Honorverse ramblings and musings

Do Manty CMs significantly outrange Solarian counterparts as well?

cthia wrote:Do Manty CMs significantly outrange Solarian counterparts as well?

Hardly matters. The better tech can win out with all other things being equal. They probably do since the Manties actually have been working on them for years while the Sollies effectively did nothing.

cthia wrote:Do Manty CMs significantly outrange Solarian counterparts as well?

Seems extremely likely, though we don't have absolute confirmation.

When I did my survey of missile performance the only place I found a stated range for SLN CMs was in ART, but it was from an RMN simulation (so there's a chance the intel was wrong. However this would be after Spindle, so they should have captured hardware to examine and verify) In that simulation "the maximum powered endurance of Solarian counter-missiles was just under 1.8 million kilometers"

And of course that's significantly shorter than "the roughly 3.6 million-kilometer reach of the current Mark 31 counter-missile."




Though if that 1.8 million number is true there's something very weird about SLN tech - because the 2nd stage of a Cataphract, purportedly based off their CM drive tech, could do 2.7 million km from rest. (961 KPS^2 for 75 seconds). Though 60 seconds of that accel is a bit under 1.8 million km; at 1.72 million km.

I guess it's possible that they had a drive endurance breakthrough but couldn't cram the extra capacitors necessary to use it into something small enough their current CM magazines and tubes could handle.


But in general the SLN missile numbers are weird.
Their Javelin is capable of 47,600 / 95,200 gees, but their CM is only capable of 98,000 gees.
An RMN Mk23 can only do 46,000 / 92,000 gees, but a Mk31 CM can do 130,000 gees. [Though for some reason attacking Barnett at the end of the first war with Haven 8th fleet had MDMs capable of 48,000 / 96.000 gees. So I still don't understand why the micro-fusion ones got slower)
Not sure why the SLN would have such a small performance gap between their missile and CMs drives.

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:Do Manty CMs significantly outrange Solarian counterparts as well?

Seems extremely likely, though we don't have absolute confirmation.

When I did my survey of missile performance the only place I found a stated range for SLN CMs was in ART, but it was from an RMN simulation (so there's a chance the intel was wrong. However this would be after Spindle, so they should have captured hardware to examine and verify) In that simulation "the maximum powered endurance of Solarian counter-missiles was just under 1.8 million kilometers"

And of course that's significantly shorter than "the roughly 3.6 million-kilometer reach of the current Mark 31 counter-missile."




Though if that 1.8 million number is true there's something very weird about SLN tech - because the 2nd stage of a Cataphract, purportedly based off their CM drive tech, could do 2.7 million km from rest. (961 KPS^2 for 75 seconds). Though 60 seconds of that accel is a bit under 1.8 million km; at 1.72 million km.

I guess it's possible that they had a drive endurance breakthrough but couldn't cram the extra capacitors necessary to use it into something small enough their current CM magazines and tubes could handle.


But in general the SLN missile numbers are weird.
Their Javelin is capable of 47,600 / 95,200 gees, but their CM is only capable of 98,000 gees.
An RMN Mk27 can only do 46,000 / 92,000 gees, but a Mk31 CM can do 130,000 gees. [Though for some reason attacking Barnett at the end of the first war with Haven 8th fleet had MDMs capable of 48,000 / 96.000 gees. So I still don't understand why the micro-fusion ones got slower)
Not sure why the SLN would have such a small performance gap between their missile and CMs drives.

Thanks for the data, Jonathan, from your normal efficient self. The reason I was interested lies in this passage, which, for the SLN to pull off, they need hard data on Manty CMs. I suppose they'd have that from past engagements. And the RMN probably wouldn't have any need to hide maximum CM range....

And of course BatCruRon 720 had seen no reason to disperse their shipkillers during their ballistic phase, because no one could possibly have targeted them at that range, so—
“Their second stages are programmed to light off at least six million klicks short of CM range,” the ops officer went on bitterly, completing Vangelis’ thoughts for him, “so there’d be plenty of time for them to disperse during their final attack runs. Only we forgot how frigging long the Manties’ burn times are…and no one’s ever used attack missiles as CMs. We couldn’t have done it even with their birds; there wouldn’t’ve been enough time to track, launch, and guide.

However, there still exists a mindboggling number of holes in SLN intel on Manty hardware. They still don't realize that the RMN launch some of their long-legged missiles from internal tubes. They don't know maximum Manty missile envelope, etc. Not knowing how to duplicate certain Manty tech is one thing, but they are still coming to terms that FTL tech is really a thing.

