Jonathan_S wrote:Rincewind wrote:I could envision some navy coming up with a system whereby they deploy a remote controlled drone on the flanks of their ships, much like the Manties deploy Keyhole. It would not even need to have the wedge powered up until the last minute or so, just so long as it is at full power once the laserheads detonate. The drone could then roll its wedge so that its roof would be to the attacking laserheads fire.
This would not be a perfect shield. However as they say up North where I came from; "Owt's betta'n nowt." It would also be difficult to control & co-ordinate but it could be done but as Mike Henke realised in Storm from the Shadows there was nothing wrong with a crude technique if it was also an effective one.
As I pointed out this has the problem that you can't see through the drone's wedge. So as soon as it brings up it's wedge you're blinded to all the incoming missiles. (Unless you have something like Keyhole stuck far enough ahead or behind you to see around the wedge shadowing your broadside).
If the incoming fire is stupid, and there's big gaps between salvos, that's fine. The first salvo will waste all it's fire on the interposed wedge and you can drop it, or rotate the drone and let your broadside sensors pick up the trailing salvos again.
But if the incoming missiles have a little better AI, or the attacker risked diverting some fire for a bow or stern shot, you've got a problem. You can't see the missiles, so you can't see if any alter course to try and pass ahead or astern of you. So your point defense is caught flatfooted as they break past the interposed drone wedge.
(They can either got for blindfire at your estimated location the instant they have a clear angle; before your defenses have a prayer of reacting, or hold off for a moment to try to get deep enough to have a classic down the throat shot with no interposed sidewall)
I guess with keyhole, if you positioned them properly, you could see and track incoming with a drone wedge off your broadside. But even then I'm not sure that's better than just rolling your own wedge towards the missile. The drone provides better coverage, but it also prevents you from using half your CMs. I'd suspect in most situations that having all your CM tubes available trumps having an impenetrable wedge off one broadside.
I think part of the reason for our diverging views on this matter is who do we think would most benefit from this kind of defence? If you are thinking about the RMN or any other navies of the GA then it would not make much sense as they have intrinsically better defences than other navies do. But if you are talking about any other navy, such as the SLN or, far more likely if you pardon my saying so, one of the SDFs that has sent observers to the Haven Wars & have seen the RMN in action then it does make more sense; (My personal view would be that it is one of the SDFs. They were described as being a lot more open to any kind of improvement). It would be far more difficult for any of those navies to even come close to duplicating the RMNs defences as a large component of it is the LACs which they would have to design & manufacture together with both the missiles & the CLACs. Also the observers would have seen how good RMN penetration aids had been at reducing conventional defences to impotence.
Regarding your point about the drone's wedge blinding the defender's fire control, especially to a bow or stern shot I would agree that that is a valid point. It would all boil down to how soon the attacking missile salvo's control links were cut & how close to the target they were. I envisioned this defence being brought up at the last possible moment to give the attacking salvo the shortest possible time to react. Obviously any deliberate fire aimed at the projected bow or stern would be harder to deal with. However, if you have deployed one drone on your flanks then why not deploy several more just to give you additional targeting for your CMs & Laser Clusters. It would probably be less effective but, as I said in my first post, 'Owt's better'n nowt!' Also, a large part of the effectiveness of the RMN's missile salvoes is that they have already reduced the target's defences to impotence anyway. So, in that situation they do not really have much to lose.
One other point is that I would have envisioned this as being part of a layered defence... & not necessarily a conventional one either. Individually each component would be less effective but collectively they could make an effective defence. Certainly the RMN, even with its superior technology has been surprised a time or two.
*runs*