?

Brigade XO wrote:One interesting piece mentioned is the improved gravitational lazing in the laser rods ejected from the warhead-?as opposed to the missile body? just prior to detonation - to focus the energy from the detonation on a target- which implies that probably EACH lazing rod has it's own gravitational focusing system probably powered by a capacitor because if you cut off the power from the device you are going to loose the focus and concentration on the target.

tlb wrote:I do not think that is correct. It is true that there has to be something with the rods to aim them in the correct direction after ejection. But the big gravitational focusing acts on the nuclear explosion, to shape from being spherical to being more directed at the rods and so increasing the amount of power that they receive.

Jonathan_S wrote:I think you're right. I'd assume that the grav lensing for laserheads is a outgrowth of the advanced versions of the old "burn" modes on pre-laserhead missiles. IFF described the those later ones as

In Fire Forged wrote:The development of another generation of powerful practical micronized grav generators marked the next evolutionary step in missile warfare in 1806 with the introduction of the first nuclear gravitically directed energy weapon (NGDEW). The key components were grav lens arrays derived from those that had dramatically increased shipboard laser/graser effectiveness roughly fifty years earlier. The very first of these arrays was called a “plate array” and simply reflected the bomb’s energy off a flat artificial grav wave similar to an impeller or sidewall behind the warhead. Research continually tightened the focus of the grav arrays as impeller missile standoff ranges grew from tens of hundreds to tens of thousands of kilometers over the ensuing decades. The early grav lens arrays were quite large, however, and frequently displaced the sidewall penetrators until further refinements could reduce their sizes.

And (since those missiles lacked lasing rods) those grav lenses were definitely on the missile itself.

And yes, they'd probably be overwhelmed quite quickly and be vaporized with the rest of the missile body. But as long as they increase the effectiveness of the attack some before failing they've done their job.

The is what the Honorverse Fan-wiki had to say about Laser warheads:

The nuclear warhead was superseded as a ship-killer by the laser head. Originally conceived in pre-Diaspora days, the concept of a laser head was simple. A cylindrical rod, or "medium" focused the x-ray pulse of a nuclear detonation into a high-energy gamma-ray laser beam, which would continue to fire until the medium was destroyed by the thermal pulse of the explosion. The problem was that the process was inefficient, since an explosion was spherical, and each rod would only capture a small percentage of the energy of the detonation. Since such a small amount of energy was unlikely to be sufficient to blast through a warship's sidewalls, anti-radiation shielding, and armor, laser warheads were considered too cost-inefficient to use.

Around 1800 PD, developments in fusion plants meant that the technology needed to focus the blast could be fit into a capital missile. A ring of gravity generators, placed behind the warhead, and activated prior to detonation, used gravatic lenses to focus the blast in a Gaussian shape, "aimed" at the lasing rods. By 1860 PD, refinements had been made to the point that even the most heavily armored of ships were no longer immune to an attack from a laser head. The laser rods were mounted in bays on the sides of the missile, would eject when the missile settled on its final attack bearing. Each mounted its own thrusters and sensors, allowing it to align itself with its target, and position itself about a hundred meters in front of the missile's nuclear warhead, in between it and its intended target.

Unlike a pure fusion warhead, meaningful damage could be dealt to anything within 25,000 kilometers of the detonation. It was more effective at penetrating sidewalls than a pure fusion explosive.

Both lasing rod dimensions, warhead yield, and grav lens amplification were critical factors in determining laser head power. This meant that larger capital ship missiles were much more powerful than smaller ones. Larger missiles were able to carry more powerful grav lensing assemblies, increasing the total percentage of the blast that was focused onto the lasing rods, a larger fusion warhead, which increased total energy released, as well longer lasing rods, which allowed for longer stand-off range, since the beam divergence was smaller on longer rods.

