Battle of Spindle

Weird Harold wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:OTOH what else are those missiles going to do after they attack birds' laserheads go off?

Self-destruct in such a way that there is 0.000000000% chance of an enemy finding a shred if usefulness information?

Preserving secret should be they priority, pointless spitballs.

TFLY's notion of a 100+ ton missile impacting at a large percentage of Cee won't accomplish the same thing? Even better? Plus the added possibility of it being a golden BB? Plus the added possibility - no matter how small - of taking out external subsystems? Three stones with one bird?

Besides. Scenario.

A fight to the death with the MA in the future. One missile left that can destroy an MA ship which has been left with no defenses after an engagement, yet is about to transfer a Detweiler to a Streak Boat to forever vanish. Enter the 23-E. PROVIDENCE.

cthia wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:Self-destruct in such a way that there is 0.000000000% chance of an enemy finding a shred if usefulness information?

TFLY's notion of a 100+ ton missile impacting at a large percentage of Cee won't accomplish the same thing?

not to the same degree of certainty.

Murphy doesn't play favorites. A golden BB cab destroy a missile or preserve one. The latter is mush harder if you don't go any where except the nearest wedge.

cthia wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Sure, that's why a ramming attack is unlike to cause damage. There's almost guaranteed to be a sidewall or wedge in the way and nothing to turn against missiles in outer space can't make the kind of tight turns that one about to use aerodynamic forces can pull in the atmosphere (or a can can pull on a road). You spend 7 or 8 minutes building up an MDMs speed in one direction you just can't turn a corner in the last minute or two of drive life (change your heading by a lot; no problem. You can even deflect your path to the side more than a few hundred km - but you're still traveling almost along your original course at a hefty fraction of the speed of light)


OTOH what else are those missiles going to do after they attack birds' laserheads go off? At least simulate an attack profile or a 'contact' nuke or sidewall burner attack. (which is either bore straight in at the sidewall or try to pass by no more than 4,500 km or so from the target as you clear an interveneing wedge) The target can't be 100% sure that its a harmless decoy/ECM or control missile and so it should at minimum draw defensive fire that would otherwise be directed at follow-up attack missiles that are actually more dangerous to it.

And hey, every once in a blue moon the helmsman is going to do something stupid or you're going to be in a stern chase and you just might be on an angle to reach the ship without hitting a sidewall. You'll probably still be shot down - but that draws fire away from follow up missiles)


But if the target is foolish enough to start ignoring those "spent" missiles then a savvy tac officer would take advantage by send in a few missiles that really were 'contact' nukes or sidewall burners pretending to be decoy/ECM or control missiles

First thing. Personally, I would only categorize the era of unguided missiles as stupid. When missiles acquired the ability to seek, begat a level of intelligence.


MK 23-E and its brood. Here you have a missile that knows when an enemy ship has made a grievous tactical maneuver, setting itself up for a mate-in-three. I was under the impression that that damn missile starts homing like a bitch in heat, tracking like a hound dog that's caught the scent of prey, and it's going in for the kill, looking - no, scrambling - for a specific up the kilt shot. A kill shot. This is not a general warhead pleasantly going off at standoff range. And it implies a certain level of maneuverability. When a missile starts maneuvering for a specific shot like that, trying to sniff the butt of the enemy ship, requires crunching some serious triangular functions, lots of splines. It's trying to ram the sparkler right up the ship's ass, then set off the laser show. I can't refer to a missile with that kind of ability as stupid. Dangerous for damn sure. But stupid?

"Hey, we got any more of those stupid missiles on the assembly line? They're real popular."

At any rate, how does a missile make those kinds of maneuvers if Jonathan's logic is correct. How did Honor's 3-missile demo pull off those elaborate ballet moves? Coming in at tremendous speed, enough to cause the crew to soil their proverbial undies, then pulling up, pirouetting and hitting each other?

An aside: It was never clear to me whether being able to recognize an opportunity for an "up the kilt" shot is an ability of all missiles, or just Manty missiles. If it is an ability of all missiles, like I imagine. Then that upholds my notion, since missiles in general (inherently) are already generally smart. Just saying.

I know if you cross one's T, "guns" can fire down the throat or up the kilt. But can the average missile of any navy seek a specific up the kilt shot if it recognizes being put in a mate-in-three position?

All missiles can try for an up the kilt shot (thought given wedge geometry if the ship is oriented perpendicular to you (whether or not it's rolled wedge) it's actually easier to do a down the throat shot. The sidewalls are still a hair over 20 km apart but the front of the wedge is almost 5x taller than the one at the rear (for SDs the kilt opening is about 40 km tall while the throat opening is 190 km tall). But the missiles do that by flying past the kilt (or throat) and taking a snap shot with their laser head as they flash past 30-50,000 km away. The missile doesn't need to divert it's course noticeably; just point it's warhead perpendicular to its current flight path and go *bang* at just the right microsecond.

