?

penny wrote:The benefits outweighed the costs. The benefits will always outweigh the costs. Even if the project fails, because what is important is the research. But if the project is a success and it saves lives, it will always outweigh any cost. Honor will always be right. So why did you bring up costs? Especially when a monetary value is not what I am asking at all. At any rate, do you think Sonja Hemphill or Shannon Foraker ever worried about financial costs when they are trying to save a nation?

Is it possible that when we talk about a cost-benefit analysis, that you think that we demand research itself be cost justified? That is definitely not what anyone has said. Because research does not know what it will find, then it cannot be held to that standard. Research is funded to push boundaries, with the uncertain possibility that something of value might be found. But even if new knowledge has no perceived value today, there is a chance that it will lead to something of use in the future.

However putting a specific mechanism on a missile is only such research, if it is a test missile where we are uncertain what the results would be. Once all the results are known, and only then, a cost-benefit analysis can be done to determine whether to put such things into full scale production.

This back and forth only makes sense of you are talking about the value of research, while we are talking about something that needs no research (because it is a completely known quantity) and which is now suggested to put into full scale production.

The whitepaper that Honor and White clashed over was not about a research project, all the research had been done before the paper was written. Instead it was about the desirability of full scale production of the new missiles and LAC's and the changes that would be required in ships to handle them. White Haven thought the costs involved were too much, while Honor pointed out the specific benefits that were known to accrue.

Please forgive my time between posts nowadays.

Jonathan_S wrote:At this point things have bounced around so much I think I've lost the plot.

I apologize for that. Part of the reason may be that I don't have the same amount of time to spend in the forum as I've had for years and I go a bit long between posts.

The rest is caused by the subject matter. It isn't that I have been bouncing around. This is the venerable question thread. And any brainstorming achieved here can have far reaching implications elsewhere. And so goes my dilemma as theories and implications come together in my head.

I have been entertaining the same things from the outset. It is just that there have been several benefits closely related to each notion.

From the beginning, I have championed multistage missiles that actually separate spent stages. The perceived benefits have always been …

1) Increased acceleration because of an ever decreasing volume, enroute, to compensate. Which theoretically allows for a higher drive setting to be preset along the way for each successive stage since the equation with compensated volume has or will change.

1. In addition to increased acceleration there is also a side band discussion and acknowledgement of the perceived benefits of nimbleness: quickness and response time.
   
   
2. Nimbleness: Reaping the benefits, the discussion entertains the possibility that the missiles might be more effective at up the kilt shots.

It is ike Kaleb Johnson the slow running back for Iowa who has become a great running back because he changes direction faster than anyone else (or in the case of the missile anything else). To be honest, I see a missile that has become a little gnat. It has shed the bulk of the ball-and-chain that was dragging it down. From the eye candy containing lots of info that Jonathan posted a few clicks upstream, I feel optimistic about shedding two thirds of the missile by the time the missile is ready to detonate. At this point the missile body should simply contain the reactor and the warhead.


2) Increased survivability. It presents a smaller target to hit. Like LAC like missile.

1. The tactic naturally begs the question of how to shed as much additional “dead weight” as possible by the time the missile passes the CM defense.
   
   
2. The reactor is certainly not an obvious consideration. Has the reactor outlived its usefulness? If so, separate it from the main missile body.
   
   Survivability draws on the following facts and deserves the following section:

3) When a missile is being tracked it is not being tracked by traditional radar. Its wedge is being tracked by gravitics. I don't think a missile body can be tracked by radar through its wedge any more than a ship can be tracked through its wedge. A wedge's effect has a tendency to spread energy about itself. So any targeting radar would be scattered. There is no radar return from the wedge.

I agree that after the wedge drops, targeting radar can track the missile body. If that entire process has enough time. Targeting radar will need to quickly find the object that now has no wedge and has been made as small as possible.

In accordance with my original theory, shedding volume every chance it gets, the profile of the missile changes for many of the other ships that need a good look at the target for their PDLCs to be of any help. IOW, the reduction in profile can help to reduce the engagement to a one-on-one confrontation. No more massed PDLCs from the fleet ganging up on one missile. Mano a Mano.

All of the above brings us all up to speed with how we got to this point and why I am considering whether the profile can be further minimized by shedding the section of the remaining missile body that houses the reactor. Dropping a further third of the original missile body represents a significant reduction in profile.

4) Stage separation of the reactor will reduce the missile's huge profile considerably. Are there any other possible benefits? I see two possible benefits.

1. Dependent upon the proper timing, the reactor might be programmed to explode as close to the missile detonating as possible. As the reactor’s stage separates, the missile is still accelerating away from the body. If it can get enough separation from the reactor, it can explode and possibly have a favorable effect on enemy sensors and targeting, thus serving as a distraction from the actual threat.
   
   The reactor might not be able to achieve enough range to explode before the warhead detonates so as to serve as a distraction. However, like in football, the play will mimic a quarterback keeper. A sneak play.
   
   After the wedge has dropped, radar is looking for a target. The separated stage containing the reactor is one third of the missile body. The point defense will be tackling the wrong running back. The missile body containing the reactor is not carrying the ball (warhead). Uh oh. Sucker play.
   
   
   It is important to realize that the final stage of separation will be made only after the missile has maneuvered for a shot and moments before detonation. Stage separation will limit the chances of the warhead being targeted. It would simply be like evolution if the missile were an animal. Consider if point defense has been successful lots of times because it was lucky enough to hit the tail-end of the missile body. Evolution has allowed the animal to shed its tail.
   
   
2. Other implications not yet discussed. Depending on range to target, this missile can choose to delay separating a stage until it penetrates the CM defense. Then the additional acceleration obtained after separating the stage at that particular point might allow the missile enough additional acceleration to throw off point defense when guessing the missile's vector. Trial and error in field testing.

