[spoiler] The future of missile combat

Weird Harold wrote:

Theemile wrote:So I can see the Andies not building a mk 41 line (dead end tech that will be retrofitted out asap), and not starting a mk 23 line, (wait, we're finalizing a new missile called Apollo, it's almost ready, why waste your time and money), ...

An Apollo pod needs eight Mk23s to go with the ACM. There's no reason the Andermani wouldn't build Mk23s while waiting for the final Apollo specs. Making minor modifications to the line if needed for Apollo compatibility wouldn't be a big deal and their non-Keyhole ships could still use Mk23 pods.

This is my belief as well. Especially given that the Mk23 is a very capable missile in its own right.

The US went into the Vitetnam war with new fighters etc that had missiles (like the F4 Phantom) but no guns.....and discovered that it was a mistake. So new models of the F4 and interesting retrofits to existing aircraft put guns on them. New models had them built in- retrofits was pods with guns& ammo.
The frame around my front licence plate says : "Too Close for Missiles, Switching to Guns".

A pod load of 30mm ammo feeding the gun the pod is built around can make sombody's day really suck.

That's another reason that a lot of US surface ships have .50cal weapons they can hang off railings....half inch slugs from an M2 machine gun have proven to be an effective deterrent. Way back in the 40's my father-in-law was a gunner's mate on a PT Boat. You need to sink barges in the islands in the Pacific (with or without the other side's marines on-board?} Ventilate with .50 cal slugs from a twin 50Cal mount. Suddenly you stop taking fire and soon the bardge is under water.

Weird Harold wrote:An Apollo pod needs eight Mk23s to go with the ACM. There's no reason the Andermani wouldn't build Mk23s while waiting for the final Apollo specs. Making minor modifications to the line if needed for Apollo compatibility wouldn't be a big deal and their non-Keyhole ships could still use Mk23 pods.

Word of Weber. That was the answer to the question I asked him a Honorcon. The didn’t have the tech package to build mk-23s until after the manticore factories were blown up, at which point a contact team with the package and experience building mk-23s got rapidly dispatched to the AIN.

kzt wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:An Apollo pod needs eight Mk23s to go with the ACM. There's no reason the Andermani wouldn't build Mk23s while waiting for the final Apollo specs. ...

Word of Weber. That was the answer to the question I asked him a Honorcon. The didn’t have the tech package to build mk-23s until after the manticore factories were blown up, ...

No reason except they didn't have the plans, that is.

My point was really that there's no difference between an "Apollo" Mk23 and a "regular" Mk23. Apollo is essentially just the ACM (Apollo Control Missile) and the other missiles in the Apollo pod could be anything (preferably with comparable range.)

we've drifted a bit (hardly a surprise) so lets start again.

a world with near SL core world tech and industry has decided it wants its own empire and doesn't care if worlds join willingly or are forced.

they know at some point either rogue SL or new SL or GA will eventually find out and they want a navy that can give a good accounting of itself in the belief that if/when they come to blows if they can make it cost enough, then they will be allowed to keep their empire, though not expand it.

now the important question is, is such a navy likely to settle for ships that can fire only SDMs in its light units units and catahphract like i.e. 2 missile bodies bolted together (though not actual cathpracts which as lots people have pointed out will not being handed out to pirates/black market, unless it is MA doing it)for BC and above? or will they build super sized DD and CLs that can tube fire these type of missiles at the expense of number of tubes you can mount?

or do you think they might have cracked the baffle tech? if so do they follow Manty practise where the CLs are on SDMs (if they cracked the baffle, why not extended drive endurance?) and every thing else hyper capable is DDM or MDM capable ?

or none of the above? weapons tech had been fairly static for quite some time prior to Ghost rider and everything that came after. will we enter another period of glacial change?

Weird Harold wrote:
No reason except they didn't have the plans, that is.

My point was really that there's no difference between an "Apollo" Mk23 and a "regular" Mk23. Apollo is essentially just the ACM (Apollo Control Missile) and the other missiles in the Apollo pod could be anything (preferably with comparable range.)

That's a decent point, but did they know that in late 1920. we know the Apollo idea moved around a lot, with many attampts to integrate the control link into the main missile.

So it's possible you are correct, that there was enough knowledge about the final iteration of the Apollo system in the 1920 timeframe - and if so, the Andermani should have demanded a Mk-23 line then. But given the shifting nature of the Apollo project seemingly up to the current, deployed iteration, it's understandable that they may have held off (or given advice to do so) because the final version was still in the air.

