Apollo below the Wall

derKaroliner wrote:You are correct, given the threat environment which currently pertains in the Honorverse. But threat environments are not static beings in the MDM era, and Manticore/the GA face a number of foes with highly dedicated research establishments hell bent on replicating their advanced war-fighting capabilities. Eventually, the FTL-com and Apollo will be deciphered by Manticore's enemies, and a Nike wouldn't be capable of fighting off even the smallest Apollo, or even all-up MDM, capable unit.

Nike has no business sticking around to "fight off" any ship capable of deploying an all-up MDM. The philosophy of "Able dominate any adversary in their class and fast enough to avoid any adversary they can't dominate" is clearly stated in several places in textev.

Destroyers and Cruisers have no business trying to match the combat power of DNs and SDs because attacking or defending against DNs and SDs isn't in their designed missions.

Modern, wet-navy, ships don't try to pack a Battleship's armament into anything not intended to fight Battleships; Destroyers mount five inch guns, cruisers mount 8-10 inch guns and battleships mount the big, long-range, 15-18 inch guns -- or did until Battleships were scrapped in favor of Carriers. Even after the change to carriers, smaller ships don't mount capital ship armament, they mount 5 inch guns and Vertical Launch Systems (VLS) for "counter missiles" (Anti-Aircraft/Anti-Missile) systems.)

Someday, Manticore -- or someone else -- is going to build something that matches DDM/MDM range and warhead that fits in a LERM or ERM sized package. That will be the time that the threat environment for ships below the wall dictates that every ship below the wall have DDM/MDM range and warhead capability.

Until then, over-gunning small ships results in the problems Rolands are exhibiting; insufficient ammunition, bloated size, smaller "broadsides," etc.

Weird Harold wrote:Nike has no business sticking around to "fight off" any ship capable of deploying an all-up MDM. The philosophy of "Able dominate any adversary in their class and fast enough to avoid any adversary they can't dominate" is clearly stated in several places in textev.

Correct. Nikes can't fight real MDMs. That's the entire point of my argument.

An Apollo capable BC(XL) would be made to destroy anything below the wall, including anybody else's version of the Nike-class. It's envisioned as holding down the fort on station for extended periods of time, and providing the best possible offensive capabilities short of the wall, but it's not made to fight all-up wallers. It's made to fight anybody else's attempt at shoehorning FTL-fire control into the smallest possible platform. The ability to take pot-shots at poorly handled pre-Apollo SD(P)s would just be an incidental bonus, akin to a Roland's ability to pick off SLN battlecruisers at its leisure.

You may have just convinced me that BB would be a better designation, after all. It does seem to fit the role reasonably well, and calling it a "minimally capable Apollo platform" should reign in any skippers ideas of inappropriate grandeur. That does raise the question of whether the SEM in particular sees a strategic need for ships of this tonnage. The Empire is big, but may not have the depth to need this ship type.

As to the modern wet-navy analogy, the point is probably closer to the deployment of Aegis (KHII has an important defensive fire control role, after all). Being that the original mass required to make Aegis work was rather large, the USN opted to build the system into the Ticonderoga-class. Being that they figured out how to build the system on destroyer hulls, it's now implemented there as well.

Did the USN try to design Arleigh Burkes that can fight cruisers? No, they built a warship which, for it's size and class, have tremendous capabilities.

ti3x wrote:Or maybe drone LACs with compensatorless designs that can swarm the enemy in ways that are impossible right now.

Mr. Weber shot that one down a while ago, on the grounds that (a) that's basically a missle/recon drone and (b) his universe is a war fighting, not gratuitous war porn. That said, I think you're right about why the BC(XL) is not right. There is probably something baking away in Manty R&D that would make the concept as I've described it fairly pointless.

derKaroliner wrote:An Apollo capable BC(XL) ...

You may have just convinced me that BB would be a better designation, after all. It does seem to fit the role reasonably well, and calling it a "minimally capable Apollo platform" should reign in any skippers ideas of inappropriate grandeur. That does raise the question of whether the SEM in particular sees a strategic need for ships of this tonnage. The Empire is big, but may not have the depth to need this ship type.

The Nike-class BC(L) is already the size of a pre-war Havenite BB. Making a bigger "BC(XL)" would push the size (and cost, and manpower, etc) into the DN tonnage range -- or nearly as large as a SLN Scientist or Vega class SD.

In the Honorverse, bigger means slower for any given level of compensator tech. That's going to limit the ability to "run away from whatever it can't dominate" without increasing the ammunition capacity much beyond a Nike's Mk16G load-out.

You'd be far better off building nothing but SDs than trying to stuff SD-class weapons into a smaller ship. 99.9999% of a BC or smaller ship's mission is going to require something less than FTL-range MDMs. If anything, they need more marines than they do longer missile ranges; which is true down to destroyers and LACs used for customs inspections and piracy patrols.

True only if the people they are fighting are not using long range highly lethal missiles. At which point you cannot deploy them anywhere they might encounter a peer vessel.