If the ship hasn't rolled and has a broadside facing you and is engaging the missiles with point defense then flying in deep enough to try for an up the kilt exposes to you point defense fire for longer.

For SDMs that's significant, the time it takes them to cover that final 50,000 km takes it around 0.65 seconds - which is enough time for an extra CM launch or a bunch more PDLC shots. (Plus your coming into the firing arc of the chase hammerhead defenses so PDLCs that couldn't even bear on you in a pure broadside attack get to take shots as you as you try to achieve a spot directly ahead or behind the target. So the odds of covering that extra distance are lower than if you set off your laserhead the moment you were 50,000 km away from the target.

For MDMs their higher velocity makes it less dangerous to cover that extra ground to go off directly ahead of behind. At even pre-Apollo engagement ranges MDMs are likely going to cover the final 50,000 km in 0.24 seconds; basically 1/3rd the time. (And at least Manticore MDMs do have better ECM/decoy support further enhancing their ability to go for the higher risk higher reward shots.

But unless the enemy ship has pointed it's tail at you and is fleeting none of the up the kilt shots involve a missile trajectory that's moving up the kilt. They're just firing lasers up it as they fly past -- so no chance of a ramming attack.


How well Mk23s pirouette depends on what basis you're judging them by. Did they reverse direction or pull a u-turn; definitely not. They'd only be able to do that within about 7 million km of launch. But did they radically change their heading (but not direction of travel) and then deflect off to the side -- sure they could do that depending on how long you wanted to burn their drives. In 1 second they could deflect 450 km to the side of their previous course, in 5 seconds 2,250 km, etc. They could even start canceling a little of their forward velocity (but remember it takes exactly as many seconds to slow down as it took to speed up) but that probably wouldn't be very dramatic. An observer might call that deflection maneuver a pirouette. And missiles could certainly be put on courses that collided - those course would just still be overwhelmingly along their original direction of travel; but they could use their drives to deflect onto mutually converging courses that will quickly collide.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:There is a reason that everyone uses laserhead and not contact missiles -- You can actually hit something useful.

Sure, that's why a ramming attack is unlike to cause damage. There's almost guaranteed to be a sidewall or wedge in the way and nothing to turn against missiles in outer space can't make the kind of tight turns that one about to use aerodynamic forces can pull in the atmosphere (or a can can pull on a road). You spend 7 or 8 minutes building up an MDMs speed in one direction you just can't turn a corner in the last minute or two of drive life (change your heading by a lot; no problem. You can even deflect your path to the side more than a few hundred km - but you're still traveling almost along your original course at a hefty fraction of the speed of light)

Fully agree--ramming is only possible if you're headed for the ship already. However, if the ship hasn't rolled a wedge against you that is the course you'll already be on.

OTOH what else are those missiles going to do after they attack birds' laserheads go off? At least simulate an attack profile or a 'contact' nuke or sidewall burner attack. (which is either bore straight in at the sidewall or try to pass by no more than 4,500 km or so from the target as you clear an interveneing wedge) The target can't be 100% sure that its a harmless decoy/ECM or control missile and so it should at minimum draw defensive fire that would otherwise be directed at follow-up attack missiles that are actually more dangerous to it.

The defenders already have no way to distingush the EW birds, they are targeted.

And hey, every once in a blue moon the helmsman is going to do something stupid or you're going to be in a stern chase and you just might be on an angle to reach the ship without hitting a sidewall. You'll probably still be shot down - but that draws fire away from follow up missiles)


But if the target is foolish enough to start ignoring those "spent" missiles then a savvy tac officer would take advantage by send in a few missiles that really were 'contact' nukes or sidewall burners pretending to be decoy/ECM or control missiles

Given MDM energy I think hitting a sidewall is still a good thing. We know a laser is merely attenuated, not stopped. If the sidewall can somehow stop the missile it will release energy that makes the hottest laser head ever fired look like the faintest glimmer--even attenuated that will hurt. If the sidewall can't stop the missile it goes through and kills the ship.

No, for some reason a missile hitting the sidewalk does nothing. Unless it has a sidewalk penetrator, which essentially ejects the warhead through the sidewalk to go off close to the ship. No warhead, no effect.

Realistically, the ships particle screens are capable of casually frying a missile size and missile velocity rock. It’s the wedge that makes are missile direct hit so deadly.

cthia wrote:

Theemile wrote:
Simple, in classic missiles, the radio receiver on the back of the missile needs to be pointed at the launching ship to get targeting updates. if you block the LOS to the ship's transmitter with the wedge that is trailing 5km behind the missile by turning too sharply (which is not much), the missile becomes stupid and on it's own - because the brains are in the ship...

I thought that only applied to prehistoric Manty missiles and all Peep missiles. Because. . . enter autonomous mode. Autonomy means independent. Something many parents spend all their lives hoping one day their kids will become. LOL

I'd call these missiles anything BUT stupid.

