Insanity: Screening elements in the HV

tlb wrote: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.

One thing I've speculated about is that a sensor able to read FTL transmissions should be smaller and simpler than the full-up FTL transceiver built into the Apollo control missile.

And for even extra-extended CM ranges, say out to 6-7 million km, you could probably get away with one-way FTL control.

So if the 2-drive CM or CM booster, or however they do it, has room for an FTL receiver in its tail that'd cut a fair bit of lag out. Yes updates from the CMs would still be trickling back at only the speed of light; as would any radar/lidar returns from the ship's active sensors or anything the ship's passives might pick up from the incoming missiles. But at least once the ship's tac computers updated the intercept info and/or had new updates to help the CM overcome any ECM from the inbound salvo they could squirt that out to them FTL at 62c.


But if that doesn't work then potentially, as I speculated above, the RMN would come up with a free flying drone that a Keyhole was able to talk to via FTL and which acted as a a forward (lightspeed) fire control relay for those extra extended range CMs

No screening elements, nasty surprises abound...

How many times haven't we seen screening elements detecting different types of well laid traps? Screening elements gives you time to react to threats you didn't know existed.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

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:

penny wrote: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.

Thinksmarkedly wrote: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.

Yes! I agree! So distribute them among several such ships that would be a welcomed addition to any fleet. You are arguing my point for me. As of now, the CMs are not as distributed as they should be; they are stuffed into the bowels of the ships with a backlog in the firing queue. And a correction, they do need to be concentrated ... just downrange.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:They 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).

How? How will the enemy ascertain that the enormously thickened CMs are coming from CM warships? And will it matter if enemy missiles are being wiped out? A navy cannot target any ships if their missiles are being destroyed.

penny wrote: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.

Thinksmarkedly wrote: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).

penny wrote: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.

Thinksmarkedly wrote: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.

My point about the missile colliers was that, before the David-Taylor class, they couldn't put up a fight. It was way too damned ironic that a ship carrying a shitload of missiles couldn't fire them off if need be.

But I am talking about a purpose-built CM-ship built to keep up, take a punch, and throw a whole helluva lot of counter punches. Good luck taking out a purpose built CM warship. They'll swat missiles targeting it and yawn while doing it.

All under the umbrella of evolution of tactics and weapons. A reminder from Brigade_XO.

penny wrote:
But I am talking about a purpose-built CM-ship built to keep up, take a punch, and throw a whole helluva lot of counter punches. Good luck taking out a purpose built CM warship. They'll swat missiles targeting it and yawn while doing it.

All under the umbrella of evolution of tactics and weapons. A reminder from Brigade_XO.

"Escort" type defense focused ships have been discussed many times on the forums. David's feelings were that defensive focused ships were a stop gap measure, and the RMN would only build multi purpose warships. The SLN might implement such a ship as a stop-gap measure, but it will not be a major trend.

penny wrote:
My point about the missile colliers was that, before the David-Taylor class, they couldn't put up a fight. It was way too damned ironic that a ship carrying a shitload of missiles couldn't fire them off if need be.

But I am talking about a purpose-built CM-ship built to keep up, take a punch, and throw a whole helluva lot of counter punches. Good luck taking out a purpose built CM warship. They'll swat missiles targeting it and yawn while doing it.

All under the umbrella of evolution of tactics and weapons. A reminder from Brigade_XO.

David on on Ammo ship in combat

https://web.archive.org/web/20220702112649/https://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/entry/Harrington/115/0/

Thanks. I recall reading that. But then there is the Charles Ward and CLACs themselves.

Besides, against an opponent with much better stealth than your own, one might quickly need to rethink ammunition ships that are no more than defenseless sitting ducks. The only colliers left might turn out to be the ones that can fight!

penny wrote:Thanks. I recall reading that. But then there is the Charles Ward and CLACs themselves.

Besides, against an opponent with much better stealth than your own, one might quickly need to rethink ammunition ships that are no more than defenseless sitting ducks. The only colliers left might turn out to be the ones that can fight!

That assume that you can mount enough defenses on an ammo ship to survive a stealth strike. If it's going to die either way then the cost of adding defenses is wasted.

But adding defenses to ammo ships can also suffer from "virtual" attrition.
Say it costs 4 times as much to make an survivable ammo ship than your current undefended designs (and it's likely far more than that). That'd mean can afford only 1/4 as many such ships - you've lost 3/4rs of your logistics capability before the enemy fired a single shot! That's pretty damn good return on investment on the enemy's part -- commerce or supply line raiding is very unlikely to be so successful it wipes out 3/4 of a ship type.

