Insanity: Screening elements in the HV

Insanity: Screening elements in the HV

I just don't understand the logic of a screen in the HV. I think the technology has outgrown the concept. There is no way anyone can talk me into believing that the capital ships in the HV still need the little guys to protect them.

If aircraft carriers could kick out enormous salvos of CMs at a range of even a mile – in addition to anti-ship guns – I don't think there'd be much of a screening element, except against subs.

Now, to be sure, one advantage of screening elements is advanced drone coverage. The screening elements are receiving data from the drones they've deployed and relaying that coverage back to the fleet, in TOH. But with GR that isn't really necessary.

And … call it plot Honor or pixie dust … I've been duped into believing that the screening elements aren't worthwhile targets in the insane massed launches in the HV. Not to mention the Alpha launches of towed pods. I would wipe out that screening element with my first launch. My first launch would be from internal tubes before I cut loose with an Alpha launch. Jus' me?



P.S. Pushing them far out is ludicrous, except when they meet the MA. A screen will make sense against the MA. But against other impeller-driven navies???

And the arrogance of screening elements. They just go about their business eating cake. They don't even expect to be targeted. Well.

BOOM.


There's a new sheriff in town and he has a maligned mind.

penny wrote:Insanity: Screening elements in the HV

I just don't understand the logic of a screen in the HV. I think the technology has outgrown the concept. There is no way anyone can talk me into believing that the capital ships in the HV still need the little guys to protect them.

If aircraft carriers could kick out enormous salvos of CMs at a range of even a mile – in addition to anti-ship guns – I don't think there'd be much of a screening element, except against subs.

Now, to be sure, one advantage of screening elements is advanced drone coverage. The screening elements are receiving data from the drones they've deployed and relaying that coverage back to the fleet, in TOH. But with GR that isn't really necessary.

And … call it plot Honor or pixie dust … I've been duped into believing that the screening elements aren't worthwhile targets in the insane massed launches in the HV. Not to mention the Alpha launches of towed pods. I would wipe out that screening element with my first launch. My first launch would be from internal tubes before I cut loose with an Alpha launch. Jus' me?

P.S. Pushing them far out is ludicrous, except when they meet the MA. A screen will make sense against the MA. But against other impeller-driven navies???

In WW2 the screening by the US Navy in the Pacific was more for aircraft detection and anti-aircraft fire (the Japanese Navy did not use submarines the way the Allies or Germans did). In the Falklands it was because the Argentine force had ship-killer missiles and the Royal Navy did lose 6 ships (mainly from the screening forces). And perhaps the Argentines forces needed more screening, because they did lose a major warship to a submarine.

The capital ships can defend themselves, but additional attrition helps. If the forces are the same size and you plan to use your first wave to attack screening forces while the other side attacks your capital ships; then you are setting yourself up for problems, because you are destroying secondary defensive forces while they are destroying primary offensive and defensive forces. So the battle starts with you shooting once at capital ships and the other side shooting twice. For all later missiles fired, the other side will have more capital ships than you.

There is a mathematical simulation that involves two forces armed with the same weapons (say bows and arrows with each arrow having a 10% change of incapacitating its target). Both sides shoot at the same time and repeat until one side has the only soldiers left standing. If the blue side begins with 100 soldiers and the red side has 70, then after the first volley the blue side will have 93 soldiers and the red side 60 soldiers going into the next round. After the second volley the blue side has 87 soldiers and the red side has 51. All else being equal, the side that begins with fewer soldiers inevitably loses.

The RMN would be very loath to give up the LAC-based anti-missile screen.

Yes SDs can kick out swarms of CMs. But the enemy can stack mega-swarms of MDMs. The advantage of a screen is that it thickens and potentially deepens the defensive envelope.


Classically you had effectively a 3-tier defense; outer CM zone where you'd try to intercept at about a million km out; inner CM zone where you try to intercept at about 500,000 km out things that survived the outer zone; point defense zone where you try to hit things with PDLCs within 100,000 km of the ship. Now that's semi-notional -- if you can launch and control more CMs you'd might have a second CM launch aiming to hit targets deeper into that outer zone; but that's the general concept.

