long ranged CM

With the Cataphract we have learned that the first stage is a relatively slow CM stage at 6.4MKm. Couldn't this be used as a long range CM. As a first shot CM and a Follow up Fast short range CM. Box fire to ignore jammers and just keep their preset patterns to cover wedge dynamics.

Lord Skimper wrote:With the Cataphract we have learned that the first stage is a relatively slow CM stage at 6.4MKm. Couldn't this be used as a long range CM. As a first shot CM and a Follow up Fast short range CM. Box fire to ignore jammers and just keep their preset patterns to cover wedge dynamics.

The first stage is the missile and the final stage is the CM with a smaller warhead. In the Honorverse, the intercept for a CM and an attack on a warship are not the same. The attack missile has a large maneuver advantage over the warship, but the advantage of the CM over the attack missile is much narrower. You can have a larger lag on the attack missle and still hit the warship, but hitting the attack missile with a CM needs a smaller lag. Multiple drive CMs will need almost certainly need something like Apollo before they will work.

Lord Skimper wrote:With the Cataphract we have learned that the first stage is a relatively slow CM stage at 6.4MKm. Couldn't this be used as a long range CM. As a first shot CM and a Follow up Fast short range CM. Box fire to ignore jammers and just keep their preset patterns to cover wedge dynamics.

The first stage of a Cataphract is a standard missile drive, not a CM drive so is not practical for use as a CM.

Also what do you mean by box fire?

Kizarvexis wrote:
The first stage is the missile and the final stage is the CM with a smaller warhead.

Yep. And the CM drive stage in the Catapract is shorter ranged, 2.7 million km, than the current Mnticoran CMs, 3.6 million km. (Though unless Haven's had a breakthrough or tech transfer we haven't seen yet it down outrage their CMs)

Also Skimper got some bad info on the range of the 1st stage; it's good for 7.7 million km (at half power) or only 1.7 million km at full power.

The Cataphract has a range of ~16GM. This is based upon a two stage missile under full all the way power. Yet somehow the first stage is limited to 7.7GM and the CM or Javelin as some say, is 2.7GM how this adds up to 16GM i don't know. My math fails me adding this up...

It doesn't matter if you use a little warhead which somehow is way better than a Viper. Why is the Viper so bad?

Now I based the 16 on 9.9+6.4GM ranges (G=MxK{1,000,000,000=1,000,000x1,000}M(Metres)Gigametres)

Based upon the slower half power CM with longer range 6-6.4GM One can fire a set of CM's at the missile salvos coming in earlier and intercept them and fire the standard CM's for picking up the surviving missiles.

Box fire? You don't know what box fire is? Look up German Flak fire from WWII. It was fired to project a box of aerial denial. In WWII and now, box fire is dumb but effective. In the Honorverse it is highly effective because you know where you are vulnerable. It can't be jammed it can't get confused and because wedges are so large a stream of CM wedges can hide the tiny ship from the stream of energy from the missiles. which attack in large groups or swarms. Wedges even practice missile wedges or half strength CM wedges can stop a graser, as shown in Beginnings; stopping a laserhead is child's play.

Stream fire or modified box fire is able to block, particularly laserheads easily and effectively. Didn't work in age of wooden ships and multiple cannons but then their wedge was one sided, called the sea.

Box fire lets you fire at controlling a spot in space, anything in that spot is stopped from doing what it does. Box fire is less effective in missile combat because of ranges and acceleration rates but works there too once the missile gets into the area. Missile salvo's use box fire to overwhelm the defenses and find a way through. As noted by RFC in an earlier post. However box fire can be used dumb defensively to. it doesn't work well with connecting missiles like a 21st century sidewinder. but it does with modern artillery that can blanket fire an area. With laserheads it is part of the way laserheads work, within 25MM (25,000 KM). The area gets blasted with laser fire.

Box fire can be used both ways and unlike slow moving missiles in air laserheads and honorverse contact missiles are moving so fast they are unable to turn, putting a wedge in the way makes your missile useless. Box fire nullifies your jammers and missile advantages.

Lord Skimper wrote:The Cataphract has a range of ~16GM. This is based upon a two stage missile under full all the way power. Yet somehow the first stage is limited to 7.7GM and the CM or Javelin as some say, is 2.7GM how this adds up to 16GM i don't know. My math fails me adding this up...

the distance formula is 1/2*A*T^2
That is time Squared or time*time

The first has a range of 7.78Mkm
the first stage gives the counter missile an initial velocity of 86,400KM/sec. Over 75 seconds that adds 6.48Mkm to the range.

