Insanity: Screening elements in the HV

Zendikarofthewest wrote:<snip>

One interesting possibility would be MDCMs, maybe launched from limpet pods or retrofitted to broadsides? Accuracy would be worse at that range, though.

David has said MDCMs would be the size of ship killers, and the throw ratio is usually 2+ CMs for every ship killer targeting a ship. Using them would eat into magazines quickly, and given their size, MDCDs would have a slower fire rate than regular CMs (~4sec for CMs vs ~8 sec for DD sized SDMs)

Theemile wrote:Pods should recoil horribly (we don't see this in the books, but it's basic physics), so having control links in the pod is probably a bad idea, as even a tumble will cause loss of the control links.

I have said before that there has to be some method of anti-recoil built into each and every pod. Consider a standard missile pod, that uses a mass driver to throw each missile out sufficiently before its wedge comes on. The total mass of the missiles probably is greater than the mass of the empty pod; so if the pod can recoil, then it might be going faster backwards after the last missile, than the speed at which the first missile was shoved forward. That is simply not what the books would say. A simple solution is if the mass driver is non-Newtonian; we already accept tractor and repeller beams.

Theemile wrote:
David has said MDCMs would be the size of ship killers, and the throw ratio is usually 2+ CMs for every ship killer targeting a ship. Using them would eat into magazines quickly, and given their size, MDCDs would have a slower fire rate than regular CMs (~4sec for CMs vs ~8 sec for DD sized SDMs)

True. Still might come up though, depending on how laser/graser head technology progresses. Maybe just extended-range CMs for now, possibly seeing if they can cram a micro-fusion plant in there.

Theemile wrote:

Zendikarofthewest wrote:<snip>

One interesting possibility would be MDCMs, maybe launched from limpet pods or retrofitted to broadsides? Accuracy would be worse at that range, though.

David has said MDCMs would be the size of ship killers, and the throw ratio is usually 2+ CMs for every ship killer targeting a ship. Using them would eat into magazines quickly, and given their size, MDCDs would have a slower fire rate than regular CMs (~4sec for CMs vs ~8 sec for DD sized SDMs)

On the other hand at Galton in TEIF the MAlign had some oversized multidrive Lorica CMs, paired with a new Scutum CM control relay -- "Scutum was designed to coordinate the fire of tightly grouped pods armed with multidrive counter-missiles."

The Lorica CMs were "a counter-missile much too large to be carried in shipboard magazines. Its designers had stuffed it into missile pods"

And then we're told "that multidrive counter-missile of theirs looks like a more fully developed version of the one Admiral Foraker and Admiral Hemphill are working on at Bolthole. The counter-missile pods were an unexpected touch, though"

So it does sound like Bolthole must have felt the threat environment causes the balance to tip towards accepting those tradeoffs to get an even deeper CM intercept basket; and has been working on a dual- or multi-drive CM. Though it doesn't seem like they were anticipating requiring pod launching of it.
Still, I'd be fairly shocked if they can get one small enough that the current Mk31/Viper launch tubes can handle it.

(So existing Grand Alliance ships might be limited to firing it in canisters or sabots from their normal missile tubes, if any -- oops Invictus. At least unless/until they get a substantial refit. However Bolthole might have been far enough along on the MDCM to at least be able to reserve the necessary upgrade space and wider armor openings for an easier refit to larger MDCM launcher on the new Alliance common SD(P) class(s). The ones being built in Bolthole and finished by Beowulf; which we haven't seen 'on screen' yet.)

Building a Single Mission Capital CM ship from scratch is going to burn a lot of credits and not give you a good return on your investment, particularly if you are thinking about using it against the Alignment. The AA Cruises the US deployed in WW II were adapted from existing designs to optimize them for Anti-Aircraft platforms using dual 5" turrets and more 20 or 40mm mounts with better fire direction. Mostly for protecting carrier groups but they could be used for shore bombardment on various surface engagements with the twin 5" mounts.

How close would a capital ship that carried only CMs as weapons have to get to a LD or other spider drive ship to engage it? How many CMs would have to swipe an LD with their wedge to do any significant damage?

We don't know what the Alignment is going to show up with when they next surface. What we do know is that the preferred tactics are striking from stealth and ambush.

It's called Asymmetrical Warfare. They can't begin to stand up against the GA in a battle like the SLN tried to do. Not only don't they have the number of ships the SLN had, but they also---so far--have a much smaller number of top of their technology ships like the LD and Ghosts.
The RF is not large as far as a Navy goes and- again, so far, I don't recall that they have any SDs of any vintage. They will be at least a distraction but unless a lot of things change the RF isn't likely to make an open challenge to the members of the GF of quite a while. Political backstabbing probably and helping slide Alignment agents in places.

