The big problem of late Honorverse

kzt wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote: Barricade does not seem so implausible to me. Any missile is far more vulnerable during the ballistic phase. (This is why there is so much panic over "hypersonic vehicles" for ICBMs which are nothing more than an RV with guidance and extremely limited maneuverability. The ability to evade intercept goes to crap as the desired accuracy decreases.)

The geometry just doesn't work unless you assume the missiles are lined up head to tail. This means the missiles have no target and can't be controlled. As it was stated they had not done any manipulation, and a missile will automatically position such that it can both see the target and see the launching ship this seems 'unlikely'.

They are going to arrange themselves in a basically 2D grid, probably at least 20km from each other, with the nose at the target and the tail at the launcher. And there just isn't any way for the stated geometry to work. The source missile pods would have to have been at right angles to the launcher-target line to have any chance to get more than one missile.

Are you saying that all of the 500 missiles launched in each flight were on a plane? I don't think so. Since there were 8 battlecruisers towing the missile pods, I suspect that there were 8 planes of missiles in each wave. That would give each Barricade missile, in theory, a chance to take out 8 missiles from each wave. In theory only, because the dispersal patterns appeared to all the missiles lined up quite that neatly.

TFLYTSNBN wrote: Not to mention that he had a pair of LACs each towing the entire pod core of a SD(P) at 700G in full stealth....

Not quite 700G (because I don't think the cruisers got that high), definitely over 500G.

Loren Pechtel wrote:
The drone strike was based on overwhelming stealth coupled with tons of time to set the attack up. It's basically Mistletoe with c-frac energies replacing the warhead. With modern velocities there's no need of a warhead in a skin-to-skin situation.

Yeah, one problem: in all previous series it was several times stated that Solarian are actually ahead in stealth systems (up to the point that in early books Manties have problems with detecting Haven stealth recon platforms), and in Ashes of Victory, their technology was used to stealth missiles in assassination attempt. I.e. they SHOULD anticipate the stealth attacks.

As for the rest of the battle--at that point GA light missiles hit harder than SLN capital ship missiles.

Which is, again, an extremely dragged-on situation.

Hypatia is the only situation where we weren't looking at massive overkill in GA launches. The SLN defenses do not appear to have been upgraded to deal with the modern threat level, either--and we have seen repeatedly that SLN countermissiles are basically useless against GA EW capability.

Which is almost total nonsense, because GA EW systems were designed against each other, NOT the SLN ones. Of course it works visa versa too, but point is, that it's much more likely that both sides would have drastic reduction in EW and ECM systems efficiency, than "super-manticoran super-technology works super-well!"

According to a retired chemical corps officer, the US Army could never figure out why the USSR used the GD agent (Soman) instead of GB (Sarin), because by all the metrics DB was a better chemical agent. And then one day the US Army realized that GD wasn't filtered by the filters in US Army protective masks...

kzt wrote:According to a retired chemical corps officer, the US Army could never figure out why the USSR used the GD agent (Soman) instead of GB (Sarin), because by all the metrics DB was a better chemical agent. And then one day the US Army realized that GD wasn't filtered by the filters in US Army protective masks...

Yep. And it was armies that prepared to fight each other for decades.

In Honorverse, on the contrary, Manties never actually prepared to fight SLN. They were centered on Haven. All their weapon & systems were set to defeat Havenite ones.

So actully, it would be... much more realistic if both RMN and SLN ECM and EW systems were not designed to fight each other.

Which, IMHO, could save the Second Battle on Manticore from being completely boring sequence of "Harrington humilating Filaretta". It would be INTERESTING, and a good plot point, if Honor at last moment would suddenly discover that SLN missiles just ignored her countermeasures completely - because RMN technicians incorrectly predicted what to do. And the major portion of RMN remaining fleet is whiped out by Filaretta's barrage exactly because of that & overcomplicaation of the whole plan.