Hey! Perhaps the reactor need not detonate. We only want it to serve as a distraction. Perhaps the reactor can quickly build up to exploding without exploding, as in generating a lot of heat to attract attention.

5) Stage separation has mostly been a tactic that is suited for multistage missiles, thus, of interest to the MAN. I have been ambitious and trying to discuss why it might also be a tactic that multi-drive missiles could eventually adopt. This made for a more convoluted discussion.

But now the conversation is going to shift gears when applying it to the MAN’s 3-second firing warhead.

The evolution of weapons and tactics.


So, as you can see Jonathan, nothing has changed from my initial theories and no bouncing around has taken place except within my original suppositions. I simply never got a chance to make it to the goalposts that I see in my own head. Most of my threads are that way. I never make it to the end. Or even the middle in many cases.

I can see my own goalposts; but when everyone is against me, then you are the defense. The defense can only see their own goalposts. Turn around and join me and you'll be able to see my goalposts; and then, let's figure out how to do this thing. Aren't we all brainstorming at Bolthole? If not I'll take my research to a far away system.

I haven't had time to consult with the wonderful pages of technical specifications that Jonathan gave on the missiles. But at first glance it appears over two thirds of the missile might be shed along its journey before it finally detonates.

Which brings me back to the question considering whether the tactic is too “cost” prohibitive for a bank of capacitors to be able to produce the amount of power required to allow for separating the reactor and still power the detonation.

If it is cost prohibitive to separate from the reactor, then losing that final stage is the only step that will not be possible. But an alleged volume decrease of two thirds is still significant.

Like Honor when she was aboard Fearless I do not have any help from my crew. I've had to retire to my ready room and go at it alone. Shame on the crew. Some information I do not have. I would definitely like to know the size of the warhead itself.


****** *

Jonathan_S wrote:At one point it was the (unproven) theory that smaller missiles must necessarily have higher acceleration (despite the large range of missile sizes with identical acceleration) -- and so to take advantage you wanted missiles that physically staged in order to have greater terminal maneuverability.

I still believe that. Textev has always allowed smaller warships to have a higher acceleration. We currently have a thread trending about how BBs might not be the right platforms for commerce raiding because of their low accel vs smaller units.

It simply seems intuitive that a missile that has an ever decreasing volume enroute, may have a potentially ever increasing acceleration enroute, that wasn't prreviously possible because of the static volume to be compensated, enroute.

Jonathan_S wrote:Okay - IF the theory is true, and if a significant reduction in missile volume could be achieved, then there's some benefit. (We don't know how much benefit, and we don't know what the tradeoffs would be [how much bigger would the missile have to start out out, meaning could it be carried by existing ships and how many fewer would fit in your magazines and pods]

I am the first to agree that we don't know if the theory is ‘true.’ Neither one of our dynamic duo truly knew whether a project is true until the prototype is tested, then retested in the field. But we do know that this notion appears to be ‘sound.’ And worth investigating. It looks good on paper.

It very well might turn out that the missiles are too big for tubes and have to be pod fired. They might even become so large that they become system defense missiles that will make invaders think twice. That would certainly turn out to be a welcome windfall of the research if System Defense missiles actually began to fill the role of System Defense Missiles!

Out of all of the technology in the HV, system defense missiles are one of the most disappointing to me. An enemy should come to fear system defense missiles. Even if they have to be five times the size of any previous missile in history, as long as when the missile storm arrives there follows death and destruction in its wake. System Defense missiles never come into play. In Toll of Honor the system defense missiles the Peep's had were summarily dismissed. They were ignored. It was stated that there were not that many of them anyway. Perhaps a few hundred. But system defense missiles should be so deadly that even several hundred of them should be feared. Perhaps this missile may make them a lot deadlier, scarier and useful.

I simply find it difficult to believe that a missile which has shed an unprecedented 75+ % of its volume at the end won't be highly maneuverable. Talk about pitch and yaw rates and a quickness and nimbleness that makes Sonja pee her pants with glee.

Summary:

The missile has lost approximately two thirds of its volume enroute (by my reckoning) if it is a multistage missile. If my theory is correct and a different drive setting can be preprogrammed because the compensated volume for the built-in compensator has changed, then we should already have a much faster and nimbler missile. Depending upon range to target, the missile may be able to delay separation of one of the stages until it passes the CM zone. Then that stage separates and the higher drive setting for that stage along with its higher accel might provide a turbocharged acceleration. Point defense won't expect the increased acceleration at that point. It might or might not be effective. Must be field tested.

Now the final third of the remaining missile will be detached. Depending on how long a missile can survive without a wedge and rad shielding, if it is several seconds then the enemy is doomed because the application has other possible options.*

Detach the final stage which houses the reactor and separate it in mid acceleration. That would be like turning on the afterburner of an F-16 as soon as the F-16 sheds half its weight. IOW, quickly propelling the warhead to target. It might have the effect of shooting the warhead out of the remaining missile body like a cannon.

What is the volume of the warhead?

Jonathan _S wrote:Also I think Sonja Hemphill or Shannon Foraker are practical people and so yes, I think they consider financial costs of production when considering research projects to pursue or advocating for adoption of new designs (or at least the financial costs as a proxy for required production effort).
Something that can't be build built in sufficient numbers to be effective is impractical and either needs to be made more affordable, or abandoned in favor of something that can be built in sufficient numbers.
A missile that's 5% more effective but requires so many resources that you can only build half as many of them isn't actually a benefit; the result of its high production "cost" is that it actually makes you less effective despite the higher "per round" effectiveness.