Dauntless wrote:we've drifted a bit (hardly a surprise) so lets start again.

a world with near SL core world tech and industry has decided it wants its own empire and doesn't care if worlds join willingly or are forced.

they know at some point either rogue SL or new SL or GA will eventually find out and they want a navy that can give a good accounting of itself in the belief that if/when they come to blows if they can make it cost enough, then they will be allowed to keep their empire, though not expand it.

now the important question is, is such a navy likely to settle for ships that can fire only SDMs in its light units units and catahphract like i.e. 2 missile bodies bolted together (though not actual cathpracts which as lots people have pointed out will not being handed out to pirates/black market, unless it is MA doing it)for BC and above? or will they build super sized DD and CLs that can tube fire these type of missiles at the expense of number of tubes you can mount?

or do you think they might have cracked the baffle tech? if so do they follow Manty practise where the CLs are on SDMs (if they cracked the baffle, why not extended drive endurance?) and every thing else hyper capable is DDM or MDM capable ?

or none of the above? weapons tech had been fairly static for quite some time prior to Ghost rider and everything that came after. will we enter another period of glacial change?

And that gets back to the fact that the only DD/CL missile beyond standard range is the LERM, no Cataphract can be fired from a traditional DD/CL.

Yes, the 188Kton Roland has Mk16 launchers, and the 286 Kton Marksman class CLs have Erewhonese Mk 17s (upgraded copies of the Mk 14 CA ERM). But we're talking about 2 new designs outside the normal DD/CL scope, with the latter being a slimmed down, Star Knight CA clone with heavy automation.

There is no "settling" in 1924pd, either you accept your current fleet, and it's limitations, or to get long ranged DD/CL weapons either you build a class of small CAs and call them Destroyers, or you pour loads of cash into miniaturizing the cataphract or technodyne ERM tech (which in 1923, still cannot fit in a Capital missile tube)

Dauntless wrote:we've drifted a bit (hardly a surprise) so lets start again.

a world with near SL core world tech and industry has decided it wants its own empire and doesn't care if worlds join willingly or are forced.

they know at some point either rogue SL or new SL or GA will eventually find out and they want a navy that can give a good accounting of itself in the belief that if/when they come to blows if they can make it cost enough, then they will be allowed to keep their empire, though not expand it.

now the important question is, is such a navy likely to settle for ships that can fire only SDMs in its light units units and catahphract like i.e. 2 missile bodies bolted together ...

"a world with near SL core world tech and industry" is going to be capable of just about anything, whether a copy of what the major powers have at the end of UH, or something totally out of left field.

Forex:

A primary benefit of the Apollo system is the multiplication of control channels.

Develop a two-stage missile by bolting together two standard missiles of any class and a contrive a control missile with an AI/fire-control repeater and the same drives. Build a pod-nought to dispense the pods that launch the DDCM and brood (the brood can be any size you're willing to build a pod big enough for) and Bob's Your Uncle. You've got a system that will both out-range and out-gun anything except a SD(P) with KH-II and Apollo pods.

Another factor in RMN/GA superiority is the destructiveness of missile warheads on a class-for-class basis. Where the Cataphract design (with a CM based second stage) had to downsize warheads to make the missiles tube-launchable, the RMN found ways to improve grav-pinching warheads and squeeze bigger lasing rods into smaller missiles.

Any "world with near SL core world tech and industry" should be able to increase the power of their warheads in some way. Put bigger warheads on smaller missiles would let you stack more stages fire-able from tubes. (or stack more DDMs in a DDCM pod's brood.)

Smaller ships, DDs and CLs shouldn't ever really need DDMs, though. They have no business standing up to CLs and bigger and their normal missions aren't worth the cost of shrinking a DDM to fit. Bigger warheads are probably a different story, though.

Weird Harold wrote:IIRC, a BC sized ship is required to fire Cataphracts internally, and even then the warheads are downsized one class. A CA/BC that can only do DD/CL scale damage isn't going to be much use even with a range advantage over peer opponents.

"Current" SLN CAs don't have tubes big enough to fire Cataphract-As, but IIRC the PNE's Mars-class ships were capable of doing so, though they weren't given them. The SLN could certainly build a CA designed around bigger tubes if they wanted to.

drothgery wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:IIRC, a BC sized ship is required to fire Cataphracts internally, and even then the warheads are downsized one class. A CA/BC that can only do DD/CL scale damage isn't going to be much use even with a range advantage over peer opponents.

"Current" SLN CAs don't have tubes big enough to fire Cataphract-As, but IIRC the PNE's Mars-class ships were capable of doing so, though they weren't given them. The SLN could certainly build a CA designed around bigger tubes if they wanted to.

Yes but what is going to be the future role -Post 1923PD for a SLN CA Or CA-H -Unless they take on the current role of BC's

Nimitz