Attack missles

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.

Look up the Wac Corporal (and its Tiny Tim booster), the Aerobee series (Aerobee Hi, Aerobeee 150, Aerobee 300, etc) of sounding rockets, and many other real-world unmanned rockets. Many of them use boosters that are smaller than the upper stage. Some boosters are even less than half the size of the upper stage.

munroburton wrote:...I think the Mod G made the MK16 equivalent to a first-gen MDM - it was already about as powerful as a capital SDM....

The textev:

Storm From the Shhadows
Chapter Thirty wrote:But now, thanks primarily to fallout from the Star Kingdom's ongoing emphasis on improving its grav-pulse FTL communications capability, BuWeaps had completed field testing and begun production of a new generation of substantially more powerful gravity generators for the cruiser-weight Mark 16. In fact, they'd almost doubled the grav lens amplification factor, and while they were at it, they'd increased the yield of the missile warhead, as well, which had actually required at least as much ingenuity as the new amplification generators, given the way warheads scaled. They'd had to shift quite a few of the original Mark 16's components around to find a way to shoehorn all of that in, which had included shifting several weapons bus components aft, but Helen didn't expect anyone to complain about the final result. 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.

It clearly states that it is the Mod G that makes the Mk-16 as powerful as an older (Implied SLN) capital missile.

Okay fellows! Look´s like I have to overthink my Picture about Honorverse attack missles! The explanations here describe amissle, were the parts of the Laserwarhead are not only on the tip of a missle, Thea are a part of the whole missle.

My gess was:

- A warhead is on the top of a missle

- it has a relative small size to the rest of the misslle

- the warheads are not on the missles at the missle storage on the ships

I thought a Honorverse missle launcher on a ship put the warhead and the missle self together shortly they are fired. Like a artillery gun! At the artillery the granades and the driving explosives are disconnected! Thats because the artillery has to much different granades and Trigger for granades. If you use all the ammunition as a bundle, you would have to much different ammo. The components are easier to handle! You combine the ammunition you need for your Mission!
In Honorverse you have nukes, laser warheads, blinder, Dragon theeth and maybe more. It would be easier to Combine the missles you Need instead to run out of a sigle type of ammo. In my guess, a ship would have more warheads than missles in their stock.

Maldorian wrote:The components are easier to handle! You combine the ammunition you need for your Mission!
In Honorverse you have nukes, laser warheads, blinder, Dragon theeth and maybe more. It would be easier to Combine the missles you Need instead to run out of a sigle type of ammo. In my guess, a ship would have more warheads than missles in their stock.

Prior to the Buttercup offensive, and the rise of Ghost Rider-derived weapons which include the Dazzler and Dragon's Teeth, you'd be correct. Missiles back then didn't require the fancy fusion reactors, they were powered by capacitors (in plain words, I believe that means "really big battery"?)

Nowadays, at least for Haven, Manticore and Andermani ships, all the missiles are loaded as-is, due to their incredible power needs. They're very likely to be as close to a single continuous missile, rather than stopping at the 'payload' stage with optional loads. This is also likely to be true for the pod-launched missiles, mostly because you wouldn't have enough time to swap warheads on a pod-launched missile before it gets rolled off the rails into space.


The Solarian Cataphracts might be two separate missiles, as that was the description that they strapped the warheads to a counter-missile which uses "sprint mode" after it finishes the endurance of the main drive to get into range.

Weird Harold wrote:The textev:

Storm From the Shhadows
Chapter Thirty wrote:But now, thanks primarily to fallout from the Star Kingdom's ongoing emphasis on improving its grav-pulse FTL communications capability, BuWeaps had completed field testing and begun production of a new generation of substantially more powerful gravity generators for the cruiser-weight Mark 16. In fact, they'd almost doubled the grav lens amplification factor, and while they were at it, they'd increased the yield of the missile warhead, as well, which had actually required at least as much ingenuity as the new amplification generators, given the way warheads scaled. They'd had to shift quite a few of the original Mark 16's components around to find a way to shoehorn all of that in, which had included shifting several weapons bus components aft, but Helen didn't expect anyone to complain about the final result. 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.

It clearly states that it is the Mod G that makes the Mk-16 as powerful as an older (Implied SLN) capital missile.

I think the actual implication is it's as powerful as Alliance capital missiles. Remember that both Haven and Manticore have been pushing missile envelopes and embraced the laserhead far more thoroughly than Solarian Admirals did.

So that'd put the Mk 16 mod G as slightly more powerful than any SLN capital missile, which is enhanced by the destruction cause at the Battle of Spindle. I believe they primarily fired the Mk 16G's at the Scientists there, and they just tore those SD's apart like butter.. which would imply more power than they were designed to face from "capital" missiles.

