New Manty ship ideas.

Werrf wrote:

Rakhmamort wrote:I don't think so. Fearless took out an SD with just a couple of ETorp salvos. I sincerely doubt the same number of graser hits would have done the same.

No, Fearless did NOT take out an SD with a couple of etorp salvos. Fearless took out an unarmoured freighter with continuous fire from seven etorp launchers, and that was only necessary because her missile armament had been gutted.

Actually, she did: In the simulated engagements prior to being stationed at Basilisk.

Duckk wrote:If you are talking about the Battle of MacGregor in AoV, it was a single squadron per ready BC. "Ready", as in impellers and sidewalls up and weapons hot. And the LACs killed them all with only 1 LAC casualty.

I already modified my post before you posted the edit

In that battle, more than 1 LAC was destroyed. 3 squadrons took out 3 BCs with 1 casualty. Number of LACs 324, 252 of them Shrike-Bs. Take out the 3 squadrons that went after the BCs it's still 200+ grasers firing to take out capital ships that have been savaged by the Ferrets' missile load. And yet the CIC of the DN the commanding officer is on was still up. The DN is taking hits on her unarmored top/bottom, not her armored sides. LAC grasers are not going to take out an SD in 10 shots from the side even if the SD does not have a sidewall unless the reactors get hit.

No, you are being completely silly because you would have fired your missiles outside of energy range. You use your ranged firepower at range. Shocking, is it not?

So there won't be any 'snap shots' at all like The E said?

I know when LAC missiles are used. I've been saying that they mostly get fired during the start of the attack. Which usually leaves around 2 missile per tube to use in between passes or at the start of an attack on a different target.

10 missiles are hardly better than no missiles at all. BuShips felt that the Shrike's 20 missiles is the minimum level they felt they could accept on a vessel which is supposed to augment destroyers and cruisers. If you are using LACs against anything heavier and when you actually want that firepower, then you are either using them wrong, or are in the midst of a catastrophe where it would not matter what weapons you are carrying.

The augment destroyers/cruisers missile-wise part is most probably relegated to the Ferrets. Point defense? Katanas. Shrikes can dabble at either of those tasks but wouldn't be great at them.

If the Manticore Navy has removed the mission profile for LACs to go into knife fighting range and just keep them for those 2 other mission profiles, they would have dropped the Shrike class. Since they haven't I think its only reasonable to assume that that kind of mission is still in the Shrike's plate.

Given that, I don't understand why removing 10 missiles from a LAC is such a big deal when doing so will not make a huge difference to the missile salvos LACs deliver. As I've said, I doubt there would be a detachment of LACs that wouldn't have Ferrets and Shrikes.

Rakhmamort wrote:Are you serious? It took a squadron each of LACs to take out PARKED DNs with no wedges up and you are claiming you need only 10 shots from BC grasers to take out an SD?

Honor must have been dumb sending her damaged SDs into BB energy range in the Battle of Yeltsin.

Please tell me you are joking. 10 shots of LAC grasers will destroy an SD with no sidewall and firing at the armored sides, not thru the unarmored top or bottom.

I cannot see why you are so insistent that a sidewall-less ship cannot be taken out so easily. I have given many examples where a throat or kilt shot is basically a death sentence. While a BC's hammerheads may be less armored that a SD's flanks, the BC does have the advantage of all the depth provided by said hammerheads. Since no critical components are located in the hammerheads, any hard ship kills (like my Thunder of God example) would have had to batter through the hammerheads to get to the core, in effect becoming armor. So if Fearless could gut Thunder of God at close range from a down the throat shot, she could just as easily do it to a SD along her flanks.

Not being silly at all. Isn't that how it's going to be done? Turn a bit, drop the bow wall, turn back? I dunno how long that will take. For sure the weapons officer has to give some sort of firing solution to the missiles prior to launching. The ship must be at a certain angle, certain relative speed etc.

You would have either flushed all your missiles on the way in - such as in the Battle of Manticore - or you would have fired only after you bring your bow around - such as at Second Hancock. To put it in a Zen koan form, a dead LAC fires no missiles. You would not hold onto your missiles for silly quick, tiny little salvos like what you are suggesting.

