Battle of Spindle

Can an Mark 23-E take over control of missils not from it's own pod brood? Not clear if it would be helpful (well, it could be but the timing would be really tight) if it could push the tac data to missiles from other pods that had lost targeting lock to to EMC and give them direction to make up for the lost lock.

On the other hand,even of a Mark 23-E doen't have a warhead, if it does impact on an ememy ship hull, that is "going to hurt", given the speed. Catastrophic damage from things like making a nuclear powerplant lose containment is probably not what is going to happen from the physical impace but damage tends to be cumulative and if you are essentilay vaporizing portioins of an ememy hull (not covered by a wedge) then you are going to also be breaking things like sensors (tactical and otherwise), weapons mounts, defensive mounts, control runs etc and adding to the chaos of fires, power surges, losses of communications, possible interupting feeds from magazines.

Even if the Mark 23-E doesn't get as far as hitting the ship, it is a threat that the counter missile defences have to honor. If it takes one CM (or more) launcher slightly out of cycle to shoot at it rather than the next incomeing volley of missels, that is one less to the attacking missiles have to deal with. Same for defensive energy weapons, it takes time to track, target, fire and then shift targets.

This isn't golden BB stuff, it attitional damage. More things the target has to deal with that splits attention, uses resources and possibly makes it bleed just a bit more.

Brigade XO wrote:On the other hand,even of a Mark 23-E doen't have a warhead, if it does impact on an ememy ship hull, that is "going to hurt", given the speed. Catastrophic damage from things like making a nuclear powerplant lose containment is probably not what is going to happen from the physical impace but damage tends to be cumulative and if you are essentilay vaporizing portioins of an ememy hull (not covered by a wedge) then you are going to also be breaking things like sensors (tactical and otherwise), weapons mounts, defensive mounts, control runs etc and adding to the chaos of fires, power surges, losses of communications, possible interupting feeds from magazines.

At attack speed, no missile can make a sharp enough turn to enter the bow or stern opening of a ship that is perpendicular to the missile flight. So as long it has rolled ship to present the wedge, it is safe from an impact. That is the whole advantage of a laser warhead: it can target an opening that a contact nuke could never use.

I think that means the 23-E is going too busy finding openings for its flock to attack. for it to impact anything before the birds have finished. Maybe afterwards there could be a target to hit, but it would be strange if it were presenting the bow or stern.

tlb wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:On the other hand,even of a Mark 23-E doen't have a warhead, if it does impact on an ememy ship hull, that is "going to hurt", given the speed. Catastrophic damage from things like making a nuclear powerplant lose containment is probably not what is going to happen from the physical impace but damage tends to be cumulative and if you are essentilay vaporizing portioins of an ememy hull (not covered by a wedge) then you are going to also be breaking things like sensors (tactical and otherwise), weapons mounts, defensive mounts, control runs etc and adding to the chaos of fires, power surges, losses of communications, possible interupting feeds from magazines.

At attack speed, no missile can make a sharp enough turn to enter the bow or stern opening of a ship that is perpendicular to the missile flight. So as long it has rolled ship to present the wedge, it is safe from an impact. That is the whole advantage of a laser warhead: it can target an opening that a contact nuke could never use.

I think that means the 23-E is going too busy finding openings for its flock to attack. for it to impact anything before the birds have finished. Maybe afterwards there could be a target to hit, but it would be strange if it were presenting the bow or stern.

Henke's twelve thousand missile storm left, what, fifteen hundred purposeless orphaned control missiles? Wasted?

Brigade XO wrote:Can an Mark 23-E take over control of missils not from it's own pod brood? Not clear if it would be helpful (well, it could be but the timing would be really tight) if it could push the tac data to missiles from other pods that had lost targeting lock to to EMC and give them direction to make up for the lost lock.

