How many missiles can an Invictus control...

Potato wrote:That does not sound correct at all. There were only 4900 missiles fired in the first place, controlled by 3 SD(P)s, 2 SDs, 16 BCs, 10 CAs, 12 CLS, and 8 DDs.

Don't have my notes in front of me, so I can't (and wouldn't if I could ) answer this definitively. However, you need to remember that the number of missile control links and the number of FTL missile control links are not the same thing. At Spindle, the non-Apollo ships were using the standard laser control links which the Apollo missile retains; at extended ranges, the Keyhole II ships are using FTL links, which take up a heck of a lot more volume and power aboard the control ship and/or Keyhole. This means that while a "standard" Invictus could control a whole bunch of missiles, it could not control the same number of Apollo control missiles.

A single Keyhole II ship could, however, easily control enough missiles (in multiple salvos) to take out just about any SLN fleet you wanted to send up to get massacred. That's one of the tiny problems an author runs into when the Bad Guys get "outed" to the Good Guys 15 or 20 years early, before said Bad Guys' tech has had time to catch up with that of the Forces of Light.

I'm working on it! I'm working on it!!

runsforcelery wrote:That's one of the tiny problems an author runs into when the Bad Guys get "outed" to the Good Guys 15 or 20 years early, before said Bad Guys' tech has had time to catch up with that of the Forces of Light.

I'm working on it! I'm working on it!!

The only interpretation that makes sense is that the fire is under the general direction of BatDiv 62, but actual fire control telemetry is provided by the individual ships.

If a single SD(P) were capable of controlling 4000 missiles by its lonesome, every single future battle ceases to make sense. At Sidemore, Honor could have simply rolled pods for 15 minutes and utterly destroyed Second Fleet in a single salvo. At Manticore, Home Fleet could have retaliated with all of their missiles, including the additional flat pack pods, prior to being destroyed.

In AAC, it is stated that the Alliance SD(P)s could control an average of 400 missiles. That sounds far more reasonable and is consistent with previous tactical performance.

Potato wrote:The only interpretation that makes sense is that the fire is under the general direction of BatDiv 62, but actual fire control telemetry is provided by the individual ships.

If a single SD(P) were capable of controlling 4000 missiles by its lonesome, every single future battle ceases to make sense. At Sidemore, Honor could have simply rolled pods for 15 minutes and utterly destroyed Second Fleet in a single salvo. At Manticore, Home Fleet could have retaliated with all of their missiles, including the additional flat pack pods, prior to being destroyed.

In AAC, it is stated that the Alliance SD(P)s could control an average of 400 missiles. That sounds far more reasonable and is consistent with previous tactical performance.

Home fleet was half SD, not SDP. Total was 160,000 before their fire control links were saturated.

J6P wrote:And text states exactly, 1 SDP controlled them all. Even if it is a typo, it would be 3 SDP's controlling them all. Over 1500 in either case.

Not a typo. The preceding explanation makes it clear they are masking SD(P) capabilities at that point:

The Allied chiefs of staff had been firm in their instructions: the new ships were not to go about flaunting their ability to roll waves of pods from their hollow-cored central magazines. If the Peeps didn't know about them yet, this was not the time to alert the enemy to their existence. But that didn't mean they couldn't pass those same pods on to their consorts. The Peeps' point defense tracks would amply demonstrate that the incoming fire had originated with the units actually towing the missiles at the moment they launched. What it wouldn't tell them was that all of those missiles were under the fine-meshed, carefully honed fire control of GNS Isaiah MacKenzie, with her two division mates poised to assist if they were needed.
Admiral Malone had five superdreadnoughts, sixteen battlecruisers, ten heavy cruisers, twelve light cruisers, eight destroyers . . . and four electronic warfare drones. When BatDiv 62 finished distributing its gifts, those ships (and drones) had a total of four hundred and four pods, each containing ten missiles. Adding the internal launchers brought the total number of missiles in that first, massive salvo up to forty-nine hundred.

It could have been higher still, but BatDiv 62's internal launchers were busy firing something besides shipkillers.

I was about to post that there is a difference in the mass, volume and hull surface area needed for a lightspeed missile control link verses an FTL missile control link.

Furthermore; if the antenae product area rule that applies to radio and laser communication is applicable to FTL comm, then the FTL missile control links on a ship or Keyhole II platform might need to be very large to work with the very small antenae on Apollo control missiles.

This would explain why Keyhole II platforms, even downgraded to fewer control links, would beto large and massive to fit on a BC(P).


I was about to impress everyone with my insigt when this "Runsforcelery" guy beats me to it.

runsforcelery wrote:

Potato wrote:That does not sound correct at all. There were only 4900 missiles fired in the first place, controlled by 3 SD(P)s, 2 SDs, 16 BCs, 10 CAs, 12 CLS, and 8 DDs.

