New LAC's

DW said that manticore was considering a new two piece LAC that separated the offensive armament from the rest of the LAC. In effect the carrier could pop in a offensive "package" such that they could quickly change the LAC between a shrike, ferret, or katana depending on which weapons package was chosen.

I have what I think is a better idea on how to implement it. Have the same "base" unit with the same drive, power, EW, and defensive CM and laser clusters as the shrike. Have 5 equally sized weapons "slots" 4 at 90 degrees, one in the middle. Because the shrike graser (and it's support equipment) takes up more than 50% of its offensive armament, each "weapons pack" would take up approximately double the volume of revolver missile tube on the shrike. There would be 3 different weapons packs to choose from.

1. Graser: Would be roughly 1/3 the volume of the shrikes graser, which should put it about the power of a CA graser.

2. CM/Vipers: If the shrike missile is 40 tons, which would be half the volume of the Mk-16, each "pack" would have a SD PD cluster and carry 30 CM's or an equivalent volume of vipers. Note: If the shrike missile is bigger than 40 tons, it would carry even more (5-50 ton shrike missiles = 50 CM's)

3. Mk-16 missiles: each "pack" would carry 5 (or possibly 6) Mk-16 missiles.

A. Equipped with 5-CM/viper packs, would have the equivelant of a Katana LAC.

B. Equiped with 4-MK-16 packs and 1 graser would have something similar to the shrike, but with more missile power and less graser power (the ferret was designed because the shrike was weak in missile power.)

C. could be equipped with 5 grasers, making it energy heavy.

D. A general purpose setup would be 1 graser, 2 Mk-16 & 2 CM/Viper packs. IMO this would be the setup that you would use if you didn't know what was coming, such as in a system defense role.

You're not going to be packing that many weapon systems on a LAC sized platform. That's clocking in at frigate sized, at least, if not a small destroyer.

darrell wrote:DW said that manticore was considering a new two piece LAC that separated the offensive armament from the rest of the LAC. In effect the carrier could pop in a offensive "package" such that they could quickly change the LAC between a shrike, ferret, or katana depending on which weapons package was chosen.

I have what I think is a better idea on how to implement it. Have the same "base" unit with the same drive, power, EW, and defensive CM and laser clusters as the shrike. Have 5 equally sized weapons "slots" 4 at 90 degrees, one in the middle. Because the shrike graser (and it's support equipment) takes up more than 50% of its offensive armament, each "weapons pack" would take up approximately double the volume of revolver missile tube on the shrike. There would be 3 different weapons packs to choose from.

1. Graser: Would be roughly 1/3 the volume of the shrikes graser, which should put it about the power of a CA graser.

2. CM/Vipers: If the shrike missile is 40 tons, which would be half the volume of the Mk-16, each "pack" would have a SD PD cluster and carry 30 CM's or an equivalent volume of vipers. Note: If the shrike missile is bigger than 40 tons, it would carry even more (5-50 ton shrike missiles = 50 CM's)

3. Mk-16 missiles: each "pack" would carry 5 (or possibly 6) Mk-16 missiles.

A. Equipped with 5-CM/viper packs, would have the equivelant of a Katana LAC.

B. Equiped with 4-MK-16 packs and 1 graser would have something similar to the shrike, but with more missile power and less graser power (the ferret was designed because the shrike was weak in missile power.)

C. could be equipped with 5 grasers, making it energy heavy.

D. A general purpose setup would be 1 graser, 2 Mk-16 & 2 CM/Viper packs. IMO this would be the setup that you would use if you didn't know what was coming, such as in a system defense role.

You're missing a couple things - each weapons port is not an independent object - the Graser in the Shrike required a superconducting ring to store enough energy to fire - So every port would require not just the Graser, but also the superconducting ring to power it.

CMs and missiles don't just require the missile launchers, but also the magazines and feed hardware for the missiles. Shrikes had the revolver launchers that didn't use a centralized mag, but their CMs did, and the Ferrets and Katanas both have central magazines - all these would require custom missile feeds and unused mass and volume in your all energy variant.

Shipkiller missile "modules" and viper missile "modules" would each contain a magazine that is part of the "module", as well as a missile tube. Although there is some reduction in missile storage volume with centralized magazines, part of this is compensated by no feed tubes from missile storage. The ferret has 56 shrike shipkiller missiles. I don't see a reason that a design with 5 missile tubes, each with it's own magazine and direct feed of the missile would be less than 90% of the ferrets loadout, which would be 50 shrike missiles. (10 per tube.)