I considered starting a new thread to lay out remaining holes in SLN intel. Which is incredible. So I figured that they'd be in the dark about Manty CM range as well.

cthia wrote:Thanks for the data, Jonathan, from your normal efficient self. The reason I was interested lies in this passage, which, for the SLN to pull off, they need hard data on Manty CMs. I suppose they'd have that from past engagements. And the RMN probably wouldn't have any need to hide maximum CM range....

And of course BatCruRon 720 had seen no reason to disperse their shipkillers during their ballistic phase, because no one could possibly have targeted them at that range, so—
“Their second stages are programmed to light off at least six million klicks short of CM range,”

Though I guess even if they were wildly wrong about missile envelope a 6 million km margin would cover a lot of intel failings. Though if they got any sensor data back from the fiasco of Raging Justice it should have shown that the RMN had extended range CMs. Probably wouldn't show their full range as, IIRC, Manticore tends not to aim for intercepts beyond about 2.9 million km - the lag causes the hit percentages to drop too much.

OTOH the SLN didn't have a lot of choice about lighting off there. The 75 second CM derived second stage only adds a maximum of 9 million km to the Cataphract's range (And that's assuming you got the max velocity out of the 1st stage. So against what's presumed to be bit under a 3 million km CM envelope of course you're lighting off 6 million km beyond that - but only because that's the stage's range. You'd light off at ~9 million km from your intercept of target regardless of target's CM range. That minimized your flight time and maximizes you terminal velocity.

cthia wrote:Indeed, the Manties only lost two of their own birds from Barricade, which really makes it seem even more of a waste that the survivors did not continue on for more appointments of doom and destruction...

The computers say they only lost two of their own birds—must’ve been to direct collisions, since there wasn’t any wedge fratricide, although I’d hate to try to figure the odds of kinetic intercepts in that kind of volume to do that. So we handed them a nice, tight target, and they just cut the crap right out of it with their shipkillers’ wedges!”

Vangelis felt the blood draining out of his face, and the tac officer shook his head slowly, wearily, like a very old man.
“It wasn’t very efficient,” he said. “From a cost effectiveness perspective, taking them out this way instead of using standard CMs must’ve cost at least a hundred times as much for each kill, not to mention using up a slew of missiles they won’t have to use as shipkillers now. But it damned well worked, and the cost per kill’s going to come down, because they’re about to do the same thing to all our other launches. The computers say they only lost two of their own birds—must’ve been to direct collisions, since there wasn’t any wedge fratricide, although I’d hate to try to figure the odds of kinetic intercepts in that kind of volume—and they’re already reorienting. In fact, they’ve already passed through our second launch, and they’re bearing down on number three.”

I'm surprised that Tamaguchi could so quickly see that Barricade's missiles were actually reorienting. Lacking FTL.

Standard Honorverse gravitic sensors can see/receive gravitic emissions, especially missiles with their extremely high powered impeller wedges, at FTL speeds (62 times c in normal space*). This goes back in the Honorverse all the way to On Basilisk Station.

What is (relatively) new for the Honorverse is the ability to transmit information at FTL speed, starting with the very slow transmission rate (morse code speeds) in The Honor of the Queen.

* The exact FTL speed is a retcon of gravitc ripples along the alpha wall, after a real world experiment done after the series had multiple books published (plus later observations from LIGO) that showed that gravity waves in the real universe move at the speed of light.
Grav pulse comm in hyper
Effective speed by hyper band

Hi Jonathon_S,

Back in SoS [early 1921 PD, but way out in the boonies], the RMN CM's had a range of 1.5 M km, the ex SLN BC's 1 M km, while AAC the RMN had the Mark -31 and Viper, then in in MoH, IIRC, Crandall had CM's with 1.5 M km range, which given the years between publication wasn't that big a stretch.

In SoV, Tamaguchi thinks about the RMN CM's having a range of 3-4 M km in passing, but doesn't specify the SLN CM's have a similar range.

In some Apollo attacks, the last stage is switched to 'quick' mode lasting only a minute yet travelling over 11 M km to reduce target reaction time.

How Tamaguchi learned the RMN's CM range is in the 3-4 M km range is curious, precisely because no one who learned it returned to report it, since the RMN didn't need to use them until 'Raging Justice', with its close quarter engagement, yet the details provided to Sol were rather limited.

The SLN is still so in the dark regarding the RMN's capabilities that if they did fully know what they faced, more would give up without any fighting because they are so outmatched.

