Mark 23-E Lite?

Re-reading Mission of Honor and wrapping up the Battle of Spindle. Apollo pods in use - no Apollo. But the Mark 23-E's still served an Apollo-ish function - each had one control link assigned to it, and it controlled the eight missiles of its pod, thereby getting eight attack or EW missiles on target per shipboard control link.

It wasn't even a rotating control link solution, nor was there FTL telemetry going from the ships to the Mark 23-E's, just old-fashioned STL. (There was the by-now-usual FTL recon drone information from near the targets going back - just nothing from the missiles.)

Presumably the Mark 23-E's brains were relevant there, but the FTL transmission and reception were not. As I understand it - I welcome correction here - the FTL transmitter is the real space and expense hog for the 23-E. So - for smaller missiles and smaller ships (or smaller pods, for that matter), couldn't a remote, brainy control missile be worked up to provide the same service and free up a lot of control links? Call it a Mark 16-E, if you like - certainly a DDM variant is the first place to take the notion.

And if that works, couldn't you work up a variant on that fired with a group of counter-missiles to provide a control link multiplier for them? It would only need CM range, but it would need CM speed. I suspect that a standard, shipkiller range missile body could do for that, and the shipboard arrangements would be a bit more complicated (it's taking a control link likely suited to a shipkiller, to control CM's), but if there's a slam-dunk technical objection, I'm not yet aware of it.

JeffEngel wrote:Re-reading Mission of Honor and wrapping up the Battle of Spindle. Apollo pods in use - no Apollo. But the Mark 23-E's still served an Apollo-ish function - each had one control link assigned to it, and it controlled the eight missiles of its pod, thereby getting eight attack or EW missiles on target per shipboard control link.

It wasn't even a rotating control link solution, nor was there FTL telemetry going from the ships to the Mark 23-E's, just old-fashioned STL. (There was the by-now-usual FTL recon drone information from near the targets going back - just nothing from the missiles.)

Presumably the Mark 23-E's brains were relevant there, but the FTL transmission and reception were not. As I understand it - I welcome correction here - the FTL transmitter is the real space and expense hog for the 23-E. So - for smaller missiles and smaller ships (or smaller pods, for that matter), couldn't a remote, brainy control missile be worked up to provide the same service and free up a lot of control links? Call it a Mark 16-E, if you like - certainly a DDM variant is the first place to take the notion.

And if that works, couldn't you work up a variant on that fired with a group of counter-missiles to provide a control link multiplier for them? It would only need CM range, but it would need CM speed. I suspect that a standard, shipkiller range missile body could do for that, and the shipboard arrangements would be a bit more complicated (it's taking a control link likely suited to a shipkiller, to control CM's), but if there's a slam-dunk technical objection, I'm not yet aware of it.

Certainly you're not the first to suggest an FTL-less control missile. I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work from a technical level, and if you pull the warhead and sensor you might well be able to squeeze it into the same missile body at a Mk16. That'd let it fit into existing pods, or existing tubes, which is a big advantage.

But still you'd still be giving up at least 1/9 of your magazine space for the ability to significantly increase the max single salvo size. I'm not sure those ships should be getting into fights where they need to dump and control a major fraction of their missiles in a single wave, so giving them 8 times the effective fire control might just be viewed as encouraging captains to misuse their ships. (Though it'd make the few salvos until a BC(P) ran out of ammo really scary)


As for extending the idea to CMs I think that's where this fall apart. It works for attack missiles because you don't normally target less than a pod's worth of missiles at a given target. So you can upload that target's details to the control missile and it's computer expands and elaborates on that to tell each attack missile in its brood how they should each attack that target

But you don't launch multiple CMs from the same salvo at the same inbound missile. (Because they'd be likely to take each other out through wedge collision before either reaches intercept point). So having a CM-control missile that could control multiple CMs doesn't work because every CM it's attempting to control is going after a different target - so the ship has to still push those individual sets of target data. I can't see any efficiency to be gained by relaying them through another missile.

Jonathan_S wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:Re-reading Mission of Honor and wrapping up the Battle of Spindle. Apollo pods in use - no Apollo. But the Mark 23-E's still served an Apollo-ish function - each had one control link assigned to it, and it controlled the eight missiles of its pod, thereby getting eight attack or EW missiles on target per shipboard control link.

It wasn't even a rotating control link solution, nor was there FTL telemetry going from the ships to the Mark 23-E's, just old-fashioned STL. (There was the by-now-usual FTL recon drone information from near the targets going back - just nothing from the missiles.)

