Insanity: Screening elements in the HV

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Both the Mistletoe and Silver Bullet can probably fire more than once. For the purposes that they were used, this wasn't useful: they to get close to something to destroy it, so there wasn't a point in a second shot. Moreover and more to the point, once anything fires, it's visible and can be tracked. So the other side can just send a missile that way or shoot from something else.

IIRC Mistletoe simply (depending on variant) added a laserhead or a contact nuke warhead to the Ghost Rider RD. So those would only be usable once (and I don't think they bothered to turn the RD into a reusable delivery platform; where it drops off a warhead submission and gets clear before the nuke blows)

Silver Bullet, well, that'd depend on whether or not the stripped down graser it uses (IIRC the same one as on a g-torp) can survive shutdown or if any activation irrevocably wrecks it. I could see it either way; or even somewhere in the meddle where it might be reusable as long as you kept each use very short, so there wasn't time to start damaging the very life limited components (say, maybe you could expend it in 1 3-second burst or 15-20 1/20th second bursts).

Jonathan_S wrote:IIRC Mistletoe simply (depending on variant) added a laserhead or a contact nuke warhead to the Ghost Rider RD. So those would only be usable once (and I don't think they bothered to turn the RD into a reusable delivery platform; where it drops off a warhead submission and gets clear before the nuke blows)

Silver Bullet, well, that'd depend on whether or not the stripped down graser it uses (IIRC the same one as on a g-torp) can survive shutdown or if any activation irrevocably wrecks it. I could see it either way; or even somewhere in the meddle where it might be reusable as long as you kept each use very short, so there wasn't time to start damaging the very life limited components (say, maybe you could expend it in 1 3-second burst or 15-20 1/20th second bursts).

I meant that their chassis and power plants could probably support a DD-class multiple-shot laser or graser, or maybe higher. But I questioned the usefulness of such. It can't be used against a warship (any warship) in limited quantity. You'd need a huge amount of them to intercept an Alpha launch short of destination, and you're more likely to spend the same amount of resources (money, space) on CMs and missiles (ou can even just use regular missiles to barricade). You wouldn't blunt any further out launches, because now that the platforms are visible, they can be evaded or shot at.

I could see this being used as solution to implement a siege or blockade. But again, this only works against civilian shipping: any decent warship inside or outside of your shell of graser-firing RDs would be able to blow a hole in it.

Not directly related, but this reminded me that Manticore was salvaging SD class grasers from the captured SLN fleet in order to create a multi-shot mine replacement with some limited mobility (maybe just enough to point and shoot). Presumably this would be somewhere in size between an RD and a LAC. I'm just wondering when we will see them in use.

Theemile wrote:[RANT]
And I'm going to return with why none of this makes sense - a ship borne missile is usually 70-150 tons - capacitor MDMs might get up to 300 or so.

But their warheads are only 30% the mass of a standard Missile, and 10% or so of a capacitor MDM, the rest is drive, and power systems.

A shipborn laser STARTS at a couple hundred tons for a small DD model, Grasers - high 100s/low 1000s. Even stripped of safety hardware, how can a Laser/Graser mount fit in a missile? Even the shipborne version only has enough on-mount power for 3-4 shots of several milliseconds. How can you miniaturize them to get sufficient power to damage an SD and fit in a 30Ton bundle able to be mounted on top of a missile?

A graser Torp which fires for 3 seconds requires ~100x the power of a shipborne mount of the same size.

It just doesn't make sense.
[/RANT]

The shipboard mount can go to the same continuous fire mode. It just costs the same - the mount explodes in the process. We know that from Terekhov's death ride at Hyacinth.

From this we can infer that power supply isn't the bottleneck(except for LACs). Waste heat management is, but the nature of the torpedo accepts that problem, even finds a silver lining(the enemy cannot recover any discharged weapons).

