KEYHOLE REFIT

Jonathan_S wrote:
We know a 6.1 mton Hydra can carry 112 LACs, and an "SD sized" CLAC probably can't be more that 8.5 mtons yet the Aviarys are noted as carrying "well over two hundred" [WoH] and and pair of them launched "almost six hundred light attack craft" [AAC]. So likely a bit over twice the LACs on less than 40% more displacement. That doesn't seem to leave a lot of room for SD type defenses.

Yes, WoH does say the Republic's "CLACs were visualized as primarily defensive platforms, mobile bases for the LACs intended to protect the wall of battle from long-range Manty LAC strikes. As such, there was no reason to make them any faster than the superdreadnoughts they would be protecting, and all of that lovely tonnage advantage could be put into additional LAC bays." But I'm left with the impression that despite being make no faster than the SDs their LACs are intended to screen that these are even less survivable, on a ton for ton basis, than Minotaurs or Hydras. If I'm right then they'd probably make a pretty poor basis for an "Assault" CLAC that is supposed to trade off LAC capacity for increased survivability -- as they seem to have used their extra size almost entirely to instead squeeze in extra LACs.

Well I did say basis If the Grand Alliance started on what the Aviary's were like, and then started tuning, it's a better starting point than trying to scale up the Hydra's. Rip out say 50 LAC bays in exchange for nothing but still more PDLCs and CM tubes is about what I'd aim for. They'd would still have somewhere between 140 and 160 LACs in total. At 8 LACs per squadron, that's a healthy 16 squadrons with 12 spares or 17 & 4 at the low-end, which is almost half again what a Minotaur-class brought (12 & 4 reserve).

With 140 Launch bays set aside, I'd be aiming for as close to Invictus style defenses as possible. You'll undoubtedly fit less on the broadsides due to LAC bay size, but you can make up for that with off-bore launching and being able to cram far more CMs on both hammerheads since you don't need the podbay doors. If you can carry just 50% of an Invictis broadside, but 150% on the hammerheads, an Assault Carrier would have approximately 42 CMs + 31 PD per broadside, and 36 CM + 33 PD per hammerhead. That's a very healthy 156 CMs coming from all 4 sides of the carrier per CM launch wave. There should also be room for some grasers, Invictii carry 18 broadside and 10 on the bow, but an Assault Carrier should only carry about 6 & 4, and use any remaining tonnage for still more CM tubes, hopefully reaching 50 CMs on all 4 sides, which could push you up to 200 CMs per launch.


Keyhole-I is actually a good thing for how many lightspeed links it has, if you'll recall countermissiles still require lightspeed control links. Each Keyhole I has enough lightspeed links to control 100% of a ships CM fire. That's on top of all the PDLC's and defensive Dazzlers the Keyhole mounts itself to stay intact. With the addition of Keyhole allowing you to stay rolled to only present your belly to the incoming missiles, and firing CMs off-bore and all of them being controlled with a 200% reserve. That would actually enable Assault Carriers to be designated the defensive controllers, podnoughts could fire their CMs and 'hand off' control to the carriers; which allows the podnought crew to focus more on offensive fire and less on their own defenses.

The only time an Assault Carrier would be a bad thing to have in your fleet is closing into energy range. Which nobody in the GA have been doing since at least the Buttercup Offensive, if not earlier, the last known battle involving heavy energy fire that I can remember was the Battle of Nightingale where Hamish had to cut and run, in the early chapters of FiE.

Somtaaw wrote:Well I did say basis If the Grand Alliance started on what the Aviary's were like, and then started tuning, it's a better starting point than trying to scale up the Hydra's. Rip out say 50 LAC bays in exchange for nothing but still more PDLCs and CM tubes is about what I'd aim for. They'd would still have somewhere between 140 and 160 LACs in total. At 8 LACs per squadron, that's a healthy 16 squadrons with 12 spares or 17 & 4 at the low-end, which is almost half again what a Minotaur-class brought (12 & 4 reserve).

With 140 Launch bays set aside, I'd be aiming for as close to Invictus style defenses as possible. You'll undoubtedly fit less on the broadsides due to LAC bay size, but you can make up for that with off-bore launching and being able to cram far more CMs on both hammerheads since you don't need the podbay doors. If you can carry just 50% of an Invictis broadside, but 150% on the hammerheads, an Assault Carrier would have approximately 42 CMs + 31 PD per broadside, and 36 CM + 33 PD per hammerhead. That's a very healthy 156 CMs coming from all 4 sides of the carrier per CM launch wave. There should also be room for some grasers, Invictii carry 18 broadside and 10 on the bow, but an Assault Carrier should only carry about 6 & 4, and use any remaining tonnage for still more CM tubes, hopefully reaching 50 CMs on all 4 sides, which could push you up to 200 CMs per launch.


