The big problem of late Honorverse

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Would that make a difference given just how many missiles were fired at all? At the Battle of Lovat, Yanakov was firing 288 Apollo pods for every two SD(P)s to be killed. Not missiles, 9-missile pods. That was against a single wall of battle from Third Fleet, while Tourville had 30 SD squadrons, 3200 LACs and 100+ BCs to put counter-missiles into space.

Made enough of a difference to alter the outcome of that part of the battle? Probably not. But it would have been more effective.

At All Costs: Ch 67 wrote:In fact, the four Apollo-capable ships of McKeon's squadron were killing Havenite wallers in rapid succession, and Slowacki was too caught up in his task to realize that while he'd been killing five superdreadnoughts, the Havenites had already killed nine of Admiral Kuzak's.

They're already landing enough weight to kill their targets fairly quickly, so if they could have even just doubled their throw weight for the first 6 or so salvos from having predistributed pods...
And it sounds like Keyhole II had enough headroom to manage more like 8x the normal throw weight.
(And like I said those pods under the control of non-Apollo SD(P)s are still going to be more effective - so share out like half to 3/4 of your pod load before anybody enters range and take more enemy with you. It's probably not enough to survive getting caught between two more powerful fleets - but it'd have made Honor's job easier or possibly let the system's fixed defenses deter the survivors from continuing.

(Plus if the fire going back at Chin's ships was coming from more than the 4 Apollo SD(P)s it might have taken her forces longer to localize and kill them - assuming it wasn't just blind luck when that squadron got picked as her target)

Jonathan_S wrote:But with externally towed pods - which was the overwhelming majority of the long range firepower he had you don't go to zero when the RHN reaches optimum range. You go to nearly zero ammo (lose all your unlaunched pods) once the first RHN return salvo reaches you.

That is not correct. The RMN pods with home fleet had been tractored in layers on the hull. They were not towed. The problem is that the masses of pods prevented effective Anti-missile fire, so opening fire as soon as possible and depending on the huge mass of LACs to provide effective anti-missile fire is more effective than waiting until the RHN missiles go from a pH of .05 to .8. At long range the missiles are totally autonomous, and their computers are really bad at penetrating RMN defenses, so the number that actually are a real threat you have to hard kill are fairly small compared to those fired at effective range.

Assuming you survive for the RHN ships to reach effective range (a questionable assumption) by that time you will have significantly attrited the RHN forces and probably damaged most of them, as well as preventing them for building large salvos.

Jonathan_S wrote:Though to be fair once D'Orville starts firing the Havenite fleet is likely to instantly return fire. So he's going to lose basically all his un-fired pods as soon at that first Havenite salvo lands. So either way he gets off only as many pod salvos as can be launched/controlled in the interval between 'open fire' and 'impact'. Okay, at prolonged range you can probably get one or two more off into space while the first is still in transit - but your hit percentages for all of them will be lower.

Not entirely true; forcing the Havenites to fire at longer ranges and more importantly with smaller salvos would have greatly increased the effectiveness of the Home Fleet's defensive fire.

Now when your first salvo hits Haven will lose any unfired pods they've already rolled. But they're podnaughts facing your mostly legacy SDs (many of which still carry just SDMs for their internal tubes); so they can roll more and you can't. Once Home Fleet's pods are gone the rate of fire will be ludicrously in Haven's favor - you'll be lucky if you can keep heavy enough MDM fire from your few podnaughts or refitted SDs to keep Haven from deeply-stacking salvos.

True, so far as that goes. What you're missing is that this problem would only manifest if Home Fleet lived long enough for it to happen, which it noticeably did not. Living to expend all of their pods would have been a massive improvement on what they actually did, enough so to make whatever happened afterward completely irrelevant.

Home fleet is so screwed there that I'm not actually sure how much effective they'd have been if they'd put Haven's fleet under fire early enough to prevent the massive Donkey towed alpha strike. Sure they don't die in the alpha strike, but using (or losing) your towed pods outside of truly effective range means you're not going to have done much damage to Haven's forces. And now your legacy SDs are impotent unless you can survive closing across almost 60 million km; only good for thickening your defensive fire while Haven can focus on killing the relative handful of ships that can still launch long range missiles.