You've got a similar issue if that 5% more effective missile is so large that a ship can only carry and fire 80% as many of them per salvo -- it's not actually more effective per salvo.

So it isn't at all clear what the benefit is, how this could be more effective, or how it might save lives

True. But my point centers around the fact that neither Sonja nor Shannon had the luxury of letting costs handicap their research when you are staring down the barrel of a gun. The most important thing on their mind would be whether they can get a particular idea to work. They will worry about the production costs afterwards. However, a proof of concept and succeeding at developing a prototype demands all of their attention. Cut down on production costs later. Same as any first generation technology. Costs are secondary…

When you are staring down the barrel of a gun, just git 'er done!

Now, the MAlign. They have time to consider costs and who's the boss.

And again, if you can't build many of them but they are extremely effective, then use them as system defense missiles. System Defense missiles might finally get some teeth.

Five failures fuel a sixth success


* This was the reason behind me wondering if losing the reactor will immediately kill the wedge.



Edits for typos and grammar.


.

penny wrote:From the beginning, I have championed multistage missiles that actually separate spent stages. The perceived benefits have always been …

1) Increased acceleration because of an ever decreasing volume, enroute, to compensate. Which theoretically allows for a higher drive setting to be preset along the way for each successive stage since the equation with compensated volume has or will change.

1. In addition to increased acceleration there is also a side band discussion and acknowledgement of the perceived benefits of nimbleness: quickness and response time.
   
   
2. Nimbleness: Reaping the benefits, the discussion entertains the possibility that the missiles might be more effective at up the kilt shots.

Like Kaleb Johnson the slow running back for Iowa who has become a great running back because he changes direction faster than anyone else (or in the case of the missile anything else). To be honest, I see a missile that has become a little gnat. It has shed the bulk of the ball-and-chain that was dragging it down. From the eye candy containing lots of info that Jonathan posted a few clicks upstream, I feel optimistic about shedding two thirds of the missile by the time the missile is ready to detonate. At this point the missile body should simply be the reactor and the warhead.

The issue is that all evidence points to smaller missiles not having inherently better acceleration.
As already mentioned the author has said all drives in an MDM must be preset to the same settings; and we also have a broad spread of anti-ship missile sizes -- ranging from a little LAC-weight SDM all the way up to the Mk23s and Mk41 MDMs all of which have identical drive performance. If smaller missiles were inherently faster you'd expect a DD's missiles to be higher performance than the larger missiles fired from a BC or an SD; and they aren't.

penny wrote:2) Increased survivability. It presents a smaller target to hit. Like LAC like missile.

1. The tactic naturally begs the question of how to shed as much additional “dead weight” as possible by the time the missile passes the CM defense.
   
   
2. The reactor is certainly not an obvious consideration. Has the reactor outlived its usefulness? If so, separate it from the main missile body.
   Survivability draws on the following facts and deserves the following section:

Except the missile approaches the target nearly nose-on, so it can keep its sensor lock on the target. As such its length presents nearly zero increase to its target area because defensive PDLC fire is coming from basically straight ahead of it and thus can only really see and hit the nose. So its target size is almost entirely based on its diameter; and staging can't reduce that.

Sure, the the reactor is totally useless then there's no need to lug it along; but if having it along doesn't decrease the missile's effectiveness there's also no reason to drop it. And making it droppable would add some complexity (and size) to the missile.

penny wrote:3 When a missile is being tracked it is not being tracked by traditional radar. Its wedge is being tracked by gravitics. I don't think a missile body can be tracked by radar through its wedge any more than a ship can be tracked through its wedge. A wedge's effect has a tendency to spread energy about itself. So any targeting radar would be scattered. There is no radar return from the wedge.

I agree that after the wedge drops, targeting radar can track the missile body. f that entire process has enough time. Targeting radar will need to quickly find the object that now has no wedge and has been made as small as possible.

Again, the missile it keeping its sensor pointed at the target, which means the open throat of its wedge is pointed at the target. The target's radar would have a clear view of the missile's nose down that open throat; so it's irrelevant that the wedge would block radar because the wedge isn't between the missile and its target. Within, say, 1/2 - 1/4 million km the target should have a radar lock on the missile as well as getting an FTL of its wedge.

penny wrote:In accordance with my original theory, shedding volume every chance it gets, the profile of the missile changes for many of the other ships that need a good look at the target for their PDLCs to be of any help. IOW, the reduction in profile can help to reduce the engagement to a one-on-one confrontation. No more massed PDLCs from the fleet ganging up on one missile. Mano a Mano.

Unless I stuffed my my math even the furthest laterally displaced ship (~75,000km to the side of the target) that could effectively engage a missile with a PDLC will being seeing it foreshortened to no more than 59% its actual length; and given the length to breadth ratio of an MDM that means it only has a target area that's 5.8x as large as the target. (And the ships with better shots will be closer to the target and so the heavily foreshortened view caused by the nearly head-on angle means the missile length with be contributing very little to the target size)

Still, going back to that other ship, if the MDM could somehow drop 2/3rds of its total length before entering PDLC range that would shrink its target size to that ship with the best view down the missile's flank from 5.8x the head-on target size to just 2.0x the head-on target size; which is better than I'd have thought. But for the next ship over from the target (which has the best chance of hitting the missile) the foreshortening would have hidden 99.9% of the missile's length giving it a target barely larger than the head-on view; so dropping 2/3rd of the missile length would make negligible different to the target area seen from that nearby ship.

penny wrote:All of the above brings us all up to speed with how we got to this point and why I am considering whether the profile can be further minimized by shedding the section of the remaining missile body that houses the reactor. Dropping one third of the original missile body represents a significant reduction in profile.