SO FAR, it's the spider drive warships that are the most dangerous ships and they are ambush killers. They have to get close enough to strike with stealthed weapons. That's what they did in Oyster Bay.......almost nothing lit off an impeller drive till it was at knife range in the targeted systems and the Grazer Corps only were spotted when they fired the grazers and then selfdestruced as per design. Sure, they can probably get several LDs inside any given system to but why would they want too except to strike at targets that will not be in regular orbits for long periods of time. The Sharks sent everything in from outside the hyperlimits depending on detailed targeting on things in stable orbits from the Ghosts....the Sharks had to carry the G-Torps mounted outside the hull, we might presume that even with the spider drives that would too badly degrade the sheath of a spider dive on those ships against GA sensors.

There have been discussions about the Star Nations of the GA needing to bring out new designs to replace the oldest classes of the warships plus replace some of the ones designed during the time frame of the Haven-Manticoe wars going from line of battle or system defense or commerce protection to more pure warfighter types. Now they need to move back to more broadly missioned classes in order to return to longer range and endurance only they don't yet have anything to search out or effectively defend against the weapons the Alignment has already displayed.

Brigade XO wrote:Building a Single Mission Capital CM ship from scratch is going to burn a lot of credits and not give you a good return on your investment, particularly if you are thinking about using it against the Alignment. The AA Cruises the US deployed in WW II were adapted from existing designs to optimize them for Anti-Aircraft platforms using dual 5" turrets and more 20 or 40mm mounts with better fire direction. Mostly for protecting carrier groups but they could be used for shore bombardment on various surface engagements with the twin 5" mounts.

And they weren't even designed as cruisers. The Atlanta-class started out as a destroyer leader; a bigger ship with similar if more numerous armament (5"/38s and torpedoes) and speed to the Fletcher-class destroyers. Basically able to keep up with them in anything except the highest speed of torpedo attacks but with room for a squadron commander and staff to provide the squadron control that was hard to fit into the smaller destroyers.

It was only when they saw how large the design ended up (3x the size of the destroyers and over 60% the displacement of a treaty cruiser) that they got designated light cruisers. But the destroyer leader origin is why they were the only US cruisers in WWII to carry torpedoes.

And yes, they did end up getting used largely as AA escorts. (And after the VT fuze was developed quite effective ones) Though that didn't save the first two ships from getting fed into the meat grinder night surface-actions around Guadalcanal -- when the US needed every cruiser it could get its hands on, and when they ran out of cruisers they used battleships. They were magnificent.

Been discussed previously. A pulsar hand gun is supposed to have a muzzle energy similar o a 50 cal. Try firing a 50 cal on auto in one hand?
Obviously there is some non Newtonian physics, handwavium, unified field gravity tech involved.

tlb wrote:

Theemile wrote:Pods should recoil horribly (we don't see this in the books, but it's basic physics), so having control links in the pod is probably a bad idea, as even a tumble will cause loss of the control links.

I have said before that there has to be some method of anti-recoil built into each and every pod. Consider a standard missile pod, that uses a mass driver to throw each missile out sufficiently before its wedge comes on. The total mass of the missiles probably is greater than the mass of the empty pod; so if the pod can recoil, then it might be going faster backwards after the last missile, than the speed at which the first missile was shoved forward. That is simply not what the books would say. A simple solution is if the mass driver is non-Newtonian; we already accept tractor and repeller beams.

Brigade XO wrote:How close would a capital ship that carried only CMs as weapons have to get to a LD or other spider drive ship to engage it? How many CMs would have to swipe an LD with their wedge to do any significant damage?

The answer to those we do know: the range of a CM and one. A single CM hitting an LD is a complete ship destruction. Nay, it's a complete ship vaporisation because the CM's wedge is larger than the full ship! The LD would need to use its PDLCs to shoot the CM down, but the CM can just interpose wedges and ram the ship with it. You know, what CMs are designed to do...

... against missiles. CMs aren't offensive weapons. So why are you talking about using CMs against and LD? The CMs would be used in fleet action to help defend the fleet against attacks launched or coordinated by LDs.

We don't know what the Alignment is going to show up with when they next surface. What we do know is that the preferred tactics are striking from stealth and ambush.

Quite. The GA may not be designing against the MAN, but against a another power (like the SLN) who did come up with MDMs and pod-launched missiles in large quantities. That's going to happen, regardless of what the Alignment does, or when they do it.

The RF is not large as far as a Navy goes and- again, so far, I don't recall that they have any SDs of any vintage. They will be at least a distraction but unless a lot of things change the RF isn't likely to make an open challenge to the members of the GF of quite a while. Political backstabbing probably and helping slide Alignment agents in places.

I don't think they were THAT small. Mannerheim was said to have "an outsized Navy" so I guess they had at least one, possibly two or three squadrons of the wall. We usually benchmark everyone else but the GA and SLN against the Beowulf SDF, who had 36 SDs. Mannerheim is supposedly a very rich system, with the first far terminus of any wormhole discovered, and connected to the Core of the League. A lot of traffic would have come to it, even if it wasn't a crossroads to other League destinations like Manticore was.

I'm also sure the Plan called for their navy build-up, with ships initially being bought from Technodyne. If the League was fracturing at that time, it's also quite possible the Battle Fleet was fragmenting too, with warlords coming up. The RF could entice a few admirals to come to their shores and bring their squadrons and taskforces with them. It could be all very above-board actually: those admirals who didn't like the idea of the Eridani violations the SLN was being asked to commit could just defect and ask for political asylum in the RF.

