?

tlb wrote:If you plan to blow them up, then it does not matter; since it will attract a lot of attention wherever you do it. To avoid attention you either fly them into the local star or move them to a point to recharge or be picked up. Make sure that they have enough intelligence to blow up and destroy any enemy that comes too close, even if it is just a shuttle; since you do not want them examined.

If neither is possible, then just have them fly off into interstellar space to be lost forever. That's better than having them fail because of power loss in the inner system and be stumbled upon by a passing ship.

I have proposed two different missiles on different occasions in the past. One concept is made possible because an LD can get extremely close to its target. Ditto for this third proposal.

1. A missile that shoots its wad immediately achieving a high acceleration rate within a very short range leaving no time on the drive. Made possible because an LD, IMO, can get in close.

2. A missile that approaches the speed of light while its mass approaches infinity, thus requiring no warhead.

3. I am wondering if yet a third design is possible and practical. On page 88 of this thread we discussed power supplies for missiles. Vince pointed out how all missiles once used plasma capacitors. Jonathan posted text which states that the capacitors of the Wraith took up the same massive amount of volume as the spider drive itself.

My question is this. Since a g-torp might be launched from a very short range, why would it need the same volume of plasma capacitors? Such a missile, which might intercept its target in mere minutes, should not need such an immense bank of capacitors. Should it? Possibly reducing the size of a g-torp at least by a third. No?

In fact, any missile (or other object) which utilizes capacitors should be able to significantly reduce its capacitor footprint if launched from extremely short ranges. How is all of the surplus power utilized? No loitering time needed here.

penny wrote:3. I am wondering if yet a third design is possible and practical. On page 88 of this thread we discussed power supplies for missiles. Vince pointed out how all missiles once used plasma capacitors. Jonathan posted text which states that the capacitors of the Wraith took up the same massive amount of volume as the spider drive itself.

My question is this. Since a g-torp might be launched from a very short range, why would it need the same volume of plasma capacitors? Such a missile, which might intercept its target in mere minutes, should not need such an immense bank of capacitors. Should it? Possibly reducing the size of a g-torp at least by a third. No?

So are you going to carry two different g-torps? One for long range and one for short?

Or do you want them to give up their long range strategic bombardment capability to squeeze in some additional number of torps?


Also, unless you want to lose much of the g-torp's already anemic acceleration you can't shrink it too much. Its acceleration is a function of how many drive emitters you can fit along its flanks -- making it shorter makes is slower (to accelerate) because you have to remove the emitters that had been on that now-removed hull.

I guess if you removed a bunch of plasma capacitors you might be able to make it skinnier -- though I'm not sure how deeply the drive emitters need to penetrate into the hull. You might start running into internal clearance issues before you shrunk the diameter all that significantly

penny wrote:In fact, any missile (or other object) which utilizes capacitors should be able to significantly reduce its capacitor footprint if launched from extremely short ranges. How is all of the surplus power utilized? No loitering time needed here.

I'd assume it's no utilized -- any more than the remaining rocket propellant in a modern air-to-air missile is utilized when making a short range shot.

It if blows up before all the fuel/energy is consumed the excess might add a tiny bit to the *boom* but that's it.

Yet you size the missile for the range you want - and you accept the "inefficiency" of sometimes using it closer that that designed max effective range.



Oh, and Honorverse missiles -- baring an unanticipated revolutionary breakthrough in propulsion -- are less effective at short ranges because they don't have time to build up terminal velocity. They're far easier targets for point defense as those slow speeds. Thus it'd generally be counter-productive to create a missile designed for short range engagements because you'd need to fire several times as many of the short range missiles to achieve the same point defense saturation as your normal range missiles could achieve. And of course you'd have to wade through the enemy's fire until/unless you managed to reach your shorter missile range -- so that's not fun.

