Attack missles

Vince wrote:Now I'm confused where the lasing rods are. As you point out, a CM missile body doesn't have room for them (or just barely one, in the case of the Viper). But if the counter-missile remains attached to the standard missile body, with the lasing rods (and warhead?) in the standard missile body, why would the warhead be lighter and the number of lasing rods be reduced?

The warheads are lighter because of the 20% additional length; that means the standard missile body has to be the next size smaller than the single drive missile to fit in a given class of missile tubes.

Loren Pechtel wrote:Even if only 10% could make it through the last bit of distance (and I think a lot more than that would--the laser clusters will have already engaged and thus need to recycle--having a sitting-duck shot while he's reloading does the defender no good) it would be worthwhile to do it with as many missiles as could be done without fratricide problems.

Just a note: PDLCs in normal firing mode cycle through however many emitters are available at X cycles per minute. This means that there is always - every couple seconds at least - a laser emitter firing. Think of it as a slow gatling gun-type weapon.

On the other hand, there is an "Alpha Strike" mode, where all emitters fire at once. However, due to the reasons you mentioned above, it's not the normal firing mode.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

DrMegaverse wrote:I wonder perhaps if it'd be possible, and useful, to make a MIRV type missile which could release multiple CMs with which you could smack a ship and cause some kinetic damage to the armor. A "real" Dragon's Tooth as it were.

I can't see such a weapon being useful except in some very specific circumstances and I'm not even sure how much damage a purely kinetic weapon would do to HV armor though.

Some damage to the armor?? You don't realize the energies involved! A modern multi-drive missile which impacts a ship will at an minimum take it out of the battle. If it's a solid hit the ship is gone.

The normal attack mode of a missile is a laser rod that packs no more than a quite small percent of the total warhead energy and that energy is less than 1% of the mass of the warhead--and the warhead is less than 1% of the missile. At a mere 12% of lightspeed the kinetic energy of the missile is slightly greater than the blast energy of a warhead the size of the missile. At 87% of lightspeed the kinetic energy of the missile is slightly greater than the blast energy of a matter-antimatter warhead of the mass of the missile.

Well, that IS some lol

Weird Harold wrote:

Vince wrote:Now I'm confused where the lasing rods are. As you point out, a CM missile body doesn't have room for them (or just barely one, in the case of the Viper). But if the counter-missile remains attached to the standard missile body, with the lasing rods (and warhead?) in the standard missile body, why would the warhead be lighter and the number of lasing rods be reduced?

The warheads are lighter because of the 20% additional length; that means the standard missile body has to be the next size smaller than the single drive missile to fit in a given class of missile tubes.

That doesn't seem to match what the text said. Using the example from Torch of Freedom:

The weapon carried only half as many lasing rods as a standard laser head.
***Snip***
But Luff's battlecruisers could fire the Cataphract-A, based on the Spatha, the SLN's new-model destroyer and light cruiser shipkiller. His Mars-Cs could have, as well, but only the battlecruisers had been supplied with the new weapon, and even they carried only enough of them for a dozen full broadsides. Compared to standard missiles of their size, their warheads were light, and the onboard seekers, ECM, and penetration aids which could be stuffed into such a size-restricted terminal bus were limited.

The Cataphract-A is the smallest model, based on the DD/CL SLN single drive missile. It has to be fired from the next larger size ship class missile tube (CA/BC) due the 20% increase in length. This is true for every model of the Cataphract (it has to be fired from a missile tube carried by the next larger class(es) of ships, until you get to model C, which can only be fired from pods (at present).

I would expect that the Spatha, as a DD/CL single drive missile, would have the normal number of lasing rods and a regular warhead of a DD/CL single drive missile. And if the Cataphract-A's warhead is in the standard missile body (as opposed to the CM body), then why wouldn't it have a DD/CL size warhead and the same number of lasing rods as the Spatha?

Any ideas? MaxxQ, have you done a workup of the Cataphact that might shed some light?

Vince wrote:That doesn't seem to match what the text said. Using the example from Torch of Freedom: ...
...
I would expect that the Spatha, as a DD/CL single drive missile, would have the normal number of lasing rods and a regular warhead of a DD/CL single drive missile. And if the Cataphract-A's warhead is in the standard missile body (as opposed to the CM body), then why wouldn't it have a DD/CL size warhead and the same number of lasing rods as the Spatha?

Any ideas? MaxxQ, have you done a workup of the Cataphact that might shed some light?

Torch Of Freedom wrote:So they'd taken another approach as an intermediate step. The Cataphract was a rather basic concept, actually—they'd simply grafted what amounted to an entire counter-missile drive unit onto the end of a standard shipkiller. Coming up with an arrangement which let them cram that much impeller power and a worthwhile laser head into something they could fit onto the end of a standard missile had demanded quite a bit of ingenuity (and not a few basic compromises), but it had been a far easier task than duplicating a full scale multidrive missile would have been.

There were drawbacks, of course; there always were, and especially so in what had to be a compromise solution.
The weapon carried only half as many lasing rods as a standard laser head. Worse, the Cataphract was twenty percent longer than a standard missile of any given weight, which meant it would no longer fit into launch tubes which had been designed to handle the single-drive missile upon which it was based. ...

Compared to standard missiles of their size, their warheads were light, and the onboard seekers, ECM, and penetration aids which could be stuffed into such a size-restricted terminal bus were limited.

The textev seems to say that the warhead is on the CM stage, and is therefore restricted to the size of the CM body.

That would seem to imply that there is no difference in Cataphract models as far as warhead/destructive power is concerned. I'm pretty sure that is NOT the case though; The Cataphract-C is described as a Capital Missile and that designation usually refers to more than range.