4) Stage separation of the reactor will reduce the missile's huge profile considerably. Are there any other possible benefits? I see two possible benefits.

1. Dependent upon the proper timing, the reactor might be programmed to explode as close to the missile detonating as possible. As the reactor’s stage separates the missile is still accelerating away from the body. If it can get enough separation from the reactor, it can explode and possibly have a favorable effect on enemy sensors and targeting, thus serving as a distraction from the actual threat.
   
   The reactor might not be able to achieve enough range to explode before the warhead detonates so as to serve as a distraction. However, like in football, the play will mimic a quarterback keeper. A sneak play. After the wedge has dropped, radar is looking for a target. The separated stage containing the reactor is one third of the missile body. The point defense will be tackling the wrong running back. The missile body containing the resctirt is not carrying the ball (warhead). Uh oh. Sucker play.
   
   
   It is important to realize that the final stage of separation will be made only after the missile has maneuvered for a shot and moments before detonation. Stage separation will limit the chances of the warhead being targeted. It would simply be like evolution if the missile were an animal. Consider if point defense has been successful lots of times because it was lucky enough to hit the tail-end of the missile body. Evolution has allowed the animal to shed its tail.
   
2. Other implications not yet discussed. Depending on range to target, this missile can choose to delay separating a stage until it penetrates the CM defense. Then the additional acceleration obtained after separating the stage at that particular point might allow the missile enough additional acceleration to throw off point defense when guessing the missile's vector. Trial and error in field testing.

Hey! Perhaps the reactor need not detonate. We only want it to serve as a distraction. Perhaps the reactor can quickly build up to exploding without exploding, as in generating a lot of heat to attract attention.

We already saw that, thanks to the basically head on approach the missile normally has to take (to be able to keep its sensor on the target), that is it so foreshortened that the ships close enough to the target to be likely to hit it basically can't see the missile's length anyway.

If you're still wedded to dropping the wedge just microseconds before detonation (as seems to be done with the current missiles) separating the warhead from the reactor seems pointless because in that infinitesimal time it'll only be able to move fractions of a mm away.

Also, FWIW, the blast from the reactor is going to be far less powerful than the blast from the multi-megaton fusion warhead that's driving the lasing rods.

Still, even if you increased the delay, at any plausible separation distance (since with the wedge down and neither of these separated components has the ability to significantly alter its vector; so they'd be coasting along nearly the same track at nearly the same speed) the reactor will close enough to the warhead that they'd be within each other's proximity kill radius, and quite likely within each other's vaporization radius. That means:

• If you blow the reactor first it'll wreck the warhead and prevent the laserheads from working.
• If you set off the warhead first its much larger, multi-megaton, blast will wipe out the reactor.
• If you blow them effectively simultaneously the reactor's blast might still wreck the machinery that's providing the grav focus as the grav lens would protected it long enough from the nuclear blast in front of it but wouldn't protect the componets from a reactor letting go behind them. But, in any case, the reactor's explosion won't be soon enough to confuse the sensors trying to track the warhead because the light and EM from the reactor blowing will arrive with, or slightly behind, the laser from the warhead. By that point there's nothing the track of that warhead, and the reactor's explosion will add little to the blinding effect on the (surviving) ship's sensors compared to the blast of light and EM from the much more powerful explosion of the warhead (the bits of it that missed the lasing rods)

penny wrote:

5) Stage separation has mostly been a tactic that is suited for multistage missiles, thus, of interest to the MAN. I have been ambitious and trying to discuss why it might also be a tactic that multi-drive missiles could eventually adopt. This made for a more convoluted discussion.

But now the conversation is going to shift gears when applying it to the MAN’s 3-second firing warhead. The evolution of weapons and tactics.


So, as you can see Jonathan, nothing has changed from my initial theories and no bouncing around has taken place except within my original suppositions. I simply never got a chance to make it to the goalposts that I see in my own head. Most of my threads are that way. I never make it to the end. Or even the middle in many cases.

I can see my own goalposts; but when everyone is against me, then you are the defense. The defense can only see their own goalposts. Turn around and join me and you'll be able to see my goalposts; and then,let's figure out how to do this thing. Aren't we all brainstorming at Bolthole? If not I'll take my research to a far away system.

I haven't had time to consult with the wonderful pages of technical specifications that Jonathan gave on the missiles. But at first glance it appears over two thirds of the missile might be shed along its journey before it finally detonates.

Possibly; if you rearrange the guts so you've four power sources; one for each drive + one for the warhead, and rearrange the drives so they're seperated by their power sources; so drive + power can be dropped as a single stage. Which either requires going back to capacitors (making for a bigger missile) or a massive breakthrough in miniaturization of microfusion power.

If you used the same power source for the final drive and the warhead then you could probably only drop about 50-55% of the missile; not 66%.

Because the telemetry transceiver is on the tailcone in a staged missile you'd need multiple ones, one on the aft of each stage. Otherwise you'd lose communication with the launching ship after you dropped the first stage. This would drive up the size of a normal MDM a little bit; but should be manageable.
I don't know if it would be possible for the Mk23E because the FTL transceiver is bulky -- it's what forced them to go to a larger missile for that apollo control missile. You can't drop that off with each stage without a massive size increase. However I don't know if that also has to live in the tailcone in order to see and talk FTL to the launching ship (or its keyholes).

Even if staged missiles could have better accel after dropping the first stage (and, again, that doesn't appear to be the case) it'd cripple Apollo if they ran off and left the 23E which (likely) can't stage without losing the FTL link that's a core part of the Apollo functionality.

penny wrote:Which brings me back to the question considering whether the tactic is too “cost” prohibitive for a bank of capacitors to be able to produce the amount of power required to allow for separating the reactor and still power the detonation.