Note the laser rods do not have mirrors (although I expect the back end is blocked to force the radiation to only come out the front. The action is called superluminescent.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

penny wrote:The jettisoning system is something that I had to moan over all alone in my ready room. The section containing the warhead has to gain separation from the separated missile body containing the reactor. I considered both a mass driver application and a repulser beam(s). The reason I was enquiring about the mass of the warhead is that if it is insignificant to the application, then a repulser beam may be able to shoot it out like a cannon; IINM that repulser beams are not visible. Admittedly I do not know how bulky mass drivers are, but they are designed to shoot the entire volume of a missile out of tubes very quickly. Handling a small warhead should be easy peasy.

The reactor is still functioning. It can supply power to repulser beams. It can also provide power to some type of ECM. Detonating might provide the ECM if enough separation can be achieved. If not, the reactor can provide power for some type of MAN ECM that is blaring loudly like an old ghetto boom box.

That is less of a reactor ejection system than of a warhead projection system. I can see the value in the later: project it forwards and in the direction of the target, imparting even the necessary rotation it will need to hit the ship. Ejecting the reactor I see no value on: the time between dropping the wedge and the warhead detonating is a couple of milliseconds at most, so the separation it's going to achieve in that is going to be measured in a couple of missile lengths anyway. And that makes detonating the reactor a risky proposition.

The projection system makes sense. And is actually in use: the lasing rods are projected forwards already.

Your proposal certainly makes sense. I like it. I was overworked and exhausted working alone in my ready room. I discarded lots of other questionable ideas, I'm telling you.

penny wrote:Perhaps you can see me, but your targeting system still has to hit me … in time; after it struggles to find me after my illuminating street light (wedge) duped you and dropped.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:That's already the case for all missiles. Dropping the wedge earlier is a worse proposition because it removes the impenetrable barriers for other ships and forces the missile to go ballistically for a longer period. The defending ships' tracking arrays will be looking for the first opportunity to shoot and finding the missile is no more difficult than it was before. This just gives the defending ship more time to shoot.

When I first suggested the application, I also suggested the entire process might be reengineered and done differently. When I suggested that the wedge be dropped sooner, I didn't mean for a longer ballistic flight, but simply the wedge dropping a bit sooner with the same elapsed time 'til detonation, then struggling to find a much smaller target and being duped into attacking the (decoy) separated stage.

Remember a ways upstream, I said that textev witnessed the missile giving away (telegraphing) the fact that it is about to detonate. I assumed the way that it did that is with its final maneuvers; which is probably part of it. However, Theemile's post including the pics also gives information about panels blowing out. There's more to the song and dance which I think makes it pretty darn obvious that the missile is about to detonate.

drawing wrote:Missile completes evasive maneuvers steadies up on target bearing, hettisons protective cover on panels prior to jettisoning Laserhead payload. Targeting updates continue with target EM and gravitic signature updates passed to each Laserhead.

I don't know how that process can be altered. But the part about panels blowing out makes me wonder about how the panels are released through the protective wedge. And why does there need to be protective panels with a wedge there??? What am I missing?

penny wrote:That won't be the same for other ships that will not be able to find the missile in time after the wedge drops. And if the missile rolls away from the target then deploys some sort of repulser beam to shoot the warhead assembly away quickly, then drops the wedge while the missile orients itself to fire that would solve the problem. The point being that designers of the missile also know the ins-and-outs needed to make it work. And … as I communicated to Thinksmarkedly, when the missile is pitching and yawing, its profile and quickness is important. Do note that radar will lose lock down the throat if the missile momentarily pitches, drops wedge, then reorients and fires. Or whatever field tested results worked.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:The warhead can't be shot forwards from the impeller and cross the compensated volume. We don't know how much that is, but the warhead cannot cross it, otherwise the missile body is going to overrun it or the pusher beam is going to shred the warhead. If it crosses that, it's also not going to rotate with the missile when the missile uses the wedge to orient itself on the target.

