Information I'd love to know

JohnRoth wrote:What's ludicrous about it? Tube-fired missiles have to clear the sidewalls and spread out before they fire up their own wedges. If you're going to fire them from the opposite broadside, then those missiles are going to have to flip 180 degrees, spread out so they can go around the ship while avoiding its wedge, cancel the momentum that's taking them in the wrong direction and somehow keep up with the original broadside when all that maneuvering probably takes up a few seconds.

I can very easily see missile designers not putting all that capability in missiles when every cubic cm counts and everyone knows that you need to get into energy range anyway for a decisive engagement. It only becomes important after the development of missile-heavy tactics.

Which answers the other question. Haven sector navies have it, the rest of the navies (including the ISLN) didn't read the memo before filing it.

Just a minor point: there's no reason for the missiles from the opposite broadside to flip 180 degrees - all the firing ship has to do is roll 90 degrees, and the missiles only have to change heading 90 degrees. Or, if something like Keyhole or other sensor platforms that are outside the wedge aren't available, just point your ship at the enemy and fire both broadsides - they still only have to change 90 degrees, although there's that slight issue of crossing your "T" if you don't have the extra range of DDM/MDM missiles or bucklers/forward sidewall.

MaxxQ wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:What's ludicrous about it? Tube-fired missiles have to clear the sidewalls and spread out before they fire up their own wedges. If you're going to fire them from the opposite broadside, then those missiles are going to have to flip 180 degrees, spread out so they can go around the ship while avoiding its wedge, cancel the momentum that's taking them in the wrong direction and somehow keep up with the original broadside when all that maneuvering probably takes up a few seconds.

I can very easily see missile designers not putting all that capability in missiles when every cubic cm counts and everyone knows that you need to get into energy range anyway for a decisive engagement. It only becomes important after the development of missile-heavy tactics.

Which answers the other question. Haven sector navies have it, the rest of the navies (including the ISLN) didn't read the memo before filing it.

Just a minor point: there's no reason for the missiles from the opposite broadside to flip 180 degrees - all the firing ship has to do is roll 90 degrees, and the missiles only have to change heading 90 degrees. Or, if something like Keyhole or other sensor platforms that are outside the wedge aren't available, just point your ship at the enemy and fire both broadsides - they still only have to change 90 degrees, although there's that slight issue of crossing your "T" if you don't have the extra range of DDM/MDM missiles or bucklers/forward sidewall.

There's no reason that they have to, but the text says that they currently have the capability of turning 180 degrees.

MaxxQ wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:What's ludicrous about it? Tube-fired missiles have to clear the sidewalls and spread out before they fire up their own wedges. If you're going to fire them from the opposite broadside, then those missiles are going to have to flip 180 degrees, spread out so they can go around the ship while avoiding its wedge, cancel the momentum that's taking them in the wrong direction and somehow keep up with the original broadside when all that maneuvering probably takes up a few seconds.

I can very easily see missile designers not putting all that capability in missiles when every cubic cm counts and everyone knows that you need to get into energy range anyway for a decisive engagement. It only becomes important after the development of missile-heavy tactics.

Which answers the other question. Haven sector navies have it, the rest of the navies (including the ISLN) didn't read the memo before filing it.

Just a minor point: there's no reason for the missiles from the opposite broadside to flip 180 degrees - all the firing ship has to do is roll 90 degrees, and the missiles only have to change heading 90 degrees. Or, if something like Keyhole or other sensor platforms that are outside the wedge aren't available, just point your ship at the enemy and fire both broadsides - they still only have to change 90 degrees, although there's that slight issue of crossing your "T" if you don't have the extra range of DDM/MDM missiles or bucklers/forward sidewall.

I know you said this in your last paragraph, but it bares repeating. If the missiles only have to turn 90 degrees, then you either have your wedge or your hammerhead pointed at the enemy. If you have your wedge pointed at the enemy, unless you have something like Keyhole, you probably should just save the expenses and not fire. And if you have your hammerhead pointed at the enemy A) most ships don't have the fire control on the hammerhead to handle both (or even one of their) broadsides and B) until very recently, you were voluntarily giving up one of your best passive defenses, and the turn of your ship would block a number of your active defenses. So both of those , up until a few years ago, reduced the odds of destroying the enemy ship before you yourself are destroyed.

