Courvosier II broadside tubes

Potato wrote:Blown up when used against significantly heavier and numerous opposition. When used as for operations they were designed for, they were fine.

No matter how clever your plans are, the enemy gets a vote. You don't get to choose what forces the enemy deploys against you. If your plan is you will always have the foresight to bring the exquisitely correct force to have enough firepower to defeat exactly the force you predict will be there without 'wasting' your forces by bringing too much force then I predict a lot of sadness in your future.

If you are attempting an economy of force operation and expect a force that you can easily defeat with BCs armed with cruiser grade missiles then perhaps should bring BCs armed with cruiser grade missiles and keep the heavier ships for missions that need heavier ships. If, on the other hand, you expect that you will quite possibly encounter forces that a force of BCs can't defeat and hence feel you need to include heavier ships to deal with a threat that can't be handled by cruiser grade missiles then it makes sense to arm everyone with weapons that are effective against the predicted threat when you have those weapons on hand.

Potato wrote:Blown up when used against significantly heavier and numerous opposition. When used as for operations they were designed for, they were fine.

Sure, when used as BCs should be they apparently are fine.

Which is why the RMN said damn, we kept getting our BCs crushed by SD(P)s, so lets design a BC that has enough defenses to survive against SD(P)s. Then in a stroke of genius decided "we'll ensure it can't win if this happens by only putting inferior missiles on it".

If you can't do damage to the enemy if you hit them and they can do damage to you if they hit you then you are doomed unless you can break off the engagement rapidly. Which is hard when they have much longer ranged missiles than you have.

kzt wrote:Sure, when used as BCs should be they apparently are fine.

Which is why the RMN said damn, we kept getting our BCs crushed by SD(P)s, so lets design a BC that has enough defenses to survive against SD(P)s. Then in a stroke of genius decided "we'll ensure it can't win if this happens by only putting inferior missiles on it".

If you can't do damage to the enemy if you hit them and they can do damage to you if they hit you then you are doomed unless you can break off the engagement rapidly. Which is hard when they have much longer ranged missiles than you have.

But the Nike-class BC(L) really isn't intended to stand up to peer SD(P)s. It's designed to allow the classic deep raiding mission that RMN BCs have always been expected to do when even tertiary system's defenses now include shoals of pods and advanced LACs. The fact that the defenses necessary to survive getting ambushed by such a system's defenses also allow it to survive for a while against an SD(P) is almost a coincidence. In the face of that much firepower it's supposed to tuck tail and run - not try to slug it out with a ship 3 times it's mass that would have a 50% fire rate advantage over a BC(P) much less as BC(L).

Even if it mounted Mk23s it shouldn't really stick around to fight with SD(P)s and carrying the bigger missile means it would have fewer tubes and carry less rounds in its magazines - all for a fight it's not suppose to stick around for.


Will they occasionally get unlucky and get mousetrapped by SD(P)s anyway - sure. Murphy always gets a say and sometimes you get the crappy end of the stick. But that doesn't mean it make sense to put heavier weapons on something that relatively small.

kzt wrote:

Potato wrote:Blown up when used against significantly heavier and numerous opposition. When used as for operations they were designed for, they were fine.

No matter how clever your plans are, the enemy gets a vote. You don't get to choose what forces the enemy deploys against you. If your plan is you will always have the foresight to bring the exquisitely correct force to have enough firepower to defeat exactly the force you predict will be there without 'wasting' your forces by bringing too much force then I predict a lot of sadness in your future.

If you are attempting an economy of force operation and expect a force that you can easily defeat with BCs armed with cruiser grade missiles then perhaps should bring BCs armed with cruiser grade missiles and keep the heavier ships for missions that need heavier ships. If, on the other hand, you expect that you will quite possibly encounter forces that a force of BCs can't defeat and hence feel you need to include heavier ships to deal with a threat that can't be handled by cruiser grade missiles then it makes sense to arm everyone with weapons that are effective against the predicted threat when you have those weapons on hand.