If it is cost prohibitive to separate from the reactor, then losing that final stage is the only step that will not be possible. But an alleged volume decrease of two thirds is still significant. Like Honor when she was aboard Fearless I do not have any help from my crew. I've had to retire to my ready room and go at it alone. Shame on the crew. Some information I do not have. I would definitely like to know the size of the warhead itself.


****** *

Jonathan_S wrote:At one point it was the (unproven) theory that smaller missiles must necessarily have higher acceleration (despite the large range of missile sizes with identical acceleration) -- and so to take advantage you wanted missiles that physically staged in order to have greater terminal maneuverability.

I still believe that. Textev has always allowed smaller warships to have a higher acceleration. We currently have a thread trending about how BBs might not be the right platforms for commerce raiding because of their low accel vs smaller units.

It simply seems intuitive that a missile that has an ever decreasing volume enroute, may have a potentially ever increasing acceleration enroute, that wasn't prreviously possible because of the static volume to be compensated, enroute.

It might seem intuitive. But we've never seen smaller anti-ship missiles to be quicker. And the difference between a (old-style) LAC missile and an MDM is at least 2/3rd less length/mass; yet they've exactly the same acceleration.

For whatever reason this is another area where RFC seems to have decided that missiles and their drives just work differently than a ship and its drive.

penny wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Okay - IF the theory is true, and if a significant reduction in missile volume could be achieved, then there's some benefit. (We don't know how much benefit, and we don't know what the tradeoffs would be [how much bigger would the missile have to start out out, meaning could it be carried by existing ships and how many fewer would fit in your magazines and pods]

I am the first to agree that we don't know if the theory is ‘true.’ Neither one of our dynamic duo truly knew whether a project is true until the prototype is tested, then retested in the field. But we do know that this notion appears to be ‘sound.’ And worth investigating. It looks good on paper.

It very well might turn out that the missiles are too big for tubes and have to be pod fired. They might even become so large that they become system defense missiles that will make invaders think twice. That would certainly turn out to be a welcome windfall of the research if System Defense missiles actually began to fill the role of System Defense Missiles!

Out of all of the technology in the HV, system defense missiles are one of the most disappointing to me. An enemy should come to fear system defense missiles. Even if they have to be five times the size of any previous missile in history, as long as when the missile storm arrives there follows death and destruction in its wake. System Defense missiles never come into play. In Toll of Honor the system defense missiles the Peep's had were summarily dismissed. They were ignored. It was stated that there were not that many of them anyway. Perhaps a few hundred. But system defense missiles should be so deadly that even several hundred of them should be feared. Perhaps this missile may make it a lot deadlier, scarier and useful.

I simply find it difficult to believe that a missile which has shed an unprecedented 75+ % of its volume at the end won't be highly maneuverable. Talk about pitch and yaw rates and a quickness and nimbleness that makes Sonja pee her pants with glee.

Summary:

The missile has lost approximately two thirds of its volume enroute (by my reckoning) if it is a multistage missile. If my theory is correct and a different drive setting can be preprogrammed because the compensated volume for the built-in compensator has changed, then we should already have a much faster and nimbler missile. Depending upon range to target, the missile may be able to delay separation of one of the stages until it passes the CM zone. Then that stage separates and the higher drive setting for that stage along with its higher accel might provide a turbocharged acceleration. Point defense won't expect the increased acceleration at that point. It might or might not be effective. Must be field tested.

Now the final third of the remaining missile will be detached. Depending on how long a missile can survive without a wedge* and rad shielding, if it is several seconds then the enemy is doomed because the application has other possible options. Detach final stage which houses the reactor and separate in mid acceleration. That would be like turning on the afterburner of an F-16 as soon as the F-16 sheds half its weight. IOW, quickly propelling the warhead to target. It might have the effect of shooting the warhead out of the remaining missile body like a cannon.

What is the volume of the warhead?

How long a missile can survive without a wedge depends on the environment it's in. As a ballistic phase mid-flight (so lower velocity) it can clearly last a couple of minutes without unacceptable degradation of the sensors (we've seen Mk16s do that) and with a protected cap over their sensors Mk23s can safely coast even longer (and at a higher velocity).
However if a nuke goes off within proximity kill distance warhead will be non-functional. Warheads seem to cause proximity kills on pods and the missiles within them from at least 150,000 km away - so if the warheads were coasting along with wedge and therefor shields down the first one that went off, or the first enemy missile set to go off nearby, would wipe out much of the salvo. As for separating the warhead from the final stage while its wedge is still up -- the warhead needs the sensors and the sensors are on the nose. Pop that off while under acceleration and the drive section with it's wedge would almost immediately run over the warhead. Oops.

(In theory you could work around this by making the missile bigger yet again. With a sensor on the nose cone, but another sensor on a warhead bus tucked behind the final drive; so it could be dropped behind the missile letting the final stage accelerate away from it. Though you'd lose sensor lock when you separated and the warhead's sensor would have to acquire a new lock in the seconds before detonation. And this warhead would be vulnerable to proximity kills as it'd lack any rad shielding.
But at least it wouldn't be getting run over )

penny wrote:

Jonathan _S wrote:Also I think Sonja Hemphill or Shannon Foraker are practical people and so yes, I think they consider financial costs of production when considering research projects to pursue or advocating for adoption of new designs (or at least the financial costs as a proxy for required production effort).
Something that can't be build built in sufficient numbers to be effective is impractical and either needs to be made more affordable, or abandoned in favor of something that can be built in sufficient numbers.
A missile that's 5% more effective but requires so many resources that you can only build half as many of them isn't actually a benefit; the result of its high production "cost" is that it actually makes you less effective despite the higher "per round" effectiveness.

