Upcoming designs: regarding the Apollo ACM...

SharkHunter wrote: In reverse order:

...the 30 in a clump (or 42 if it were controlling 3 pods worth of Mark-16's. My reading is that the missiles essentially maintain "formation" covering the ACM until just short of attack range.
Likely they'd disperse before coming into even extended CM range, so as to get the maximum number of angles to hit the ship with. If an ACM could guide 'three clumps' then (by example) you could have 8 ACMs targeting one op-force SD(p) but you'd gain an additional 40ish shipkillers in the process, and twice the number of Dazzler/Dragons teeth. (2 more missiles at 10 missiles per pod instead of 8 x 24 pods less ECM). The additional ECW/Pen aids force the op force CM fire into "hit what? mode twice as badly)

...Control channel wise: I think it has 8 because it was designed one missile per pod. If it were even an issue other than that, up until about 20 seconds short of an op-force, rotating links would accomplish that much, then the ECM says "disperse thusly". If a ship can do it, seems likely that an ACM should be able to pass on the commands equally well.

...Finally yes, the ACM tube size would be pretty big. But your pods would gain 2 for 1, and in essence "space is space is space", by which I mean either you have 1000+ Apollo missiles in 1000 pods+, and lose 2000 attack missiles, or have a lesser count tube fired, and get those 2000 back, or maybe even more attack/ECM birds if the SD(p) were loaded with Mark-16G's for a specific battle. Plus the "synching with other pod-launched missiles from other ships, etc." makes your offensive power even more tightly controllable.

Keep in mind, this isn't a tube launch from an existing ship, it's a newer design than the Invictus, designed to take advantage of lessons learned up to now. Thoughts?

SharkHunter wrote:...the 30 in a clump (or 42 if it were controlling 3 pods worth of Mark-16's. My reading is that the missiles essentially maintain "formation" covering the ACM until just short of attack range. Likely they'd disperse before coming into even extended CM range, so as to get the maximum number of angles to hit the ship with....

SWM wrote:I'm afraid you are mistaken. The text is pretty clear that the attack missiles block the ACM from both counter-missiles and PDLC fire. That means they continue in close formation until just before they reach attack range. All the missiles are still fairly close together when they detonate; they are all firing at the same aspect of the target ship.

SharkHunter wrote:Agreed, but glad you posted the clarification. Current Honorverse wise, they still disperse early and far enough apart that it would still take 8 CMs to take out the missiles.

The dispersal pattern from the "ACM-B" clump would be more like a shotgun blast with a relatively narrow and flat aperture. But with the additional "blind'em" dazzler and second "bluff em" Dragon's Teeth ECM missiles, instead of 'eight leetle dots' that ARE going to hurt you out of the ECM mess, you'd have '26-36' leetle dots' that are going to hurt you out of maybe four to six times the ECM mess, PER ACM and set of pods.

wastedfly wrote:Why would they disperse at all? Dispersion does not help them any. Its not like there is Flak they have to fly through where one random explosion can take out the whole passel.

Um, pretty sure books said they can see the ACM. Even in AAC.

At All Costs, Chapter 57 wrote:"Sir, there's something . . . odd about the Manties' launch," Thackeray said.
"What do you mean, 'odd'?" Giscard asked sharply.
"Their attack birds are coming in . . . well, 'clumped' is the only word I can think of for it, Sir. They aren't spreading out in a proper dispersion pattern."
"What?"
Giscard punched a command into his own repeater plot and frowned. Thackeray was right. His own outgoing missiles were spreading out, distancing themselves from one another to reduce wedge interference with their telemetry links to the ships which had launched them. Everyone's missiles did that.
But the Manties' missiles weren't.
"Query CIC," he told Thackeray. "I want an analysis of this pattern. There's got to be some reason for it."
"CIC's already on it, Sir. So far, they don't have any explanation."
Giscard grunted in acknowledgment. Actually, he realized, the attack missiles were spreading out, just not the way they should have. They were coming in in discrete clusters, spread across an attack front which would bring them all in simultaneously in the end, but making the trip in relatively tight groups of about eight or ten missiles each.
No, he thought as a preliminary analysis from the Combat Information Center came up as a sidebar to his plot. They're coming in in clusters of exactly eight missiles each. Which is stupid, since they have twelve missiles in each pod!
* * *
It was called "Apollo," after the archer of the gods.
It hadn't been easy for the R&D types to perfect. Even for Manticoran technology, designing the components had required previously impossible levels of miniaturization, and BuWeaps had encountered more difficulties than anticipated in putting the system into production. This was its first test in actual combat, and the crews which had launched the MDMs watched with bated breath to see how well it performed.
Javier Giscard was wrong. There weren't twelve missiles in an Apollo pod; there were nine. Eight relatively standard attack missiles or EW platforms, and the Apollo missile—much larger than the others, and equipped with a down-sized, short-ranged two-way FTL communications link developed from the one deployed in the still larger Ghost Rider reconnaissance drones. It was a remote control node, following along behind the other eight missiles from the same pod, without any warhead or electronic warfare capability of its own.
The impeller wedges of the other missiles hid it and its pulsed transmissions from the sensors of Giscard's ships, and from his counter-missiles. But its position allowed it to monitor the standard telemetry links from the other missiles of its pod. And it also carried a far more capable AI than any standard attack missile—one capable of processing the data from all of the other missiles' tracking and homing systems and sending the result back to its mothership via grav-pulse.
The ships which had launched them had deployed the equally new Keyhole II platforms, equipped not with standard light-speed links for their offensive missiles, but with grav-pulse links. Virtually every Manticoran or Grayson ship which could currently deploy Keyhole II was in Eighth Fleet's order of battle, and Honor Alexander-Harrington had taken ruthless advantage of the capability when she formulated her attack plans.
The grav-pulse transmissions were faster than light, although they weren't instantaneous. Actual transmission speed was "only" about sixty-four times the speed of light, but that was enormously better than anyone had ever been able to do before. The updated sensor information from the on-rushing missiles crossed the distance to the tactical sections and massively capable computers of the superdreadnoughts which had launched them, and at this range, the transmission lag was less than three seconds. For all practical purposes, they might as well have made the trip instantaneously. As did the corrections those tactical sections sent back.
In effect, Apollo gave the Royal Manticoran Navy effectively real-time correction ability at any attainable powered missile range.
* * *
Javier Giscard's tactical officers didn't realize at first what they faced. In fact, most of them never did realize.
The Manty missiles ignored their decoys almost contemptuously, and those peculiar clumps of MDMs maneuvered with a precision no missile-defense officer had ever seen before. It was almost as if each clump were a single missile, one which bored in through the defensive shield of the task group's electronic warfare as if it didn't exist.

