But even so it's 16% smaller and carries carries 84% the CM tubes and 80% the PDLCs of the Gryphon-class.
At least with those two classes the defensive emplacements are scaling almost linearly with total mass (with PDLCs falling slightly faster than that). So equivalent tonnage of those ships would have basically the same numbers of CM tubes and PDLC emplacements; with a slight edge in the later for the SDs.

Like I said, I'm surprised.
Though what we don't know is what the maximum number would be that could be placed on each size hull. The newer designs seem to show that the 1900 PD era ships carried far less than the max number of mounts you could cram onto a hull their size.

Don't forget, the 1900-era ships were carrying greater numbers of energy mounts and shipkiller missile tubes, especially on the hammerheads. Getting rid of those frees up hull space for increased defensive mounts.

Weird Harold wrote:IIRC, all those are Lord Skimper's ideas and are rife with his willful ignorance of what is and isn't possible in the Honorverse.

A CM with a grav receiver would be the size of an Apollo control missile -- because, you know, the ACM is so big because they couldn't cram FTL comm into anything smaller.

A remote control Katana is probably technically possible but would lose much of the flexibility of a manned Katana -- eg they'd be easy targets for counter-battery fire.

The "Drone turned sideways" is borrowed from the Travis Long short story and the trick only worked because of the low speed of that era's missiles and the specific attack geometry of that particular battle. Advocates of the concept choose to ignore that Travis Long was totally blind while the missile's wedge was in position.

I do not know who originated some of them, but I assure you, none of those ideas are Skimper's.

As Jonathan said about his idea, the ACM has a transmitter and a receiver designed to work over many light minutes, the CM would be receive only over 5 million KM.

The Naginata would have both an FTL com link to the main formation and a top level AI, on par with or superior to the one on the ACM. It would still have a massive ECM installation, and while it would probably be a slightly easier target than a Katana, I do not think its loss rate would be too much higher, also it is cheaper to lose and does not cost crew when it is destroyed. Furthermore, every missile that is targeted at the Naginata drones is not targeted at the wall.

The Tortuga drones are not missiles. That is why it is called a drone. Missiles have on/off impeller nodes, drones can change acceleration, turn off then back on, and can go at whatever speed they want. We have seen recon drones pace enemy fleets, so I am sure they could travel at the same speed as your own fleet. Again, as Jonathan said, this idea predates the Travis Long story. While I personally think this idea is a no go, at the ranges involved in Apollo missile combat, being blind for a handfull of seconds is a much smaller issue than it would have been in the days of SDM combat. And it definitely beats being blown into your constituent atoms.

Most of those ideas have been around for 9 years in numerous different forms. Ever since AAC came out.

I believe bafoote proposed the singular shield drone that resides between the wedge planes of the starship. Rotating to let missiles out. Is possible with Keyhole acting as a sensor communication array. Before keyhole, it is frankly a last ditch turtle to get the Heck out of dodge.

Yea, I lurked on the bar and here for many years before posting.

Hi Weird Harold,

The Shrike-A had only 52 CM's, all forward.

The Shrike-B had 100, 4 tubes and 72 CM's forward, 4 tubes and 28 CM at the stern, presumably 7 shot revolvers being the most efficient use of space on a 20,000 ton hull.

The Ferret class carried 150 CM's besides its 56 ship killers which were slightly bigger or more massive than the DD/CL class 70 ton missiles of OBS, evidently in the CA/BC range of 78-80 tons.

At just 78 tons each for the ship killers, that's a total missile payload of 6243 tons, or just over 30% of the ship's mass, and at 12.5 tons per CM, implies 499 could be carried if there were handling equipment to transfer all of them to the launchers.

I've noted before we don't know the mass of the Mk-31 and Viper; personally I'll be surprised if they aren't at least in the 20-25 ton range, for a range of up to 250-312 Mk-31'/Vipers aboard Katana's, more than most appear to credit the Katana.

It may be the 5 CM tubes indicate the relative limit of fire control links, if revolver launchers can dump one ~78 ton missile per second for several seconds then CM's revolver launchers ought to be rather faster, and reload again in ~8 seconds and repeat, so providing 4-5 such volleys in the Mk-31's 75 second range of 3,588,750 km from rest, so the Katana might be able to handle launching around 120-125 Mk-31/Vipers each per defensive cycle or 2 enemy missile salvo's.

So boosting fire control links might be one area of research, possibly from RD data relays etc, even with Viper's 'fire and forget' AI seeker ability to supplement those Mk-31's under full fire control.

If Invictus SDP's can now volley launch and control both broadside CM's every 8 seconds thanks to Keyhole 2 platforms, then they can put out nearly ~1600 in that same time to clean up the leakers from the CLAC's LAC's several thousand CM's (from around 50% of the CLAC's LAC's being Katana's, the rest being Shrike-B's) to eliminate likely missile attacks from BF SD types unless ambushed and outnumbered by around 200-1, which I don't see happening very often, or ~24 to 1 in some hyper transfer point.

L

Weird Harold wrote:

wastedfly wrote:Katana's have 5 tubes and roughly 150-175CM depending on how one interprets the text when comparing itself to Ferrets/Shrike. Maybe as many as 250? One salvo every 8s obtains a drain time of 30-35 launches or 240s at max rate. Another way of saying that in even an MDM battle such as BoMa, Katana's are next to useless half way into a missile storm battle. Katana's help against first alpha strike; True. Part of the future solution? Yes. Current solution? No.

Even if the LACs are held to close support of the wall, one CLAC load of Katanas provided 500 launchers and ~~20,000 CMs plus 100+ PDLCs. Where else are you going to fit that much anti-missile capability in a single hull?

LACs are indeed part of the solution, because they aren't intended to stop all of a massive missile storm, their role is to thin out the missile storm so that the second level (destroyer/cruiser screen) of missile defense can thin it out enough for the third (Wall CMs) and fourth (wall PDLCs) levels to dispose of what remains.

The Shrike-B had 100, 4 tubes and 72 CM's forward, 4 tubes and 28 CM at the stern, presumably 7 shot revolvers being the most efficient use of space on a 20,000 ton hull.

The CMs are split evenly fore and aft.

lyonheart wrote:I've noted before we don't know the mass of the Mk-31 and Viper; personally I'll be surprised if they aren't at least in the 20-25 ton range, for a range of up to 250-312 Mk-31'/Vipers aboard Katana's, more than most appear to credit the Katana.

Then be surprised.