Mk31s changed that a little by pushing the outer zone from about 1 million km to ~2.5 million km; and maybe gave enough defensive depth that a ship has an outer, middle, and inner CM zones.


But escorts. Escorts can do a couple of things once the fleet has joined in combat -- though how useful they are is in part a function of formation size (the fewer of your heaviest ships you have the more they appreciate additional defensive fire from their escorts).

If escorts are survivable enough, like modern LACs are, you can position them say a million km or two down the threat axis. Now you've got at least one extra layer of CM defense zone, giving that much more time and chances to kill incoming enemy missiles (time you'd lost when terminal velocity went up from .27c in SDMs to 0.8c in MDMs). Plus it forces the enemy missiles to activate their ECM and jammers early, giving the ships' tac computers more time to counter those and better direct their later CMs onto the real targets; and it forces the missiles to jinx and maneuver sooner to throw off defensive fire -- which can break heir lock on the target and give a chance for defensive jammers to prevent them requiring or decoys to fool them into engaging a fake target.

But even if escorts need to be tucked in close under the formation's defensive umbrella they can add a non-trivial amount of defensive firepower. Even for modern units.
A squadron of Invictus class ships can bring up to 1,236 CM tubes to the fight (assuming they're positioned to fire every tube thanks to off-axis capabilities) and 372 PDLCs on their engaged side. That is an astonishing amount of defensive fire compared to the state of the art of 1905 PD.

Yet, a single escorting squadron of Nike-class would bring another 31% CM tubes (another 384); plus adding 48% (180) equally capable PDLCs to the formation's defense.

IIRC cruiser squadrons are still 8 ships, so if instead of the 6 Nike-class you had a even a single 8-ship squadron of Sag-Cs they'd add 25% CM tubes (320) plus 51% more PDLCs to those of the SD(P)s (though their PDLCs are less capable than the ones carried by BC(L)s and wallers)

These aren't insignificant amounts of additional defensive firepower -- and you can build, operate, and man several squadrons of cruisers or battlecruisers for the cost of a squadron of wallers.



Also since escorts are more expendable, and less likely to be deliberately targeted, they can remain spitting out defensive fire even after the wallers had to roll behind their wedge -- helping thin down the missiles that might survive to try pop-up shots as they crest the rim of the SDs' wedges. (Plus escorts roll faster, so even if they are targeted they can wait longer, getting off that bit extra defensive fire, before taking cover)

All that said though Keyhole had reduced the benefit of escorts as it allows wallers to continue to fire and control CMs even when their wedge is interposed; plus it places some (though not that many) PDLCs out beyond the wedge and so they've now got limited ability to engage missiles angling for a pop-up attack before they crest the rim of the wedge where the hull mounted PDLCs can engage.

And like I implied before, once you've got enough battle squadrons massed they kind of displace the escorts far enough from the core of the fleet that it dramatically reduces the effect of close escort defensive fire. (Though the forward defenses from LACs are still very useful)

tlb wrote:In WW2 the screening by the US Navy in the Pacific was more for aircraft detection and anti-aircraft fire (the Japanese Navy did not use submarines the way the Allies or Germans did). In the Falklands it was because the Argentine force had ship-killer missiles and the Royal Navy did lose 6 ships (mainly from the screening forces). And perhaps the Argentines forces needed more screening, because they did lose a major warship to a submarine.

Late in the war the US used radar picket destroyers as distant escorts. They'd kill relatively few enemy planes -- but they'd detect incoming strikes, or verify the IFF of returning planes to differentiate returning friendlies from incoming strikes, far enough out to give the carriers time to scramble additional fighters. And WWII fighters took significant time to climb to combat altitude; so you needed all the warning you could get.

And the battleship which escorted carriers (in part in case enemy surface forces managed to surprise the formation) not only threw up vast amounts of anti-aircraft fire but also tended to attract attacks onto themselves -- attacks they could withstand far better than the more vulnerable (and flammable) carriers.


