Screening Elements

Here's the thing...

Baggage...

By now, everyone knows about the baggage that I carry with me from other media when I'm immersed in storyline. It's difficult not to be reminded of certain things from other sources when you're reading. And for me, these other sources are quite varied.

Take American football for instance. I was fortunate enough to play the prestigious position of quarterback, from Midget League through High School. I'm sure that everyone -- every male anyways -- is aware of the common "screen." This is a misdirection of a running play that begins as a short pass. (Perfect example of Honor's teaching regarding showing the enemy what they want to see, making them comfortable with the familiar. Then, BAM!)

The dynamics of it is to setup a "wall" of your best and fastest blockers in front of the running back to screen him from the big bad wolves of defensive players that are out for blood. I recall that the screening elements were the fastest, hardest hitting, muscular players. The dynamics have always been intuitive. You place the bigger players out in front of the smaller players. If the subject you are screening for, just so happens to be as big as the screeners... fine. That's a bonus. But the meat and potatoes are always placed out in front. The idea is for them to 'plow the field' and cut a swathe through the enemy. Never is this more profound than in sand lot football where you have a very young little guy on the team. You give him the ball and you screen for his run with the biggest of the team out in front.

In a street brawl, you put the bigger guys out front to protect the weak.

I always found the idea of a screen somewhat at odds to this in war. (See baggage.) Where the opposite is the rule. You place the smaller, less powerful Cruisers and LACs out in front, in the Honorverse, to protect the big powerful Dreadnaughts and SuperDreadnaughts.

You big babies! Get your asses out front! LOL

But seriously. LACs and Cruisers screen for Battlecrusers and SDs. If there are only BCs and SDs, say fifty of each. Would the BCs automatically screen for the SDs?

What if, like the RHN, there is a surplus of BCs in the system. Say, 250 BCs and 25 SDs. It seems your more powerful force in that scenario would be your more numerous BCs. Then would the SDs screen for the BCs?

Now. To ease the pain, somewhat, of most of you who are screaming at your comp, "cthia are you that dizzy?" Yes, I know that the smaller units are placed out front to utilize their more numerous wedges to block the sensor arrays of the enemy ships and not to actually absorb any damage. Except with CM fire. (I suppose that is true and not just a fortunate side effect.) But these smaller ships are not ordered to drop back at the crucial point. They actually do soak up damage. I'm aware that the the SDs are more valuable. It just seems wrong somehow, filtered through the baggage in my brain.

Tactics. Somehow, Stratego was a lot simpler. LOL.

This is what Wikipedia has to say on the origin of the screen...

A smoke screen is smoke released to mask the movement or location of military units such as infantry, tanks, aircraft or ships.

Smoke screens are commonly deployed either by a canister (such as a grenade) or generated by a vehicle (such as a tank or a warship).
Whereas smoke screens were originally used to hide movement from enemies' line of sight, modern technology means that they are now also available in new forms; they can screen in the infrared as well as visible spectrum of light to prevent detection by infrared sensors or viewers, and they are also available for vehicles in a superdense form used to block laser beams of enemy target designators or range finders.

Interesting reading... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke_screen

Another question. Things may have changed since then. But when Honor set up that sucker punch (the name of the battle escapes me, but it is when the resident Havenite tac witch saw right through it. But too late to help) and arranged her screen in a haphazard manner to keep the Havenite fleet from seeing what was really in her order of battle. There came a point when they had to spread out to give Honor's more capable arrays a better look at what they faced. With Apollo, is that necessary now? Even buried deep in your formation, can't a flag ship -- shouldn't a flag ship have benefit of the Apollo feed as well, without uncovering?

Of course to a large extent David Webber was borrowing that from the WWI and WWII navies where the screen evolved to protect the (less maneuverable) heavies from weapons (torpedoes and later dive bombs) that could threaten them. You needed to put the quick little torpedo boat destroyer out between the battle lines to keep their torpedo boats from getting into range of your line. (And later you need your destroyer to carry sonar and anti-submarine weapons to keep their subs from doing the same while cruising)

Once sidewalls came around in the honorversse small ships no longer carried weapons capable of seriously threatening heavies; but I'm sure they still had a recon / counter recon role. Push forward to try to get the best targeting info before the fleets reach missile range (or later push forward drones to do the same) and then attempt to stop those drones or recon probes.

Plus even CLs could mess things up if they manage to curl around the front or rear of the enemy's wall where they can try for hammerhead shots. You'd want your screen to prevent that kind of harassment. But normally I'd expect DDs and CLs to pull back into the wall's unified missile defenses rather that stay way out in front to get hammered in isolation...

