New Manty ship ideas.

Rakhmamort wrote:Granted a self powered donkey pod is still not built yet. But it is also true it is not beyond the current tech to build one.

The RMN flat-pack pods have an internal tractor so that they can be daisy-chained nearly indefinitely. I couldn't find the exact reference, but I'm pretty sure that there is textev to the effect that they are self-powered from the on-board fusion plant needed to bootstrap the micro-fusion plants in the missiles.

Aren't we over thinking this FTL control for CMs?

Yes if you managed to develop the technology and its not going to be prohibitively expensive to equip CMs with it then by all means its a good idea.

But, big BUT, do CMs really need that much 'control'? CMs do not have the same range as Attack missiles. Light speed control is good enough for them.

If! IF! somebody is really going to put a drive on CM pods/cannisters and send the pods very very far out, then maybe there is a need to put FTL capable receivers in the pod/launchers which will then relay the commands to the CMs via light-speed links. But FTL receivers in the CM missiles themselves, that's kind of over the top.

*Note that if you put them in the drive equipped pods, there is a possibilit of recovering and reusing them. If those components are in CMs, then they should be treated as expendable.

Rakhmamort wrote:Aren't we over thinking this FTL control for CMs?

Yes if you managed to develop the technology and its not going to be prohibitively expensive to equip CMs with it then by all means its a good idea.

But, big BUT, do CMs really need that much 'control'? CMs do not have the same range as Attack missiles. Light speed control is good enough for them.

If! IF! somebody is really going to put a drive on CM pods/cannisters and send the pods very very far out, then maybe there is a need to put FTL capable receivers in the pod/launchers which will then relay the commands to the CMs via light-speed links. But FTL receivers in the CM missiles themselves, that's kind of over the top.

*Note that if you put them in the drive equipped pods, there is a possibilit of recovering and reusing them. If those components are in CMs, then they should be treated as expendable.

If somebody crams a FTL relay and the drive and the laser links to a pod, your pod is no longer cheap. A that point you can build Katanas instead. Also any kind of FTL control still needs a transmitter, which would have to go inside the LAC displacing something else.

BrightSoul wrote:Sort of an extension of the SLN canister CM failure but utilizing lightspeed connections to the ACM that launched them in the initial boost phase might extend the envelope.

The SLN isn't the only navy to use CM canisters:

Shadow of Saganami Prologue
Aivars Terekhov's flashback wrote:"Point defense fire plan Horatius!" he snapped, and what was left of his Tactical Department started throwing canisters of counter-missiles out of the bow tubes. The canisters were seldom used, especially by a ship as small as a light cruiser, but this was exactly the situation for which they were designed. Defiant had lost over half her counter-missile tubes. The canisters used standard missile tubes to put additional clusters of defensive birds into space, and despite her vicious damage, the ship still had three-quarters of her counter-missile uplinks, which gave her control channels to spare.

Since CM canisters are designed to be used from standard missile tubes, they should be useable in pods in place of Mk16s or Mk23s. Since the RMN's flatpack pods have the internal tractors, they can be tractored to LACs. Modified to fire one tube at a time, one canister of 10(?) CMs shouldn't overload a LAC's control links. Using Mk16 pods, that provides 10 tubes or 100 additional CMs for LAC controlled CM fire.

Use an Apollo pod with the Mk23E(ACM) replaced by a command and control multiplier, a la Keyhole I (minus point defense and sensors) and each pod can launch and control 80 CMs for one control channel from the LAC or other ship controlling the pod.

The only "new" developments would be the "single" mode for the Mk16 size (which might already exist,) and/or the C&C multiplier for the Apollo pod version.

Pods tractored inside a wedge are vulnerable to soft kills but even vulnerable to soft kills, trailed in daisy chains, such "canister pods" would extend magazine capacity until enemy tac officers specifically targeted the pods and/or LACs towing them.

Also, the Viper anti-LAC missile has an AI that makes it "fire and forget;" Vipers are used in anti-missile mode rather than equip Katanas with two types of missiles. A canister of Vipers instead of standard CMs might be programmable so that a canister would be "fire and forget" and not need control links at all.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Theemile wrote:Apollo control currently requires at least 1 120KTon KHII Drone and 60+ ktons of computer support on top of an SD's normal computer and sensor capabilities. ...

...

Without immense, implausible, further miniaturization I agree that no destroyer is going to be carrying a Keyhole II type FTL fire-control relay.

Keyhole II is required for FTL control of Apollo, but there is far more to Keyhole II than just FTL fire control. There are all of the other functions from Keyhole I, like CM launchers, point defense clusters, extra sensors to see around wedge interference, etc.

Strip most of the Keyhole I stuff out and the FTL fire control links should be supportable by smaller ships. Probably not as many FTL/FC links as and SD with Keyhole II, but enough to support a smaller ships firepower.

Whitecold wrote:

Rakhmamort wrote:Aren't we over thinking this FTL control for CMs?

Yes if you managed to develop the technology and its not going to be prohibitively expensive to equip CMs with it then by all means its a good idea.

But, big BUT, do CMs really need that much 'control'? CMs do not have the same range as Attack missiles. Light speed control is good enough for them.

If! IF! somebody is really going to put a drive on CM pods/cannisters and send the pods very very far out, then maybe there is a need to put FTL capable receivers in the pod/launchers which will then relay the commands to the CMs via light-speed links. But FTL receivers in the CM missiles themselves, that's kind of over the top.

*Note that if you put them in the drive equipped pods, there is a possibilit of recovering and reusing them. If those components are in CMs, then they should be treated as expendable.

If somebody crams a FTL relay and the drive and the laser links to a pod, your pod is no longer cheap. A that point you can build Katanas instead. Also any kind of FTL control still needs a transmitter, which would have to go inside the LAC displacing something else.

And you want the FTL links to be in the individual CMs? No chance of getting retrieved. If the CMs do function as they are supposed to, completely destroyed?

Again the concern here is extending the anti missile envelope beyond what you can have with LACs. You cannot put your LAC cover too far from your wall.

Rakhmamort wrote:You cannot put your LAC cover too far from your wall.

Why not?

Because you want your LAC screen in a position where it can react to the maneuvers your wall is pulling.

Also, whether the screen is a lightminute away or a lighthour doesn't really matter. The interception solution is pretty much the same. Basically, the only thing that matters is that the LACs shoot down a couple missiles. Where they do it isn't important.

The E wrote:Because you want your LAC screen in a position where it can react to the maneuvers your wall is pulling.

In that case, I'd want them -- or some of them -- as close to the enemy as possible. They'd have less distance to move to stay between my wall and the enemy wall.

The E wrote:Also, whether the screen is a lightminute away or a lighthour doesn't really matter. The interception solution is pretty much the same. Basically, the only thing that matters is that the LACs shoot down a couple missiles. Where they do it isn't important.

That's kind of the point of the question. What matters for the missile interdiction role is magazine capacity and being positioned near the missile's path from one wall to another.

The E wrote:Because you want your LAC screen in a position where it can react to the maneuvers your wall is pulling.

Also, whether the screen is a lightminute away or a lighthour doesn't really matter. The interception solution is pretty much the same. Basically, the only thing that matters is that the LACs shoot down a couple missiles. Where they do it isn't important.

The point of interception matters insofar that you want time to analyze the result of your fire, so you can shoot only at those you missed.