Insanity: Screening elements in the HV

Jonathan_S wrote:I just skimmed back through that fight in AAC and I'm not seeing anything that indicated that Honor's ships were fighting bow (or stern) on -- though clearly their base course was away from the Republic fleet.

Giscard expected a few handfuls of CM's per ship salvos, he got 8 Full salvos instead producing 7200 CM's from the starships alone.

Since an Invictus has ~200 CM's per salvo * 8 = 1600 and in total are 2 of them for a total of ~3200, we have ANOTHER 4000 CM's being handled by the 4 Keyholes.

So each keyhole can handle ~ 1800 CM's or ~9 full salvos from Invictus of CM's + offensive missiles at whatever orientation this battle is fought.

PS: ANY ship mission killed by "golden BB" is a BAD design.
<<Cough>> HOOD
<<Cough>> Invictus
<<Cough>> South Dakota(own guns!!!)[was fixed got lucky]

Relax wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:I just skimmed back through that fight in AAC and I'm not seeing anything that indicated that Honor's ships were fighting bow (or stern) on -- though clearly their base course was away from the Republic fleet.

Giscard expected a few handfuls of CM's per ship salvos, he got 8 Full salvos instead producing 7200 CM's from the starships alone.

Since an Invictus has ~200 CM's per salvo * 8 = 1600 and in total are 2 of them for a total of ~3200, we have ANOTHER 4000 CM's being handled by the 4 Keyholes.

So each keyhole can handle ~ 1800 CM's or ~9 full salvos from Invictus of CM's + offensive missiles at whatever orientation this battle is fought.

PS: ANY ship mission killed by "golden BB" is a BAD design.
<<Cough>> HOOD
<<Cough>> Invictus
<<Cough>> South Dakota(own guns!!!)[was fixed got lucky]

I wouldn't necessarily call the Invictus itself a bad design, the central pod door is a weakness of the entire podlayer concept. The same strike probably would have killed a Medusa, Harrington, Adler or Sovereign of Space (with their lack of pod bay armoring) outright, whereas the Intolerant soldiered on for several minutes before it was lost.

And, of course, the Intolerant's loss lead to The Gen 3 Medusa IIs never being built (well, that and Oyster Bay), and lead the Gen IV SD(p) design to feature multiple Pod launch points, not a massive centralized bay door.

Theemile wrote:

Relax wrote:Giscard expected a few handfuls of CM's per ship salvos, he got 8 Full salvos instead producing 7200 CM's from the starships alone.

Since an Invictus has ~200 CM's per salvo * 8 = 1600 and in total are 2 of them for a total of ~3200, we have ANOTHER 4000 CM's being handled by the 4 Keyholes.

So each keyhole can handle ~ 1800 CM's or ~9 full salvos from Invictus of CM's + offensive missiles at whatever orientation this battle is fought.

PS: ANY ship mission killed by "golden BB" is a BAD design.
<<Cough>> HOOD
<<Cough>> Invictus
<<Cough>> South Dakota(own guns!!!)[was fixed got lucky]

I wouldn't necessarily call the Invictus itself a bad design, the central pod door is a weakness of the entire podlayer concept. The same strike probably would have killed a Medusa, Harrington, Adler or Sovereign of Space (with their lack of pod bay armoring) outright, whereas the Intolerant soldiered on for several minutes before it was lost.

And, of course, the Intolerant's loss lead to The Gen 3 Medusa IIs never being built (well, that and Oyster Bay), and lead the Gen IV SD(p) design to feature multiple Pod launch points, not a massive centralized bay door.

Either SD class is a capital ship supposed to be able to absorb battle damage while remaining battle capable to be a successful design or not. If it can't take battle damage and keep fighting then it is not a capital class ship. That would be a cruiser at best. Therefore why the Invictus is a BAD design. Anything with single point failure is NOT capital class. Or in this case, Super Dreadnaught class.

Yes, multiple pod launch points will be next class... of course this SHOULD have been done in the FIRST class of Pod layers. With multiple pod exits, it is now a viable tactic to have CM pods.

