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Insanity: Screening elements in the HV

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Re: Insanity: Screening elements in the HV
Post by penny   » Sat Oct 26, 2024 10:08 am

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MAN’s version of Barricade

Discussing CMs, I realized that the MAN has a very efficient way to kill enemy missiles. If the MAN launched 3-second firing g-torps into the teeth of enemy launches and imparted an optimum spin on the torpedo, or if the warhead itself spins, then a 3-second spinning and detonating warhead should be much more effective (and believable) than Barricade ever could. Of course the rate of spin would be field tested for effectiveness against GA launches. And the stagger of the missiles would also be field tested for effectiveness. At the acceleration of GA missiles, spinning g-torps should wipe out GA launches.

This represents the Death Blossom mode I'm fond of from The Last Starfighter ...

https://youtu.be/MLNvUsTBGyE?si=p_f8fZcKT7_d2sTM
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Re: Insanity: Screening elements in the HV
Post by Jonathan_S   » Sat Oct 26, 2024 10:27 am

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penny wrote:MAN’s version of Barricade

Discussing CMs, I realized that the MAN has a very efficient way to kill enemy missiles. If the MAN launched 3-second firing g-torps into the teeth of enemy launches and imparted an optimum spin on the torpedo, or if the warhead itself spins, then a 3-second spinning and detonating warhead should be much more effective (and believable) than Barricade ever could. Of course the rate of spin would be field tested for effectiveness against GA launches. And the stagger of the missiles would also be field tested for effectiveness. At the acceleration of GA missiles, spinning g-torps should wipe out GA launches.

This represents the Death Blossom mode I'm fond of from The Last Starfighter ...

https://youtu.be/MLNvUsTBGyE?si=p_f8fZcKT7_d2sTM
Pesky physicals and the notional sliderule seem to say that won't work.

Let's assume the graser head throws a beam two meters meter wide (it's probably less as it's only CL grade; but let's say 2 meter). So if it's spinning like a top, perpendicular to the flight of the missiles, it'll sweep that graser through a disk about 50,000 km (but let's be super generous and say against unprotected missile bodies maybe as much as 200,000 km) wide by 2 m thick.

So we'll assume that the missile salvo hasn't spread out further than that.

And a Mk23 should be on the order of 10 meters long.
Barricade type attacks work when the target missiles are ballistic - so for Mk23s that'd be after the 2nd drive burned out (at 0.54c).

So a given missile will fly through a 2 meter thick horizontal disk in about 12 nanoseconds.

I don't care how fast the graser head is spinning, it's not covering any significant fraction of that 360° rotation in a few nanoseconds -- so most of the missiles will fly right through that death blossom unscathed.
(To sanity check: to sweep one rotation in 12 nanoseconds the rotational speed would be about 83 million rotations/second. If the graser head was a mere 4 meters long, spinning on its center point, that's give a linear velocity at the edge of the warhead of ~3.5c -- a physical impossibility)
Last edited by Jonathan_S on Sat Oct 26, 2024 10:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Insanity: Screening elements in the HV
Post by penny   » Sat Oct 26, 2024 10:36 am

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Jonathan_S wrote:
penny wrote:MAN’s version of Barricade

Discussing CMs, I realized that the MAN has a very efficient way to kill enemy missiles. If the MAN launched 3-second firing g-torps into the teeth of enemy launches and imparted an optimum spin on the torpedo, or if the warhead itself spins, then a 3-second spinning and detonating warhead should be much more effective (and believable) than Barricade ever could. Of course the rate of spin would be field tested for effectiveness against GA launches. And the stagger of the missiles would also be field tested for effectiveness. At the acceleration of GA missiles, spinning g-torps should wipe out GA launches.

This represents the Death Blossom mode I'm fond of from The Last Starfighter ...

https://youtu.be/MLNvUsTBGyE?si=p_f8fZcKT7_d2sTM

Let's assume the graser head throws a beam a meter wide (it's probably less as it's only CL grade; but let's say a meter). So if it's spinning like a top, perpendicular to the flight of the missiles, it'll sweep that graser through a disk about 50,000 km (maybe as much as 75,000 km against a missile body) wide by 1 m thick.

