Accuracy of missiles against wedgeless targets?

Which requires the LAC to get ridiculously close to the target, something I think is not quite healthy for the LAC. Before you can go ahead and use your wedge to cut a target into pieces, you'll have to neutralize the target, after which you'd have to ask yourself whether said cutting maneuver is actually necessary.

Belial666 wrote:

kzt wrote:Space is BIG, and the inverse square law is not your friend. You have to get very, very close to damage a ship.

And since spider drive ships don't have a wedge or sidewalls (not normally anyway), they don't have any limit on the number of PDLCs they can mount. Go ahead. Get that missile close to the ship with the 15.000+ PDLCs*. I triple-dog-dare you.




*assumes PDLC density roughly equal to Katana nose and three 1000x200 meter broadsides.

Stage one, accelerate at spider ship, stage two, accelerate at spider ship and bring as much of the missile wave as close together as possible. Stage three, right before PDLC range, 0 acceleration, nose of the missile pointing 90 degrees "up" from the spider ship, presenting the belly of the wedge. I don't think those PDLCs of yours are going to do much to my missiles. CMs, on the other hand... those might be a problem.

crewdude48 wrote:Stage one, accelerate at spider ship, stage two, accelerate at spider ship and bring as much of the missile wave as close together as possible. Stage three, right before PDLC range, 0 acceleration, nose of the missile pointing 90 degrees "up" from the spider ship, presenting the belly of the wedge. I don't think those PDLCs of yours are going to do much to my missiles. CMs, on the other hand... those might be a problem.

Given that the only real defense mechanisms a spider drive ship has are a) remaining undetected and b) escaping into hyper after being detected, I don't think it's really necessary to develop special missile programming against them.

Just like submarines, the hard part of fighting a spider drive ship isn't the actual sinking, it's the detection.

KEWs were discussed here http://forums.davidweber.net/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5477 just recently.

For spider drive ships I'd say they are more vulnerable than regular warships due to the lack of the protection of the wedge.
It should not make targeting any more difficult than it already is.

The E wrote:

crewdude48 wrote:Stage one, accelerate at spider ship, stage two, accelerate at spider ship and bring as much of the missile wave as close together as possible. Stage three, right before PDLC range, 0 acceleration, nose of the missile pointing 90 degrees "up" from the spider ship, presenting the belly of the wedge. I don't think those PDLCs of yours are going to do much to my missiles. CMs, on the other hand... those might be a problem.

Given that the only real defense mechanisms a spider drive ship has are a) remaining undetected and b) escaping into hyper after being detected, I don't think it's really necessary to develop special missile programming against them.

Just like submarines, the hard part of fighting a spider drive ship isn't the actual sinking, it's the detection.

I never said it would happen. I was triple dog dared to come up with a way to get a missile "close" to a ship with fifteen hundred PDLCs. It took me all of 3 seconds to come up with it.

The E wrote:Which requires the LAC to get ridiculously close to the target, something I think is not quite healthy for the LAC. Before you can go ahead and use your wedge to cut a target into pieces, you'll have to neutralize the target, after which you'd have to ask yourself whether said cutting maneuver is actually necessary.

LACs are very stealthy and very maneuverable. They can close with the enemy. Once too close for their ECM to hide them, they can come nearer to the enemy presenting their wedge all the time. Said enemy has to spend a lot of missiles to take them all out. If I'm not mistaken, there's only so much new tech missiles MAN ships can carry because of size.

Get parallel to the enemy, then cut across its path. presenting your wedge all the time... Let them hit themselves against your wedge

Rakhmamort wrote:LACs are very stealthy and very maneuverable. They can close with the enemy. Once too close for their ECM to hide them, they can come nearer to the enemy presenting their wedge all the time. Said enemy has to spend a lot of missiles to take them all out. If I'm not mistaken, there's only so much new tech missiles MAN ships can carry because of size.

