Honorverse - Snotty Row

Weird Harold wrote:

cthia wrote:Ok, but what about special missiles in that case?

Why use magazine space for missiles that are only useful at ranges most ships try hard to avoid?

Well yes, that's the real, better, answer. (Not to mention cost to develop and build said missiles you hope never to use).

Bolding added.

Theemile wrote:3) The planets themselves have defenses. Each planet has several forts (number never mentioned) and now, shoals of pods. In addition, there are CL sized buoys made out of a SD's nodes and a fusion reactor who are placed so that their wedges will overlap like scales to form a protective barrier around the planet they are protecting.

In what book or infodump do I find info on these planetary defenses please?

cthia wrote:However, why are missiles not launched in tandem with energy weapons? Ok, I'm aware of one reason. Missiles launched from such a small range would come in so slow that point defense would have a field day. Ok, but what about special missiles in that case? Missiles only have to have a single stage, making for a much smaller missile. In fact, a half stage would work at knife range.

It's been answered a lot - they're in the way of the scary weapons at that range - but beyond that, energy torpedoes are kinda like that. They need the sidewall down before they'll do anything, and they're very short range, and not very accurate... all of which ought to explain why they're seeing such limited use anymore. Traditionally, they were things for capital ships with tonnage out the wazoo to use in combination with a grav lance (again, tonnage out the wazoo) in case things work out just right to use them. With energy range combat depreciated anymore for wallers too, designers have found better things to do even with wazoo-exceeding tonnage.

I suppose they could have the magazines include some laserhead and/or nuclear shells, built the same size and handling characteristics of impeller missiles for energy range combat. They'd go without a wedge, so there wouldn't be a blinding effect. They'd have just the velocity imparted by the launcher itself (at very short range, the missile won't be adding much velocity anyway, or needing much), fly out, and go BOOM when they are close enough to the target. You wouldn't ever carry many of them - the opportunities to use them are limited, and no combat using them will continue long! - so the load on the magazine space is limited.

There may still not be enough reason to bother.

Another thing I don't understand is the targeting of point defense. Point defense is targeted. But what locks onto a missile? Radar? Yet, why isn't ship's radar affected by ECM that has such a huge energy budget in close, blinding even ship's radar or ability to lock on?

It's got an impeller wedge. You can target it with passive gravitics. Radar would be too slow anyway with things that close and that fast.

JeffEngel wrote:

cthia wrote:However, why are missiles not launched in tandem with energy weapons? Ok, I'm aware of one reason. Missiles launched from such a small range would come in so slow that point defense would have a field day. Ok, but what about special missiles in that case? Missiles only have to have a single stage, making for a much smaller missile. In fact, a half stage would work at knife range.

It's been answered a lot - they're in the way of the scary weapons at that range - but beyond that, energy torpedoes are kinda like that. They need the sidewall down before they'll do anything, and they're very short range, and not very accurate... all of which ought to explain why they're seeing such limited use anymore. Traditionally, they were things for capital ships with tonnage out the wazoo to use in combination with a grav lance (again, tonnage out the wazoo) in case things work out just right to use them. With energy range combat depreciated anymore for wallers too, designers have found better things to do even with wazoo-exceeding tonnage.

I suppose they could have the magazines include some laserhead and/or nuclear shells, built the same size and handling characteristics of impeller missiles for energy range combat. They'd go without a wedge, so there wouldn't be a blinding effect. They'd have just the velocity imparted by the launcher itself (at very short range, the missile won't be adding much velocity anyway, or needing much), fly out, and go BOOM when they are close enough to the target. You wouldn't ever carry many of them - the opportunities to use them are limited, and no combat using them will continue long! - so the load on the magazine space is limited.

There may still not be enough reason to bother.

Another thing I don't understand is the targeting of point defense. Point defense is targeted. But what locks onto a missile? Radar? Yet, why isn't ship's radar affected by ECM that has such a huge energy budget in close, blinding even ship's radar or ability to lock on?

It's got an impeller wedge. You can target it with passive gravitics. Radar would be too slow anyway with things that close and that fast.

Exactly what I was getting at when I said 'special missiles' upthread. Nukes, for the express purpose to disable wedges, playing the part of TWTSNBN. Like when "Guns" deployed a tactical nuke in a certain situation. It just seems doable when LACs are at knife range and sometimes vectoring so quickly through their engagement envelope that their velocity kinda hinders their effectiveness. My snotty thinking was that a single tactical nuke can do lots of damage and may have a better chance of actually getting through at that engagement range???

cthia wrote:Exactly what I was getting at when I said 'special missiles' upthread. Nukes, for the express purpose to disable wedges, playing the part of TWTSNBN. Like when "Guns" deployed a tactical nuke in a certain situation. It just seems doable when LACs are at knife range and sometimes vectoring so quickly through their engagement envelope that their velocity kinda hinders their effectiveness. My snotty thinking was that a single tactical nuke can do lots of damage and may have a better chance of actually getting through at that engagement range???

