Delayed CM activation

Theemile wrote:Somtaaw, you're confusing the hyperfield with the compensator. The Saladin was able to extend it's hyperfield far enough to encapsulate the lacs and drag them into hyper, but they were outside the compensator field which only extends a couple of 10s of meters from the hull as best.

So I was, but I found the textev I was originally thinking of. Fourth Yeltsin, when Honor snuck 6 superdreadnoughts into range of Citizen Admiral Thurston's Battleships.

Flag in Exile, Chapter 33, third paragraph wrote:Honor's battlecruisers had only two missile pods apiece. That was all they could tow without massive degradation of their acceleration rates. But superdreadnoughts were big enough they could actually tractor the pods inside their wedges, where they had no effect at all on acceleration, and now each of her ships of the wall deployed a lumpy, ungainly tail of no less than ten pods. They were ugly, clumsy, and fragile, those pods—but each of them also mounted ten box launchers loaded with missiles even larger and more powerful than a superdreadnought's missile tubes could fire.

Bolded the key bit. So even pre-podnought, pods towed inside a wedge aren't influenced by wedge maneuvers. I believe by the end of the war, even Manticoran BC's could tow a few pods inside the wedge, not counting flat-packs.

Somtaaw wrote:

Theemile wrote:Somtaaw, you're confusing the hyperfield with the compensator. The Saladin was able to extend it's hyperfield far enough to encapsulate the lacs and drag them into hyper, but they were outside the compensator field which only extends a couple of 10s of meters from the hull as best.

So I was, but I found the textev I was originally thinking of. Fourth Yeltsin, when Honor snuck 6 superdreadnoughts into range of Citizen Admiral Thurston's Battleships.

Flag in Exile, Chapter 33, third paragraph wrote:Honor's battlecruisers had only two missile pods apiece. That was all they could tow without massive degradation of their acceleration rates. But superdreadnoughts were big enough they could actually tractor the pods inside their wedges, where they had no effect at all on acceleration, and now each of her ships of the wall deployed a lumpy, ungainly tail of no less than ten pods. They were ugly, clumsy, and fragile, those pods—but each of them also mounted ten box launchers loaded with missiles even larger and more powerful than a superdreadnought's missile tubes could fire.

Bolded the key bit. So even pre-podnought, pods towed inside a wedge aren't influenced by wedge maneuvers. I believe by the end of the war, even Manticoran BC's could tow a few pods inside the wedge, not counting flat-packs.

That text just means that the acceleration of the superdreadnought is not affected by the towed pods; it does not mean that the pods themselves are unaffected by wedge maneuvers.

What SWM said, they wouldn't need to use tractors if the pods where affected by the wedge.

So, no one really has any problems with Delayed CM activation especially in the case of providing additional CM's for forward deployed LAC's.

Otherwise the only major "problem" is the # of "control links".

Not really. I mean given the size of the wedges there's probably a lower limit on how many you can pack together in one salvo before mutual interference of wedges makes it impossible to drive control links through because of mutual blocking, but that's about it.

Relax wrote:So, no one really has any problems with Delayed CM activation especially in the case of providing additional CM's for forward deployed LAC's.

Otherwise the only major "problem" is the # of "control links".

Well, the other problem is that it only works if the launching ships are accelerating away from the enemy, instead of toward the enemy. If the two sides are accelerating toward each other, or they are both accelerating toward the same point from different angles, this trick would not work. It only works in a stern chase scenario, which is not very common with fleets.

Michelle Henke did something similar with attack missiles just before she was captured. So in principle, it could work in those special circumstances, and if you had control links to take advantage of it without excessive lag.

Relax wrote:So, no one really has any problems with Delayed CM activation especially in the case of providing additional CM's for forward deployed LAC's.

Otherwise the only major "problem" is the # of "control links".

For me no - the only issue I *could* see is the duration the capacitor can hold the charge for initiating the wedge. It shouldn't be an issue, but this would be the easiest "handwavium" limit on the venture. It doesn't appear to be an issue in missiles, but CMs are different enough that "the Plot Effect" may cause those capacitors to work differently.

In reality, such a proposition could set up a mesh network during the coast phase, where any CM would communicate it's position and vector and align with the closest CMs to it, allowing the cloud to form an optimal shape prior to wedge initiation using the RCS thrusters to minimize wedge fratricide while maximizing coverage. However, we usually don't see that type of communications in munitions in the Honorverse.

Theemile wrote:

Relax wrote:So, no one really has any problems with Delayed CM activation especially in the case of providing additional CM's for forward deployed LAC's.

Otherwise the only major "problem" is the # of "control links".

For me no - the only issue I *could* see is the duration the capacitor can hold the charge for initiating the wedge. It shouldn't be an issue, but this would be the easiest "handwavium" limit on the venture. It doesn't appear to be an issue in missiles, but CMs are different enough that "the Plot Effect" may cause those capacitors to work differently.

In reality, such a proposition could set up a mesh network during the coast phase, where any CM would communicate it's position and vector and align with the closest CMs to it, allowing the cloud to form an optimal shape prior to wedge initiation using the RCS thrusters to minimize wedge fratricide while maximizing coverage. However, we usually don't see that type of communications in munitions in the Honorverse.

Arg...! I said the words - Coast Phase! you would need to add sensor shielding like the Mk 23s have to protect against high speed particle/radiation wear.

Theemile wrote:Arg...! I said the words - Coast Phase! you would need to add sensor shielding like the Mk 23s have to protect against high speed particle/radiation wear.

Probably not. Most combat happens in n-space, within the hyper limit, and there just isn't enough room in there for ships to get up to high relativistic speeds.

The Mk 23s need shielding because they may be coasting for a while at 0.5c. Ship's can get that fast, but most combat probably happens below 0.2c. Lower speed means less sensor wear; and less need for shielding. (Plus the CMs aren't likely to be coasting for all that long)

Jonathan_S wrote:

Theemile wrote:Arg...! I said the words - Coast Phase! you would need to add sensor shielding like the Mk 23s have to protect against high speed particle/radiation wear.

Probably not. Most combat happens in n-space, within the hyper limit, and there just isn't enough room in there for ships to get up to high relativistic speeds.

The Mk 23s need shielding because they may be coasting for a while at 0.5c. Ship's can get that fast, but most combat probably happens below 0.2c. Lower speed means less sensor wear; and less need for shielding. (Plus the CMs aren't likely to be coasting for all that long)

I could argue that different stars may be more energetic and have a higher particle density in their systems, but most human occupied system will be near stars with similar conditions to our own. So yes, you wouldn't need them in combat 95% of the time. In the odd 5%, it wouldn't be useless, just much less effective.