New passive defense system

Yeah. All of this illustrates how it is possible for even the best SLN thinkers to be on the wrong track in so many areas.

[quote="solbergb"]Yeah. All of this illustrates how it is possible for even the best SLN thinkers to be on the wrong track in so many areas.[/quote]

Howdy all,

Good point.

Back to my original thread concept I hope. :-)

My apologies for not responding to some very excellent comments earlier up thread, but it took me time to get around and read all of them.

Kudos to SolbergB for reminding us all of 'Queen Adrienne' in AoV, and HH using her yacht/'runabout' to save the queen. Perhaps that got Hemphill working on the idea...

Namelessfly's suggestion regarding increasing the size to 2000 to 2500 tons puts the concept into a far bigger class, along with the similar sized PDC drone. That may also come, but not as soon as this much smaller shield drone.

From OBS, we learned the CL Fearless's machine shop was very sophisticated, able to turn missiles into passive RD's; so if the AI's were available, how much could be done aboard the ship, a fleet repair ship(s), or would a naval yard or all up assembly line be required ?

I could see this done on an ad hoc basis by a single ship, squadron or navy station that sees the need far enough ahead to make the needed modifications.

T2M's concern about losing telemetry to missiles, ghost-rider, etc would require lots of shield drones, more than I envisioned, but leaving a few open windows, just as the sidewalls do ought answer that concern.

My concept saw them as part of the integrated defensive plan, including EW, since they might block some of the attack missiles' sensors from seeing precisely where the ship is within its wedge required volume, among other things. Since this might delay their locking on, forcing the ships to delay cutting the fire control links, it could delay follow on missile volleys, or compress the time to compensate in following salvo's for this unforeseen 'wall in space' blotting out the needed resolution to release the attack missile, etc.

Bear in mind it will be some time before attack missiles will be able to notice shield drones, their wedges or their purpose, and begin to counter them. It would probably take FTL RD's near the SD's to notice and much improved Apollo AI's to counter or evade them.

Bafoote makes excellent points regarding the numbers required for total coverage: If each SD sidewall covers some 34,500 km^2 (from the pearl KZT cited) and each missile wedge was 10 km on a side, 345 shield drones would be required for each sidewall, 690 per ship; but 4 SD's in a wall (4X2 BS) would reduce that to just 172.5@, a more practical number.
For the RHN SDP's with only 400 pods @, 200 drones or around 5% of pods for shield drones might be a very worthwhile consideration (assuming shield drones take up same space as missile); for the RMN with a thousand pods of 12 missiles @, 20 pods or just 2% provides 240 shield drones minimum, 50 pods provides 600.

Obviously the RMN and GSN could afford such a defensive enhancement more than the RHN while the IAN also carries only 400 pods.

As Namelessfly posted, it may very well be the next logical step after keyhole.

Compare Tourville's 2nd Fleet of 240 SDP's in a 15X16 (15 rows of 2 BS) formation might have had a perimeter volume of some 2139,000 km^2, or only needing some 89.125 shield drones each for full coverage.

How many shield drones or LAC's might have similarly protected Home Fleet, if it hadn't been doomed to die?

(please discuss BoMA on another thread please)

While neither navy needs shield drones yet, I wonder if Shannon Foraker might already be working on them, as a partial answer to Apollo ?

Bafoote suggests that using wedges on the edges might permit sidewalls to be strengthened for holding in the center. I'm not sure sidewalls could be beefed up in such fashion, but until the MWW disposes, we don't know.

His point regarding more for formation battles than single ship is well taken as demonstrated above.

As for the Solon reference, I'm sure Bafoote has since checked AAC to correct the miss impression that some 7000 CM's were needed to kill only ~1100 MDM's when the 7200+ CM's, not the anticipated ~1000, were from the 20 starships of TF82, leaving ~6000 CM's from the LAC's (instead of just another thousand)to completely ruin the RHN's assumptions for their first 11 salvo attack of 1080 missiles each.

Solberg B's point of which is the more powerful wedge is important given the weaker always loses to the stronger, is one reason I emphasized stopping the laserhead being the shield drone's primary duty. His further suggestion that a drone with big enough wedge might be too big or expensive to be practical is a very worthy caution.