Anyway just my quick thoughts

That World War era screening being far different from the later parts of the Age of Sail, where my understanding is that as the fleets closed to battle the light units put themselves off the disengaged side of the line in order to be able to relay flag signals up and down the line - which was otherwise near impossible due to the obscuring sails, rigging, and gunsmoke.

But prior to closing to battle the light units might be dispersed in a scouting line or formation to significantly increase the area of ocean that could be swept looking for enemy forces.


Then on land there's the concept of a cavalry screen, which is primarily a recon / counter-recon formation. Using mobility to search for the enemy, while attempting to prevent his cavaly from doing the same. Also able to disrupt foraging efforts, but not able to stand up to the firepower of concentrated infantry + artillery blocks. The heavy infantry units were the big guns, the heavy hitters, while the more mobile but more vulnerable cavalry units used their tactical mobility and speed to screen the infantry units. (Even in worst cases expected to be able to give the infantry enough warning to pull together from a marching line to squares able to repel enemy cavalry attacks)

As mentioned above the main role of a sail era screen was to scout ahead of the fleet and prevent the oppositions reconnisance. Thie role continued until the dawn of the battlecruiser era with even powerful units such as large armoured cruiser seen as a reconnisance tool and anti reconnisance tool.

Once the dreadnought era began the role of the screen changed from reconnisance to be more similar to the CAP (Combat Air Patrol) of a carrier group. They would intercept enemy destroyers and torpedo boats and destroy them short of the battle line. For this a lighter faster light cruiser or large gun destroyer was preferred as units in this role needed to be able to run down a destroyer and overwhealm it fast with medium callibure 4"-6" fire. This was very important as the early dreadnoughts were actually very deficient in light guns of this callibre and those that they did have were often placed too low to be used in any kind of sea state.

Finally in WW2 the screen became about subs and aircraft and keeping them off the heavies (larger gun cruisers, battleships and carriers).

Reading through the honorverse books and house of steel it is clear that the serious tactical ossification that had happened had left the immediate screen role to ships that had no business lying in the wall of battle and they should have been deployed as they are now by the GA navies, as deep recon and anti recon units or light power projection/space presence units.

The P51 Mustangs were the most well known screens of WWll.

The Luftwaffe used their Messerschmitts in the Battle of Britain. I suppose you could equate them to Havenite LACs as they fell so easily against the LACs of the RAF -- the Spitfires and Hurricanes.

Carrier based aircraft, including dive bombers were escorted by a screen of Hellcat fighters against Tokyo.

Briefly referring to my baggage again. You screen for the smaller running back. No team ever feels like a screen for the fullback is needed. Take "Refrigerator Perry," for instance. You didn't screen for him. You gave him the ball and got the hell out of his way is what you did. Screens got in the way of the "Super Dreaded Nots!"

I suppose the US did originally try to form a screen from the idea of screens derived from my baggage. It failed them miserably. The big boys do indeed need screens.

Wiki wrote:
The U.S. Army Air Forces' precision strategic bombing campaign against German industries was only possible during the day. At first, this was not seen as an issue; the Forces' Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and Consolidated B-24 Liberator bombers were the most heavily armed in history. Close formations of them were planned, creating a crossfire of .50 caliber machine-guns that would fend off the enemy with no need for a fighter escort.

The plan was quickly undermined. Hitting a fast-moving fighter with guns in a turret proved extremely difficult; hitting a slow-moving bomber from a fighter with a gunsight was much easier. USAAF bomber losses gradually increased, and experimental "gunships" like the YB-40 did nothing to reduce them.

The Lockheed P-38 Lightning had far greater range than its early contemporaries. It was not until the introduction of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning and Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighters that the bombing raids could claim a measure of success. Able to carry large Lockheed-designed drop tanks, the fighters were able to escort the bombers for much of their missions. The first Allied fighters over Berlin were 55th Fighter Group P-38s on March 3, 1944. When the Merlin-powered North American P-51 Mustang was introduced, with a laminar-flow wing for efficiency, the final escort fighter development of the war was complete.

I find escorts, screens, to be most interesting reading. Incidentally, wikipedia gives account of the first possible LAC design...

