How many missiles can an Invictus control...

I guess I am behind the times. I was under the impression that the capabilities of a Manticorian pre-pod layer SD was about 100 missiles per wave. RMN pod-layers brought the total up to around 250 which Havenite pod-layers capable of about 200 each. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong but that does seem about right for the missile densities seem during the Battle of Manticore.

If so, as shown in AAC in the Battle of Manticore, even with large numbers of screening LAC's and other vessels, modern Waller's aren't really equipped with the PD needed to cope with numbers like these. If the control solutions now range into the thousands then a single SD(P) should be able to take out at least 15 - 20 or their most advanced and most heavily defended opponents single handedly.

So, bad guy X sends their fleet of 200 of the most advanced and best defended Wallers out to meet the enemy fleet of ... oh ... 10 SD(P)'s. It's an even match, everybody dies.

So, what do we have ... a bunch of eggs swinging around sledgehammers?

Wow, we've graduated to the day of the fast pod-laying freighter (with LOTS of escape pods) dominating the spaceways.

That's why I think arguing about how long it will take the SLN to design and build SD(P)s is arguing about how many angles can dance on the head of a pin. They know they don't have time so they won't do that. They will build missile haulers out of freighters, and they have a LOT of places that can build freighters. Or they will collapse.

The critical problem they have is a lack of weapons to deploy and the possibility that they whole edifice will implode like a House of Cards.

So I guess we can assume 200-250 non Apollo missiles and 50 Apollo missiles? 400 Apollo controlled missiles then.

This would make the BC(P) closer to 150-200 mk16's. About the same as a triple or quad stacked Nike. Although without the stacked delay. However with much less ammunition depth. Less armour and less capability.

This would be a good reason to replace the BC(P) with the BCL.

Plus the BCL carries 2.35-2.4 times as many missiles. Even more if it carries some LERM as well.

kzt wrote:They will build missile haulers out of freighters, and they have a LOT of places that can build freighters. Or they will collapse.

Except they've already committed those "places that can build freighters" to building freighters to replace the shipping capacity lost to the withdrawal of the MMM.

Don't know where you people are getting your numbers. As Potato pointed out earlier in the thread, AAC said the SD(P)s in Home Fleet averaged 400 missiles each.

Not all of the forty-two Manticoran, Grayson, and Andermani SD(P)s confronting him were Keyhole-capable. Still, the majority of them were, and the pod-layers as a group could simultaneously control an average of four hundred missiles each. But the older, pre-pod ships could control only a hundred apiece, whereas each of Tourville's ships had control links for three hundred and fifty missiles, and by using Shannon Foraker's rotating control technique, they could increase that number by approximately sixty percent.

Duckk wrote:Don't know where you people are getting your numbers. As Potato pointed out earlier in the thread, AAC said the SD(P)s in Home Fleet averaged 400 missiles each.

Not all of the forty-two Manticoran, Grayson, and Andermani SD(P)s confronting him were Keyhole-capable. Still, the majority of them were, and the pod-layers as a group could simultaneously control an average of four hundred missiles each. But the older, pre-pod ships could control only a hundred apiece, whereas each of Tourville's ships had control links for three hundred and fifty missiles, and by using Shannon Foraker's rotating control technique, they could increase that number by approximately sixty percent.

And those 42 ships included Adlers, Medusas, Harringtons and Invictuses. The Adlers only came in the original pre-war configuration and the KHII variant, so all the Adlers @ BoMa in Home Fleet did not have Keyhole I, and thus had the least # of control links of the SD(p)s. If the majority of the SD(p)s were Medusa/Harringtons, the Medusa/Harrington KH1 would have 400+ control links and the few Invictuses would have at least as many, if not significantly more.

Alizon wrote:Wow, we've graduated to the day of the fast pod-laying freighter (with LOTS of escape pods) dominating the spaceways.

Actually, that doesn't seem like a joke at all. What if you design a pod-laying freighter with maximum automation, and have a couple of pinnaces tractored to its hull (either of which could carry the entire crew of the freighter to rendezvous with one of the wallers), but try not to need them...