Smart only applies to attack missiles controlled by Apollo Command Missiles. Any other missiles, when they enter autonomous mode are fairly dumb. This applies to current Manty Mk23, Mk16, Mk 15ER, mk13ER, Mk34, and Mk36LERM - AND EVERY OTHER MISSILE IN THE UNIVERSE- when they cut the tie to their command ship, they become dumb, driving in on the last place they were told their target was.

This even applies to Apollo, if you drive the attack missiles hard enough that LOS between the missile receiver and the ACM firecontrol transmitter is blocked by the wedge of the missile or the ACM, the Missile will go dumb, and fly off following it's last command sets- assuming control cannot be reasserted by the ACM once (IF) LOS is restored. The ACM programming is probably such that it knows not to drive the attack missiles at hard, but it is possible to do.

kzt wrote:No, for some reason a missile hitting the sidewalk does nothing. Unless it has a sidewalk penetrator, which essentially ejects the warhead through the sidewalk to go off close to the ship. No warhead, no effect.

Realistically, the ships particle screens are capable of casually frying a missile size and missile velocity rock. It’s the wedge that makes are missile direct hit so deadly.

I do hope you are a victim of AutoCorrect in your blatant assault on sidewalks everywhere.

AutoCorrect - The Little, barely literate, drunk elf in your phone trying his hardest to correct your typing.

Jonathan_S wrote:
How well Mk23s pirouette depends on what basis you're judging them by. Did they reverse direction or pull a u-turn; definitely not. They'd only be able to do that within about 7 million km of launch. But did they radically change their heading (but not direction of travel) and then deflect off to the side -- sure they could do that depending on how long you wanted to burn their drives. In 1 second they could deflect 450 km to the side of their previous course, in 5 seconds 2,250 km, etc. They could even start canceling a little of their forward velocity (but remember it takes exactly as many seconds to slow down as it took to speed up) but that probably wouldn't be very dramatic. An observer might call that deflection maneuver a pirouette. And missiles could certainly be put on courses that collided - those course would just still be overwhelmingly along their original direction of travel; but they could use their drives to deflect onto mutually converging courses that will quickly collide.

If you were going for an up the kilt shot, you would need to start the maneuver well in advance of the actual attack. You would need to rotate the missile body into position BEFORE separating the laserheads, so you would have to drop the wedge early, at around 100,000 Km, rotate the missile body, launch laserheads at ~50,000 KM, then fire as you pass in front of/behind the ship. Depending on the geometry of the engagement, your missile may actually spend MORE time in the PDCL basket than if you went for the sidewalls - none of it with an active wedge.

Theemile wrote:

kzt wrote:No, for some reason a missile hitting the sidewalk does nothing. Unless it has a sidewalk penetrator, which essentially ejects the warhead through the sidewalk to go off close to the ship. No warhead, no effect.

Realistically, the ships particle screens are capable of casually frying a missile size and missile velocity rock. It’s the wedge that makes are missile direct hit so deadly.

I do hope you are a victim of AutoCorrect in your blatant assault on sidewalks everywhere.

AutoCorrect - The Little, barely literate, drunk elf in your phone trying his hardest to correct your typing.

Sidewall sidewalk.
PatAtoe PatatOe.
TamatOe, TamAtoe.

Theemile wrote:If you were going for an up the kilt shot, you would need to start the maneuver well in advance of the actual attack. You would need to rotate the missile body into position BEFORE separating the laserheads, so you would have to drop the wedge early, at around 100,000 Km, rotate the missile body, launch laserheads at ~50,000 KM, then fire as you pass in front of/behind the ship. Depending on the geometry of the engagement, your missile may actually spend MORE time in the PDCL basket than if you went for the sidewalls - none of it with an active wedge.

Guess we don't have a good feeling for how fast a missile change change it's heading while under impeller driver (or under maneuvering thrusters).

I do agree that any up the kilt shot against a ship oriented broadside on to the attack is going to put the missile in the CM and PDLC envelope longer than a sidewall on attack. In the part of the post you didn't quote I even tried to calculate how much longer they'd be exposed to that defensive fire.

We've certainly seen laserheads make "snap shots" as they overfly an interposed wedge - but I guess those aren't subject to defensive fire from that ship while lining up for that (as far as we've seen only Keyhole allows a ship to engage incoming missiles while rolled behind its wedge -- though even without that other ships in formation with it could try to engage those missiles).
Although at 2nd Hancock, when Shrikes were first used, the Peeps had some success firing missiles past the LAC and having their laserheads target backwards into the open kilt of the LAC's wedge!! That makes a perpendicularly passing shot like we've been discussing look easy

"Most of the Shrikes lost at Second Hancock had, in fact, been killed by "up-the-kilt" laser head snap shots at close range—exactly the sort of attack the designers had believed would be impossible. But while the firing solutions for that sort of attack against something as small and agile as a Shrike were, indeed, difficult to generate, the odds of success were much better than prebattle analyses had projected, and it took only a single one of them to kill an LAC." [AoV]