Escort SD

I wonder is it time for the arrival of the escort Superdreadnaught since thr GA uses massive missile salvoes.

A superdreadnaught armed uncomprising for shortrange antimissile work would carry thousands of antimissile missiles and if armed with something like the viper would be a monster close in and if arrayed in a wall on front of the wall of battle would be absolute brilliant in the anti missile role especially if it had escort lacs thet could take control of the counter missiles as the enemy missiles pass them .

floss wrote:I wonder is it time for the arrival of the escort Superdreadnaught since thr GA uses massive missile salvoes.

No. A wing of LACs can provide better anti-missile capability and be in more places at once.

floss wrote:I wonder is it time for the arrival of the escort Superdreadnaught since thr GA uses massive missile salvoes.

A superdreadnaught armed uncomprising for shortrange antimissile work would carry thousands of antimissile missiles and if armed with something like the viper would be a monster close in and if arrayed in a wall on front of the wall of battle would be absolute brilliant in the anti missile role especially if it had escort lacs thet could take control of the counter missiles as the enemy missiles pass them .

To expand on Wierd Harold's reply: the latest tactic of having a hemispherical wall of LACs would work a lot better, simply because it's farther out, so the actual fleet being protected has more time to deal with leakers, and it has a wider field of coverage. LACs are a lot cheaper than SDs.

The ship you're thinking of is called a CLAC.

I'm sure there's a pearl where RFC discusses this, but I'm damned if I can find it at the moment (oh well, I'll just have to read them all again...).

Basically, Honorverse navies generally frown on the idea of specialist ship types. The problem with having a specialised escort ship is that it concentrates too much of a given capability in one platform. Once your enemy identifies it (and they likely will, given the capabilities of modern recon drones), they can concentrate missile salvos on it until it's destroyed, at which point your missile defences are significantly weakened. By dispersing your offensive and defensive power throughout your force, you ensure that there's no critical point to be attacked.

Some people have argued that CLACs are a deviation from this rule, because they can't do anything by carry LACs. However, you could argue that they have the same blend of offensive and defensive ability, it's just that a lot of it is delivered from the LACs rather than missile and countermissile tubes.

Dafmeister wrote:I'm sure there's a pearl where RFC discusses this, but I'm damned if I can find it at the moment (oh well, I'll just have to read them all again...).

Basically, Honorverse navies generally frown on the idea of specialist ship types. The problem with having a specialised escort ship is that it concentrates too much of a given capability in one platform. Once your enemy identifies it (and they likely will, given the capabilities of modern recon drones), they can concentrate missile salvos on it until it's destroyed, at which point your missile defences are significantly weakened. By dispersing your offensive and defensive power throughout your force, you ensure that there's no critical point to be attacked.

Some people have argued that CLACs are a deviation from this rule, because they can't do anything by carry LACs. However, you could argue that they have the same blend of offensive and defensive ability, it's just that a lot of it is delivered from the LACs rather than missile and countermissile tubes.

That being said it does seem to be a fairly established tactic for the CLACs to release the LACs and then run like hell.

Direwolf18 wrote:That being said it does seem to be a fairly established tactic for the CLACs to release the LACs and then run like hell.

Which would support the widely-proposed split into 'transport' CLACs and 'battle' CLACs.

Direwolf18 wrote:That being said it does seem to be a fairly established tactic for the CLACs to release the LACs and then run like hell.

LACs are "Fire-and-forget" munitions?

Weird Harold wrote:

Direwolf18 wrote:That being said it does seem to be a fairly established tactic for the CLACs to release the LACs and then run like hell.

LACs are "Fire-and-forget" munitions?

Of course they are. Until, that is, the XO reminds the CO that he has to pay for any that he loses.

KNick wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:
LACs are "Fire-and-forget" munitions?

Of course they are. Until, that is, the XO reminds the CO that he has to pay for any that he loses.

No navy in their right mind would impose such a rule. LACs are meant to be expendable. Not as expendable as missile but far more then any hyper-capable warship. Thus a reg which makes CLAC commanders terrified to put their LACS in harm's way would be utterly counterproductive.

Since modern LACs are even more powerful than any non-Havenite/non-Manticoran destroyers, the sheer numbers of them that a single CLAC can deliver to the 'battlefield' means a tremendous increase in screening unit strength, at a much lower cost in manpower, construction times, cash investment and materiel requirements.