Hybrid missile/Graser Torp

Hybrid Missile/Graser Torp

In Uncompromising Honor, DW stated that a Graser Torpedo is ~2X MK23. Or not even as large as old style super Capacitor missile.

DW also has Graser Torps stuffed onto RD's who can maintain 15,000G in stealth for hours.

So, what happens when you slap a Spider drive Graser Torp onto either a 2 stage missile(easily doable) or onto an RD? Only difference is how fast you want the Graser Torp to get into range.

Why would ANYONE ever need to cross the Hyper Limit to attack and why would ANY defender ever again believe anyone will? Oh yea; And counter missile defense? Does not exist anymore. If you cannot see it, or barely, you can't fire CM's at them, and the Graser Torps can fire from OUTSIDE your PDLC range. In effect, YOU have no defense anymore.

Oh yea, and Graser Torps are FAR more powerful than any laser from a missile.

In effect the Grand alliance is utterly 100% screwed if/when they do run into the MALIGN as they have zero defense.

PS: Anyone else notice how DW casually gave the MALIGN/SLN missiles the ability for 180s burn at 85,000G when the Manties can only achieve ~48,000... Of course it seems there was some fumble fingers doing calcs or voice recognition mistook fifty for eighty(my bet and no editor in sight) as the end velocity did not match reality during engagements, so, what gives? Of course if one remembers back to the bad ol' days of HoTQ, Havenite missiles, land based, were able to do this as well. So, WHY not on MDM's?

Oh là là ! Nice thread! I was anticipating a thread like this myself, delving inside MA tech. I'll just post it here . . .

INSIDE MALIGN TECH: STRATEGIC and TACTICAL OPTIONS

UH wrote:“And so to business,” Daniel agreed. “There are two or three projects we need to discuss—someplace besides over lunch in a restaurant, I mean—but the main thing is that, as of today, Silver Bullet’s ready for production. We still have a couple of bugs to address, but they’re mostly software issues. The prototype hardware’s performed almost perfectly, and Test and Eval signed off on it yesterday.”

“That’s great!” Benjamin raised one hand in a thumbs-up gesture. “Faster than I expected, too.”

“Well, most of the hardware was pretty much off-the-shelf. We’d already been tweaking the torpedo’s drive for you, and the gravitic sensors are out of our own grav com R&D. The biggest problem was power supply, really. My people haven’t been able to duplicate the Manty micro fusion plants yet. I think they’re on the track, and I’m actually predicting that they’ll pull it off in the next T-year or so, but it won’t be any sooner than that. Assuming Collin’s people don’t manage to steal the plans for us. Any chance of that?”

“’Fraid not.” Benjamin shook his head, his expression much less cheerful than it had been. “I had a report from him a couple of days ago. Apparently, the Manties are rolling up his networks in a big way.

I was wondering what impact it will have on MA tech if they happen to reproduce the Manty micro fusion plant. We all know what impact Grayson's brainchild had across the board on Manty tech.

I don't buy the notion that countermissiles are useless. True, their job is harder, but all the Manties have to do is jack up their drone shell densities and push them further out. Covering a perimeter with a million kilometre radius is do-able with a few hundred drones, so any formations with a squadron or more should be fine. A proper fleet's inner drone perimeter is potentially much larger. Isolated ships are extremely vulnerable, though.

As for PDLC being outranged by the graser torpedos, that's true too... but shipboard weapons in turn outrange the torpedo's graser. Especially as ships can interpose a sidewall and torpedos cannot.

Don't forget the Alignment has shown too much of their hand without actually delivering a killing blow. Lots of R&D people in Manticore, Grayson and Haven are working hard to come up with anything that can detect spider drives.

munroburton wrote:I don't buy the notion that countermissiles are useless. True, their job is harder, but all the Manties have to do is jack up their drone shell densities and push them further out.

Yes/No. Simplified math time. NIT: Tracking/targeting is different than "something" of "unknown numbers" is there. It could be one, it could be a dozen.

Simplified Math: CMs best current(baring use of larger missiles) have drive time of 75s. Range ~3+ Mkm. Need a target, heading, and number of targets so you know how many CM's to use on a certain vector.

(Really simplified, not true numbers) If a missile or Gtorps are traveling at 0.5C(Cataphract not Mantie or Havenite ~0.8C) they are traveling at 150,000km/s. Your CM's have a range of 3.5Mkm and "new" will probably have even greater with drive time of 75s.

75x 150,000km/s = 11.25Mkm.

Detection for Gtorps is ~1 light second(300,000km).

So, theoretically, for tracking, need 1 RD every ~600,000km over a distance of 11+ Mkm ~ = 20 layers of drones in a cone in front of your ships of say ~ 45 degrees... Holy $#%&&#!!! that is a TON of drones.

