They were doing it during the Second Battle of Hancock, when the original Shrike's were still being tested, pre-Buttercup.
If they could do it pre-Buttercup, they can certainly do it post-Thunderbolt, and post-Raging Justice. What they couldn't do, was fire their missiles with their bow walls up. Whether they can fire their missiles with the newer, two-stage bucklers is something we'd need either David himself or the Bu9 folks to answer.
And that's totally excluding the little snippit in AAC, when we first see the Viper's being used. They're fire and forget, they guide themselves without the LAC needing to guide them in. Ferret's can load and fire Vipers, and with the Grand Alliance the Cimeterre-Betas could be refitted to do the same.
The Viper was about two-thirds the size of a standard LAC missile, but it was quite different. It carried a much smaller warhead, without the multiple lasing rods of a conventional warhead, in order to incorporate significantly better seekers and an enhanced AI. And it also was designed for engagements at much shorter ranges. Engagements in which massive acceleration, agility, and the ability to reach targets quickly were vastly more important than endurance. Which was why the Viper used the same drive systems as the Mark 31 counter-missile.
-snip-
It was the first time they'd ever been used against live targets, and even Dillinger was a bit surprised by how well they performed. Their AIs were better than those of any previous missile remotely close to their size, and those AIs had been carefully optimized to go after small, fast, fragile targets. They were far more capable of independent engagements, with less need for telemetry links to the vessels which had launched them. After all, LAC EW—or, at least, the Havenite version of it—was much less capable than that of a starship. There was less need for fire control officers to correct for the sort of sophisticated razzle-dazzle larger ships could perform, and their shorter powered envelope meant the Vipers' sensors had a much better look at their target when they were launched.
In effect, they were launch-and-forget weapons, which saw to their own midcourse corrections, and the Katanas were free to maneuver, and to employ all of their fire control links for counter-missiles,
Bolded the important bits. So missile LAC's that are capable of firing Vipers, have a very distinct advantage of being able to fight rolled up on their side, whereas the energy-weapon armed LAC's like the Shrike are nearly impotent other than firing their own Vipers back.
Now I'll admit, so far as we've seen neither Shrikes nor Ferrets load, or are even capable of firing Vipers. We've only seen the evidence that Katana's, and "newer construction" for hyper-capable ships fire Vipers. The newer construction could imply refitted LAC's are capable, if so refitted.
Louis R wrote:It's rather trickier than that: LACs don't [currently] carry any telemetry-relay kit, so they can't fire at targets covered by their own wedges unless they are content to shoot blind.
Somtaaw wrote:
I think those were second-gen Cimeterre's. Post-Thunderbolt era, when they started building them as Cimeterre-Alpha's and Cimeterre-Beta's, which were the respective knockoff's of Shrike's and Ferret's.
And when it really comes down to it, for the LAC on LAC death orgies, the Ferret (and Katana's) have the marked edge over Shrike grasers. They don't even have to pretend to be a light cruiser. Think Theisman during the Battle of Blackbird, whipping up on one side to use his wedge to block lasers, and then dropping right back down to launch a broadside of missiles. LAC's are even more agile than Theisman's CL was, and not only do they not have "broadsides" but they launch off-bore. If Ferrets are similar in design to Shrike's, they can launch from their four (or was it five?) rotating missile batteries, without ever rolling and giving a Shrike a chance to shoot through their sidewalls.
Shrikes, and Cimeterre-Alpha's with their graser/laser, are for attacking nearly any hyper-ships; while Ferrets, Cimeterre-Beta's, and Katana's are for small hyper-ships and other LAC's.
