Mark 23-E Lite?

Jonathan_S wrote:...non-FTL control missiles seem a good idea for Mk16 pods....

I think people are missing the minor detail that it is the FTL control links that make Apollo so effective, NOT the multiple missile/control link.

Apollo ACMs control a brood of eight Mk-23s not because it is more efficient, but because they couldn't fit FTL transceivers into individual missiles.

A STL command missile for DDMs doesn't do anything to reduce the command & control time lag, which is the problem Apollo ACMs were built to solve. In fact, adding a remote processing node/relay will add some indeterminate time lag to the loop.

A "Keyhole Light" or "C&C Drone" might be useful to offset battle damage to on-board control links, but there would be zero advantage to putting the system in a missile body and firing it down-range where it can't be recovered -- or putting it in a pod that most DDM equipped ships wouldn't normally have available.

Weird Harold wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:...non-FTL control missiles seem a good idea for Mk16 pods....

I think people are missing the minor detail that it is the FTL control links that make Apollo so effective, NOT the multiple missile/control link.

Apollo ACMs control a brood of eight Mk-23s not because it is more efficient, but because they couldn't fit FTL transceivers into individual missiles.

A STL command missile for DDMs doesn't do anything to reduce the command & control time lag, which is the problem Apollo ACMs were built to solve. In fact, adding a remote processing node/relay will add some indeterminate time lag to the loop.

A "Keyhole Light" or "C&C Drone" might be useful to offset battle damage to on-board control links, but there would be zero advantage to putting the system in a missile body and firing it down-range where it can't be recovered -- or putting it in a pod that most DDM equipped ships wouldn't normally have available.

The primary point to Apollo control missiles is, yes, exactly the FTL communication. The point here isn't to replicate that. It's to get a secondary but still significant advantage: use one control link for one missile that in turn allows control of another several. There may also be some use in having a smarter missile nearby to handle last second adjustments better than the missiles themselves can, when the time lag to the firing ship is far too great and the remaining time far too small. Then again, there may not be - that's just a third possible point to it. Again - FTL telemetry is specifically not on the table here; a control missile doing better in the end than the missiles alone is only not yet ruled out; and the point of it is control link conservation for more missiles under control per control link.

It's exactly what Terekhov got out of the Mark 23-E's at Spindle with STL telemetry links on them: utterly enormous salvos under control vastly in excess of the control link capacity of the cruisers doing the firing.

A DDM version of an Apollo missile would still be pod-based, so it's be a possibility for the BC(p)'s, rather than the Sag-C's or the BC(L)'s.

To properly take advantage of the control missile, the Apollo birds all launch at the same time, from 1 pod. To get the same effect from internal tubes, you'd have to dedicate one (or more) tubes to only firing the control missile, where a single freak hit would slash your effective missile control by a factor of 8. And depending on the hit, it could hit your missile storage internally, removing all your control missiles rather than just taking out the tube you were actively firing them from.

And this also excludes the time it'd take to stack your internally launched birds enough to warrant a STL/FTL-based control missile. The largest missile broadside superdreadnought (that we know about) is the Gryphon with 37 broadside tube, at a 1 ACM:8 Shipkiller ratio, that works out to just about 4 tubes would launch ACMs (or derivatives) every cycle of the tubes. I think the Gryphons would be close to the Reliant-class BCs for tube cycling, without digging out the Battle of Hancock for exact quotes, I believe it's a 14-18 second cycle time.

Now we have no exact data on the Gryphon's total fire control link availability, but we can make a WAG of it being broadside + 50% for anticipated battle damage, for a total of around 55 links. To launch enough Apollo style missiles to make maximum usage of those links (not counting the FTL possibility), you'd need at least 11 launches from internal tubes, which is about 3 minutes per "broadside".

Or just wait 1 minute for a Harrington/Medusa/Invictus to roll 10 patterns of pods and hand them off to the Gryphon. And then 60 seconds later, you're throwing another salvo, and then again at the time the Gryphon (sans podlayer) would be activating it's first missile swarm to activate drives. We're also not talking how much drift is going to be involved, because that Gryphon would likely be maneuvering at 90% of maximum drive (~360 g) and 3 minutes is going to scatter it's whole launch to hell.


And that's a best case scenario, a smaller ship would get even worse in the possible internally launched Apollo-derivatives, without using pods.

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now an apollo style counter-missile is something haven might do, they rely more on mass firing, and the shotgun method of picking off missiles. With Foraker and Hemphill putting their heads together, it might actually happen. Or at least something that started off as the shotgun defence, and then had Manty accuracy applied.

First Haven war, both sides relied on multiple CMs fired at each incoming missile to try and pick it off before it entered the laser clusters range. By the end of BoMa, Manticore was firing one CM per incoming missile, or damned near to that, while Haven just kept increasing the amount they fired. So a shotgun round, with Manticoran advanced miniaturization could happen.

