Do we actually need SD(P)s?

SharkHunter wrote:First, all Haven sector ships have been capable of handling stacked salvos, demonstrated back in HotQ by Theisman, et. al, Forrester aboard Vaubon, and HMMC Wayfarer in HoE., and the extra distance wouldn't take 20 minutes for the missiles to cover because, second point -- Angrim at 60 Million KM is said to only have been 9 minutes out with a ballistic phase in the middle.

The only way to be about 9 minutes out from 60 million km is to be firing full up 3-drive MDMs (like Mk23s).


The numbers ih UH were presented a little confusingly (and RFC also slipped up on the burnout velocity), but the number Commodore Ham gave was "total time of flight from shutdown should be right on nine-point-three minutes. They’ll be ballistic for three hundred and seventy-nine seconds and light up again at about twenty-one-point-nine million kilometers, assuming they want maximum velocity for their final penetration profiles"

But that's 180 seconds flight time + 379 seconds ballistic coast from shutdown But launch to shutdown, which had just occurred, has already taken another 180 seconds. So total flight time for the Mk16s from 60 million km was 12.3 minutes. If an alpha strike gets aimed at Phantom that's not enough time to come close to emptying her magazines before the strike hit her And from that extended range targeting is going to be poor - the hit percentages are going to suck compared to the actual range she engaged. That plus losing the ability to mix the more deadly Mk16s into the herd of Mk14s on the same profile means she might well kill fewer SLN ships with this long range attack attempt


(Mk23s could have covered that same range, under power the whole way, in 8.6 minutes. And had a terminal velocity almost 50% higher. But without Apollo that's still further than what's normally considered effective MDM range)


The max continuously powered range for Mk16s is 29.2 million km; and that take 6 minutes flight time (full half-power endurance on both drives). Want to fire from further and they've got to coast between drives.

--snipping

Jonathan_S wrote:The only way to be about 9 minutes out from 60 million km is to be firing full up 3-drive MDMs (like Mk23s).

The numbers ih UH were presented a little confusingly (and RFC also slipped up on the burnout velocity), but the number Commodore Ham gave was "total time of flight from shutdown should be right on nine-point-three minutes. They’ll be ballistic for three hundred and seventy-nine seconds and light up again at about twenty-one-point-nine million kilometers, assuming they want maximum velocity for their final penetration profiles"
...
If an alpha strike gets aimed at Phantom that's not enough time to come close to emptying her magazines before the strike hit her And from that extended range targeting is going to be poor - the hit percentages are going to suck compared to the actual range she engaged. That plus losing the ability to mix the more deadly Mk16s into the herd of Mk14s on the same profile means she might well kill fewer SLN ships with this long range attack attempt

Ah. Great points. I didn't catch the text-error in two to three read-throughs of UH -- thanks for the numbers correction.

That said... this scenario proposes launching at "max range with no ballistic section" for the 16s, using whatever velocity Phantom has to extend the range even further. IIRC, the Cataphracts would have to coast. You're right that she couldn't shoot herself dry -- but she might not have to in order to deliver the same level of devastation as in the book. I'm basing that assumption on the fact that the SLN hasn't stopped enough full power two-drive shots, EVER... at New Tuscany, Zunker, or Saltash.

If 350 missiles including the lesser warheaded Mk14s are mission killing 5-6 BCs, (back of the envelope calc here -- same time to localize Phantom, the listed 152 seconds at 12MM Km for the RMN shots to arrive... maybe give them ten extra salvos). Also, Angrim's mission kill was with a single 36 total missiles... so lets assume that HMS Phantom could put 10 more salvos than she did into space, under full control -- in the additional time before the 120K barrage arrives. For the sake of argument, we'll assume a kill rate 50% less than Angrim -- that is, each double salvo (100 missiles) is only mission killing two ships, not three. That's still 60 Solarian B/Cs before Phantom dies a noble death.