Cold War:
The successes of the P-47N and P-51 gave the impression that the escort fighter was a concept worth continuing after the end of the war. The high fuel use of early jet engines made such aircraft difficult to design, and a number of experimental designs were tried that used mixed power, typically a turboprop and jet, but these failed to meet performance requirements. A new concept, the XF-85 Goblin microfighter, planned to act as a parasite fighter for the Convair B-36, was tested with a B-29 Superfortress and found to be utterly impossible to use operationally. Later the FICON project attempted a similar solution, docking jet fighters with heavy bombers via a trapeze mechanism on their wingtips.

References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escort_fighter

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luftwaffe

Jonathan_S wrote:Of course to a large extent David Webber was borrowing that from the WWI and WWII navies where the screen evolved to protect the (less maniiv wrangle) heavies from weapons (torpedoes and later dive bombs) that could threaten them. You needed to out the quick little torpedo boat destroyer out between the battle lines to keep their torpedo boats from getting into range of your line.

Once sidewalls came around in the honorversse small ships no longer carried weapons capable of seriously threatening heavies; but I'm sure they still had a recon / counter recon role. Push forward to try to get the best targetting info before the fleets reach missile range (or later push forward drones to do the same) and then attempt to stop those drones or recon probes.

Plus even CLs could mess things up if they manage to curl around the front or rear of the enemy's wall where they can try for hammerhead shots. You'd want your screen. To prevent that kind of harassment. But normally DDs and CLs would pull back into the wall's unifies missile defenses rather that stay way out in front to get hammered in isolation...

Anyway just my quick thoughts

Excellent point Johnathan. I'm glad you brought that up. Somehow I never considered the crucial need to screen against the almighty U-Boat.

Thanks for the sobering.

cthia wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Of course to a large extent David Webber was borrowing that from the WWI and WWII navies where the screen evolved to protect the (less maniiv wrangle) heavies from weapons (torpedoes and later dive bombs) that could threaten them. You needed to out the quick little torpedo boat destroyer out between the battle lines to keep their torpedo boats from getting into range of your line.

Once sidewalls came around in the honorversse small ships no longer carried weapons capable of seriously threatening heavies; but I'm sure they still had a recon / counter recon role. Push forward to try to get the best targetting info before the fleets reach missile range (or later push forward drones to do the same) and then attempt to stop those drones or recon probes.

Plus even CLs could mess things up if they manage to curl around the front or rear of the enemy's wall where they can try for hammerhead shots. You'd want your screen. To prevent that kind of harassment. But normally DDs and CLs would pull back into the wall's unifies missile defenses rather that stay way out in front to get hammered in isolation...

Anyway just my quick thoughts

Excellent point Johnathan. I'm glad you brought that up. Somehow I never considered the crucial need to screen against the almighty U-Boat.

Thanks for the sobering.

You're welcome. (But now I look with horror at what my phone did to my post. So many mangled words I didn't notice while trying to do text entry on that tiny screen)

In the Honorverse case, what you get from the smaller ships (LACs included) is advanced missile interception. At full accel the smaller ships get out front and start taking out the missiles in interception zones.

Let's say your screen's smallest ships have 150G-200G or more in impeller acceleration than the SD's in the back, the battlecruiser part of the screen has maybe 75G-100G more. So you set up three zones, knowing that the enemy has to take out your capital ships to survive. Especially true with SD(P)'s

Best description is in HotQ [Honor of the Queen], they referred to it as a"classic missile defense", with the two lighter combatants out front, screening for CA-286 Fearless during the assault on Blackbird. Then Commander Theisman knew he was screwed by a frontal approach to the screen, so he planned his attack accordingly, knowing that Fearless would tear him a new one in return for whatever damages he could inflict on the lighter ships before that happened.

cthia wrote:Here's the thing...

Baggage...

By now, everyone knows about the baggage that I carry with me from other media when I'm immersed in storyline. It's difficult not to be reminded of certain things from other sources when you're reading. And for me, these other sources are quite varied.

Take American football for instance. I was fortunate enough to play the prestigious position of quarterback, from Midget League through High School. I'm sure that everyone -- every male anyways -- is aware of the common "screen." This is a misdirection of a running play that begins as a short pass. (Perfect example of Honor's teaching regarding showing the enemy what they want to see, making them comfortable with the familiar. Then, BAM!)

The dynamics of it is to setup a "wall" of your best and fastest blockers in front of the running back to screen him from the big bad wolves of defensive players that are out for blood. I recall that the screening elements were the fastest, hardest hitting, muscular players. The dynamics have always been intuitive. You place the bigger players out in front of the smaller players. If the subject you are screening for, just so happens to be as big as the screeners... fine. That's a bonus. But the meat and potatoes are always placed out in front. The idea is for them to 'plow the field' and cut a swathe through the enemy. Never is this more profound than in sand lot football where you have a very young little guy on the team. You give him the ball and you screen for his run with the biggest of the team out in front.