And a Mk23 should be on the order of 10 meters long.
Barricade type attacks work when the target missiles are ballistic - so for Mk23s that'd be after the 2nd drive burned out (at 0.54c).

So a given missile will fly through a meter thick horizontal disk in about 1.6 nanoseconds.

I don't care how fast the graser head is spinning, it's not covering any significant fraction of that rotation in a nanosecond -- so most of the missiles will fly right through that death blossom unscathed.

Right into the hellstrom of the other spinning 3-second firing torps.
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Re: Insanity: Screening elements in the HV
Post by penny   » Sat Oct 26, 2024 10:43 am

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Or, just like tightly packed GA launches, MAN launches could be packed tightly together and detonate at all possible and optimum angles. And if detonating for 3-seconds and GA launches fly by at 1.6 nanosecond, then it'd be like dragging a light saber through GA launches! Strafing! Somewhere there is an application lurking and Alphas will find it.
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Re: Insanity: Screening elements in the HV
Post by Jonathan_S   » Sat Oct 26, 2024 10:52 am

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penny wrote:Or, just like tightly packed GA launches, MAN launches could be packed tightly together and detonate at all possible and optimum angles. And if detonating for 3-seconds and GA launches fly by at 1.6 nanosecond, then it'd be like dragging a light saber through GA launches! Strafing! Somewhere there is an application lurking and Alphas will find it.

FYI you caught my post before I corrected and expanded it.

(Hate how I often manage not to notice an error until after I hit submit)


Of course the other difference from Barricade (not that barricade made physical sense either) is the Barricade missiles could continue on to attack their original targets after running over the ballistic Cataphracts; whereas blowing up ?thousands? of graserheads to erode a Mk23 salvo means those Cataphracts are gone and can't go on to attack the RMN fleet.
Not the worst problem in the world, but it doesn't give the full benefit of Barricade
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Re: Insanity: Screening elements in the HV
Post by penny   » Sat Oct 26, 2024 11:02 am

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Jonathan_S wrote:
penny wrote:Or, just like tightly packed GA launches, MAN launches could be packed tightly together and detonate at all possible and optimum angles. And if detonating for 3-seconds and GA launches fly by at 1.6 nanosecond, then it'd be like dragging a light saber through GA launches! Strafing! Somewhere there is an application lurking and Alphas will find it.

FYI you caught my post before I corrected and expanded it.

(Hate how I often manage not to notice an error until after I hit submit)


Of course the other difference from Barricade (not that barricade made physical sense either) is the Barricade missiles could continue on to attack their original targets after running over the ballistic Cataphracts; whereas blowing up ?thousands? of graserheads to erode a Mk23 salvo means those Cataphracts are gone and can't go on to attack the RMN fleet.
Not the worst problem in the world, but it doesn't give the full benefit of Barricade

It would not require as many missiles as you think if one missile is taking out hundreds of enemy missiles. If tightly packed GA launches comprising thousands of missiles fly by at 1.6 nanoseconds and MAN torps are detonating for 3-seconds, then one missile will potentially take out hundreds or thousands of missiles.


Sorry about that. I suffer that with tlb. He will jump on a post before the plot settles ... er, before I can edit it. He oftentimes posts before thinking.
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Re: Insanity: Screening elements in the HV
Post by Jonathan_S   » Sat Oct 26, 2024 2:02 pm

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A follow up on the death blossom idea; I so focused on whether it could even work (and I still don’t really think it can work well) that I hadn’t gone ahead and thought out what the likely response to it would be.

I think even if this works it’s pretty much a “works once” technique — like using the triple ripple for missile defense was.

That’s because I realized there’s an easy change to missile programming that renders the death blossom nearly ineffective. All you’d have to do is have the few missiles closest to the graser head, on each sides, sacrifice themselves from the salvo by bringing up their wedge, on the lowest acceleration setting they can, as the salvo is about to pass the graser head.
Even missile wedges are completely invulnerable against energy weapon fire, so each missile that interposes an active wedge creates a broad area beyond its that’s shaded from the graser fire. So even if the graser could, someone, project a vast solid disc of death, the rest of the salvo can still safely pass through it in the shadow of the few missiles the interpose a wedge.
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Re: Insanity: Screening elements in the HV
Post by tlb   » Sat Oct 26, 2024 3:05 pm

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Jonathan_S wrote:FYI you caught my post before I corrected and expanded it.