Plus, the RF was supposed to aggregate other members, some of whom would have been SL members themselves, either home to an SDF with a squadron of the wall or a detachment of the SLN.

Then they would build shipyards and, with some very, very covert help from Galton, quickly surpass the SLN and PN technology.

the Sharks had to carry the G-Torps mounted outside the hull, we might presume that even with the spider drives that would too badly degrade the sheath of a spider dive on those ships against GA sensors.

Brute force. If it isn't working, you're just not using enough of it. Enough sensors at close enough range will pick up spider ships. We just don't know what the thresholds are.

Brigade XO wrote:Building a Single Mission Capital CM ship from scratch is going to burn a lot of credits and not give you a good return on your investment, particularly if you are thinking about using it against the Alignment. The AA Cruises the US deployed in WW II were adapted from existing designs to optimize them for Anti-Aircraft platforms using dual 5" turrets and more 20 or 40mm mounts with better fire direction. Mostly for protecting carrier groups but they could be used for shore bombardment on various surface engagements with the twin 5" mounts.

How close would a capital ship that carried only CMs as weapons have to get to a LD or other spider drive ship to engage it? How many CMs would have to swipe an LD with their wedge to do any significant damage?

We don't know what the Alignment is going to show up with when they next surface. What we do know is that the preferred tactics are striking from stealth and ambush.

It's called Asymmetrical Warfare. They can't begin to stand up against the GA in a battle like the SLN tried to do. Not only don't they have the number of ships the SLN had, but they also---so far--have a much smaller number of top of their technology ships like the LD and Ghosts.
The RF is not large as far as a Navy goes and- again, so far, I don't recall that they have any SDs of any vintage. They will be at least a distraction but unless a lot of things change the RF isn't likely to make an open challenge to the members of the GF of quite a while. Political backstabbing probably and helping slide Alignment agents in places.

SO FAR, it's the spider drive warships that are the most dangerous ships and they are ambush killers. They have to get close enough to strike with stealthed weapons. That's what they did in Oyster Bay.......almost nothing lit off an impeller drive till it was at knife range in the targeted systems and the Grazer Corps only were spotted when they fired the grazers and then selfdestruced as per design. Sure, they can probably get several LDs inside any given system to but why would they want too except to strike at targets that will not be in regular orbits for long periods of time. The Sharks sent everything in from outside the hyperlimits depending on detailed targeting on things in stable orbits from the Ghosts....the Sharks had to carry the G-Torps mounted outside the hull, we might presume that even with the spider drives that would too badly degrade the sheath of a spider dive on those ships against GA sensors.

There have been discussions about the Star Nations of the GA needing to bring out new designs to replace the oldest classes of the warships plus replace some of the ones designed during the time frame of the Haven-Manticoe wars going from line of battle or system defense or commerce protection to more pure warfighter types. Now they need to move back to more broadly missioned classes in order to return to longer range and endurance only they don't yet have anything to search out or effectively defend against the weapons the Alignment has already displayed.

I guess that's probably the largest problem with CM ship - it can't be used by itself. It needs to be a part of a large fleet formation, and only used in a large fleet formation. Looking back to the first war, individual divisions were used to defend tertiary systems, and in peacetime a division could be sent on heavy "show the flag" missions. A CM ship would be worthless for such dispositions, and would only sit in the center of the large formations, burning operational costs in peacetime, forcing other units to get disportortionally more wear on their hardware.

CM ships would be valuable in active fighting, but worthless in peacetime - many would probably be mothballed between wars with funds going to shipkilling units which could actually be used.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
I don't think they were THAT small. Mannerheim was said to have "an outsized Navy" so I guess they had at least one, possibly two or three squadrons of the wall. We usually benchmark everyone else but the GA and SLN against the Beowulf SDF, who had 36 SDs. Mannerheim is supposedly a very rich system, with the first far terminus of any wormhole discovered, and connected to the Core of the League. A lot of traffic would have come to it, even if it wasn't a crossroads to other League destinations like Manticore was.

I'm also sure the Plan called for their navy build-up, with ships initially being bought from Technodyne. If the League was fracturing at that time, it's also quite possible the Battle Fleet was fragmenting too, with warlords coming up. The RF could entice a few admirals to come to their shores and bring their squadrons and taskforces with them. It could be all very above-board actually: those admirals who didn't like the idea of the Eridani violations the SLN was being asked to commit could just defect and ask for political asylum in the RF.

Plus, the RF was supposed to aggregate other members, some of whom would have been SL members themselves, either home to an SDF with a squadron of the wall or a detachment of the SLN.

Then they would build shipyards and, with some very, very covert help from Galton, quickly surpass the SLN and PN technology.

Even being generous and giving them ~48 SDs, that is still not much - and may even be a downside. Non-MDM and Non-Apollo ships are nigh-useless against ships that have them, and maintaining them is likely to be a fairly decent strain on their budget. