Retrofitting the RMN: A Saganami Island Assignment

Student Missile proposal
Since (currently) multi-drive missiles (unlike the far larger multi-stage missiles like Cataphract) can't mix accelerations we propose two possible superior alternatives.

1) Integrate the 50% longer runtime from latest generation ERM into the 3 MDM drives - this allows the 3 drives a combined 270 seconds at full power (92,000 gees) which gives the same 0.81c terminal velocity as the 3 half-power drives of the Mk23 but can reach 65 million km 65 seconds sooner.

2) If that's infeasible simply add additional drives to the basic Mk23 design bringing them up to 5 drives; giving a combined 300 seconds of full power (92,000 gees). This brings the terminal velocity up to the maximum a missile can survive 0.9c while reaching 65 million km 125 seconds sooner than the current Mk23.

Further, its possible that by removing the half-power setting the drives might be able to be overpowered (like CM drives) providing even higher acceleration; potentially reducing the number of additional drives required. This new missile design allows an RMN first strike at most missile engagement ranges; potentially providing a significant edge that seems, to this student, to be worth the cost of the additional / enhanced drives.

Jonathan_S wrote:Student Missile proposal
Since (currently) multi-drive missiles (unlike the far larger multi-stage missiles like Cataphract) can't mix accelerations we propose two possible superior alternatives....

So the teacher and I look at this and say... let's remove the "plot hammer" aspect of same-speed-for-all drives from any pod launched missile, including the Mk-16Gs, and give the missile ONE "sprint drive". Figuring tube fired missiles would be too big, yadda yadda, besides which it's a lot easier to upgrade the Culverin or Sag-A,B, or whatever's fire control.

Then the professor assigns me as the student to right a "use case" and re-fight one of the later battles of the RMN based on this paper-capability... That would be fun.

SharkHunter wrote:So the teacher and I look at this and say... let's remove the "plot hammer" aspect of same-speed-for-all drives from any pod launched missile, including the Mk-16Gs, and give the missile ONE "sprint drive". Figuring tube fired missiles would be too big, yadda yadda, besides which it's a lot easier to upgrade the Culverin or Sag-A,B, or whatever's fire control.

Then the professor assigns me as the student to right a "use case" and re-fight one of the later battles of the RMN based on this paper-capability... That would be fun.

A few years back, before RFC told me that the current baffles couldn't handle multiple acceleration settings in an MDM, I started a thread looking at the best mixed acceleration profile for each distance. (hint, all 50% is never the right answer; prior to Apollo)

Take a look if you like viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8922&p=248122#p248122.
I didn't extend that to a hypothetical sprint drive. Still, the basic result that you get the shortest time to target when you put your highest acceleration drive first isn't likely to change.

Jonathan_S wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:So the teacher and I look at this and say... let's remove the "plot hammer" aspect of same-speed-for-all drives from any pod launched missile, including the Mk-16Gs, and give the missile ONE "sprint drive". Figuring tube fired missiles would be too big, yadda yadda, besides which it's a lot easier to upgrade the Culverin or Sag-A,B, or whatever's fire control.

Then the professor assigns me as the student to right a "use case" and re-fight one of the later battles of the RMN based on this paper-capability... That would be fun.

A few years back, before RFC told me that the current baffles couldn't handle multiple acceleration settings in an MDM, I started a thread looking at the best mixed acceleration profile for each distance. (hint, all 50% is never the right answer; prior to Apollo)

Take a look if you like viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8922&p=248122#p248122.
I didn't extend that to a hypothetical sprint drive. Still, the basic result that you get the shortest time to target when you put your highest acceleration drive first isn't likely to change.

That is an Awesome thread -- and I've copied your chart. Well done!

The battle I think would be fun to game out with in terms of a "flexible Mk16 staging" Saganami island assignment is Solon. Because the RMN doesn't know about Moriarty, the end of the battle simulation can't change. But I think of all the gameable variations students could use to make the "opp force" RN try to anticipate. For example, making it hard for Giscard's ships to stack salvos, etc. Thoughts?

Forgive if my next shot at student-inspired future tech wackiness for a "paper grade" at Saganami Island has been discussed at some point in the past (I was down and out on not posting for a long while)...

Pretending I'm an almost minted EWO post-Apollo deployment, and looking at the experiment by 10th fleet where a Mk23 E acts as a "forward scout" in a simulation suggested by Bill Edwards...

Student says... "hey, we've got this range limitation but what if we use the inverse of the experiment, that is, a mode where an Apollo missile behind the salvo front acts as a "pass the instructions" node however many million KMs up to the "salvo front " MK23 E's.

Something along the lines of firing for the first wave missiles, the first two stages full accel, going dark... and effectively beyond control range during the ballistic phase. At the appropriate time, a salvo 1/8 as large is fired (or some future ship has "Apollo Tubes") at full power full range... reaching a position where those Apollo missiles forward the updated info... Around the time the 3rd stage is set to fire up for the final segment/attack runs, etc.

Aye / nay?

SharkHunter wrote:Forgive if my next shot at student-inspired future tech wackiness for a "paper grade" at Saganami Island has been discussed at some point in the past (I was down and out on not posting for a long while)...

Pretending I'm an almost minted EWO post-Apollo deployment, and looking at the experiment by 10th fleet where a Mk23 E acts as a "forward scout" in a simulation suggested by Bill Edwards...