If a 20,000 ton LAC 1/400 the mass of an SD has a wedge only 1/400 of the SD's, it would be smaller than the 10X10 km missile wedge (86.25 vs 100 km^2). I suspect it is somewhat larger, but can't remember textev regarding the LAC's wedge dimensions. Keyhole 1 is around 20,000 tons, while Keyhole 2 is apparently around 65,000 tons; given the latter was about the same mass as the average peep DD in 1904 PD, its potential wedge may more impressive than I'd thought.

T2M's excellent suggestion of the practice drone might be one possible solution available aboard ship and how many are carried ?
But I suspect some may argue the RD drone also be too weak to stop the incoming missile impacting on its wedge (it may require a full attack missile wedge etc), although they should have no problem stopping X-ray lasers.

The fate of decoy drones might be an indicator, but the decoy is 'singing' to the incoming attack missiles, not using its wedge defensively.

I've been truly impressed and pleased by the supportive comments and expansions. Further ideas ?

Thank you all.

L

DW, from what I have seen, does NOT like the idea of drones in combat. The closest thing you will see to this is smart missiles.

I've suggested wedge ships / drones before. Small vessels with massively oversized drives, and several huge tractor beams.

The tractor beams would allow the wedge drones to perform lots of useful roles, and the oversized wedges could be used to generate a protective barrier at need.

The tractors would allow:

1) Drones are hyper capable if they limpet to a hyper capable ship.

2) Drones can act as tugs to keep a ship with failing drives in formation.

3) Drones could speed up retrieval of escape pods and missile pods.

4) Drones could be sent out in a self-protective formation, hauling lots of low tech missile pods, protecting the missiles until they can be launched at pointblank range - perhaps allowing even Sollie tech to be a threat.

If you are going to make a wedge drone, at least give it tractor beams so it will have more uses than simply being a shield. Tactical flexibility is critical.

2 quibbles and 1 post thought

1) I proposed putting wedges centrally between the wedges thus making any shot on your ship to be forced to pass through your sidewall at an angle, thus decreasing the power of the shot that got through your sidewall as described by DW. Over a certain angle DW has written that shots bounce completely off said sidewall. Not strengthening said sidewall at all. Just forcing the enemy to shoot through the "stronger" section.

2) At Solon, there is a reason DW wrote that the 7200 CM's were from Honor's Starships ALONE. Thus does not include the LAC's as they are not hyper capable and thus are not starships. Others say otherwise. I see you are in the other camp as this interpretation has been beaten to death here and on the bar about 1000 times now. =) Why else would DW wax on about Keyhole? If all those CM's were from the RMN LAC's at Solon, then why would Giscard only expect 1000 CM's with LAC's demonstrated off bore capability to shoot since Buttercup? If the LAC's made up the majority of the CM fire, then Giscard would have expected FAAAARRRRRRR more CM's. You can't go from 7200 to 1000 if LAC's are shooting under both interpretation of what a "starship" is and what the word "alone" means. I suppose you could interpret that due to keyhole that the CM's from LAC's were handed off. It was not written as such though under my interpretation.

Post Thought. I see the need for shield drones as a needed step after Keyhole as its hopeless to implement it before as you would cut off all your telemetry for offensive and defensive missile fire to a great extent anyways. Or at least the awknowledgement that task Force Formation, Keyhole, and LAC's are able to blanket a large area of said sidewalls effectively doing the same thing from the Author. Increasing the defensive ability of a Task force over that of a single ship. MWW has to some extent done this, though it has been atributed to EW and CM/PDLC fire at Sidemore for example. Obviously without Keyhole, one can't really implement Wedge "blanketing" as this would cripple your offensive/defensive ability. It would be more of a weather the missile storm to either close to Graser range, or run away.

As for the mass of such an object to be reusable instead of CM based throw away logistics...

=)

B

lyonheart wrote:

solbergb wrote:Yeah. All of this illustrates how it is possible for even the best SLN thinkers to be on the wrong track in so many areas.

Howdy all,

Good point.

Back to my original thread concept I hope. :-)

My apologies for not responding to some very excellent comments earlier up thread, but it took me time to get around and read all of them.

Kudos to SolbergB for reminding us all of 'Queen Adrienne' in AoV, and HH using her yacht/'runabout' to save the queen. Perhaps that got Hemphill working on the idea...

Namelessfly's suggestion regarding increasing the size to 2000 to 2500 tons puts the concept into a far bigger class, along with the similar sized PDC drone. That may also come, but not as soon as this much smaller shield drone.