The problem wasn't the massive donkey towed Alpha strike. That was certainly A problem, but the bigger problem was the Bravo, Charlie, Delta, etc. strikes that followed it. All of them just as large as the Alpha strike, and launched about a minute apart - far faster than the pods for them could have been rolled. THAT is what firing earlier would have bought; forcing the Havenites to launch those massive strikes at a range where they'd be the least effective. D'Orville didn't know the B, C, D, E, etc. strikes were going to be as large as they were, but he should have seen something like triple or quad patterns as follow-on salvos coming. Instead, the Havenites were firing octuple patterns.

So opening fire beyond powered range would have forced the Havenites to spend their Sunday punch when it would have been least effective, and timed fire would have prevented them from building up another one. They simply couldn't have rolled more than 2 patterns if the Manty salvos were coming in at 30 second intervals rather than the 65 second intervals he used. Cutting the Havenite salvo density by three fourths would have greatly increased how long the Home Fleet would have been able to continue rolling pods.

Keep in mind that, even as flawed as his firing pattern was, D'Orville managed to take more than his own weight out of the Second Fleet. Outnumbered at about 2.5 to one and still gave as good as he got. He just could have given far more than he got if he'd anticipated the logical conclusions of Haven's previous tactics. Kusak's Third Fleet wouldn't have been nearly as screwed if Tourville's Second Fleet had been properly crushed by Home Fleet. Using a better fire plan, Second Fleet should have been so thoroughly wrecked that the following LAC strike should have finished it off without Third Fleet getting involved at all.

Jonathan_S wrote:

At All Costs: Ch 67 wrote:In fact, the four Apollo-capable ships of McKeon's squadron were killing Havenite wallers in rapid succession, and Slowacki was too caught up in his task to realize that while he'd been killing five superdreadnoughts, the Havenites had already killed nine of Admiral Kuzak's.

They're already landing enough weight to kill their targets fairly quickly, so if they could have even just doubled their throw weight for the first 6 or so salvos from having predistributed pods...
And it sounds like Keyhole II had enough headroom to manage more like 8x the normal throw weight.
(And like I said those pods under the control of non-Apollo SD(P)s are still going to be more effective - so share out like half to 3/4 of your pod load before anybody enters range and take more enemy with you. It's probably not enough to survive getting caught between two more powerful fleets - but it'd have made Honor's job easier or possibly let the system's fixed defenses deter the survivors from continuing.

(Plus if the fire going back at Chin's ships was coming from more than the 4 Apollo SD(P)s it might have taken her forces longer to localize and kill them - assuming it wasn't just blind luck when that squadron got picked as her target)

The Apollo ships should be firing as soon as they exit hyper. It might be useful to have other ships also fire missiles with the same drive profile to confuse the Peeps as to who is effective. Don't know for sure.

Basically they alone can kill something like 30 of 2nd fleets ships, focusing on the least damaged and progressing to the most damaged. Oh, and ALL the ships roll pods and otherwise prepare for combat. Then, when Kuzak's ships reach the outer edge of effective range the rest all start firing. None of this "we have way more ammo and lots more range so let's wait until we are effective range of the RHM's crappy missiles."

This is not an economy of force mission - it's basically a last stand, likely to end in energy range as the last handful of still operating ships on each side tear each other apart.

Oh, also you might want to start to evacuate the Spinx orbital platforms as 2nd fleet bears down on them.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:

Fox2! wrote:
Alaska had 12 inch guns, Iowa type fire control, but cruiser construction. Not sure if I'd want to have her take on a 15 inch gunned Bismarck. Maybe at night, when the radar fire control would be more effective than Bismarck's optical fire control. Or in concert with Iowa and her sisters. Lutgen's first warning that he's been found is being straddled by 16 inch very heavy AP

That is why I say interesting.

The balliustics of the Alaska's 12 inch guns are fascinating. At close range against belt armor, they are reasonably formidable but not revolutionary. Alaska would be at an extreme disadvantage against any battleship. However; Alaska's 12 inch guns and ammunition are optimized for longer range gunnery, sacrificing muzzle velocity for increased projectile mass and minimal aerodynamic drag. At long range Alaska's AP shells could penetrate almost any battleship's deck armor. More importantly, Alaska can penetrate the deck armors of most legacy or even early WW2 BBs from beyond the maximum range of the adversary's guns. Add in the radar fire control that Admiral Willis Lee utilized so spectacularly in the Pacific.