The rotation is done with the wedge because that is much faster than Newtonian Physics for all we've been told. And therefore, the wedge lip never comes between the missile and its target. There is no moment in which the targeted ship loses track of the missile nose.

Maybe the warhead is shot sideways from the missile, so it quickly falls behind because it continues ballistically while the missile is still accelerating forwards. In that case, the missile becomes a decoy to the actual warhead. The problem then is that the targeted ship sees all of this happen, so it won't work as a surprise after the first salvo. The only question is whether the ship has time to react to it and reorient the PDLC it was veering on the missile to the warhead itself: if the interval is too short, then the PDLC beam can still inflict damage because the separation is too short; if it is long enough, then there's time for the defending ship to react to that warhead that is moving in a predictable fashion and not evading.

I also considered shooting the warhead sideways but dismissed it for several reasons. If you can think of something clue us in on it.

penny wrote:At any rate, the missile body containing the reactor is still functioning and should be used in the equation in some capacity if possible.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:That being? The missile wedge is not powerful enough to cause damage to the ship if it hits the ship's wedge. And given the velocity it's coming at, it does not have the acceleration to ram the ship: it can only impact the roof or floor of the wedge.

The thing that a reactor can do with its detonation is be effective ECM. That's what a Dazzler does. But a Dazzler does not carry a warhead: so if it were possible to do both, why didn't the RMN do it?

The reactor could power some sort of ECM as well. The RMN does do it. The RMN also uses the reactor to power the ECM. The RMN's enormous power budget (the reactor) is what enables the RMN to have such formidable ECM.

It may be that separating stages might be suitable for multistage missiles only. The MAN’s missiles are far bigger than GA missiles and could use for a volume reduction at the end.

In my ready room, I was thinking that if the MAN does not solve the secret of the mini reactor, then they could possibly reengineer the reactor using the same size, but spread out to fill the volume lengthwise inside the missile. Easier said than done, I know.

But if possible, that huge volume could be separated at the end. Of course, that could be how it is done already.

penny wrote:I don't know how that process can be altered. But the part about panels blowing out makes me wonder about how the panels are released through the protective wedge. And why does there need to be protective panels with a wedge there??? What am I missing?

The panels may just be there to prevent damage in handling. But why do they need to move through the wedge? Once released their function is over and no one will mind if they get destroyed by the wedge. There might be some slight particle protection by them before the wedge comes up.

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:I don't know how that process can be altered. But the part about panels blowing out makes me wonder about how the panels are released through the protective wedge. And why does there need to be protective panels with a wedge there??? What am I missing?

The panels may just be there to prevent damage in handling. But why do they need to move through the wedge? Once released their function is over and no one will mind if they get destroyed by the wedge. There might be some slight particle protection by them before the wedge comes up.

I didn't think about any of that. Thanks.

Of course, that assumes that anything that touches the wedge is completely destroyed and nothing can be deflected back into the missile body. Some things (other than wedges) seem to be deflected. But your thought makes sense anyway.

penny wrote:Remember a ways upstream, I said that textev witnessed the missile giving away (telegraphing) the fact that it is about to detonate. I assumed the way that it did that is with its final maneuvers; which is probably part of it. However, Theemile's post including the pics also gives information about panels blowing out. There's more to the song and dance which I think makes it pretty darn obvious that the missile is about to detonate.

Though keep in mind that at 50,000 km standoff range the ship will only see the blown out panels about 1/6th of a second after they blow; and and PDLC will take another 1/6th of a second to reach the missile. (The wedge going down though can be seen FTL; assuming the FTL sensors and computers behind them aren't overwhelmed by sheer numbers (possibly augmented by dragon's teeth style grav decoys)

Though I'm not sure how much it matters. The ships know darned well that the missile laserhead will go off at 50,000 km (if it's a modern one). They don't need to see it eject lasing rods to know that it'll almost certainly fire the moment it reaches its effective range. And at the terminal velocity of an MDM the missile can't alter than timing much once it's in the CM envelope; much less the PDLC envelope.