As for LACs, they do have a power supply bottleneck but they mitigated it by installing capacitors. So there's the answer, the torpedo's capacitor only has to be ~100x the size of a Shrike's. Probably a bit less, IIRC the torpedo uses a heavy or light cruiser weight graser - comparable to the ones Terekhov over-fired.

munroburton wrote:

Theemile wrote:[RANT]
And I'm going to return with why none of this makes sense - a ship borne missile is usually 70-150 tons - capacitor MDMs might get up to 300 or so.

But their warheads are only 30% the mass of a standard Missile, and 10% or so of a capacitor MDM, the rest is drive, and power systems.

A shipborn laser STARTS at a couple hundred tons for a small DD model, Grasers - high 100s/low 1000s. Even stripped of safety hardware, how can a Laser/Graser mount fit in a missile? Even the shipborne version only has enough on-mount power for 3-4 shots of several milliseconds. How can you miniaturize them to get sufficient power to damage an SD and fit in a 30Ton bundle able to be mounted on top of a missile?

A graser Torp which fires for 3 seconds requires ~100x the power of a shipborne mount of the same size.

It just doesn't make sense.
[/RANT]

The shipboard mount can go to the same continuous fire mode. It just costs the same - the mount explodes in the process. We know that from Terekhov's death ride at Hyacinth.

From this we can infer that power supply isn't the bottleneck(except for LACs). Waste heat management is, but the nature of the torpedo accepts that problem, even finds a silver lining(the enemy cannot recover any discharged weapons).

As for LACs, they do have a power supply bottleneck but they mitigated it by installing capacitors. So there's the answer, the torpedo's capacitor only has to be ~100x the size of a Shrike's. Probably a bit less, IIRC the torpedo uses a heavy or light cruiser weight graser - comparable to the ones Terekhov over-fired.

Agreed in full, My point is not that it cannot be done, but that it cannot be done in the allocated mass - a warship's on-mount ring capacitor holds 2-3 10 ms Graser shots, a Shrike's 150mm BC spinal Graser's ring capacitor hold 6-8 10 ms shots. we're talking a truly massive power supply to hold 100x that power,

how is any of that fitting on a missile?

munroburton wrote:

Theemile wrote:[RANT]
And I'm going to return with why none of this makes sense - a ship borne missile is usually 70-150 tons - capacitor MDMs might get up to 300 or so.

But their warheads are only 30% the mass of a standard Missile, and 10% or so of a capacitor MDM, the rest is drive, and power systems.

A shipborn laser STARTS at a couple hundred tons for a small DD model, Grasers - high 100s/low 1000s. Even stripped of safety hardware, how can a Laser/Graser mount fit in a missile? Even the shipborne version only has enough on-mount power for 3-4 shots of several milliseconds. How can you miniaturize them to get sufficient power to damage an SD and fit in a 30Ton bundle able to be mounted on top of a missile?

A graser Torp which fires for 3 seconds requires ~100x the power of a shipborne mount of the same size.

It just doesn't make sense.
[/RANT]

The shipboard mount can go to the same continuous fire mode. It just costs the same - the mount explodes in the process. We know that from Terekhov's death ride at Hyacinth.

From this we can infer that power supply isn't the bottleneck(except for LACs). Waste heat management is, but the nature of the torpedo accepts that problem, even finds a silver lining(the enemy cannot recover any discharged weapons).

As for LACs, they do have a power supply bottleneck but they mitigated it by installing capacitors. So there's the answer, the torpedo's capacitor only has to be ~100x the size of a Shrike's. Probably a bit less, IIRC the torpedo uses a heavy or light cruiser weight graser - comparable to the ones Terekhov over-fired.

Theemile wrote:Agreed in full, My point is not that it cannot be done, but that it cannot be done in the allocated mass - a warship's on-mount ring capacitor holds 2-3 10 ms Graser shots, a Shrike's 150mm BC spinal Graser's ring capacitor hold 6-8 10 ms shots. we're talking a truly massive power supply to hold 100x that power,

how is any of that fitting on a missile?

Theemile, I agree the proposal is more suited for the "wishlist" thread. The thread.

Anyway, I was proposing a purpose-built 3-second firing graserhead Cataphract CM fired from a purpose-built CM ship.

