New Manty ship ideas.

Back when I played home world cataclysm, there was an option with the shield generator ships to setup a shield wall.

While one can't weave a wedge wall together, one wonders if one could make a shield ship say a framework with extra sensors and or multiple keyhole and other tethered unmanned platforms. Some kind of telemetry ship / platform. Using its wedge to impose itself between incoming missiles and ships behind it. Set one at 90 degrees or two at 45 degrees. Might even be able to do this with some kind of ghost rider platform variant.

By frame I mean just that a framework a small inner core with bottle, a fairly large beta node ring and telemetry antennas platform tethers and without any crew on board, perhaps just FTL linked control systems. With tractor beams so they can be towed through hyperspace.

Option to have Something that can run up fast to meet enemy ships possibly carrying missile pods perhaps destroyer sized no other weapons although perhaps full point defense. No crew no compensators and 3000+ g accelerations. Even if they are detectable Destroyers that accelerate at 3000+ g's would be even more spooky. Missiles might not even be in pods but in open racks perhaps a 1000 missile huge and fast pod.

Launching something like this at 300 million klicks would change the whole combat situation but then this might take the drone concept somewhere RFC doesn't want to go. Kind of like a big ghost rider / missile pod and then point defense to intercept any missiles fired by any surviving ships if they ever get into range. With stealth some of these ships might go undetected. Suppose they could be uncrewed LAC sized ships too. Without other weapons a pile rather than bottle may also work. And they could be carried by a CLAC or other similar ship.

RFC doesn't want to go toward Dahak ideas in the Honorverse. I can't recall which post it was, but recon drones are about the largest unmanned vehicles he wants running about. I believe the goal was not to dehumanize events, and to keep the battles from becoming about the tech. Rather to make it about how the tech was used by the very human minds behind it.

I think that you're idea of a framework sounds (to me) essentially like an unarmored ship. Anything with enough power to generate the sort of wedges you are talking about would be fairly obvious, especially after the first time it was used. The second time there would be a saturation, akin to the triple-ripple effort. A series of dirty nukes to just destroy any small items in the way of the incoming flight of real missiles.

Of course you could light off the wedges earlier, but that would give the real missiles more time to go around.

All that aside, (And RFC's clear indication that he would never allow something like that in the Honorverse) how do you get the thing to where you're going. Yes, you mentioned tractors, every ship can't tow something like this. Perhaps DN/SD's could. I believe that we're going to see a reduction in wall level battles once the SLN/SL is taken care of. Smaller combatant fighting is where it's at. BC's and lower as Mesa and the Onion are taken down.

So should something like your idea be allowed, it's a solution in search of a problem.

Duckk wrote:

Lord Skimper wrote:As for retrofitting missile tubes. Didn't Filareta's Eleventh fleet of 435 SD have all of their missile tubes retro fitted in the field, with the Technodyne Cataphract missiles?

No. They simply accepted smaller payloads in exchange for larger drive elements. Any Cataphract carried by the SDs was a BC/CA grade laser head. Only the pods could fire the capital missile version of the Cataphract.

Furthering what Duckk said - the Cataphracts A & B were designed to fit in standard SLN tubes from the outset with no modification to the tubes. Any Mods were firecontrol software mods to control the missiles.

For the BC/CA missile, they started with a DD/CL missile and assed the 2nd stage. The SD version was a BC/CA missile with the bolted on 2nd stage. The Cataphract C started with the standard SD missile with the 2nd stage added, so it was larger then the shipborn tubes the original missile used, requiring Pod firing.

Relax wrote:IF DD's start at 300kt, CL's start at 400kt, CA's would have to start at 800kt, and where does this leave the BC? Odd man out? Can't be much more expensive to build, maintain an SD over a BC. No reason one couldn't operate SD's with fewer personnel(add another batch for the extra Fusion room assuming they have one more than a typical BC), with the ability to increase manning on major operations.

Anywhoo...

We've already seen the future of BCs - 2.5 Mtons - so BCs have invaded the traditional BB zone, just like the rest of the size creep.

Theemile wrote:

Relax wrote:IF DD's start at 300kt, CL's start at 400kt, CA's would have to start at 800kt, and where does this leave the BC? Odd man out? Can't be much more expensive to build, maintain an SD over a BC. No reason one couldn't operate SD's with fewer personnel(add another batch for the extra Fusion room assuming they have one more than a typical BC), with the ability to increase manning on major operations.

Anywhoo...

We've already seen the future of BCs - 2.5 Mtons - so BCs have invaded the traditional BB zone, just like the rest of the size creep.

Apparently you missed the first part of the post and then forgot to cogitate for 2 seconds before banging off a post.