(And if the defenses actually cost 10x as much or 20x then the virtual attrition is just that much worse. And that's all assuming the defended ship can carry as much cargo; that you've make it bigger to hold all the extra defensive systems instead of cutting into cargo capacity)


There's a reason the WWII Liberty and Victory ships carried only the most minimal of defenses (usually just one obsolete 4" gun and a handful of whatever AA guns there was a surplus of at the time; with no fire control except local iron-sights). You could have made ships that were much more likely to survive a torpedo or bomb hit -- but they'd cost so much more in time, money, and materials that you couldn't build nearly enough of them to meet logistics demands (even if none were lost to enemy action)

penny wrote:Thanks. I recall reading that. But then there is the Charles Ward and CLACs themselves.

Besides, against an opponent with much better stealth than your own, one might quickly need to rethink ammunition ships that are no more than defenseless sitting ducks. The only colliers left might turn out to be the ones that can fight!

FSVs like the Charles Ward only have a light cruiser armament - nasty enough that you can leave it on it's own without an escort, but they are not fit to serve in a wall of battle. RMCN CLACs are designed to stand off medium combatants and fight off large combatants, because the RMN wanted a strike design that could operate independently. GSN Coventons and RHN Aviary class are designed as purely LAC freighters, not true warships and require escorts.

penny wrote:Thanks. I recall reading that. But then there is the Charles Ward and CLACs themselves.

Besides, against an opponent with much better stealth than your own, one might quickly need to rethink ammunition ships that are no more than defenseless sitting ducks. The only colliers left might turn out to be the ones that can fight!

Jonathan_S wrote:That assume that you can mount enough defenses on an ammo ship to survive a stealth strike. If it's going to die either way then the cost of adding defenses is wasted.

That could be said about any specialty ship. Even a Q-ship. Any ship that died for a cause was not wasted. But I will yield to that anyway, just for the sake of argument. I won't immediately claim the notion on my taxes upfront. I'll reap the rewards at the end of the tax season.

Jonathan_S wrote:But adding defenses to ammo ships can also suffer from "virtual" attrition.
Say it costs 4 times as much to make an survivable ammo ship than your current undefended designs (and it's likely far more than that). That'd mean can afford only 1/4 as many such ships - you've lost 3/4rs of your logistics capability before the enemy fired a single shot! That's pretty damn good return on investment on the enemy's part -- commerce or supply line raiding is very unlikely to be so successful it wipes out 3/4 of a ship type.

The end of the tax season.

You better watch out Jonathan. You seem to be juggling the books in ways the IRS won't like. I can see why Honor rolls her eyes at the Admiralty’s notion of cost. If it works, this is a game changing tactic. It isn't concerned with logistics. Although logistically, it will free up a lot of those screening elements for duty elsewhere. So ixnay on the notion of any kind of return on the enemy's investment. I am thinking about two or three of these assets in a single fleet for redundancy. As far as cost, get a hold of your accountant and fire him! In the long run what you will save is the time that is usually spent by any of your combatants in yard hands. No time with repair ships and no waste of the limited spares stored aboard. You will also save on spacers who will no longer be killed. And you will save the battle! This tactic will pay for itself in a single salvo.

And who says if one of these ships are destroyed the CM protection suffers? It will be the same because LACs can only manage to spit on a raging fire compared to the utility of these in the first salvo. This tactic can weather two … two… two alpha launches, at least, back to back. Wiping out every single missile. And there can not be any price placed on the lives saved.

IINM, it will also save on control links if these ships come with their own Keyhole. That means the wall can save on control links wasted on its CMs.

Jonathan_S wrote:(And if the defenses actually cost 10x as much or 20x then the virtual attrition is just that much worse. And that's all assuming the defended ship can carry as much cargo; that you've make it bigger to hold all the extra defensive systems instead of cutting into cargo capacity)

Cost vs Success. Where do you draw the line.

Jonathan_S wrote:There's a reason the WWII Liberty and Victory ships carried only the most minimal of defenses (usually just one obsolete 4" gun and a handful of whatever AA guns there was a surplus of at the time; with no fire control except local iron-sights). You could have made ships that were much more likely to survive a torpedo or bomb hit -- but they'd cost so much more in time, money, and materials that you couldn't build nearly enough of them to meet logistics demands (even if none were lost to enemy action)

Yeah, The Washington Treaty. The Washington Treaty won't prevent the RMN from utilizing BCs for this tactic. It will pay for itself in one battle.