The Mk-16s have not failed against SDs because of range constraints. There has never been a battle in the Honorverse in which the Manties were unable to engage because their Mk-16s couldn't reach the enemy. They may require longer flight times, and coordinating them with the Mark-23 may require some fancy footwork, but lack of range has never been a decisive factor. Now, the fact that the BC(P)s in question are getting smacked with capital missiles when they were never designed or armored to stand up to that sort of fire, is another matter entirely.

I know you are committed to the theory that outfitting BC(P)s with Mk-16s is lunacy. I think you are decidedly wrong about that, and I think that combat results in the Honorverse to date certainly do not support your contention that the Mk-16 is tactically and effectively grossly inferior to the Mk-23 when it comes to performing the tasks it's been called upon to perform. Yes, it has a lower throw weight and less laser rods; no, the Manties have yet to find anything they can't kill with it. And in most cases, cruiser-level opposition was precisely what the BC(P)s were sent along to deal with as a component of a force which couldn't be all wallers because the RMN didn't have enough of them. So the BCs are sent along to deal with the lighter elements while the wallers deal with the wallers. Doesn't always work out that way, but you have to make your force allocations out of what's available to you. And the Mk-16 has proved a handful even for Haenite wallers; it's been completely lethal to any Solly who was so far encountered it.

I realize I'm only the author here and that my grasp of my own combat paradigm could be flawed , but I genuinely do not recall a single instance in which arming the BC(P)s with Mk-23s would materially have effected the outcome of the battle. The RMN prefers sustaintability (and yes, yes, I know that BC(P)s in pod-era combat are way too fragile; so does the RMN, thus the Nike), but they are just as satisfied with the Mk-16 as the USN would have been satisfied with a passel of Alaskas with 12" batteries.

On the Courvosier internal tubes, they were designed to fire the original capacitor-fed MDMs. They cannot fire the Mk-23 for the same reason that the Mark-16 can't be fired from a "conventional" tube; the missile fusion plants are spun up in the tubes immediately before launch, which requires entirely different arrangements for handling and power supply. There's no size isuue; it's a "plumbing" issue, and an improved MDM with enhanced endurance drives is certainly a possibility.

On the other hand, the Courvosiers' tubes are a modular installation. The entire tube and all of its ancillary equipment can be removed --- along with a solid plug of the external armor in which the mount is "embedded" --- and replaced with a new module the same size which could be capable of firing at least the standard Mk-23 attack missile; the Echoes would be a lot harder to squeeze in, and that refit might not, in fact, be possible.

kzt wrote:

Potato wrote:Blown up when used against significantly heavier and numerous opposition. When used as for operations they were designed for, they were fine.

Sure, when used as BCs should be they apparently are fine.

Which is why the RMN said damn, we kept getting our BCs crushed by SD(P)s, so lets design a BC that has enough defenses to survive against SD(P)s. Then in a stroke of genius decided "we'll ensure it can't win if this happens by only putting inferior missiles on it".

If you can't do damage to the enemy if you hit them and they can do damage to you if they hit you then you are doomed unless you can break off the engagement rapidly. Which is hard when they have much longer ranged missiles than you have.

Another argument that I saw the author make against arming Agamemnons with Mark-23s and BC(P)s in general is:

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/242/1


"Where Nike most closely resembles the Alaska design concept is that her designers deliberately stayed away from three-stage MDM capabilities. One of the big weaknesses of the original battlecruiser design (I'm speaking here about the Invincible) was that when you put battleship-sized guns onto a ship the size of the battleship, sooner or later it was going to be used as a battleship, whether that was its designed function or not. That's one of the things which has happened to the Agamemnon on more than one occasion, and the fact that there are never going to be enough hulls to go around means that the need/temptation to utilize a ship capable of carrying MDMs to do just that is probably going to be irresistible upon occasion even when the admirals in question know that isn't really what the ships were designed to do. With the Nike, that simply can't be done. You can't fire all-up MDMs from her, no matter what you do, so the pressure to force her into that misapplication of the type is much lower. Mind you, there will still be cases of "needs must when the devil drives," and the toughness of the Nike design will undoubtedly stand the BC(L) in good stead when that happens. Also, although you haven't seen it in the books yet, the Mark 16's laser head is slated for significant improvement, which will give the weapon more punch against heavier opponents. Even then, however, the fact that Nike is armed with Mark 16s is going to force them to be employed much more in line with the doctrine for which they were originally designed."