Vince quoting 'At All Costs' wrote:They're coming in in clusters of exactly eight missiles each. Which is stupid, since they have twelve missiles in each pod![/b]
...
The Manty missiles ignored their decoys almost contemptuously, and those peculiar clumps of MDMs maneuvered with a precision no missile-defense officer had ever seen before. It was almost as if each clump were a single missile, one which bored in through the defensive shield of the task group's electronic warfare as if it didn't exist. (Italics are the author's, boldface is my emphasis.)

SharkHunter wrote:--little but important snip--

Vince quoting 'At All Costs' wrote:They're coming in in clusters of exactly eight missiles each. Which is stupid, since they have twelve missiles in each pod![/b]
...
The Manty missiles ignored their decoys almost contemptuously, and those peculiar clumps of MDMs maneuvered with a precision no missile-defense officer had ever seen before. It was almost as if each clump were a single missile, one which bored in through the defensive shield of the task group's electronic warfare as if it didn't exist. (Italics are the author's, boldface is my emphasis.)

I had the missile count in a non-Apollo pod too low. Given that part of the idea of a notional tube fired "ACM version-B" would be to control up to say three pods worth of missiles until just short of attack range an even a more formidable force multiplier. Let's say that that ACM updates the attack profile and the three clusters separate slightly in the last 500K Km, at full missile speed, that's less than 2 seconds with 36-42 missiles instead of 24, which is the equivalent of a whole pod and a half by comparison to the ACM "in the pod". Similarly unhittable.

At All Costs, Chapter 57 wrote:Javier Giscard was wrong. There weren't twelve missiles in an Apollo pod; there were nine. Eight relatively standard attack missiles or EW platforms, and the Apollo missile—much larger than the others, and equipped with a down-sized, short-ranged two-way FTL communications link developed from the one deployed in the still larger Ghost Rider reconnaissance drones. It was a remote control node, following along behind the other eight missiles from the same pod, without any warhead or electronic warfare capability of its own.

SharkHunter wrote:I had the missile count in a non-Apollo pod too low. Given that part of the idea of a notional tube fired "ACM version-B" would be to control up to say three pods worth of missiles until just short of attack range an even a more formidable force multiplier. Let's say that that ACM updates the attack profile and the three clusters separate slightly in the last 500K Km, at full missile speed, that's less than 2 seconds with 36-42 missiles instead of 24, which is the equivalent of a whole pod and a half by comparison to the ACM "in the pod". Similarly unhittable.

SWM wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:I had the missile count in a non-Apollo pod too low. Given that part of the idea of a notional tube fired "ACM version-B" would be to control up to say three pods worth of missiles until just short of attack range an even a more formidable force multiplier. Let's say that that ACM updates the attack profile and the three clusters separate slightly in the last 500K Km, at full missile speed, that's less than 2 seconds with 36-42 missiles instead of 24, which is the equivalent of a whole pod and a half by comparison to the ACM "in the pod". Similarly unhittable.

Sharkhunter, you still seem to be missing the point--they can't separate. Also, if they took out the ACM and put in standard Apollo attack missiles, there would be 10 missiles in a pod, not twelve. Giscard was wrong.

Theemile wrote:A Pod is not a pod is not a pod.

Ther have been at least 19 marks of Pods in RMN service, each with different capabilities and missile loads.

There was a discussion in Storm from the Shadows I believe, on the progression of missile pods and their capabilities in RMN servce. Flatpacks, the current pod style that stack more optimally and have tractors built in, only held 10 Mk 23s. IIRC, the Mk 19 is the Apollo version, and the Mk 17 and Mk 18 were also in the flat pack family.