So I think the current missile destruction list (excluding MAlign graser torps):

Grand Alliance 4-drive System-Defense MDM's » Grand Alliance capital ship Mk 32 MDM's » Grand Alliance Mk 16G's » Solarian Capital missiles » Cataphract's (due to their warhead downsizing to fit their CM based sprint drive)

MaxxQ wrote:

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.

Keywords "every couple of seconds"--a three-stage missile at maximum velocity crosses from max laser head range to impact in a fifth of a second.

Maldorian wrote:Okay fellows! Look´s like I have to overthink my Picture about Honorverse attack missles! The explanations here describe amissle, were the parts of the Laserwarhead are not only on the tip of a missle, Thea are a part of the whole missle.

My gess was:

- A warhead is on the top of a missle

- it has a relative small size to the rest of the misslle

To throw some numbers at this: The theoretical limit of a fusion warhead is about 3kt/kg. My understanding is that current (Earth) warheads manage about 2kt/kg for the bigger booms. 15mt thus weighs at least 5000kg but certainly less than 8000kg. Since the missile is in the then 100,000kg range it's a fairly small part of the missile.

Somtaaw wrote:

Storm From the Shhadows
Chapter Thirty wrote:...

I think the actual implication is it's as powerful as Alliance capital missiles.

Re-read SFtS Chapter Thirty again. The entire discussion of how the Mod G warhead would have affected the tactics at Monica. It flatly states that the Mk-16E (as used by Hexapuma at Monica) was a "cruiser-weight" missile that could only penetrate Battle Cruiser armor with difficulty and a great deal of luck.

The part I bolded earlier flatly says, nearly as powerful as older (Older Alliance >= Current SLN) Capital Missiles four five years prior to Monica. But that is explicitly about the Mod G warhead and how the improvement changed the tactical consideration; eg the Mk-16E was not powerful enough to go for long distance kills and the Mk-16G would have been.

Somtaaw wrote:...by the destruction cause at the Battle of Spindle. I believe they primarily fired the Mk 16G's at the Scientists there, ...

The Battle of Spindle was conducted with Apollo (Mk-23) and light-speed control links and FTL recon drones to update tactical information.

The Textev:

Mission of Honor
Chapter Thirty-two wrote:The Saganami-C-class heavy cruiser massed four hundred and eighty thousand tons. It mounted forty missile launchers in each broadside, and it had been designed to fire double broadsides at its enemies, then provided with a sixty percent redundancy in control links as a reserve against battle damage. That gave each of Aivars Terekhov's cruisers one hundred and twenty eight telemetry links, and each of those links was assigned to one Mark 23-E missile, which, in turn, controlled eight standard Mark 23s.

The twelve ships of Cruiser Squadron 94 and Cruiser Division 96.1 fired just over fifteen hundred missile pods at Task Force 496, Solarian League Navy.
* * *
"Estimate twelve thousand—repeat, twelve thousand—incoming!"
Sandra Crandall's head snapped around at Ou-yang Zhing-wei's hard, flat announcement. She stared at her ops officer, eyes huge, too shocked by the numbers to register even disbelief. At that, she was doing better than Pépé Bautista. Her chief of staff's expression was that of someone infuriated by a lie rather than someone stupefied by astonishment.

Weird Harold wrote:Re-read SFtS Chapter Thirty again. The entire discussion of how the Mod G warhead would have affected the tactics at Monica. It flatly states that the Mk-16E (as used by Hexapuma at Monica) was a "cruiser-weight" missile that could only penetrate Battle Cruiser armor with difficulty and a great deal of luck.

Which if you think about it doesn't make all that much sense because Mk16s were used a BC(P) and BC(L) missiles before the Mod-G version came along.

Hexapuma might not have been able to throw enough of them to get a lot of hits on a BC, but I can't believe that the RMN would build BCs around missiles with less that BC-grade laser heads. The original Mk16s really logically should have had at least as powerful a warhead as the previous class of (SDM) BC-weight missiles; and been at least as capable of tearing up a BC.


Now BCs are tough, and even BC-weight missiles need a fair number of hits to cripple or kill one; more that Hexapuma might be able to count on. And a bigger warhead would let even fewer hits do more damage...

Jonathan_S wrote:Which if you think about it doesn't make all that much sense because Mk16s were used a BC(P) and BC(L) missiles before the Mod-G version came along.

I don't have any problem with a Battle Cruiser throwing "Cruiser-weight" missiles around.