?

The problem is less about target discrimination, and more about the fact that once that missile leaves the tube, it's all physics from there. If you shoot down a missile, that debris cloud is still headed towards the planet. One of my favorite bits from Mass Effect:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GqqDCe4Yrs

kzt wrote:Anti-ship missiles in the honorverse have major problems distinguishing between warships and planets that are thousands of km in diameter. So no, i don’t think they will be able to target something that is extremely difficult to detect by the MAN. Any more than SLN missiles can be fired off in the general direction of RMN ghost rider drones and expect to home in on them. Which has apparently happened never.

Fair enough, even with Duckk's argument above that the missiles do distinguish a planet but go "oh shit I can't manoevre away from it in time". There's still the question of whether the LD would take the chance of not firing on the incoming missiles.

Could an RD drone shell be sent to scout the region where the LD fired and still find it? Let's see: if the closest RD is 20 million km away from the expected position, it can get to the point where the signal came from in 18 minutes. During that time, the ship can apply a delta-v adding up to 1.15 million km @ 200 G. That could be doable: if each RD can almost certainly find the contact if it is within a light-second in radius, then 10 RDs can cover that volume.

Two problems in this though: first, it's the base velocity. If you have two detection signals, you can calculate the average velocity vector, but the longer between the signals, the bigger the uncertainty on the actual vector at the detection time. At 200 gravities, an LD can apply a delta-V of 7000 km/s every hour. If the LD is moving slowly through the system (0.1c), it could fire two hours and 216 million km apart. But if it was accelerating perpendicular to the original base velocity vector, its path was a parabola, not a straight line. That is equivalent to adding two hours of uncertainty to the volume for searching: instead of the 18 minutes above, it would need to be 138 minutes, which brings the search volume to a radius of 67 million km. That would need an impractical 50000 RDs to search.

The second is, of course, the detection signals. Firing a normal missile is a dead giveaway, which is why the LD probably won't do that. It should, instead, fire graser torpedoes, which won't give its position away. The drawback of this is that the GTs have awfully low acceleration, so measuring their base velocity -- and you can because the cloud of plasma it turns into after it fires is ballistic and very bright -- gives a good bearing on the ship that launched it. But the same problem of the previous point still applies, made worse, as the cumulative acceleration is something like 400 gravities and the time starts counting from the launch point.

cthia wrote:Also, if an enemy fleet crosses the hyper limit, the forts will begin their invisible interception, like a secret, but deadly game of Fox & Geese.

Also, just a few of these babies can cover lots of territory by launching a shell of stealthed pods across the path of ships, like GR probes and spike strips. LOL


Something else. What is this time factor that's claimed to be needed before the enemy hypers out? The enemy isn't going to hyper out. The enemy isn't even aware he's been targeted and launched on. If he happens to get lucky and hypers out in time because he, well, got lucky. Oh well. What's a 100 or so missiles. We'll get 'em next time. Sometimes the fish jumps off the hook. The Lion will tell you that sometimes the prey just gets away. But, just that bit of adrenaline and excitement is plenty for a fort.

If they launch the huge and slow GTs then yes, the targets are likely going to be unaware they're under attack until the graser smashes into them. But a GT is huge compared to a missile.

If instead, as you seemed to suggest, the Lenny Dets are leaving pods of missiles scattered around then the missiles show up as a unmissable flare on the target's sensors the instant their wedges come online. If you're fighting outside the hyper limit with missiles you need their flight time to be too short for their targets to simply hyper out - and that greatly limits the effective range of the missile. OTOH if you're patient and wait for the target to cross inside the hyper limit you can successfully attack them with missile from much further away because of how long it'd take the target to break back out across the hyper limit. (OTOH missiles from longer range gives the targets more time to get their missile defenses fully spooled up and ready to intercept)

If you're fighting targets that are out beyond the hyper limit (like you suggested the Lenny Dets should) with GTs then flight time is fairly irrelevant; they won't see the GTs coming. However the fact that your targets have 3-4 times the acceleration of your GTs means that unless you've very lucky with their location and vector your torps are likely in for a long stern chase. (Which is, in fact, the tactic I suggested that the Lenny Dets use.)

ThinksMarkedly wrote:.

The second is, of course, the detection signals. Firing a normal missile is a dead giveaway, which is why the LD probably won't do that. It should, instead, fire graser torpedoes, which won't give its position away. The drawback of this is that the GTs have awfully low acceleration, so measuring their base velocity -- and you can because the cloud of plasma it turns into after it fires is ballistic and very bright -- gives a good bearing on the ship that launched it. But the same problem of the previous point still applies, made worse, as the cumulative acceleration is something like 400 gravities and the time starts counting from the launch point.

Pods. With delayed activation. You can all go run over to where it was two hours ago. Don’t worry, I’m sure the MAN hasn’t though about how to handle that...

We have been told that missiles in the Honorverse mostly have self-destruct systems that function effectlively 100% of the time. Ok,
On the practical side of that, you have to have the self-destruct system engaged- which may be it automaticly starts running after you light off the engine the 1st time. The little tiny problem that then comes up breaks down into two pieces.
1st, now that you have DDM and MDM and can (and anticipate doing for range) you need to have the self-destruct not destroy the weapond after just a set elapsed time but beyond the EXPECTED maximum range from launch - because if you go further than X distance from launch you have passed any target and want your warhead to self destruct. Fine.
2nd, you discover you NEED your missile(s) to vastly exceed the range of their powered flight (including a ballistic phase) to get where you need them to get....Think Whitehaven shooting at the Masadan ship that is going to destroy Harrington's ship. There is enough power (don't ask me where from) that the Manticorian missiles sensors will be able to figure out when they are in engagement range of their warhead and be able to function as laserhead warhead should....and what happens if they don't sence and fire at a target.....and how do they determine that they have missed and need to just blow them selves up?

So now your shooting at targets that are (will be) between you and an inhabited planet and your weapons will be going like the proverbial Bats-out-of-Hell by the time they are supposed to enter warhead engagement range and are looking for their targets....and the communications range to the launching ship is WAY WAY long and what is "behind" where their target should be is this really nice gravity well that just happens to be also just radiating away with all sorts of electroinc noise including on what would be "military tactical" channels. You know, the kind of things you might want a missile to aim for if it doesn't have a hard lock on a particular target yet.

Ooops. Heck, even if it's little brain thinks "that doesn't look right but it's a target" and pops the warhead just befor it hits the atmosphere, what will that do? Friendly Fire?

How many hits will mission kill an SD?

cthia wrote:How many hits will mission kill an SD?

One if it is the "golden BB".

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:How many hits will mission kill an SD?

One if it is the "golden BB".

Also once if it is the "golden enema."

But generally ~ how many?

cthia wrote:
But generally ~ how many?

Something like 250 iirc. A lot.

BEWARE: The MA may use their ROOKS (FORTS) in a middle and end game fashion.