On the other hand,even of a Mark 23-E doen't have a warhead, if it does impact on an ememy ship hull, that is "going to hurt", given the speed. Catastrophic damage from things like making a nuclear powerplant lose containment is probably not what is going to happen from the physical impace but damage tends to be cumulative and if you are essentilay vaporizing portioins of an ememy hull (not covered by a wedge) then you are going to also be breaking things like sensors (tactical and otherwise), weapons mounts, defensive mounts, control runs etc and adding to the chaos of fires, power surges, losses of communications, possible interupting feeds from magazines.

Even if the Mark 23-E doesn't get as far as hitting the ship, it is a threat that the counter missile defences have to honor. If it takes one CM (or more) launcher slightly out of cycle to shoot at it rather than the next incomeing volley of missels, that is one less to the attacking missiles have to deal with. Same for defensive energy weapons, it takes time to track, target, fire and then shift targets.

This isn't golden BB stuff, it attitional damage. More things the target has to deal with that splits attention, uses resources and possibly makes it bleed just a bit more.

Exactly what I posited upstream. Lost lock could be a result of intended target being already destroyed. An orphaned control missile could share new targeting data from a better vantage point. The tactic could become instrumental in preventing wasted hits on already destroyed targets.

I just realized that we are all probably assuming this one-off scenario being attempted at the far fringes of an Apollo brood's final stage, instead of a much closer-in combat where a lot more time is left on the MK 23 missile's drive system, thus the MK 23-E missile's drive as well. Leaving much more fuel for unscheduled maneuvers. No?

Loren Pechtel wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:A more probable response would be "oh SHIT!" followed by "I need to change my panties."

Except for the little detail that she certainly wasn't wearing any.

When ships are at battle stations the crew is in suits. Suits have sanitary arrangements built in. Since you obviously can't remove underwear while wearing a suit they must be donned sans underwear. Taking an unplanned dump in a suit is a non-issue.

Just perused On Basilisk Station, Chapter 27 where Honor gets ready for battle. She just got out of the shower and only had time to throw on a silk kimono to answer the emergency comm. ( Imagery of Honor wearing only a silk kimono that is wet.). She then grabs her skin suit out of her locker, removes her damp kimono, slips her feet into her skinsuit then makes the "plumbing connections with painful haste.). Definitely no panties to change if you loose bowel control. If the waste tube is transparent, then you are humiliated in front of your bridge crew.

cthia wrote:I just realized that we are all probably assuming this one-off scenario being attempted at the far fringes of an Apollo brood's final stage, instead of a much closer-in combat where a lot more time is left on the MK 23 missile's drive system, thus the MK 23-E missile's drive as well. Leaving much more fuel for unscheduled maneuvers. No?

Enemy formations tend toward walls; they don't usually have depth. So once you miss your chance at the first target ship there usually aren't any behind it you could divert to.

And a Mk23 is basically never going to be fired on a profile that leaves enough time on the drives to kill its original velocity and come charging back at the enemy. To have a reasonable terminal velocity at its normal half-power it'd need to miss and reverse course after about just 10 million km (just over 1/3rd its run time, less than 1/6ths its range). But since its full-power range is 14.6 million km by the time an enemy was that close you wouldn't be taking half-power shots.


The cold equations show that remaining fuel is almost irrelevant. If the 23E escorts its brood to even 4x laserhead range (200,000 km) of its target its base velocity at any likely range is going to be over 150,000 km/s (burnout is at 242,432 km/s); even at the shorter end of that range it's going to have just 1.3 seconds to maneuver before flying into or past the target. At the usually 50% power level in 1.3 seconds it can divert a maximum of 586 km off its base course.

That might, barely, be enough to deflect into the closest adjacent ship. But only if the laserheads attack from nearly head on. If the target is rolled behind its wedge the attack birds are going to have to overfly it to get line of sight to the hull, which means the 23E will be 50,000+ km off to the side of the target without enough delta-V to achieve impact before its base velocity inexorably carries it off into the depths of space. (Except in the extremely uncommon situation where there's another target behind the first that it might be able to divert into)



But as I've said before, if the geometry lets it attempt to ram there's no reason not to try. But the engagement geometry doesn't always allow that and no plausible amount of remaining fuel will let it try again at ramming a wall of battle if it wasn't able to initially.