In a street brawl, you put the bigger guys out front to protect the weak.

I always found the idea of a screen somewhat at odds to this in war. (See baggage.) Where the opposite is the rule. You place the smaller, less powerful Cruisers and LACs out in front, in the Honorverse, to protect the big powerful Dreadnaughts and SuperDreadnaughts.

You big babies! Get your asses out front! LOL

But seriously. LACs and Cruisers screen for Battlecrusers and SDs. If there are only BCs and SDs, say fifty of each. Would the BCs automatically screen for the SDs?

What if, like the RHN, there is a surplus of BCs in the system. Say, 250 BCs and 25 SDs. It seems your more powerful force in that scenario would be your more numerous BCs. Then would the SDs screen for the BCs?

Now. To ease the pain, somewhat, of most of you who are screaming at your comp, "cthia are you that dizzy?" Yes, I know that the smaller units are placed out front to utilize their more numerous wedges to block the sensor arrays of the enemy ships and not to actually absorb any damage. Except with CM fire. (I suppose that is true and not just a fortunate side effect.) But these smaller ships are not ordered to drop back at the crucial point. They actually do soak up damage. I'm aware that the the SDs are more valuable. It just seems wrong somehow, filtered through the baggage in my brain.

Tactics. Somehow, Stratego was a lot simpler. LOL.

This is what Wikipedia has to say on the origin of the screen...

A smoke screen is smoke released to mask the movement or location of military units such as infantry, tanks, aircraft or ships.

Smoke screens are commonly deployed either by a canister (such as a grenade) or generated by a vehicle (such as a tank or a warship).
Whereas smoke screens were originally used to hide movement from enemies' line of sight, modern technology means that they are now also available in new forms; they can screen in the infrared as well as visible spectrum of light to prevent detection by infrared sensors or viewers, and they are also available for vehicles in a superdense form used to block laser beams of enemy target designators or range finders.

Interesting reading... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke_screen

Another question. Things may have changed since then. But when Honor set up that sucker punch (the name of the battle escapes me, but it is when the resident Havenite tac witch saw right through it. But too late to help) and arranged her screen in a haphazard manner to keep the Havenite fleet from seeing what was really in her order of battle. There came a point when they had to spread out to give Honor's more capable arrays a better look at what they faced. With Apollo, is that necessary now? Even buried deep in your formation, can't a flag ship -- shouldn't a flag ship have benefit of the Apollo feed as well, without uncovering?

Unfortunately, one of the best diagrams explaining the pre-pod screen is in the RMN Jayne's book. It does a good job of showing a Batron with proper screening elements and their positions. Of special note is the inner screen, which has 2 very important jobs:

1) add to the anti-missile fire.
2) to cover the vulnerable wedge aspects of the larger ships

The second is more important; the smaller ships, usually CAs or BCs, are the first line of defense for the larger ship's vulnerable aspects. Their laser clusters, wedges and physical bodies protect to openings in the wall's armor.

I wonder how much more effective Raging Justice would have been if it were properly screened. In the end it still would not have mattered, but more of Honor's ships would have been scratched.

Theemile wrote:Unfortunately, one of the best diagrams explaining the pre-pod screen is in the RMN Jayne's book. It does a good job of showing a Batron with proper screening elements and their positions. Of special note is the inner screen, which has 2 very important jobs:

1) add to the anti-missile fire.
2) to cover the vulnerable wedge aspects of the larger ships

The second is more important; the smaller ships, usually CAs or BCs, are the first line of defense for the larger ship's vulnerable aspects. Their laser clusters, wedges and physical bodies protect to openings in the wall's armor.

I wonder how much more effective Raging Justice would have been if it were properly screened. In the end it still would not have mattered, but more of Honor's ships would have been scratched.

Thanks for this post Themile. It answered a very important question of mine. I was wondering if there were "layers" or just one big defensive line of screens. Because, of course, there is much difference in the acceleration and capabilities of LACs and Cruisers.

For my own clarity, regarding LACs and Cruisers, would the first line of defense be the LACs? Which seems to be representative of text, yet the fastest of the screens would be the Cruisers, yet the Cruisers don't lead the screen. Puzzling.

I suppose the CM defense of the LACs clouds intuition and dictates tactics.

I've been researching to no avail for available screening mechanics. Now I know why. I've got to get my paws on a copy of Jayne's. I think I've got the cash in case my clearance fails.