Lord Skimper wrote:One wonders if a weapons system might be developed that would allow one to shoot missiles with large clusters of weak laser heads, Point Defense strength. Say 24-36 small point defense laser heads, fired at salvos of missiles in box fire. Pods using a defense Apollo setting up a box fire of 24+ small laser heads each missile, could fire and create a wall of energy. Each ship can fire such as a Nike or Sag. C, 20/40, 25/50, 40/80, 50/100, 60/120, 75/150, 80/160, 100/200. fully controlled missiles. Depends how stacked you set up the missiles. Mk16 variants, Nothing says that a Sag C or Nike can't use Apollo. Apollo doesn't need Keyhole II, it uses Keyhole II to impose the ships' wedge between itself and the target. At 24x200=4800/Ship. of energy laser heads at a box placement intercepting missiles halfway out and each level closer. One doesn't need Keyhole when fighting missiles way out of range.
With pods 200 such apollo controlled missiles with pod layers can fire multi small laser clusters at such missile salvos plus EW etc...
EW itself isn't a directed weapon yet could be fired at salvos to confuse the warheads into early detonation. Ghost ships appearing out of the shadows. Be they hard to see LAC's or hidden SD's. I always wondered why that hasn't happened.
Only one wonders?
Anyway, without TARDIS tech (a problem a number of your schemes over the years have had) there's no way to fit 24+ lasing rods into a reasonable sized missile. I guess with shorter rod (equaling weaker and less focused lasers) you
might be able to squeeze in 10 to a capital ship sized missile. But doing so would be a total waste of resources. Space is vast, and ten, or even a thousand laser shots cover less area, and hence have a lower probability of kill than a single CM. the CM sweeps something like 33,700,000 cubic km and the first missile met in that volume is destroyed. A thousand laser heads generously sweeps something like a mere 1000 cubic km - so 33700 time less.
(a laser covers less range than the cm; gave it a million km effective vs 3 million for the cm; and a beam diameter of a meter; and it has to hit the missile directly instead of a wedge to wedge hit a couple meter wide target with a meter wide beam vs a 10 km wide target with a 10+ km wide wedge)
Also RFC has said (at least so far) it's not possible to hull mount Apollo FTL fire control links; they have to be on a remote platform. (We wanted BCs or CAs to have a few hull mounted links to give a squadron towing Apollo pods a limited FTL 'sniper' capability. He said no.
I speculate that given the limited size of the Apollo receiver the ships wedge's FTL signal might blind it, like trying to look into a spotlight; putting the emitter out on a Keyhole II flying well clear of the ship lets the receiver avoid looking directly into a wedge while communicating.