Even if I think there is something to it, I think the correct line of thinking from the White Haven Admiralty in 1920 and the start of 1921 (before Apollo) should have been be something like: 'Hey, we are going to be outnumbered at least 2:1 in SD(P)s by the RHN and we are so desperate for additional heavy fighting power that we use obsolete SD(s) that can only control 100 MDMs to carry 500-600 pods externally. Given that in a serious fight there is no way we will not lose a lot of SD(P)s and any advantage helps, we cannot keep our BC(P)s out of the harm's way (out of fighting enemy SD(P)s), so we must arm our Agamemnons with Mark-23 pods and prepare them to fight alongside our SD(P)s and SDs.

For example, if at the Battle of Manticore the Home Fleet included 42 SD(P)s and 108 BC(P)s with Mark-23 pods (each BC(P) being able control 150-200 missiles) instead of 42 SD(P)s, 48 SDs and 12 BC(P)s, the Home Fleet would still have been destroyed but it would have been able to control 40-60% more missiles in each salvo and therefore it would have inflicted 40-60% more hits on the RHN Second Fleet.
The loss of personnel would also have been much smaller (~4800 men not present in the battle for each pre-pod SD replaced by 2 BC(P)s)

My point is that from any rational perspective, 2 BC(P)s armed with Mark-23s make a tougher opponent for an enemy SD(P)s than 1 pre-pod SD carrying 500-600 pods externally.
It is also a no-brainer in terms of personnel and ship cost at risk (1200 men and ~16-18 Billion Dollars versus 6000 men and ~30-35 Billion Dollars).

Even in 1923 when the situation is not critical, the fact Mark-23s are 2 or 3 times more lethal than even Mark-16Gs
makes arming Agamemnon with 3600 Mark-23s instead of 5040 Mark-16s the better option.

I would go further: now that the Mark-25 MDMs with four stages and a significantly improved warhead are ready, I think GA SD(P)s should be armed with nothing else (along with the 4-stage Apollo missile, of course). The increased warhead lethality alone should compensate the small/moderate reduction in magazine space, to say nothing of the increased tactical flexibility.

As you can probably tell I strongly believe in the concept of Distributed Lethality.

Hegemon wrote:I would go further: now that the Mark-25 MDMs with four stages and a significantly improved warhead are ready, I think GA SD(P)s should be armed with nothing else (along with the 4-stage Apollo missile, of course). The increased warhead lethality alone should compensate the small/moderate reduction in magazine space, to say nothing of the increased tactical flexibility.

As you can probably tell I strongly believe in the concept of Distributed Lethality.

Aren't those too large to fit in a standard pod? I'm not sure you could get pods that carry those oversized system defense missiles to fit in the pod rails of a standard SD(P).

The SD(P) also can't take advantage of those missile's extra range, at least offsensively, as the enemy star system won't be seeded with the Mycroft FTL fire control repeaters needed to take advantage of the 4-drive missile's extra range. Though admittedly even at ranges no further than what a normal Mk23 can reach under normal power you can use the 4th drive for better terminal delta-v and possibly run some of the drives at full power cutting down on flight time.

Hegemon wrote:

Potato wrote:Blown up when used against significantly heavier and numerous opposition. When used as for operations they were designed for, they were fine.

kzt wrote:Sure, when used as BCs should be they apparently are fine.

