Grand Alliance Fleets

Jonathan_S wrote: While we haven't seen Havenite ERMs "on-screen" we do know Erewhon has them (because they gave their version of the Mark 14 cruiser-weight ERM to Maya) so it's reasonable to assume they were offered to Haven.

Then the question becomes; how much of a rebuild is required to install magazines and tubes capable of handling the larger ERM missiles?
I can't recall evidence of how aggressive Haven has been refitting their lighter ship classes; or whether they've been building new designs. (Though SoS had a indirect mention of cease-fire or later era rebuild spec for a Mars-class; replacing the problematic fusion reactors and rebuilding the impeller rooms to be compatible with bow/stern walls). So it's potentially possible they have ERM tech but most of their current light units can't use ERMs. Or maybe they've heavily refit and the vast majority can; we just don't know.

Yeah. Havenite light units are thoroughly murky since the Saint Just ceasefire. It's highly unlikely they've built DD/CA range RMN-style DDM's, though I suppose we can't rule it out with certainty either. It's also probable that their primary efforts have gone into MDM's, podlayers, the Cimeterre LAC, new missile defense doctrine and hardware, and CLAC's, with stuff for cruisers falling out mostly when it's easy or a spinoff of work on more important things. It's still unlikely they've done nothing at all for cruiser-range units.

ERMs would have a clear range advantage over Javelins, but be at a disadvantage over Cataphracts. Though the Cataphract suffers from warhead size, lase-rod count, and ECM payload compared to a ERM fired from the same class ship...

They could possibly have taken a similar approach, especially if they wanted to match their ERM's to existing tubes: match it in size and shape to an existing missile, and make up the space you need for the extended range with reduced EW and/or warhead strength. If they decided they could not spare yard space from SD(P)'s and CLAC's, then matching new munitions to old ships for the lighter units would make more sense than designing new munitions for new ships you cannot get around to building yet.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Kytheros wrote:I expect that Haven got ERMs in the Erewhonese/Manty-lite tech transfer. They are, no doubt, bulkier than an equivalent Manticoran ERM, however.
We know that Haven got everything Erewhon had, but since we've been mostly focused on MDM and DDM range combat, Havenite light units with ERMs still wouldn't be in range without towing pods and so their having ERMs wouldn't have come up.

Good point. While we haven't seen Havenite ERMs "on-screen" we do know Erewhon has them (because they gave their version of the Mark 14 cruiser-weight ERM to Maya) so it's reasonable to assume they were offered to Haven.

Then the question becomes; how much of a rebuild is required to install magazines and tubes capable of handling the larger ERM missiles?
I can't recall evidence of how aggressive Haven has been refitting their lighter ship classes; or whether they've been building new designs. (Though SoS had a indirect mention of cease-fire or later era rebuild spec for a Mars-class; replacing the problematic fusion reactors and rebuilding the impeller rooms to be compatible with bow/stern walls). So it's potentially possible they have ERM tech but most of their current light units can't use ERMs. Or maybe they've heavily refit and the vast majority can; we just don't know.

ERMs would have a clear range advantage over Javelins, but be at a disadvantage over Cataphracts. Though the Cataphract suffers from warhead size, lase-rod count, and ECM payload compared to a ERM fired from the same class ship...

There's textev early in AAC of refits, though they do not mention offensive improvements.

Sherman quivered as a second wave of counter-missiles erupted from her tubes. The Republican Navy had refitted its battlecruisers heavily, doubling their original number of counter-missile tubes at the expense of a sizeable percentage of their energy armament. More energy weapons tonnage and volume had gone into additional telemetry links, and Sherman and her consorts were tossing canisters of counter-missiles out of their standard missie tubes, as well.

The use of 'standard' when referring to missile tubes hints that they weren't altered to accommodate ERMs. Not very substantial evidence, however, may have been used to differentiate from countermissile tubes.

My view is that a large chunk of the RHN's light units have been converted into missile defense units, given they're hopelessly outranged and outmatched after all the SD(P)s, CLACs and LACs(and all-up MDM) sucked up Havenite R&D resources at a time when the RMN was starting to deploy the new Rolands, Avalons, Sag-Cs, Agamemnons and Nikes.

ok, I will try to be brief. Interspersed.

