QUESTION ABOUT WEAPON SYSTEMS

My first post/question, so be kind!

I am an avid reader of everything Weber, though I do prefer the 'Starfire' genre.

That said, I have a few questions regarding weapons and combat in the Honorverse.

In anticipation of the new release, I have been re-reading A Distant Thunder. It seems to me that missile combat has become paramount, and at vastly extended range. That said, why would SD's and the like still mount lasers and/or grasers (aside from tradition)? Wouldn't the space be better used for more missile tubes or the like? With the RMN advantage in missiles and targeting systems how would anything ever get into energy/beam range?

In A Distant Thunder came across passage after Honor and the fleet had just run a combat training scenario with Sollies in mind, where the assembled staff discusses missile defense. It is written that they believe that putting more counter-missile tubes and/or clusters is not the answer, but extending the range, the anti-missile zone outward- for which they use LACs.

Harkening back to Starfire, they used a Capital Anti-Fighter missile- to get more range than the standard AFM. Could something like that be developed? I'm sure the launcher(s) would take more space and of course the magazines for ammunition, but (going back to my first paragraph) could space be provided by eliminating, or reducing the laser/graser battery?

Again to Starfire, what about an SDE or BCE -whose only role would be anti-missile/LAC defense?

Thanks for reading, and I hope some of you are not laughing too hard at my questions/proposals!

Jeff Shanton

That said, why would SD's and the like still mount lasers and/or grasers (aside from tradition)?

Well, why do modern day destroyers and frigates still mount deck guns? They're still nice things to have, even if they're rarely used. The Alliance navies aren't prepared to unequivocally claim energy range combat will never happen. They've reduced the number of broadside energy weapons (as can be seen when comparing classes in House of Steel), but they'll keep them around just in case.

Again to Starfire, what about an SDE or BCE -whose only role would be anti-missile/LAC defense?

David has spoken a few times about escort designs. Here's an example, found towards the bottom of the page:

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/283/1

Cataphract wrote:My first post/question, so be kind!

I am an avid reader of everything Weber, though I do prefer the 'Starfire' genre.

That said, I have a few questions regarding weapons and combat in the Honorverse.

In anticipation of the new release, I have been re-reading A Distant Thunder. It seems to me that missile combat has become paramount, and at vastly extended range. That said, why would SD's and the like still mount lasers and/or grasers (aside from tradition)? Wouldn't the space be better used for more missile tubes or the like? With the RMN advantage in missiles and targeting systems how would anything ever get into energy/beam range?

Partly tradition, partly the fact that SD(P)s can shoot themselves dry very fast. And then they're vulnerable to LACs, destroyers, cruisers and battlecruisers.

At the Battle of Manticore, Second Fleet used their SD energy weapons with great effect on the Manticoran LACs, conserving most of their missiles for later engagements with Third Fleet.

BTW, some SD(P)s do not even have missile launchers anymore - they simply toss pods out of the rear hatches.

Cataphract wrote:Wouldn't the space be better used for more missile tubes or the like? With the RMN advantage in missiles and targeting systems how would anything ever get into energy/beam range?

This is basically the same argument that resulted in early models of the F-4 Phantom not having a gun -- "The dogfight is dead, long live BVR missiles."

Note that the lesson was learned and even the newest fighters have internal cannons for close-in dog-fighting.

The same principle applies to starship design, and the Bellerophon's encounter with a task group of PRN Battle cruisers in SVW is an example of why ships need energy mounts.

munroburton wrote:Partly tradition, partly the fact that SD(P)s can shoot themselves dry very fast. And then they're vulnerable to LACs, destroyers, cruisers and battlecruisers.

At the Battle of Manticore, Second Fleet used their SD energy weapons with great effect on the Manticoran LACs, conserving most of their missiles for later engagements with Third Fleet.

BTW, some SD(P)s do not even have missile launchers anymore - they simply toss pods out of the rear hatches.

There's probably also some clearance issues around missile tubes and CM launchers - you can only pack them so densely in significant numbers before you've got problems with missile wedge collisions. A missiles wedge is wider than the entire ship it launches from, so that's not a trivial problem. (A Roland-class DD can get away with very tightly packed missile tubes because it has so few of them so it's still fairly each for the missile to disperse far enough to light off)
Dumping all the energy mounts wouldn't add that many more missile tubes. Though you could trade them off at least 1-for-1 with PDCL mounts...