Maldorian wrote:Does anyone know, how many missles a Apollo device can control? Normally a Apollo device controls 8 combat missles, but that´s the number of missles you can put in a pod with a Apollo, that doesn´t say, that Apollo maybe can control even more missles!


I don´t understand, why it isn´t possible, to send data to missles with the sensor platforms! Sensor Probes have a gravity comunicator like the Apollo and you send them to the enemy lines to overwatch the Situation. So, why you can´t use them as a com Relais to send target corrections or in Zavala´s case, the self destruct code?

I would think you could control as many missiles as you want with one Apollo command missile--it's just they act like one super-missile and you'll quickly run into overkill problems. Figure a dazzler and a jammer per pod, 6 real warheads. From what we saw at the Battle of Manticore this combo is enough to do serious damage to it's target. Why bring more bang?

kzt wrote:True only if the people they are fighting are not using long range highly lethal missiles. At which point you cannot deploy them anywhere they might encounter a peer vessel.

If an opponent is using "long range highly lethal missiles" then it isn't a "peer vessel."

Weird Harold wrote:If an opponent is using "long range highly lethal missiles" then it isn't a "peer vessel."

It's a destroyer. It just happens to be one that can kill your destroyers pretty much every time without taking damage.

kzt wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:If an opponent is using "long range highly lethal missiles" then it isn't a "peer vessel."

It's a destroyer. It just happens to be one that can kill your destroyers pretty much every time without taking damage.

Then it's time for some espionage and reverse engineering.

Realistically, who would present such a threat to a Manticoran destroyer in the near future? Haven is going to a common R&D establishment with Manticore at Bolthole. The Andermani are "friendly neutrals" in the SLN conflict and partners in the Silesian partitioning. The MAlign's Cataphract-A design isn't "highly lethal" or particularly long ranged.

The Solarian League doesn't have anything even close to the RMN LERM, ERM, DDM or MDM, and not even a hint of the improved Grav lensing of the Mk16G warhead which Manticore should be applying to upcoming MDM, LERM and ERM designs.

If necessary, any RMN ship should be able to control heavier missiles from pods at need; copying the IAN's "half-pod mounts" as an interim fix if necessary for extended deployment with pods.

If the RMN decides to continue the Roland's design philosophy, combining DD and CL into a single DDM armed ship class of pre-war CL size, then it's going to be a loooooong time before any RMN/GA ship is out-gunned by any "peer vessel."

Maldorian wrote:
Does anyone know, how many missles a Apollo device can control? Normally a Apollo device controls 8 combat missles, but that´s the number of missles you can put in a pod with a Apollo, that doesn´t say, that Apollo maybe can control even more missles!


I don´t understand, why it isn´t possible, to send data to missles with the sensor platforms! Sensor Probes have a gravity comunicator like the Apollo and you send them to the enemy lines to overwatch the Situation. So, why you can´t use them as a com Relais to send target corrections or in Zavala´s case, the self destruct code?

I would think you could control as many missiles as you want with one Apollo command missile--it's just they act like one super-missile and you'll quickly run into overkill problems. Figure a dazzler and a jammer per pod, 6 real warheads. From what we saw at the Battle of Manticore this combo is enough to do serious damage to it's target. Why bring more bang?

My Suggestion was, why you use one pod with a Apollo and one or two pods without Apollo and give the Apollo device the control about the addidicional Missiles. A pod without Apollo has ten missles and a Apollo device is expensive, so if you can control more than the missles that are in the same pod as the Apollo you can fight more economical!

Weird Harold wrote:The Nike-class BC(L) is already the size of a pre-war Havenite BB. Making a bigger "BC(XL)" would push the size (and cost, and manpower, etc) into the DN tonnage range -- or nearly as large as a SLN Scientist or Vega class SD.

PNS Triumphant-class BB: 4,493,250 tons
RMN Nike-class BC(L): 2,519,750 tons

More like just over half the size on an 100 year old BB design. IIRC You need to go back more like 200-250 years to get a BB as small as a Nike.

Maldorian wrote:My Suggestion was, why you use one pod with a Apollo and one or two pods without Apollo and give the Apollo device the control about the addidicional Missiles. A pod without Apollo has ten missles and a Apollo device is expensive, so if you can control more than the missles that are in the same pod as the Apollo you can fight more economical!

I can see that. But in RFC's Honorverse the communication necessary to control a anti-ship missile (even at fairly short ranges) aren't an insignificant size, and you seem to need dedicated hardware for each missile.
I doubt there was enough spare room in the Mk23E to cram in more than maybe a couple extra control links. After all, if there was you could spend that volume on something the helps the usual use case (controlling 8 from the same pod) where it would help the vast majority of the time (bigger computer possibly), rather than "wasting" cost/volume on extra capabilities that can only be used a tiny fraction of the time.

So I'd be shocked in a stock Mk23E could control 18 other missiles...