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:I don't know how that process can be altered. But the part about panels blowing out makes me wonder about how the panels are released through the protective wedge. And why does there need to be protective panels with a wedge there??? What am I missing?

The panels may just be there to prevent damage in handling. But why do they need to move through the wedge? Once released their function is over and no one will mind if they get destroyed by the wedge. There might be some slight particle protection by them before the wedge comes up.

They probably also provide some protection to the rods from any energetic particle, solar wind, or space dust that the missile plows through on the way to its target. (Not to mention if the missile has a ballistic segment then there's no wedge during those, so would be even more exposed)

After all, the wedge only provides protection from the top and bottom it does nothing against things coming in from ahead (or the sides or rear; but it is the open front that likely matters as the missile plowing its way towards the target at ever increasing fractions of c)

I agree it wouldn't matter if the panels hit the wedge, though I suppose they could also be rigged to blow sideways towards its open sides. But I doubt they'll actually have time to reach the inside of the wedge (much less go out its open sides) before the wedge goes down and the lasing rods are ejected (and then moments later the warhead goes off)

Jonathan_S wrote:Though I'm not sure how much it matters. The ships know darned well that the missile laserhead will go off at 50,000 km (if it's a modern one). They don't need to see it eject lasing rods to know that it'll almost certainly fire the moment it reaches its effective range. And at the terminal velocity of an MDM the missile can't alter than timing much once it's in the CM envelope; much less the PDLC envelope.

I've been assuming, throughout this discussion, that the MAN's objective is to develop a missile to attack modern GA cruisers and up, which fight with wedges interposed (especially Keyhole-equipped capital ships). The 50,000 km range is therefore not the limiting factor: direct line of sight to the target ship is. That's why I've also been talking about using the wedge to rotate (usually pitch, but could be yaw) the missile so it's on the correct attack bearing. Such missiles would keep their wedges up, right until the moment they must drop them to project the lasing rods and detonate the warhead. And I'm also assuming that must drop the wedge before the lasing rods go out, otherwise they'd cross the compensated volume and be completely out of position to the missile body containing the impeller rings.

In this scenario, the targeted ship never lost track of the missile wedge. We don't know for sure that a missile can be off-centre from the wedge like a ship can, but given its much smaller wedge, simple Maths can give a very reasonable volume where it must be. The ships can also see through their own wedges and therefore can see the nose of the missile with good confidence, even assuming they didn't keep a few RDs nearby for just this purpose, or aren't getting telemetry from escorts. The defending CA or BC can't shoot at the missile until it crosses the ship's own wedge lips, but the ship knows exactly when the missile will and whether each particular missile's wedge is orienting on this particular ship. The battle net can also tell each ship whether they may have a bearing on a missile attacking another ship.

This means a missile attack in a modern scenario relies heavily on numbers to overwhelm the defenders, the ECM so that the defending ship can't tell real wedges apart from ghost ones or loses track of the missile noses in the EM spectrum.

How can it get better for the missile? One way would be to get more powerful missiles, so the few that do strike a blow produce more damage. Another is to improve those ECM and pen-aids. I could see an improvement in a missile that can fire its warhead without having to drop the wedge at all, because that allows it to remain invulnerable from most other defending ships in the formation and from Keyholes.

And, of course, more missiles.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:I've been assuming, throughout this discussion, that the MAN's objective is to develop a missile to attack modern GA cruisers and up, which fight with wedges interposed (especially Keyhole-equipped capital ships). The 50,000 km range is therefore not the limiting factor: direct line of sight to the target ship is.