The partial exception is the Viper anti-LAC missile. Where they did give up about 40% of their range for higher acceleration. But that's kind of a special case against targets with generally limited amounts of point defense

Jonathan_S wrote:

penny wrote:3. I am wondering if yet a third design is possible and practical. On page 88 of this thread we discussed power supplies for missiles. Vince pointed out how all missiles once used plasma capacitors. Jonathan posted text which states that the capacitors of the Wraith took up the same massive amount of volume as the spider drive itself.

My question is this. Since a g-torp might be launched from a very short range, why would it need the same volume of plasma capacitors? Such a missile, which might intercept its target in mere minutes, should not need such an immense bank of capacitors. Should it? Possibly reducing the size of a g-torp at least by a third. No?

So are you going to carry two different g-torps? One for long range and one for short?

Or do you want them to give up their long range strategic bombardment capability to squeeze in some additional number of torps?


Also, unless you want to lose much of the g-torp's already anemic acceleration you can't shrink it too much. Its acceleration is a function of how many drive emitters you can fit along its flanks -- making it shorter makes is slower (to accelerate) because you have to remove the emitters that had been on that now-removed hull.

I guess if you removed a bunch of plasma capacitors you might be able to make it skinnier -- though I'm not sure how deeply the drive emitters need to penetrate into the hull. You might start running into internal clearance issues before you shrunk the diameter all that significantly

penny wrote:In fact, any missile (or other object) which utilizes capacitors should be able to significantly reduce its capacitor footprint if launched from extremely short ranges. How is all of the surplus power utilized? No loitering time needed here.

I'd assume it's no utilized -- any more than the remaining rocket propellant in a modern air-to-air missile is utilized when making a short range shot.

It if blows up before all the fuel/energy is consumed the excess might add a tiny bit to the *boom* but that's it.

Yet you size the missile for the range you want - and you accept the "inefficiency" of sometimes using it closer that that designed max effective range.



Oh, and Honorverse missiles -- baring an unanticipated revolutionary breakthrough in propulsion -- are less effective at short ranges because they don't have time to build up terminal velocity. They're far easier targets for point defense as those slow speeds. Thus it'd generally be counter-productive to create a missile designed for short range engagements because you'd need to fire several times as many of the short range missiles to achieve the same point defense saturation as your normal range missiles could achieve. And of course you'd have to wade through the enemy's fire until/unless you managed to reach your shorter missile range -- so that's not fun.

The partial exception is the Viper anti-LAC missile. Where they did give up about 40% of their range for higher acceleration. But that's kind of a special case against targets with generally limited amounts of point defense

One possibility is that this would be a rarely utilized specialty device like the nuke that Rafe managed to get inside Peep defenses. I don't think that many nukes are carried aboard a ship.

Another possibility is that a different version of an LD could be mainly stocked with these, for missions deep inside the system. Like the varying ordnance an F-16 can carry. An LD whose mission is to sneak deeply in-system should be able to carry many more of these and they are launching at targets much closer. Remember in the Attacking Darius thread I proposed different variants of the Spider (LD).

But if utilized in the same manner and reason as Rafe’s nuke, if much smaller and therefore even stealthier, it may be utilized to get in real close to orbital industry undetected for the completely surgical strikes kzt proposed. If known, the marine quarters could be breached and any personnel inside could be sucked out.

But I don't see a loss of accel being a problem in this case. A matter of 'more minutes' compared to just 'minutes.'

And, I am still none too sure that a missile with a kind of almost instant maximum acceleration (having solved certain issues of course) wouldn't just make ship's sensors hiccup. At least when first encountered before software upgrades can be rendered. At any rate, 75%+ HV accelerations executed from such short ranges should see some getting through. Especially if it is an Alpha launch. An Alpha launch at a warship from near energy range?

"Oh my god. You had to shit your pants. That's disgusting. I'm in here with you!" LOL

penny wrote:One possibility is that this would be a rarely utilized specialty device like the nuke that Rafe managed to get inside Peep defenses. I don't think that many nukes are carried aboard a ship.

