UC Snippet 15

isaac_newton wrote:Brilliant

BUT once again that final sentance leaves us in the dust craving one more little snippet. sigh...

Try this one then
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9440

But you may still be left wanting more ...

Randomiser wrote:

isaac_newton wrote:Brilliant

BUT once again that final sentance leaves us in the dust craving one more little snippet. sigh...

Try this one then
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9440

But you may still be left wanting more ...

sigh.... that's not fair
a crumb to a starving man

What a shameless use of the oldest trick in the book. Talk about the brilliant nerve wracking crescendo building up to the welcome bugle sound of the cavalry finally coming across the hyper wall. Weber's flawless milking of this operatic arrangement by the timely casting of snickering snippets is just as nerve wracking. Yet, we unappeased gluttons for punishment, beg for more.

Why does the cavalry always have to be fashionably late? Although better late than never, eh?

The cavalry does come, doesn't it? He half-ass rhetorically asks, wanting but not immediately wanting immediate gratification, or does he.

Would someone explain to me why the four ships that took on the SLN didn't use their accel advantage to open up the range between them and the gorilla, then use their reach advantage, like Megan, to engage the gorilla from outside its own range?

cthia wrote:Would someone explain to me why the four ships that took on the SLN didn't use their accel advantage to open up the range between them and the gorilla, then use their reach advantage, like Megan, to engage the gorilla from outside its own range?

There are bunches of reasons. The biggest one, of course, is that they couldn't get outside Cataphract range. The second is that the majority of their missiles were single-drive (extended range, true, but still single-drive) missiles, whereas all of hers are Mk-16s and can incorporate a ballistic phase that gives her enormously greater range than they had --- enough that she can effectively attack from stealth without their being able to nail her position down close enough to engage her without vectoring drones onto her position (which she duped them into failing to do with the only ones close enough to find her quickly).

Koutic didn't expect to do as much damage as he did, but to engage at all, he had to enter the Sollies' effective range (inasmuch as the Sollies have a true "effective" range at this time). He couldn't have reliably penetrated the Solarian missile defenses without the backup of his Saganami-Bs, Phantom and Arngrim didn't carry enough Mk-16s between them to saturate Hajdu's defenses (certainly not with enough followup salvos to take out more than a dozen or two of the Solly battlecruisers), and one of his secondary objectives was to induce Hajdu to shoot himself dry of deployed Cataphracts. He didn't expect to stop Hajdu from taking out the orbital structure of the system; he expected to make it extraordinarily more expensive than Hajdu had ever imagined it might be, but he'd never anticipated actually stopping him, and so one of his secondary objectives was to get Hajdu to expend as much ammo as possible as the only way he might protect the next system on the Buccaneer list. Offering him visible targets (and making it appear there were even more of them than there were) was the only way to get him to shoot back, and that meant attacking from inside Hajdu's range (which the Bravos shorter-ranged missiles already meant he had to do anyway).

After his attack, the Solarian missile defense net had been ripped to shreds, which was a big reason Peterson could get her missiles through in such (relatively) small salvos. In addition, she had a huge psychological edge Koutic hadn't had in what had already happened to the Sollies.

Suppose Koutic had revealed his presence, sent in a single unsupported double or quadruple broadside from Phantom to demonstrate what he could do, and ordered Hajdu to stand down.

Hajdu's response:
"I am only here to destroy the system's orbital infrastructure, with or without civilian casualties. If you don't back off and let me do that, then I will fire on the planet, as well."

Koutic:
"That's an Eridani Edict violation. After the war, we'll hang you for it."

Hajdu:
"First you have to win, and I don't think you will, in the end. Second, if I take out this infrastructure with the people still on board, it'll be just as much an Eridani violation (by your lights) so I'm equally screwed [or not] after the war. I'll take my chances. By the way, did I mention this thing in my orders called 'Parthian Shot'?"


Post Koutic's attack, the Sollies are more vulnerable both physically (their defenses are weaker; Arngrim has the range advantage the Bravos didn't; and they don't know where she is, and can't even find her to shoot at her) and mentally/emotionally (they've just seen what modern Manty weapons can do and taken enormously one-sided casualties; she's just proved she can find and target specific ships; Yountz isn't the only one who knows they're on the wrong side of the law, of morality, and of history; and the survivors all just got a lot less confident than Hajdu was about who's going to win this thing and be in posotion to hang whom after it's over). The truth is that her magazines are too shallow to take out a whole bunch more of them, but they don't know that . . . and after what just happened to them at Koutic's hands, none of them want to take a chance on finding out.

runsforcelery wrote:

cthia wrote:Would someone explain to me why the four ships that took on the SLN didn't use their accel advantage to open up the range between them and the gorilla, then use their reach advantage, like Megan, to engage the gorilla from outside its own range?