Furthermore, as per RFC, until the ERM and eventually the MDMs were developed, a missile got a good fraction of it's final velosity from the launchers. If said launchers were not pointed at the enemy, the missile would have to spend a lot of its drive time getting moving towards the enemy and eliminating its outward velocity. This would result in missiles that were measurably slower when they arrived on target, and would thus be easier targets for point defense.

crewdude48 wrote:I know you said this in your last paragraph, but it bares repeating. If the missiles only have to turn 90 degrees, then you either have your wedge or your hammerhead pointed at the enemy. If you have your wedge pointed at the enemy, unless you have something like Keyhole, you probably should just save the expenses and not fire. And if you have your hammerhead pointed at the enemy A) most ships don't have the fire control on the hammerhead to handle both (or even one of their) broadsides and B) until very recently, you were voluntarily giving up one of your best passive defenses, and the turn of your ship would block a number of your active defenses. So both of those , up until a few years ago, reduced the odds of destroying the enemy ship before you yourself are destroyed.

Point, but let me ask you this: What's wrong with loading targeting and maneuvering data prior to launch, having the missiles perform those maneuvers autonomously, until the ship rolls back to where its sensors (and fire control) are clear of wedge interference? Why not place the near-side broadside ignition on a delay until the farside missiles are caught up? Remember that no one detects missile launches until the wedges are up... Sure, it uses RCS fuel to pull those manuevers, but TBH, the farside missiles don't really *need* to actually catch up with the nearsiders - the distance between the two may only be a few hundred km, and with a standoff range of 30k km, I don't think a half-second (or whatever, my math sucks) delay in detonation is going to make much of a difference.

All the farside missiles have to do is get turned around and move up or down to clear the ship wedge, then they can light off their drives, with the nearside lighting theirs off a second or so later - there's no reason at all that the farside missiles need to stop, turn around, and then accelerate again in the other direction to catch up with the nearside missiles.

crewdude48 wrote:Furthermore, as per RFC, until the ERM and eventually the MDMs were developed, a missile got a good fraction of it's final velosity from the launchers. If said launchers were not pointed at the enemy, the missile would have to spend a lot of its drive time getting moving towards the enemy and eliminating its outward velocity. This would result in missiles that were measurably slower when they arrived on target, and would thus be easier targets for point defense.

<shrug> Another reason why rolling the ship 90 degrees and only needing the missiles to turn 90 degrees is better than having the farside missiles turning 180 degrees - sure they'll have that tube-induced vector to compensate for, but over the distance of the run time, and at the accel they're pulling, it's not going to make *that* much of a difference in velocity at detonation.

Obviously, in-universe, it works, so why sweat it?

crewdude48 wrote:Furthermore, as per RFC, until the ERM and eventually the MDMs were developed, a missile got a good fraction of it's final velosity from the launchers. If said launchers were not pointed at the enemy, the missile would have to spend a lot of its drive time getting moving towards the enemy and eliminating its outward velocity. This would result in missiles that were measurably slower when they arrived on target, and would thus be easier targets for point defense.

Oddly enough, I haven't seen a tens of thousands of km/sec missile velocity abnormality in any of the battles I can remember. And that is the kind of difference you need for it to actually matter.

You fire your starboard broadside and then (or at the same time) your port side broadside.
So even if you have not lit off the drives on the starboard shots, your port side missiles are heading 180º in the wrong direction at launch velocities untill they 1) reorient, 2) light off their drives and 3) stop moving in the direction they were launched and start moving in the proper direction.==and then build up speed to overtake the starboard launch at some point. It starts to become of question of are you going to try and match the starboard side speed and then even acceleration so the wave is all flying together OR do you have it timed out such that starbord and ports side salvos get to roughly (but very close) the same point at the same time to engage with the laser heads?

Also, you have the wedge up and don't spin the ship. Your wedge is where exactly to the missiles which were fired on the port side? They have to go HOW FAR around the ship to avoid getting destroyed by the wedge? I can understand rolling the ship such that you keep your wedge just "over" or "under" the starboard broadside and then fire the portside (it is always relative to the bow of the ship) such that while the port broadside is not quite in the same direction, it is flying just "under" or "over" where the wedge is now and while only seconds behind the starboard broadside, the difference isn't going to end up being significant over the distance and at the accelerations being used when both sets of missiles get to engagement range.

How long does it take the missiles to clear the potential danger zone of the wedge so you can then do the same thing again and launch a double broadside?

Brigade XO wrote:You fire your starboard broadside and then (or at the same time) your port side broadside.
So even if you have not lit off the drives on the starboard shots, your port side missiles are heading 180º in the wrong direction at launch velocities untill they 1) reorient, 2) light off their drives and 3) stop moving in the direction they were launched and start moving in the proper direction.==and then build up speed to overtake the starboard launch at some point. It starts to become of question of are you going to try and match the starboard side speed and then even acceleration so the wave is all flying together OR do you have it timed out such that starbord and ports side salvos get to roughly (but very close) the same point at the same time to engage with the laser heads?