Keyhole-I is actually a good thing for how many lightspeed links it has, if you'll recall countermissiles still require lightspeed control links. Each Keyhole I has enough lightspeed links to control 100% of a ships CM fire. That's on top of all the PDLC's and defensive Dazzlers the Keyhole mounts itself to stay intact. With the addition of Keyhole allowing you to stay rolled to only present your belly to the incoming missiles, and firing CMs off-bore and all of them being controlled with a 200% reserve. That would actually enable Assault Carriers to be designated the defensive controllers, podnoughts could fire their CMs and 'hand off' control to the carriers; which allows the podnought crew to focus more on offensive fire and less on their own defenses.

The only time an Assault Carrier would be a bad thing to have in your fleet is closing into energy range. Which nobody in the GA have been doing since at least the Buttercup Offensive, if not earlier, the last known battle involving heavy energy fire that I can remember was the Battle of Nightingale where Hamish had to cut and run, in the early chapters of FiE.

I remember CMs need lightspeed control links -- but I also remember that RFC said that offensive missiles and CMs use totally separate fire control link modules -- one cannot be repurposed for the other. So KHI has a bunch of offensive control links which "are maximized to control offensive missiles at extreme ranges. They are large, complex, and expensive in terms of both mass and volume"; for talking only to Mk23s (or other offensive missiles) and a bunch of counter-missile control links which "are maximized to control the maximum number of relatively short-range missiles with a maximum powered flight endurance of no more than a minute. They are for short ranged use only, they are relatively small, less sophisticated, and available in much larger numbers because they cost less both financially and in terms of mass and volume."; for talking only to Mk31 CMs and Vipers (or other CMs).
[Note - RMN CM endurance has grown to 75 seconds since RFC posted that]

I'd argue that for an "Assault" CLAC the former are wasted room and it's only the later than you'd want. Stripping out the bulkier longer ranged offensive links should let you shrink the size of the platform, or cram in more CM links; or both.



And from what we've been told of "Assault" CLACs their own onboard LAC capacity is far less important than their ability to quickly replenish the LAC broods dropped off by the conventional CLACs than they hyper out to safety. In theory you might even go to the extreme of zero LAC bays if you could design way for the LACs to temporarily latch on nose in at a missile reload hatch. That would involve a vastly smaller vulnerable opening in the armor.

I kind of doubt they'd go that far -- but I wouldn't be surprised if they could natively carry far fewer LACs then the smaller Hydras can. They're there more as a force multiplier for the existing CLACS (by allowing their LACs' CMs to be topped up during intervals between ongoing combat) that for the LACs they themselves bring to the party.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:Well I did say basis If the Grand Alliance started on what the Aviary's were like, and then started tuning, it's a better starting point than trying to scale up the Hydra's. Rip out say 50 LAC bays in exchange for nothing but still more PDLCs and CM tubes is about what I'd aim for. They'd would still have somewhere between 140 and 160 LACs in total. At 8 LACs per squadron, that's a healthy 16 squadrons with 12 spares or 17 & 4 at the low-end, which is almost half again what a Minotaur-class brought (12 & 4 reserve).

With 140 Launch bays set aside, I'd be aiming for as close to Invictus style defenses as possible. You'll undoubtedly fit less on the broadsides due to LAC bay size, but you can make up for that with off-bore launching and being able to cram far more CMs on both hammerheads since you don't need the podbay doors. If you can carry just 50% of an Invictis broadside, but 150% on the hammerheads, an Assault Carrier would have approximately 42 CMs + 31 PD per broadside, and 36 CM + 33 PD per hammerhead. That's a very healthy 156 CMs coming from all 4 sides of the carrier per CM launch wave. There should also be room for some grasers, Invictii carry 18 broadside and 10 on the bow, but an Assault Carrier should only carry about 6 & 4, and use any remaining tonnage for still more CM tubes, hopefully reaching 50 CMs on all 4 sides, which could push you up to 200 CMs per launch.


Keyhole-I is actually a good thing for how many lightspeed links it has, if you'll recall countermissiles still require lightspeed control links. Each Keyhole I has enough lightspeed links to control 100% of a ships CM fire. That's on top of all the PDLC's and defensive Dazzlers the Keyhole mounts itself to stay intact. With the addition of Keyhole allowing you to stay rolled to only present your belly to the incoming missiles, and firing CMs off-bore and all of them being controlled with a 200% reserve. That would actually enable Assault Carriers to be designated the defensive controllers, podnoughts could fire their CMs and 'hand off' control to the carriers; which allows the podnought crew to focus more on offensive fire and less on their own defenses.

