Three-stage vs. two stage multidrive missiles

Dafmeister wrote:It's not just the computers that add to the size of the control missile, it's the FTL comm transceiver.

FTL is unneeded now isn't it when you get your feed from RD's forward deployed?

Jonathan_S wrote:

Relax wrote:Q's we do not know:
1) If 2 missiles are nose to tail; can they be taken out by a single CM?
2) How good of resolution are the Gravitic sensors?
3) Can one blip really contain more than a single missile?
4) At what distance is a single blip able to be distinguished as a single missile?
5) What is the actual error on a blips positional vector? At what distance. Linear? Asymptotic? Quadratic?

Without answers to these Q's. Ascribing a missile defense is rather problematic. Nay, downright impossible.

For your #1 I'd say don't count on it. The CM and the incoming missile should both vaporize virtually instantly the moment their wedges touch. I seriously doubt there's time for the leading missile to be 'knocked back' far enough to also impact the wedge of the trailing missile. I think the wedge just disappears too fast.

So the only way I see the CM taking out the trailing missile as well is if the trailing missile basically killed itself from FOD by slamming into the rapidly dissipating plasma that used to be the leading missile (and/or CM).


Your other questions I've no idea on through.

My point was more on the lines of, can the MDM's disguise themselves without blowing themselves up against a singular CM.

Draken wrote:Three stage missiles have bigger warheads and are harder to hit, but they're much bigger than two stage. Two stage are cheaper version for smaller ships. Good comparison of 203 mm gun and 356 mm and bigger.

This does bring up a good point if you need the space for the smaller ship why not make a 3 or 4 stage Mk16?

I understand there is a range control issue but couldn't you just add an Apollo missile to the Mk16 mix anyway? A seperate Apollo tube fixes the range issues and is isn't like the Mk23 is receiving any commands from the Apollo that the Mk16 couldn't also receive.

You end up with a lighter hitting smaller Apollo controlled missile. One could even tow Apollo only pods and add the Apollo only missiles to the longer ranged Mk16 DDM or MDM. Solving your range problems. Add in a 11-12 Mk16 MDM missile pod with an Apollo missile and you have a cheaper cost, greater missile density and full control and range all fitting in a same sized cheaper pod. Each Apollo controlling the max 12 missiles would allow for a greater salvo depth and missile load options.

Sure you will still have your Mk23 Apollo pods when you need them, but you can also have Mk16 MDM pods with Apollo when you do not and maintain maximum range and minimal additional costs.

One must think a MK16 MDM Nike with twin Chase Apollo tubes would be so much better than Current Nike. Even with Keyhole I it still is able to control Apollo without using the Keyhole I.

Let's try this one more time, Relax.

Attacker fires 2 missiles, a DDM (A) and an MDM (B). Let us say that each drive lasts 60 seconds.

At time T=60, drive 1 shuts down. Drive 2 on missile B ignites. At that moment, the enemy knows exactly where missile A will be at time T=120, what it's velocity will be, and what it's maneuvering options will be. But the enemy has no idea at all where missile B will be. They have a 60 second head-start on calculating how to defend against missile A!

Relax wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:For your #1 I'd say don't count on it. The CM and the incoming missile should both vaporize virtually instantly the moment their wedges touch. I seriously doubt there's time for the leading missile to be 'knocked back' far enough to also impact the wedge of the trailing missile. I think the wedge just disappears too fast.

So the only way I see the CM taking out the trailing missile as well is if the trailing missile basically killed itself from FOD by slamming into the rapidly dissipating plasma that used to be the leading missile (and/or CM).


Your other questions I've no idea on through.

My point was more on the lines of, can the MDM's disguise themselves without blowing themselves up against a singular CM.

Ah. Is a missile, just far enough back to avoid wedge fratricide (and FOD risk) still hidden in the "shadow" of the missile ahead of it.