From OBS, we learned the CL Fearless's machine shop was very sophisticated, able to turn missiles into passive RD's; so if the AI's were available, how much could be done aboard the ship, a fleet repair ship(s), or would a naval yard or all up assembly line be required ?

I could see this done on an ad hoc basis by a single ship, squadron or navy station that sees the need far enough ahead to make the needed modifications.

T2M's concern about losing telemetry to missiles, ghost-rider, etc would require lots of shield drones, more than I envisioned, but leaving a few open windows, just as the sidewalls do ought answer that concern.

My concept saw them as part of the integrated defensive plan, including EW, since they might block some of the attack missiles' sensors from seeing precisely where the ship is within its wedge required volume, among other things. Since this might delay their locking on, forcing the ships to delay cutting the fire control links, it could delay follow on missile volleys, or compress the time to compensate in following salvo's for this unforeseen 'wall in space' blotting out the needed resolution to release the attack missile, etc.

Bear in mind it will be some time before attack missiles will be able to notice shield drones, their wedges or their purpose, and begin to counter them. It would probably take FTL RD's near the SD's to notice and much improved Apollo AI's to counter or evade them.

Bafoote makes excellent points regarding the numbers required for total coverage: If each SD sidewall covers some 34,500 km^2 (from the pearl KZT cited) and each missile wedge was 10 km on a side, 345 shield drones would be required for each sidewall, 690 per ship; but 4 SD's in a wall (4X2 BS) would reduce that to just 172.5@, a more practical number.
For the RHN SDP's with only 400 pods @, 200 drones or around 5% of pods for shield drones might be a very worthwhile consideration (assuming shield drones take up same space as missile); for the RMN with a thousand pods of 12 missiles @, 20 pods or just 2% provides 240 shield drones minimum, 50 pods provides 600.

Obviously the RMN and GSN could afford such a defensive enhancement more than the RHN while the IAN also carries only 400 pods.

As Namelessfly posted, it may very well be the next logical step after keyhole.

Compare Tourville's 2nd Fleet of 240 SDP's in a 15X16 (15 rows of 2 BS) formation might have had a perimeter volume of some 2139,000 km^2, or only needing some 89.125 shield drones each for full coverage.

How many shield drones or LAC's might have similarly protected Home Fleet, if it hadn't been doomed to die?

(please discuss BoMA on another thread please)

While neither navy needs shield drones yet, I wonder if Shannon Foraker might already be working on them, as a partial answer to Apollo ?

Bafoote suggests that using wedges on the edges might permit sidewalls to be strengthened for holding in the center. I'm not sure sidewalls could be beefed up in such fashion, but until the MWW disposes, we don't know.

His point regarding more for formation battles than single ship is well taken as demonstrated above.

As for the Solon reference, I'm sure Bafoote has since checked AAC to correct the miss impression that some 7000 CM's were needed to kill only ~1100 MDM's when the 7200+ CM's, not the anticipated ~1000, were from the 20 starships of TF82, leaving ~6000 CM's from the LAC's (instead of just another thousand)to completely ruin the RHN's assumptions for their first 11 salvo attack of 1080 missiles each.

Solberg B's point of which is the more powerful wedge is important given the weaker always loses to the stronger, is one reason I emphasized stopping the laserhead being the shield drone's primary duty. His further suggestion that a drone with big enough wedge might be too big or expensive to be practical is a very worthy caution.

If a 20,000 ton LAC 1/400 the mass of an SD has a wedge only 1/400 of the SD's, it would be smaller than the 10X10 km missile wedge (86.25 vs 100 km^2). I suspect it is somewhat larger, but can't remember textev regarding the LAC's wedge dimensions. Keyhole 1 is around 20,000 tons, while Keyhole 2 is apparently around 65,000 tons; given the latter was about the same mass as the average peep DD in 1904 PD, its potential wedge may more impressive than I'd thought.

T2M's excellent suggestion of the practice drone might be one possible solution available aboard ship and how many are carried ?
But I suspect some may argue the RD drone also be too weak to stop the incoming missile impacting on its wedge (it may require a full attack missile wedge etc), although they should have no problem stopping X-ray lasers.

The fate of decoy drones might be an indicator, but the decoy is 'singing' to the incoming attack missiles, not using its wedge defensively.

I've been truly impressed and pleased by the supportive comments and expansions. Further ideas ?

Thank you all.