There is already a graserhead mounted on a Cataphract missile. Why not a CM? Even a multistage CM. Getting it to fire for 3-seconds would require a MAN breakthrough. Yes.

And it wouldn't have the output of a full up g-torp, no. But it might be possible to coax the existing graserhead missile to fire for an additional few seconds to kill CMs. If the Death Blossom suggestion works. Again, the proposal is to fire them from a purpose built CM ship. Or LD.

And do consider that the LDs will inevitably have very close encounters. Like blasting LACs out of existence.

Unlike everyone else, I fully expect MAN weapons to evolve. Nextgen ... next iteration.

penny wrote:Anyway, I was proposing a purpose-built 3-second firing graserhead Cataphract CM fired from a purpose-built CM ship.

At the risk of sounding like certain Solarian admirals who refused to accept the data, that missile would be massive and could be hardly launched from tubes. This CM ship would be a pod-laying superdreadnought and would need to fire those missiles from pods.

And they'd also be bigger (or much bigger) than the regular anti-ship missile in order to be able to fire more than a handful of milliseconds.

Plus all the associated discussion of how relevant this is in any missile, let alone a CM. You'll be exchanging something like 50:1 regular CMs to this one big monster that will be lucky to take out a single missile. I don't think there's any way this is a good trade-off.

There is already a graserhead mounted on a Cataphract missile. Why not a CM? Even a multistage CM. Getting it to fire for 3-seconds would require a MAN breakthrough. Yes.

There's a graserhead mounted on every anti-ship missile, but not on any CM. CMs don't shoot at other missiles, they ram.

Plus, what's the point of 3 whole seconds in a CM when the missiles it would be shooting at would pass through the full target envelope in a third of a second (a tenth your proposed endurance) - assuming this graser CM flips and fires at the missiles that have flown past.

And it wouldn't have the output of a full up g-torp, no. But it might be possible to coax the existing graserhead missile to fire for an additional few seconds to kill CMs. If the Death Blossom suggestion works. Again, the proposal is to fire them from a purpose built CM ship. Or LD.

Did you mean "kill CMs" there? That is, are you now proposing to use this as a pen-aid to other missiles? How is anything going to shoot at CMs? Their whole point is to ram other missiles with their wedges, so it stands to reason they are flying with their noses tipped up or down so as to present a larger portion of their wedge - if not completely pitched up or down. There is no aspect of the CM that one can shoot at and destroy the CM.

The Death Blossom does not work. The missile simply can't rotate fast enough to do anything useful. Even if it could, a wall of graser is useless because that's just going to hit the missiles' wedges. This mid-flight interception would need to shoot forwards (down the throat) before the missile reaches the missile and/or backwards (up the kilt) after the salvo has flown past. That's not a vertical, perpendicular to the missiles' flight paths. It would need to be a cone, somewhere between 5° and 30°. And like I said, the missiles will not oblige and place themselves in that cone.

Plus, the Mk23E is smart enough and may notice a warhead detonating 50,000 km away, then tell its brethren missiles to pitch up or down so they barricade the CM. If this isn't something it may do on its own already, it will be programmed into it after the first time this technique is used. It can only work once.

Therefore, even if the MAN produces such a missile, they'll never produce a shipful of pods of them, much less dedicate new construction for this.

And do consider that the LDs will inevitably have very close encounters. Like blasting LACs out of existence.

We've been over this before: unless the LD can guarantee a clean sweep of everything within several light-minutes with the surprise first shot, it will not come close to anything. Leaving a single LAC behind is suicide because if that LAC lands a single graser strike or launches a missile, the LD is toast. It has no sidewalls or wedge to protect itself, so its stealth is compromised. And if that happens, then all the other units in the system will vector in to kill it.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

penny wrote:Anyway, I was proposing a purpose-built 3-second firing graserhead Cataphract CM fired from a purpose-built CM ship.

At the risk of sounding like certain Solarian admirals who refused to accept the data, that missile would be massive and could be hardly launched from tubes. This CM ship would be a pod-laying superdreadnought and would need to fire those missiles from pods.