Dilandu wrote:Yeah, one problem: in all previous series it was several times stated that Solarian are actually ahead in stealth systems (up to the point that in early books Manties have problems with detecting Haven stealth recon platforms), and in Ashes of Victory, their technology was used to stealth missiles in assassination attempt. I.e. they SHOULD anticipate the stealth attacks.

Solarian tech base was pretty much on par with Manticoran in the early books and was definitely ahead of the PRH's. That's why the Cromarty assassination was done using Solarian tech. And yes, as you argue below, unknown tech does experience a drop in performance (but see my argument below).

However, I think you're missing two important changes: 1) Manticoran technology continued to improve and far outpaced the innovation of Solarian firms. The crucible of war and the 9 years between the assassination and the
Solarian-Manticoran war makes a huge difference. And 2) the SLN did not have good hardware or software and what they did, they didn't know how to properly use. You're right we're told that it was ahead, but that's because everyone thought so and had never attempted to prove otherwise. When someone did, the house of cards came tumbling down.

Which is almost total nonsense, because GA EW systems were designed against each other, NOT the SLN ones. Of course it works visa versa too, but point is, that it's much more likely that both sides would have drastic reduction in EW and ECM systems efficiency, than "super-manticoran super-technology works super-well!"

Hypatia was not the first battle against the SLN and the RMN isn't stupid. Unlike the SLN, the RMN was looking at Solarian tech and trying to anticipate a confrontation, however much they'd have liked to avoid it. Just the fact that Lancoön plans existed proves that some thought was put into it, not crash-developed as the situation arose.

But more important was the fact that the RMN had had access to actual SLN ships with intact hardware and software for over a year, starting with Monica, then Second New Tuscany and Spindle. When Henke fired at Byng, she fired 250 Apollo missiles at his BC flagship and when Terekhov fought Crandall at Spindle, he allocated 400 Apollo missiles per SLN SD. Both cases we later learnt to be total overkill.

So when Kotouč fought Hajdu at Hypatia and when the Grand Fleet stopped Filareta on Second Manticore, they had all of this data available. Kotouč was aboard a Nike-class BC that was designed to fight and kill Havenite SDs and his Saganami-B CAs carried missiles to kill Havenite BCs. Add the favourable geometry and the surprise allowing them to fire 9 waves before any return fire, no wonder they could overwhelm Solarian BCs.

Correct. From Monica and Spindle and then up through Fillerta at Manticore, the RMN had detailed information and experience with the SLN countermeasures and equipment. At each battle (including New Tuscany) not only did the RMN ships have (they were the ones who both won and survived combat engagements) live experience with the SLN tactics, weapons and counter measures, they also GOT TO CAPTURE, INSPECT AND TEST the SLN equipment from captured and damaged ships/ weapons etc.

Look at what Terekhove did with the Nasty Kitty at Monica in the engagement with the BCs and used the Kitty's range and capabilities to engage the BC's at the maximum distance and suck up as much information about the SLN tec capabilities including ECM and weapons performance- which was then being analysed on the fly and his people were pushing all the information not only into their own missles and ECM but feeding it to the rest of his squadron to adapt their systems to penetrate the BC's defenses and degrade the BC's weapons attack performance. Then, the RMN took apart the captured tech and got to study the software. Move forward to Mike doing the same thing with all those ships she got after she dealt with New Tuscany- that being mostly FF ships, and then Spindle which was BF ships. You then get smaller engagements and come around to Fillerta with the BEST of the BF SDs ect and the most current missiles and electronics - and both Haven and Manticore gets all that electronic information in BOM (actual massive combat as captured and analysis during combat and examination of the SLN equipment and software post battle- from the different experinece perspceives of both RHN and RMN.
And ALL of that has been pushed out to the GA ships in updates as to what the SLN has, their tactics, the reads on the various systems and what has both worked (already) and what flaws/limitations the SLN stuff has vs. RMN an RHN equipment, ECM and tactics.
There is also the fact that essentialy NONE of the SLN people (or particularly their ships and copies of their full sensor data) have gotten back to any point in the SLN till way late in the game.
What did get back to the SLN analysis people was very thin, misdirected in great part, not believed, and very little was forwarded to the people who were actualy going to come up against the RMN/GA.