Keyhole by Solon standard, a single Keyhole can handle 110% of all CM fired from an Invictus. During an alpha launch scenario, there is no battle damage(unless multiple battles of course) so may as well carry an ~additional 1800CM's in pods the other keyhole can use in case of an alpha launch.

If a CM is 10:1 ratio of a capital missile by mass~volume, we are looking at each Invictus carrying a "whopping" ~2 CM pods. No reason cannot carry a couple CM pods to be a bonus defense against alpha waves effectively permanently stored near the entry way of any pod exit point. With the pressers + onboard pod tractors, no reason you cannot eject the 2 CM pods, attach to hull, NOT use it and then move said 2 CM pods back into the pod bay if one does not see the need to defend against an insanely large alpha pod launch as it never happened. Heck, make a couple "half" pods or even quarter pods which can be ~permanently stored near entrance and therefore do not get in way of the MUCH larger normal pods of MDM's. Heck, one could ~permanently store these 2 CM pods on the upper hull right on the boat bay who already has Fusion conduits to charge/discharge said CM's super fusion capacitors.

Relax wrote: Heck, make a couple "half" pods or even quarter pods which can be ~permanently stored near entrance and therefore do not get in way of the MUCH larger normal pods of MDM's. Heck, one could ~permanently store these 2 CM pods on the upper hull right on the boat bay who already has Fusion conduits to charge/discharge said CM's super fusion capacitors.

Good point - a couple speciality pod cradles - with extension cords - wouldn't be a bad idea, especially with CM 1/2 depth pods.

And with self tractoring pods, a podlayer could eject a salvo of speciality pods (or more or less) and drop them into a later salvo at any time later in the battle. Be it all EM birds, All mk 14s (for upping the missile count at close ranges), or CM pods, they could sit there on the skin undisturbed until they are used, damaged in battle, or retrieved because they were not needed. Heck just having a few short ranged ECM birds designed for that "everything has gone to pot" moment and you really need some close in jamming to survive wouldn't be a bad idea.


No matter what, it's not a bad tactic.

Theemile wrote:I wouldn't necessarily call the Invictus itself a bad design, the central pod door is a weakness of the entire podlayer concept. The same strike probably would have killed a Medusa, Harrington, Adler or Sovereign of Space (with their lack of pod bay armoring) outright, whereas the Intolerant soldiered on for several minutes before it was lost.

I'd tend to agree.

Also, it's virtually impossible to build a ship that can't be at least mission killed by the right golden BB. You just make it as unlikely as practical and try to ensure the fewest sailors die if you're hit by it. Maybe space warships are different, but ocean going ones have two critical weaknesses that can't really be avoided.

1) A torpedo hit to the bow. There isn't enough width to carry the torpedo defense system that far forward, and so instead for floatation they must rely on a holding bulkhead a bit further aft, usually at or near the forward-most turret's barbet. But blow the bow off (as many US cruisers suffered in WWII) and while the ship won't sink, and you might not even have lost to many sailors, it is definitely mission killed and will need to make it's slow way back to get a new bow grafted on.

2) A torpedo hit to the stern. You can't really armor the props, rudders, or propshafts. Now it took some additional screw-ups for Prince of Wales to sink from the hit on her propshaft (restarting a multi-ton now very unbalanced shaft causes very destructive flailing) But any hit back there is going to at minimum mission kill the ship; and might disable it to the point it needs to be towed home.

It's quite unlikely to get a torpedo hit on the bow or stern; but get such a golden BB and the ship is, at minimum, mission killed.

You can't easily armor doors while they're open. Maybe for the next-next generation SD(P) they use a armored interlock door system so that as you lay a pod an 2nd armored door closes behind it before the normal one opens; though that seems like it'd slow down pod laying. And it doesn't much matter if the pods are intact if hits to the outer doors jam them in place -- it's a mission kill either way.

Relax wrote:If a CM is 10:1 ratio of a capital missile by mass~volume, we are looking at each Invictus carrying a "whopping" ~2 CM pods. No reason cannot carry a couple CM pods to be a bonus defense against alpha waves effectively permanently stored near the entry way of any pod exit point.