The Alaska would not quite outrage the Bizmark or Tirpitz, but the higher hit probability would give her a good chance of crippling then sinking the German ships before they put a 15" shell through her decks and bottom.

A good analogy is a ROLLAND DD vs an SLN BC or SD.

I decided to add some data.

According to Wikipedia, the Bismarck had relatively light deck armor: 3.9 to 4.7 inches.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bismarck-class_battleship

The guns of the Alaska could penetrate over 7" of deck armor at long range.

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_12-50_mk8.php

Alaska definitely has the theoretical ability to sink the German battleships at very long range. At intermediate range, Alaska cannot penetrate armor or belt while Bismarck can penetrate either on Alaska.. Alaska can penetrate Bismarck belt at short range, but Bismarck is reaming Alaska.

As long as Alaska doesn't lose it's speed advantage and maintains the range over 35,000 yards where it's radar is superior to optics, it can defeat the Bismarck. Of course one lucky hit by the Bismarck changes everything.

The Alaska ballistics and Bismark armor are information I did not previously have. Thank you for that. I still might not have wanted to take on Bismarck mano a mano, unless at night, when my radar could be expected to outperform Bismarck's optical fire control. It would give me more options if I was forced intro a situation comparable to Admiral Haywood at the Battle of the River Platte, with (or without) CA/CL/DD consorts against Bismarck. Two Alaskas should have been able to handle Bismarck handily, given ideal geometry.

Now to go off and raise Cain on the Dreadnaughts Facebook page.

Galactic Sapper wrote:So opening fire beyond powered range would have forced the Havenites to spend their Sunday punch when it would have been least effective, and timed fire would have prevented them from building up another one. They simply couldn't have rolled more than 2 patterns if the Manty salvos were coming in at 30 second intervals rather than the 65 second intervals he used. Cutting the Havenite salvo density by three fourths would have greatly increased how long the Home Fleet would have been able to continue rolling pods.

Keep in mind that, even as flawed as his firing pattern was, D'Orville managed to take more than his own weight out of the Second Fleet. Outnumbered at about 2.5 to one and still gave as good as he got. He just could have given far more than he got if he'd anticipated the logical conclusions of Haven's previous tactics. Kusak's Third Fleet wouldn't have been nearly as screwed if Tourville's Second Fleet had been properly crushed by Home Fleet. Using a better fire plan, Second Fleet should have been so thoroughly wrecked that the following LAC strike should have finished it off without Third Fleet getting involved at all.

You have to take into consideration the rest of the battle. D'Orville knew Home Fleet was doomed, but the battle could still be won. He was in contact with both Third and Eighth Fleets and knew how soon they could join the defence of the Manticore A system. If he fired early, he'd die early and leave Tourville unopposed inside Manticore A, with the ability to attack Manticore. So instead he chose to bide his time, drag Tourville by the nose to a position where he could pincer between himself and Third Fleet. At the same time, he there was a point where he could no longer give ground.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
You have to take into consideration the rest of the battle. D'Orville knew Home Fleet was doomed, but the battle could still be won. He was in contact with both Third and Eighth Fleets and knew how soon they could join the defence of the Manticore A system. If he fired early, he'd die early and leave Tourville unopposed inside Manticore A, with the ability to attack Manticore. So instead he chose to bide his time, drag Tourville by the nose to a position where he could pincer between himself and Third Fleet. At the same time, he there was a point where he could no longer give ground.

IIRC, 2nd fleet didn't change course until it was deep into the hyperlimit of Sphinx. The only change was deceleration due to battle damage. Which could have been done more effectively if Home fleet had managed to fire something more than 7 salvos and 22% of their total ammo before being all blowed up.

Jonathan_S wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Barricade does not seem so implausible to me. Any missile is far more vulnerable during the ballistic phase.