The Sag Bs still open up at 12mm KM -- and don't start firing until hmm... about the three minute point after Phantom opens the ball? They'd still have time for at least the same number of salvos but likely under full control because the TF 1030 hasn't localized them yet, and the SLN has no more pods to toss their way.

I'd think 4 Sag Bs could take out at least ten more B/Cs by themselves with the additional 250 missiles they are match timing to arrive with Phantom... until the time point in the book at the time point where the Gogunov/Youst set of interactions removes the remaining SLN ships from Hypatian space. My point isn't that the RMN runs the table -- it's that the Sag-Bs might have survived -- perhaps maybe not mission capable, but with better than what was it 3% crew survival?

[Really though -- the authorial / structural problem with the battle is that Kotouc's forces headed to Hypatia without a copious supply of DDM or MDM pods attached to the sides of their ships.]

Galactic Sapper wrote:As described in text, the four ships were launching 350+ salvos of double broadsides at 20 second intervals. The only way that's possible is all four ships pumping out a broadside every 10 seconds. Sang Bs have 42 total tubes each and 50 from Phantom gives 352 missiles per double launch. This is close to the 12 second launch cycle I remembered for Mark 16 tubes.

We have to assume that they weren't holding back, but firing as fast as they could. Your numbers agree with the wiki: a Nike has 25 tubes per broadside and none in chase, so she can fire 50 missiles in a double broadside. A Saganami-B has 19M per broadside and 2 in chase, which is 42 per double broadside if both pairs of chase tubes fire. With 3 Saganami-B, that's 3*42 + 50 = 176 in each double broadside, or 352 in a double double.

Let's take the scenario: Phantom is flying separate from the Saganami-Bs. The SLN will not believe that an RMN BC has worse cycle times than their own, so 25 s is the worst case scenario. They also have access to Jayne's, which will tell them exactly how many tubes are in RMN BCs and CAs.

Taking what did happen: the SLN believed 9 ships were firing 352 missiles every 20-25 seconds, for an average of 39 missiles per ship. That's roughly 2x the number of tubes on a broadside on average, so either the SLN did not believe double-stacking was possible or that firing off-bore wasn't possible. So if we assume roughly the same average, 100 missiles every 20-25 seconds could deceive the SLN into believing 3 ships were present, not more.

Even if we push it and say the SLN would believe 25 missiles per ship every 20-25 seconds, that's at most 4 ships (3 Loreleis). Is that scary enough to fire 120k missiles? I don't think so.

The other aspect raised was the "use or lose": Hajdu had to fire all his pods before the first salvo arrived. If the Saganamis start firing before Hajdu expends his pods, he'll fire at them. So let's plot the scenario under which the Saganamis wait until Phantom's first salvo actually arrives before they fire. Since the Saganamis are 3 minutes' flight time closer, it mean that the first 3 minutes of Phantom's salvos arrive alone, only 100 missiles. We know 350 missiles kill 5 ships, 70 per ship. Kotouč would have no choice but to target one ship per salvo only.

How long until the Cataphracts reach Phantom?

First, let's see how far Phantom would be as she fired. If she accelerated at 650 gravities for 2 hours prior to engagement, she'd be at 0.15c. A DDM with that base velocity would have a powered range of 45.7 million km. If instead she accelerated for only one hour, the range drops to 37.5 Gm. In both cases, I've assumed a direct course, which is not likely, but calculating the vector additions gets a little too complex for right now.

We know from what happened that 9 salvos were fired before the SLN found TG110.2, which translates to 3 minutes. With Phantom firing from further out, let's say she would get 4 minutes until detection. With the 2-hour pre-acceleration, the Cataphracts launched immediately upon detection intercept after 214 seconds. With 1 hour of pre-acceleration, it increases to only 223 seconds.

In the ~220 seconds it took for the Cataphracts to arrive, both segments of TG110.2 will have fired another 11 salvos of 352 missiles. Those will arrive. And at the time of its destruction, Phantom is still about 90 light-seconds from Hypatia, so any missiles within 100 seconds of arriving should be considered "under control". But since she's at nearly 2x the distance than the actual engagement, the missile performance has to be poorer.