And they'd also be bigger (or much bigger) than the regular anti-ship missile in order to be able to fire more than a handful of milliseconds.

Plus all the associated discussion of how relevant this is in any missile, let alone a CM. You'll be exchanging something like 50:1 regular CMs to this one big monster that will be lucky to take out a single missile. I don't think there's any way this is a good trade-off.

There is already a graserhead mounted on a Cataphract missile. Why not a CM? Even a multistage CM. Getting it to fire for 3-seconds would require a MAN breakthrough. Yes.

There's a graserhead mounted on every anti-ship missile, but not on any CM. CMs don't shoot at other missiles, they ram.

Plus, what's the point of 3 whole seconds in a CM when the missiles it would be shooting at would pass through the full target envelope in a third of a second (a tenth your proposed endurance) - assuming this graser CM flips and fires at the missiles that have flown past.

And it wouldn't have the output of a full up g-torp, no. But it might be possible to coax the existing graserhead missile to fire for an additional few seconds to kill CMs. If the Death Blossom suggestion works. Again, the proposal is to fire them from a purpose built CM ship. Or LD.

Did you mean "kill CMs" there? That is, are you now proposing to use this as a pen-aid to other missiles? How is anything going to shoot at CMs? Their whole point is to ram other missiles with their wedges, so it stands to reason they are flying with their noses tipped up or down so as to present a larger portion of their wedge - if not completely pitched up or down. There is no aspect of the CM that one can shoot at and destroy the CM.

The Death Blossom does not work. The missile simply can't rotate fast enough to do anything useful. Even if it could, a wall of graser is useless because that's just going to hit the missiles' wedges. This mid-flight interception would need to shoot forwards (down the throat) before the missile reaches the missile and/or backwards (up the kilt) after the salvo has flown past. That's not a vertical, perpendicular to the missiles' flight paths. It would need to be a cone, somewhere between 5° and 30°. And like I said, the missiles will not oblige and place themselves in that cone.

Plus, the Mk23E is smart enough and may notice a warhead detonating 50,000 km away, then tell its brethren missiles to pitch up or down so they barricade the CM. If this isn't something it may do on its own already, it will be programmed into it after the first time this technique is used. It can only work once.

Therefore, even if the MAN produces such a missile, they'll never produce a shipful of pods of them, much less dedicate new construction for this.

And do consider that the LDs will inevitably have very close encounters. Like blasting LACs out of existence.

We've been over this before: unless the LD can guarantee a clean sweep of everything within several light-minutes with the surprise first shot, it will not come close to anything. Leaving a single LAC behind is suicide because if that LAC lands a single graser strike or launches a missile, the LD is toast. It has no sidewalls or wedge to protect itself, so its stealth is compromised. And if that happens, then all the other units in the system will vector in to kill it.

Misprint. That should have been shoot missiles instead of CMs.

The suggestion to rotate was changed after everybody's post. I suggested afterwards that the missiles would be launched in a group with each missile responsible for a section of space. Coordinating fire. And the 3-seconds is a potential 3-seconds. I did rethink the notion inasmuch as the missile would be firing down the open throats of the incoming missiles beginning at their standoff range continuing after the salvo passes.

Anyway, the death blossom mode is just a thought. If everyone concurs then we can take it off the holotank.

LACs can target missiles with their energy battery but missiles cannot target missiles?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Plus, what's the point of 3 whole seconds in a CM when the missiles it would be shooting at would pass through the full target envelope in a third of a second (a tenth your proposed endurance) - assuming this graser CM flips and fires at the missiles that have flown past.

[...]
Did you mean "kill CMs" there? That is, are you now proposing to use this as a pen-aid to other missiles? How is anything going to shoot at CMs? Their whole point is to ram other missiles with their wedges, so it stands to reason they are flying with their noses tipped up or down so as to present a larger portion of their wedge - if not completely pitched up or down. There is no aspect of the CM that one can shoot at and destroy the CM.

