MaxxQ wrote:Grashtel wrote:Unknown based on the generally available information. DW and probably people who have read the tech bible may well know more but I doubt that they will tell.
Given the nature of control links in the Honorverse I doubt that an ACM has many more than 8 of them as they require discrete hardware and the ACM is oversized to begin with so they wouldn't want to add any extra gear without good reason. OTOH I doubt that adding extra links in reasonable numbers would be hard, would just need a modified ACM.
Remember too, that these were designed to fit in pods, which at the time of field delivery, were of a standard size to fit existing launch rails and pod bays on SD(P)s. After having to try to squeeze 8 Mk23s and an ACM into a standard sized pod myself, there's no room to add any more missiles.
The only way I can think of to add more missiles (assuming that the ACM doesn't need to grow in size to increase control channels for more Mk23s) is to make the pods thicker. This might allow another 4-5 Mk23s per pod, at the expense of the number of pods a current generation podlayer can carry. This is irrelevant for system defense pods, as those could be any size that can be delivered by freighter or whatever.
That said, I think David has mentioned in the past that there are going to be new warship designs coming out of the yards once Manticore gets production underway. I belive he said that there are some shortcomings of the current podlayer designs, and that new ones will be better, having benefitted from lessons learned. So I suppose we might see something that might be able to handle larger pods.
Don't try to get any more info out of me about this, though. I'm just as in the dark about it as anyone else here (except maybe one or two others with BuNine that have better access to David's Tech Bible - I have none at all). I'm simply speculating on what I recall RFC having mentioned once in a post, I think.
I doubt very much that any new design coming from RFC will be *anything* like what skimper keeps trying to propose.
actually, the reason I'm asking the question is I am wondering how 'thick' a missile salvo one can throw if you combine Apollo with what Shannon Foraker did with Haven's 'rotating' fire control algorithm.