CLACs

Weird Harold wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Well one problem with the current method of dropping all your LACs at the hyper wall and scooting the CLACs clear is that the LACs only have a limited number of CMs aboard and once they've shot dry your fleet's missile defense is seriously weakened.

...

It's too expensive and manpower intensive to switch entirely to armored CLACs, but when used in conjunction with the higher capacity unarmored ones they're a bit of a "force multiplier"

Wouldn't it be more cost effective to just increase a LACs point defense laser clusters? If CMs were a LAC's only contribution to missile defense, you might have a point regarding magazine capacity, but a LAC's PDL clusters are probably more useful than their CMs (since they fire faster.)

PDLCs are of only moderate use unless the missile is targeting you.

Have you ever shot skeet? It is much better at stress relief then golf. In the game, there is are two places where the skeet are thrown from, called the houses. They are on the two points of a semicircle, with station 1 and 7 basicly right at the houses, 2 through 6 evenly distributed around the curve of the circle with 4 on the farthest point, and 8 directly between the houses. http://www.wegc.org/shotgun/skeet_field.gif

Stations 1, 7, and 8 are the easiest because the target is traveling more or less directly at you or away from you, and 4 is the hardest because they are traveling across your field.

It is basicly the same for missiles; if it is targeting you, the horizontal motion is minimized, making a direct hit on the missile body much more likely. If the missile is trying to hit something behind you, it is going to be streaking past you as fast as it can, making a hit on the body of the missile in the very limited range laser clusters have very difficult. Not impossible mind you, but difficult. A CM on the other hand has longer range, the ability to maneuver after launch, and a much larger target. So, while the CM is not the LACs only contribution to missile defense, once it is out of CMs, its ability to intercept missiles is greatly reduced.

As to pronunciation, LAC is "el-ay-see" but CLAC is "see-lack" and COLAC is "co-lack"

HoS has CLAC being quite slow.

For me, it sounds like the Manties will eventually split their carrier classes into two. First, the the waller-CLAC, which is as tough as a SD(P) or tougher, and which can contribute meaningfully to the missile defense of the wall even without its LACs. Second, the cruiser-CLAC, which is designed to basically fit into the capabilities bracket that ranges from light cruisers to battlecruisers (and, like them, not fight in the wall).

I'm just not sure I agree with RFC on the ideal being two different classes of CLACs, but that is probably because I don't understand the difference in the capabilities of each class. How much of the carrying capacity of a CLAC do you need to cut in order to make it a survivable platform? Without knowing the answer to that question I can't really answer whether it makes sense to split the CLAC into the waller and cruiser varieties.

Lord Skimper wrote:HoS has CLAC being quite slow.

Accels in HoS are by date of design, not their maximum after refits, or what was installed in the latter units of the class.

crewdude48 wrote:Have you ever shot skeet?

Not for 40 years or so.

crewdude48 wrote:PDLCs are of only moderate use unless the missile is targeting you.

Wouldn't that make the interlaced missile defenses of a tactical net rather useless? I got the distinct impression that both CMs and PGLCs were most effective when used against missiles targeted at a squadron mate. (Battle of Solon, IIRC)

Granted, a closing or opening shot is a simpler solution than a deflection shot, but even Korean War vintage F-86 Sabres had lead computing gun sights. Honorverse fire control links have to be at least as good.

crewdude48 wrote:PDLCs are of only moderate use unless the missile is targeting you.

Have you ever shot skeet? It is much better at stress relief then golf. In the game, there is are two places where the skeet are thrown from, called the houses. They are on the two points of a semicircle, with station 1 and 7 basicly right at the houses, 2 through 6 evenly distributed around the curve of the circle with 4 on the farthest point, and 8 directly between the houses. http://www.wegc.org/shotgun/skeet_field.gif

Stations 1, 7, and 8 are the easiest because the target is traveling more or less directly at you or away from you, and 4 is the hardest because they are traveling across your field.