Nukes don't disable wedges - they can disable sidewalls. However, the timing has to be exact to disable (or weaken)the sidewall. They can also use gravity generators to penetrate the sidewalls and explode next to the hull - But these are finicky and the sidewalls are designed with fluxating densities to counter the penetrating Nukes. All of these require the nukes to come close to physical contact with the sidewall (which is inset 10's of Km from the edge of the wedge).

So for something to be floating loose in space to happen to encounter a proper target by accident is just that - an accident.

Theemile wrote:

cthia wrote:Exactly what I was getting at when I said 'special missiles' upthread. Nukes, for the express purpose to disable wedges, playing the part of TWTSNBN. Like when "Guns" deployed a tactical nuke in a certain situation. It just seems doable when LACs are at knife range and sometimes vectoring so quickly through their engagement envelope that their velocity kinda hinders their effectiveness. My snotty thinking was that a single tactical nuke can do lots of damage and may have a better chance of actually getting through at that engagement range???

Nukes don't disable wedges - they can disable sidewalls. However, the timing has to be exact to disable (or weaken)the sidewall. They can also use gravity generators to penetrate the sidewalls and explode next to the hull - But these are finicky and the sidewalls are designed with fluxating densities to counter the penetrating Nukes. All of these require the nukes to come close to physical contact with the sidewall (which is inset 10's of Km from the edge of the wedge).

So for something to be floating loose in space to happen to encounter a proper target by accident is just that - an accident.

I actually meant sidewalls, thanks.

There's no point in flinging ballistic weaponry in modern Honorverse combat. Suppose the missile tube's grav launcher can throw a missile - or projectile - with a final "muzzle velocity" of 1,000 KPS. Even at what is considered mutual suicide range of 100,000 kilometers, that's still 100 seconds for the target to do something, anything, to mitigate the attack. Maneuver in any direction in 3 dimensional space would pretty much generate a miss. 100 seconds is also plenty of tracking time to pot a ballistic projectile with a point defense laser or countermissile. That's so incredibly ineffectual I don't see why anyone would bother. And of course, at more nominal energy combat ranges, the flight time would render such a weapon completely useless.

Duckk wrote:There's no point in flinging ballistic weaponry in modern Honorverse combat. Suppose the missile tube's grav launcher can throw a missile - or projectile - with a final "muzzle velocity" of 1,000 KPS. Even at what is considered mutual suicide range of 100,000 kilometers, that's still 100 seconds for the target to do something, anything, to mitigate the attack. Maneuver in any direction in 3 dimensional space would pretty much generate a miss. 100 seconds is also plenty of tracking time to pot a ballistic projectile with a point defense laser or countermissile. That's so incredibly ineffectual I don't see why anyone would bother. And of course, at more nominal energy combat ranges, the flight time would render such a weapon completely useless.

I know that that's generally true Duckk. But I thought that since the threat vector had severely changed as of late (so many LACs are able to engage ships of the wall) so many are getting through, that perhaps the tactic would be more effective during this time of in-close chaos with so many missiles busying systems and "guns" and so many LACs that have penetrated as well. The threat environment literally changed at the launch of a single battle. My snotty thinking was that perhaps available engagement opportunities have changed as well.

My original suggestion was a special missile that has a shorter range, smaller and with a higher initial acceleration. A missile that shoots its propulsion wad quickly.

<shrugs>

Kizarvexis wrote:Bolding added.

Theemile wrote:3) The planets themselves have defenses. Each planet has several forts (number never mentioned) and now, shoals of pods. In addition, there are CL sized buoys made out of a SD's nodes and a fusion reactor who are placed so that their wedges will overlap like scales to form a protective barrier around the planet they are protecting.

In what book or infodump do I find info on these planetary defenses please?

Sorry for the late reply - I can never find it when people ask... It's a VERRRY old pearl

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/entry/Harrington/126/1

I can't remember if my memory is accurate but I think the Apollo missile is larger than the other brood of missiles (nine I think). But I wonder if it would be somewhat trivial for the RMN to begin deploying two Apollo missiles per brood - as backup for any navies getting technologically "uppity." Is that doable if the need arises?

It seems RFC is going to have to reveal a chink in Apollo's armor if the future battles are going to be entertaining.