Get parallel to the enemy, then cut across its path. presenting your wedge all the time... Let them hit themselves against your wedge

Yeah, sure, but by the time you are able to set up such an ambush, you have already solved the most difficult part of the intercept, namely becoming aware that there is something out there in need of interception. You are basically giving the spider ships a chance to defeat the intercepting forces by not using the interceptors optimally, a better approach would be to have hyper-capable units jump out into missile range of the spider drive ships, or firing a pattern of pods at them when they're inside the hyper limit. Trying to set them up for intentional ramming attacks is not as efficient a usage of your ressources, by comparison.

It also assumes that your LACs are able to approach their targets stealthily. I don't know, but if I were the MAlign? I would pack my spiders full of the very very best EW gear available, including the most sensitive sensors I can get my hands on. If the spiders can detect and track your incoming ambush, then your whole plan falls apart; If the first hint they get that they've been detected is a Cruiser squadron dropping out of hyper and firing MDMs at them, the chance that you'll get most (if not all) of the targets is increased drastically.

Rakhmamort wrote:

The E wrote:Which requires the LAC to get ridiculously close to the target, something I think is not quite healthy for the LAC. Before you can go ahead and use your wedge to cut a target into pieces, you'll have to neutralize the target, after which you'd have to ask yourself whether said cutting maneuver is actually necessary.

LACs are very stealthy and very maneuverable. They can close with the enemy. Once too close for their ECM to hide them, they can come nearer to the enemy presenting their wedge all the time. Said enemy has to spend a lot of missiles to take them all out. If I'm not mistaken, there's only so much new tech missiles MAN ships can carry because of size.

Get parallel to the enemy, then cut across its path. presenting your wedge all the time... Let them hit themselves against your wedge

Two problems. Space is big. Spider ships are even more stealthy than LACs.

So to close with the enemy, you have to have some idea where it is. The spider ship will see the LAC before the LAC sees the spider ship. If you did have some idea where the spider ship is, you could get yourself on an intercept course. But once you turn your wedge to the enemy, you will lose track of what the spider ship is doing. Yes, you can partially see through your own wedge. But the distortion combined with the natural stealthiness of spider ships means you will probably not be able to detect the enemy once you turn your wedge. A spider ship would not have to alter course much to generate a miss with your wedge. Space is big.

The final kicker to all of this is the likelihood that spider ships have bubble sidewalls (which do not require a wedge or special ship geometry).

SWM wrote:

Rakhmamort wrote:LACs are very stealthy and very maneuverable. They can close with the enemy. Once too close for their ECM to hide them, they can come nearer to the enemy presenting their wedge all the time. Said enemy has to spend a lot of missiles to take them all out. If I'm not mistaken, there's only so much new tech missiles MAN ships can carry because of size.

Get parallel to the enemy, then cut across its path. presenting your wedge all the time... Let them hit themselves against your wedge

Two problems. Space is big. Spider ships are even more stealthy than LACs.

So to close with the enemy, you have to have some idea where it is. The spider ship will see the LAC before the LAC sees the spider ship. If you did have some idea where the spider ship is, you could get yourself on an intercept course. But once you turn your wedge to the enemy, you will lose track of what the spider ship is doing. Yes, you can partially see through your own wedge. But the distortion combined with the natural stealthiness of spider ships means you will probably not be able to detect the enemy once you turn your wedge. A spider ship would not have to alter course much to generate a miss with your wedge. Space is big.

The final kicker to all of this is the likelihood that spider ships have bubble sidewalls (which do not require a wedge or special ship geometry).

I agree with almost all of that but, while bubble sidewalls might help if you'd launched a missile programmed to perform a ramming attack, they're not going to do a thing to help if a LAC wedge hits them. *Pop*

OTOH since you are right about how hard it would be to detect a Spider ship and maneuver a LAC for a wedge-to-hull impact that's probably something of an academic point

Seems to me you guys are forgetting something. Just because a sensor ghost is detected, it doesn't mean you can already see what caused it. Manticore 'detected' some sensor ghosts, they didn't know those were made by spider ships. I'm quite sure they won't be as complacent as they were before, sensor ghost = send out your patrols to investigate. What platform would be best for that? LACs. LACs see the enemy but their bigger brothers are out of range, they try to take them out themselves. HOW? I just made a suggestion how.