You've got a similar issue if that 5% more effective missile is so large that a ship can only carry and fire 80% as many of them per salvo -- it's not actually more effective per salvo.

So it isn't at all clear what the benefit is, how this could be more effective, or how it might save lives

True. But my point centers around the fact that neither Sonja nor Shan on had the luxury of letting costs handicap their research when you are staring down the barrel of a gun. The most important thing on their mind would be whether they can get a particular their or idea to work. They will worry about the production costs afterwards. However, a proof of concept and succeeding with a prototype demands all of their attention. Cut down on production costs later. Same as any first generation technology. Costs are secondary…

When you are staring down the barrel of a gun, just ‘git er done!

Now, the MAlign. They have time to consider costs and who's the boss.

And again, if you can't build many of them but they are extremely effective, then use them as system defense missiles. They might finally get some teeth.

Five failures fuel a sixth success


* This was the reason behind me wondering if losing the reactor will immediately kill the wedge.

Jonathan_S wrote:The issue is that all evidence points to smaller missiles not having inherently better acceleration.
As already mentioned the author has said all drives in an MDM must be preset to the same settings; and we also have a broad spread of anti-ship missile sizes -- ranging from a little LAC-weight SDM all the way up to the Mk23s and Mk41 MDMs all of which have identical drive performance. If smaller missiles were inherently faster you'd expect a DD's missiles to be higher performance than the larger missiles fired from a BC or an SD; and they aren't.
...

Even if staged missiles could have better accel after dropping the first stage (and, again, that doesn't appear to be the case) it'd cripple Apollo if they ran off and left the 23E which (likely) can't stage without losing the FTL link that's a core part of the Apollo functionality.
...
It might seem intuitive. But we've never seen smaller anti-ship missiles to be quicker. And the difference between a (old-style) LAC missile and an MDM is at least 2/3rd less length/mass; yet they've exactly the same acceleration.

For whatever reason this is another area where RFC seems to have decided that missiles and their drives just work differently than a ship and its drive.

We have seen CMs have higher acceleration than shipkiller missiles and different navies do have different settings, so it is possible.

I think it's far more likely that it is possible to have different acceleration in different missiles, but it's not desirable to have that. You want all missiles in a salvo, whether they are Mk14 ERM, Mk16, Mk23, Mk23E, Mk23F 4-stage MDM arrive at the same time, for a time-on-target attack, provided the attack is within the powered range of the shortest missile's range. If they arrived all spread out over several seconds, they'd be easy for the defences to pick up. The ECM for each would be less effective too.

So it's more likely that the WDB developed missiles that stick to 46000 gravities no matter what. That applies to the MDM's third stage because RFC tells us that there are inescapable quantum effects that mean one drive ring's setting applies the same acceleration to all the rings.

Penny can still be right that if you drop a portion of the missile and shrink the compensated volume, the acceleration may still change, regardless of those quantum effects. The RMN would not have wanted that because the different missile bodies would mean different changes in acceleration, so the second stages in different missile generations could not keep up with each other. With this in mind, having jettisoning systems means you're throwing away the ability to have 2-, 3- and 4-stage missiles in your arsenal: you shall only have one kind of them. That's rather inflexible, because 3-stage MDMs are big for anything below a battlecruiser and 2-stage missiles are too short-ranged for proper fleet actions -- especially when the GA will be firing 3-stage MDMs.

Unless you build in the jettisoning system but don't use it all the time.

I also don't see the point. Being generous and giving a 10% boost after each stage would mean the second runs at 50,600 gravities and the third at 55,660 gravities. That brings the final speed up from 0.812c to 0.897c, which would be the hard limit for the particle shielding. The powered range of the missile would be 69,498,277.2 km, a mere 5.6% increase over the current 65.7 million km. Absent something like an FTL link and/or an Apollo Control Missile, accuracy at 50+ million km sucks, so there's little point in increasing the range of an MDM. And as the Mk23E control missile has a different volume, it wouldn't be able to keep up with its brethren if they shed volume, even if both types of missiles did.

I could see a point if this caused a DDM to have much higher acceleration boosts than 10%, because that could increase the DDM's range considerably. But wouldn't it be more useful to invest instead in a DDERM, because having 420 seconds of endurance instead of 360 would be far more interesting? Besides, you have to design your Navy for an environment where you're fighting ships with MDMs, so they don't have to come into your DDM's range, however extended it is. Surprise that you have longer range only works once.

That leaves having a smaller missile on arrival as an advantage and Jonathan has covered those. The summary there is that missiles come nose-on to the ships they're targeting, so having a shorter length and smaller volume doesn't help if the profile is still roughly the same.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:The issue is that all evidence points to smaller missiles not having inherently better acceleration.
As already mentioned the author has said all drives in an MDM must be preset to the same settings; and we also have a broad spread of anti-ship missile sizes -- ranging from a little LAC-weight SDM all the way up to the Mk23s and Mk41 MDMs all of which have identical drive performance. If smaller missiles were inherently faster you'd expect a DD's missiles to be higher performance than the larger missiles fired from a BC or an SD; and they aren't.
...

Even if staged missiles could have better accel after dropping the first stage (and, again, that doesn't appear to be the case) it'd cripple Apollo if they ran off and left the 23E which (likely) can't stage without losing the FTL link that's a core part of the Apollo functionality.
...
It might seem intuitive. But we've never seen smaller anti-ship missiles to be quicker. And the difference between a (old-style) LAC missile and an MDM is at least 2/3rd less length/mass; yet they've exactly the same acceleration.

For whatever reason this is another area where RFC seems to have decided that missiles and their drives just work differently than a ship and its drive.

We have seen CMs have higher acceleration than shipkiller missiles and different navies do have different settings, so it is possible.

