?

cthia wrote:Referencing the clubbing the kittens received at the Ajay Terminus in Uncompromising Honor


MINES

About those mines. Isn't it high time the concept got a makeover? MAlign style?

The poor Solly SDs sailed right into a trap set by the stealthed Shrikes and got eaten alive. The Manties should be ashamed of themselves for abusing innocent kittens that way. The Solly ships at Ajay didn't stand a chance against the avalanche of destruction targeting them in a surprise attack mere seconds away. It was so effective it was hard for the CO to continue to watch. The Manty CO simply gave orders to stop shooting to kill, and to disable them instead.

What if the MA uses the same tactic? Can't they seed their system with stealthed pods the same thirty seconds apart? That way mine fields comprised of missile pods can encompass much larger volumes of space. Wouldn't these pods be smaller than LACs; and by implication and the generosity of a malignant mind, even stealthier?

1) you still need command sites
2) this was done repeatedly in the Havenite wars.
3) Pod shoals differ from mine fields - you see the missiles coming at you and can use your defenses to stop them. you blindly stumble into mine fields - which explode directly in front of you (or emerge from a wormhole directly in front of stealthed shrikes, who fire up your skirt.)

Theemile wrote:

cthia wrote:Referencing the clubbing the kittens received at the Ajay Terminus in Uncompromising Honor


MINES

About those mines. Isn't it high time the concept got a makeover? MAlign style?

The poor Solly SDs sailed right into a trap set by the stealthed Shrikes and got eaten alive. The Manties should be ashamed of themselves for abusing innocent kittens that way. The Solly ships at Ajay didn't stand a chance against the avalanche of destruction targeting them in a surprise attack mere seconds away. It was so effective it was hard for the CO to continue to watch. The Manty CO simply gave orders to stop shooting to kill, and to disable them instead.

What if the MA uses the same tactic? Can't they seed their system with stealthed pods the same thirty seconds apart? That way mine fields comprised of missile pods can encompass much larger volumes of space. Wouldn't these pods be smaller than LACs; and by implication and the generosity of a malignant mind, even stealthier?

1) you still need command sites
2) this was done repeatedly in the Havenite wars.
3) Pod shoals differ from mine fields - you see the missiles coming at you and can use your defenses to stop them. you blindly stumble into mine fields - which explode directly in front of you (or emerge from a wormhole directly in front of stealthed shrikes, who fire up your skirt.)

1. Autonomous. Missiles have some sort of independence when left to their own devices, no? Even mines do too, I thought. I was under the impression in the Cerberus system that they head towards you. Plus, there are always the stealthed Forts littering the system. And, of course, Whales too.

2. I missed yet another memo.

3. If you have the time, and, of course, expect it. Less than thirty seconds isn't a whole helluva lot of time for AI to be as effective as you need it to be against an avalanche of missiles. Granted, the RMN would be more professional and wary than hapless Sollies when entering the Darius system. But still.

No?

cthia wrote:3. If you have the time, and, of course, expect it. Less than thirty seconds isn't a whole helluva lot of time for AI to be as effective as you need it to be against an avalanche of missiles. Granted, the RMN would be more professional and wary than hapless Sollies when entering the Darius system. But still.

No?

30 seconds is enough to fire PDs and maybe launch CMs. Especially for a ship that is already at general quarters and advancing on an enemy. For an RMN ship, launch maybe even more than one wave of CMs.

Anyway, this geometry doesn't make sense. No enemy ship is expected to close to 30 seconds missile flight time to the pods. Even a Cataphract CM stage running at 130000 gravities would cover less than 600,000 km (2 light-seconds). That's energy weapon range and you can't detect the energy weapon before things start exploding on your end.

At Ajay-Prime, the ships were transiting to where they thought was safe, so they weren't cleared for action. And they didn't have their wedges up because they couldn't, with the Shrikes shooting at them were firing energy weapons.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:3. If you have the time, and, of course, expect it. Less than thirty seconds isn't a whole helluva lot of time for AI to be as effective as you need it to be against an avalanche of missiles. Granted, the RMN would be more professional and wary than hapless Sollies when entering the Darius system. But still.

No?

30 seconds is enough to fire PDs and maybe launch CMs. Especially for a ship that is already at general quarters and advancing on an enemy. For an RMN ship, launch maybe even more than one wave of CMs.