L

We are getting into a platform that needs at minimum a powerful impeller drive that generates a wedge large enough to shield a significant fraction of the ship's sidewall, a fusion reactor to power the impeller drive, and probably a tractor beam. I don't see a CM or SKM sized drone being big enough to have all of these attributes. A missile pods sized drone would. Don't forget that a missile pod sized drone would have a much larger impeller wedge than a CM or SKM sized drone, so you'd need fewer of them. Also don't forget that SKMs incoming on a ship that has interposed its wedge has only a brief moment to detect exactly where the starship is behind its wedge, target the ship, and detonate as it flies by at a significant fraction of cee. Placing a few shield drone to cover the leading edge of the sidewalls might be more than suffecient to deny the incoming SKMs the opportunity to locate the ship soon enough to score a hit.

Bafoote's comments about how Weber has stated that X-ray lasers impacting sidewalls at an acute angle are deflected and attenuated more easily is interesting. This has a modern analogy to sloped armor being far more effective than oblique armor. If a similar consideration applies to sensors being able to target a ship through a sidewall, then this shield drone becomes even more plausible.

Finally; I think our shield drone concept is evolving into a miniature KEYHOLE I platform for light units. The NIKE BCs and AGEMEMNON (and may be the Grayson CORVORSAIR?) BC(P)s already have KEYHOLE I platforms. Perhaps they can perform double duty as shield drones? If so, this will increase the incentive to develop smaller KEYHOLE I type platforms for light units. Furhtermore, as much as I like the shield drone idea, a KEYHOLE I platform that allows the ship to itnerpose its wedge to incoming fire would do far more to increase survivability. I see downsized KEYHOLE I platforms being the first step towards shield drones.

namelessfly wrote:We are getting into a platform that needs at minimum a powerful impeller drive that generates a wedge large enough to shield a significant fraction of the ship's sidewall, a fusion reactor to power the impeller drive, and probably a tractor beam.

You don't need to shield the sidewall, you need to shield the SHIP. A SKM wedge is 10 km wide and probably 30+ km long, which will cover an SD just fine when parked 15 km from the sidewall.

I think it is stated somewhere, say the back of SVW, that the missiles wedges don't activate until they are Outside the wedge of the ship. I think DW states that this is for wedge fratricide reasons, not that it is not possible to activate a wedge between another wedge.

If one is able to put an impenetrable shield close ot your ship this basically means that nothing can attack your ship from long distance as the angle is impossible. Though not really. Though this also means that shooting CM/Missiles/PDLC out is impossible as well. Forcing down the throat and up the kilt shots on your ship. Unless you can also put said wedge in front of your ship and behind. If this were possible, surly every navy would have said wedges ready to go if for no other reason than to be able to run away when they see that the situation is hopeless.

Yes, there are ways to get "around" a central blocking wedge that completely covers the ship. IE more keyhole type platforms to 'route' the sensor data around from the RD's and fire control for missiles. I would see that CM's and Missiles would still be able to launch as they are moving as fairly low speeds thus they would be able to maneuver around said blocking wedge and not hit their own ships wedge as well.

As for having this defense in a pod format with a built in tractor that when not used would latch onto the hull of the ship to its 'permanent' docking station, this point has significant merit. Even a navy without onboard fusion power could do this. What it would mean to said navy is that they would probably have to rotate defense wedges to hard points on their ship to recharge the capacitors.

I also like "blocking the leading edge". This gets down to a timing issue and has DW even thought about timing issues. How much "time" do you have to block when MDM's are coming at you at 0.7c? Actually, is it even possible for a missile to have enough look down time at a relative velocity of 0.7c? Are they just guessing anyways? In which case it matters not a whit if you add 'leading edge' wedges to decrease their control loop time requirements to get a guestimated shot off. Guestimated is still guestimated. Or should I say, 'blind guess' as this would be more evocative description.

PS. we have Textev that a pinnace has a 1 km wide wedge. A pinnace weighs in at??? 300tons or more... CM are deliberatley created with a huge wedge. How much one can modify the wedge area in comparison to mass is a big ol' "?" Obviously it is possible as described by DW. Smaller wedge = more stealthy. WHy I would bet RD's have a very small wedge

B

kzt wrote:

namelessfly wrote:We are getting into a platform that needs at minimum a powerful impeller drive that generates a wedge large enough to shield a significant fraction of the ship's sidewall, a fusion reactor to power the impeller drive, and probably a tractor beam.