Another possibility is that a different version of an LD could be mainly stocked with these, for missions deep inside the system. Like the varying ordnance an F-16 can carry. An LD whose mission is to sneak deeply in-system should be able to carry many more of these and they are launching at targets much closer. Remember in the Attacking Darius thread I proposed different variants of the Spider (LD).

But if utilized in the same manner and reason as Rafe’s nuke, if much smaller and therefore even stealthier, it may be utilized to get in real close to orbital industry undetected for the completely surgical strikes kzt proposed. If known, the marine quarters could be breached and any personnel inside could be sucked out.

But I don't see a loss of accel being a problem in this case. A matter of 'more minutes' compared to just 'minutes.'

And, I am still none too sure that a missile with a kind of almost instant maximum acceleration (having solved certain issues of course) wouldn't just make ship's sensors hiccup. At least when first encountered before software upgrades can be rendered. At any rate, 75%+ HV accelerations executed from such short ranges should see some getting through. Especially if it is an Alpha launch. An Alpha launch at a warship from near energy range?

"Oh my god. You had to shit your pants. That's disgusting. I'm in here with you!" LOL

Actually, unlike CL-56 which was old enough her missiles didn't have multi-mode warheads, when Rafe pulled off that trick against Thunder of God the Mark-13 missiles carried by the Star Knight-class like CA-286 were designed from the ground up with "a multifunction gravitational lens array (MGLA) and fusion warhead combination small enough for use in a CA/BC weight missile, yet flexible enough to support laser-head attack, detonate in a counter-sidewall role, or act as a contact nuke as the situation demanded" [IFF]
So technically all of her attack missiles, the vast, vast, majority of her missile were nukes -- if the situation called for them, rather than focusing that nuclear blast into sidewall burning or laserhead emitters.

But in the older ships when they wanted to switch from a laserhead to a contact nuke, or vice-versa, they'd need to physically pull the warhead and swap in a spare of the desired type. And I believe you're right that the proportions were heavily weighted to laserheads -- though contact nukes were used in warning shots during peacetime anti-piracy patrols. So the proportion of nukes might be adjusted upwards when, say, deployed to Silesia on one of those.


I agree that for G-torps, which are too stealthy to see until extremely close, that lower acceleration isn't a problem when attacking orbital targets. So they could make a short ranged, lower accel, torp for those. They'd have to decide whether carrying a few more rounds justified taking their big valuable LD in closer enough to use short ranged missiles. And without the range to target facilities around multiple planets at once they might have to send more LDs for a given raid if using short ranged torps. But where I think the short range, low accel, torps would be a major detriment is if the LD needed to engage a target that's under way. The torps are already lower acceleration than even merchant ships, but given favorable geometries can pull off intercepts. But the range of favorable geometries shrinks radically as the acceleration and endurance both drop.

So you'd be building a super-specialized torp that's basically capable of killing the orbital targets around just one planet per LD. I'm not sure that trade-off is worth it -- but I guess that might depend on how many extra of the smaller torps you could carry. (And we don't even know how many regular sized torps an LD carries. If, for example, one LD already carries enough to hit every significant target in a star system then there's no reason to increase that number)


As for your "instant maximum acceleration" technically all the Honorverse missiles have that -- a wedge or the spider drive doesn't appear to take any appreciable time to go from 0 gees to its maximum (whether that's around 300 g for the g-torps spider drive or 130,000 g for a Viper). What they don't have is instant maximum speed - as the acceleration adds to their speed for however long the drive can run. That said, if they magically got an instant maximum speed missile, and that speed was significant, then sure the defense computers would choke when first encountered (not the sensors, but the computers behind them).
Just like SLN computers choked on the > 0.7c attack velocities of MDMs, or the Peep LACs' computers first did against the Viper.

Then improvements will be made to minimize that issue as much as they can once the threat is known. So the computers won't hiccup -- but they'd still be faced with very little time to respond.

