Hypothetical Tactical Option Question.

MuonNeutrino wrote:And second, whether you bring apollo along or not, while we know that the MK16G's warhead pumps out beams as destructive as those of a capital missile, could the MK23 have morelasing rods than the MK16?

Actually, I'm pretty sure that the MK16G warhead is comparable to a SLN capital missile. The Mk23 is a "modern" capital missile.

Shadow of Freedom
Chapter Twelve
wrote: The Mark 16’s original fifteen-megaton warhead had been more destructive than any destroyer or light cruiser missile ever previously deployed, although dealing with battlecruiser armor—as Abigail Hearns had learned aboard HMS Hexapuma in the Monica System—had pushed it to its limits. But Tristram and her sisters were equipped with the Mod G version, with a forty-megaton warhead and improved gravity generators. That increased its effectiveness by a factor of over five…which made it more powerful than the brand-new Trebuchet capital ship missile the Solarian League Navy had just begun to deploy.

Storm From The Shadows
Chapter Thirty
(Helen Zilwikii's POV wrote:With its fifteen megaton warhead, the Mark 16 had been capable of dealing with heavy cruiser or battlecruiser armor, although punching through to the interior of a battlecruiser had pushed it almost to the limit. Now, with the new Mod G's forty megaton warhead and improved grav lensing, the Mark 16 had very nearly as much punch as an all-up capital missile from as recently as five or six T-years ago.

Note: That would be an RMN missile four or five years ago.

I can't find the warhead specs for the Mk23 except a mention of six "laserheads" and a non-specific indication it is considerably more powerful than even the MK16G.

Given what I found in a reasonably short search, I'd say take the MK16Gs to deal with SLN BCs and save the Mk23 pods for a possible follow-up attack by SLN SDs.

Correct. While the Mk-16G is more powerful than the SLN's capital missiles, they're not more powerful than the RMN's "unboosted" Mk-23's.

Duckk wrote:Correct. While the Mk-16G is more powerful than the SLN's capital missiles, they're not more powerful than the RMN's "unboosted" Mk-23's.

Doesn't the Mk 23 have 10 lasing rods to the Mk 16's 6 rods? - So with a more powerful nuke powering it, one could assume that a Mk 23 has AT LEAST 2x the hitting power as the Mk 16

kzt wrote:It is pretty clear that you don't want a pod core full of pods with the reactors running. It's unclear if you can shut down the reactor after start. If you can, it is further unclear if the pod is unusable until you can get depot level maintenance on it to rebuild/replace the reactor and capacitors or if it can simply be restarted. If it can be restarted, how many times?

I believe it was a conversation between the 2 of us that got a response from David 2-3 years ago - Supposedly the Reactor can be refurbished in the field, usually requiring just a refueling and replacement of a few wear items, supposedly the wear items are small enough for a ship to carry hundreds, if not thousands in it's normal inventory, universal in that they repair the reactors in missiles, drones and pods, are cheap enough to be considered completely disposable, and simple enough that they could be manufactured in bulk out of a ship's internal workshops if necessary.

David didn't give any word on what it takes to refurb them (in time/manpower), but essentially if a ship decided to stop long enough in a safe place, it could refurb all the pods it was carrying and continue on with patrolling - for another ~4 days before it had to stop and repeat.

MuonNeutrino wrote:

cthia wrote:Can Apollo's performance be dialed down to mimic a performance somewhere in-between an Mk 16 and an Mk 23 that will mission kill enough enemy ships to make up for less of an Mk 16's loadout, without giving away FTL or using the 3rd stage -- somewhat incremental performance?

If so, I'd take as many Mk 23s as I can stuff. Seems crazy to have them and not stock them.

IIRC, don't the MK16 and MK23 have roughly similar accelerations, the MK23 just has a third drive? If so, if you're not using the MK23's third drive then the MK16 ought to basically be just as good in terms of raw performance numbers considering their upgraded warheads.

There are two things that might change that. First, we know that even without KHII platforms, apollo-directed missiles are more accurate and better at penetrating missile defenses. And second, whether you bring apollo along or not, while we know that the MK16G's warhead pumps out beams as destructive as those of a capital missile, could the MK23 have morelasing rods than the MK16?

Either of those could make MK23s more dangerous than the MK16s, the question is more just if it's *enough* more effective to make up for the MK16's greater ammo reserves. My gut feeling is probably no, considering just how overwhelmingly destructive the MK16G has already shown itself to be against sollie BCs. The MK23 might be technically more lethal, but it seems to me like it'd be overkill - a case of just pulverizing the debris slightly more finely - and in that case if either missile blows em up about as well, might as well have more missiles.