Student says... "hey, we've got this range limitation but what if we use the inverse of the experiment, that is, a mode where an Apollo missile behind the salvo front acts as a "pass the instructions" node however many million KMs up to the "salvo front " MK23 E's.

Something along the lines of firing for the first wave missiles, the first two stages full accel, going dark... and effectively beyond control range during the ballistic phase. At the appropriate time, a salvo 1/8 as large is fired (or some future ship has "Apollo Tubes") at full power full range... reaching a position where those Apollo missiles forward the updated info... Around the time the 3rd stage is set to fire up for the final segment/attack runs, etc.

Aye / nay?

My suspicion is that the FTL transceiver on the Mk23Es is fairly directional (and aimed rearwards) - so they wouldn't be able to effectively rebroadcast forward to the next further salvo...

Jonathan_S wrote:My suspicion is that the FTL transceiver on the Mk23Es is fairly directional (and aimed rearwards) - so they wouldn't be able to effectively rebroadcast forward to the next further salvo...

We know that FTL comms pulses are directional (see Honor of the Queen), and - since the Apollo bird is the ragged edge of Manticoran tech, it's not unreasonable that it would have a limited arc of transmission, especially since - presumably - it can transmit without stopping accelerating, as that would very quickly drop it out of formation, or at least flag up which missile is the control bird for enemy point defence....

--snipping--

Jonathan_S wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:Pretending I'm an almost minted EWO post-Apollo deployment, and looking at the experiment by 10th fleet where a Mk23 E acts as a "forward scout" in a simulation suggested by Bill Edwards...

Student says... "hey, we've got this range limitation but what if we use the inverse of the experiment, that is, a mode where an Apollo missile behind the salvo front acts as a "pass the instructions" node however many million KMs up to the "salvo front " MK23 E's.

Something along the lines of firing for the first wave missiles, the first two stages full accel, going dark... and effectively beyond control range during the ballistic phase. At the appropriate time, a salvo 1/8 as large is fired (or some future ship has "Apollo Tubes") at full power full range... reaching a position where those Apollo missiles forward the updated info... Around the time the 3rd stage is set to fire up for the final segment/attack runs, etc.

Aye / nay?

My suspicion is that the FTL transceiver on the Mk23Es is fairly directional (and aimed rearwards) - so they wouldn't be able to effectively rebroadcast forward to the next further salvo...

That is presumption as well, but using the ship as the zero point... Salvo 2 (the first one fired) is looking back and sees salvo 1 -- which just got updated instructions for salvo 2 -- from the ship at zero. And then is reprogrammed to do it's own form of damage once it gets downrange because it can be similarly reprogrammed. I'm also presuming that the cone of control and two-step authentications have to be set up prelaunch of any missiles.

SharkHunter wrote:--snipping--

Jonathan_S wrote:My suspicion is that the FTL transceiver on the Mk23Es is fairly directional (and aimed rearwards) - so they wouldn't be able to effectively rebroadcast forward to the next further salvo...

That is presumption as well, but using the ship as the zero point... Salvo 2 (the first one fired) is looking back and sees salvo 1 -- which just got updated instructions for salvo 2 -- from the ship at zero. And then is reprogrammed to do it's own form of damage once it gets downrange because it can be similarly reprogrammed. I'm also presuming that the cone of control and two-step authentications have to be set up prelaunch of any missiles.

I get that the further salvo is looking back towards the salvo launched after it. But my point is it doesn't appear to do any good to tell the trailing salvo what you want to leading to to do because the trailing salvo's FTL transmitter only points back towards the launch ship.

I'm also assuming the Keyhole has both more powerful FTL transmitters than the 23Es and also more sensitive receivers. So it can talk to a 23E at far greater ranges than a pair of 23Es could hypothetically talk to each other. Still the salvos are probably close enough this along wouldn't be an issue.

The issue is that while in theory the further salvo could presumably hear FTL transmissions from a 23E 12 to 24 seconds behind it (2 - 4 million km), that trailing 23E can't broadcast those transmissions forward because its transmitter points aft. (Also the grav sensors on the nose, for target tracking, probably aren't optimized to read and process FTL fire control since that's always supposed to be coming from astern - so it probably can't received updates from the leading salvo either because the control link optimized FTL receiver also points aft).


Maybe, maybe, you could get this to work after the trailing 23E has gone ballistic (post 2nd drive burnout). Then it might have enough storage to provide intermittent store-and-forward updates. (Basically put it into a slow spin so it can talk to the launch ship when pointed forward and the further salvo when pointing backwards; so it gets an update from one and half a spin later forwards it to the other while recording any response. Rinse and repeat)
Still I tend to doubt that would be practical...

However, as a student proposal, impractical but not necessarily impossible is perfect

Easy enough to solve, at a cost.

You set up TWO Apollo missiles, one of them effectively built backwards. That is , the FTL com designed to face forward in flight. Pair that with a typical Apollo missile with the com oriented aft. To reach the leading flight of missiles you transmit to the pair trailing that flight at a suitable distance, the normal missile receives instructions and lasers it over to the backwards missile, the backwards missile sends the instructions forward to the leading flight.

You'd still lose some function, since the missiles wouldn't be controlled in FTL mode but rather a slightly better autonomous mode. You could in theory launch enough following pairs to assign one pair to each Apollo missile in the lead flight of missiles, but that would get absurdly expensive fast as you can't fit more than 3-4 Apollo missiles per pod (one Apollo forces you to remove 4 missiles from a 12 missile pod, so three per pod, but maybe the pod could be rearranged enough to get the fourth in there).