Which is why the RMN said damn, we kept getting our BCs crushed by SD(P)s, so lets design a BC that has enough defenses to survive against SD(P)s. Then in a stroke of genius decided "we'll ensure it can't win if this happens by only putting inferior missiles on it".

If you can't do damage to the enemy if you hit them and they can do damage to you if they hit you then you are doomed unless you can break off the engagement rapidly. Which is hard when they have much longer ranged missiles than you have.

Another argument that I saw the author make against arming Agamemnons with Mark-23s and BC(P)s in general is:

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/242/1


"Where Nike most closely resembles the Alaska design concept is that her designers deliberately stayed away from three-stage MDM capabilities. One of the big weaknesses of the original battlecruiser design (I'm speaking here about the Invincible) was that when you put battleship-sized guns onto a ship the size of the battleship, sooner or later it was going to be used as a battleship, whether that was its designed function or not. That's one of the things which has happened to the Agamemnon on more than one occasion, and the fact that there are never going to be enough hulls to go around means that the need/temptation to utilize a ship capable of carrying MDMs to do just that is probably going to be irresistible upon occasion even when the admirals in question know that isn't really what the ships were designed to do. With the Nike, that simply can't be done. You can't fire all-up MDMs from her, no matter what you do, so the pressure to force her into that misapplication of the type is much lower. Mind you, there will still be cases of "needs must when the devil drives," and the toughness of the Nike design will undoubtedly stand the BC(L) in good stead when that happens. Also, although you haven't seen it in the books yet, the Mark 16's laser head is slated for significant improvement, which will give the weapon more punch against heavier opponents. Even then, however, the fact that Nike is armed with Mark 16s is going to force them to be employed much more in line with the doctrine for which they were originally designed."


Even if I think there is something to it, I think the correct line of thinking from the White Haven Admiralty in 1920 and the start of 1921 (before Apollo) should have been be something like: 'Hey, we are going to be outnumbered at least 2:1 in SD(P)s by the RHN and we are so desperate for additional heavy fighting power that we use obsolete SD(s) that can only control 100 MDMs to carry 500-600 pods externally. Given that in a serious fight there is no way we will not lose a lot of SD(P)s and any advantage helps, we cannot keep our BC(P)s out of the harm's way (out of fighting enemy SD(P)s), so we must arm our Agamemnons with Mark-23 pods and prepare them to fight alongside our SD(P)s and SDs.

For example, if at the Battle of Manticore the Home Fleet included 42 SD(P)s and 108 BC(P)s with Mark-23 pods (each BC(P) being able control 150-200 missiles) instead of 42 SD(P)s, 48 SDs and 12 BC(P)s, the Home Fleet would still have been destroyed but it would have been able to control 40-60% more missiles in each salvo and therefore it would have inflicted 40-60% more hits on the RHN Second Fleet.
The loss of personnel would also have been much smaller (~4800 men not present in the battle for each pre-pod SD replaced by 2 BC(P)s)

My point is that from any rational perspective, 2 BC(P)s armed with Mark-23s make a tougher opponent for an enemy SD(P)s than 1 pre-pod SD carrying 500-600 pods externally.
It is also a no-brainer in terms of personnel and ship cost at risk (1200 men and ~16-18 Billion Dollars versus 6000 men and ~30-35 Billion Dollars).

Even in 1923 when the situation is not critical, the fact Mark-23s are 2 or 3 times more lethal than even Mark-16Gs
makes arming Agamemnon with 3600 Mark-23s instead of 5040 Mark-16s the better option.

I would go further: now that the Mark-25 MDMs with four stages and a significantly improved warhead are ready, I think GA SD(P)s should be armed with nothing else (along with the 4-stage Apollo missile, of course). The increased warhead lethality alone should compensate the small/moderate reduction in magazine space, to say nothing of the increased tactical flexibility.

As you can probably tell I strongly believe in the concept of Distributed Lethality.

Would you guys please take a look at what I've actually been saying about the Mark 16 team for quite some time now?

