Congratulations! The war is over! Now what?

Loren Pechtel wrote:

kzt wrote:The wedge on a missile does not start in the launch tube. At least not more than once per ship. The capacitors bring up the wedge once it has appropriately separated form the launching ship.

But they're very limited in how much drift time they have. Only missiles with microfusion plants have meaningful drift time.

Nope, even the original discussion of MDMs back in In Enemy Hands talked about "let it ride a ballistic course to a preprogrammed attack range", and that was definitely the original capacitor powered missiles.

Honorverse military grade capacitors pretty clearly don't suffer problematic drain over combat timescales. If a missile could bring up it's wedge a second after launch it appears equally capable of doing so 30 minutes or more later.

Now capacitor powered recon drones do have significantly less endurance than their micro fusion powered counterparts. But it's the difference between half a day and the better part of a week. That's just because the micro-fusion plant plus lots of fuel is more compact that anything close to an equivalent bank of capacitors; it has nothing to do with how long each could hold that power if not actively being used.

kzt wrote:The wedge on a missile does not start in the launch tube. At least not more than once per ship. The capacitors bring up the wedge once it has appropriately separated form the launching ship.

Loren Pechtel wrote:But they're very limited in how much drift time they have. Only missiles with microfusion plants have meaningful drift time.

Jonathan_S wrote: Nope, even the original discussion of MDMs back in In Enemy Hands talked about "let it ride a ballistic course to a preprogrammed attack range", and that was definitely the original capacitor powered missiles.

Honorverse military grade capacitors pretty clearly don't suffer problematic drain over combat timescales. If a missile could bring up it's wedge a second after launch it appears equally capable of doing so 30 minutes or more later.

Now capacitor powered recon drones do have significantly less endurance than their micro fusion powered counterparts. But it's the difference between half a day and the better part of a week. That's just because the micro-fusion plant plus lots of fuel is more compact that anything close to an equivalent bank of capacitors; it has nothing to do with how long each could hold that power if not actively being used.

Then why were pods ever worth having? If you could just kick out yeah-many missiles one by one — but all programmed to start their drives at the same time?

Bill Woods wrote:Then why were pods ever worth having? If you could just kick out yeah-many missiles one by one — but all programmed to start their drives at the same time?

Time.

With pods -- especially podlayers -- you kick out missiles in groups of eight to fourteen as fast as you would otherwise kick out missiles one-by-one.

It is possible to stack broadsides with one to four broadsides timed to ignite at one time -- that technique was used in Saltash with four(?)

Roland

s launching salvos of 120 Mk16G missiles. The time between salvos was four or five times what a single Agamemnon would manage.

One other advantage to pods, and especially pod-layers, any ship can launch and control any type/size of missiles. With Pod-layers as long as the pod will mate with the launch rails and fit through the doors (as all "flat-pack" pods are designed to do) a pod-layer can use anything from LERM, light single drive missiles, to Apollo missiles in at least light-speed mode. (if Keyhole II is available, the full capability of Apollo can be used.)

Without pods, ships are limited to the type of missiles they have tubes to fire.

You are correct. Pods are not needed. Never have been other than allowing smaller ships to throw capital missiles around. Trying to describe to readers basic physics, who never took a physics class, or never thought about what the physics mean, is mighty boring. Pods are much sexier.

Relax wrote:You are correct. Pods are not needed. Never have been other than allowing smaller ships to throw capital missiles around. Trying to describe to readers basic physics, who never took a physics class, or never thought about what the physics mean, is mighty boring. Pods are much sexier.

The original explanation was that the new grav drivers in the pods give the missiles the same initial "kick" as the ship's internal grav drivers, so all the missiles in a salvo arrive clumped with the same velocity and have the same range. But Relax is right, a little math shows the kick doesn't add that much, and unless you are trying to hit a target in the last few inches of your range, any ship's computers should be able to compute a time on target attack, where both groups will hit the target simlutaneously.

Relax wrote:You are correct. Pods are not needed. Never have been other than allowing smaller ships to throw capital missiles around. Trying to describe to readers basic physics, who never took a physics class, or never thought about what the physics mean, is mighty boring. Pods are much sexier.

Ah, allowing small ships to mount big missiles externally. And allowing big ships to carry a few extra missiles. Yes, that makes sense.