I think it's far more likely that it is possible to have different acceleration in different missiles, but it's not desirable to have that.

Possible. OTOH we know that CMs give up certain things to get their overpowered drive (specifically any ability to select a different acceleration -- they get higher accel but can't be dialed back for greater endurance or any other reasons) and I think it more likely that it's the overpowered drive, and not the small size that makes them quicker.

Witness that the cataphract's second stage, which crafts a full laser-head onto the CM stage (albeit one from the next smaller weapons class) -- so probably making it at least 35-40% longer -- and it doesn't seem to reduce their accel compared to the CM-only counterpart.

Similarly the RMN Viper which grafts a smaller, less powerful (and IIRC single rod) laserhead onto a Mk31 CM, but still probably adds at least 20% to the length, and yet gets the same exact performance.
If pushing the laserhead version as quickly that required a more powerful drive then when wouldn't the CMs simply use that same more powerful drive to give them better performance? There's no need for them to time-on-target with other missiles.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:The issue is that all evidence points to smaller missiles not having inherently better acceleration.
As already mentioned the author has said all drives in an MDM must be preset to the same settings; and we also have a broad spread of anti-ship missile sizes -- ranging from a little LAC-weight SDM all the way up to the Mk23s and Mk41 MDMs all of which have identical drive performance. If smaller missiles were inherently faster you'd expect a DD's missiles to be higher performance than the larger missiles fired from a BC or an SD; and they aren't.
...

Even if staged missiles could have better accel after dropping the first stage (and, again, that doesn't appear to be the case) it'd cripple Apollo if they ran off and left the 23E which (likely) can't stage without losing the FTL link that's a core part of the Apollo functionality.
...
It might seem intuitive. But we've never seen smaller anti-ship missiles to be quicker. And the difference between a (old-style) LAC missile and an MDM is at least 2/3rd less length/mass; yet they've exactly the same acceleration.

For whatever reason this is another area where RFC seems to have decided that missiles and their drives just work differently than a ship and its drive.

We have seen CMs have higher acceleration than shipkiller missiles and different navies do have different settings, so it is possible.

I think it's far more likely that it is possible to have different acceleration in different missiles, but it's not desirable to have that. You want all missiles in a salvo, whether they are Mk14 ERM, Mk16, Mk23, Mk23E, Mk23F 4-stage MDM arrive at the same time, for a time-on-target attack, provided the attack is within the powered range of the shortest missile's range. If they arrived all spread out over several seconds, they'd be easy for the defences to pick up. The ECM for each would be less effective too.

So it's more likely that the WDB developed missiles that stick to 46000 gravities no matter what. That applies to the MDM's third stage because RFC tells us that there are inescapable quantum effects that mean one drive ring's setting applies the same acceleration to all the rings.

Penny can still be right that if you drop a portion of the missile and shrink the compensated volume, the acceleration may still change, regardless of those quantum effects. The RMN would not have wanted that because the different missile bodies would mean different changes in acceleration, so the second stages in different missile generations could not keep up with each other. With this in mind, having jettisoning systems means you're throwing away the ability to have 2-, 3- and 4-stage missiles in your arsenal: you shall only have one kind of them. That's rather inflexible, because 3-stage MDMs are big for anything below a battlecruiser and 2-stage missiles are too short-ranged for proper fleet actions -- especially when the GA will be firing 3-stage MDMs.

Unless you build in the jettisoning system but don't use it all the time.

I also don't see the point. Being generous and giving a 10% boost after each stage would mean the second runs at 50,600 gravities and the third at 55,660 gravities. That brings the final speed up from 0.812c to 0.897c, which would be the hard limit for the particle shielding. The powered range of the missile would be 69,498,277.2 km, a mere 5.6% increase over the current 65.7 million km. Absent something like an FTL link and/or an Apollo Control Missile, accuracy at 50+ million km sucks, so there's little point in increasing the range of an MDM. And as the Mk23E control missile has a different volume, it wouldn't be able to keep up with its brethren if they shed volume, even if both types of missiles did.

I could see a point if this caused a DDM to have much higher acceleration boosts than 10%, because that could increase the DDM's range considerably. But wouldn't it be more useful to invest instead in a DDERM, because having 420 seconds of endurance instead of 360 would be far more interesting? Besides, you have to design your Navy for an environment where you're fighting ships with MDMs, so they don't have to come into your DDM's range, however extended it is. Surprise that you have longer range only works once.

That leaves having a smaller missile on arrival as an advantage and Jonathan has covered those. The summary there is that missiles come nose-on to the ships they're targeting, so having a shorter length and smaller volume doesn't help if the profile is still roughly the same.

Not in every case. You are not considering the missile pitching and yawing, like when it gets a wild hair up its ass and goes for an up the kilt shot. The profile becomes crucial then. As I understand from textev PDLCs must stop the missile at all costs from getting that angle.

What is the volume of the warhead?

penny wrote:Not in every case. You are not considering the missile pitching and yawing, like when it gets a wild hair up its ass and goes for an up the kilt shot. The profile becomes crucial then. As I understand from textev PDLCs must stop the missile at all costs from getting that angle.

What is the volume of the warhead?

I actually am considering that. That rotation takes place in the extremely short interval between dropping the wedge and the warhead detonating. The PDLCs are designed to fire on nose-on missiles, so any missile that has rotated is presenting a bigger target. The fact that those targets are smaller than they otherwise were is not much of an improvement for missile effectiveness.

The point is that a missile that has reached the point where it has determined it has a shot (or will have one within its confidence interval) and drops its wedge, it's committed to the attack and point defence no longer has the time to take it out. It's a light speed problem: it's the same for both sides. No matter what the range is, but worse for longer ones, the defending ships don't have the time to decide to shoot the missile after it has dropped the wedge. By the time their PDLC lasers arrive at the missile, it's already self-immolated and fired its own x-ray laser at the ship.