Anyway, this geometry doesn't make sense. No enemy ship is expected to close to 30 seconds missile flight time to the pods. Even a Cataphract CM stage running at 130000 gravities would cover less than 600,000 km (2 light-seconds). That's energy weapon range and you can't detect the energy weapon before things start exploding on your end.

At Ajay-Prime, the ships were transiting to where they thought was safe, so they weren't cleared for action. And they didn't have their wedges up because they couldn't, with the Shrikes shooting at them were firing energy weapons.

In addition, the Shrikes carry upgraded BC spinal Grasers - weapons designed to disembowel BCs and make modern DNs and SDs take note of what just smacked them. Only 1 or 2 hits with a weapon like that can mission kill a BC - several will plain old kill it. It takes dozens of hundreds missiles to kill a BC.

Manty CMs have a 8 sec cycle time, so there should be time for 2-3 launches and (with the low speed of the missile) time for multiple pdlc shots, if a ship has a 30 sec warning.

Due to their range, you would rarely put missile pods on autonomous - In Cereberus they did it because all traffic was military and anything not following the wonky safe corridor would be automatically engaged. Also missiles have horrible internal tracking systems, that is why shipborne control is so important to herd missiles toward their targets. it would be easy for a missile to strike unintentional targets accidentially. I doubt you are going to find another system where traffic is so slight and controlled.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:30 seconds is enough to fire PDs and maybe launch CMs. Especially for a ship that is already at general quarters and advancing on an enemy. For an RMN ship, launch maybe even more than one wave of CMs.

Anyway, this geometry doesn't make sense. No enemy ship is expected to close to 30 seconds missile flight time to the pods. Even a Cataphract CM stage running at 130000 gravities would cover less than 600,000 km (2 light-seconds). That's energy weapon range and you can't detect the energy weapon before things start exploding on your end.

BTW 130,000 gees is the accel of a Viper/Mk31 CM, we've never seen a Cataphract 2nd stage with that acceleration (though the latest versions might actually exceed it). The original Cataphracts 2nd stage could only do 98,000 gees - but the final ones seen in UH might have a 2nd stage with up to[1] a ludicrous acceleration of about 261,000 gees! That seems crazy, and we don't get a direct measurement of the 2nd stage acceleration; but its 1st stage could presumably do 171,400 gees at full power - given its observed accel for 3 minutes (implies 50% power); so maybe the CM could do about 260,000.


If their accel actually is that high they'd have a 30 second range of 1.1 million km. But even that means they're launching within CM range of their target (even pre-war CMs had 1.2 - 1.5 million km ranges). And their terminal velocity is low, only about .25c. So they're sitting ducks for defenses designed around stopping mass salvos of missiles moving at 0.8c. It's going to take them at least several seconds to cross PDLC range - which is an eternity.

And of course anybody with more mainstream missile performance (say Manticore) their capital missiles would be restricted to a far more pedestrian 92,000 gees, which means they can only cover 405,720 km in 30 seconds, which means, as you pointed out, they launch with 0 velocity well inside energy range (if outside of PDLC range) so the ship's main energy mounts should have no trouble picking off the glacially slow missiles. And even once they close to PDLC range it'll probably take them upwards of 6 seconds to cross it, at less than 0.1c. They'll be slaughtered.

Missiles need to be launched far enough out that they can build up an effective terminal velocity (or like the RHN DD did at Blackbird, within energy range so there's only a second or two from launch until laserhead detonation). (Or else launched in such vast numbers that even perfect point defense simply can't kill them all in time)

[1] Inferred base on some math with the numbers given. But we only got given the 1st stage accel, drive endurance, and anticipated range. Also unclear if the range give was from "at rest" or not - if it factored in the base velocity of a ship the missile accel would be far lower to reach that same range.

Jonathan_S wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:30 seconds is enough to fire PDs and maybe launch CMs. Especially for a ship that is already at general quarters and advancing on an enemy. For an RMN ship, launch maybe even more than one wave of CMs.

Anyway, this geometry doesn't make sense. No enemy ship is expected to close to 30 seconds missile flight time to the pods. Even a Cataphract CM stage running at 130000 gravities would cover less than 600,000 km (2 light-seconds). That's energy weapon range and you can't detect the energy weapon before things start exploding on your end.

