Honorverse ramblings and musings

cthia wrote:I share your logic completely and I simply cannot figure out why Barricade's missiles weren't reused. They had everything going for themselves. No need for me to restate the obvious, as you've done a fine job.

Also, if Barricade's missiles would have been pressed for drive time, after passing through the SLN launches, couldn't they have gone ballistic themselves after revectoring? Then their drives could have been brought back up at max. accel?

Lots of things about Barricade don't make much sense to me. About the only way I can see that the missiles wouldn't be able to at least drift aggressively towards the enemy is if they finished the Barricade pass with more lateral vector than their remaining drives time could counter. They'd then drift sideways off target no matter what anybody tried to do.

Why would they do that though? Did they make a slashing pass sideways through the incoming missiles? I just can't visualize the geometry -- there are too many things that don't make sense.


As to your thought that they could drive and then bring up drives at max -- that only works if you've never lit off their final drive. Missile drives are totally single use; even if you turn them off early the nodes slag down from the energies involved. (Price you pay for making such a small yet insanely powerful drive) It's not clear if the Mk23's involved in Barricade would have had to use their 3rd drive at all before the intercept was done; if they did then that's it, they get however many seconds are left on it and then they're stuck on the resulting vector until they find the enemy or self-destruct.

Hi guys,

Sigh.

Some people need to reread the section AGAIN; the Barricade salvo's are full power shots, at 92,000 G's acceleration, twice as fast as the 200 missile attack volley which was at half power.

Three minutes at full power means they only go 14,612,400 km before complete burnout, ie not even half way to Tamaguchi.

Now its possible that the Barricade missiles only used the first two drives, to keep up the myth that the RMN only had DDM's not triple, but BatCruRon #720 was so screwed they needn't have bothered; but I would've liked to see the scene where Tamaguchi or his ops officers finally realize the RMN has triple drives not just two.

Best wishes to all for the new year!

L

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:I share your logic completely and I simply cannot figure out why Barricade's missiles weren't reused. They had everything going for themselves. No need for me to restate the obvious, as you've done a fine job.

Also, if Barricade's missiles would have been pressed for drive time, after passing through the SLN launches, couldn't they have gone ballistic themselves after revectoring? Then their drives could have been brought back up at max. accel?

Lots of things about Barricade don't make much sense to me. About the only way I can see that the missiles wouldn't be able to at least drift aggressively towards the enemy is if they finished the Barricade pass with more lateral vector than their remaining drives time could counter. They'd then drift sideways off target no matter what anybody tried to do.

Why would they do that though? Did they make a slashing pass sideways through the incoming missiles? I just can't visualize the geometry -- there are too many things that don't make sense.


As to your thought that they could drive and then bring up drives at max -- that only works if you've never lit off their final drive. Missile drives are totally single use; even if you turn them off early the nodes slag down from the energies involved. (Price you pay for making such a small yet insanely powerful drive) It's not clear if the Mk23's involved in Barricade would have had to use their 3rd drive at all before the intercept was done; if they did then that's it, they get however many seconds are left on it and then they're stuck on the resulting vector until they find the enemy or self-destruct.

Jonathan_S wrote:
drift aggressively

I love that image, puts me in mid of the Portuguese Man-O'War Jellyfish.

Would someone be so kind as to tell me the maximum range of the Mk23, w/o ballistic segment? And the number of drives. (4?) So's I won't, like the SLN, step on my own chestnuts roasting in the open fire. Thanks in advance.

I think Honor fired from about 72M kilometers with.

Oops, belay that request Number One. Picard out.

The engagement began at 30M km. Tremaine was holding the range open.

Cataphracts are a two drive missile with an effective range of 16.6M km. That is 8.3M km per drive. They would have wanted to burn all of their initial drive before going ballistic to achieve higher missile velocities against the more capable Manty defense. That would have placed them, at most, 23M km from the point of Barricades launch. Also, Barricade was executed after all three SLN launches were inbound and too far away to update orders, putting them even closer. It was also indirectly stated that the two forces were headed directly at each other.

Now, as per the misnomer in my logic as lyonheart brought to my attention (thanks btw), Barricade's missiles were launched at maximum acceleration of 96Gs, giving them a max. range of only 15M km with three drives. For an average of 5M km per drive. At max. accel, they could not have reached Tamaguchi.

It is interesting to note that the 15M km range at max. accel of the Mk23 could not have reached the SLNs missiles either, until they had traveled at least 7M km. (covered by the 8.3M km of Cataphract's first drive). Supported by...

“Assume the same endurance on the nodes,” Tremaine said, never looking away from the plot. “Range at burnout?”

“From rest, assuming a three-minute burn and no change in the final stage’s acceleration rate or endurance, about niner-point-one million klicks,” the ops officer replied.

Then, validating the normally drunken wiki source...

Assume they’ve got the same final stage, and we’re looking at about one-six-point-four million kilometers total powered envelope. How far they can actually reach depends on how big a ballistic phase they insert into the middle of that.”