And would you please tell me where we have seen scads of Royal Manticoran Navy battlecruisers "crushed" when any other ship wouldn't have been "crushed" just as thoroughly? Any battlecruiser caught in the effective range of any superdreadnought is likely to be "crushed" before it's all over. That is particularly true of a BC(P) design, however, regardless of its armament.

The pod laying battlecruiser is fragile and under defended compared to a Nike. It was not a death trap waiting to happen, however, and Nike can, indeed, when against a SD(P) under the right skipper and the right circumstances. It would be a hell of a fight, and she'd be significantly damaged in the process even if she did win, but that would still be a 2,000,000-ton ship engaging a 7,000,000-8,000,000-ton ship. There is a lot more involved there than just whether or not our warhead is bigger than theirs.

runsforcelery wrote:Would you guys please take a look at what I've actually been saying about the Mark 16 team for quite some time now?

And would you please tell me where we have seen scads of Royal Manticoran Navy battlecruisers "crushed" when any other ship wouldn't have been "crushed" just as thoroughly?

It's not about getting crushed or not. In a situation like Solon or Manticore you are going to be crushed regardless. It's about giving as good as you get, which Agamemnons armed with Mark 41/Mark 23 missiles can do and those armed with Mark 16 (especially the 15 MT warheads used at Solon) missiles can't.

For example, at Solon the two Invictuses present launched many 288 missile salvoes (two six-pod patterns of pods each, 12 MDM per pod). Well, if the 5 Agamemnons present in Task Force 82 were armed with the same pods, each Agamemnon would launch two four-pod patterns 12 MDM per pod, or 96 MDMs. This would add an additional 480 MDMs to each salvo, so each 24 second salvo would have 768 MDMs, enough to ensure sufficient hits to destroy an enemy SD(P)/CLAC every 2-3 salvoes. The Agamemnons carried 360 pods, enabling them to launch 45 such salvoes, enough to destroy the 6 SD(P)s and 2 CLACs in Bogey Four.

Here is my reasoning for that conclusion:
During the first phase of the Battle of Manticore, 240 RHN SD(P)s and 16 RHN CLACs were attacked with 7 salvoes of 21600 MDMs each, or ~84 MDMs per heavy capital ship in a salvo, and it was enough to destroy 97 SD(P)s and cripple 25 more, or ~14 destroyed SD(P)s per salvo. An attack of 768 MDMs against 6 SD(P)s and 2 CLACs would mean 96 MDMs per heavy capital ship in a salvo, so the hit percentages should be at least equal. Given that, there would be 28 times less MDMs in a salvo (768/21600), so each salvo would destroy about 14/28 = 0.5 SD(P)s/CLACs per salvo, or 2-3 salvoes needed to destroy an enemy SD(P)/CLAC.

Now, if the Invictuses and Agamemnons used a fire plan with four patterns per salvo, it would mean 1512 MDMs in 22 salvoes, each salvo destroying a SD(P)/CLAC.

runsforcelery wrote:Any battlecruiser caught in the effective range of any superdreadnought is likely to be "crushed" before it's all over. That is particularly true of a BC(P) design, however, regardless of its armament.

I think I was not clear enough. My point is that if (like in 1920) you are so desperate you use pre-pod SDs towing 500-600 pods externally and control only 100 MDMs to defend against the attack of enemy 2-3 enemy SD(P)s for each pre-pod SD, there is no way you can justify not arming Agamemnons with Mark 41/Mark 23 missiles and sending them to fight alongside those pre-pod SDs. Supposing the enemy needs the same volume of fire to destroy pre-pod SD as to destroy two Agamemnons (the Agamemnons are maybe 4-5 times more fragile but their active defenses + 2 keyholes are better then that of an SD, so a pair of them intercept many more enemy missiles). Well, before they die (with only 40% of the sailor lossses, btw) those two Agamemnons will land several times more hits enemy SD(P)s than a pre-pod SD towing pods. So with 2 BC(P)s armed with MDMs you risk only 40% and get 2-3 times of damage to the enemy.