Without the actual size of the shrike missile I have to guess at the actual size. Based on a book illustration, the BC missile is about 25% longer and 25% bigger in diameter, which would make a BC missile approximately twice the volume of the shrike missile. I am guessing that the Mk-16 would be the same size as the old BC missiles, since the tube designation is the same except for a higher letter upgrade. (19 vs 19C).

The size of each weapons module will be approximately twice the size of the 5 round shrike revolver tube. The number of Mk 16 or CM's that can be fit depend on what that actual number if.

Since the Mk-16 is 80 tons, if the shrike missile is:
48 tons or larger, can fit 6 rounds in the magazine.
40-47 tons, can fit a 5 round revolver in the same space.
32-39 tons, can fit a 4 round revolver in the same space.
31 tons or less, can only fit a three round revolver, so IMO would be better to go with 10 shrike missiles per each weapons module.

Graser modules would contain both the emitter head and the the support equipment, which includes the superconducting capacitor ring.

It would be possible to create a three section graser "module set" that would have a BC/shrike power graser, (one module the emitter head, a second for support equipment, a third for the energy capacitors.) IMO The smaller CA sized graser, where we pack the emitter head, superconducting capacitor ring and support equipment into one removable housing would work well against anything CA sized and smaller, the LAC would seldom if ever need to approach anything bigger.

Theemile wrote:

darrell wrote:DW said that manticore was considering a new two piece LAC that separated the offensive armament from the rest of the LAC. In effect the carrier could pop in a offensive "package" such that they could quickly change the LAC between a shrike, ferret, or katana depending on which weapons package was chosen.

I have what I think is a better idea on how to implement it. Have the same "base" unit with the same drive, power, EW, and defensive CM and laser clusters as the shrike. Have 5 equally sized weapons "slots" 4 at 90 degrees, one in the middle. Because the shrike graser (and it's support equipment) takes up more than 50% of its offensive armament, each "weapons pack" would take up approximately double the volume of revolver missile tube on the shrike. There would be 3 different weapons packs to choose from.

1. Graser: Would be roughly 1/3 the volume of the shrikes graser, which should put it about the power of a CA graser.

2. CM/Vipers: If the shrike missile is 40 tons, which would be half the volume of the Mk-16, each "pack" would have a SD PD cluster and carry 30 CM's or an equivalent volume of vipers. Note: If the shrike missile is bigger than 40 tons, it would carry even more (5-50 ton shrike missiles = 50 CM's)

3. Mk-16 missiles: each "pack" would carry 5 (or possibly 6) Mk-16 missiles.

A. Equipped with 5-CM/viper packs, would have the equivelant of a Katana LAC.

B. Equiped with 4-MK-16 packs and 1 graser would have something similar to the shrike, but with more missile power and less graser power (the ferret was designed because the shrike was weak in missile power.)

C. could be equipped with 5 grasers, making it energy heavy.

D. A general purpose setup would be 1 graser, 2 Mk-16 & 2 CM/Viper packs. IMO this would be the setup that you would use if you didn't know what was coming, such as in a system defense role.

You're missing a couple things - each weapons port is not an independent object - the Graser in the Shrike required a superconducting ring to store enough energy to fire - So every port would require not just the Graser, but also the superconducting ring to power it.

CMs and missiles don't just require the missile launchers, but also the magazines and feed hardware for the missiles. Shrikes had the revolver launchers that didn't use a centralized mag, but their CMs did, and the Ferrets and Katanas both have central magazines - all these would require custom missile feeds and unused mass and volume in your all energy variant.

Duckk wrote:You're not going to be packing that many weapon systems on a LAC sized platform. That's clocking in at frigate sized, at least, if not a small destroyer.

darrell wrote:Shipkiller missile "modules" and viper missile "modules" would each contain a magazine that is part of the "module", as well as a missile tube. Although there is some reduction in missile storage volume with centralized magazines, part of this is compensated by no feed tubes from missile storage. The ferret has 56 shrike shipkiller missiles. I don't see a reason that a design with 5 missile tubes, each with it's own magazine and direct feed of the missile would be less than 90% of the ferrets loadout, which would be 50 shrike missiles. (10 per tube.)