The only alternative I can think of is that the description in textev has to be interpreted that the Spatha warhead of a Cataphract-A is half the size of the single-stage Javelin(?) missile normally fired from the same missile tubes.

RFC is normally better at describing such things, but perhaps he just had a bad day?

Moved the bolding here.

Torch Of Freedom wrote:So they'd taken another approach as an intermediate step. The Cataphract was a rather basic concept, actually—they'd simply grafted what amounted to an entire counter-missile drive unit onto the end of a standard shipkiller. Coming up with an arrangement which let them cram that much impeller power and a worthwhile laser head into something they could fit onto the end of a standard missile had demanded quite a bit of ingenuity (and not a few basic compromises), but it had been a far easier task than duplicating a full scale multidrive missile would have been.

It says the 'end' of a missile rather than the 'front'. Since we know the weapon payload is at the front of the missile, it makes no sense to move it to a smaller second stage attached to the rear.

Weird Harold wrote:The only alternative I can think of is that the description in textev has to be interpreted that the Spatha warhead of a Cataphract-A is half the size of the single-stage Javelin(?) missile normally fired from the same missile tubes.

RFC is normally better at describing such things, but perhaps he just had a bad day?

Don't forget ToF was co-authored with Eric Flint. There's more editorial issues in them than in any other HV books. So I would say your alternative interpretation is spot-on.

DD/CL Spatha = CA/BC Cataphract-A = 2? lasing rods & ~4? megaton warhead
CA/BC Javelin = SD Cataphract-B = 4? lasing rods & 8? MT warhead
SD Trebuchet = pod Cataphract-C = 8? lasing rods & 16? MT warhead

The first generation MK16 DDMs had 6 rods and a 15 MT warhead, was considered comparable to an SDM style capital missile. I've used some very square numbers above - I'm probably way off with the warhead ratings, as the smaller missiles' rods are shorter and that affects something. Could be stand-off range or energy conversion efficiency.

Vince wrote:
Any ideas? MaxxQ, have you done a workup of the Cataphact that might shed some light?

No, sorry. We've only got RMN missiles more or less completed, and haven't even started on PRN stuff, let alone Sollie weapons.

The way I always pictured the Cataphract was that the smaller booster was added to the rear of the attack missile. However, the way the descriptions are written *are* a bit ambiguous, so I could be wrong.

munroburton wrote:It says the 'end' of a missile rather than the 'front'. Since we know the weapon payload is at the front of the missile, it makes no sense to move it to a smaller second stage attached to the rear.

Without a specific qualifier, I would expect the smaller stage to be at the leading end of the missile -- as that is the layout of virtually every R/W multistage rocket/missile. That doesn't mean the Cataphracts have to follow that pattern, but "front" and "end" can be synonyms or antonyms and the quoted text doesn't distinguish which.

munroburton wrote:The first generation MK16 DDMs had 6 rods and a 15 MT warhead, was considered comparable to an SDM style capital missile.

The Mk16 didn't become comparable to capital missiles until the Mod G version. That's why Hexapuma had so much trouble at Monica and Zavala's Rolands didn't have any trouble with SLN BCs

Weird Harold wrote:Without a specific qualifier, I would expect the smaller stage to be at the leading end of the missile -- as that is the layout of virtually every R/W multistage rocket/missile. That doesn't mean the Cataphracts have to follow that pattern, but "front" and "end" can be synonyms or antonyms and the quoted text doesn't distinguish which.

That makes no sense. A CM has no warhead or anti-ship sensors or space to mount them. What is has is a very big engine.

Edit:closed quotes

Weird Harold wrote:

munroburton wrote:It says the 'end' of a missile rather than the 'front'. Since we know the weapon payload is at the front of the missile, it makes no sense to move it to a smaller second stage attached to the rear.

Without a specific qualifier, I would expect the smaller stage to be at the leading end of the missile -- as that is the layout of virtually every R/W multistage rocket/missile. That doesn't mean the Cataphracts have to follow that pattern, but "front" and "end" can be synonyms or antonyms and the quoted text doesn't distinguish which.

munroburton wrote:The first generation MK16 DDMs had 6 rods and a 15 MT warhead, was considered comparable to an SDM style capital missile.

The Mk16 didn't become comparable to capital missiles until the Mod G version. That's why Hexapuma had so much trouble at Monica and Zavala's Rolands didn't have any trouble with SLN BCs

How do real world rockets move? By applying rearward chemical thrust. That's why staging is set up how it is here, because all the engines to be used have to be at the rear and pointing backwards when they are activated - it's a design constraint created by our crude physical technology. Impeller drives don't suffer from that constraint and could be placed anywhere on the missile chassis, front, middle or back. Impellers are not a reaction drive.

Zavala's Rolands didn't have a problem at Saltash because they never entered their opponents' range and they had 60 launchers to Hexapuma's 40 in addition to the mod G. I think the Mod G made the MK16 equivalent to a first-gen MDM - it was already about as powerful as a capital SDM.

MDMs packed in a lot more punch than SDMs to make up for their larger sizes and poorer accuracy at maximum range. It doesn't make sense to me that the RMN would design a DDM and leave it with the hitting power of a cruiser SDM, given all the expense involved in building the Rolands, Sag-Cs and Nikes. They definitely beefed it up or Hexapuma's hits would have only inflicted the same level of damage Thunder of God endured in Second Yeltsin from Fearless' missiles.

Thinking of First Hancock also - the RMN BCs there were standing up quite well to considerable numbers of capital missiles, from a Havenite dreadnought squadron, for some time and only losing three BCs. Hexapuma did what it once took seven dreadnoughts, with five times the number of launchers, to accomplish.