Moreover, supposing the enemy needs the same volume of fire to destroy a Medusa/Invictus as to destroy three or four Agamemnons, it would stil be worth it to arm Agamemnons with MDMs and use them alongside your SD(P)s. Three or four Agamemnons have between 100% and 200% of the fire control of a Medusa/Invictus and carry about the same crew (1800-2400 sailors).

runsforcelery wrote:The pod laying battlecruiser is fragile and under defended compared to a Nike. It was not a death trap waiting to happen, however, and Nike can, indeed, when against a SD(P) under the right skipper and the right circumstances. It would be a hell of a fight, and she'd be significantly damaged in the process even if she did win, but that would still be a 2,000,000-ton ship engaging a 7,000,000-8,000,000-ton ship. There is a lot more involved there than just whether or not our warhead is bigger than theirs.

True. My main point was that if you can double the destructive power of any class of warship with minimal costs in money, defense capability and magazine size, you should go ahead and do it, and not worry it might give its captain delusions of grandeur.

Jonathan_S wrote:Aren't those too large to fit in a standard pod? I'm not sure you could get pods that carry those oversized system defense missiles to fit in the pod rails of a standard SD(P).

Well, from MaxxQBuNine's images of missiles and pods I estimate that a Mark 23 has a length of about 16 meters, while a flat-pack pod has a side length of about 20 meters, so there are 3-4 meters of MDM wiggle room inside a pod. That should be enough, and if not there should also be some wiggle room between the pods or between the pods and the ends of the missile core.

Jonathan_S wrote:The SD(P) also can't take advantage of those missile's extra range, at least offsensively, as the enemy star system won't be seeded with the Mycroft FTL fire control repeaters needed to take advantage of the 4-drive missile's extra range. Though admittedly even at ranges no further than what a normal Mk23 can reach under normal power you can use the 4th drive for better terminal delta-v and possibly run some of the drives at full power cutting down on flight time.

Exactly, at 40-50 MKm ranges you can activate 1-2 drives at the maximum settings and have your missiles reach their targets with signifficantly higher speeds and minutes before the enemy's missiles reach you (which means you effectively get several free salvoes with no reply).

Hegemon wrote:I think I was not clear enough. My point is that if (like in 1920) you are so desperate you use pre-pod SDs towing 500-600 pods externally and control only 100 MDMs to defend against the attack of enemy 2-3 enemy SD(P)s for each pre-pod SD, there is no way you can justify not arming Agamemnons with Mark 41/Mark 23 missiles and sending them to fight alongside those pre-pod SDs. Supposing the enemy needs the same volume of fire to destroy pre-pod SD as to destroy two Agamemnons (the Agamemnons are maybe 4-5 times more fragile but their active defenses + 2 keyholes are better then that of an SD, so a pair of them intercept many more enemy missiles). Well, before they die (with only 40% of the sailor lossses, btw) those two Agamemnons will land several times more hits enemy SD(P)s than a pre-pod SD towing pods. So with 2 BC(P)s armed with MDMs you risk only 40% and get 2-3 times of damage to the enemy.

I could see sacrificing the BC(P)s in that role if you had a bunch of them. But in 1920 Manticore had about 6 Agamemnon=class BC(P)s and, like the Invictus-class SD(P)s, and the single Nike-class BC(L) they were assigned to the offensive raids that were Manticore's best chance to keep Haven off balance and dispersed.

Honor's little fleet got the few most advanced ships in order to appear a credible threat to politically significant systems which Haven would be forced to try defend.

If you'd instead assigned all 6 BC(P)s to Home Fleet, armed with Mk23s, then yes, they might have inflicted a few more losses before dying. But Manticore (if not necessarily the home system) would have suffered major attacks sooner without them engaged in offensive raiding.


So yes if they'd had a half dozen squadrons of Aggies those would have been able to seriously thicken Home Fleet's firepower on an emergency basis. But they didn't, they had 6 or so BC(P)s total.