The fleet will fall in love with this ship faster than our ground troops fell in love with the sound of the Warthog … and more recently our very own Ghostrider. The AC-130J Ghostrider that is.

https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets ... hostrider/

Imagine the sound of the platform belching up CMs. Nobody will call it rude except the enemy.

penny wrote:You better watch out Jonathan. You seem to be juggling the books in ways the IRS won't like. I can see why Honor rolls her eyes at the Admiralty’s notion of cost. If it works, this is a game changing tactic. It isn't concerned with logistics. Although logistically, it will free up a lot of those screening elements for duty elsewhere. So ixnay on the notion of any kind of return on the enemy's investment. I am thinking about two or three of these assets in a single fleet for redundancy. As far as cost, get a hold of your accountant and fire him! In the long run what you will save is the time that is usually spent by any of your combatants in yard hands. No time with repair ships and no waste of the limited spares stored aboard. You will also save on spacers who will no longer be killed. And you will save the battle! This tactic will pay for itself in a single salvo.

And who says if one of these ships are destroyed the CM protection suffers? It will be the same because LACs can only manage to spit on a raging fire compared to the utility of these in the first salvo. This tactic can weather two … two… two alpha launches, at least, back to back. Wiping out every single missile. And there can not be any price placed on the lives saved.

IINM, it will also save on control links if these ships come with their own Keyhole. That means the wall can save on control links wasted on its CMs.

Wait, now I'm confused.
I thought you were advocating for two different concepts:
1) Adding the ability for ammo ships to fire off missiles in self-defense
2) Building dedicated CM ships

Are you saying you want to use the ammo ships as the CM ships? That'd seems even worse because they'll be even more likely to be involved in combat -- not just if a raiding force intercepted the fleet's supply chain -- and they'll be busy closely following the fleet instead of shuttle back to get more missiles.


Also one of the reasons for concentrating the firepower into dedicated escorts is that an escort that's able to maintain a screening position can protect a lot of ships -- so you need less manpower and fewer weapons overall than if you made your freighters self-escorting. (Plus a nimble little destroyer or CL; or in WWII terms an escorting frigate/DE/sloop is more maneuverable and a harder target than a freighter). You might have 5-10 escorts protecting 40-100 freighters. And once you escort the convoy to a safe harbor the escorts can almost immediately turn around to protect the next convoy; whereas the self-escorting freighters have all their weapons and weapons crew twiddling their thumbs in port waiting to get unloaded. Moving the convoy defense to dedicated escorts probably cut down on the cost and number of weapons needed by a factor of 10 or more (especially in WWII when it might take a couple weeks to turn a convoy around due to how slow break bulk cargo loading/unloading was).
So spending a lot of money and diverting a bunch of weapons onto freighters to free up escorts is almost certainly a false economy.

penny wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:There's a reason the WWII Liberty and Victory ships carried only the most minimal of defenses

Yeah, The Washington Treaty. The Washington Treaty won't prevent the RMN from utilizing BCs for this tactic. It will pay for itself in one battle.

Nope, by the time those ships were build the treaty was long dead.

If the US had wanted to mass produce freighters in fall 1939 or later with torpedo defenses, a dozen 5" dual purpose guns and a hundred 40mm AA guns, and armored decks the only thing stopping them was how much time and money it'd cost and finding the crew to man them all. Admittedly, before the treaties broke down with the outbreak of war the treaty forbad (other than deck stiffening) preparing merchant ships for conversion to vessels of war -- and defensive weapons might count towards that.

But they didn't because even the US shipbuilding industry couldn't mass produced the needed number of freighters if they'd added all that to them (though it would have made each built far more survivable)

Heck, none of the treaties prohibited nations from building up as many slower convoy escorts as they please. The US and UK could have started the war with hundreds of ships like the Flower-class sloops, Black Swan-class corvette, or River-class Frigate to protect their convoys (ships of under 2000 tons, designed for 20 knots or less, with no gun exceeding 6.1", and no torpedoes). But they didn't. The treaties limited the buildup (and size) of the heavier ships; but had no impact on war build ships and little to no impact on pre-war escort procurement.