What about DN(P)s for the GA?

wastedfly wrote:Either a new SD class is created with massive amounts of extra armor+defensive systems(effectively a Lynx junction fort), or a new DN'P class is created that curbs offensive endurance, saving $$$/ship while increasing total defensive systems(CM tubes/PDLC) through the addition of more numerous hulls.

Manticore is following Haven's lead in providing missile defense "through the addition of more numerous hulls" -- they're called LACs and CLACs. NTM other more traditional screening units, like destroyers and cruisers.

It doesn't matter how many CM tubes/control links or PDLCs you add to a warship, the don't have the range to deal with MDM missiles storms. The only way to get that range is to put the launchers and control links out ahead of your warships in dedicated anti-missile screening elements.

Weird Harold wrote:It doesn't matter how many CM tubes/control links or PDLCs you add to a warship, the don't have the range to deal with MDM missiles storms. The only way to get that range is to put the launchers and control links out ahead of your warships in dedicated anti-missile screening elements.

1) No, it certainly does. Allows different options for how you set up your base defense.
2) No. Range is nebulous to immaterial, especially under FTL offensive, light speed limited defensive missile storm

8s/salvo(and decreasing with time). 8s*0.8c = range of ~2Mkm. Simple math strikes again.

For launch, miss, launch, miss, PDLC, need a range of around.... Drum roll please, roughly: 3.5Mkm 1st, 150,000km 2nd, PDLC@100,000km! Hey, Hey, Hey! Its almost as if our author in chief knows how to button punch a simple interception rate equation! No kidding, he does. One of the main things that made me KEEP reading/purchasing his books. What needs to happen is FTL or quasi FTL+LS to CM's at 2-3.5Mkm for better interception rates. Not greater range.

Of course, if you(defender) already know 2 missiles are required for every incoming missile to knock them into dust bunnies, just launch, launch and call it a day. You still have time for a third launch and then PDLC under this scenario. Or launch, wait, vector, launch, miss, vector, miss, PDLC.

How many CM's do you wish to throw at each MDM? Can already throw multiple patterns with the existing RANGE.

How about working on interception rates? Hmm?

Range is NOT the problem. Interception percentage, and total number of CM's launched most definitely is, the problem.

Range slightly helps for total number of salvos. Due to basic physics, distance traveled goes by the square of time, so 8^2 adding geometrically, quickly grows to immense volumes of space one needs to get FTL+LS signal to CM's to make them any more useful.

Now I would accept the argument for a combination for a few CM's to have the ability to range slightly farther requiring a slight boost in drive time so more than 2 launches get the launch, miss, launch, miss, PDLC option.

Also contemplate the future(What we do in new ship design): CM burn@acceleration is both increasing in duration and magnitude. Is there another jump projected out of your R&D? Obviously we the readers have no idea, but CM's have already doubled their range with a guestimated increase in magnitude of around 30,000g or increase in 33%.

For instance if one wanted 3 initial salvos instead of only 2 initial salvos to have dedicated follow on shots instead of vectoring in freely available CM's(common sense way to do this, but the books say otherwise )

Launch cycle for 3 salvos is: 16s, or 8 additional seconds at 0.8c or 4.5Mkm(75-16s derives 2.25Mkm, 3.75Mkm minus equals a total of roughly 4.5Mk.) accel = 130,000g Drive time = 83s, or 11% more burn time or a boost in acceleration of nearly 30,000g nearly 25% boost(unlikely)

Launch cycle for 4 salvos is 24s = 75-24=51=5.7Mkm accel 130kg Drive time = 94s.

3) Lets look at these forward "launchers"

Katana's have 5 tubes and roughly 150-175CM depending on how one interprets the text when comparing itself to Ferrets/Shrike. Maybe as many as 250? One salvo every 8s obtains a drain time of 30-35 launches or 240s at max rate. Another way of saying that in even an MDM battle such as BoMa, Katana's are next to useless half way into a missile storm battle. Katana's help against first alpha strike; True. Part of the future solution? Yes. Current solution? No.

I know Kat's have gotten all the pub lately, but the much superior CM platform is the Ferret, with 8 CM tubes. But the main problem is that the Ferret has fewer CM's as a large portion of their hull is taken up by SDM missiles. Will we see an updated Ferret able to load out 100% with CM's? Would lead to a reduction of overall SDM/CM mix ratio, but would carry extra CM's + handling equipment in the fleet defense role.