L

Jonathan_S wrote:quote="cthia"
Thanks for the data, Jonathan, from your normal efficient self. The reason I was interested lies in this passage, which, for the SLN to pull off, they need hard data on Manty CMs. I suppose they'd have that from past engagements. And the RMN probably wouldn't have any need to hide maximum CM range....

quote And of course BatCruRon 720 had seen no reason to disperse their shipkillers during their ballistic phase, because no one could possibly have targeted them at that range, so—
“Their second stages are programmed to light off at least six million klicks short of CM range,”

[/quote]Though I guess even if they were wildly wrong about missile envelope a 6 million km margin would cover a lot of intel failings. Though if they got any sensor data back from the fiasco of Raging Justice it should have shown that the RMN had extended range CMs. Probably wouldn't show their full range as, IIRC, Manticore tends not to aim for intercepts beyond about 2.9 million km - the lag causes the hit percentages to drop too much.

OTOH the SLN didn't have a lot of choice about lighting off there. The 75 second CM derived second stage only adds a maximum of 9 million km to the Cataphract's range (And that's assuming you got the max velocity out of the 1st stage. So against what's presumed to be bit under a 3 million km CM envelope of course you're lighting off 6 million km beyond that - but only because that's the stage's range. You'd light off at ~9 million km from your intercept of target regardless of target's CM range. That minimized your flight time and maximizes you terminal velocity.[/quote]

lyonheart wrote:Hi Jonathon_S,

Back in SoS [early 1921 PD, but way out in the boonies], the RMN CM's had a range of 1.5 M km, the ex SLN BC's 1 M km, while AAC the RMN had the Mark -31 and Viper, then in in MoH, IIRC, Crandall had CM's with 1.5 M km range, which given the years between publication wasn't that big a stretch.

In SoV, Tamaguchi thinks about the RMN CM's having a range of 3-4 M km in passing, but doesn't specify the SLN CM's have a similar range.

In some Apollo attacks, the last stage is switched to 'quick' mode lasting only a minute yet travelling over 11 M km to reduce target reaction time.

How Tamaguchi learned the RMN's CM range is in the 3-4 M km range is curious, precisely because no one who learned it returned to report it, since the RMN didn't need to use them until 'Raging Justice', with its close quarter engagement, yet the details provided to Sol were rather limited.

The SLN is still so in the dark regarding the RMN's capabilities that if they did fully know what they faced, more would give up without any fighting because they are so outmatched.

L

Jonathan_S wrote:quote="cthia"
Thanks for the data, Jonathan, from your normal efficient self. The reason I was interested lies in this passage, which, for the SLN to pull off, they need hard data on Manty CMs. I suppose they'd have that from past engagements. And the RMN probably wouldn't have any need to hide maximum CM range....

quote And of course BatCruRon 720 had seen no reason to disperse their shipkillers during their ballistic phase, because no one could possibly have targeted them at that range, so—
“Their second stages are programmed to light off at least six million klicks short of CM range,”

Though I guess even if they were wildly wrong about missile envelope a 6 million km margin would cover a lot of intel failings. Though if they got any sensor data back from the fiasco of Raging Justice it should have shown that the RMN had extended range CMs. Probably wouldn't show their full range as, IIRC, Manticore tends not to aim for intercepts beyond about 2.9 million km - the lag causes the hit percentages to drop too much.

OTOH the SLN didn't have a lot of choice about lighting off there. The 75 second CM derived second stage only adds a maximum of 9 million km to the Cataphract's range (And that's assuming you got the max velocity out of the 1st stage. So against what's presumed to be bit under a 3 million km CM envelope of course you're lighting off 6 million km beyond that - but only because that's the stage's range. You'd light off at ~9 million km from your intercept of target regardless of target's CM range. That minimized your flight time and maximizes you terminal velocity.[/quote][/quote]

Admirals and generals do not listen because the "know it all."
Example: US torpedoes from submarines in World War II. Time after time captains complained and were not listened to. The admirals finally ran the test because a) they were under real pressure, and b) to shut up the captains. Of course, the results were not what was expected but the navy had the good grace to wait on the announcement until all the leaders had retired. However, they did workarounds and eventually more or less fixed the problem.

The M-16s issued to US troops during VietNam had major problems that took quite a while to be addressed. Probably lost some soldiers but the top leaders never blamed each other.

The Solarian admiral in SoV thinks about how the navy was forced to actually do some testing to "prove that the reports about Mantie missiles were wrong" and had it blow up in their faces.

Many of the naval commodores and admirals, not to mention captains, were not fully aware of the huge tech disadvantage because it was not really publicized even through their ranks. So while commanders in the field knew there were problem they didn't know the extent of the problem. It was not just missile ranges, it was the drones, it was some of the ways missiles could be used, it was the Loralei's, etc.