Which concludes the exercise and validates lyonheart's post that Barricade's missiles could not have been effective unless Tamaguchi ran into them. Which was possible but not probable.

BUT!

Why were Barricade's missiles launched at max accel? Granted, I was in error thinking that they were launched at a lower accel. But only because it seems counterproductive to send them swashbuckling through the SLN launches hauling ass, thus denying them maximum loitering time. How could they accomplish much at that accel?

If they had been launched at the lower drive setting, powered range would have increased to 63M km. With an average of 20M km per drive, Barricade could have accomplished its mission with only one drive! Certainly close! With more than twice the range overall, needed to reach Tamaguchi!

And if the second drive was needed, it would only have needed < half of its drive time to complete Barricade's wishes! I think the rest is obvious.

cthia wrote:Would someone be so kind as to tell me the maximum range of the Mk23, w/o ballistic segment? And the number of drives. (4?) So's I won't, like the SLN, step on my own chestnuts roasting in the open fire. Thanks in advance.

I think Honor fired from about 72M kilometers with.

Oops, belay that request Number One. Picard out.

All shipborn mdms are 3 drives or less. Only pod based system defense have 4 or more stages currently.

D(max)=V(ship)*T + V(launcher)*T + 1/2*A(missile)*T^2

where T=540sec (3x180 sec), A(missile) is 46,000g
V(ship)=0 and V(launcher) is 50,000m/s and g=10m/s

D(Max)=67,149,000 Km

So depending on ship velocity, 72 Million KM is easily doable.

cthia wrote:
BUT!

Why were Barricade's missiles launched at max accel? Granted, I was in error thinking that they were launched at a lower accel. But only because it seems counterproductive to send them swashbuckling through the SLN launches hauling ass, thus denying them maximum loitering time. How could they accomplish much at that accel?

If they had been launched at the lower drive setting, powered range would have increased to 63M km. With an average of 20M km per drive, Barricade could have accomplished its mission with only one drive! Certainly close! With more than twice the range overall, needed to reach Tamaguchi!

And if the second drive was needed, it would only have needed < half of its drive time to complete Barricade's wishes! I think the rest is obvious.

I'm to lazy to compute it, but could it be, that Tamagutchis missiles would have activated their 2nd stage, (and regain their own maneuverability) before the Barricade missiles were in position to intercept them, if the accel of the barricades was "only" 46.000g?

Eagleeye wrote:

cthia wrote:
BUT!

Why were Barricade's missiles launched at max accel? Granted, I was in error thinking that they were launched at a lower accel. But only because it seems counterproductive to send them swashbuckling through the SLN launches hauling ass, thus denying them maximum loitering time. How could they accomplish much at that accel?

If they had been launched at the lower drive setting, powered range would have increased to 63M km. With an average of 20M km per drive, Barricade could have accomplished its mission with only one drive! Certainly close! With more than twice the range overall, needed to reach Tamaguchi!

And if the second drive was needed, it would only have needed < half of its drive time to complete Barricade's wishes! I think the rest is obvious.

I'm to lazy to compute it, but could it be, that Tamagutchis missiles would have activated their 2nd stage, (and regain their own maneuverability) before the Barricade missiles were in position to intercept them, if the accel of the barricades was "only" 46.000g?

What an Eagle eye! I think you may be on to something. Especially since the SLN launches were to bring their final drive up at 10M km short of target, you may have pegged the answer. Lacking is the length of the ballistic segment, but simply figuring complete burn on second stage should suffice. Also missing is the specific moment of Barricade's launch. But still doable.

I certainly don't have the time or lack of laziness to cipher either. I still have twenty something bikes to deliver to families. Volunteer and charity mode continues. And I am exhausted. But the smiles and screaming excitement makes it well worth it.

cthia wrote:The engagement began at 30M km. Tremaine was holding the range open.

Cataphracts are a two drive missile with an effective range of 16.6M km. That is 8.3M km per drive..

That’s the average - but for most things with missiles in space average distance per drive is more misleading than otherwise. The second drive benefits from all the velocity the first drive built up. So a second identical drive more than triples the range.
For example a 3 drive Mk23 the 3 drives are (@ half power):
1st - ~7 million km
2nd - ~29 million km
3rd - ~66 million km

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:The engagement began at 30M km. Tremaine was holding the range open.

Cataphracts are a two drive missile with an effective range of 16.6M km. That is 8.3M km per drive..

That’s the average - but for most things with missiles in space average distance per drive is more misleading than otherwise. The second drive benefits from all the velocity the first drive built up. So a second identical drive more than triples the range.
For example a 3 drive Mk23 the 3 drives are (@ half power):
1st - ~7 million km
2nd - ~29 million km
3rd - ~66 million km

"Status change!"

Well that changes the cost of the peanuts in the stadium. Now I'm really struggling with Barricade! Misery loves company?

Thanks for the accurate data.