For a ginormous task force? Ok, BUT:
Lets look at a 1v1 say heavy cruiser or even a division. These oversized GTorps are latched to surface of ship like pods... 1 hit will mission Kill your ship. 2? For sure. So, you do not have to carry many, fire many to force the opposing side to carry an absolute GINORMOUS ton of RD's per ship.

Theoretically if you know the incoming vector then number of RD's drastically drops. Need approx ~ 3 RD's every shell layer or ~ 60 to a couple multiples of this to cover other contingencies.

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You will note I ONLY did the DDM missile with grafted on spider Gtorp....

What about Stealthed RD+ Gtorp.... now the defender have to have RD's on 360x360... In short a SAG-C would have to carry more tonnage in drones than missiles. In fact, would have to carry more tonnage in RD's than the entire SHIP!

SAG-C ~1100 x ~94 tons = ~100,000tons
RD = ??? 200 tons

For 360 coverage on ecliptic @ 500,000 from ship would require 3 drones and for 360*360 require 5 drones. Yes, I simplified the math as a circle fits into a square at ~80% and only took ~15% off the 600,000.

Shell #2 @ 1.2Mkm goes by 4*PI*r^2
r in this case would be 2 instead of 1 so Shell #2 is 4X more drones than shell one. SO, 20 Drones Total 25

Shell #3 @ 1.8Mkm require 45 drones total 70

Shell #4 @ 2.4Mkm require 80 drones total 150

Shell #5 @ 3Mkm requires 125 total 275

Shell #6 @ 3.6Mkm requires 180 total 455

Shell #7 @4.2Mkm requires 49*5 = 245 total 700 drones

Shell n....

Shell #20 11.2Mkm requires 2000 drones total(insanity)

Even for fixed defenses this is near insanity. If not complete insanity if one wants to use longer ranged CM's or what happens when the Spider drive Gtorps are coming in at 0.8C! I only did the 0.5C case...!!!!!

Do you really need the multiple shells? I think as the drones all originate from the center of the shell, they clear a safe volume of space on their way to the perimeter. As long as that perimeter is impenetrable, there is no need for additional shells within it. Certainly not so many.

I may be wrong, but Rolands have shown they can deploy 90+ RDs each. A lone Roland would be able to put up a single 2.4m KM shell according to your figures. It's not "insanity" for a fleet to deploy thousands of drones. They can probably refit a few bays on each CLAC and cover all their strategically vital concentrations that way.

In my previous post, I conceded that Isolated ships are extremely vulnerable. I fail to understand how the Alignment picking off lonely destroyers and cruisers will satisfy any of their long-term objectives. It sucks for these ships, but the Alignment won't win any wars relying on this engagement criteria.

Also, if the torps come in at too high a velocity, they cut their own engagement windows. Not such a problem for millisecond-burst laserheads. Problematic for grasers meant to deliver 3 or 4 second bursts - they won't be able to deliver more than a tiny, tiny fraction of their maximum potential.

munroburton wrote:Do you really need the multiple shells? I think as the drones all originate from the center of the shell, they clear a safe volume of space on their way to the perimeter. As long as that perimeter is impenetrable, there is no need for additional shells within it. Certainly not so many.

I may be wrong, but Rolands have shown they can deploy 90+ RDs each. A lone Roland would be able to put up a single 2.4m KM shell according to your figures. It's not "insanity" for a fleet to deploy thousands of drones. They can probably refit a few bays on each CLAC and cover all their strategically vital concentrations that way.

In my previous post, I conceded that Isolated ships are extremely vulnerable. I fail to understand how the Alignment picking off lonely destroyers and cruisers will satisfy any of their long-term objectives. It sucks for these ships, but the Alignment won't win any wars relying on this engagement criteria.

Also, if the torps come in at too high a velocity, they cut their own engagement windows. Not such a problem for millisecond-burst laserheads. Problematic for grasers meant to deliver 3 or 4 second bursts - they won't be able to deliver more than a tiny, tiny fraction of their maximum potential.

CM's can barely see missile, now they are supposed to find stealthed spider drives when RD's can barely see them at 1 light second? Need those multiple shells so the RD's can send targeting information on broadcast as they have FTL to mothership for ECM computing and can then update with their OWN targeting information so can give better targeting info to CM's who are truly 100% blind now.

On a side note: Maybe CM's now use GIGANTIC nuclear explosion instead of wedges? Gtorps should be fairly vulnerable to nuclear explosions. Essentially depth charges.

No, Rolands have not shown the number of RD's they carry. We have no idea RD's tonnage nor how many each ship class carries. As far as I am aware this aspect of the HV is make-it-up-as-I-go-itium.