It was even mentioned in the book that Mantie leaders thought that the Moriarty system would be able to prevent a Yawata
Strike disaster.

The SLN also has the difficulty of probably not seeing the LACs being used in the CM role and are making some estimates based on seeing CMs showing up well outside- and intercepting- SLN missles- along with the earlier information on probable RMN CM capabilities . Remember, the current generation RMN LACs are very difficult to track for SLN and while they still do need to stay out of the fireing solutions profiles for the anti-ship missles on both sides, they are going to be launching CMs into that volume of space.
The SLN might be thinking that RMN and RHN have what appear to be at least limited ultra-long range CM capability when what is actualy happening is a layed defence using those stealthy LACs as antimissile platforms.
Remember, nobody or essentialy nobody who was engaged and survived on the SLN side in the recent battles has gotten back to tell what they saw and although Manticore has released some sensor logs, they aren't going to be providing all the interesting tiny details like custers of CMs appearing way out in front of the RMN/RHN ships to start picking of SLN missiles. Someone is going to have to either say something like the intercepts tracks looked odd or note and correlate CM groups that seem to come in from the side or steep angle "in-front" of SLN missile volleys.
If you can't see the impeller track of some missle with something like a CM canister, you might guess that these things were being launched as part of a regular RMN anti-ship volley into the flight path of the SLN weapons and included a significant ballistic component before dispursing the CMs with seeker heads. Makes a much sense as invisable LACs being sent out on balisitic courses where they could be inside the intercept profile of the SLN missles. These are crazy neo-barbs, they could send LACs on Forlorn Hope missions such as gliding up the incomming attack vector to shoot at the SLN missles and pray none of the attack missiles locked up on something so small.

Hi Brigade XO,

I think you're right that the SLN has had a hard time recognizing the alliance LAC's as part of the layered defense, and given Tamaguchi only saw them when they wanted to be seen, implies that less capable SLN commanders and their staffs would miss them entirely unless the alliance are so obliging.

It was some eleven years ago that I and some others at the bar wondered what missiles cost and the production rate, suggesting that producing 5-10,000 missiles per day at 5-10 M$ million each would exceed even the SKM's wealth.

His Celeryness responded by pointing out the missiles were literally dirt cheap, made from asteroids etc, with all the production equipment [nanites etc] being amortized over tens if not hundreds of millions etc, so the actual unit cost was only a million or two, even for an Apollo eventually.

It then implies that CM's are proportionally less, perhaps in the M$ 100-200,000 range; so the 'Barricade' missiles were far more efficient than CM's not less, which required 432 CM's to kill just 58 [the worst RMN CM performance ever], or almost 7.5 for each kill, so the 'Barricade' missiles were more than 180 times as effective, ie perhaps 18+ more times cost effective.

Was it Honor or Mike who was thinking about how clever Scotty and Horace had been?

It will still take a time to pass the tactic along.

Best belated Christmas wishes to all, and a happy new year!

L

Brigade XO wrote:The SLN also has the difficulty of probably not seeing the LACs being used in the CM role and are making some estimates based on seeing CMs showing up well outside- and intercepting- SLN missles- along with the earlier information on probable RMN CM capabilities . Remember, the current generation RMN LACs are very difficult to track for SLN and while they still do need to stay out of the fireing solutions profiles for the anti-ship missles on both sides, they are going to be launching CMs into that volume of space.
The SLN might be thinking that RMN and RHN have what appear to be at least limited ultra-long range CM capability when what is actualy happening is a layed defence using those stealthy LACs as antimissile platforms.
Remember, nobody or essentialy nobody who was engaged and survived on the SLN side in the recent battles has gotten back to tell what they saw and although Manticore has released some sensor logs, they aren't going to be providing all the interesting tiny details like custers of CMs appearing way out in front of the RMN/RHN ships to start picking of SLN missiles. Someone is going to have to either say something like the intercepts tracks looked odd or note and correlate CM groups that seem to come in from the side or steep angle "in-front" of SLN missile volleys.
If you can't see the impeller track of some missle with something like a CM canister, you might guess that these things were being launched as part of a regular RMN anti-ship volley into the flight path of the SLN weapons and included a significant ballistic component before dispursing the CMs with seeker heads. Makes a much sense as invisable LACs being sent out on balisitic courses where they could be inside the intercept profile of the SLN missles. These are crazy neo-barbs, they could send LACs on Forlorn Hope missions such as gliding up the incomming attack vector to shoot at the SLN missles and pray none of the attack missiles locked up on something so small.