Jonathan_S wrote:Actually I'm not sure that current Havenite cruiser weight missiles have a range advantage over the SLN Javalin. We've seen no evidence that Haven cracked ERM tech to increase missile runtimes beyond 60 seconds/180 seconds full/half power. So unless / until they have that tech I think they're going to have a slight range disadvantage vs SLN light units; because shockingly the Javelin has marginally better accel than even any RMN missile we've seen.[snip]

Do we have any figures for post-Foraker cruiser or DD grade missile accelerations at all? They started building bigger ones with heavier warheads and some more range with the Mars/Warlords; but that was a decade before the second round of the war. I don't remember it coming up.

Kytheros wrote:I expect that Haven got ERMs in the Erewhonese/Manty-lite tech transfer. They are, no doubt, bulkier than an equivalent Manticoran ERM, however.
We know that Haven got everything Erewhon had, but since we've been mostly focused on MDM and DDM range combat, Havenite light units with ERMs still wouldn't be in range without towing pods and so their having ERMs wouldn't have come up.

Kytheros- They got it just one month prior to Thunderbolt. No time to integrate into their own production runs, or ship out to the fleet--probably didn't have any effect at all, in the first several months; and then Foraker ought to have been a bit more concerned with integrating the better capacitor tech and better nodes into her MDMs with the cruiser stuff as an afterthought.

Jonathan_S wrote:Good point. While we haven't seen Havenite ERMs "on-screen" we do know Erewhon has them (because they gave their version of the Mark 14 cruiser-weight ERM to Maya) so it's reasonable to assume they were offered to Haven.

Then the question becomes; how much of a rebuild is required to install magazines and tubes capable of handling the larger ERM missiles?

If the larger missiles they were using for the Mars class anyway were big enough, they might be able to use them without modification.

Jonathan_S wrote:I can't recall evidence of how aggressive Haven has been refitting their lighter ship classes; or whether they've been building new designs. (Though SoS had a indirect mention of cease-fire or later era rebuild spec for a Mars-class; replacing the problematic fusion reactors and rebuilding the impeller rooms to be compatible with bow/stern walls). So it's potentially possible they have ERM tech but most of their current light units can't use ERMs. Or maybe they've heavily refit and the vast majority can; we just don't know.

You are exactly right in that there is no textev about refitting older ships; but the 1912(?) era Mars/Warlords were replaced or upgraded to Mars-D and Warlord-C during the St.Just tenure, as they were part of Luff's PNE. At the build-time (1915-ish?) they didn't have bow walls, yet.

Jonathan_S wrote:ERMs would have a clear range advantage over Javelins, but be at a disadvantage over Cataphracts. Though the Cataphract suffers from warhead size, lase-rod count, and ECM payload compared to a ERM fired from the same class ship...

I thought Cataphract had a 14.5Mkm range given in text; Rozsak told Barregos that his Mk-17es still would have had a range advantage, if he'd known about the PNE's missiles in the first place (the conversation in which Barregos suffered "cold feet" for a few minutes). So I took that to mean a least a marginal range advantage in all-up powered flight. But I don't know that SLN sensor/fire control is good enough to extend the range with ballistic flight--it doesn't seem to have occurred to any one of them, which seems---odd.

Also, the Erewhonese Mk-17e also had a reduced rod count compared to a regular cruiser weight missile, and (like Haven) made up for it with a heavier warhead. But whether it derives directly from the Mk-14 or not, Erewhon never seems to use off-bore fire. I actually think the salvo density may trump range for the lighter ships.

What do you think?

Rob

JeffEngel wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote: While we haven't seen Havenite ERMs "on-screen" we do know Erewhon has them (because they gave their version of the Mark 14 cruiser-weight ERM to Maya) so it's reasonable to assume they were offered to Haven.

Then the question becomes; how much of a rebuild is required to install magazines and tubes capable of handling the larger ERM missiles?
I can't recall evidence of how aggressive Haven has been refitting their lighter ship classes; or whether they've been building new designs. (Though SoS had a indirect mention of cease-fire or later era rebuild spec for a Mars-class; replacing the problematic fusion reactors and rebuilding the impeller rooms to be compatible with bow/stern walls). So it's potentially possible they have ERM tech but most of their current light units can't use ERMs. Or maybe they've heavily refit and the vast majority can; we just don't know.