Manticore, unlike the SLN, was very good about reporting results (good and bad) back up the chain so that the infomation could be integrated into the attack and defensive operations. They also had both the live sensor data from combat and working copies of hardware & software plus the technical and training (including tactical) for both BF and FF.

Not quite like taking a crippled blind person in a tunic fighting using a yardstick for a weapon being beaten by a guy in body armor using a submachingun from 20yds, but close.

You also have to remember that the Alignment has spent centuries setting up the League and the SLN to fail. Oh, their strong enough and there are people who can think, but the culture and training/experience is poor and they have been deliberatly structured to not pass along or to activly not share things.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:So when Kotouč fought Hajdu at Hypatia and when the Grand Fleet stopped Filareta on Second Manticore, they had all of this data available. Kotouč was aboard a Nike-class BC that was designed to fight and kill Havenite SDs and his Saganami-B CAs carried missiles to kill Havenite BCs. Add the favourable geometry and the surprise allowing them to fire 9 waves before any return fire, no wonder they could overwhelm Solarian BCs.

No, the RMN deliberately designed the Nike to not fight SDs. The Mk16 is a cruiser class weapon, they deliberately didn't make it capable of firing Mk23s.
typo

kzt wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote: Barricade does not seem so implausible to me. Any missile is far more vulnerable during the ballistic phase. (This is why there is so much panic over "hypersonic vehicles" for ICBMs which are nothing more than an RV with guidance and extremely limited maneuverability. The ability to evade intercept goes to crap as the desired accuracy decreases.)

The geometry just doesn't work unless you assume the missiles are lined up head to tail. This means the missiles have no target and can't be controlled. As it was stated they had not done any manipulation, and a missile will automatically position such that it can both see the target and see the launching ship this seems 'unlikely'.

They are going to arrange themselves in a basically 2D grid, probably at least 20km from each other, with the nose at the target and the tail at the launcher. And there just isn't any way for the stated geometry to work. The source missile pods would have to have been at right angles to the launcher-target line to have any chance to get more than one missile.

Not to mention that he had a pair of LACs each towing the entire pod core of a SD(P) at 700G in full stealth....

I concede that I had difficulty swallowing the idea of the LACs towing a pod core each. As it vomit. However; ballistic phase intercept is the solution to massive MDM salvo's.

You are correct that the geometry for Mk-23s to sweep the massive missile salvo is not plausible. LACs using their much wider impeller wedges is plausible. Even more plausible is a missile defense LAC backed up by missile defense drones armed with laser clusters.

Alternatively, crap loads of counter missiles released on ballistic trajectories with delayed drive activation.

We have seen one (perhaps two) uses of CM canisters in defense. The one I remember is in Terekhov's memory of the battle of Hyacinth where his crusier is launching CM clusters out of the missle tubes in a last ditch effort to thicken his CM defence.

Why haven't we seen more of that? Could the block ships (freighters on remote control) at Beowulf been equiped with CM canisters in what amount to box launchers tied to the remote systems and fed the tactical data prior to launch by the defense command controlling the freighters. Ok, the freighters themselves would have lousy tactical sensors, they are just civilian shipping, but these are CMs and although they don't have a lot of computing power (compaired to a Mk 16 etc) they are also fairly close to a point-and-shoot system with some ability to make intercepts w/o constant updates.

Not an eligant approach but it would provide a fast if somewhat dirty use of mostlyoff the shelf equipment that would be an augmentation to using the freighter's wedge to kill missiles. If they kept the freighter from getting hit (and continuing to function as a blocking ship instead of sponge for some of the missiles) as well as intercepting missiles that would otherwise get around the ship, that would thin out the incomming Hasta rounds.

The later books would have been more interesting if they had included shower scenes with Abby Hearnes, Admiral Henke or Queen Elizebeth. Better yet would be a shower scene with Abby Hearnes, Admiral Henke AND Queen Elizebeth.