Without the actual size of the shrike missile I have to guess at the actual size. Based on a book illustration, the BC missile is about 25% longer and 25% bigger in diameter, which would make a BC missile approximately twice the volume of the shrike missile. I am guessing that the Mk-16 would be the same size as the old BC missiles, since the tube designation is the same except for a higher letter upgrade. (19 vs 19C).

The size of each weapons module will be approximately twice the size of the 5 round shrike revolver tube. The number of Mk 16 or CM's that can be fit depend on what that actual number if.

Since the Mk-16 is 80 tons, if the shrike missile is:
48 tons or larger, can fit 6 rounds in the magazine.
40-47 tons, can fit a 5 round revolver in the same space.
32-39 tons, can fit a 4 round revolver in the same space.
31 tons or less, can only fit a three round revolver, so IMO would be better to go with 10 shrike missiles per each weapons module.

Graser modules would contain both the emitter head and the the support equipment, which includes the superconducting capacitor ring.

It would be possible to create a three section graser "module set" that would have a BC/shrike power graser, (one module the emitter head, a second for support equipment, a third for the energy capacitors.) IMO The smaller CA sized graser, where we pack the emitter head, superconducting capacitor ring and support equipment into one removable housing would work well against anything CA sized and smaller, the LAC would seldom if ever need to approach anything bigger.

The Mk 16 is a larger missile than an old BC missile - 1905 BC and CAs used the Mk 13, a 78 ton missile. the Mk 16 DDM is 94 tons.

The mk 50 in the Fearless was ~70 ton IIRC, and was replaced by a mildly larger missile, the mk 34, because the mk 50 missile was too small for it's warhead to have BOTH the Boom/Burn contact nuke settings AND a laserhead in the same warhead (they had to swap out warheads during the battle). Thus, we can assume that the floor for a normal shipkiller designed in ~19011 which the Shrike would use is ~70 tons.

Beware the diagram of the Shrike missile from EoH iirc, it was before the "Great Resizing" and the old dimensions were thrown out the window to make something that is close to reality. Geometric growth was not accounted for in the original books, and it was decided to only keep the reported masses, nor volumes or lengths, from the early books to the later books.

According to DW as recorded in the infodump:
Return of the frigate as a combat-effective unit
http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/289/1

A LAC actually has as much or more firepower than a frigate, because it saves the mass and volume penalties of a hyper generator and alpha nodes.

I am not talking about putting a shrike graser in one weapons module, but a SMALLER graser in one weapons module. Presuming that the shrike graser (with it's capacitors and support) took up 60% of the offensive weapons volume and was the power of a 800K ton BC, a graser that took up 20% of the offensive weapons volume would be equivalent to the graser found in a 267K ton CA. (800/3=266)

Duckk wrote:You're not going to be packing that many weapon systems on a LAC sized platform. That's clocking in at frigate sized, at least, if not a small destroyer.

So what if they're CA-grade grasers. It's still several thousand tons each, and thus not substantially smaller than the graser already in a Shrike. You are not going to fit 5 grasers on a LAC platform, let alone be able to power them off the fission plant. Therefor, not a LAC.

I would want to see what he had in mind for the actual design of a plug & play LAC before getting too deep into speculation.

This would change the geomerty of the LAC since you would need to make it "relatively" simple to change out the modules. It is also going to change the geometry of LAC bays and probably the munitions feeding systems. Flexabilty is a good thing as long as it doesn't compromise the ability to meet mission needs.

The reason you build LAC's is because they are simple and cheap. They are simple and cheap because they are designed for one specific purpose and dispose of everything that does not comtribute to that purpose. Thus you have the Shrike, Ferret and Katana, each one optimized to do one job with as few compromises as possible.

Making one complex and expensive LAC that can sort-of do each of those jobs (though not all at the same time) would be a giant step backward, and something we would expect of the Janacek admiralty. Consider the F-35 if you want to see how badly "simplification" can go wrong.
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and 56 missiles on a ferret LAC is also several thousand tons. Add on top of that the missile tubes, the feed tubes from missile storage, as well as the fact that no storage can be 100% space efficient.

Duckk wrote:So what if they're CA-grade grasers. It's still several thousand tons each, and thus not substantially smaller than the graser already in a Shrike. You are not going to fit 5 grasers on a LAC platform, let alone be able to power them off the fission plant. Therefor, not a LAC.