Hybrid missile/Graser Torp

Letter to the Editor

Dear Relax,

I thought you were headed the other way with the possible utility of the hybrid. Well, I did all the way in until the line that reads . . .

relax wrote:. . . Only difference is how fast you want the Graser Torp to get into range.

"Oh," I exclaimed. I thought he was going the other way. As in, how stealthy you'd want to get a wedge inside GA defenses. See how my wired brain worx!? Alas, I caught no joy. But! . . .

Concentrating on the opposite benefit, wouldn't such a design allow you to get a wedge in where needed? Like the one rare time Scotty used a nuke because, due to providence, it was more effective? Dunno where such a utility would be more useful than the graser, but possible?

However, it should be noted that if a single warship is targeted with this utility in mind with several or more hybrids on a certain vector with the intent of guaranteeing an up the kilt shot, would seems reasonable. At any rate, I completely miscalculated your bearing. And I totally apologize for thinking your brain fires like mine.

—cthia

P.S. Such a utility would seem to be perfect in destroying stacked pods as well.

P.P.S. I can't get the scenario out of my mind when Courvosier died in the Endicott System. The enemy lured them to a preordained spot in space where they lie waiting. If the MA sneaks certain tech into the system and lures a fleet within range. . . said the Spiders to the flies . . .

.

kzt wrote:But in Honorverse prox kills are essentially magic, its basically enough to shoot in their general direction.

Agreed. IRL, they would need to be hardened to such a degree that it would be difficult for nukes to harm them, unless they were caught directly in the fireball, or in the grav formed plasma "beam" used for burning out sidewalls.

However, in the Honorverse, everybody is concerned with proximity kills on pods correctly or incorrectly), so why not take advantage of that fact in your tactical planning, and make life more difficult for the enemy? Maybe you might accidently actually kill his pods...

cthia wrote:
P.P.S. I can't get the scenario out of my mind when Courvosier died in the Endicott System. The enemy lured them to a preordained spot in space where they lie waiting. If the MA sneaks certain tech into the system and lures a fleet within range, said the Spiders to the flies . . .

Remember, you can't expect the enemy to follow you plan all the time, an ambush tactics require the opposition to do just that. They are the enemy after all, and their job is making sure they don't get surprised by you. If all you have is that one trick in your arsenal, you are quickly going to lose.

cthia wrote:The nuisance question from the back of the class . . .

I should know this but for that recurrent memo problem I have. I always assumed the answer to the upcoming question is yes, but, to be sure! While rolled, a ship can fire off-bore, can said ship "roll pods" off-bore? Again, I don't see why not. A professor of mine was fond of saying . . .

"There are no stupid questions, just the stupidity of not asking the ignorant question."

Now there's this image in my head of desperate ships maneuvering wildly in the heat of battle taking each other out. Now I'm seeing desperate ships maneuvering into shoals of pods waiting to light off.

In all the ship designs that we have seen the pods are ejected out the back. So they do not roll off-bore, but the pods can rotate to point in an pre-determined direct; so they do not fire along the bore.

The group formation needs to be designed, and the movements controlled, so those collisions do not happen.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:The nuisance question from the back of the class . . .

I should know this but for that recurrent memo problem I have. I always assumed the answer to the upcoming question is yes, but, to be sure! While rolled, a ship can fire off-bore, can said ship "roll pods" off-bore? Again, I don't see why not. A professor of mine was fond of saying . . .

"There are no stupid questions, just the stupidity of not asking the ignorant question."

Now there's this image in my head of desperate ships maneuvering wildly in the heat of battle taking each other out. Now I'm seeing desperate ships maneuvering into shoals of pods waiting to light off.

In all the ship designs that we have seen the pods are ejected out the back. So they do not roll off-bore, but the pods can rotate to point in an pre-determined direct; so they do not fire along the bore.

The group formation needs to be designed, and the movements controlled, so those collisions do not happen.

Always an exception.
Warship podlayers do that, but modded civilian Arsenal ships (ESN, MARSN) threw them out to the side from the containers.

Rob

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:
Always an exception.
Warship podlayers do that, but modded civilian Arsenal ships (ESN, MARSN) threw them out to the side from the containers.