It is basicly the same for missiles; if it is targeting you, the horizontal motion is minimized, making a direct hit on the missile body much more likely. If the missile is trying to hit something behind you, it is going to be streaking past you as fast as it can, making a hit on the body of the missile in the very limited range laser clusters have very difficult. Not impossible mind you, but difficult. A CM on the other hand has longer range, the ability to maneuver after launch, and a much larger target. So, while the CM is not the LACs only contribution to missile defense, once it is out of CMs, its ability to intercept missiles is greatly reduced.

As to pronunciation, LAC is "el-ay-see" but CLAC is "see-lack" and COLAC is "co-lack"

Actually in mechanical systems this is not true. Reason is the inertial mass of said system. Much harder to move said system an infintesimal amount from stationary due to stiction. IE missile coming directly at you. Much better tolerances if the whole system is moving. The far higher vanderwalls forces(stiction) vanishes in the bearings. Obviously, a perfect 90 degrees is optimal in mechanical systems. Allows for a constant rotational speed and therefore no differential inertial forces.

Brings up the obvious, quite possible they do not have bearings at all.

It could easily be an electro field optical lens. If this is the case, then the coming directly "at" you is much better scenario. Depending if it is electromagnetic or electrostatic. Both will have damping characteristics for "accurate". Both will "jitter" at "0". They will jitter in different ways though and can be controlled to a finer degree depending on the method. Do we really want to get into phased locked loops for positional accuracy? Ok, back to simplified stuff. A slightly traversing missile would be optimum with "dead head-on" being fairly poor accuracy due to differential voltages in your power supply. Rise time for the components eating the pie of accuracy. The very fast transversal missile will be more difficult only if manipulating the lens into the proper shape directing the beam is the main hinderance. For all I know, this could be the smallest portion of the inherent error in PDLC aiming systems. Loads of assumptions.

Anyways.

Weird Harold wrote:Wouldn't that make the interlaced missile defenses of a tactical net rather useless? I got the distinct impression that both CMs and PGLCs were most effective when used against missiles targeted at a squadron mate. (Battle of Solon, IIRC)

No, if the missile is looking at you the wedge is out of the way. Off-bore the wedge will block laser fire to some extent. Given the ranges in question, the 600 hundred KM or so between ships in a formation is unimportant to PDLC fire.

kzt wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:Wouldn't it be more cost effective to just increase a LACs point defense laser clusters? If CMs were a LAC's only contribution to missile defense, you might have a point regarding magazine capacity, but a LAC's PDL clusters are probably more useful than their CMs (since they fire faster.)

PDLC are only effective if the missiles are coming really close. Which means that a trivial course change by the missiles will put the LACS out of range if you are using a layered defense.

And like you said later you also need line of sight from your PDLC past the missile's wedge. A CM doesn't have that angularity problem, plus it's got something like 25-30x the range. (I didn't double check but IIRC a PDCL is good for around 100,000 km and a current Mantie CM can reach about 3,000,000 km)

Theemile wrote:Accels in HoS are by date of design, not their maximum after refits, or what was installed in the latter units of the class.

True, but even so CLACs for some reason have much lower accels than you'd expect for their date of introduction.

Heck the first two classes, Minotaur and Hydras, actually land squarely on the pre-Grasyon compensator curve; despite being designed 7-9 years after improved compensator began showing up (circa 1905 - Battle of Hancock)


There really was something odd there; but I've no idea why.

kzt wrote:No, if the missile is looking at you the wedge is out of the way. Off-bore the wedge will block laser fire to some extent. Given the ranges in question, the 600 hundred KM or so between ships in a formation is unimportant to PDLC fire.

Fair enough, but the main point here is that a LAC is NOT completely disarmed if it runs out of CMs.

Also “see-lack” for me. I was thinking maybe light CLACs, BB/Nike II size with reduced wings but cheaper & higher accel, for raiding.