The issue isn't running over inbound coasting missiles - that would work if you had their location nailed down tightly enough. The issue is that as the missile waves interpenetrate each other at a significant fraction of the speed of light each of your missiles should, logically, only get to run over a single inbound missile.
Because when they shut down their 1st stage wedges they were at least far enough apart to avoid mutual wedge fratricide and there's no reason they'd have used thrusters to move themselves closer together after shut-down because they still need that clearance to light off their 2nd stages. (And that's assuming they're packed as close as physically possible without mutual destruction - leaving 0 room for any of the interior missiles to manouver)

So your outbound missile's wedge can't hit 2 of them at a time because they're more than a wedge width apart. Okay a Mk23's wedge is stated to be a little bigger than most non-CM missiles (though still much smaller than a CM's wedge) so maybe, maybe, just enough so that two inbound missiles at their absolute minimum safe wedge separation can just barely get tagged by one Mk23 flying between them.

But in Barricade the Manti missile magically hit not just 1, or even 2, inbound SLN missiles of the first salvo, but on average 5.6! (500 per salvo, the Barricade launch was 72 Mk23s, but only 91 of the 500 survive it). You wouldn't just need to be at right angles to the inbound missiles to do that - you'd have needed to be slashing through them diagonally back towards their target; your ships (because their missiles are still screaming that way at around 0.2c)

The only way to hit larger numbers of inbound in the same salvo is if they're basically flying one behind the other; in which case the wedges of the leading ones would blind the trailers while the wedges of the trailers block control signals from reaching the leading missiles. It doesn't mater if they're slightly staggered in time while being off to one side or the other because again they're closing on you at over 0.2c - you can't turn hard enough to get from one BC's clump of missile to another unless they're so far behind that they're in a totally different salvo.

I believe that there were THREE Barricade launches. That amounts to 2 and a fraction missiles taken out of each wave. I also suspect that each wave was not 500 missiles on a plane, it was 125 missiles on 8 planes (eight battlecruisers launching from pods). In that case, the distance between the planes would be greater than the spacing between the missiles. You still might be right on the impossibility of sweeping more than one missile per wave, but I think the situation isn't quite as obvious as you appear to believe. To begin with, the Barricade missile doesn't need to turn, it just needs some velocity at right angles to the SLN launch (less than .01c). Then it turns for the next wave.

Robert_A_Woodward wrote:I believe that there were THREE Barricade launches. That amounts to 2 and a fraction missiles taken out of each wave. I also suspect that each wave was not 500 missiles on a plane, it was 125 missiles on 8 planes (eight battlecruisers launching from pods). In that case, the distance between the planes would be greater than the spacing between the missiles. You still might be right on the impossibility of sweeping more than one missile per wave, but I think the situation isn't quite as obvious as you appear to believe. To begin with, the Barricade missile doesn't need to turn, it just needs some velocity at right angles to the SLN launch (less than .01c). Then it turns for the next wave.

The spacing between individual ship salvos is negligible - they all have to be on basically the same plane to avoid their wedges blocking telemetry between them and the launching ships, or sensors tracking the target ships. You can't have a salvo trailing half a second behind another one without both of them being effectively blind-fire. Sure, a few microseconds difference in firing time might introduce a few kilometers difference from a singular perfect plane, but the trailers would be far enough off to the side that no missile would be able to turn tight enough to hit one of the leading missiles and then one of the trailing ones.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:You have to take into consideration the rest of the battle. D'Orville knew Home Fleet was doomed, but the battle could still be won. He was in contact with both Third and Eighth Fleets and knew how soon they could join the defence of the Manticore A system. If he fired early, he'd die early and leave Tourville unopposed inside Manticore A, with the ability to attack Manticore. So instead he chose to bide his time, drag Tourville by the nose to a position where he could pincer between himself and Third Fleet. At the same time, he there was a point where he could no longer give ground.

He wouldn't have died that much earlier, since the whole point would be that firing early would have meant it would take Second Fleet much longer to kill him. And again, part of the point is that there wouldn't be much of Second Fleet left to attack Sphinx in the first place. Better to handle it himself, weaken Second Fleet to the point the LACs could handle it or the Sphinx pods/missile defenses could risk engaging, rather than risk fumbling the handoff between his dying fleet and the arriving Third Fleet.

Instead of killing 97 SDs and leaving Second Fleet with 143 SDs with various levels of damage, D'Orville could have reduced that to 40-50 SDs with the survivors being mostly combat ineffective. Not to mention reducing the screen and LAC swarm to a much greater degree as well.