But I can't see RFC adding those types of missiles into the Honorverse. He has them in some of his other universes (e.g. Starfire) and he seems to like to keep tech separated between literary universes

Jonathan_S wrote:I agree that for G-torps, which are too stealthy to see until extremely close, that lower acceleration isn't a problem when attacking orbital targets. So they could make a short ranged, lower accel, torp for those.

That's exactly a reason NOT to have such short-ranged torpedo. Torpedoes have virtually unlimited range, so there's no reason to launch from close range. The LD could launch from a light-hour away and let the torpedo accelerate to attack speeds over the multiple hours of travel. The orbital targets won't dodge; even their minimal manoeuvring will be seen by the torpedo in plenty of time and will be able to correct.

Even smaller torpedoes would have endurance measured in tens of minutes. There's no reason to launch them from near energy range and have them accelerate at a paltry 100 gravities. That's a 23.8-minute flight with a final velocity of 1400 km/s (assuming launched from a standstill, because otherwise the LD is also going through whatever survived and the debris field). Not to mention that the spider activation was the one spike of detection that the MAN was worried about, so a hundred torpedoes activating at a million km away might give the surprise away.

2-million-gravity missiles, if those are possible, are another story. That's a 10-second flight time and a final velocity of 0.66c.

But I can't see RFC adding those types of missiles into the Honorverse. He has them in some of his other universes (e.g. Starfire) and he seems to like to keep tech separated between literary universes

Agreed. Moreover, this is a tech I'd expect from Manticore first, not the MAlign. Manticore may have rejected the idea because it was unusable in the battlefield, because they can't get close enough to use them or because of logistics or whatever, but they'd know it's possible.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:I agree that for G-torps, which are too stealthy to see until extremely close, that lower acceleration isn't a problem when attacking orbital targets. So they could make a short ranged, lower accel, torp for those.

That's exactly a reason NOT to have such short-ranged torpedo. Torpedoes have virtually unlimited range, so there's no reason to launch from close range. The LD could launch from a light-hour away and let the torpedo accelerate to attack speeds over the multiple hours of travel. The orbital targets won't dodge; even their minimal manoeuvring will be seen by the torpedo in plenty of time and will be able to correct.

Even smaller torpedoes would have endurance measured in tens of minutes. There's no reason to launch them from near energy range and have them accelerate at a paltry 100 gravities. That's a 23.8-minute flight with a final velocity of 1400 km/s (assuming launched from a standstill, because otherwise the LD is also going through whatever survived and the debris field). Not to mention that the spider activation was the one spike of detection that the MAN was worried about, so a hundred torpedoes activating at a million km away might give the surprise away.

2-million-gravity missiles, if those are possible, are another story. That's a 10-second flight time and a final velocity of 0.66c.

But I can't see RFC adding those types of missiles into the Honorverse. He has them in some of his other universes (e.g. Starfire) and he seems to like to keep tech separated between literary universes

Agreed. Moreover, this is a tech I'd expect from Manticore first, not the MAlign. Manticore may have rejected the idea because it was unusable in the battlefield, because they can't get close enough to use them or because of logistics or whatever, but they'd know it's possible.

Necessity is the mother of invention. I brought that point up long ago. Manticore would have no reason to go down that path of development. They would never get that close to their targets. And if they did they'd fire energy weapons. But the MA has reason to believe that they will get that close. Indeed can get that close if they believe in the efficacy of their own stealth. In fact, the modus operandi of an arachnid is to spin a web and await a snack to deliver itself. Says the Spider to the fly. So I expect the tech to be unleashed by the MA.

And since the concept isn't new, per Jonathan's post about the LAC giving up darn near half its range for more accel, then "Bob's your uncle!"

I won't argue whether or not Manticore might have realized that the concept was possible long ago and trashed the concept because of its unsuitability for RMN tactics. One man's trash is another man's treasure.