Don't have my notes in front of me, so I can't (and wouldn't if I could ) answer this definitively. However, you need to remember that the number of missile control links and the number of FTL missile control links are not the same thing. At Spindle, the non-Apollo ships were using the standard laser control links which the Apollo missile retains; at extended ranges, the Keyhole II ships are using FTL links, which take up a heck of a lot more volume and power aboard the control ship and/or Keyhole. This means that while a "standard" Invictus could control a whole bunch of missiles, it could not control the same number of Apollo control missiles.

A single Keyhole II ship could, however, easily control enough missiles (in multiple salvos) to take out just about any SLN fleet you wanted to send up to get massacred. That's one of the tiny problems an author runs into when the Bad Guys get "outed" to the Good Guys 15 or 20 years early, before said Bad Guys' tech has had time to catch up with that of the Forces of Light.

I'm working on it! I'm working on it!!

I have long suspected that the humongous Apollo salvo that Eighth Fleet launched against Genevieve Chin's fleet at the Battle of Manticore was enabled by Honor Harrington's brilliant idea of using Hermes Buoys to multiply her FTL control links. Otherwise; the number of FTL Fire Control links would be limited to the Quadruple patterns employed by Admiral Yanakov at Lovatt and Adm McKeanon at BoM.

Any chance this Weber guy would offer an opinion?

runsforcelery wrote:

Potato wrote:That does not sound correct at all. There were only 4900 missiles fired in the first place, controlled by 3 SD(P)s, 2 SDs, 16 BCs, 10 CAs, 12 CLS, and 8 DDs.

Don't have my notes in front of me, so I can't (and wouldn't if I could ) answer this definitively. However, you need to remember that the number of missile control links and the number of FTL missile control links are not the same thing. At Spindle, the non-Apollo ships were using the standard laser control links which the Apollo missile retains; at extended ranges, the Keyhole II ships are using FTL links, which take up a heck of a lot more volume and power aboard the control ship and/or Keyhole. This means that while a "standard" Invictus could control a whole bunch of missiles, it could not control the same number of Apollo control missiles.

A single Keyhole II ship could, however, easily control enough missiles (in multiple salvos) to take out just about any SLN fleet you wanted to send up to get massacred. That's one of the tiny problems an author runs into when the Bad Guys get "outed" to the Good Guys 15 or 20 years early, before said Bad Guys' tech has had time to catch up with that of the Forces of Light.

I'm working on it! I'm working on it!!

Why do you need that?

400 missiles/ship x 32 ships = number of Apollo control missiles per salvo = 12,800 ACMs
ACM x 8 = 102,400 missiles/salvo maximum.

32 SD(P) in 8th is what I remember offhand, I'm too lazy to look it up.

Weird Harold wrote:Not a typo. The preceding explanation makes it clear they are masking SD(P) capabilities at that point:

What it wouldn't tell them was that all of those missiles were under the fine-meshed, carefully honed fire control of GNS Isaiah MacKenzie, with her two division mates poised to assist if they were needed.
Admiral Malone had five superdreadnoughts, sixteen battlecruisers, ten heavy cruisers, twelve light cruisers, eight destroyers . . . and four electronic warfare drones. When BatDiv 62 finished distributing its gifts, those ships (and drones) had a total of four hundred and four pods, each containing ten missiles. Adding the internal launchers brought the total number of missiles in that first, massive salvo up to forty-nine hundred.

It could have been higher still, but BatDiv 62's internal launchers were busy firing something besides shipkillers.

Thanks for the quote.

Makes one really really wonder, "WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED in AAC when home fleet shot a measly 150,000." How many of those ships were Medusa A's and Invictus's? Half last I checked. 42 or 48? GO with 40. ~40x5000 = 200,000 last I checked.

Seems some ret-con happened between the two books and probably even more since then to "narrow" the gap between the heros of light, justice, and all that is good, and the MALIGN...

But since the "control link" problem limitation is a completely made up out of thin air bunch of idiocy anyways, well lets just stop there...

namelessfly wrote:I was about to post that there is a difference in the mass, volume and hull surface area needed for a lightspeed missile control link verses an FTL missile control link.

Furthermore; if the antenae product area rule that applies to radio and laser communication is applicable to FTL comm, then the FTL missile control links on a ship or Keyhole II platform might need to be very large to work with the very small antenae on Apollo control missiles.

This would explain why Keyhole II platforms, even downgraded to fewer control links, would beto large and massive to fit on a BC(P).

As an aside, there was a mention in the 'Keyhole survivability' pearl that reenforced my belief that for FTL fire control to work it really does need to be on a remote platform.

For FTL communications the big shipboard grav sensor appear to be able to isolate the ripples caused by the comms from the 'hash' of general grav distortions caused by all the wedges. (Although it's possible that even there ship to ship FTL comm might break down during combat with all the MDMs, CMs, and ECM activity)

But for talking to the much smaller receivers that can get crammed into an Apollo control missile you appear to need to put the FTL link somewhere away from the gravimetric cacophony that is a wall of battle engaging. (Heck, with that little a receiver it may not be possible to isolate a ship generated FTL signal from even the fairly static background of that single ship's wedge)