Of course the other thing escorts can do is the physically interpose themselves between an attack and a higher value ship. Taking a hit (even if it destroys them) to keep the more valuable ship in the fight. In Cold War terms being the final "decoy" against the carrier killing anti-ship missile, in WWII trying to take the torpedo hit that might cripple the battleship or carrier, or in Honorverse terms using their wedge to cover the crippled flank of another ship -- keeping its remaining weapons in the fight, or giving time to repair damaged sidewall generator or other critical damage, or even just giving time to abandon ship. You wouldn't take an SD out of the fight to cover the flank of another crippled SD; but a cruiser or destroyer can certainly do afford to do so.

I should clarify my notion a bit. I do not think screening elements make any sense considering the capability of missiles and CMs in the HV. However, that remark covers full scale engagements of the larger ships of the wall. Utilizing LAC screens for smaller ships such as a squadron of BBs need to be taken under advisement. But generally I feel as if SDs and the larger ships of the wall can handle their own protection. When the shooting starts the SDs and larger ships of the wall should tell the lighter units to “get the hell out of the way!” It is simply insane to continue to sacrifice smaller units (who are oftentimes manned by very valuable up and coming personnel) when it is no longer necessary to do so.

The way I see it, what every battle the RMN fought needed was a way to thicken the CM zone even more. Heavier salvos of CMs will do what LACs cannot. But there is a problem with control links. Solution, a single ship could be designed that supports a fleet engagement. Or the David Taylor class could be reconfigured to carry huge numbers of CM pods. No LAC bays or LACs needed. It could be equipped with Keyhole II. Anyway, I also never understood trying to stuff ships with missiles AND CMs; and not being able to control them all. The missiles and CMs aboard ship are also technically susceptible to proximity kills, when they get blown up chock-full of missiles.

Before David introduced the David Taylor class, I was complaining that it made no sense to have a missile Collier chock-full of missiles that couldn't protect itself. Alanis Morrisette would call that ironic. Counter-missile colliers could add a huge addition of CM protection to any fleet.

But a CM class built on a freighter laden with control links and able to fire alpha launches downrange at a moments notice should seal the deal. Even without control links, hordes of CMs will wipe out an alpha launch.

The David Taylor class was a type of military support vessel used by the RMN in 1920s PD. It constituted a departure in design from traditional support ships. Massing around three million tons, it was only about twenty percent bigger than a Nike-class battle cruiser. It was designed as “fast combat support vessels”, combining substantial repair capability and a modest capacity to carry ammunition/stores, while being fast enough to stay with a detached force of battle cruisers. It also contained armaments heavier than most light cruisers and eight launch bays for LACs.

A CM control missile like Apollo

BTW, I think the control links problem can be solved if CMs were designed with a control missile controlling a brood of eight like what happens with Apollo. Heck, a single control missile could control an entire launch since the same fine control that is needed with missiles is unnecessary.

penny wrote:I should clarify my notion a bit. I do not think screening elements make any sense considering the capability of missiles and CMs in the HV. However, that remark covers full scale engagements of the larger ships of the wall. Utilizing LAC screens for smaller ships such as a squadron of BBs need to be taken under advisement. But generally I feel as if SDs and the larger ships of the wall can handle their own protection. When the shooting starts the SDs and larger ships of the wall should tell the lighter units to “get the hell out of the way!” It is simply insane to continue to sacrifice smaller units (who are oftentimes manned by very valuable up and coming personnel) when it is no longer necessary to do so.

If your premises were true, I'd agree. Unfortunately, I think the problem are the premises: the capital ships cannot handle their own protection sufficiently. Or, at the very least, "the more protection the better it is." So having the screening elements add to the protection half a million km away implies more time to detect incoming missiles, lock on them, fire on them, and all of this despite enemy EW.