The Saganamis are closer. They were at roughly 16.4 Gm (4 minutes of missile flight time, 55 light-seconds) when they first fired. If they were at rest relative to the SLN, the Cataphracts would need 227 seconds to reach them. They wouldn't be...

Let's plot the timeline with T=0 being when Phantom fired:

• T=0: Phantom starts firing; flight time is 360s, cycle time is 20s.
• T=240s: Phantom detected. SLN fires.
• T=360s: SLN fires all unused pods, if any (use or lose)
• T=360s: Saganamis start firing; flight time is 240s, cycle time is 20s.
• T=360s to 560s: 11 salvos of 100 Mk16 under Phantom control arrive. Kills: 11
• T=460s: Phantom destroyed; total fire: 23 salvos (2300 missiles); range from Hypatia: 90 light-seconds
• T=540s: Saganamis detected; 88 SLN BCs engages with internal tubes; flight time: 227 seconds; cycle time: 25 seconds.
• T=580s: 1 salvo of 100 Mk16 arrives without control. Kills: 1
• T=600s to T=820s: 12 salvos of 100 uncontrolled Mk16 and 252 controlled Mk14. Kills: 36 (3 per salvo)
• T=767s: Saganamis under attack, 14 missiles x 88 BCs
• T=792s: 14 M x 86 BCs
• T=817s: smaller salvos arriving
• T=~840s: Saganamis destroyed; total fire: 25 salvos (6048 missiles, 2016 per ship); range from Hypatia: 55 light-seconds.
• T=840s to T=900s: 4 salvos of 252 Mk14 arrive under control. Kills: 5 (1.5 per salvo, rounded up)
• T=920s to T=1040s: 9 salvos of 252 uncontrolled Mk14 arrive. Kills: 9 (1 per salvo)
• T=1040s: engagement ends. Kills: 62

In the actual battle, 87 were destroyed. In my simulation, this was worse, notably because we never reached the 5 kills/salvo ratio of the actual battle. There were two reasons for that: first, Phantom died at 90 light-seconds from Hypatia, which meant that its sensors weren't as good as at 50 light-seconds. Second, because the Saganamis waited 6 minutes to fire, their missiles didn't begin arriving until 10 minutes into the battle, which limited the number of salvos that were under both groups' control.

Exercise for tomorrow: Phantom was too far, so find out how these numbers change if she started firing from 75 or 60 light-seconds.

Love the timeline but disagree with your kill numbers, mostly with the accuracy assertion, based on the interception results from New Tuscany, Zunker, and Saltash at equivalent or greater ranges.

==Large snip==

ThinksMarkedly wrote:We know from what happened that 9 salvos were fired before the SLN found TG110.2, which translates to 3 minutes. With Phantom firing from further out, let's say she would get 4 minutes until detection. With the 2-hour pre-acceleration, the Cataphracts launched immediately upon detection intercept after 214 seconds. With 1 hour of pre-acceleration, it increases to only 223 seconds.

In the ~220 seconds it took for the Cataphracts to arrive, both segments of TG110.2 will have fired another 11 salvos of 352 missiles. Those will arrive. And at the time of its destruction, Phantom is still about 90 light-seconds from Hypatia, so any missiles within 100 seconds of arriving should be considered "under control". But since she's at nearly 2x the distance than the actual engagement, the missile performance has to be poorer.

The Saganamis are closer. They were at roughly 16.4 Gm (4 minutes of missile flight time, 55 light-seconds) when they first fired. If they were at rest relative to the SLN, the Cataphracts would need 227 seconds to reach them. They wouldn't be...