Yeah. Havenite light units are thoroughly murky since the Saint Just ceasefire. It's highly unlikely they've built DD/CA range RMN-style DDM's, though I suppose we can't rule it out with certainty either. It's also probable that their primary efforts have gone into MDM's, podlayers, the Cimeterre LAC, new missile defense doctrine and hardware, and CLAC's, with stuff for cruisers falling out mostly when it's easy or a spinoff of work on more important things. It's still unlikely they've done nothing at all for cruiser-range units.

ERMs would have a clear range advantage over Javelins, but be at a disadvantage over Cataphracts. Though the Cataphract suffers from warhead size, lase-rod count, and ECM payload compared to a ERM fired from the same class ship...

They could possibly have taken a similar approach, especially if they wanted to match their ERM's to existing tubes: match it in size and shape to an existing missile, and make up the space you need for the extended range with reduced EW and/or warhead strength. If they decided they could not spare yard space from SD(P)'s and CLAC's, then matching new munitions to old ships for the lighter units would make more sense than designing new munitions for new ships you cannot get around to building yet.

Haven can't build DDMs. Or rather, they can, but because Haven doesn't have microfusion tech - Erewhon didn't have microfusion tech to transfer - and so any hypothetical Havenite DDM would be capacitor powered, and might as well be a regular MDM with 3 drives.

ERMs are likely - and what you need for an ERM - improved capacitors and missile dive nodes - help all your missiles. Especially if, as is the case with Haven, you can't build (disposable) microfusion plants for missiles.

munroburton wrote:

Kytheros wrote:I expect that Haven got ERMs in the Erewhonese/Manty-lite tech transfer. They are, no doubt, bulkier than an equivalent Manticoran ERM, however.
We know that Haven got everything Erewhon had, but since we've been mostly focused on MDM and DDM range combat, Havenite light units with ERMs still wouldn't be in range without towing pods and so their having ERMs wouldn't have come up.

Jonathan_S wrote:Good point. While we haven't seen Havenite ERMs "on-screen" we do know Erewhon has them (because they gave their version of the Mark 14 cruiser-weight ERM to Maya) so it's reasonable to assume they were offered to Haven.

Then the question becomes; how much of a rebuild is required to install magazines and tubes capable of handling the larger ERM missiles?
I can't recall evidence of how aggressive Haven has been refitting their lighter ship classes; or whether they've been building new designs. (Though SoS had a indirect mention of cease-fire or later era rebuild spec for a Mars-class; replacing the problematic fusion reactors and rebuilding the impeller rooms to be compatible with bow/stern walls). So it's potentially possible they have ERM tech but most of their current light units can't use ERMs. Or maybe they've heavily refit and the vast majority can; we just don't know.

ERMs would have a clear range advantage over Javelins, but be at a disadvantage over Cataphracts. Though the Cataphract suffers from warhead size, lase-rod count, and ECM payload compared to a ERM fired from the same class ship...

There's textev early in AAC of refits, though they do not mention offensive improvements.

Sherman quivered as a second wave of counter-missiles erupted from her tubes. The Republican Navy had refitted its battlecruisers heavily, doubling their original number of counter-missile tubes at the expense of a sizeable percentage of their energy armament. More energy weapons tonnage and volume had gone into additional telemetry links, and Sherman and her consorts were tossing canisters of counter-missiles out of their standard missie tubes, as well.

The use of 'standard' when referring to missile tubes hints that they weren't altered to accommodate ERMs. Not very substantial evidence, however, may have been used to differentiate from countermissile tubes.

My view is that a large chunk of the RHN's light units have been converted into missile defense units, given they're hopelessly outranged and outmatched after all the SD(P)s, CLACs and LACs(and all-up MDM) sucked up Havenite R&D resources at a time when the RMN was starting to deploy the new Rolands, Avalons, Sag-Cs, Agamemnons and Nikes.

I believe in the quoted context "standard" means shipkiller or full size/regular (not countermissiles) missile sized tubes. The "standard missile" may be an old-style missile, it may be an ERM, on a Roland/Sag-C/Nike, the "standard missile" tubes are the DDM tubes.

I think Haven has ERMs, and probably all new-build (or recent-build) light units employ ERMs for their armament. It's something that Haven probably has refitted into the older ships that can handle them.

I don't believe that skipping the ERM would have helped Havenite R&D any - and would probably make capacitor MDMs larger than with ERM tech as a stepping stone/intermediate step. Remember - an ERM requires improved capacitors and missile drive nodes - and possibly improved tracking and guidance systems. Which of improvements sound like something you wouldn't want to research as part of a Capacitor MDM? And, let us not forget, the only one of those projects that would possibly interfere with getting to a capacitor MDM is improved missile drive nodes - which you're probably looking at as part of the gravitic baffle that lets MDMs happen anyways.