But what do you mean there's no need to launch from a closer range? If a juicy target of opportunity wanders oh so close to your web in space, like Imperator, then it is a no brainer that Imperator would be engaged. I am not sure an LD has the loadout to overwhelm point defense. But smaller g-torps would allow a bigger Alpha launch. Only one g-torp needs to get through.

And about a lower accel not getting through point defense. Do consider that a surprise launch from such a short range should go a long way to make up for limited accel. Normally, point defense crews have plenty of time to massage point defense. And the ship has time to maneuver against a launch. None of that would be the case against a surprise alpha launch from an LD at such close ranges. Especially if against missiles that are giving up range for insane accel along with the element of... surprise!

And if several or more of the point defense crew are visiting the latrine, or hiding in the coat closet flirting with the regs with Suzie the "headmistress" then Bob's brother's your uncle too! LOL

See follow-up post for correct numbers. This one had energy range off by a factor of two

penny wrote:And since the concept isn't new, per Jonathan's post about the LAC giving up darn near half its range for more accel, then "Bob's your uncle!"

The Viper gives up 50.9% of their range (3.5 million km vs 7.3 million km) to gain 27% better terminal velocity and a flight time that was 105 seconds shorter (75 vs 180).

Actually if you compare over 3.5 million km max range of the Viper the numbers are even more in it's favor.
75 vs 131 seconds and 42% higher terminal velocity.

And yet, even at energy range (250,000 km a Viper would take 18 seconds ) to reach laserhead range (50,000 km). And it'd be dead meet for PDLCs taking nearly 3 whole seconds to crawl through their fire.- wrong (Since, IIRC, they kick in at 100,000 km)

They gave up ~51% of their range for 2.8x better acceleration. (Compared to the half power SDM. If you wanted to compare it the other way they gained 120% the range and 29% greater acceleration than a full power SDM)

You saying they'd somehow instead find 21x the acceleration (a million gees). And even at a million gees a missile would still take 6.4 seconds to reach laserhead range - wrong (50,000 km) if launched from energy range (250,000 km). And it'd still take 0.9 seconds to make it through the PDLC envelope because its terminal velocity from that range (0.2c) is less than a quarter of an MDM's (0.81c) [b]- wrong

Oh, and even a g-torp's graser will do less damage than the broadside laser or graser mount of the ship that launched it. So even with this impossible missile you're making a slower, easier to defend, and less powerful attack than just using your energy weapons.



Now, admittedly, if they could get 10 - wrong seconds of runtime out of this insanely overpowered drive that'd let you engage from nearly twice normal energy range. Your terminal velocity would still be nothing to write home about; but it'd be way faster than any other ship could hit from out that far -- though don't forget that without a sidewall energy range against you doubles (to 500,000 km - wrong) and so you'd still be vulnerable to the target's energy mounts (if they could localize the launch) - while now they wouldn't be vulnerable to yours.
(You'd need 11 - wrong seconds or more of runtime out of this impossible missile to launch from where energy weapons counter-battery fire couldn't kill you)

Jonathan_S wrote:

penny wrote:And since the concept isn't new, per Jonathan's post about the LAC giving up darn near half its range for more accel, then "Bob's your uncle!"

The Viper gives up 50.9% of their range (3.5 million km vs 7.3 million km) to gain 27% better terminal velocity and a flight time that was 105 seconds shorter (75 vs 180).

Actually if you compare over 3.5 million km max range of the Viper the numbers are even more in it's favor.
75 vs 131 seconds and 42% higher terminal velocity.