==end of snip==
Trying to keep it short, I used Excel and your missile flight times but different detection. I also decided to give Phantom a "three free shot" headstart designed to give Kotouc a better idea of "lower mission-kill missile requirements", aka how much can they spread their fire and still achieve mission kills for every ship targeted. I'll stipulate that the answer is 36 (Angrim's fire that killed Lepanto) but the lower count they'll settle on is 40 Mk16Gs per. She won't have time, but that would give a Nike enough ammunition to shoot the s--- out of all the BCs in TF-1030. Also note that my timeline uses T Zero as the time that each of the TUFT freighters eat a Manty RD. T- (T minus) before, T+ (T plus) after. and have Phantom start firing earlier.

Pre-Kickoff, the Sag-Bs are moving into position, Phantom is divergent and at 30MM ish kilometers, with 6 Lorelies launching but dark, to imitate a Nike, two heavy cruisers, and 4 of those "big assed Many Destroyers". She's also spotted two quad launches of 200 missiles each that will fire and never go ballistic.
*T - 180 Salvo one lights up stacked 200 missiles at 4 BCs, Loreleis launched
*T - 156 Salvo two fires 200 missiles at 6 BCs,
*T - 144 Salvo 3 fires 100 Missiles at 4 BCs. Phantom turns to a mildly divergent course, goes dark, Loreleis activated.

Not much new happens or about a minute...

*T-60 As planned by Ilkova, the SLN detects the Lorelies
*T-30 TF-1030 fires the 120K missile salvo
*T-0 ==> Kerblooey! 3 TUFTS freighters go buh-Bye.
This is 30 seconds before the RMN missiles could have arrived. Consternation Ensues.
*T+30 to T+66: 11 B/Cs blown up or mission killed, three severely damaged. Phantom and the SagBs are still undetected.

*T+90ish, the SLN can no longer control ANY of their Alpha launch. ALL of the missiles are going to miss.

*T+120: Phantom raises her wedge 4, ignites more Lorelies, and sends the next 200 missile salvo. They've figured an optimum fire distribution of 40 missiles per B/C. Every salvo fired after will target a single ship with ten more attacking nearby ships just to raise mayhem. It's now tube on tube as soon as the SLN finds Phantom for real this time.

*T+132 to T 360: Phantom fires 28 total Mk-16 salvos, 50 apiece. 28 more mission kills. We're at 39 dead BCs.... maybe 10-25% damage on others. No golden BB shots here...

T+360: Phantom is discovered. She now has time for about 18 salvos before whatever missiles arrive from the remaining 60 BCs. Halfway the, the Cataphracts become uncontrolled.

T+480: Sag-Bs open up with full speed shots coordinated fire. These will arrive at roughly T+ 600, then arrive every 12-15 seconds in flights of 210. Mission killing around 4-5 BCs per minute...

Also at T+480: Cataphract now uncontrolled. Phantom begins handing off tactical control of all their latter in-space salvo(s) to the Sag Bs, and is mission killed around T+540. She's killed 54 all by herself.... which is roughly correct for your 2300 count divided by my "40 per kill".

*T+450 to around T+700, the Sag-Bs haven't even been isolated yet, and the missile salvo has gone up to a mixed 320 per time-on-target salvo (30 per sag + 50 each from Phantom) under full shipboard control... for twenty more salvos. They only need 9 to run the tables on the B/Cs before they start on the lighter TF-1030 warships.

Do you really think I wouldn't at least have one or two Sag Bs surviving alive at the end? Then again, what tactical genius decided to launch all of the deployed missiles three minutes before any RMN missiles could have arrived. Feller named Hadju Gyozo... about the same tactical skill as Crandall, methinks.
He musta been trained on Frontier Fleet's gimme sims.

A couple problems I see with these:

@ThinksMarkedly

T=~840s: Saganamis destroyed; total fire: 25 salvos (6048 missiles, 2016 per ship); range from Hypatia: 55 light-seconds.

This may be well in excess of how many missiles each Sang-B carries. While we don't know for sure how many a B carries, a C carries a bit over 1000. Admittedly those are larger missiles being carried in a hull only 14% larger, but is that difference enough to double the missile load?