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:I thought Cataphract had a 14.5Mkm range given in text; Rozsak told Barregos that his Mk-17es still would have had a range advantage, if he'd known about the PNE's missiles in the first place (the conversation in which Barregos suffered "cold feet" for a few minutes). So I took that to mean a least a marginal range advantage in all-up powered flight. But I don't know that SLN sensor/fire control is good enough to extend the range with ballistic flight--it doesn't seem to have occurred to any one of them, which seems---odd.

Yeah, Manticoran Mk 14s/Erewhon Mk 17s have a greater powered range than Cataphract-As (presumably Bs and Cs have the same powered range, but it's not certain). However, a skipper who has Cataphracts and knows he is facing someone with a Mk 14 or derivative could fire from beyond Mk 14 range and drop in a ballistic phase to achieve a range advantage.

On the subject of fleets, are those 60 SDPs Alice Truman used to confront Tsang on the Beowulf side of the junction accounted for?

Don

JeffEngel wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote: While we haven't seen Havenite ERMs "on-screen" we do know Erewhon has them (because they gave their version of the Mark 14 cruiser-weight ERM to Maya) so it's reasonable to assume they were offered to Haven.

Then the question becomes; how much of a rebuild is required to install magazines and tubes capable of handling the larger ERM missiles?
I can't recall evidence of how aggressive Haven has been refitting their lighter ship classes; or whether they've been building new designs. (Though SoS had a indirect mention of cease-fire or later era rebuild spec for a Mars-class; replacing the problematic fusion reactors and rebuilding the impeller rooms to be compatible with bow/stern walls). So it's potentially possible they have ERM tech but most of their current light units can't use ERMs. Or maybe they've heavily refit and the vast majority can; we just don't know.

They could possibly have taken a similar approach, especially if they wanted to match their ERM's to existing tubes: match it in size and shape to an existing missile, and make up the space you need for the extended range with reduced EW and/or warhead strength. If they decided they could not spare yard space from SD(P)'s and CLAC's, then matching new munitions to old ships for the lighter units would make more sense than designing new munitions for new ships you cannot get around to building yet.

Maybe but I'm not sure you can give up enough EW / warhead to fit 50% more capactiors (50% increased drive time) into the same missile body.

Though I guess we can't rule out that the Manti-light tech Erewhon handed over happened to include more energy dense capacitors than Haven's missiles previously used. Something like that could let you cram in the extra power without needing so much extra volume.

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:I thought Cataphract had a 14.5Mkm range given in text; Rozsak told Barregos that his Mk-17es still would have had a range advantage, if he'd known about the PNE's missiles in the first place (the conversation in which Barregos suffered "cold feet" for a few minutes). So I took that to mean a least a marginal range advantage in all-up powered flight. But I don't know that SLN sensor/fire control is good enough to extend the range with ballistic flight--it doesn't seem to have occurred to any one of them, which seems---odd.

Also, the Erewhonese Mk-17e also had a reduced rod count compared to a regular cruiser weight missile, and (like Haven) made up for it with a heavier warhead. But whether it derives directly from the Mk-14 or not, Erewhon never seems to use off-bore fire. I actually think the salvo density may trump range for the lighter ships.

What do you think?

Rob

I remember Rozsak saying that about the 17Es having more range (and finally found the quote hiding in ART), but I think he's wrong. PNE engaged at 11 million KM; but 2 pages later we're told the Cataphract "powered range from rest of almost 16.6 million kilometers". Also I attempted to reconstruct the accel and endurance of both stages and Duckk corrected me with it's real values - Javelin 1st stage 47653 G for 180 s; CM derived 2nd stage 98061 g for 75s (I converted from the KPS^2 his post had) those numbers add up to 16,572,713 km (or basically the 16.6 stated in the ToF)


We don't have a lot of detail on the various ERM missiles, but the most common extended drive time is a bump from 60 to 75 seconds (full power) or from 180 to 225 seconds (50% power). Given the stated accel of the Mark-17E that would give it a powered range of 11,410,875 km; well short of the Cataphract.