Also, you have the wedge up and don't spin the ship. Your wedge is where exactly to the missiles which were fired on the port side? They have to go HOW FAR around the ship to avoid getting destroyed by the wedge? I can understand rolling the ship such that you keep your wedge just "over" or "under" the starboard broadside and then fire the portside (it is always relative to the bow of the ship) such that while the port broadside is not quite in the same direction, it is flying just "under" or "over" where the wedge is now and while only seconds behind the starboard broadside, the difference isn't going to end up being significant over the distance and at the accelerations being used when both sets of missiles get to engagement range.

How long does it take the missiles to clear the potential danger zone of the wedge so you can then do the same thing again and launch a double broadside?

It depends on the ship and missile. Presumably the fusion powered missiles can be fired into any aspect. The LERM only an adjacent aspect and old school couldn't for some reason.

A fusion missile could be fired any way up. It launches at a high speed, and clears the wedge very quickly, then orients for its flight path, depending on target, number of missiles in salvo stacking and with a goal to reach the target at the same time.

The LERM or ERM missile is best fired, depending on the ship, take the wolfhound LERM for instance when pointing at or away (bow or stern). This brings all 12 missiles on target. With wedge imposed it would work as well but it is hard to aim with the wedge imposed. A LERM can be stacked once maybe? Not sure if stacking is fusion missiles only.

Old school capacitor missiles were fired like guns on a galleon. Aim able but one aspect only at a time.

Fusion missile never require rolling to fire missiles. A Roland can fire 12 mk16 at any target on any aspect even straight forward firing dead astern. Can double maybe triple stack 12/24/36 missiles and hits harder than anything less than a Saganami CA.

36 missiles of Mk16 strength is about the same strike / salvo load of an old school DR if not SD.

A Nike BCL can fire its 50 tubes triple or perhaps quad stacked. 150-200 Mk16's. Then fire at long range using its keyhole I's while hiding behind its wedge. A salvo size of 10-15 times that of old school BC at 3-4 times the range. A pair of Nike could have punched out all of the DD, CL and BC in Filareta's fleet. Even if their missiles had comparable range, seekers and pen aides.

Hi Brigade XO,

It may be that the higher power budget of the fusion missiles enables a much higher initial maneuverability or delta V for the missile's thrusters, while far improved missile programming [near AI?] enables it to reorient the Mk-16/23 itself before lighting off the the main drive soon after it clears the wedge, all programed by the fire control.

The Mk-16 missiles are only ~12 meters long, a bit wider than a meter wide, so a 200m high, ~1000-1200m wide ought to easily permit reorientation at least beginning before clearing the wedge.

OTOH, the Edward Saganami and Shrikes plus Ferrets use only capacitor powered missiles so it may be more new programming than the fusion missile's power budget.

Of course it could be a combination or pre-drive reorientation and improved maneuverability under power, but RFC and or Bu9 only know for sure.

But following Occam's razor, missile reorientation before drive activation seems the easiest and most likely answer.

L

Brigade XO wrote:You fire your starboard broadside and then (or at the same time) your port side broadside.
So even if you have not lit off the drives on the starboard shots, your port side missiles are heading 180º in the wrong direction at launch velocities untill they 1) reorient, 2) light off their drives and 3) stop moving in the direction they were launched and start moving in the proper direction.==and then build up speed to overtake the starboard launch at some point. It starts to become of question of are you going to try and match the starboard side speed and then even acceleration so the wave is all flying together OR do you have it timed out such that starbord and ports side salvos get to roughly (but very close) the same point at the same time to engage with the laser heads?

Also, you have the wedge up and don't spin the ship. Your wedge is where exactly to the missiles which were fired on the port side? They have to go HOW FAR around the ship to avoid getting destroyed by the wedge? I can understand rolling the ship such that you keep your wedge just "over" or "under" the starboard broadside and then fire the portside (it is always relative to the bow of the ship) such that while the port broadside is not quite in the same direction, it is flying just "under" or "over" where the wedge is now and while only seconds behind the starboard broadside, the difference isn't going to end up being significant over the distance and at the accelerations being used when both sets of missiles get to engagement range.

How long does it take the missiles to clear the potential danger zone of the wedge so you can then do the same thing again and launch a double broadside?

lyonheart wrote:<snip>

The Mk-16 missiles are only ~12 meters long, a bit wider than a meter wide,

<snip>

L

Nope. Both dimensions you give are low.

Another (possibly) weird question: how many ships pass through the Manticore Wormhole Junction every day (i.e. how many Junction transits occur)? I remember a throwaway line from the Stephanie Harrington series that mentions that only a few ships every month make their out to Manticore and that's considered a high volume. I like historical contrasts like that...