7.78+6.48+2.7=16.96Mkm

A single drive manticore missile has 7.29Mkm range from rest
A dual drive manticore missile has 29.16Mkm range from rest, not 14.58Mkm
A tripple drive manticore missile has 65.61Mkm range from rest, not 21.87Mkm

Personally, I would have used the CM drive first. 72,000 velocity imparted to the main missile 3 minute drive would have given a 12,96Mkm boost for a total range of 24.4Mkm, 6.5Mkm farther.

Lord Skimper wrote:it doesn't matter if you use a little warhead which somehow is way better than a Viper. Why is the Viper so bad?

The viper is a single small lasing rod (2m) with a small grav lens and a small (5Meg) warhead.

A DD missile has six 3M lasing rods, a 15 meg warhead and a better grav lense. EACH lasing rod puts out a beam at least 5 times more powerful than the viper.

A BC missile has six 5M lasing rods, a 50 meg warhead and an even better grav lense. It is at last 5 times more powerful than a DD missile.

A SD missile has six 8M lasing rods, a 200 meg warhead and an excelent grav lense. It is at last 5 times more powerful than a BC missile.

For comparison, A SD missile would be equivalent to six 16" guns on a battleship, (400MM) a BC missile would be the equivalent of six 8" artillery shells (200MM) a DD missile would be the equivalent of six 4" artillery shells (105MM) and a viper that of a 2" shell (50MM)

Lord Skimper wrote:Based upon the slower half power CM with longer range 6-6.4GM One can fire a set of CM's at the missile salvos coming in earlier and intercept them and fire the standard CM's for picking up the surviving missiles.

There is no such thing as half power for counter missiles. In order to make the missile as small as possible it has only one drive setting, 100%

Lord Skimper wrote:Box fire? You don't know what box fire is? Look up German Flak fire from WWII. It was fired to project a box of aerial denial. In WWII and now, box fire is dumb but effective. In the Honorverse it is highly effective because you know where you are vulnerable. It can't be jammed it can't get confused and because wedges are so large a stream of CM wedges can hide the tiny ship from the stream of energy from the missiles. which attack in large groups or swarms. Wedges even practice missile wedges or half strength CM wedges can stop a graser, as shown in Beginnings; stopping a laserhead is child's play.

Stream fire or modified box fire is able to block, particularly laserheads easily and effectively. Didn't work in age of wooden ships and multiple cannons but then their wedge was one sided, called the sea.

Box fire lets you fire at controlling a spot in space, anything in that spot is stopped from doing what it does. Box fire is less effective in missile combat because of ranges and acceleration rates but works there too once the missile gets into the area. Missile salvo's use box fire to overwhelm the defenses and find a way through. As noted by RFC in an earlier post. However box fire can be used dumb defensively to. it doesn't work well with connecting missiles like a 21st century sidewinder. but it does with modern artillery that can blanket fire an area. With laserheads it is part of the way laserheads work, within 25MM (25,000 KM). The area gets blasted with laser fire.

Box fire can be used both ways and unlike slow moving missiles in air laserheads and honorverse contact missiles are moving so fast they are unable to turn, putting a wedge in the way makes your missile useless. Box fire nullifies your jammers and missile advantages.

Box fire is firing multiple shots in a grid to make sure you hit the target, which won't work in the Honorverse.

A missile or a CM drive is 10KM square. The CM's would have to have a seperation no more than 19.5Km apart to work. Remember that laser heads have an effective range of 30,000 KM, and to cover a disk with a radius of 10,000 KM would require more than 200,000 CM's.

Let me add that after expending 200K CM's it would be effective only once. After that the opponent could send their missiles in on a trailing system, 1/10 second intervals. Box fire would get the first missile, the 9 following it would get through.

by the sound of it, box fire is similar to what Republican vessels did for counter-missiles after Foraker got sent to Bolthole to design the Havenite SDP's and other new ships. To defend against the much more sophisticated Manticoran missiles, they relied on "shoot, shoot, aim" and they rely a little on the same tactice offensively.

Except nowadays, the Solarian League is in much the same position as Haven used to be. Republican ships will be able to achieve the same sort of highly precise Counter-missiles picking off incoming missiles in droves, meanwhile Solarian ships will be throwing up "walls" of counter missiles and still missing them by the hundreds.