The only time an Assault Carrier would be a bad thing to have in your fleet is closing into energy range. Which nobody in the GA have been doing since at least the Buttercup Offensive, if not earlier, the last known battle involving heavy energy fire that I can remember was the Battle of Nightingale where Hamish had to cut and run, in the early chapters of FiE.

I remember CMs need lightspeed control links -- but I also remember that RFC said that offensive missiles and CMs use totally separate fire control link modules -- one cannot be repurposed for the other. So KHI has a bunch of offensive control links which "are maximized to control offensive missiles at extreme ranges. They are large, complex, and expensive in terms of both mass and volume"; for talking only to Mk23s (or other offensive missiles) and a bunch of counter-missile control links which "are maximized to control the maximum number of relatively short-range missiles with a maximum powered flight endurance of no more than a minute. They are for short ranged use only, they are relatively small, less sophisticated, and available in much larger numbers because they cost less both financially and in terms of mass and volume."; for talking only to Mk31 CMs and Vipers (or other CMs).
[Note - RMN CM endurance has grown to 75 seconds since RFC posted that]

I'd argue that for an "Assault" CLAC the former are wasted room and it's only the later than you'd want. Stripping out the bulkier longer ranged offensive links should let you shrink the size of the platform, or cram in more CM links; or both.



And from what we've been told of "Assault" CLACs their own onboard LAC capacity is far less important than their ability to quickly replenish the LAC broods dropped off by the conventional CLACs than they hyper out to safety. In theory you might even go to the extreme of zero LAC bays if you could design way for the LACs to temporarily latch on nose in at a missile reload hatch. That would involve a vastly smaller vulnerable opening in the armor.

I kind of doubt they'd go that far -- but I wouldn't be surprised if they could natively carry far fewer LACs then the smaller Hydras can. They're there more as a force multiplier for the existing CLACS (by allowing their LACs' CMs to be topped up during intervals between ongoing combat) that for the LACs they themselves bring to the party.

I also thought the control links were interchangeable, but I guess leaving an Assault Carrier some offensive fire potential wouldn't be a bad thing. Sure it can't properly take advantage of Apollo at extreme ranges, but it could contribute some during mid-range (for Apollo anyways, would be long range to anyone else) combat.

And it's better than spinning off a 5th possible keyhole that has nothing but CM links and defensive equipment. And at some point miniaturization is going to apply to the FTL links, so maybe 40 or 50 years in the future, Keyhole II would be about as large as Keyhole I is.

That goes back to something I've raised before. Can a Manti LAC provide mid course guidence for a M23 or Apollo ?

I think the Hydra class got the Big Missile Tubes to provide a heavy missile attack to "cover" the LACs. i.e covering fire from a distance while the LAC's closed. Operation experience did not support that so it was dropped.

Still if LAC's can provide mid course guidence and tow missile pods I wonder how many pods could be stored in a LAC bay?

CLAC's on detached service might need a bigger hammer if jumped.

Also do CLAC's have energy weapons - in case they are jumped in a grav wave where neither missiles or LAC's can deploy.

Certain routes are predictable because of the speed gain using them. A Scientist Class that met a CLAC in a Grave Wave would probably have a huge advantage. Given the Energy weapon advantage it would probably even have the edge on any of the modern SD(P)'s with their missile heavy design.

Of course the SLN is not fighting the GA any more but I wonder how many of the SDF's bought Scientists or have similar designs in service that are now quietly members of the Renassiance Faction.

Captain Golding wrote:That goes back to something I've raised before. Can a Manti LAC provide mid course guidence for a M23 or Apollo ?

I think the Hydra class got the Big Missile Tubes to provide a heavy missile attack to "cover" the LACs. i.e covering fire from a distance while the LAC's closed. Operation experience did not support that so it was dropped.

Still if LAC's can provide mid course guidence and tow missile pods I wonder how many pods could be stored in a LAC bay?

CLAC's on detached service might need a bigger hammer if jumped.

Also do CLAC's have energy weapons - in case they are jumped in a grav wave where neither missiles or LAC's can deploy.

Certain routes are predictable because of the speed gain using them. A Scientist Class that met a CLAC in a Grave Wave would probably have a huge advantage. Given the Energy weapon advantage it would probably even have the edge on any of the modern SD(P)'s with their missile heavy design.

