Grand Alliance Fleets

Armed Neo-Bob wrote: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.

They're still in a mindset that writes off ballistic shots as for use only as warning shots of some sort or threats to immobile targets. The theoretical possibilities of a ballistic phase with multiple drive/stage missiles are only on the hazy edge of their conceptual horizons. And even then, ops and tac officers who think about it will confess shortly that they do not have the fire control to make it work against a serious enemy.

FTL comm recon drones downrange really, really help, but that's not a trick Technodyne (or "Technodyne", as may be) figured out to hand the SLN. Cataphracts are good for making you think you can play in leagues (pardon) that you truly can't.

Armed Neo-Bob wrote: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.

No, the Mark 14 (or Mark 17-E) stuff is inference and guessing. Well, the acceleration of the Mark 17-E is given in the book; but not its endurance, terminal velocity, or seconds of runtime.

The only missile numbers I've gotten from Duckk was from a post he made here; correcting my erroneous attempt to reconstruct the Cataphract's stages.

Armed Neo-Bob wrote: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.

Hmm, I'd originally dismissed the Mark 13 as a typo for the Mark 14 (especially since "Mark-13" was the first Manticoran ground-up laserhead missile; for CA/BCs) but I did a quick sanity check and found an interesting tidbit in SoS.

"The destroyer's bid to stay out of Hexapuma's envelope was going to come up short-way short, like over twelve million kilometers short. In fact, it would have come up a couple of million klicks short even against the Mark 13 missiles of one of the RMN's older heavy cruisers."

Applying a little math and the now well known range of the Mk16 carried by Hexapuma gives us a rough range for the Mark 13.
Mark 16 max powered range is 29,211,840 km
12 million less puts the (simulation) DD at 17.2 million km.
2 million more puts the Mark 13 range at 19.2 million km.

That's more than I'd guessed at for the ERMs. It works out to around a 98 second half-power endurance (RFC seems to like round numbers so maybe call it 100 seconds and 20.2 million km) - and interestingly is more than the continuously powered range of the Cataphracts.



The Mark 13 is mentioned in SoS and SoF (the later explicitly calling it an "extended-range missile for smaller launchers")

So we have 4 different known "extended-range missiles"
* Mark 13 "for smaller launchers" [Sof]; 19.2+ million km range
* Mark 14 (or Mark-14) "missiles the Saganami-Bs had been designed to fire" [SoS]; "Mark-14 missile then-Captain Michael Oversteegen had used to such good effect at the Battle of Refuge" [ToF]
* Mk 36 Lightweight Extended Range Missile for Wolfhound and Avalon "significantly longer runtime and range than prewar missiles" [HoS]
And of course the Erewhonese Mark 17-E.

Now, at Monica, the Star Knight class Warlock mounted missiles with only about 10.5 million km range (3 million km advantage over the SLN missiles carried by the Indifagitables). So whatever the Mark 13 was carried by it apparently wasn't Star Knights; or at least not all Star Knights. But the way the text was writen Warlock had the 2nd longest missile range on the RMN side; so none of the other ships appeared to carry a Mark 13 either.

Looping back around to your original point we know Ephraim Tudor is a heavy cruiser, and could engage at at least 15 million km; so I'd assumed that meant Mark 14 which would make her a Sag-B. Some Star Knights, at least, didn't mount Mark 13s; but maybe later ones did, or maybe at least some Sag-As did.

Though with that kind of range on a Mark 13 why bother developing the Mark 14 for the Sag-B? Unless the Mark 13 is a CL weight warhead; but then why build the Avalon class with Mk36s? I just don't see where another extended range missile for smaller tubes fits in...

(Ok that post kind of got away from me)

Jonathan_S wrote:

Armed Neo-Bob wrote: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.

No, the Mark 14 (or Mark 17-E) stuff is inference and guessing. Well, the acceleration of the Mark 17-E is given in the book; but not its endurance, terminal velocity, or seconds of runtime.

The only missile numbers I've gotten from Duckk was from a post he made here; correcting my erroneous attempt to reconstruct the Cataphract's stages.

Armed Neo-Bob wrote: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.

Hmm, I'd originally dismissed the Mark 13 as a typo for the Mark 14 (especially since "Mark-13" was the first Manticoran ground-up laserhead missile; for CA/BCs) but I did a quick sanity check and found an interesting tidbit in SoS.

"The destroyer's bid to stay out of Hexapuma's envelope was going to come up short-way short, like over twelve million kilometers short. In fact, it would have come up a couple of million klicks short even against the Mark 13 missiles of one of the RMN's older heavy cruisers."

Applying a little math and the now well known range of the Mk16 carried by Hexapuma gives us a rough range for the Mark 13.
Mark 16 max powered range is 29,211,840 km
12 million less puts the (simulation) DD at 17.2 million km.
2 million more puts the Mark 13 range at 19.2 million km.

That's more than I'd guessed at for the ERMs. It works out to around a 98 second half-power endurance (RFC seems to like round numbers so maybe call it 100 seconds and 20.2 million km) - and interestingly is more than the continuously powered range of the Cataphracts.



The Mark 13 is mentioned in SoS and SoF (the later explicitly calling it an "extended-range missile for smaller launchers")

So we have 4 different known "extended-range missiles"
* Mark 13 "for smaller launchers" [Sof]; 19.2+ million km range
* Mark 14 (or Mark-14) "missiles the Saganami-Bs had been designed to fire" [SoS]; "Mark-14 missile then-Captain Michael Oversteegen had used to such good effect at the Battle of Refuge" [ToF]
* Mk 36 Lightweight Extended Range Missile for Wolfhound and Avalon "significantly longer runtime and range than prewar missiles" [HoS]
And of course the Erewhonese Mark 17-E.