OTOH it would really suck to have no energy mounts if you got caught in energy range, or ran into somebody while in transit through a grav wave. We saw how Theisman's missile heavy CL, back in Honor of the Queen, wasn't as lethal as it could have been when forced to use laserheads at energy range after mousetrapping some of Honor's little force. And in a grav wave you don't have that option at all. So retaining a few seems like a reasonable idea, even if they're more backup or special purpose weapons rather than your main shipkillers.

Cataphract wrote:Harkening back to Starfire, they used a Capital Anti-Fighter missile- to get more range than the standard AFM. Could something like that be developed? I'm sure the launcher(s) would take more space and of course the magazines for ammunition

Longer ranged CMs have been discussed around here, and Manticore did just introduce some in Ashes of Victory (the Mark31 CM with 3.6 million km range; vs the older CMs which tended to be around 1.5 million kms)

But at even that range we are told that the issue is no longer additional drive endurance, it's fire control -- because the light-speed control links from Ship to CMs are too laggy out there at 12 lightseconds to be very effective. Increasing range without either implementing some form of FTL control or some vastly improved fire-and-forget self-intercept capability is, at the moment, apparently pointless.


But welcome to the forums and I hope the answers you got here won't discourage you from continuing to participate.

When your rifle runs out of ammo, it's good to have a side arm. Or you'll be relegated to wielding a knife at a gunfight.

But in the Honorverse, that would be more akin to brandishing a knife against energy weapons — at knife fight range. Go figure.

munroburton wrote:

Cataphract wrote:My first post/question, so be kind!

I am an avid reader of everything Weber, though I do prefer the 'Starfire' genre.

That said, I have a few questions regarding weapons and combat in the Honorverse.

In anticipation of the new release, I have been re-reading A Distant Thunder. It seems to me that missile combat has become paramount, and at vastly extended range. That said, why would SD's and the like still mount lasers and/or grasers (aside from tradition)? Wouldn't the space be better used for more missile tubes or the like? With the RMN advantage in missiles and targeting systems how would anything ever get into energy/beam range?

Partly tradition, partly the fact that SD(P)s can shoot themselves dry very fast. And then they're vulnerable to LACs, destroyers, cruisers and battlecruisers.

At the Battle of Manticore, Second Fleet used their SD energy weapons with great effect on the Manticoran LACs, conserving most of their missiles for later engagements with Third Fleet.

BTW, some SD(P)s do not even have missile launchers anymore - they simply toss pods out of the rear hatches.

Exqueseme, my bold.

I don't doubt that that's true. And it shocked me. But if heavy damage, malfunction or even an uninvited Murphy onboard, rears its ugly head, wouldn't it be safer to at least consider tubes as emergency backup launchers? The concept seems only a step below excluding energy beams in exchange for an "all missile" payload.

cthia wrote:

munroburton wrote:
BTW, some SD(P)s do not even have missile launchers anymore - they simply toss pods out of the rear hatches.

Exqueseme, my bold.

I don't doubt that that's true. And it shocked me. But if heavy damage, malfunction or even an uninvited Murphy onboard, rears its ugly head, wouldn't it be safer to at least consider tubes as emergency backup launchers? The concept seems only a step below excluding energy beams in exchange for an "all missile" payload.

Haven dropped broadside tubes because their 3-drive MDMs were too big to be effectively tube launched.

Grayson held onto them, not so much for the reasons you said but to allow them flexibility of adding jammer or decoy missiles to any given salvo from the broadsides.

The Mantie's Invictus class dropped them - and that's the one that's most questionable to my mind. Though it did let them mount a prodigious number of CMs and PDLCs in addition to the giant Keyhole II towed platforms. (Despite the amount of volume, IIRC more than a DD, that the Keyhole II took up the broadside point defense the Invictus carried was a major increase over the Medusa; which was already about the heaviest in space. Medusa carried 54CM, 52PD while the Invictus upped that to 84CM, 62PD)

But despite that I think I recall David saying BuShips had decided that was probably a step too far and that the next gen SD(P) design - the ones that got blown up by Oyster Bay while still under construction - reverted back to carrying some broadside tubes again.

there's also the whole planetary bombardment requirement as seen in A Whiff of Grapeshot
Grasers are cheaper to fire than missiles
and final if a missile only fleet was caught in a gravity wave how would it defend it self?

After WW2 the British navy went with missiles. It proved to be a problem in the Malaysian troubles, when their latest state of the art destroyers needed to stop junks to check for contraband. Do you use a 100k pound missile to sink a 50k pound junk or fire a warning shot? They had to retro fit guns.