@SharkHunter

*T+132 to T 360: Phantom fires 28 total Mk-16 salvos, 50 apiece. 28 more mission kills. We're at 39 dead BCs.... maybe 10-25% damage on others. No golden BB shots here...

That time frame would only allow 19-22 launches, depending on whether we're using the 12 second reload found elsewhere or the 10 second reload given in this battle.

Also at T+480: Cataphract now uncontrolled. Phantom begins handing off tactical control of all their latter in-space salvo(s) to the Sag Bs, and is mission killed around T+540. She's killed 54 all by herself.... which is roughly correct for your 2300 count divided by my "40 per kill".

Three Sang-Bs don't have the fire control links for that, at least as originally designed. Fire control for Phantom's missiles must be supplied by Phantom even at its much greater distance.

*T+450 to around T+700, the Sag-Bs haven't even been isolated yet, and the missile salvo has gone up to a mixed 320 per time-on-target salvo (30 per sag + 50 each from Phantom) under full shipboard control... for twenty more salvos. They only need 9 to run the tables on the B/Cs before they start on the lighter TF-1030 warships.

Again, lack of fire control on the Sang-Bs. It didn't matter when they were in company with Phantom, as Phantom could control entire launches with Keyhole. Sang-Bs are limited to single broadsides no larger than 23 - 19 broadside and 2+2 from the chasers. The other broadside can't engage both because the Sang-B's launchers can't launch 180 degrees off bearing and the Sang-B cannot control any missiles at all while wedge-on to the target, the only way they could make all their launchers bear at once.
HoS is explicit that the chase aspects lack the fire control links to control 2 chase plus 2x19 broadsides together.

The second-generation missile launchers are capable of limited off-bore fire into adjacent arcs, though the chase telemetry arrays limit them to realtime control of less than half the total salvo they could launch.

Great counterpoints: Quick notes.

Three Sang-Bs don't have the fire control links for that, at least as originally designed. Fire control for Phantom's missiles must be supplied by Phantom even at its much
greater distance.
...
HoS is explicit that the chase aspects lack the fire control links to control 2 chase plus 2x19 broadsides together.
...

The second-generation missile launchers are capable of limited off-bore fire into adjacent arcs, though the chase telemetry arrays limit them to realtime control of less than half the total salvo they could launch.

See note 3 below.

1. Keyhole is mostly related to Apollo, not the Mk16s, so there isn't much reason control handoffs couldn't be a part of a -Bs upgrade suite... [they've come via Beowulf pretty much directly from Manticore, after all] But there's no textev that they can so yes, that is a big hole in my logic. That said...
2. Elsewhere in UC (Lessem's forces), it says that a B can handle 84 missiles at once. So I gave them the same number, and for
3. For RFCs 350 missile salvos, that requires their limited off-bore capability to be in play... ergo Kotouc's ships aren't on a dead-on chaser only / reciprocal course to TF-1030. They're angling in to take advantage of what the ships CAN do. My version has them on that same course.
4. (240 + the Cataphract crossing time is what I meant) / 12 is what I meant, oops. But they're not dead at that point which is why I give it more salvos later.
5. Woops. For some reason I gave the RMN four... lack of sleep whilst punching numbers into Excel, probably. Dang So that cuts my end-fire sequence by about 30% unless my handoff is in play.

So I will amend my own total: here

[edited] *T+450 to around T+700, the Sag-Bs haven't even been isolated yet, and the missile salvo has gone up to a mixed 240 per time-on-target salvo (30 per sag + 50 each from Phantom) under full shipboard control... for twenty more salvos. They only need 9 to run the tables at 350, so at 240 it should take only 13-14 on the B/Cs before they start on the lighter TF-1030 warships.

Any better?

SharkHunter wrote:That said... this scenario proposes launching at "max range with no ballistic section" for the 16s, using whatever velocity Phantom has to extend the range even further. IIRC, the Cataphracts would have to coast. You're right that she couldn't shoot herself dry -- but she might not have to in order to deliver the same level of devastation as in the book. I'm basing that assumption on the fact that the SLN hasn't stopped enough full power two-drive shots, EVER... at New Tuscany, Zunker, or Saltash.