Weird Harold wrote:

Bill Woods wrote:Then why were pods ever worth having? If you could just kick out yeah-many missiles one by one — but all programmed to start their drives at the same time?

Time.

With pods -- especially podlayers -- you kick out missiles in groups of eight to fourteen as fast as you would otherwise kick out missiles one-by-one.

Well, sure but if you can afford to put a port in the hull big enough to pass eight missiles and the surrounding paraphernalia of the pod, then you could afford to put enough launchers to dispense missiles in sets of eight.

Weird Harold wrote: One other advantage to pods, and especially pod-layers, any ship can launch and control any type/size of missiles. With Pod-layers as long as the pod will mate with the launch rails and fit through the doors (as all "flat-pack" pods are designed to do) a pod-layer can use anything from LERM, light single drive missiles, to Apollo missiles in at least light-speed mode. (if Keyhole II is available, the full capability of Apollo can be used.)

Without pods, ships are limited to the type of missiles they have tubes to fire.

Only if missiles have to fit in the tubes with tight tolerance. And why should they? Make the standard tube big enough to handle the biggest missile, and put expandable sabots on smaller missiles. Or kick them out sideways; any ship that has berthing for a cutter can deploy missiles through that port.

Remember that this started out as wooden ships and iron women in space. There are a lot of odd things that trace back to that.

Weird Harold wrote:

Bill Woods wrote:Then why were pods ever worth having? If you could just kick out yeah-many missiles one by one — but all programmed to start their drives at the same time?

Time.

With pods -- especially podlayers -- you kick out missiles in groups of eight to fourteen as fast as you would otherwise kick out missiles one-by-one./[quote]

Well, time,control links and efficiency.

Your average CA/BC has a reload on broadside tubes of what, 6 to 8 seconds per tube? So even a Nike-class (off-bore firing excluded) is only going to be throwing 50 missiles every, say 20 seconds, from each broadside. In that same 20 seconds, you've deployed a triple pattern of 6 pods per pattern, 144 missiles (assuming Apollo) or 252 missiles (assuming BCP). Even with off-bore, a Nike class firing delayed activation double broadsides is now only pushing 100 missiles, which is still only 2/3 of what Apollo pods are putting into space.


But excluding the raw numbers, efficiency is a big issue. Your ship's travelling at 400-600 gravities, and unless you're tractoring every single missile as you float them out, they're strung out like a breadcrumb line behind you. That's going to require one helluva lot of control link time just to guide them for simultaneous Time-on-Target. Which means you're getting less time to concentrate on boosting your penaid efficiency, which means your over-sized broadside salvo's are now less efficient because you're focusing more on salvo size and less on actually hitting what you're shooting at.

Bill Woods wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:
Time.

With pods -- especially podlayers -- you kick out missiles in groups of eight to fourteen as fast as you would otherwise kick out missiles one-by-one.

Well, sure but if you can afford to put a port in the hull big enough to pass eight missiles and the surrounding paraphernalia of the pod, then you could afford to put enough launchers to dispense missiles in sets of eight.

Weird Harold wrote: One other advantage to pods, and especially pod-layers, any ship can launch and control any type/size of missiles. With Pod-layers as long as the pod will mate with the launch rails and fit through the doors (as all "flat-pack" pods are designed to do) a pod-layer can use anything from LERM, light single drive missiles, to Apollo missiles in at least light-speed mode. (if Keyhole II is available, the full capability of Apollo can be used.)

Without pods, ships are limited to the type of missiles they have tubes to fire.

Only if missiles have to fit in the tubes with tight tolerance. And why should they? Make the standard tube big enough to handle the biggest missile, and put expandable sabots on smaller missiles. Or kick them out sideways; any ship that has berthing for a cutter can deploy missiles through that port.

And there ARE tight tolerances for missiles in tubes. The inner diameter of the launch tubes are at most 3cm larger than the outer diameter of the missile, and generally much closer to 1-2cm diameter difference. There's only one missile on my missile spreadsheet (that I can recall off the top of my head) that has a significantly smaller diameter that requires a sabot/sleeve to be fired from standard tubes (I believe it's supposed to fit in a Mk-13 tube).

So, no Mk-23 tubes firing Mk-16s and no Mk-16 tubes firing Mk-13s.

Edit: The grav field that fires the missiles is powerful, but very short-ranged, by neccessity, extending towards the center of the tube by only a few cm - maybe 10cm or so at the most.