Graser has a stand off attack range of ~600,000km... For a direct frontal attack that is 4s of burn time @ 0.5C closing speed going nose on and it then flips on thrusters as it goes past and has another 4seconds of firing up its targets tailpipe. So, no, it will not be going too fast. Even at 1C closing speed, it is still 2s nose on and 2s up the tailpipe. Even if we cut distance of attack down to 300,000, that is still 1-->2 seconds of firing nose on and 1-->2 seconds up the tailpipe. Same goes for any other orientation.

There is absolutely no evidence presented that the RMN has taken any countermeasures whatsoever against the threat of spider weapons. None at all. See how the fleet at the Beowulf WH had their wedges down.

kzt wrote:There is absolutely no evidence presented that the RMN has taken any countermeasures whatsoever against the threat of spider weapons. None at all. See how the fleet at the Beowulf WH had their wedges down.

Exactly. In fact the whole Beowulf episode was very puzzling unless DW 1) wrote for plot and 2) decided with 100% justifiable reasoning that Beowulf admirals etc would be in charge of forces in system and said admirals are good peace time paper pushers who have never had to think about strategy/tactics of killing or being killed in their lives and naturally FAILED miserably.

I'll go with #2. Just look at history. Peacetime generals admirals all FAIL miserably for the vast majority of them.

PS: Should ALWAYS have at least a squadron or 2 of BCP outside hyperlimit with wedges up etc who can at minimum fire off missiles into opposition to EMP kill(I know it is stupid, but is is canon) other sides pods... This at least forces them to fire off their pods or break up their massive wave into 2 waves or gives you more time or at minimum gives you better information.

Relax wrote:CM's can barely see missile, now they are supposed to find stealthed spider drives when RD's can barely see them at 1 light second? Need those multiple shells so the RD's can send targeting information on broadcast as they have FTL to mothership for ECM computing and can then update with their OWN targeting information so can give better targeting info to CM's who are truly 100% blind now.

Fair point, but you only need two or three shells. If the torpedo is moving fast, it's going to draw a pretty straight line once it enters the perimeter. If it's moving slowly, the RDs can intercept it.

Graser has a stand off attack range of ~600,000km... For a direct frontal attack that is 4s of burn time @ 0.5C closing speed going nose on and it then flips on thrusters as it goes past and has another 4seconds of firing up its targets tailpipe. So, no, it will not be going too fast. Even at 1C closing speed, it is still 2s nose on and 2s up the tailpipe. Even if we cut distance of attack down to 300,000, that is still 1-->2 seconds of firing nose on and 1-->2 seconds up the tailpipe. Same goes for any other orientation.

The stand-off range of 600,000km is only applicable against un-sidewalled targets. We're talking about shooting cruiser-grade grasers at prewar SD-grade sidewalls now fitted to battlecruisers. Burn-through range is cut in half, if not by even more.

I have doubts that graser torps can obtain and maintain a fix on their target throughout the firing process. Small evasive changes can really screw with lightspeed sensors - at 300,000km by the time your shot has arrived your targeting data is two seconds old. Textev tells us countless times that many of a missile salvo are wasted because of this sensor limitation - and they fire at a third of graser range.

If that magic constant-aim ability is unachievable, then total graser exposure is something like 0.008 milliseconds if it's passing at around .5c and rakes a 1.2km ship bow-to-stern. Probably a nasty experience but unlikely to be fatal by itself.

Mass salvos can still kill, but if you're going to throw around thousands of high-speed weapons, might as well stick with missiles launched from spider pods.

A missile gets 1 try at hitting a target in a certain area. Its percentage of hits is pathetic as it only gets one chance.

Gtorp on the other hand gets to continually guess for upwards of 8 seconds. How many hundreds of times can you re-aim in upwards of 8 seconds(under scenario given)

Percentage of hits is going WAY up on a Gtorp and its throughput is far higher than any missile laser rod.

Yes, your range issue with sidewall is real. Why in same post I stated 300,000 as well

And If you use your DDM to get there fast and then flip and use some of its time to slow you down and the Spider to slow you down more?

PS: It appears you forget how HV currently works. CM's are the ones "SEEING" the missiles after being steered to approxamite location, and final homing in... With spider Gtorps as target is IMPOSSIBLE. Why only solution is for RD's to be positioned VERY close to the vectors of incoming Gtorps so they can see them and then they relay this position in a general broadcast where the CM's can listen and pick out the correct target. That is why you MUST have the RD shells so close. If you lose lock on target, you have NO TARGET! Spider drives still have plenty of acceleration. Did previous book not say 3000G?