Time to get Kat's in place: @3.5Mkm forward @750g=16minutes If from 2 directions you are FUBAR'd. Say, from planetary orbit/forts along with mobile forces.

I don't think current CMs have the FTL link the MDMs do. so the best defense against the Appolo style missiles and FTL links is defense in depths. This means LACs and CLACs. Yes the Appolo style missiles are FTL controlled, but with the CMs being controlled by the LACs, you can have -more- CMS under better control. Just because you or the enemy has FTL control over the MDMs doesn't mean they can't or won't be blown out of space. It's harder to do that, but not impossible. Hence the defense in depth strategy of LACs.

Wastedfly, you seem to think FTL controlled MDMs are more or less invulnerable to CMs. This isn't the case. LACs, being much closer to their CMs, have better control over them than the SDs would just pumping out CMs as fast as they can. The SD CMs are basically flying dumb since the controls to them are left millions of miles/kms behind, while the LACs are a hell of a lot closer. It's not a perfect defense by any means, but it's a hell of a lot better than just depending on SD defenses to try and reduce the FTL controlled MDMs coming in.

The LACs can also start shooting their CMS a lot sooner than the SDs can, being much farther out in front. Like 5-10 million miles/kms out in front. That means they can fire their CMs effectively and under better controls, reducing the number of incoming FTL controlled MDMs so maybe the SDs can survive the attack. No matter what, LACs will help. Unless the enemy starts targeting the LACs

Zakharra wrote:I don't think current CMs have the FTL link the MDMs do. so the best defense against the Appolo style missiles and FTL links is defense in depths. This means LACs and CLACs. Yes the Appolo style missiles are FTL controlled, but with the CMs being controlled by the LACs, you can have -more- CMS under better control. Just because you or the enemy has FTL control over the MDMs doesn't mean they can't or won't be blown out of space. It's harder to do that, but not impossible. Hence the defense in depth strategy of LACs.

Wastedfly, you seem to think FTL controlled MDMs are more or less invulnerable to CMs. This isn't the case. LACs, being much closer to their CMs, have better control over them than the SDs would just pumping out CMs as fast as they can. The SD CMs are basically flying dumb since the controls to them are left millions of miles/kms behind, while the LACs are a hell of a lot closer. It's not a perfect defense by any means, but it's a hell of a lot better than just depending on SD defenses to try and reduce the FTL controlled MDMs coming in.

The LACs can also start shooting their CMS a lot sooner than the SDs can, being much farther out in front. Like 5-10 million miles/kms out in front. That means they can fire their CMs effectively and under better controls, reducing the number of incoming FTL controlled MDMs so maybe the SDs can survive the attack. No matter what, LACs will help. Unless the enemy starts targeting the LACs

When looking at future Ship design, one has to also project future advances of all systems as well.

LAC's are no closer to their CM's than any other ship in the fleet. Therefore their interception rates @range are no different. Ships are not handing off their CM fire control to forward deployed LAC's. Now I would agree, this COULD be part of the solution. This still does not solve the very basic need for #CM's available. For a handing off of CM fire control, would involve a doubling, or quadrupling of LAC's fire control hardware. Doable.

FTL MDM's are not invulnerable. Hmm do the words in my previous post, interception rate, mean nothing to you? FTL MDM dodging rate/spoofing vastly increased, CM interception rate took a corresponding nose dive. We need to rebalance the force ratio. Ergo why I have been wasting electrons on this forum

Simple math shows that further CM's are away from mama ship, the worse their performance will be. They are myopic and need vectoring in. MDM with their FTL control node made long range interception drop into the toilet. Only true way to combat this with known tech is as several posters posted combination of ideas concerning dual use FTL RD's/(gah, mind fart FTL full voice/video communication device) and then broadcast basic intercept data via LS. Possible? Yes. Would require a complete rework of their basic defense doctrine, and a vast increase in number of RD's and the other FTL thingamagingies that I am mind farting name forgetting at the moment!

wastedfly wrote:Time to get Kat's in place: @3.5Mkm forward @750g=16minutes If from 2 directions you are FUBAR'd. Say, from planetary orbit/forts along with mobile forces.

I wonder what that 4th missile drive might be used to accomplish....