1 second
2 second
Light bulb comes on, gee, what missile environment was the BCL designed for? M-16 as it was designed at the exact same time as the SAG-C and Roland. Not M-16E. Nor the M-16G. Was designed to fight against M-16 class warheads which is nowhere close to M-16E let alone G.

Fighting against Capital grade warheads, M-16G, would seem to predicate a much tougher ship than the 2.4Mt BC which was designed for M-16 cruiser weight warheads.

They may not have anticipated the Mk-16G at the start of the design phase, but the design was conceived after the MDM and the missile pod had proven its worth. When surveying the threat environment at the time, they had to take into account that one of the most likely threats would be a 3-stage capital MDM fired from either a BC(P) or towed by traditional designs. The description in HoS bears this out, as its armor and hull are noted to be much tougher compared to previous BC classes.

Relax wrote: Apparently you missed the first part of the post and then forgot to cogitate for 2 seconds before banging off a post.

1 second
2 second
Light bulb comes on, gee, what missile environment was the BCL designed for? M-16 as it was designed at the exact same time as the SAG-C and Roland. Not M-16E. Nor the M-16G. Was designed to fight against M-16 class warheads which is nowhere close to M-16E let alone G.

Fighting against Capital grade warheads, M-16G, would seem to predicate a much tougher ship than the 2.4Mt BC which was designed for M-16 cruiser weight warheads.

Duckk wrote:They may not have anticipated the Mk-16G at the start of the design phase, but the design was conceived after the MDM and the missile pod had proven its worth. When surveying the threat environment at the time, they had to take into account that one of the most likely threats would be a 3-stage capital MDM fired from either a BC(P) or towed by traditional designs. The description in HoS bears this out, as its armor and hull are noted to be much tougher compared to previous BC classes.

That matched my understanding. That the BC(L) wasn't just designed to fight against opponents with matching armament (original Mk16) but to restore the ability for BCs to raid secondary or tertiary systems; which could be presumed to have at least a few full up MDM pods.

So their missile defense, sidewalls, and armor were built around the idea of standing up to at least limited capital ship missile engagements. (Witness how well Nike BC(L) and, the comparatively fragile BC(P), Hector stood up to the initial MDM pod salvo at Chantilly)

Nike-class may be a bit light to deal with Mk23s upgraded to their equivalent of the 'G' mod grav lenses; but they should still be more than up to duking it out with Mk16G level opponents.

Would pods with ghost rider propulsion / wedge and stealth be to drone-ish. Instead of waiting for range to close to 30-50 million klicks, moving your pods at ghost rider speeds to that 30-50 million klicks range would change things as well.

Of course if the pods have stealth wedges and can get to 25,000 km ranges they could launch missiles without wedges that can just use a mag launch tube and pick your target and touch off the laserheads. No warning missile strike. Plus empty pods would also have a great many defensive wedges to get in the way of incoming fire, far enough away from ships to not interfere with defensive features.

If not drones, how about LAC with the old school torpedo boat mounts and half or full or more mk23 missiles mounted externally, pods. 6 - 12 mk23 missiles with or without Apollo. Single salvo shot then act as an LAC. Might need the LAC to be specially made for this and to fit in LAC bays but making LAC's are easy compared to anything else.

CLAC only carries 100 to 124 LAC but this would at 12 missiles be, 145 to 180 pods, plus 100 to 124 Apollo missiles on a dorsal or ventral mount. (Forward firing). Mind you each CLAC would have a initial missile wave fully controlled of 1300 to 1650 missiles. Per CLAC and it doesn't even have to aim at or be near anything it fires at. 10 CLAC would have a controlled fire control initial wave of Filareta's Raging Justice fleet. 40 CLAC the MA Raging Justice fully fired end result, only under full control and with 2.5 times the LAC screen around Honors 40 SD.

Of course limiting an initial fire wave to about 200 missiles would give 8 such waves per (124) CLAC, 6 for (100) CLAC.

Thinking of the Roland chase missile tubes has one wondering about the SD(P) and with its Aft pod bay vulnerability somewhat negated withaft bucklers, how about a Fore LAC launch option with a bow wall the front hammerhead is large enough to mount 12 LAC bays and point defense maybe counter missiles. 12 LAC would allow each SD(P) a 50% to 75% increase in controlled missile wave depth / numbers, and defensive capability. Plus ability to be in many places.

12 LAC bays in a circle 200+ metres in diameter. 2 north 2 south 2 west 2 east 1 at ne 1 at se 1 at nw 1 at sw. = 12.

10 less grasers fore and all fore counter missiles and most of the PD removed but even Shrike B multiply the counter missiles 4 times 10 times light Point Defense and 12 BC grasers.

6 of these Hybrids would offer the same fire power as 10 Invictus and similar to or even more defensive capabilities. For 70% of the crew.

So now you are doing topics David shot down in 2004?