You don't need to shield the sidewall, you need to shield the SHIP. A SKM wedge is 10 km wide and probably 30+ km long, which will cover an SD just fine when parked 15 km from the sidewall.

Why do I have a sudden image of HONORVERSE ships that have large bumbs running in rows along their hulls to serve as docking stations and power taps for various drones. The effect would look a lot like the tits on a sow.

bafoote wrote:I think it is stated somewhere, say the back of SVW, that the missiles wedges don't activate until they are Outside the wedge of the ship. I think DW states that this is for wedge fratricide reasons, not that it is not possible to activate a wedge between another wedge.

If one is able to put an impenetrable shield close ot your ship this basically means that nothing can attack your ship from long distance as the angle is impossible. Though not really. Though this also means that shooting CM/Missiles/PDLC out is impossible as well. Forcing down the throat and up the kilt shots on your ship. Unless you can also put said wedge in front of your ship and behind. If this were possible, surly every navy would have said wedges ready to go if for no other reason than to be able to run away when they see that the situation is hopeless.

Yes, there are ways to get "around" a central blocking wedge that completely covers the ship. IE more keyhole type platforms to 'route' the sensor data around from the RD's and fire control for missiles. I would see that CM's and Missiles would still be able to launch as they are moving as fairly low speeds thus they would be able to maneuver around said blocking wedge and not hit their own ships wedge as well.

As for having this defense in a pod format with a built in tractor that when not used would latch onto the hull of the ship to its 'permanent' docking station, this point has significant merit. Even a navy without onboard fusion power could do this. What it would mean to said navy is that they would probably have to rotate defense wedges to hard points on their ship to recharge the capacitors.

I also like "blocking the leading edge". This gets down to a timing issue and has DW even thought about timing issues. How much "time" do you have to block when MDM's are coming at you at 0.7c? Actually, is it even possible for a missile to have enough look down time at a relative velocity of 0.7c? Are they just guessing anyways? In which case it matters not a whit if you add 'leading edge' wedges to decrease their control loop time requirements to get a guestimated shot off. Guestimated is still guestimated. Or should I say, 'blind guess' as this would be more evocative description.

PS. we have Textev that a pinnace has a 1 km wide wedge. A pinnace weighs in at??? 300tons or more... CM are deliberatley created with a huge wedge. How much one can modify the wedge area in comparison to mass is a big ol' "?" Obviously it is possible as described by DW. Smaller wedge = more stealthy. WHy I would bet RD's have a very small wedge

B

kzt wrote:

namelessfly wrote:We are getting into a platform that needs at minimum a powerful impeller drive that generates a wedge large enough to shield a significant fraction of the ship's sidewall, a fusion reactor to power the impeller drive, and probably a tractor beam.

You don't need to shield the sidewall, you need to shield the SHIP. A SKM wedge is 10 km wide and probably 30+ km long, which will cover an SD just fine when parked 15 km from the sidewall.

I think i remember something like this in one of the anthologies, beginings maybe? But it was the technodyne funded takeover of the manticore system and the ship with the main character on it, a brand new CL, was stuck on the wrong side of the attack force, they had 9 missiles, 6 attack and 3 practice, they fired all of the attack missiles and used one of the practice ones to take a BC's broadside to cross the T on it and destroy it with energy torpedoes, also why a drone and not just change the Impeler wedge to a buble, it would have the same problem as the bow wall and would blind you but you could then not have MAD in any battle with SD(P)'s in it

Hi BrigadeA,

Welcome to the forums, enjoy your favorite simulated beverage on the simulated forums.

I don't recall such a story, NTM it wouldn't work in the honorverse, since missiles even practice missiles don't have the power for energy torpedoes, PDLC's etc.

Missiles don't have the power for double wedges either.

Honorverse navies are a big believer in KISS, even the RMN tests thoroughly before accepting some new whiz-bang.

Keep trying to come up with good ideas, it only gets easier.

L

BrigadeΔ wrote:I think i remember something like this in one of the anthologies, beginings maybe? But it was the technodyne funded takeover of the manticore system and the ship with the main character on it, a brand new CL, was stuck on the wrong side of the attack force, they had 9 missiles, 6 attack and 3 practice, they fired all of the attack missiles and used one of the practice ones to take a BC's broadside to cross the T on it and destroy it with energy torpedoes, also why a drone and not just change the Impeler wedge to a buble, it would have the same problem as the bow wall and would blind you but you could then not have MAD in any battle with SD(P)'s in it