So no, you can position them against a technologically inferior or stupid foe. Against a peer, they will evade the LACs (or at least most of the LACs) by using their 4th drive to produce time on target barrages approaching from multiple vectors in too short a time to be able to reposition the LACs.

kzt wrote:

wastedfly wrote:Time to get Kat's in place: @3.5Mkm forward @750g=16minutes If from 2 directions you are FUBAR'd. Say, from planetary orbit/forts along with mobile forces.

I wonder what that 4th missile drive might be used to accomplish....

So no, you can position them against a technologically inferior or stupid foe. Against a peer, they will evade the LACs (or at least most of the LACs) by using their 4th drive to produce time on target barrages approaching from multiple vectors in too short a time to be able to reposition the LACs.

Thanks for furthering my point. So, yes, you were argreeing with my point. Forward Deployed LAC's can work for partial solving, but is not a good finite solution.

wastedfly wrote:Katana's have 5 tubes and roughly 150-175CM depending on how one interprets the text when comparing itself to Ferrets/Shrike. Maybe as many as 250? One salvo every 8s obtains a drain time of 30-35 launches or 240s at max rate. Another way of saying that in even an MDM battle such as BoMa, Katana's are next to useless half way into a missile storm battle. Katana's help against first alpha strike; True. Part of the future solution? Yes. Current solution? No.

Even if the LACs are held to close support of the wall, one CLAC load of Katanas provided 500 launchers and ~~20,000 CMs plus 100+ PDLCs. Where else are you going to fit that much anti-missile capability in a single hull?

LACs are indeed part of the solution, because they aren't intended to stop all of a massive missile storm, their role is to thin out the missile storm so that the second level (destroyer/cruiser screen) of missile defense can thin it out enough for the third (Wall CMs) and fourth (wall PDLCs) levels to dispose of what remains.

Ok, let me see if I have this right. Take a 9MT SD(P) and remove the (P), because you don't survive an Alpha Strike from a pod layer anyways and why carry pods that will never be used. This means you are building a DN, with the same SD hardware in a smaller package, that will limpet pods to the sides of the ship for use in battle. The scaled down DN, lets call it the Hood class, will have ammo supply integrated with the fleet for the DN to re-limpet pods to the sides for the next engagement, ala Terekhov's Squadron at Monica. This way you can build them cheaper and faster and have more of them, right?

So, here are my issues with that plan.

-----FIRST-----
Putting in the hardware in place. So here is our SD(P).

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Remove the pods and our new Hood class DN follows.

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Works fine for the internal hardware as that is already moveable within accepted constraints from class to class. (The fusion reactors are deep in the hull to better protect vs golden BBs taking out the fusion reactor and the like.)

Now the problem you have, is that weapons, sensors, keyhole platforms, etc are spread across the outside of the hull.

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So above is our SD again and all that juicy tonnage for offensive fire control links and defensive fire control links and sensors and weapons have all that surface area to fit in stuff, unlike our new Hood class DN below, which lost surface area to fit in stuff by because it is smaller.

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-----SECOND-----
Ammo storage. So lets replay the Battle of Monica with our new Hood Class DNs and upgrade the other side as well. So now we are attacking Monica to keep them from deploying SDs against us. (CA to DN as BC to SD to keep everything relatively equal.) The first part of the engagement to take out the shipyards goes well. Use them or loose them alpha strike with pods and all that like always with limpet-ed pods. But vs SDs stealthly attacking on another vector, you have a problem. Your ammo ship is outside the limit since it is unarmored and you are not. Well, we will get them when they get into grazer range as that is all we have left.

So, lets armor up our ammo ships so they can follow the Hood class DNs into battle. Well to make them survivable enough to tag along, we need to give them DN/SD armor. And you know, with some fire control links, they could do the job themselves and we wouldn't need the Hood class at all as we have built a SD(P).

Don't think that Monica is a one off either. At Solon, Duchess Harrington was attacked by Adm Giscard and then had to squeeze by Rear Adm Emile Deutscher's force who was in system that Duchess Harrington was able to see, before the ambushers showed up. Once again, the use it or lose it vs Adm Giscard would have meant nothing to shoot at Rear Adm Deutscher's force.