Now, at Monica, the Star Knight class Warlock mounted missiles with only about 10.5 million km range (3 million km advantage over the SLN missiles carried by the Indifagitables). So whatever the Mark 13 was carried by it apparently wasn't Star Knights; or at least not all Star Knights. But the way the text was writen Warlock had the 2nd longest missile range on the RMN side; so none of the other ships appeared to carry a Mark 13 either.

Looping back around to your original point we know Ephraim Tudor is a heavy cruiser, and could engage at at least 15 million km; so I'd assumed that meant Mark 14 which would make her a Sag-B. Some Star Knights, at least, didn't mount Mark 13s; but maybe later ones did, or maybe at least some Sag-As did.

Though with that kind of range on a Mark 13 why bother developing the Mark 14 for the Sag-B? Unless the Mark 13 is a CL weight warhead; but then why build the Avalon class with Mk36s? I just don't see where another extended range missile for smaller tubes fits in...

(Ok that post kind of got away from me)

There is also a Mk 15 mentioned as an ERM used by Sag-Bs. I don't know if it was a misprint or a later missile.

Theemile wrote:There is also a Mk 15 mentioned as an ERM used by Sag-Bs. I don't know if it was a misprint or a later missile.

Any idea where that was? I'm not finding it in my ebook searches.

Found a reference to Mark 15 pods [MoH, SftS]
Found a reference to a 21" Mk 15 (torpedo) in a RFC post from 14-Jan-2014 [Detweiler Ship Size]

But that's it...

Jonathan_S wrote:

Theemile wrote:There is also a Mk 15 mentioned as an ERM used by Sag-Bs. I don't know if it was a misprint or a later missile.

Any idea where that was? I'm not finding it in my ebook searches.

Found a reference to Mark 15 pods [MoH, SftS]
Found a reference to a 21" Mk 15 (torpedo) in a RFC post from 14-Jan-2014 [Detweiler Ship Size]

But that's it...

Sigh; ALL my posts are too long, Jonathan! It is why I was reading these for several years before I let myself post anything on any topic!

There were a number of folks here on the forum discussing missiles back around 2011; back then, no one knew the real nomenclature of the missiles, and some people were referring to the Mk-14 as Mk-15, apparently because 15 comes before 16.

As a side note, I sort of figured the Janacek Admiralties' retirement of the Redoubtables and the Pr.Consorts was because their older launchers couldn't handle ERMs (Mk-14 could have been intended initially as a BC missile for Reliant/III). BC launchers have been referenced as Mod 19; they weren't the same as those in the PrConsorts or Star Knights. And a late gen Star Knight (or a renovated one like, apparently, Warlock) could have had a slightly bigger/faster launcher.

Not EVERYTHING that happened under Janacek was stupid, you know. Toscarelli(sp) was there to see to a little common sense.

Rob

nrellis wrote:Manticore:
- 3rd Fleet - it doesn't seem likely (to me) that Manticore had enough production capacity to rebuild this yet given the need to reconstitute Home Fleet and reinforce 8th, and is it even necessary? 3rd was tasked with the defence of Trevor's Star from Haven. All that is now needed is a task group detached from Home Fleet which would be able to destroy anything the SLN could send that direction.
- Home Fleet - seems to have disappeared along with their Admiral during Raging Justice - all the Manticoran ships present seem to have been 8th Fleet

They must have build up Home Fleet, I think that was the reason 8th Fleet was delayed going to Haven to discuss peace.

With the later reestablishment of Home Fleet from new construction, Eighth Fleet was relieved of its duties to protect the Manticore System and was dispatched to the Haven System on the order of Queen Elizabeth III to act as her representatives in a renewed attempt to reach a negotiated conclusion to the war.

http://honorverse.wikia.com/wiki/Eighth_Fleet_(Manticore)

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:Not EVERYTHING that happened under Janacek was stupid, you know. Toscarelli(sp) was there to see to a little common sense.

Rob

That certainly helped a lot. And to be fair(ish) - Janacek didn't have only bad ideas. He just didn't get behind ideas on the basis of whether they were good or not. Occasionally, good ideas didn't clash with his personal or political agenda and got through. (They moved quickly, because it was scary in there and they didn't know anyone.)

JeffEngel wrote:

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:Not EVERYTHING that happened under Janacek was stupid, you know. Toscarelli(sp) was there to see to a little common sense.

Rob

That certainly helped a lot. And to be fair(ish) - Janacek didn't have only bad ideas. He just didn't get behind ideas on the basis of whether they were good or not. Occasionally, good ideas didn't clash with his personal or political agenda and got through. (They moved quickly, because it was scary in there and they didn't know anyone.)

When it comes to Janacek being correct about anything,I am reminded about a broken clock being right twice a day.

saber964 wrote:

When it comes to Janacek being correct about anything,I am reminded about a broken clock being right twice a day.

Only if it isn't digital.

Don

n7axw wrote:

saber964 wrote:

When it comes to Janacek being correct about anything,I am reminded about a broken clock being right twice a day.

Only if it isn't digital.

Don

Depends how badly broken it is...
/I mean, flashing 12:00 is right twice a day ...