BTW 130,000 gees is the accel of a Viper/Mk31 CM, we've never seen a Cataphract 2nd stage with that acceleration (though the latest versions might actually exceed it). The original Cataphracts 2nd stage could only do 98,000 gees - but the final ones seen in UH might have a 2nd stage with up to[1] a ludicrous acceleration of about 261,000 gees! That seems crazy, and we don't get a direct measurement of the 2nd stage acceleration; but its 1st stage could presumably do 171,400 gees at full power - given its observed accel for 3 minutes (implies 50% power); so maybe the CM could do about 260,000.


If their accel actually is that high they'd have a 30 second range of 1.1 million km. But even that means they're launching within CM range of their target (even pre-war CMs had 1.2 - 1.5 million km ranges). And their terminal velocity is low, only about .25c. So they're sitting ducks for defenses designed around stopping mass salvos of missiles moving at 0.8c. It's going to take them at least several seconds to cross PDLC range - which is an eternity.

And of course anybody with more mainstream missile performance (say Manticore) their capital missiles would be restricted to a far more pedestrian 92,000 gees, which means they can only cover 405,720 km in 30 seconds, which means, as you pointed out, they launch with 0 velocity well inside energy range (if outside of PDLC range) so the ship's main energy mounts should have no trouble picking off the glacially slow missiles. And even once they close to PDLC range it'll probably take them upwards of 6 seconds to cross it, at less than 0.1c. They'll be slaughtered.

Missiles need to be launched far enough out that they can build up an effective terminal velocity (or like the RHN DD did at Blackbird, within energy range so there's only a second or two from launch until laserhead detonation). (Or else launched in such vast numbers that even perfect point defense simply can't kill them all in time)

[1] Inferred base on some math with the numbers given. But we only got given the 1st stage accel, drive endurance, and anticipated range. Also unclear if the range give was from "at rest" or not - if it factored in the base velocity of a ship the missile accel would be far lower to reach that same range.

The latest generation of Cataphract seems,... unbelieveable, given the state of the art just 24 months earlier, and the lack of focus by the SLN. The jump of the base velocity of the Javelin missile to 49K gees is a big deal - then nearly DOUBLING that (and 80% boost iirc) inside of 18 months is crazy in light that the state of the art hadn't significantly moved in over 150 years.

SLN didn't design and build the cataphract, the MAlign did and just gave them to the SLN to make them think they stood a chance in missile combat.

though I don't dissagree that the improvement in performance is big for the timeframe.

then again we have little idea exactly when the MAlign declared them ready. First time we saw them in combat was when the PNiE attacked Torch and does even the Malign give a disposable merc force the best version of their secret missile that is supposed to mitigate the Manties advantage in a missile fight.

Dauntless wrote:SLN didn't design and build the cataphract, the MAlign did and just gave them to the SLN to make them think they stood a chance in missile combat.

though I don't dissagree that the improvement in performance is big for the timeframe.

then again we have little idea exactly when the MAlign declared them ready. First time we saw them in combat was when the PNiE attacked Torch and does even the Malign give a disposable merc force the best version of their secret missile that is supposed to mitigate the Manties advantage in a missile fight.

Both that PNiE version and the Filareta version were pretty much then stock SLN missile guts mounted in the Cataphract. The Javelin, the new SLN missile, got an accel boost over the previous SLN model, explaining the V2 that Filareta fielded. Then 2 or 3 more versions were fielded in the last 1/2 of 1922, early 1923 that went from incremental increases to what would have been complete game changing upgrades in any other timeframe. I can see % changes - but 80% in 2-3 years? Whaaaaaat?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:3. If you have the time, and, of course, expect it. Less than thirty seconds isn't a whole helluva lot of time for AI to be as effective as you need it to be against an avalanche of missiles. Granted, the RMN would be more professional and wary than hapless Sollies when entering the Darius system. But still.

No?

30 seconds is enough to fire PDs and maybe launch CMs. Especially for a ship that is already at general quarters and advancing on an enemy. For an RMN ship, launch maybe even more than one wave of CMs.