Does it matter to your discussion that the missiles might not be able to see the target ship? A modern GA warship, in addition to the sidewalls, can now also project a bow and a stern wall during those critical seconds. The laser warhead can burn through a wall (unlike a wedge), but the missile cannot see through the wall to get an accurate position (which need not be in the exact center. I would certainly try to get as close as possible to the wedge toward the attacker).

tlb wrote:Does it matter to your discussion that the missiles might not be able to see the target ship? A modern GA warship, in addition to the sidewalls, can now also project a bow and a stern wall during those critical seconds. The laser warhead can burn through a wall (unlike a wedge), but the missile cannot see through the wall to get an accurate position (which need not be in the exact center. I would certainly try to get as close as possible to the wedge toward the attacker).

Though the modern GA ship can't produce a bow wall and a stern wall at the same time. (It's explained when the bow wall is introduced that the physics precludes closing off both ends) I assume however that it could produce a bow wall plus a stern buckler; as the buckler doesn't close off the end (which is also why a ship can accelerate with buckler(s) up).

However the buckler can only product a very narrow cone directly inline with the ship -- so the counter to bow and stern walls is large enough salvos, concentrated heavily enough on the same ships, that missiles will be attacking a rolled ship's bow and stern at roughly the same time; so on one of them most missiles get a sidewall-free shot.

tlb wrote:Does it matter to your discussion that the missiles might not be able to see the target ship? A modern GA warship, in addition to the sidewalls, can now also project a bow and a stern wall during those critical seconds. The laser warhead can burn through a wall (unlike a wedge), but the missile cannot see through the wall to get an accurate position (which need not be in the exact center. I would certainly try to get as close as possible to the wedge toward the attacker).

No, that itself doesn't matter. The missile may not be able to see through the side-, bow- or stern-wall to locate the ship, but their presence gives the missile a better idea of where in the wedge volume the ship is. The sidewalls are only 10 km from the ship, so that reduces the search space from "the entire volume of the wedge" to "this narrow strip 20 km wide. That plus some statistics and lucky guesses means some missiles might actually strike the ship that they couldn't see.

And as you say, they can shoot through those walls. The other missiles that weren't as lucky in finding the ship are still contributing to the walls going down and their generators failing. So given enough brute force, the walls go down and some missile a fraction of a second later or in the next salvo may see the ship itself and accurately target it.

But even if they could tell the next salvo where the ship was (hey, idea for Apollo!), the missiles can't shoot through the wedges. So their firing time is still limited by the time that they have direct-line-of-sight to the ship. Not to observe and find it, but because the graser beam travels in a straight line (the line-of-sight). That's what makes getting as close as possible harder: the time a missile just skimming the lip of the wedge has to shoot at the ship inside is much shorter than that of a missile flying past 50,000 km away.

In the best scenario, the missile is flying past the throat of the wedge, which is 190 km wide for an SD. For simplicity, let's say the ship is in the exact centre of the wedge, so 95 km from the lip and 150 km deep into it. That means the triangle formed by the ship's position and the lip of the wedges, on the plane intersecting perpendicular to the wedges, is an isosceles triangle with an angle of just under 65°. For a missile coming in at 0.8c, if it skims the wedge, the base of that triangle is exactly the wedge aperture of 190 km and the missile has 0.633 ms in which to find the ship, orient itself and shoot (assuming 0.8c base velocity). However, if the missile is 50,000 km away, the base of that triangle is now 63333 km, which gives the missile 211 ms in which to fire.

Jonathan_S wrote:Though the modern GA ship can't produce a bow wall and a stern wall at the same time. (It's explained when the bow wall is introduced that the physics precludes closing off both ends) I assume however that it could produce a bow wall plus a stern buckler; as the buckler doesn't close off the end (which is also why a ship can accelerate with buckler(s) up).

That's true if the ship wants to keep accelerating. But it doesn't have to: if the ship or fleet is expecting the need to withstand an Alpha launch, they can simply stop accelerating for just long enough as the missiles fly past. That does mean they are flying ballistically instead of evading, but if the presence of bow and stern walls improves survivability even more, then do it. This is only needed for under half a second anyway.