Presumably the Mark 23-E's brains were relevant there, but the FTL transmission and reception were not. As I understand it - I welcome correction here - the FTL transmitter is the real space and expense hog for the 23-E. So - for smaller missiles and smaller ships (or smaller pods, for that matter), couldn't a remote, brainy control missile be worked up to provide the same service and free up a lot of control links? Call it a Mark 16-E, if you like - certainly a DDM variant is the first place to take the notion.

And if that works, couldn't you work up a variant on that fired with a group of counter-missiles to provide a control link multiplier for them? It would only need CM range, but it would need CM speed. I suspect that a standard, shipkiller range missile body could do for that, and the shipboard arrangements would be a bit more complicated (it's taking a control link likely suited to a shipkiller, to control CM's), but if there's a slam-dunk technical objection, I'm not yet aware of it.

Certainly you're not the first to suggest an FTL-less control missile. I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work from a technical level, and if you pull the warhead and sensor you might well be able to squeeze it into the same missile body at a Mk16. That'd let it fit into existing pods, or existing tubes, which is a big advantage.

But still you'd still be giving up at least 1/9 of your magazine space for the ability to significantly increase the max single salvo size. I'm not sure those ships should be getting into fights where they need to dump and control a major fraction of their missiles in a single wave, so giving them 8 times the effective fire control might just be viewed as encouraging captains to misuse their ships. (Though it'd make the few salvos until a BC(P) ran out of ammo really scary)

I'd rather not be the one to tell (e.g.) Aivars Terekhov that he ought not to have engaged at Monica, where salvo sizes were as big as he could control and would have been much better even larger, had he been able to control them. Missile engagements are usually, anymore, about a small number of huge salvos, huge because they need to be to get through the point defense and EW. Larger salvos will just mean better odds of succeeding in any serious fight you get in.

If you can't trust a captain to fight her ship reasonably, she's got no business in the chair.

As for extending the idea to CMs I think that's where this fall apart. It works for attack missiles because you don't normally target less than a pod's worth of missiles at a given target. So you can upload that target's details to the control missile and it's computer expands and elaborates on that to tell each attack missile in its brood how they should each attack that target

But you don't launch multiple CMs from the same salvo at the same inbound missile. (Because they'd be likely to take each other out through wedge collision before either reaches intercept point). So having a CM-control missile that could control multiple CMs doesn't work because every CM it's attempting to control is going after a different target - so the ship has to still push those individual sets of target data. I can't see any efficiency to be gained by relaying them through another missile.

Right. Another issue there would be the need to have CM's go from an early follow-the-leader profile (or move along ahead of the shepherd, as it were) to a late stage "pick one target from among that mass of missiles" profile. Is that an enormous hurdle?

--minor nits below---

Jonathan_S wrote:Certainly you're not the first to suggest an FTL-less control missile. I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work from a technical level, and if you pull the warhead and sensor you might well be able to squeeze it into the same missile body at a Mk16. That'd let it fit into existing pods, or existing tubes, which is a big advantage.

But still you'd still be giving up at least 1/9 of your magazine space for the ability to significantly increase the max single salvo size...

[8 missiles was a pod space limitation for a 10 missile Mark-23 pod, I think so if a non-FTL "16E" is standard size, wouldn't it be 1/14 of the salvo, in return for much higher hit probability? I think that would be such a force magnifier even that it ought to be next on Sonya's "pissed off geek minions" TO DO OR GET FIRED list. AKA, I hope RFC/MWW grabs the exact thought and runs with it.

--strategy nit--

I'm not sure those ships should be getting into fights where they need to dump and control a major fraction of their missiles in a single wave, so giving them 8 times the effective fire control might just be viewed as encouraging captains to misuse their ships.

In conjunction with hit probability, I think it would have the opposite effect. An example might be a SAG-C trapped in a defensive situation against a raiding BC squadron or even double squadron. Can't waste your shots, so throw exactly one "16E controlle pod" at each BC, the other 13 having ECM or the -G warhead. You've got enough pods to do that 2-1/2 to 3 times, based on how many BC's are mission-killed or 'formation killed' (can't stay with other ships because of impeller damage) per pod salvo, and there's nothing stopping the Sag-C from tossing additional off-bore salvos in with the pods for insurance.

--agreement on CM issues--

... taking out the attacking ship first seems like the most reliable form of CM to begin with, and that's what the DDMs and MDMs are for, right?

JeffEngel wrote:I'd rather not be the one to tell (e.g.) Aivars Terekhov that he ought not to have engaged at Monica, where salvo sizes were as big as he could control and would have been much better even larger, had he been able to control them. Missile engagements are usually, anymore, about a small number of huge salvos, huge because they need to be to get through the point defense and EW. Larger salvos will just mean better odds of succeeding in any serious fight you get in.

