The cruiser future in the RMN - another go

SharkHunter wrote:A Roland or Nike or our future CL with DDM's has at least 15x the range of the LAC ship killers, maybe even more than that. So they don't even HAVE to open fire if they're maneuvering to keep the range open.

Where are you getting 15x from? MK16 powered range is about 40 million km, LAC missiles at least 8. Ballistic components don't have a positive effect on targeting accuracy and are a great way to burn through ammunition. Valid strategy for the Nike, but definitely not a Roland.

For the sake of "battle discussion", however, let's assume the maneuvering Roland DD drops exactly one pod per pursuing LAC at the optimum attack time. That's 14 RMN missiles per, less a few ECM missiles to blind the LAC CM launch. I'd bet that now there's only 4 LACs left, and only 28 million miles plus distance in pursuit. Against a Sag-C, even worse: one pod per LAC and 16 pods left over.

Might be time to wake up a senior bridge officer on the DD because all we have left are tube missiles to play with, and somebody's gotta do the paperwork.

Sure, change the equation when the result isn't what you want. But LACs can put pods on tow too, especially as there should be stockpiles of such next to their system-defense hangar facilities. Potentially with MK25s too.

Pods have endurance issues and thus are not part of conventional loadouts for non-podlaying warships. I certainly don't think every Roland is going to be packing nine pods - it probably doesn't have the fire control to effectively manage 126 missiles at once.

And even if it did, those 126 missiles still have to get through at least two or three 72-CM salvos and 108 PD shots. That salvo might indeed take out one or two LACs, but the remainder would still be capable of countering subsequent ship-launched salvos and launching a lethal attack once they got into range.

munroburton wrote:Where are you getting 15x from? MK16 powered range is about 40 million km, LAC missiles at least 8. Ballistic components don't have a positive effect on targeting accuracy and are a great way to burn through ammunition. Valid strategy for the Nike, but definitely not a Roland.

Even for a Nike it would be a questionable strategy, as facing an equal tonnage of LACs for it would mean 200-250.

At that point, the LACs can link up into a battlewall and get real problematic to deal with.

And firing partly ballistic against LACs is begging for wasting ammo, LACs have so much acceleration that any missiles they see going ballistic most likely allows them to minimise the missiles chances to hit long before they even power up again.

munroburton wrote:And even if it did, those 126 missiles still have to get through at least two or three 72-CM salvos and 108 PD shots. That salvo might indeed take out one or two LACs, but the remainder would still be capable of countering subsequent ship-launched salvos and launching a lethal attack once they got into range.

And only giving pods to the side least likely to actually have it, thats just trying to stack the cards for one side, like you said, LACs are fairly likely to have some pods in readiness at their base, while it would be quite inconvenient for a scouting DD to bring pods with it.

50 Katana's at Chantilly, when they were moving to protect the Nike, and only firing for a minute or two, took out over 700 missiles, using only their Vipers and no PDLCs. That was out of a total launch of 1900 so just under 50% of total launch.

Battle of Solon, First Manticore, and Second Manticore also point out exactly how deep a missile strike you need to start getting through LAC defensive fire. Giscard had to shoot three divisions of podnoughts dry, which included firing salvos of 1,080 pods per salvo and was just barely getting through the defensive fire of LACs launched from 2 divisions of CLACs, 2 Invictus, and the podnought screen.

Even Ferrets would be able to take a lone CL, maybe even a CA, in a stand-up, 1 alert starship versus 1 Ferret squadron. The only way a cruiser could possibly have enough pods to take out an entire (Manticoran) LAC squadron, is to be a BC(P). And even then, I'm thinking it's going to be relying heavily on golden BB's, rather than swamping LAC missile defence.


In general, your average Modern non-BC(p) cruiser is not getting through the defensive fire of just a single LAC squadron. Not without full-up two-way FTL Apollo to try and out maneuver the Viper's, and bring your ECM online at exactly the right times.

A BCP can, via timing, swamp the defenses. You get 4 quad patterns of Mk16s with the normal penaids coming in within a few seconds from multiple vectors it will be kind of ugly.

munroburton wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:A Roland or Nike or our future CL with DDM's has at least 15x the range of the LAC ship killers, maybe even more than that. So they don't even HAVE to open fire if they're maneuvering to keep the range open.

Where are you getting 15x from? MK16 powered range is about 40 million km, ...

Nitpick: about 30 million km, from a standing start. To get to 40, you'd need a relative speed of more than 26,000 km/s.

--major snip--

munroburton wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:A Roland or Nike or our future CL with DDM's has at least 15x the range of the LAC ship killers, maybe even more than that. So they don't even HAVE to open fire if they're maneuvering to keep the range open.

Where are you getting 15x from? MK16 powered range is about 40 million km, LAC missiles at least 8. Ballistic components don't have a positive effect on targeting accuracy and are a great way to burn through ammunition. Valid strategy for the Nike, but definitely not a Roland.

So you're proposing that a 20K ship has a box launcher with cruiser weight missiles with superior to ERM range? Look at how close the LACs from Minotaur closed to an alert wall of Peep battleships at Hancock before they launched, and how quickly Diamoto started taking out LACs once he figured out the geometry problem. I'd bet that at max the LAC ship killers have < 1 million KM range.