Quite possibly.
Ideally if you did this you'd be cute and have the missile in front beaming its sensor view back through its wedge kilt so the trailing missile isn't blinded by the wedge it's following. But might well work. (Unless the defenders have RDs or screen spread wide enough to see the trailing bird around the wedge and alert the targets to it)

Relax wrote:

Dafmeister wrote:It's not just the computers that add to the size of the control missile, it's the FTL comm transceiver.

FTL is unneeded now isn't it when you get your feed from RD's forward deployed?

Since (apparently) the RDs can't feed the updated info directly to the missiles using them "only" gives you 50% of the advantage of full Apollo FTL.

The RDs can FTL their sensor take back to the ships, but the ships can then only push that information out to the missiles at lightspeed.
It's still better than waiting for the missiles sensor reading to crawl back at lightspeed before processing and pushing updates back, but not as good as both getting take and sending updates at 62c.

Relax wrote:My point was more on the lines of, can the MDM's disguise themselves without blowing themselves up against a singular CM.

If I recall correctly, the Fearless did exactly this in On Basilisk Station with single-drive missiles. One missile hid itself behind another and got one of the really good hits on the Sirius.

Relax wrote:
snip

My point was more on the lines of, can the MDM's disguise themselves without blowing themselves up against a singular CM.

like Cardones in Fearless vs. Sirius? Fool the tac computer into seeing one target? It was a staggered launch, or something.

Rob

SWM wrote:Let's try this one more time, Relax.

Attacker fires 2 missiles, a DDM (A) and an MDM (B). Let us say that each drive lasts 60 seconds.

At time T=60, drive 1 shuts down. Drive 2 on missile B ignites. At that moment, the enemy knows exactly where missile A will be at time T=120, what it's velocity will be, and what it's maneuvering options will be. But the enemy has no idea at all where missile B will be. They have a 60 second head-start on calculating how to defend against missile A!

Pause: You aren't saying said DDM goes in completely ballistic on final are you I certainly never was putting that forth. I was saying use, single drive, ballistic, final drive... Are you putting forth, drive, drive, ballistic for DDM??? I don't think you are, but if you are... then stop reading as we are talking apples, grape fruits, and space monkies.

The calculation for where each missile is and coordinates given to the missiles in question are identical. Velocity is immaterial to the calculation other than when to launch your CM's. The velocity portion should be the easiest to nail down. Especially with forward deployed RD as you know initial velocity and drive duration. It is a 2d problem. Accelerations are fixed for both CM and DDM/MDM. Both are predictive homing solutions. Velocity as a driving factor defining intercept becomes insignificant as CM launch time is on an integer scale measured in 8-10-12s for RMN ships, and who knows how long for the rest of the galaxy. An end point error of a second or more would not be uncommon and frankly would be immaterial as long as you do not launch the CM too soon. As soon as the CM is launched a 2d problem ensues. Straight up homing solution.

The "calculation" requires, 0.00000000000001s to compute even on a hand calculator. Ok, 0.0001s.

Now the error bars for the vector of a ballistic missile could be quite high compared to a constant burning MDM. So, the Ballistic missile will actually be harder to hit. Why? I would postulate the defenders guesstimated vector error of an incoming DDM/MDM at 30Mkm is far greater than that at 10Mkm. Of course it is actually useless information. Why? You know the flight profile for ALL missiles assuming they actually are going to fire on your ships. The defender knows their end point. Just throw out accumulated error possibilities that do not intercept the defending ship.

Anyways, way away from the original post of the thread.

Minutia

Jonathan_S wrote:Since (apparently) the RDs can't feed the updated info directly to the missiles using them "only" gives you 50% of the advantage of full Apollo FTL.

But still, the missiles should be able to read the mail if someone said, oh, maybe it would be a good idea if we had forward deployed RD's send their data over the EMS via light speed, instead of only via FTL. Especially when the missiles hit sub 10Mkm -->> 1Mkm range. This data would supersede anything obtained via the FTL RD/Ship/Light speed delay.

At the distance greater than 1Mkm the RD's should be able to send the data, skedaddle back into stealth, send the data via LS, skedaddle back into stealth, etc. Its not as if the RD's are going to get waxed by the defenders.

Anywhoo. So much for lunch break.