JeffEngel wrote:...The point here isn't to replicate that. It's to get a secondary but still significant advantage: use one control link for one missile that in turn allows control of another several. There may also be some use in having a smarter missile nearby to handle last second adjustments better than the missiles themselves can, when the time lag to the firing ship is far too great and the remaining time far too small. ...

What does a control missile give you that a "Keyhole" or "Control Drone" doesn't? (since RFC has said autonomous AI systems aren't going to happen and that would be what is required for effective autonomous forward control.)

Except for that last second autonomous update from close to the target, there is nothing a disposable control missile can provide that a tethered drone (aka Keyhole Light) can't. Since a Keyhole/Drone isn't limited to the size of a Mk-16, it can provide much more than a single pod's worth of multiplication and it can be reused for successive salvos. It would also have the advantage that it doesn't take up any magazine space or launch capability in non-podlayers. It can also be utilized without modification by any ship with any size missile launchers.

SharkHunter wrote:But then again the point isn't to generate a super stack, it's to generate smaller killing salvos WAY before the squadron trying to jump your convoy/system can range on anything you're defending. If it previously took 120 missiles to generate enough hits to take out a BC, and now you can launch salvos including a control missile 3x the hit likelihood, and 3x the damage, that's a bit over one minute per dead SLN BC, not counting pods.

There's not text-ev on the actual increase in accuracy from a non-FTL control missile. But my impression would put it closer to 1.25x improvement than 3x improvement.

Certainly the Mod G warhead is a major improvement in damage - but that's completely independent of the control missile.

The control missile has no impact on the damage output of the warheads. What it does impact is:
a) major reduction in the control link cost of a salvo
b) a debatable amount on improvement to its accuracy
c) a debatable, but maybe 25-50%, improvement in it's ability to evade or decoy defenses. (Since the 'AI' can more precisely judge when the use dazzlers or dragon's teeth to help the other missiles in its brood)


But if you're right and throwing a non-FTL control missile into a normal 40 missile salvo triples the long range terminal accuracy then that obviously totally worth the loss of 4 attack/ECM missiles. So it really come down to values that just haven't been provided in the yet.

Weird Harold wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:...The point here isn't to replicate that. It's to get a secondary but still significant advantage: use one control link for one missile that in turn allows control of another several. There may also be some use in having a smarter missile nearby to handle last second adjustments better than the missiles themselves can, when the time lag to the firing ship is far too great and the remaining time far too small. ...

What does a control missile give you that a "Keyhole" or "Control Drone" doesn't? (since RFC has said autonomous AI systems aren't going to happen and that would be what is required for effective autonomous forward control.)

Except for that last second autonomous update from close to the target, there is nothing a disposable control missile can provide that a tethered drone (aka Keyhole Light) can't. Since a Keyhole/Drone isn't limited to the size of a Mk-16, it can provide much more than a single pod's worth of multiplication and it can be reused for successive salvos. It would also have the advantage that it doesn't take up any magazine space or launch capability in non-podlayers. It can also be utilized without modification by any ship with any size missile launchers.

Actually RFC said in a post a year or so back, IIRC in the KIROV and SS-N-19 thread, that BuWeaps had added enough 'expert system' weak-AI to the control missile that it can enhance the effectivness of the pod's missiles even when it doesn't have an FTL link.

I'd guess its basically canned routines, but even canned routines can help with penetration and accuracy when it can cross compare the sensor views of it's 9 controlled missiles and coordinate manouvering with activation of any Dazzlers and Dragon's Teeth in that number; all at very low latency (given the short range between it and the missiles it controls)

So a non-FTL control missile (for Mk16s) should have that same benefit; plus obviously letting a ship control a lot more simultaneous pods. But we're still left with the question of how much more effective the control missile makes them.



IIRC somewhere else there's a mention that BuWeaps could have done Apollo FTL control without a control missile; but it would have forced them to cut a drive from the Mk23s - and the terminal attack coordination of the 9 missiles was nice enough to be one factor in going for the control missile rather than giving up continuously powered range for FTL fire control.


Adding additional control links in a tethered drone like a Keyhole wouldn't have that same advantage. But probably more importantly it seems unlikely that you could cram even 3-4 times the links of an entire CA into a keyhole of reasonable size.
It was all the (approaching DD-sized) Keyhole I relays could do to provide a complete duplicate of the control links of a SD(P).
But a control missile modeled on the non-FTL capabilities of the Mk23E allows for up to 9x as many attack/ECM birds.
So shear weight of fire is also an advantage of the disposable control missiles over the reusable fire control relay drone.

The control missile downrange IS part of what makes Apollo so deadly. FTL simply allowed the SD supercomputers to get the updated attack profiles to the ACM uber quick.