Rob

The Civilian merchies used by the SLN probably had side pod launchings also. However, none if those designs are intended to run in combat formation with other podlayers. The MARSN starlifters ran behind the formation of Marksmen who provided fire control and defense. I think that battle changed their mind on that use of the Starlifters in combat (even though later Starlifters would actually have modular defenses), and we were told they were expecting a number of BC(P)S by fall 1923.

Kizarvexis wrote:No, the thinking is there, I just don't think I provided enough detail. I was not thinking of killing the initial salvos. I was thinking of detailing a small fraction of the offensive missiles vs the deployed missiles of followup salvos. It's not as crazy as you think.

Only the Manticore pods with internal tractors will keep up with the ships dropping them. Ships don't have enough tractors for the pods, unless you do something like the Donkeys. So outside of those two systems, pods dropped will lag behind the accelerating ships in little puffs for each pod lot dropped. The puffs will slowly drift apart as well as the accelerating ships give each puff of pods a little more dV than the last pod lot deployed. The tactical officers then use time on target calcs to get a bunch of separate puffs of pods to become a large salvo.

So, would the attacking ships have enough reach on their CMs and point defense to defend the pods they left behind while they stack them? You don't need much to get out of PD range and the further out from the ships, the harder the CM coverage is. Not to mention, if you are defending from incoming salvos, can you put out enough defense to save the pods as well?

Normally after the initial launch ships roll just 1 or 2 patterns of pods before firing them. It's 6 seconds per pattern, but let's assuming the 2nd set of pods has to drift a bit clear before firing; so call it 15 seconds between when the first pattern was rolled and when the double pattern fires. If the SD(P) is accelerating at 500g the ship would, in those 15 seconds, move all of 551 km away from the initially rolled pattern of pods. (And remember until Manticore shared their very latest compensators even Haven's copies weren't likely to get an SD(P) accelerating that hard)


Given that laserheads have 30,000 to 50,000 km standoff ranges (yet their nukes are somehow a threat to unlaunched pods from that range), PDLCs can reach out to about 100,000 km and even old CMs can reach out to over 1,000,000 km I'd say:
a) There's no real need to divert missiles against the pods - the ones attacking the ship would still prox-kill free floating pods
b) The pods are still deeply within the ship's defensive envelope

You'd have to accelerate away from pods for over 11 minutes before they got even half-way out of your PDLC zone. (And in that 11+ minutes you could roll over 100 patterns of pods!)

Jonathan_S wrote:

Kizarvexis wrote:No, the thinking is there, I just don't think I provided enough detail. I was not thinking of killing the initial salvos. I was thinking of detailing a small fraction of the offensive missiles vs the deployed missiles of followup salvos. It's not as crazy as you think.

Only the Manticore pods with internal tractors will keep up with the ships dropping them. Ships don't have enough tractors for the pods, unless you do something like the Donkeys. So outside of those two systems, pods dropped will lag behind the accelerating ships in little puffs for each pod lot dropped. The puffs will slowly drift apart as well as the accelerating ships give each puff of pods a little more dV than the last pod lot deployed. The tactical officers then use time on target calcs to get a bunch of separate puffs of pods to become a large salvo.

So, would the attacking ships have enough reach on their CMs and point defense to defend the pods they left behind while they stack them? You don't need much to get out of PD range and the further out from the ships, the harder the CM coverage is. Not to mention, if you are defending from incoming salvos, can you put out enough defense to save the pods as well?

Normally after the initial launch ships roll just 1 or 2 patterns of pods before firing them. It's 6 seconds per pattern, but let's assuming the 2nd set of pods has to drift a bit clear before firing; so call it 15 seconds between when the first pattern was rolled and when the double pattern fires. If the SD(P) is accelerating at 500g the ship would, in those 15 seconds, move all of 551 km away from the initially rolled pattern of pods. (And remember until Manticore shared their very latest compensators even Haven's copies weren't likely to get an SD(P) accelerating that hard)


Given that laserheads have 30,000 to 50,000 km standoff ranges (yet their nukes are somehow a threat to unlaunched pods from that range), PDLCs can reach out to about 100,000 km and even old CMs can reach out to over 1,000,000 km I'd say:
a) There's no real need to divert missiles against the pods - the ones attacking the ship would still prox-kill free floating pods
b) The pods are still deeply within the ship's defensive envelope

You'd have to accelerate away from pods for over 11 minutes before they got even half-way out of your PDLC zone. (And in that 11+ minutes you could roll over 100 patterns of pods!)

And you would be running out of ammunition.