Now then, let's assume that the LACs are towing one or two pods, cutting their accel to BELOW that of the CL, killing their own stealth. Now the Roland launches a few tube based Mark-16 boomers first to trigger a long range pod launch.

--next snip, a minor nit--

Pods have endurance issues and thus are not part of conventional loadouts for non-podlaying warships. I certainly don't think every Roland is going to be packing nine pods - it probably doesn't have the fire control to effectively manage 126 missiles at once.

Rolands max out at 5 pods, not nine...but per LAC let's call it say 12 RMN attack missiles PLUS 2 ECM missiles designed to blind and spoof the LACs. Who are up against the most accurate missiles in space.

It takes ONE laser rod getting a hit and the LAC is dead. The LAC has to get EVERY missile or buh bye...at "Abigail decided that the optimal LAC wiping range is at X" with deception and acquisition pattern "supercalc'd".

Rolands carry 15 pods without blocking sensors. SAG-C 40; BCL 80. LAC's: 1 or 2 pods with degradation of acceleration and stealth. Massive degradation in case of 2 pods.

LAC missiles have same 180s burn time as ship SDM missiles. Vipers, obviously do not: 75s burn. True, for RMN: RHN LAC missiles may have gone to very short birds. We do not specifically know. At least I do not remember any time for their LAC missiles given.

Locking up a LAC at long range is near impossible. The LAC crews know this as well, so they do not need to fire from long range. Therefore they can hold their missiles longer, obtaining a better kill percentage for their own very limited ammo supply. True under FTL drones? Maybe not.

DDM equipped ships can fire from ~infinite range as well. They do not do so as their kill percentage drops.

SharkHunter wrote: So you're proposing that a 20K ship has a box launcher with cruiser weight missiles with superior to ERM range? Look at how close the LACs from Minotaur closed to an alert wall of Peep battleships at Hancock before they launched, and how quickly Diamoto started taking out LACs once he figured out the geometry problem. I'd bet that at max the LAC ship killers have < 1 million KM range.

You'd lose that bet. Maxxed out drives for both LAC shipkillers I have entries on are between 1.2 and 1.35 million km. Stepped down drives give them ranges of 5.5 to 6.2 million km. (all figures rounded because I'm lazy)

And yes, in extended mode, the drives for each last 180 seconds.

Only information I have for RHN LAC missiles is dimensions on *one* of them. The other, I only have a designation/name, but nothing else. I suspect that will change at some point when I get an updated spreadsheet, but for now, that's all I got.

Relax wrote:Locking up a LAC at long range is near impossible. The LAC crews know this as well, so they do not need to fire from long range. Therefore they can hold their missiles longer, obtaining a better kill percentage for their own very limited ammo supply. True under FTL drones? Maybe not.

I think you missed Sharkhunter's point that if the LACs take pods in tow it will negatively affect both their acceleration and their stealth.

If I correctly recall LACs are too small to tow pods inside their wedges like full up starships.

SharkHunter wrote:Bob's thoughts most closely echo mine about equivalent weight of metal. Here's my thought: Give me a Tomahawk missile launching cruiser [and equivalent detection capability] against the entire IJN from World War II, including the Japanese carriers. Any ship getting close enough to the missile cruiser gets the treatment, right? And that's about a 500:1 weight of metal at least..

I don't think that would go the way you think, not without an unlimited number of Tomahawks; well maybe if you allow yourself the nuclear tipped land stack variant and get the target fleet to squeeze together into a nice tight target to nuke.
Otherwise a Ticonderoga can carry at most 122 tomahawks if every VLS cell carried one. That's far less than one missile pre WWII USN warship. I'm not sure if that's enough to kill all the USN destroyers much less the entire fleet. And tomahawks are unlikely to even mission kill a BB. Their anti ship attack pattern is exactly wrong for a ship with a heavy armored belt protecting its waterline.

Now the modern cruiser is still going to do a lot of damage, and sink a bunch of shops. But then it runs out of ammo and gets mauled by the remaining ones, or by naval air.

SharkHunter wrote:So you're proposing that a 20K ship has a box launcher with cruiser weight missiles with superior to ERM range? Look at how close the LACs from Minotaur closed to an alert wall of Peep battleships at Hancock before they launched, and how quickly Diamoto started taking out LACs once he figured out the geometry problem. I'd bet that at max the LAC ship killers have < 1 million KM range.

maxxq gave you the real numbers, but even without those we were told the Viper was shorter ranged than a conventional LAC missile and told it had ~3 million KM range (same as a Mk31 CM)

So just from that it should have been clear you were way off on LAC missile range.
Now the Hancock attack they fired from way inside max range because they needed graser runs to kill BBs, and to wipe out the Peep pods before they could lie launched. Firing at range would alert the BBs to the LACs sneaking up on them and let them flush their pods.


Oh and Maxxq may not have definitive specs on Havenite LAC's missile performance, but the text around the first engagement with Vipers indicates that the Havenite missile must have roughly similar range to the pre-viper RMN missile.