A Call to Duty (SPOILERS)

tpope wrote:

hvb wrote:Do the Frigates also have a 6 missile capacity in each box-launcher like the heavier classes?

The frigates started with twin launchers (2 missiles per box, 4 per frigate) when they arrived in the Manticore System. There were plans to upgrade the missiles themselves and put on quad-boxes, and I honestly can't remember if they happened before they were retired or not (I don't have my notes open and it's been a while since I've thought about them). They can only control a maximum of 2 missiles at a time however, just like their more modern cousins.

The older ships and corvettes you see flying around in the battle in ACTA have quad launchers, so a maximum of 8 missiles per ship, 4 per launcher. Most, likewise, are capable of controlling no more than two missiles at a time. Ships like the Salamander-class had magazine-fed single-arm launchers, which is where I think you are getting your 6-missile capacity, since each of those was fed by a 6-missile internal rotary magazine.

Since you can't fire a missile through a sidewall, and the "flicker" trick is still relatively new and not very reliable, those turreted arms were falling out of favor by the mid 1500s and being replaced by fixed forward launchers (magazine fed or internal cells) that were either conventional boosters or EM-drivers.

The net result of all of this is a confusing hodge-podge of design decisions in any given Navy (except for the very few that have enough resources to keep on the cutting edge) and it's going to get worse once the first sidewall gunport generator appears on the scene, as suddenly all of those "useless" turreted launchers that can train into the broadside suddenly become a lot less useless.

In some cases we'll see navies, or individual ships classes that have been obsolete for almost a century find ways to get refitted and leapfrog some of the more modern classes that succeeded them.

But that's far in the future. Book 7 or 8 of the trilogy I think...

tpope wrote:

hvb wrote:Do the Frigates also have a 6 missile capacity in each box-launcher like the heavier classes?

The frigates started with twin launchers (2 missiles per box, 4 per frigate) [snip] There were plans to upgrade the missiles themselves and put on quad-boxes [snip]

The older ships and corvettes [snip] have quad launchers, [snip]
Ships like the Salamander-class had magazine-fed single-arm launchers, [snip] fed by a 6-missile internal rotary magazine.
[snip]

tpope wrote:But that's far in the future. Book 7 or 8 of the trilogy I think...

Randomiser wrote:I really don't know what I think of the book. It was pleasant enough in its way, I suppose, but I don't know if I really warm to Travis Long very much.

That's one of my problems. Travis doesn't seem to have grown very much as a person in between and is still blind to the consequences of his predilection for slavishly following the rules.

I’m kind of concerned they have boxed themselves in and the series isn't really going to fly very well.

I just finished reading "A Call to Duty". I spent over 22 years in the USN. I knew an individual like Travis who was in my Bootcamp company. We ended up in the same rating and on the same ship... He never changed and later on he applied and went to OCS and became an officer. I met up with him ten years later and he still had not changed... Unpopular by the crew and the wardroom.

biochem wrote: As the book progresses he sees more and more cases where exceptions need to be made, and he makes them in spite of his preference for extreme adherence to the rules. So it looks like he will be one of the evolving individuals rather than one of the static individuals.

tpope wrote:
But that's far in the future. Book 7 or 8 of the trilogy I think...

Garth 2 wrote:From the last chapter in the book, it fairly obvious that one of Travis Longs 'wacky' ideas will be why the RMN defeats the Axelrod Corporation.

saber964 wrote:

Garth 2 wrote:From the last chapter in the book, it fairly obvious that one of Travis Longs 'wacky' ideas will be why the RMN defeats the Axelrod Corporation.

Already happened, read A Call To Arms in Beginnings HA6