Battle of Monica Question

thinkstoomuch wrote:<snip>
Though the Mark 36 and the Mark 14 "probably" have the same range.

What any of it means good question. Good luck figuring any of it out.

Have fun,
T2M

You are quite right.

We also have a mk13ER in the mix, which should have been able to be fired from the 2 Star Knights - what that means as far as range, I don't know, and I don't think we've been told. One could assume that the mk13ER has more burn time than a normal mk13 (and a normal DD/CL Mk34), but less than a mk15.

And what does that mean for the Mk36 LERM is another question, Does it match the range of the Mk 13ER, the Mk 15, or somewhere in between? Unfortunately HoS didn't give us that info, and David hasn't mentioned it in the books.

Reminder:
in the Honorverse, DW cares little for accurate numbers.
To the extent that he does care,
he seems to be against them.
There are several examples in the books.
This might be another one.

Naughty Moose

And the corollary he does better than most authors.

Which tends to lead us readers to try to figure out how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

Of course,
T2M

PS Sorry I just had to say it.

Howard T. Map-addict wrote:Reminder:
in the Honorverse, DW cares little for accurate numbers.
To the extent that he does care,
he seems to be against them.
There are several examples in the books.
This might be another one.

Naughty Moose

thinkstoomuch wrote:Which tends to lead us readers to try to figure out how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
T2M

And here I thought it was how many treecats could dance on the top of a MK-16G warhead all these years.

Angels are one of those other sentient species we have not seen? Maybe they are the ones limiting the number of control links..... Ghosts, keeping things "fair". Do they wear stripped shirts?

--excellent questions, snipping the one that as a fellow author (though not of SF so far) is fun for me to respond to. Also, board folks, I don't have that battle text in front of me, be kind if I mess up the details a bit in my response...

--snipping--

Nadion wrote:When Terekhov realises there are three battlecruiser incoming we get an explanation that only HMS Hexapuma has the range to start shooting at them before they can return fire. It is also mentioned that HMS Warlock has a very small range advantage over the Monicans.

My problem is that HMS Aegis was still combat capable at this point of the battle, and according to HoS should have been armed with the Mk36 LERM, giving her sufficiently long range to be able to help Hexapuma whittle the battlecruisers at long range.

Why doesn't Terekhov even consider this option?

Problem is, the RMN hadn't encountered the particular forms of Solarian based ECM that the Monican battlecruisers were using, and his ships had already taken some damage, meaning their own CM countermeasures are below par. Terekhov's goal was to effectively turn the Solarian tech's ECM into homing beacons before the Monicans could range on his ships. True, they got lucky and took out one of the three early in the fight. They also didn't have the 16-G missile's greater hitting power.

Picture it this way. You have three unknown stealthy tanks rumbling towards you 20 miles out that can detect and evade all incoming shells fired further than 10 miles away. You have tank killers whose shells can hit the tanks at 10 miles if you can defeat those countermeasures. So you've got maybe 20-30 minutes to give your tank-killers the targeting info and penetration info that let their combined fire kill the targets. That's what Terekhov was going for.

SharkHunter wrote:-....

Problem is, the SLN hadn't encountered the particular forms of ECM that the Monican battlecruisers were using, ... .[/quote]

SL? or RMN? Or did Terekhov have a sudden change of alliance?

Fox2! wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:-....
Problem is, the SLN hadn't encountered the particular forms of ECM that the Monican battlecruisers were using, ... .

SL? or RMN? Or did Terekhov have a sudden change of alliance?

Oops! fixed. Thanks!

SharkHunter wrote:--excellent questions, snipping the one that as a fellow author (though not of SF so far) is fun for me to respond to. Also, board folks, I don't have that battle text in front of me, be kind if I mess up the details a bit in my response...

--snipping--

Nadion wrote:When Terekhov realises there are three battlecruiser incoming we get an explanation that only HMS Hexapuma has the range to start shooting at them before they can return fire. It is also mentioned that HMS Warlock has a very small range advantage over the Monicans.

My problem is that HMS Aegis was still combat capable at this point of the battle, and according to HoS should have been armed with the Mk36 LERM, giving her sufficiently long range to be able to help Hexapuma whittle the battlecruisers at long range.

Why doesn't Terekhov even consider this option?

Problem is, the RMN hadn't encountered the particular forms of Solarian based ECM that the Monican battlecruisers were using, and his ships had already taken some damage, meaning their own CM countermeasures are below par. Terekhov's goal was to effectively turn the Solarian tech's ECM into homing beacons before the Monicans could range on his ships. True, they got lucky and took out one of the three early in the fight. They also didn't have the 16-G missile's greater hitting power.

Picture it this way. You have three unknown stealthy tanks rumbling towards you 20 miles out that can detect and evade all incoming shells fired further than 10 miles away. You have tank killers whose shells can hit the tanks at 10 miles if you can defeat those countermeasures. So you've got maybe 20-30 minutes to give your tank-killers the targeting info and penetration info that let their combined fire kill the targets. That's what Terekhov was going for.

Whilst is a plausible explanation for why Terekhov doesn't order Aegis to fire sooner, it does not explain why he never even consider doing so, especially in light of the fact that he does make note of of Warlock's much smaller range advantage. i.e. if Warlock was worth mentioning, Aegis definitely was too.

Nadion wrote:Whilst is a plausible explanation for why Terekhov doesn't order Aegis to fire sooner, it does not explain why he never even consider doing so, especially in light of the fact that he does make note of of Warlock's much smaller range advantage. i.e. if Warlock was worth mentioning, Aegis definitely was too.

Purely on range, perhaps.

The Mk36 is a DD/CL missile, designed to take on other DD/CLs. It might not have enough hitting power to match the punch from the CA/BC weight MK13ER and MK16. Bear in mind the Avalon-class isn't really suited to war-fighting; it's more of an extended range patrol and escort craft.

HMS Aegis' broadsides were de facto lumped in with the rest of the small hitters, although in hindsight a more prepared attack plan might have had a few salvos from Aegis absorb the BCs' point defense and allowing more of the heavy cruisers' missiles to get through.

munroburton wrote:

Nadion wrote:Whilst is a plausible explanation for why Terekhov doesn't order Aegis to fire sooner, it does not explain why he never even consider doing so, especially in light of the fact that he does make note of of Warlock's much smaller range advantage. i.e. if Warlock was worth mentioning, Aegis definitely was too.

Purely on range, perhaps.

The Mk36 is a DD/CL missile, designed to take on other DD/CLs. It might not have enough hitting power to match the punch from the CA/BC weight MK13ER and MK16. Bear in mind the Avalon-class isn't really suited to war-fighting; it's more of an extended range patrol and escort craft.

HMS Aegis' broadsides were de facto lumped in with the rest of the small hitters, although in hindsight a more prepared attack plan might have had a few salvos from Aegis absorb the BCs' point defense and allowing more of the heavy cruisers' missiles to get through.

Good points. I think if I'm Terekhov though, who is primarily still a ship's captain at this point in time -- I'd let Aegis commander know my plan and if the Aegis wants to disagree or add to the plan for dealing with BC's fine. That way if there's a break in the action, the Aegis commander is free to act "within best available discussed options" but not forcing Terekhov to split his battle-space focus to do frankly "commodore-ly" things. In Terekhov's shoes though, and assuming that an Avalon has a lot of CM capability compared to earlier CL's, I'd want that tactical section 100% focused on defending near space like Warlock, etc. like how Honor tasked Apollo and Troubadour into a defensive CM missile scheme all the way back in HotQ. Then at point X, everyone goes to offensive destroy the BC missile fire.