Again, how many times can you fire off missiles? How many missiles do you have in your tubes? I'm going to be very generous, you have full magazines when you start your runs. You fire off 1 missile per 'pass'. After 5 passes, your launchers are USELESS. And this is the part where the chances that one or two sidewall generators might have gone down from the damage your graser has been dealing to your target. ETorps would have been handy right now.

LACs are always going to be missile limited. Even Ferrets. It is simply the nature of the beast. So it is a strawman to try and argue that you do not need missiles on a LAC. It is instead important to argue if you have enough missiles to do the job. Ferrets will not always be attached to Shrikes, especially in the picket role. Shrikes need the ability to get useful launches off, and 20 missiles ensures that they can.

Rakhmamort wrote: And yet the CIC of the DN the commanding officer is on was still up.

The CO of the Barnett system wasn't on a ship, he was in the Ops room of the command base on the planet's surface.

Rakhmamort wrote: Given that, I don't understand why removing 10 missiles from a LAC is such a big deal when doing so will not make a huge difference to the missile salvos LACs deliver. As I've said, I doubt there would be a detachment of LACs that wouldn't have Ferrets and Shrikes.

A Shrike has four shipkiller tubes. Therefore it can throw a salvo of four missiles. Taking away two of the tubes leaves two tubes, allowing a salvo of two. That's a 50% reduction in salvo size any way you slice it.

The E wrote:If you're not going to bother reading what people write in their responses to you, why should we respond to you? I never said anything about SDs (or DNs, or BBs, for that matter).

Also, it was several squadrons, none of which had more than one firing pass (assuming you're referring to what happened at Barnett during AoV).

Follow your own rule. I was using SD as an example and you put in BC and smaller. How can we discuss properly when we are not using the same scale?

It was 2 squadrons of capital ships, DNs and BBs. 16 ships of the wall (plus screen). 200+ Shrikes. Say 10 BC shots each after getting ripped by the full loads of ~80 Ferrets. Missile and graser shots hitting them in their unarmored sides. So no, not going down with 10 graser shots from LACs.

Honor must have been dumb sending her damaged SDs into BB energy range in the Battle of Yeltsin.

Relevance?

If a handful of BC grasers can take out an SD with no sidewalls, what would BB grasers do to SDs with weakened sidewalls. BBs outnumber the SDs at that!

Please tell me you are joking. 10 shots of LAC grasers will destroy an SD with no sidewall and firing at the armored sides, not thru the unarmored top or bottom.

What's your point?

The point is, opening gun ports in the bow wall to fire ETorps to kill a target quick quick would be a good idea. You won't need to make several more passes to complete the target's destruction. That's what you are going to do if you are only relying on the graser and whatever missiles that remain in your launchers.

LAC attack runs are usually strafing and crossing passes. In other words, the LAC will spend a considerable amount of time with its bow away from the target anyway, might as well use that time to get off a few missiles.

Yup. That's exactly what you have. A few missiles.

If, after 5 passes against light enemy forces, there are still enemy forces there, it's time to relieve the LAC commander of his duties because he's clearly incompetent.

If, after 5 passes against an intact wall, there are still LACs left, any survivor must be called back immediately to act as training cadre, because such badassery has to be spread around a lot.

Really? He's automatically incompetent? If I'm commanding the light forces, I'm going to make sure my squadron will be twisting and turning around each other all the time to make the LACs 'passes' problematic at best. And its going to be a running battle. My ships might not be as maneuverable as they are, but continuous 'random' twisting along my axis would make it practically impossible for them to 'coast and turn' so they can fire at the space between my wedges. Hell, in that kind of environment, I might even try to catch their wedge with my much stronger wedge.

Rakhmamort wrote:Really? He's automatically incompetent? If I'm commanding the light forces, I'm going to make sure my squadron will be twisting and turning around each other all the time to make the LACs 'passes' problematic at best. And its going to be a running battle. My ships might not be as maneuverable as they are, but continuous 'random' twisting along my axis would make it practically impossible for them to 'coast and turn' so they can fire at the space between my wedges. Hell, in that kind of environment, I might even try to catch their wedge with my much stronger wedge.