Whether the Cataphracts would have to coast would depend on which revision of them the SLN had at Hypatia.

We saw some (3rd gen? ones) earlier in UH that had, frankly, unbelievable performance[1]. Those were estimated, by the Manties being fired upon, to have about 31 million km of powered range. If that's right, that's actually further than the 29 million km range of the Mk16!


-----------------------
[1] * First gen Duckk gave us the numbers for "Cataphracts go 467 KPS^2 for 180 seconds, then 961 for 75".
* Filareta’s were apparently 2nd gen ones since their first stage had improved to 561 KPS^2; though the 2nd stage seemed unchanged.
* But these ones, specifically noted have "better acceleration than Filareta’s" pulled a 1st stage accel of 841.8 KPS squared (85,898 gees); and that's apparently at half power.

In contrast Mk16 and Mk23s have a half-power setting of 450.8 KPS^2 (46,000 gees) and full power of 901.5 KPS^2 (92,000 gees). So the improved Cataphracts can run for three minutes at an accel that's 93.3% of that the RMN missiles can manage for only one.

SharkHunter wrote:Any better?

Still having issues.

1. Keyhole is mostly related to Apollo, not the Mk16s, so there isn't much reason control handoffs couldn't be a part of a -Bs upgrade suite... [they've come via Beowulf pretty much directly from Manticore, after all] But there's no textev that they can so yes, that is a big hole in my logic.

The handoff isn't the issue, it's the number of control channels the Keyholes provide that the B's lack. This may be considered addressed since you're launching single broadsides instead of stacked as in the original. See following.

2. Elsewhere in UC (Lessem's forces), it says that a B can handle 84 missiles at once. So I gave them the same number, and for

That must be only in the broadside aspect. That does matter somewhat, but only somewhat.

3. For RFCs 350 missile salvos, that requires their limited off-bore capability to be in play... ergo Kotouc's ships aren't on a dead-on chaser only / reciprocal course to TF-1030. They're angling in to take advantage of what the ships CAN do. My version has them on that same course.

This is the big issue. For those salvos to work, all four ships have to be wedge-on to the target. B's can launch 90 degrees off bore, meaning the only way they can use all 42 tubes is if they're launching into their blind aspects above the roof or below the floor where they have no control links whatsoever. Phantom does have control links around the wedge because she has Keyhole. The others don't and are thus limited to being broadside on and launching no more than 23 tubes at a time (the other 19 can't make the 180 degree turn the way a Roland, C or Nike can).

The largest combined salvos you can get with the B's controlling them will be 119 from a single launch, 3 x 23 from the B's and 50 from the Phantom. They could - barely - control a double launch, which would use 238 of the available 252 available slots, but they'd be firing half as often.

Galactic Sapper wrote:This is the big issue. For those salvos to work, all four ships have to be wedge-on to the target. B's can launch 90 degrees off bore, meaning the only way they can use all 42 tubes is if they're launching into their blind aspects above the roof or below the floor where they have no control links whatsoever. Phantom does have control links around the wedge because she has Keyhole. The others don't and are thus limited to being broadside on and launching no more than 23 tubes at a time (the other 19 can't make the 180 degree turn the way a Roland, C or Nike can).

The largest combined salvos you can get with the B's controlling them will be 119 from a single launch, 3 x 23 from the B's and 50 from the Phantom. They could - barely - control a double launch, which would use 238 of the available 252 available slots, but they'd be firing half as often.

It's not entirely clear how many missiles their chase telemetry arrays can handle - HOS just says "The second-generation missile launchers are capable of limited off-bore fire into adjacent arcs, though the chase telemetry arrays limit them to realtime control of less than half the total salvo they could launch."