I agree there has been a revolutionary step up in survivability if you compare a Gryphon-class SD from the time of Toll of Honor (the best that White Haven could have had in Sixth Fleet) to a Keyhole II-enabled, Apollo-firing Invictus-class SD(P) that Honor had for the Eighth Fleet and the Grand Fleet. First, the pods: SD(P)s no longer need to be broadside-on to fire their missiles. Side the pod bay door is on the stern, the best protection for the pods means the ship is head-on to the enemy formation, not broadside on. It can't stay that way because that would leave the throat open and a pitch manoeuvre might be slower than a roll. Second, the Keyholes allow the ship to keep telemetry to all its missiles perfectly with no wedge in the way, plus it can fire CMs while in a turtled position. And finally, with Apollo, its own outgoing salvo needs far less control than previous generation missiles did.

And yet, thickening the CM cloud is definitely beneficial. If you could intercept 100% of the incoming shipkillers with CMs, then you're sure not to take any hits, not even to your Keyholes. As you said:

The way I see it, what every battle the RMN fought needed was a way to thicken the CM zone even more. Heavier salvos of CMs will do what LACs cannot. But there is a problem with control links. Solution, a single ship could be designed that supports a fleet engagement. Or the David Taylor class could be reconfigured to carry huge numbers of CM pods. No LAC bays or LACs needed. It could be equipped with Keyhole II. Anyway, I also never understood trying to stuff ships with missiles AND CMs; and not being able to control them all. The missiles and CMs aboard ship are also technically susceptible to proximity kills, when they get blown up chock-full of missiles.

The enemy will soon learn that this ship is a major contributor to the fleet's ability to defend itself and will take it out. Once it's gone, the survivability of the remaining elements goes down drastically. No, CMs and CM pods need to be distributed, not concentrated.

It could be placed behind the wall, which means it has more protection and also more time to fire its own CMs from tubes before having to roll ship to interpose its own wedge. But the fleet still needs to dedicate screening units to ride herd on this ship too, because there will be straggler missiles that didn't attack the wall and now have a new opportunity at glory and mention in the Missile Hall of Fame. This divides the fleet's units and dilutes the effectiveness (defeat in detail).

Before David introduced the David Taylor class, I was complaining that it made no sense to have a missile Collier chock-full of missiles that couldn't protect itself. Alanis Morrisette would call that ironic. Counter-missile colliers could add a huge addition of CM protection to any fleet.

The missile colliers are support ships and stay with the fleet train, far away from any battle. The missiles inside them are probably also packed densely and not launchable. A single collier can rearm 2x its own volume in warships or more, probably much more.

Making them warships means less volume for their cargo. It needs to be able to defend itself, lest it become a high value target (see above).

But a CM class built on a freighter laden with control links and able to fire alpha launches downrange at a moments notice should seal the deal. Even without control links, hordes of CMs will wipe out an alpha launch.

You'd never bring a freighter to a battle. It would never survive the enemy's alpha launch. The best you'd be able to do is have it deploy ALL its pods, then move away at extreme speed. That requires a huge advance in time: 10 minutes at 600 gravities is still less than 900,000 km separation from the fleet, so it's still vulnerable to stragglers. And it usually won't be able to transition up to alpha because battles are usually fought inside the hyperlimit.

You need to armour those ships. And then you have something called a warship and you may as well call them CAs or BCs too. You know, an escort screen.

penny wrote:I should clarify my notion a bit. I do not think screening elements make any sense considering the capability of missiles and CMs in the HV. However, that remark covers full scale engagements of the larger ships of the wall. Utilizing LAC screens for smaller ships such as a squadron of BBs need to be taken under advisement. But generally I feel as if SDs and the larger ships of the wall can handle their own protection. When the shooting starts the SDs and larger ships of the wall should tell the lighter units to “get the hell out of the way!” It is simply insane to continue to sacrifice smaller units (who are oftentimes manned by very valuable up and coming personnel) when it is no longer necessary to do so.

The way I see it, what every battle the RMN fought needed was a way to thicken the CM zone even more. Heavier salvos of CMs will do what LACs cannot. But there is a problem with control links. Solution, a single ship could be designed that supports a fleet engagement. Or the David Taylor class could be reconfigured to carry huge numbers of CM pods. No LAC bays or LACs needed. It could be equipped with Keyhole II. Anyway, I also never understood trying to stuff ships with missiles AND CMs; and not being able to control them all. The missiles and CMs aboard ship are also technically susceptible to proximity kills, when they get blown up chock-full of missiles.