There are bunches of reasons. The biggest one, of course, is that they couldn't get outside Cataphract range. The second is that the majority of their missiles were single-drive (extended range, true, but still single-drive) missiles, whereas all of hers are Mk-16s and can incorporate a ballistic phase that gives her enormously greater range than they had --- enough that she can effectively attack from stealth without their being able to nail her position down close enough to engage her without vectoring drones onto her position (which she duped them into failing to do with the only ones close enough to find her quickly).

Koutic didn't expect to do as much damage as he did, but to engage at all, he had to enter the Sollies' effective range (inasmuch as the Sollies have a true "effective" range at this time). He couldn't have reliably penetrated the Solarian missile defenses without the backup of his Saganami-Bs, Phantom and Arngrim didn't carry enough Mk-16s between them to saturate Hajdu's defenses (certainly not with enough followup salvos to take out more than a dozen or two of the Solly battlecruisers), and one of his secondary objectives was to induce Hajdu to shoot himself dry of deployed Cataphracts. He didn't expect to stop Hajdu from taking out the orbital structure of the system; he expected to make it extraordinarily more expensive than Hajdu had ever imagined it might be, but he'd never anticipated actually stopping him, and so one of his secondary objectives was to get Hajdu to expend as much ammo as possible as the only way he might protect the next system on the Buccaneer list. Offering him visible targets (and making it appear there were even more of them than there were) was the only way to get him to shoot back, and that meant attacking from inside Hajdu's range (which the Bravos shorter-ranged missiles already meant he had to do anyway).

After his attack, the Solarian missile defense net had been ripped to shreds, which was a big reason Peterson could get her missiles through in such (relatively) small salvos. In addition, she had a huge psychological edge Koutic hadn't had in what had already happened to the Sollies.

Suppose Koutic had revealed his presence, sent in a single unsupported double or quadruple broadside from Phantom to demonstrate what he could do, and ordered Hajdu to stand down.

Hajdu's response:
"I am only here to destroy the system's orbital infrastructure, with or without civilian casualties. If you don't back off and let me do that, then I will fire on the planet, as well."

Koutic:
"That's an Eridani Edict violation. After the war, we'll hang you for it."

Hajdu:
"First you have to win, and I don't think you will, in the end. Second, if I take out this infrastructure with the people still on board, it'll be just as much an Eridani violation (by your lights) so I'm equally screwed [or not] after the war. I'll take my chances. By the way, did I mention this thing in my orders called 'Parthian Shot'?"


Post Koutic's attack, the Sollies are more vulnerable both physically (their defenses are weaker; Arngrim has the range advantage the Bravos didn't; and they don't know where she is, and can't even find her to shoot at her) and mentally/emotionally (they've just seen what modern Manty weapons can do and taken enormously one-sided casualties; she's just proved she can find and target specific ships; Yountz isn't the only one who knows they're on the wrong side of the law, of morality, and of history; and the survivors all just got a lot less confident than Hajdu was about who's going to win this thing and be in posotion to hang whom after it's over). The truth is that her magazines are too shallow to take out a whole bunch more of them, but they don't know that . . . and after what just happened to them at Koutic's hands, none of them want to take a chance on finding out.

Thanks for reply. I thought it must have involved something like a shortage of the Mk-16s. And after rereading the passage I realized even Megan wasn't outside the Cataphract's range - but was she outside their effective range? She did mention her ship is designed to absorb Manticoran fire. Or was that more of her posturing?

You can answer with the appropriate snippet if you like. Just sayin'.

The good thing about snippets is they are exempt from the [SPOILER] tag.

On second thought, methink the last part of the last sentence of your post is hint enough.

any DDM or MDM has an theoretical infinite range due to being able to add a ballistic component, but lacking the FTL ability of the GA effective range for a solly is very different to effective range for a Manty.

also peterson is in a Roland the most recent, expensive and dangerous DD design that manticore has ever produced after a 2 decade war which has made mass missile salvos common.

while the role has been passed more to LACs, due to personnel loss differences if destroyed, everything below the wall is expected to help guard a SD if they happen to be accompanying it. so it makes sense that the ships' point defence is designed to take a serious bite out of Manty massile fire, currently the best in galaxy.

You've just demonstrated why the RMN needs to concentrate on Mk-16 armed BCs, CAs and DDs. The older ships and potential new construction with only single drive misses have suddenly become obsolete liabilities.