-----THIRD-----
Why hamstring your fleet commanders that way by having the wall of battle carry around ammo ships everywhere you go? Let's say you armored up the ammo ship to have it travel along with the squadron wall of battle. So each wall could be 6 DNs and 2 Ammo ships per squadron to keep the 6 wallers per squadron scenario that the RMN has now. If out of those 8 ships, one is down for mobility from damage or engineering casualty or required maintenance, that would not be an unlikely scenario for warships. If it is one of your two Ammo ships, you lose half of your ammo for the whole squadron AND the 6 DNs are stuck to the Ammo ship like a hungry baby to mama. With 6 SD(P)s, having one down means losing 1/6 the ammo for the whole squadron and you can still break up the other 5 with other wallers or by themselves as needed. Even with out mobility issues, if you want to breakup your DN squadron, you would have to send 3 DNs and one Ammo ship out at a time, so you would be able break up your quadron in two, where the SD(P)s can be broken up into as many as 6 units. You can go with more ammo ships per squadron, but then you are adding to crews needed and more ships you have to build.

And along with this, why have a squadron of wallers that can be rendered into nothing more than targets by taking out only 1/4 of the wallers in said squadron? Are you secretly yearning for the Weapon That Can Not Be Named? Because if you had DNs and ammo ships, this would be the perfect reason to bring it back to the detriment of CL captains everywhere. Take out the Ammo ships and the other six DNs are targets.

-----FOURTH-----
Making the Fifth Space Lord resign. I get this from RFCs post archived on Pearls of Weber titled
The return of battleships as a viable class; the info on crews is listed as "Sixth" near the bottom of the post. Per RFC, the manpower requirement for a BB was nearly the same as a SD. So I doubt a DN would be very different than a SD. So with a squadron of 6 SD(P)s you need 6 waller crews. With your squadron of DNs, you need the same 6 waller crews, plus the crews of the ammo ships. So, you are not saving but adding to the manpower requirements for your fleet and Adm Cortez is having enough trouble finding crews for the wallers and the screen as it is. He already had the jump in manpower problems with the LACs and now you would be adding even more critical ships to crew as without the Ammo ships, your DNs are nothing more than very expensive targets. Yes, the Ammo ships would not have a very big crew if you unarmored them as they are freighters. If you armored them, then the crew requirements go up, as you need damage control to keep it running in combat and afterward.

-----FIFTH-----
Don't forget that the fleet doesn't exist in a vacuum and politics will come into play. If you don't armor your ammo ships, but they have to tag along with the DNs, morale (both civilian and military) goes in the crapper for sending out crews in death traps. Not to mention that you are sending out the waller crews in a smaller ship rather than a bigger ship. All the juicy, necessary hardware in this;

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is a lot easier to hit than in this.

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So it will be easier to mission kill or outright kill the DN over the SD.

For more on unarmored ships see With Apollo, do you really need armor any more? The DNs proposed above are not quite as bad as situation, but toward that direction with a waller attrition unit.

-----SIXTH-----
Lets talk about construction and costs. I get this from RFCs post archived on Pearls of Weber titled
The return of battleships as a viable class; the info on on constructions and costs are listed as "Third" and "Fourth" near the bottom of the post. Per RFC, the costs of a BB would be 2/3 to 1/2 of the costs of a SD. I'm sure the cost of building a DN would be even closer to the cost of a SD, so you
would not be saving that much by having a less capable platform that would hamstring you as listed above. If you are building more, less capable ships, you need more construction crews and this issue is THE most problematic issue of building DNs over SD(P)s for the GA after Oyster Bay than all of the other issues combined! In "Fourth" in the above post, RFC lists a 6MT DN as 20.1 months to build and a SP(P) as 23 months to build. Not that much difference for a less capable platform especially when you have less building ways to build them in the first place.

-----SEVENTH-----
So, lets build a DN(P) and make the 20.1 months go down even further since we have so few construction ways in the first place! First, you have to design the thing and then build it. Adm Hamish Alexander discusses this in chapter 7 of At All Costs. He estimates a DN(P) would take 18 months to build once under full production, but three years to design and get it into full production. And that was when they were discussing attacking Haven just after Operation Thunderbolt when they still had all of the construction ways and production facilities. After Oyster Bay, when all of that has to be rebuilt before you can start on the DN(P)s? Not likely. Going with what is already designed and ready with the parts that were in storage that were not lost to OB, is almost certainly where they will go.

Not to mention. Remember this?

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Now you turn it into this.