I believe that the Mk16 and Mk23 have identical accelerations - the Mk23 can just keep going 50% longer due to its 3rd drive. So a Mk23 that doesn't turn on the 3rd drive has the exact same accel profile as a Mk16.

However the Mk23 is still more destructive. The Mk16G got upgraded grav lensing which made it roughly as destructive as a pre-war capital ship missile. But the Mk23 has a bigger warhead and (I think) more lasing rods than the Mk16. If the same grav lensing upgrade was applied it would again be far more powerful than even the 16G. (Now there may be significant stockpiles of older Mk23s that the RMN hasn't had time to refit to the 'G' style grav lensing -- those would have a much slimmer advantage in destructive power over the 16G)

But the extra warhead power of a Mk23 is overkill against a 'mere' BC. Though the extra accuracy the 23E control missile provides (even in light-speed control mode); plus it's control link multiplying effect might let you throw significantly less missiles (all in a single salvo) to kill all the BCs -- compared to multiple Mk16G salvos.
Even so, I'd tend to reserve the 23s for the possibility of actual capital ships showing up; and use the 16s against BCs.

My understanding is that a pod is different from a drone or missile in that it has capacitors to start up the reactor after launch. Missiles are started up at launch and apparently so are drones. IIRC it has been said that drones do not have the ability to shut down and restart their reactor. So it's different and I'm not sure that it works the same.

kzt wrote:My understanding is that a pod is different from a drone or missile in that it has capacitors to start up the reactor after launch. Missiles are started up at launch and apparently so are drones. IIRC it has been said that drones do not have the ability to shut down and restart their reactor. So it's different and I'm not sure that it works the same.

I think I have to agree that I don't think drones can shut down their reactor, but they can shut down their wedges (and other things) that give them vastly longer endurance compared to most other things.

However, system defense pods seem to have pretty damned high endurance, and their reactors have to be running otherwise they couldn't spool up the missiles mini-reactors. We have no evidence about how long Alliance SD pods can go. The Technodyne pods that were given to Monica had a.... thee month? uptime or so, and that representative said they could overhaul them on the freighters while they travelled to deploy the pods again at the wormhole. Alliance technology (and reactor research) being better than TIY, SD pods for Alliance might last as long as 6 months.


Back on topic, we have no real evidence whether the destroyers had to keep deploying new drones during Operations Cutworm and Sanskrit, or if they deployed one set of drones that lasted the entire week+ they were used for scouting. It could go either way with those drones.

Somtaaw wrote:

kzt wrote:My understanding is that a pod is different from a drone or missile in that it has capacitors to start up the reactor after launch. Missiles are started up at launch and apparently so are drones. IIRC it has been said that drones do not have the ability to shut down and restart their reactor. So it's different and I'm not sure that it works the same.

I think I have to agree that I don't think drones can shut down their reactor, but they can shut down their wedges (and other things) that give them vastly longer endurance compared to most other things.

However, system defense pods seem to have pretty damned high endurance, and their reactors have to be running otherwise they couldn't spool up the missiles mini-reactors. We have no evidence about how long Alliance SD pods can go. The Technodyne pods that were given to Monica had a.... thee month? uptime or so, and that representative said they could overhaul them on the freighters while they travelled to deploy the pods again at the wormhole. Alliance technology (and reactor research) being better than TIY, SD pods for Alliance might last as long as 6 months.


Back on topic, we have no real evidence whether the destroyers had to keep deploying new drones during Operations Cutworm and Sanskrit, or if they deployed one set of drones that lasted the entire week+ they were used for scouting. It could go either way with those drones.

David said awhile back that all Manty pods have a sysdef mode - in that mode the reactor last ~30 days. There are specialized SysDef pods iirc, but who knows their lifetime.

Theemile wrote:Doesn't the Mk 23 have 10 lasing rods to the Mk 16's 6 rods?

What references I found to the Mk23 explicitly said "six laserheads." I found no references to the number of laserheads/rods in a Mk23G warhead.

Somtaaw wrote:However, system defense pods seem to have pretty damned high endurance, and their reactors have to be running otherwise they couldn't spool up the missiles mini-reactors.

No, you don't need the pod reactor running until you need to prepare the missiles to launch. And as reactors are very hot this would severely interfere with stealth. So logically you would use a honking big battery pack connected that gets rechecrged or swapped out every so often. Spooling up the pod reactor would only be done once you have made a launch decision as that would immediately localize the pod on any IR sensor.