If you can't trust a captain to fight her ship reasonably, she's got no business in the chair.

Actually, because he had to flush his pods in Fire Plan Omega (before the Technodyne pod missiles hit) he was firing on the Indefatigables with only internal tubes. He didn't have time to deeply stack salvos, he was only firing double stacked salvos and IIRC a Sag-C has enough fire-control to handle at least quad-stacked ones. So all that control missiles would have done in that scenario is to reduced the number of offensive missiles (and slightly increase the effectiveness of the remaining ones).

Remember that after the damage he took, and the earlier fire against the station and docked BCs, he only had 33 rounds per tube left (yet sufficient time to fire off 54 rounds per tube). So if 1/9th of his magazines are control missiles rather than laserheads or ECM birds, that just reduces his offensive missiles from 33 round per tube to 29.

If Hexapuma had still had pods then the extra fire control would be useful. But going from being able to handle a quad-stacked salvo to being able to handle a 36-deep salvo seems silly. It's too lengthy to stack that deeply without pods.



I'm not saying there might not be extraordinary circumstances where a control missile for Mk16s would be useful. (And except for further reducing their limited loadout, sticking them into BC(P)'s pods seems like one spot they would be) But you design and arm ships for their proper missions - not for the bizarre corner cases that they're suppose to try to avoid. So I don't see putting them into the internal magazines of most tube based combatants (maybe Nike's, but likely not even then).
However developing them and putting them into Mk16 pods that those ships might be issued? That seems like a good idea.

--snipping--

Jonathan_S wrote:If Hexapuma had still had pods then the extra fire control would be useful. But going from being able to handle a quad-stacked salvo to being able to handle a 36-deep salvo seems silly. It's too lengthy to stack that deeply without pods.

In conjunction with my last post/question...

IIRC, reason for the "controlling 8" in the Mark-23 pods is that the 23-E effectively took up two spaces in a "10 missile pod". If a notional "16-E" without FTL is the same size as a 16-G, using all that warhead space for the control missile logic, then yes, it could be tube fired as part of a salvo.
Using Monica as an example, my belief [backed up by RFC, btw...see Commander Lynch's discussion with Helen Zilwicki in Storm from the Shadows], is that with both the -G warhead and then a multiplier like a control missile, chances are good that Terekhov would have fired smaller salvos and not needed all that many of them because the per salvo hit likelihood would have gone up exponentially.

Assuming 13 missiles per, they could fire off a stacked 26's with four control missiles, a 52 ship killer salvo, or fully stacked salvos of 78 (26x3) with 6 control missils.

Just the "report back" from a control missile would have given the tactical section/computers twice as fast (every control missile becomes an advanced analytic node), and against SLN ships, the combination would have been likely fatal to the two remaining BC's WAY before they would have closed on and fired on the remaining RMN ships.

Also, given the action at Saltash, anyone disagree?

the big problem at monica was the lack of punch the Mk-16s had at the time. as shown at saltash if Hexapuma had Mod G's they would take nailed the BCs much easier.

A control missile for the Mk 16s may prove useful long term but currently against sollies it has to be low priority compared to Streak drive or tweaking Gravatics senosrs to detect spider drive.

Dauntless wrote:the big problem at monica was the lack of punch the Mk-16s had at the time. as shown at saltash if Hexapuma had Mod G's they would take nailed the BCs much easier.

A control missile for the Mk 16s may prove useful long term but currently against sollies it has to be low priority compared to Streak drive or tweaking Gravatics senosrs to detect spider drive.

Given the number of Solarian SD's and BC's, something to make DD's and CL's better able to blow them away may remain handy - just because the Alliance has and can maintain about as many very small ships as the League can wallers.

That said, I would agree about the priorities, but streak drives will be developed more or less based on the speed that Simoes can convey theory to hyper generator engineers and spider drive detection is going to be a lot of theory more than working out technical tricks for some time. While it's a far lower priority, if control missiles are going to be useful, they're not going to be competing for many of the same resources anyway. (Although - small, capable AI's of the sort control missiles need may be relevant for large numbers of recon drone-lets of possible use in spider drive detection as part of a brute force solution.)

I thought there was a paragraph when talking about the Avalon class CL that said the new grav lensing that had been applied to the Mk 16 G was also being applied to the single drive missiles that the avalon and older non mk 16 capable units were using

Dauntless wrote:I thought there was a paragraph when talking about the Avalon class CL that said the new grav lensing that had been applied to the Mk 16 G was also being applied to the single drive missiles that the avalon and older non mk 16 capable units were using

I don't recall it in text, but it's a reasonable conjecture.

Yeeeeaah, mock the Ferret now!!!