It is possible to take the missile out after it drops the wedge but before the x-ray laser forms, but that already has to be an extremely lucky shot. That cannot be what the point defences are designed for, therefore improving the missile's survivability in those circumstances doesn't help much.

If you want to improve the missile's effectiveness, you want to shorten the time between dropping the wedge and firing, the rotation it needs to take to attack the ship, and the sensors to find and track that ship inside of the wedge.

Thinksmarkedly wrote: Unless you build in the jettisoning system but don't use it all the time.

The jettisoning system is something that I had to moan over all alone in my ready room. The section containing the warhead has to gain separation from the separated missile body containing the reactor. I considered both a mass driver application and a repulser beam(s). The reason I was enquiring about the mass of the warhead is that if it is insignificant to the application, then a repulser beam may be able to shoot it out like a cannon; IINM that repulser beams are not visible. Admittedly I do not know how bulky mass drivers are, but they are designed to shoot the entire volume of a missile out of tubes very quickly. Handling a small warhead should be easy peasy.

The reactor is still functioning. It can supply power to repulser beams. It can also provide power to some type of ECM. Detonating might provide the ECM if enough separation can be achieved. If not, the reactor can provide power for some type of MAN ECM that is blaring loudly like an old ghetto boom box.

Jonathan_S wrote:Still, going back to that other ship, if the MDM could somehow drop 2/3rds of its total length before entering PDLC range that would shrink its target size to that ship with the best view down the missile's flank from 5.8x the head-on target size to just 2.0x the head-on target size; which is better than I'd have thought. But for the next ship over from the target (which has the best chance of hitting the missile) the foreshortening would have hidden 99.9% of the missile's length giving it a target barely larger than the head-on view; so dropping 2/3rd of the missile length would make negligible different to the target area seen from that nearby ship.

Perhaps you can see me, but your targeting system still has to hit me … in time; after it struggles to find me after my illuminating street light (wedge) duped you and dropped.

Jonathan_S wrote:Again, the missile it keeping its sensor pointed at the target, which means the open throat of its wedge is pointed at the target. The target's radar would have a clear view of the missile's nose down that open throat; so it's irrelevant that the wedge would block radar because the wedge isn't between the missile and its target. Within, say, 1/2 - 1/4 million km the target should have a radar lock on the missile as well as getting an FTL of its wedge.

That won't be the same for other ships that will not be able to find the missile in time after the wedge drops. And if the missile rolls away from the target then deploys some sort of repulser beam to shoot the warhead assembly away quickly, then drops the wedge while the missile orients itself to fire that would solve the problem. The point being that designers of the missile also know the ins-and-outs needed to make it work. And … as I communicated to Thinksmarkedly, when the missile is pitching and yawing, its profile and quickness is important. Do note that radar will lose lock down the throat if the missile momentarily pitches, drops wedge, then reorients and fires. Or whatever field tested results worked.

At any rate, the missile body containing the reactor is still functioning and should be used in the equation in some capacity if possible.

1st a question: are we talking about 3 completely separate "stages" of a missile (think Saturn 5) or are we talking about 3 sets of impeller rings at each end, each -pair-bow and stern- (buffered between the rings at each end?

This is NOT current stage set up of a Saturn 5 type (if not size) where each stage holds a pair of tanks and regulating equipment for amounts of two differnt fuel components (fuel and oxidizer). it's burning fuel to get up out of a gravity well, physical fuel. You have separate stages so you can drop the very large weight of the 1st and then the 2nd etc stage as the fuel in them is expended and so stop having to also move the weight of the stage further out of the gravity well.

The missiles used by used by the people the modern navies of the Honorverse are powered by fusion reactors (at one point capacitors but that's a differnt conversation) and there is nothing of signifiant size to separate from.

So you PDLCs and CMs are going to be aiming 1) for CMs where the missile is going to be in the time that the (accelerating) missile target is going to be such that the CM's wedge and the missile's wedge cause the destruction of both and 2) the PDLC beam/ pulse will hit the accelerating missile. While the CM can still be controlled if the link stays up, the PDLC energy is going where it was fired, any control impacts the next shot in the cycle rate.
(ok, if the missile's wedge burns out it will stop accelerating and so be an easier target but it's the wedge that goes down, not the reactor- which is probably the primary component of self-destruct.

If you are talking about separate stages with separate reactors, there is going to be an awesome light show and fog of EMP etc in a 1k to 10k missile volley (if you are close enough) of all those discarded physical stages self destructing, one set of stages at a time at increasing range from yourself-----again, probably by the reactors dropping containment.

One interesting piece mentioned is the improved gravitational lazing in the laser rods ejected from the warhead-?as opposed to the missile body? just prior to detonation - to focus the energy from the detonation on a target- which implies that probably EACH lazing rod has it's own gravitational focusing system probably powered by a capacitor because if you cut off the power from the device you are going to loose the focus and concentration on the target.

Brigade XO wrote:One interesting piece mentioned is the improved gravitational lazing in the laser rods ejected from the warhead-?as opposed to the missile body? just prior to detonation - to focus the energy from the detonation on a target- which implies that probably EACH lazing rod has it's own gravitational focusing system probably powered by a capacitor because if you cut off the power from the device you are going to loose the focus and concentration on the target.

I do not think that is correct. It is true that there has to be something with the rods to aim them in the correct direction after ejection. But the big gravitational focusing acts on the nuclear explosion, to shape from being spherical to being more directed at the rods and so increasing the amount of power that they receive.