Just like it's pod mates, the MK 23-E is going to have to fly such that it would uncover the warhead (that the the defense software of the target doesen't know is not there) so that the laserhead can fire at someplae the wedge is not covering.
The CM launchers and defensive energy batteries CAN'T take the chance that that missile isn't going to try and hit the ship with it's pumped lasers so the ship will have to track it and go for an intercept- even if it already got every other bird from the same pod.
Again, you are making the target honor the threat and spend at least one CM and probably some energy shots trying to kill the MK 23-E....every one of which is not available at the same time to be redirected at the next batchs of missiles inbound.

Brigade XO wrote:On the other hand,even of a Mark 23-E doen't have a warhead, if it does impact on an ememy ship hull, that is "going to hurt", given the speed. Catastrophic damage from things like making a nuclear powerplant lose containment is probably not what is going to happen from the physical impace but damage tends to be cumulative and if you are essentilay vaporizing portioins of an ememy hull (not covered by a wedge) then you are going to also be breaking things like sensors (tactical and otherwise), weapons mounts, defensive mounts, control runs etc and adding to the chaos of fires, power surges, losses of communications, possible interupting feeds from magazines.

You don't realize the power it carries. A solid hit from a 3-drive missile near the end of it's run will destroy anything mobile. Several years ago I worked out the energy--it's roughly 10% of the energy of the dinosaur killer.

Even if the Mark 23-E doesn't get as far as hitting the ship, it is a threat that the counter missile defences have to honor. If it takes one CM (or more) launcher slightly out of cycle to shoot at it rather than the next incomeing volley of missels, that is one less to the attacking missiles have to deal with. Same for defensive energy weapons, it takes time to track, target, fire and then shift targets.

Disagree:

1) By the time the control missile can be engaged (while it's herding it's brood it's hidden behind them and thus it's pretty much impossible to shoot at it) it already through the countermissile zone. If it's going to be engaged it will be with a laser.

2) By the time it can be engaged the defense will know if it's a threat or not. If it's not going to hit they'll let it go. Furthermore, if it's going to hit there's no point in engaging it--use your last shots to help your friends because you can't save yourself. The only reason you would shoot is if the missile was going to be a very near miss--kill it's drive so it can't steer into an impact.

tlb wrote:I think that means the 23-E is going too busy finding openings for its flock to attack. for it to impact anything before the birds have finished. Maybe afterwards there could be a target to hit, but it would be strange if it were presenting the bow or stern.

The computation required to guide it to impact is going to be trivial compared to what else it's doing so there's no issue of it being too busy.

However, it's only an option if the missile is in the plane of the wedge opening. If the defenders roll the wedge there's no possibility of an impact. (Note that if ramming missile are introduced the combat reality is going to be that the defenders must roll as the missile storm arrives. I would not expect hits against mobile units, but rather it forces the defenders to roll and stay rolled.)

cthia wrote:I just realized that we are all probably assuming this one-off scenario being attempted at the far fringes of an Apollo brood's final stage, instead of a much closer-in combat where a lot more time is left on the MK 23 missile's drive system, thus the MK 23-E missile's drive as well. Leaving much more fuel for unscheduled maneuvers. No?

Apollo is more deadly at longer range (they still have good control and the missile's speed makes the defense situation much harder--nobody that's not part of the GA has defenses that are set up to handle missiles coming in high percentage of lightspeed), everyone else is not much of a threat at max range.

Thus, the GA should always seek to engage at maximum range. Near the end of the third stage is going to be the normal situation (other than in the period where they were holding back and pretending they had only two-stage missiles.)

Furthermore, having extra "fuel" (more like drive time) means nothing. Any missile that's burned it's first stage is not capable of re-engaging.