...because these freighters would be carrying system-defense pods with quad-drive Mk-25 ship killers and Mk-23-F Apollo control missiles. The freighters could follow a trajectory that would let them get into a true ballistic (elliptical) orbit around the star, a moderate distance inside the hyper limit, dump the pods and haul ass back outside the limit, while the SD(P)s and their LAC escorts grab as many as their tractors can handle to carry with them. They then would distribute the system-defense pods around, coming back to where the pod pile was left by the freighters for additional passes. This actual distribution process would mostly involve grabbing clutches of pods and inserting them into more circular orbits that intersect with the original elliptical orbit, so the ships really don't have to go very far each time before coming back for more.

Meanwhile, Ghost Rider and Hermes platforms are sweeping the system (these too might be carried by the freighters, allowing the true warships to keep their full inventories thereof) and the latter used to communicate to the system that any ship with an active wedge 30 minutes from now is subject to destruction.

Because of the insane range of system-defense pods, there's no reason for the freighters to get anywhere near the enemy. (But it's still a good idea to have those tractored pinnaces in case Murphy shows up.)

Basically, this plan skips over the pesky detail of taking out a defending force and goes straight to the emplacement of the system-defense pods that will be needed to hold it anyway. And all you need to control all of those pods is a couple of Invicti, so a single BatRon of them would represent a lot of redundancy.

Once the enemy ships are all destroyed or taken by prize crews, the other freighters, carrying the components of Mycroft nodes and LAC bases ready to be assembled and take over for the wallers and CLACs, which are then freed up to escort the empty freighters back to reload with system-defense pods (plus any standard Apollo pods expended by the wallers taking out those who won't surrender), Ghost Rider drones, Hermes buoys, and LACs before going on to the next target.

Weird Harold wrote:

kzt wrote:They will build missile haulers out of freighters, and they have a LOT of places that can build freighters. Or they will collapse.

Except they've already committed those "places that can build freighters" to building freighters to replace the shipping capacity lost to the withdrawal of the MMM.

Life is hard. If the options are survival of the government or making rich people richer the government pretty much chooses to survive all the time.

kzt wrote:Life is hard. If the options are survival of the government or making rich people richer the government pretty much chooses to survive all the time.

Without making up the losses in shipping capacity -- or at least as much as they can -- they won't have the money to build anything; warships or freighters.

Duckk wrote:Don't know where you people are getting your numbers. As Potato pointed out earlier in the thread, AAC said the SD(P)s in Home Fleet averaged 400 missiles each.

Well, that would be a serious pruning from AoV.

7 waves being updated before they hit the RHN units at 400 each is north of 2800. So, number is certainly not 400. If only 1/7 of your uplink time is required for 400, then single salvo would be 2800(aligns closer with AoV).

Now if you are a smart BuWeaps system designer, and see that the farthest missile salvo needs the most data then the first 6 salvoes need far less bandwidth than the 7th salvo. I could easily see north of 95% given to the final update and the minority needed only for crude course adjustments for the prior 6 salvos. Or notice multitudes of missiles are targeting the exact same broadside on certain ships. Total data bandwidth required would be determined by the task force you are attacking. Dropping total bandwidth needed drastically.

FOREX: Attacking a single ship. Has 4 sides. Realistically can only attack 2.5 to 3 of its sides. Total data needed for all missiles fired would be the position of the ship, ECM profiles of the side being attacked, and missile attack sequence. With a tiny side dish of CM dodging profile selection. Effectively, the control links needed is 3. 1 for each side. Large task force number of sides on a single ship in the task force would drop down to 1 maybe 2. Number of missiles targeting this area would be near infinite via the judicious use of a little forethought and planning on BuWeaps part.

So, if one adds a little smarts to the equation, the number of control links, is certainly not a round number determined by number of missiles launched. Rather the number of broadsides of a task force the missiles can adequately have information for. The more missiles launched, the more efficient your control link bandwidth would be.