Before David introduced the David Taylor class, I was complaining that it made no sense to have a missile Collier chock-full of missiles that couldn't protect itself. Alanis Morrisette would call that ironic. Counter-missile colliers could add a huge addition of CM protection to any fleet.

But a CM class built on a freighter laden with control links and able to fire alpha launches downrange at a moments notice should seal the deal. Even without control links, hordes of CMs will wipe out an alpha launch.

The David Taylor class was a type of military support vessel used by the RMN in 1920s PD. It constituted a departure in design from traditional support ships. Massing around three million tons, it was only about twenty percent bigger than a Nike-class battle cruiser. It was designed as “fast combat support vessels”, combining substantial repair capability and a modest capacity to carry ammunition/stores, while being fast enough to stay with a detached force of battle cruisers. It also contained armaments heavier than most light cruisers and eight launch bays for LACs.

One of the reasons that a ship could launch more CMs than it could control was redundancy. But the main reason was "gunsmoke" -- the wedge of a CM would block the fire control between the ship and a previous CM; so ship couldn't fire off CMs as quickly as they wanted because the CMs themselves made that uncontrollable.

More hulls not only gave you more launchers but it gave you more clear lines of sight for controlling the launched CMs.

Now, that's one thing that Keyhole largely fixed because it's spread far enough to relay fire control around the wedges of proceeding CMs. IIRC that let SD(P)s (and presumably BC(L)s and (P)s) control about 5x as many CMs.

But even with that, even with extended range CMs, walls still can't fully handle their own protection. They still lose ships despite having LAC screen out thickening and deepening the defensive basket, and escorts tucked in close. They lose less crew on those escort LACs than they'd lose to extra damage or destruction to the SDs if they told the LACs to “get the hell out of the way!”

And that's in part because extra CMs and even extra fire control relays with the fleet don't buy you the extra defensive depth that's so, so, valuable. For that you do need platforms out between the fleets to push launchers and fire control closer to the enemy. (And that's something that Keyhole II can't fix because CMs are way, way, way, too small for FTL fire control -- so Keyhole II doesn't give you anything for them over Keyhole I. Both let you relay control around the "gunsmoke" but neither fixes the lightspeed lag on interceptions out beyond 10 LS.


As for stuffing ships with missiles with no way to control them -- welcome to basically every fleet replenishment ship in history. They never have more than the most cursory of armaments and are always carrying literal tons of ammo or missiles that they lack the sensors, launchers/tubes, and fire control to actually use. Now you could equip the ammo ships with all those. But those are some of the most expensive parts of a warship and they take extra trained crew to operate -- so now you can't afford as many ammo ships as you need; not without sacrificing warship construction budget. They leave out defenses because it's more cost and combat effective to spend money on cheap transports and dedicated warships instead of turning transports into expensive inferior warships.

The David Taylor class is cool. But it's also a very special purpose fast support ship for extended deep raiding that they're never going to build very many of. IIRC it costs more than any of the BCs it's supporting. So you have to ask; would you like 3 or 4 David Taylors hauling missiles forward to your fleet (each carrying fewer missiles than a cheap missile collier of the same tonnage) or would you like another squadron of Nike-class BC(L)s?
Most of the time you'd rather take the defenseless ammo ship to get yourself the extra battlecruisers.

penny wrote:A CM control missile like Apollo

BTW, I think the control links problem can be solved if CMs were designed with a control missile controlling a brood of eight like what happens with Apollo. Heck, a single control missile could control an entire launch since the same fine control that is needed with missiles is unnecessary.

Actually, if I understand To End in Fire correctly, what is in the design phase at Bolthole is a two stage system, similar to what Galton had. The first stage pushes out a collection of CM missiles which can then fire at the incoming missile swarm at much farther distance out, compared to a regular CM. Knowing the GA mindset, that first stage will probably have a single control link (perhaps FTL) and it then will have light speed control links to its CM's.