The Death Blossom does not work. The missile simply can't rotate fast enough to do anything useful. Even if it could, a wall of graser is useless because that's just going to hit the missiles' wedges. This mid-flight interception would need to shoot forwards (down the throat) before the missile reaches the missile and/or backwards (up the kilt) after the salvo has flown past. That's not a vertical, perpendicular to the missiles' flight paths. It would need to be a cone, somewhere between 5° and 30°. And like I said, the missiles will not oblige and place themselves in that cone.

Plus, the Mk23E is smart enough and may notice a warhead detonating 50,000 km away, then tell its brethren missiles to pitch up or down so they barricade the CM. If this isn't something it may do on its own already, it will be programmed into it after the first time this technique is used. It can only work once.

Taking these kind of backwards.

By the time a Mk23E could see the grasrehead detonating (well it doesn't detonate, but does slag down after 3 seconds) the graser would already be hitting at least its first target -- as both the visual of the detonation and the graser would be traveling at the speed of light.
If the Mk23E carries forward looking grav sensors it might well see the graserhead starting to spin in preperation of this 'deathblosson' -- that'd give it warning time to order its brood to take defensive action -- but otherwise I don't think it'd see anything until the graser hit something. (But I still agree this is pretty much, at best, a "use one" tactic. If absolutely nothing else it can be countered by preemptively spreading salvos out more so no more than one missile is within graser range of each other during their ballistic phase - over a 65+ million km flight even very small divergence in heading will add up to a ton of lateral seperation by the time the 2nd drive goes down)

Originally penny was suggesting to do the death blossom while the Mk23s were in a ballistic phase -- so no wedge to protect them from side impacts. There's still the problem that it can't spin fast enough -- the entire salvo will pass through the plane it's trying to cover with graser fire in a tiny fraction of the time it'd take to make a full rotation. (And as you pointed out the 3 second firing time is pointless when one salvo will fly past in way under a second, but the next salvo won't be along for probably 30 seconds -- most of that firing time is just vaporizing inoffensive space dust )

[edit - while I was posting penny clarified that "CM" was misprint and he meant "missile. So ignore the rest of this post]
I was also confused when he suddenly started talking about using grasers to kill CMs. That doesn't seem to fit with firing grasehead CMs from purpose built CM ships -- I'd think you'd need a full up two-stage graserhead anti-ship missile in order to get it over to the target's CM range and to keep up with the missiles it'd be escorting. So I'm not sure if that was a misstatement and he meant MDM, if he's kind of switched ideas mid paragraph, or it this wasn't ever intended to act against incoming antiship missiles.

(Now if it is trying to escort other missiles and kill CMs going after them it would have to try down the throat shots; the CMs aren't going to drop their wedge. But at least CMs get spammed fast enough that you'd have multiple targets over 3-seconds; and even at Cataphract closing speeds it'll spend more than 3 seconds within the RMN's CM envelope -- so it can keep waving the beam around. Though I don't know how well its sensors can see CMs (and after the graser starts firing I don't know if it's have any sensors left. It's presumably firing through the nose; which is also where the sensor array is -- or was ), so I don't know that it'll have much luck even when geometry would allow a clear line of sight from its location to a CM's body. But with CM wedges up you couldn't just 'Death Blossom' and hope to actually get kills; you'd need to aim (which seems like it'd be a problem).
[/edit]

penny wrote:LACs can target missiles with their energy battery but missiles cannot target missiles?

Well LACs have about 50x the sensor area; so they'll have a lot better view of the inbound missile at a lot longer range. And they have actual PDLC mounts -- designed for the rapid firing, very fast and accurate tracking required to engage missiles; oh and they have several so they can target more than one missile simultaneously. (Oh, and LACs have many times the computing power; if that matters)

So, yeah, LACs are kind of optimized to target incoming missiles --- in a way that other missiles aren't.


That doesn't mean it's necessarily impossible for a missile to target a missile; but just because a LAC can do it provides no evidence of whether or not it is possible for a missile to do it.