Of course the SLN is not fighting the GA any more but I wonder how many of the SDF's bought Scientists or have similar designs in service that are now quietly members of the Renassiance Faction.

We've never saw a RMN ship pass off missile guidance to another ship post launch, including forward placed LACs, and passing off pre-launch control has been done to ships in formation, not millions of KM down stream.

So I would say no... unless the plot compels it.

As for pods in LAC bays, from MAXXq's drawings, I believe we found a pod to be ~19x19x7.5 meters, while a LAC is ~23x23x74 M. So without weird stacking, you could easily get 9 or so pods in a LAC bay.

Minotaurs had big bow and stern Grasers, but the Hydras lost them for extra tubes because they had no business being in close combat. The GSN and Havenite CLAC classes don't carry offensive suites. (Which I think is a misstep - they should at least have LAC missile launchers, since they have magazines of them.)

Theemile wrote:As for pods in LAC bays, from MAXXq's drawings, I believe we found a pod to be ~19x19x7.5 meters, while a LAC is ~23x23x74 M. So without weird stacking, you could easily get 9 or so pods in a LAC bay.

Minotaurs had big bow and stern Grasers, but the Hydras lost them for extra tubes because they had no business being in close combat. The GSN and Havenite CLAC classes don't carry offensive suites. (Which I think is a misstep - they should at least have LAC missile launchers, since they have magazines of them.)

Yep, while we don't have canonical data on flatpack pod size that was the size someone reverse engineered from MaxxQ's renderings - though if we're off by a few meters that might complicate things.

Though the LACs are slightly smaller than you said: 20x20x71m or 20x20x72m. That makes the pods a tighter fit, but if the estimated size is correct you can still squeeze in 9.

Quite how you'd effectively launch them is a different matter though.

And not only do the CLACs all lack Keyhole II, denying them the FTL control of Apollo, but it's not even clear whether the GSN's Covingtons would mount any offensive missile fire control. (Since they don't carry missiles at all would they really need to devote space to control links for those non-existent missile?). Still, even if the CLACs don't a LAC is minimally capable of controlling a few Apollo pods. (Nowhere near as well as a proper hyper-capable warship; but enough to point them in the right direction and send them on their way)

And Minotaurs and Hydras do carry chase missiles (9 and 12 tubes respectively) so they would mount at least chase fire control links for those. (The Hydras seem to have dropped the 4 grasers of the older design and, in exchange, picked up 3 more missile tubes, 2 more PDLCs, and 2 more CMs -- probably a good trade-off; even if it leaves it pretty toothless at energy range)

Captain Golding wrote:That goes back to something I've raised before. Can a Manti LAC provide mid course guidence for a M23 or Apollo ?

I'd say that a regular light-speed update is a definite "shmaybe." Like Jonathan said, it's never happened in plot, so probably not, but technologically it shouldn't be too difficult. It might need to be a dedicated "command LAC" that has the necessary hardware to produce control links, but not impossible. It would be very limited in the number of control channels, but if it's talking to Mk23E ACMs, those can talk to each other and update the info. Also, they could simply talk to more than one, just in sequence.

For Apollo's FTL control links, that's a no. If it were possible, we wouldn't have needed Keyhole II in the first place. Just have a LAC do it, and a LAC can be carried limpeted to the hull of a BC. We're far more likely to see the recon drone-sized control link device before a LAC-borne one.

With each LAC towing 2 million tons of pods of course they can control them. All of them. It’s magic.

How about a slightly differnt look at the LAC passing tac data to an M23 command missile? What about GhostRiders? FTL is FTL. At some point in an engagement you are going to try and have your Recon drones lurking about close to the enemy and if a GhostRider can push data to an M23 command missile, that does save time from having it go back and get digested by the commanding SHIP before getting sent out to the Apollo units.
Yeah the GRs involved have just given away position but 1) how close are they and 2) can your opponent lock them up with missile fire....GRs are notoriously hard to see/find so unless somebody is sitting right on top of one, the only other thing is to saturate a proposed area with missile and hope one of them kills the GR by getting a bing off it and targeting it or gets a wedge kill. Every bird you send after a GR is one you can't through at the ships that are sending volleys at you.

kzt wrote:With each LAC towing 2 million tons of pods of course they can control them. All of them. It’s magic.

2 million tons? Each Lac was towing a container of 300 pods. My BOE calculation indicates that the missiles in those pods would total about 300 thousand tons, perhaps as much as 500 thousand tons. Do you have a number for the weight of a missle pod? I couldn't find one in my brief search.