I thought the mass~volume ratio of CM to capital missile was much closer to 2 or 3 to one. But offhand I'm not sure if that's spelled out. (Maxxq, back when he was around as part of BuNine, did renderings of CM and MDMs, but unfortunately only the CM renders include a human for comparison and neither includes a scale or dimension; so I wasn't able to easily check)

Jonathan_S wrote:I thought the mass~volume ratio of CM to capital missile was much closer to 2 or 3 to one. But offhand I'm not sure if that's spelled out. (Maxxq, back when he was around as part of BuNine, did renderings of CM and MDMs, but unfortunately only the CM renders include a human for comparison and neither includes a scale or dimension; so I wasn't able to easily check)

The Mk 29 was 12 tons. I've seen the text say the later mks were both larger and smaller. A Capital single drive Mk19 was 120 tons, and a mk 26/27 (from the Wayfarer) was the same. So Relax's 10:1 mass ratio is about right on.

The 3:1 is the # of CMS that fit in a ship killer Sabot - DD missiles could fit 2, CA missiles 3, and SD missiles 4.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Relax wrote:If a CM is 10:1 ratio of a capital missile by mass~volume, we are looking at each Invictus carrying a "whopping" ~2 CM pods. No reason cannot carry a couple CM pods to be a bonus defense against alpha waves effectively permanently stored near the entry way of any pod exit point.

I thought the mass~volume ratio of CM to capital missile was much closer to 2 or 3 to one. But offhand I'm not sure if that's spelled out. (Maxxq, back when he was around as part of BuNine, did renderings of CM and MDMs, but unfortunately only the CM renders include a human for comparison and neither includes a scale or dimension; so I wasn't able to easily check)

Old CM's 10t. Mid 1st Haven war CM's ~12t.
MK30/Mk31 CM's =? Do NOT fit in old CM tubes.
A ~50% increase in mass roughly equals ~15% larger in dimensions crudely speaking, and yes, will not fit in old tubes. This would put them as 15t+ IMO. A 15% increase in dimensions drawn in 3D by MaxxQ would barely be noticable to the naked quick glance. A 100% increase in mass would roughly be the same. They could be 20t if you dump a laser rod/nuc etc on it as well.

We have other numbers in the wind: MK16G is 94t. Capital Grade warhead and 3 stages of MDM has to be north of 120t. Personally I think north of 130t, but close enough.

Smaller rounder objects pack better than fewer larger round objects in terms of density. Since a "flat" pack pod or whatever pod one wants to pack CM's into is a fixed volume, one should be able to pack more CM's into it than equivalent mass comparisons indicate.

Is 10:1 the upper end I grabbed as a WAG round number? Yes, but I would also say 6:1 would be the lowest ratio. Even then we are only looking at ~4CM pods out of a total of greater than 1000 to max protect an Invictus to its full KEYHOLE CM capability against an Alpha launch.

OH yes, As for INVICTUS "upgrades"

Interior/Exterior armored doors

Fire 2 or more pods from a single rail and have ~24s intervals per rail instead of 12s. Big ARMMORED doors do NOT move quickly. Or 36s, 48s, etc.

So instead of each rail launching a Single pod, have each rail launch 6 pods at once. These pods all have tractors on board so they can PUSH themselves apart post launch as well.

Of course this does not matter if there is no VOLUME in which to build armor in the circle of impeller limitations.

So maybe instead of 6 rails launching one pod we go down to 3 rails + armor between them, with 3 doors and each rail launching 2 pods?

Though why one cannot just dump pods out ventral/dorsal surface I do not know and bypass this problem entirely. This would free up more internal volume for more critical systems which need protection. Pods are bulky, may as well use them like armor. Not sure how long Giant SD class Grasers's are , so this may limit dorsal/ventral orientation of pod exit points.

In reference to the Hood I think Lord Jellico's comment at the Battle Of Jutland (which went something like this "There seems to be something wrong with our ships today.") covers it. The Admiralty knew about the gap in the armour but they delayed fixing it. These Battle cruisers were essentially prototypes.