You do realize that this battle also confirms that podnaughts might be obsolete? Before MDMs were developed, the grav drivers on missile tubes imparted significant initial velocity. That was why missile pods were considered obsolete prior to TSVW. Now MDM acceleration, Delta Vee and range have increased to the point where launching velocity is inconsequential.
A ship that simply ejects missiles with delayed drive activation can stack salvos just as effectively as an SD(P)

runsforcelery wrote:

cthia wrote:Would someone explain to me why the four ships that took on the SLN didn't use their accel advantage to open up the range between them and the gorilla, then use their reach advantage, like Megan, to engage the gorilla from outside its own range?

There are bunches of reasons. The biggest one, of course, is that they couldn't get outside Cataphract range. The second is that the majority of their missiles were single-drive (extended range, true, but still single-drive) missiles, whereas all of hers are Mk-16s and can incorporate a ballistic phase that gives her enormously greater range than they had --- enough that she can effectively attack from stealth without their being able to nail her position down close enough to engage her without vectoring drones onto her position (which she duped them into failing to do with the only ones close enough to find her quickly).

Koutic didn't expect to do as much damage as he did, but to engage at all, he had to enter the Sollies' effective range (inasmuch as the Sollies have a true "effective" range at this time). He couldn't have reliably penetrated the Solarian missile defenses without the backup of his Saganami-Bs, Phantom and Arngrim didn't carry enough Mk-16s between them to saturate Hajdu's defenses (certainly not with enough followup salvos to take out more than a dozen or two of the Solly battlecruisers), and one of his secondary objectives was to induce Hajdu to shoot himself dry of deployed Cataphracts. He didn't expect to stop Hajdu from taking out the orbital structure of the system; he expected to make it extraordinarily more expensive than Hajdu had ever imagined it might be, but he'd never anticipated actually stopping him, and so one of his secondary objectives was to get Hajdu to expend as much ammo as possible as the only way he might protect the next system on the Buccaneer list. Offering him visible targets (and making it appear there were even more of them than there were) was the only way to get him to shoot back, and that meant attacking from inside Hajdu's range (which the Bravos shorter-ranged missiles already meant he had to do anyway).

After his attack, the Solarian missile defense net had been ripped to shreds, which was a big reason Peterson could get her missiles through in such (relatively) small salvos. In addition, she had a huge psychological edge Koutic hadn't had in what had already happened to the Sollies.

Suppose Koutic had revealed his presence, sent in a single unsupported double or quadruple broadside from Phantom to demonstrate what he could do, and ordered Hajdu to stand down.

Hajdu's response:
"I am only here to destroy the system's orbital infrastructure, with or without civilian casualties. If you don't back off and let me do that, then I will fire on the planet, as well."

Koutic:
"That's an Eridani Edict violation. After the war, we'll hang you for it."

Hajdu:
"First you have to win, and I don't think you will, in the end. Second, if I take out this infrastructure with the people still on board, it'll be just as much an Eridani violation (by your lights) so I'm equally screwed [or not] after the war. I'll take my chances. By the way, did I mention this thing in my orders called 'Parthian Shot'?"


Post Koutic's attack, the Sollies are more vulnerable both physically (their defenses are weaker; Arngrim has the range advantage the Bravos didn't; and they don't know where she is, and can't even find her to shoot at her) and mentally/emotionally (they've just seen what modern Manty weapons can do and taken enormously one-sided casualties; she's just proved she can find and target specific ships; Yountz isn't the only one who knows they're on the wrong side of the law, of morality, and of history; and the survivors all just got a lot less confident than Hajdu was about who's going to win this thing and be in posotion to hang whom after it's over). The truth is that her magazines are too shallow to take out a whole bunch more of them, but they don't know that . . . and after what just happened to them at Koutic's hands, none of them want to take a chance on finding out.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:You've just demonstrated why the RMN needs to concentrate on Mk-16 armed BCs, CAs and DDs. The older ships and potential new construction with only single drive misses have suddenly become obsolete liabilities.

You do realize that this battle also confirms that podnaughts might be obsolete? Before MDMs were developed, the grav drivers on missile tubes imparted significant initial velocity. That was why missile pods were considered obsolete prior to TSVW. Now MDM acceleration, Delta Vee and range have increased to the point where launching velocity is inconsequential.
A ship that simply ejects missiles with delayed drive activation can stack salvos just as effectively as an SD(P)

cthia wrote:Would someone explain to me why the four ships that took on the SLN didn't use their accel advantage to open up the range between them and the gorilla, then use their reach advantage, like Megan, to engage the gorilla from outside its own range?

runsforcelery wrote:There are bunches of reasons. The biggest one, of course, is that they couldn't get outside Cataphract range. The second is that the majority of their missiles were single-drive (extended range, true, but still single-drive) missiles, whereas all of hers are Mk-16s and can incorporate a ballistic phase that gives her enormously greater range than they had --- enough that she can effectively attack from stealth without their being able to nail her position down close enough to engage her without vectoring drones onto her position (which she duped them into failing to do with the only ones close enough to find her quickly).