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So you lose even more capability from an SD(P). But Battle Fleet has obsolete ships you say. Doesn't mean that they will stay that way. The RFC post archived on Pearls of Weber titled The basis for Manticoran inventiveness discusses how the Manty's advantage of the Junction allows info from all over the Solarian League to be integrated into the Manty industrial complex. So, info is out there and the SL or someone else can get to where the Manty's are now. And as large as the SL is, they can get there pretty quickly. Even if it broke up into sectors, those sectors can get there pretty quickly. So why build a less capable unit, when manpower requirements of the ships is one of your biggest concerns, when the SL and others are going to be replacing the obsolete ships you want to destroy now, with better ones? And will have a bigger manufacturing ability than you as they are also larger? Before the first Havenite War, the RMN built DNs because funding was the biggest limiter on fleet size. Since then discussions about Adm Cortez trying to fill the fleet with crews, I'm almost certain that manpower is the limiting factor in the RMN now. So why build a less capable unit for your limited manpower, instead of a more capable unit when the costs or construction times are so close?

wastedfly wrote:Thanks for furthering my point. So, yes, you were argreeing with my point. Forward Deployed LAC's can work for partial solving, but is not a good finite solution.

Pretty much. If you position them forward enough to allow both the mass of LACs to engage a salvo fired directly at the fleet and for their result of their engagement to feed into the point defense CMs on the fleet this produces a geometry that allows high-thrust missiles to avoid passing through the depth of the LAC engagement envelope before hitting the fleet.

Keeping the LACs close enough to the fleet so the enemy can't do this means that can't consider the LAC and point defense CMs as separate engagements.

wastedfly wrote:Sweet, then why is Manticore not shoving hyperdrives up their 16Mt forts rears instead? Who cares about acceleration in an MDM environment. Acceleration is inconsequential. Still obtain around 100g's.

SD is already an attrition unit compared to Forts.

The navies of the Honorverse would seem to disagree with you. Since they, by definition, know more about naval combat than any of us (RFC excepted), we might perhaps want to consider that they're right. For one thing, you're assuming it's even possible to make a fort hyper-capable with current technology.

wastedfly wrote:If we assume that a Gryphon SD was balanced offensively/defensively a simple step in time displays current designs heavily favor offensive improvement capabilities while only modest corresponding correlating defensive capabilities. (Keyhole being the main contributor in the defensive additions)

Something has to give. Obtaining balance has been one of MWW's mantras for his universe.

Either a new SD class is created with massive amounts of extra armor+defensive systems(effectively a Lynx junction fort), or a new DN'P class is created that curbs offensive endurance, saving $$$/ship while increasing total defensive systems(CM tubes/PDLC) through the addition of more numerous hulls.

Why do you assume that a given tonnage of SD(P)s has fewer CM tubes and PD clusters than the same tonnage of DN(P)s would? I don't have HoS with me at the moment, so I can't quote figures, but it seems to me wildly unlikely that a 6Mt ship will have the same defensive firepower as an 8Mt ship. We already know that DNs carried fewer offensive weapons than SDs, why should defensive weapons be different? The additional Keyhole platforms will have an effect, but the Keyhole bays will take up proportionately more broadside hull space on a DN(P) than on an SD(P), so even fewer weapons can be placed on the DN(P)'s hull. I also wonder if there will be any improvement in offensive firepower. We know an Agamemnon-class BC(P) only has four pod rails, which is the main reason for giving them Mk16 pods instead of Mk23s - the same number of pods per launch gives a great salvo density. Should we assume that a DN(P) will have six pod rails? It may only be possible to carry five without exacting too great a cost in hull strength, which is already less than for an SD(P).

Overall, to me, it looks like replacing SD(P)s with the same tonnage of DN(P)s will have little effect on the total offensive or defensive firepower of the fleet, but it will definitely have the effect of placing that firepower in less durable platforms. Bad exchange.

wastedfly wrote:Something has to give.

Invictus can already run around with 2000 pods. Roughly 1400-1500 internally, and 600 externally. Old Medusa, now can routinely run around with 700+ internally and 600 externally. Where is the corresponding ability to launch and control a balanced number of defensive CM's, etc? Doesn't exist.

False problem, since the capability to control that many attack missiles doesn't exist either. We saw in the initial battles of the Second Havenite War that both the Manticoran Alliance and the RHN had adapted to the nature of MDM combat. At the moment, the balance has changed because of Apollo, but that's as much of an aberation as the Manticoran Alliance's sole possesion of MDMs was during Operation Buttercup. A counter to Apollo will be found, it's only a matter of time, if only because the GA will want to have the counter before a potential enemy manages to replicate Apollo themselves. With Shannon Foraker and Sonja Hemphill working together on the problem, I don't think that counter will be long in coming.