Thus neatly making your whole energy torpedo concept much more useless.

Dafmeister wrote:

Rakhmamort wrote: And yet the CIC of the DN the commanding officer is on was still up.

The CO of the Barnett system wasn't on a ship, he was in the Ops room of the command base on the planet's surface.

Get on the same page with us if you want to join the discussion. There were no DNs with no wedges in Barnett.

Rakhmamort wrote: Given that, I don't understand why removing 10 missiles from a LAC is such a big deal when doing so will not make a huge difference to the missile salvos LACs deliver. As I've said, I doubt there would be a detachment of LACs that wouldn't have Ferrets and Shrikes.

A Shrike has four shipkiller tubes. Therefore it can throw a salvo of four missiles. Taking away two of the tubes leaves two tubes, allowing a salvo of two. That's a 50% reduction in salvo size any way you slice it.

The Shrikes missiles are not the main source of LAC missile attacks these days. There is a class called Ferrets. They are the missile boats. They have been designed to take on the job of providing the missiles for LAC based attacks.

The Shrikes missiles are not the main source of LAC missile attacks these days. There is a class called Ferrets. They are the missile boats. They have been designed to take on the job of providing the missiles for LAC based attacks.

Wrong wrong wrong wrong.

Ferrets provide the most missiles per LAC. But given the composition of a typical LAC wing, Shrikes provide the most anti-ship missile power (I am ignoring Katanas here). Wing composition is 2 squadrons of Ferrets per wing. With a wing of over 100 LACs, that is only 15% of the wing. Shrikes carry fewer missiles, but there are so much more of them that it is more than enough to make up the difference.

Rakhmamort wrote:
Get on the same page with us if you want to join the discussion. There were no DNs with no wedges in Barnett.

Excuse me? I was pointing out that the CO wasn't on a ship at all, whether or not there were DNs without wedges is irrelevant.

Potato wrote:I cannot see why you are so insistent that a sidewall-less ship cannot be taken out so easily. I have given many examples where a throat or kilt shot is basically a death sentence. While a BC's hammerheads may be less armored that a SD's flanks, the BC does have the advantage of all the depth provided by said hammerheads. Since no critical components are located in the hammerheads, any hard ship kills (like my Thunder of God example) would have had to batter through the hammerheads to get to the core, in effect becoming armor. So if Fearless could gut Thunder of God at close range from a down the throat shot, she could just as easily do it to a SD along her flanks.

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... ngton/70/0

Since I have been continuing my education thru the link provided to me. I pass the gift to you.

You would have either flushed all your missiles on the way in - such as in the Battle of Manticore - or you would have fired only after you bring your bow around - such as at Second Hancock. To put it in a Zen koan form, a dead LAC fires no missiles. You would not hold onto your missiles for silly quick, tiny little salvos like what you are suggesting.

Check again. I'm quite sure Tremaine gave the order to flush all remaining missiles at one battle. That means they didn't use all their missiles in the initial salvo, retained some for targets of opportunity and used them. IF that is not the standard doctrine, my bad, that's a scene that stuck to my memory.

LACs are always going to be missile limited. Even Ferrets. It is simply the nature of the beast. So it is a strawman to try and argue that you do not need missiles on a LAC. It is instead important to argue if you have enough missiles to do the job. Ferrets will not always be attached to Shrikes, especially in the picket role. Shrikes need the ability to get useful launches off, and 20 missiles ensures that they can.

Please do not change my proposal just so you can attack the changes you put in. The proposal is to replace 2 launchers, not all. That means Shrikes would still carry some missiles. They would have less missiles true, but they will gain a knock out punch in an environment where their chances of being able to use that punch is astronomically greater than a proper warship equipped with the same weapon.

I sincerely doubt Ferrets will be absent from a LAC detachment. Give the GA planners some respect. They would prepare for any eventuality that LACs could handle. Not deploying Ferrets would be idiotic. Chances are, Katanas wouldn't be in a purely LAC picket force, but Ferrets would be there.