(Hate how I often manage not to notice an error until after I hit submit)
penny wrote:Sorry about that. I suffer that with tlb. He will jump on a post before the plot settles ... er, before I can edit it. He oftentimes posts before thinking.

I also find to difficult to find all errors before posting, so I always preview it and then look at it independently several times afterwards.

I assumed that you did most of your writing off-line, which is how you manage to put so many words into a single post. But if that were the case, then there should not be a problem with posting "before the plot settles ... er, before I can edit it". Since I do think about what I post, I will assume you mean that I post before YOUR thinking process is complete.
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Re: Insanity: Screening elements in the HV
Post by Brigade XO   » Sun Oct 27, 2024 5:53 pm

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Humm. The Malign G-torps had a 3 second total burn time before they effectually self destruct though overheating. It appears to be a one use system, and since they were described in Oyster Bay as hosing the beam around like using a firehose probably restricted to only turning the grazer on once rather than firing multiple times. Perhaps if you turn down the power on the grazer it would last longer but not sure how your going to get the equivalent effective shots out any given G-torp without a targeting system and sensors to hop missile targets.
Are you suggesting a grazer point defense system like a ship mounted PDL mounted on spider drive carrying body? Again, how many shots and how long between them as the torpedo mounted energy weapon has to track and acquire targets in range?

These are spider drive weapons so they don't have any wedge protection at all and unlike Barricade or even counter missiles, they would be destroyed by the wedge of a shipkiller they got too close to- not mutual destruction as in a counter missile. Barricade had the advantage of RMN multi-drive missiles so they were interpenetrating the incoming SLN missile volleys when the SLN missiles were in ballistic mode - so no mutual destruction. You could sort of get the Death Blossom effect with something like a LAC and several time a RMN LAC's energy point defense weapons but they would have to have much more range but your missile/torpedo/ sort of LAC is still having to go inside the firing solution of your enemy to be effective to cut a swath through volley of incoming missiles.
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Re: Insanity: Screening elements in the HV
Post by Jonathan_S   » Sun Oct 27, 2024 10:21 pm

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Brigade XO wrote:Hhese are spider drive weapons so they don't have any wedge protection at all and unlike Barricade or even counter missiles, they would be destroyed by the wedge of a shipkiller they got too close to- not mutual destruction as in a counter missile. Barricade had the advantage of RMN multi-drive missiles so they were interpenetrating the incoming SLN missile volleys when the SLN missiles were in ballistic mode - so no mutual destruction.

I thought he was suggesting this for the graserhead cataphracts that Galton had -- weaker than the grasers on the spider torp; but much higher acceleration. OTOH I don't know whether or not you can fire their graser with their wedge up.

And Barricade benefitted too much from the power of the plot.

Yes, it says the Mk23 wedge is bigger than a standard missiles but smaller than a CM's -- but Catapracts use a CM wedge for their second stage so they should be staying far enough apart that there's no wedge fratricide when those bigger CM wedges come up. Meaning that they should have been offset from each other by more than the width of even a Mk23's wedge.

Yet it claims that 72 missiles on high-high power settings ran their wedges through the first 500 missile salvo; and took out 409 of them. Okay, even inside that one salvo some might have been flying 'in train' 2 or 3 deep (which the book mentions as a tactic against heavy CM fire) -- but each Mk23 had to average a wedge impact on 5.68 Cataphracts!
Even if they were piled up 3 deep how do you hit twice that many when they should be too far apart for your wedge to hit two columns?

(And even if you want to hit the defense with 3 missile 'in train' it'd be stupid to position them like that during the ballistic segment. If your wedge activation timing is off by even fractions of a second the rearmost missile could run over the two leading ones. It'd make far more sense to remain abreast and only tuck into train after the 2nd stage wedges have all come up)

So it seems to require significant and pointless stupidity on the SLN part to artificially bunch them so close they'd be within mutual wedge fratricide range during the ballistic segment (say by using RCS thrusters. But what's the point when you'd have to spread them again before the second stage could light-off?) so that the RMN trick can be maximally effective.
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