Consider that even with Haven's best fleet defenses, Yanakov's SD(p)s simply destroyed formation after formation because the AI in each missile could do last minute adjustments to pen-aid/Dazzler and Dragons Teeth to make the remaining shipkillers fundamentally unhittable. By the way "we" the reader don't know that it takes 250 missile hits to take out a ship, ust that RJN experience is that 250 missiles guarantees enough hits to take out even a Haven SD or SD(p).

At the Battle Spindle (at extended range though still with 23's using only light-speed links):

War of Honor wrote:"The Apollo missiles' AIs didn't really care about that, or about their own rapidly approaching destruction, except inasmuch as it simplified their task. They simply obeyed their instructions, considering the information transmitted to them from their slaved attack missiles' sensors and comparing the warp and woof of the Solarian defenses to the requirements of AQ-17. Certain minor adjustments were in order, and the AIs made them calmly, then sent out fresh instructions. The EW platforms and penetration aids seeded throughout the salvo responded..."

A -16E variant might not get "up to the last few second updates" like the FTL provides, but at extended range the control missile's AI is "on the spot" and can make increasingly accurate and deadly attack selections long after the missiles can receive any further updates from their launching ships.

What we'd really like is for that -16E missile to be able to home on "the take from recon drone X", thought that is probably a post-SLN/MAlign hulk-smashed development.

SharkHunter wrote:What we'd really like is for that -16E missile to be able to home on "the take from recon drone X", thought that is probably a post-SLN/MAlign hulk-smashed development.

For that matter, we'd really like the recon drone (though that may not be the best description of it in this case) near the target to be able to give the incoming missiles all the control benefit Apollo does, but that's apparently not going to happen.

JeffEngel wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:What we'd really like is for that -16E missile to be able to home on "the take from recon drone X", thought that is probably a post-SLN/MAlign hulk-smashed development.

For that matter, we'd really like the recon drone (though that may not be the best description of it in this case) near the target to be able to give the incoming missiles all the control benefit Apollo does, but that's apparently not going to happen.

But if you allow communications to the front of the missile, then you run the risk of your opponent (once they have similar tech) taking control of the missiles and reprograming them by mimicking an RD. The rearward only communbications array is a simple anti-intrusion communications method.

I'm not saying it would be easy to do hack into the RD data streams, but making sure your comm array cannot physically accept enemy commands is the simplest (and most reliable) form of protection.

Theemile wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:For that matter, we'd really like the recon drone (though that may not be the best description of it in this case) near the target to be able to give the incoming missiles all the control benefit Apollo does, but that's apparently not going to happen.

But if you allow communications to the front of the missile, then you run the risk of your opponent (once they have similar tech) taking control of the missiles and reprograming them by mimicking an RD. The rearward only communbications array is a simple anti-intrusion communications method.

I'm not saying it would be easy to do hack into the RD data streams, but making sure your comm array cannot physically accept enemy commands is the simplest (and most reliable) form of protection.

You could have that with an only slightly more complicated system:
1) FTL comm from RD near target to RD a bit further back, behind the missiles, then repeat from it to the missiles STL, or
2) FTL comm from RD near the target to ship; FTL comm from ship to RD a bit behind the missiles; STL repeat from that RD to the missiles.

Granted, you then have some conceivable worry about the enemy hacking into either of the RD's and sending messages to the missiles, but if you have to worry about that then, then you should have to worry about the enemy using an RD of their own, back behind your missiles, to hack in and cut out the middleman. So if it's a problem, it's a problem that probably already exists.

JeffEngel wrote:

Theemile wrote:
But if you allow communications to the front of the missile, then you run the risk of your opponent (once they have similar tech) taking control of the missiles and reprograming them by mimicking an RD. The rearward only communbications array is a simple anti-intrusion communications method.

I'm not saying it would be easy to do hack into the RD data streams, but making sure your comm array cannot physically accept enemy commands is the simplest (and most reliable) form of protection.

You could have that with an only slightly more complicated system:
1) FTL comm from RD near target to RD a bit further back, behind the missiles, then repeat from it to the missiles STL, or
2) FTL comm from RD near the target to ship; FTL comm from ship to RD a bit behind the missiles; STL repeat from that RD to the missiles.

Granted, you then have some conceivable worry about the enemy hacking into either of the RD's and sending messages to the missiles, but if you have to worry about that then, then you should have to worry about the enemy using an RD of their own, back behind your missiles, to hack in and cut out the middleman. So if it's a problem, it's a problem that probably already exists.

As Relax pointed out several weeks ago, the simplest encryption for missiles is the use of the Doppler shift and signal timing propagation growth of the signal between the ship and the missile. An RD would have a different position and velocity relative to the ship and the missiles, and would have difficulty mimicking the timing loop and frequency change.