OTOH the only time we saw a Mark 14 used (Ephram Tudor in MoH) it appeared to have a 15 million+ km range; but that could have been the engagement geometry. If it turns out that's correct though then my next guess for powered endurance would be 90/270 seconds; yielding a max range of 16,431,660 million km. (Still, you'll note marginally less than the Cataphract)

n7axw wrote:On the subject of fleets, are those 60 SDPs Alice Truman used to confront Tsang on the Beowulf side of the junction accounted for?

Don

I don't believe Truman's fleet has been mentioned since the confrontation with Tsang. Given the rising tensions between Beowulf and the League, I would suspect that Manticore would keep a large force on the Beowulf side of the wormhole, probably close to the terminus but far enough out to avoid the resonance zone and microjump to the inner system if needed. Given that Truman must have formed a working relationship with the Beowulf SDF by that point, I think she'd be the logical choice to stay in place, at least until Beowulf's Mycroft net is up and running.

Dafmeister wrote:

n7axw wrote:On the subject of fleets, are those 60 SDPs Alice Truman used to confront Tsang on the Beowulf side of the junction accounted for?

Don

I don't believe Truman's fleet has been mentioned since the confrontation with Tsang. Given the rising tensions between Beowulf and the League, I would suspect that Manticore would keep a large force on the Beowulf side of the wormhole, probably close to the terminus but far enough out to avoid the resonance zone and microjump to the inner system if needed. Given that Truman must have formed a working relationship with the Beowulf SDF by that point, I think she'd be the logical choice to stay in place, at least until Beowulf's Mycroft net is up and running.

I just finished a re-read of ART and there is mention (I believe during the wedding ceremony) of about 200 ships out at the wormhole.

And here's the quote:

..Just thinking about it could make Elizabeth’s head swim, but Honor and Hamish promised her it would work. As long as Beowulf remained intact, at least, and the two hundred pod-laying superdreadnoughts stationed there to protect the system suggested it would.

That big of force would require a senior Admiral, so I expect Truman is still on the job there. After all, she only showed Tsang and the SLN 60 SD's; that didn't mean that was all she had.

Jonathan_S wrote:I remember Rozsak saying that about the 17Es having more range (and finally found the quote hiding in ART), but I think he's wrong. PNE engaged at 11 million KM; but 2 pages later we're told the Cataphract "powered range from rest of almost 16.6 million kilometers". Also I attempted to reconstruct the accel and endurance of both stages and Duckk corrected me with it's real values - Javelin 1st stage 47653 G for 180 s; CM derived 2nd stage 98061 g for 75s (I converted from the KPS^2 his post had) those numbers add up to 16,572,713 km (or basically the 16.6 stated in the ToF)


We don't have a lot of detail on the various ERM missiles, but the most common extended drive time is a bump from 60 to 75 seconds (full power) or from 180 to 225 seconds (50% power). Given the stated accel of the Mark-17E that would give it a powered range of 11,410,875 km; well short of the Cataphract.

OTOH the only time we saw a Mark 14 used (Ephram Tudor in MoH) it appeared to have a 15 million+ km range; but that could have been the engagement geometry. If it turns out that's correct though then my next guess for powered endurance would be 90/270 seconds; yielding a max range of 16,431,660 million km. (Still, you'll note marginally less than the Cataphract)

snipped some stuff
Jonathan_S,

Dunno if Rozsak was wrong on the range; some of the hulked ships still had missiles in the magazines, if he could patch the Mars classes fire control, he could have run a test fire. Or just asked survivors during the interrogations.

Did Duckk actually give you data on Mk-14s? Specifics are very hard to find, I did a lengthy search for any posts about missiles last year; but I did it w/rfc as author, so I am sure I missed a bit.

There is mention in SftS of a Mk-13 with extended range, too; I have never been convinced that Ephraim Tudor was necessarily a Sag-B, because we weren't given current stats on missile range changes since 1905, and the Sag-A could have done it with an extended range version of the older missile, depending on geometry. What is the range basket of a mark 13, if you give it the Project Anzio capacitors, and a ghost rider node update? Thing is, there wasn't any mention of salvo size either, iirc. And Weber likes to confuse things like that on purpose.

Drothgery suggested a ballistic component would extend the Sollies range, and it would. But with the sensors and fire control we have seen so far, I wonder if they will use it? A long range miss won't help them much. I didn't mean to ignore the possibility, I just wonder if they will use it. So far, it doesn't seem to have even occurred to anyone.

This is too long. sigh.

Later.

Rob