Anyway, this geometry doesn't make sense. No enemy ship is expected to close to 30 seconds missile flight time to the pods. Even a Cataphract CM stage running at 130000 gravities would cover less than 600,000 km (2 light-seconds). That's energy weapon range and you can't detect the energy weapon before things start exploding on your end.

At Ajay-Prime, the ships were transiting to where they thought was safe, so they weren't cleared for action. And they didn't have their wedges up because they couldn't, with the Shrikes shooting at them were firing energy weapons.

I don't have the book handy right now, but I am quite certain the Shrikes used missiles as well. I recall specifically "missile flight time is twenty seven seconds."

The Shrikes were firing both energy weapons AND launching missiles. It is because of what I shared with tlb in another post about the Shrikes one Achilles heel. They have a limited energy budget because the fission reactor cannot recharge the plasma capacitors in the midst of battle. So they only have a limited number of shots from the energy weapons. They had no choice, unless I digested it all wrong. Quite possible since I was still pining from Jayne spurning my advances, yet again.

You're right, they didn't have their wedges up and they weren't cleared for action. Against the Shrikes energy weapons under those circumstances, it was like clubbing kittens. But the fact remains, Manty stealth allowed them to get LACs less than thirty seconds missile flight time from the enemy. MAlign stealth is even better.

If they steal the RMN reactor secret, that mine field of missile pods can become a minefield of missile pods and grasers like what Shannon came up with from salvaged Solly energy weapons. Ouch!

And, you are still basing MAlign weapons on GA tech. Understandable, it is all we know. But this thread is about pushing the envelope and turning the traditional and mundane on its head, MA style.

I proposed way upstream about an MA missile variant that shoots its wad in unprecedented accelerations all at once. If that is the case, enemy ships will NOT have the time they need. And a missile variant that shoots it's wad quickly to achieve insane accelerations is perfect for this scenario. A minefield variant.

Also, while the GA is busy dealing with that would be a great time to launch those sweet little invisible missiles. Ok, they aren't so little. But still.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:3. If you have the time, and, of course, expect it. Less than thirty seconds isn't a whole helluva lot of time for AI to be as effective as you need it to be against an avalanche of missiles. Granted, the RMN would be more professional and wary than hapless Sollies when entering the Darius system. But still.

No?

30 seconds is enough to fire PDs and maybe launch CMs. Especially for a ship that is already at general quarters and advancing on an enemy. For an RMN ship, launch maybe even more than one wave of CMs.

Anyway, this geometry doesn't make sense. No enemy ship is expected to close to 30 seconds missile flight time to the pods. Even a Cataphract CM stage running at 130000 gravities would cover less than 600,000 km (2 light-seconds). That's energy weapon range and you can't detect the energy weapon before things start exploding on your end.

At Ajay-Prime, the ships were transiting to where they thought was safe, so they weren't cleared for action. And they didn't have their wedges up because they couldn't, with the Shrikes shooting at them were firing energy weapons.

Theemile wrote:In addition, the Shrikes carry upgraded BC spinal Grasers - weapons designed to disembowel BCs and make modern DNs and SDs take note of what just smacked them. Only 1 or 2 hits with a weapon like that can mission kill a BC - several will plain old kill it. It takes dozens of hundreds missiles to kill a BC.

Manty CMs have a 8 sec cycle time, so there should be time for 2-3 launches and (with the low speed of the missile) time for multiple pdlc shots, if a ship has a 30 sec warning.

Due to their range, you would rarely put missile pods on autonomous - In Cereberus they did it because all traffic was military and anything not following the wonky safe corridor would be automatically engaged. Also missiles have horrible internal tracking systems, that is why shipborne control is so important to herd missiles toward their targets. it would be easy for a missile to strike unintentional targets accidentially. I doubt you are going to find another system where traffic is so slight and controlled.

Your logic makes sense to me, based on GA tech. However, doesn't the RMN lay mines near and around their Forts? Targeting can come from stealthed Forts. And, at that distance there would be no light speed lag. And no need for Apollo's capability. For the most part.

Again, they may not have a thirty second warning against a minefield variant expending itself quickly. Albeit, they would be the same thirty seconds apart by Manty tech.

And, if they are in a minefield amongst shoals of pods, even Manty defensive capabilities can be swamped by effective targeting solutions from such a piddling range amidst insane accelerations.