And yet, even at energy range (250,000 km) a Viper would take 18 seconds to reach laserhead range (50,000 km). And it'd be dead meet for PDLCs taking nearly 3 whole seconds to crawl through their fire. (Since, IIRC, they kick in at 100,000 km)

They gave up ~51% of their range for 2.8x better acceleration. (Compared to the half power SDM. If you wanted to compare it the other way they gained 120% the range and 29% greater acceleration than a full power SDM)

You saying they'd somehow instead find 21x the acceleration (a million gees). And even at a million gees a missile would still take 6.4 seconds to reach laserhead range (50,000 km) if launched from energy range (250,000 km). And it'd still take 0.9 seconds to make it through the PDLC envelope because its terminal velocity from that range (0.2c) is less than a quarter of an MDM's (0.81c)

Oh, and even a g-torp's graser will do less damage than the broadside laser or graser mount of the ship that launched it. So even with this impossible missile you're making a slower, easier to defend, and less powerful attack than just using your energy weapons.



Now, admittedly, if they could get 10 seconds of runtime out of this insanely overpowered drive that'd let you engage from nearly twice normal energy range. Your terminal velocity would still be nothing to write home about; but it'd be way faster than any other ship could hit from out that far -- though don't forget that without a sidewall energy range against you doubles (to 500,000 km) and so you'd still be vulnerable to the target's energy mounts (if they could localize the launch) - while now they wouldn't be vulnerable to yours.
(You'd need 11 seconds or more of runtime out of this impossible missile to launch from where energy weapons counter-battery fire couldn't kill you)

Interesting. Do consider that when I first suggested this missile way upstream in this thread, I also suggested the MA would determine its "sweet spot" (the range determined to be the most effective). I always say energy range in order to quickly communicate the shortness in range of their deployment.

But if the Viper can give up 50% of its range, why not 75-90+ % for even higher accelerations. But again, an attack from this range would not afford point defense to prepare. And a ship will not have time to maneuver for optimum point defense. No?

Oh, my manners! Thanks for the numbers!!!

Jonathan_S wrote:

penny wrote:And since the concept isn't new, per Jonathan's post about the LAC giving up darn near half its range for more accel, then "Bob's your uncle!"

The Viper gives up 50.9% of their range (3.5 million km vs 7.3 million km) to gain 27% better terminal velocity and a flight time that was 105 seconds shorter (75 vs 180).

Actually if you compare over 3.5 million km max range of the Viper the numbers are even more in it's favor.
75 vs 131 seconds and 42% higher terminal velocity.

And yet, even at energy range (250,000 km) a Viper would take 18 seconds to reach laserhead range (50,000 km). And it'd be dead meet for PDLCs taking nearly 3 whole seconds to crawl through their fire. (Since, IIRC, they kick in at 100,000 km)

They gave up ~51% of their range for 2.8x better acceleration. (Compared to the half power SDM. If you wanted to compare it the other way they gained 120% the range and 29% greater acceleration than a full power SDM)

You saying they'd somehow instead find 21x the acceleration (a million gees). And even at a million gees a missile would still take 6.4 seconds to reach laserhead range (50,000 km) if launched from energy range (250,000 km). And it'd still take 0.9 seconds to make it through the PDLC envelope because its terminal velocity from that range (0.2c) is less than a quarter of an MDM's (0.81c)

Oh, and even a g-torp's graser will do less damage than the broadside laser or graser mount of the ship that launched it. So even with this impossible missile you're making a slower, easier to defend, and less powerful attack than just using your energy weapons.



Now, admittedly, if they could get 10 seconds of runtime out of this insanely overpowered drive that'd let you engage from nearly twice normal energy range. Your terminal velocity would still be nothing to write home about; but it'd be way faster than any other ship could hit from out that far -- though don't forget that without a sidewall energy range against you doubles (to 500,000 km) and so you'd still be vulnerable to the target's energy mounts (if they could localize the launch) - while now they wouldn't be vulnerable to yours.
(You'd need 11 seconds or more of runtime out of this impossible missile to launch from where energy weapons counter-battery fire couldn't kill you)

Jonathan, your range numbers are off by a factor of 2 - laser/graser range is 500,000 KM (or closer, depending on sidewall strength) against sidewall protected targets, and 1,000,000 against ships with no sidewalls.