Koutic didn't expect to do as much damage as he did, but to engage at all, he had to enter the Sollies' effective range (inasmuch as the Sollies have a true "effective" range at this time). He couldn't have reliably penetrated the Solarian missile defenses without the backup of his Saganami-Bs, Phantom and Arngrim didn't carry enough Mk-16s between them to saturate Hajdu's defenses (certainly not with enough followup salvos to take out more than a dozen or two of the Solly battlecruisers), and one of his secondary objectives was to induce Hajdu to shoot himself dry of deployed Cataphracts. He didn't expect to stop Hajdu from taking out the orbital structure of the system; he expected to make it extraordinarily more expensive than Hajdu had ever imagined it might be, but he'd never anticipated actually stopping him, and so one of his secondary objectives was to get Hajdu to expend as much ammo as possible as the only way he might protect the next system on the Buccaneer list. Offering him visible targets (and making it appear there were even more of them than there were) was the only way to get him to shoot back, and that meant attacking from inside Hajdu's range (which the Bravos shorter-ranged missiles already meant he had to do anyway).

After his attack, the Solarian missile defense net had been ripped to shreds, which was a big reason Peterson could get her missiles through in such (relatively) small salvos. In addition, she had a huge psychological edge Koutic hadn't had in what had already happened to the Sollies.

Suppose Koutic had revealed his presence, sent in a single unsupported double or quadruple broadside from Phantom to demonstrate what he could do, and ordered Hajdu to stand down.

Hajdu's response:
"I am only here to destroy the system's orbital infrastructure, with or without civilian casualties. If you don't back off and let me do that, then I will fire on the planet, as well."

Koutic:
"That's an Eridani Edict violation. After the war, we'll hang you for it."

Hajdu:
"First you have to win, and I don't think you will, in the end. Second, if I take out this infrastructure with the people still on board, it'll be just as much an Eridani violation (by your lights) so I'm equally screwed [or not] after the war. I'll take my chances. By the way, did I mention this thing in my orders called 'Parthian Shot'?"


Post Koutic's attack, the Sollies are more vulnerable both physically (their defenses are weaker; Arngrim has the range advantage the Bravos didn't; and they don't know where she is, and can't even find her to shoot at her) and mentally/emotionally (they've just seen what modern Manty weapons can do and taken enormously one-sided casualties; she's just proved she can find and target specific ships; Yountz isn't the only one who knows they're on the wrong side of the law, of morality, and of history; and the survivors all just got a lot less confident than Hajdu was about who's going to win this thing and be in posotion to hang whom after it's over). The truth is that her magazines are too shallow to take out a whole bunch more of them, but they don't know that . . . and after what just happened to them at Koutic's hands, none of them want to take a chance on finding out.

No! Really?!


Could be you're just a little pessimistic about how soon the SD(P) will be obsolete (those pesky CVNs do keep surviving somehow, don't they?), but the Honorverse's warfighting paradigm has never been static (at least since OBS), has it?

ERMs are decent misiles it was only the sheer number of opponents that made getting into ERM range so dangerous.

though I agree that an effort to get DDMs on more ships would be a good thing. A DDM CL and really a bigger Roland with more ammo and marines would be a good things


podnoughts obsolete? doubtful

as far as i can recall reload times for Mk 16/23s fired via tubes has not been mentioned explicitly but didn't the salvos fired at saltash have about 30s between them?, but i doubt it is as fast as the 12 second between each pod deployment that is the current standard, or at least it was when pod launching was first tested back in HAE and i don't recall that changing.

while it is true a 30 tube SD firing from both broadsides can equal a single pod salvo, Apollo control missiles are roughly the size of 2 standard mk23s and can not be fired from the same tubes, so you will have to have special tubes which while doable will likely be fiddley and have all sorts of other complications on the armouring of the ship and reloading arrangements. not to mention what happens if one of these tubes is damaged and imposes delays in getting control missiles seeded in with the attack missiles.

the true benefit of podnoughts has always been the ability to put lots of missiles in space quickly and while that has become less needed with stacking pods for huge salvos to be able to do significant damage to a state of the art fleet, I doubt it is something they want to lose anytime soon.