Presumably that means at best not more than the 19 tubes you could get anyway from a broadside. Though normally telemetry has enough redundancy / extra capacity to handle at least a delayed launch double salvo. So it's not entirely impossible that HoS meant it could handle less than a double launch from all 19+19+2 usable tubes (so less than half of 80 missiles) in which case even bow on it could dump larger salvos faster than it could broadside on; however I view that as unlikely.

Still, either way that a hell of an improvement to what it can bring to a stern chase compared to an older design - but it's not up with what a Sag-C can do; much less any Keyhole equipped ship.

(And while Honorverse telemetry arrays seem to be able to easily control multiple follow-on salvos -- they haven't been able to take the ability to control 5 or more salvos in flight to instead control a single massed salvo 5 times as large)

Jonathan_S wrote:It's not entirely clear how many missiles their chase telemetry arrays can handle - HOS just says "The second-generation missile launchers are capable of limited off-bore fire into adjacent arcs, though the chase telemetry arrays limit them to realtime control of less than half the total salvo they could launch."

Presumably that means at best not more than the 19 tubes you could get anyway from a broadside. Though normally telemetry has enough redundancy / extra capacity to handle at least a delayed launch double salvo. So it's not entirely impossible that HoS meant it could handle less than a double launch from all 19+19+2 usable tubes (so less than half of 80 missiles) in which case even bow on it could dump larger salvos faster than it could broadside on; however I view that as unlikely.

Still, either way that a hell of an improvement to what it can bring to a stern chase compared to an older design - but it's not up with what a Sag-C can do; much less any Keyhole equipped ship.

(And while Honorverse telemetry arrays seem to be able to easily control multiple follow-on salvos -- they haven't been able to take the ability to control 5 or more salvos in flight to instead control a single massed salvo 5 times as large)

I don't think HoS means a double launch; simply half of an all-launcher salvo(so 22). I suspect the Sag-B was designed to alternate broadsides whilst in chase mode. "Only" ~21 missiles(more than almost every BC broadside in service at the time!) per salvo, but launching roughly twice as many salvos as an old-style battlecruiser could using a single broadside.

It's easy to overlook how impressive that was at the time the Sag-B entered service. This effectively tripled or quadrupled a Star Knight's sustained missile firepower.

Galactic Sapper wrote:This is the big issue. For those salvos to work, all four ships have to be wedge-on to the target. B's can launch 90 degrees off bore, meaning the only way they can use all 42 tubes is if they're launching into their blind aspects above the roof or below the floor where they have no control links whatsoever. Phantom does have control links around the wedge because she has Keyhole. The others don't and are thus limited to being broadside on and launching no more than 23 tubes at a time (the other 19 can't make the 180 degree turn the way a Roland, C or Nike can).

The largest combined salvos you can get with the B's controlling them will be 119 from a single launch, 3 x 23 from the B's and 50 from the Phantom. They could - barely - control a double launch, which would use 238 of the available 252 available slots, but they'd be firing half as often.

As for what was controlling the missiles, HoS also provides the answer:

Above all other design elements, the addition of the Mark 20 Keyhole platform to the Nike-class allows it a greater level of tactical flexibility than any other warship currently in service. This costs a tremendous amount of mass and creates interesting problems (which some commentators describe as weaknesses) in the armor system. But those costs buy the ability to tether the platforms outside the wedge, which, coupled with the off-bore missile launchers, makes Nike the one of the first warships that can fight an entire engagement with her wedge to the enemy. The telemetry repeaters allow full control of both missiles and countermissiles, and the platforms’ onboard point defenses thicken defensive fire. In addition, the Keyhole platform can act as a “handoff” relay, allowing a Nike to coordinate offensive and defensive missile control for another ship while both keep their wedges to the threat. This flexibility has resulted in vastly increased computational complexity in offensive and defensive engagement programming and helps to explain much of the class’ survivability.

Given that, it seems that as long as the Sag-Bs are with Phantom, they can turn their wedges toward the SLN fleet and use all their launchers at once, up to the keyhole's maximum salvo size.

And deploying them away from Phantom removes that ability, throwing them back upon their transitional limitations.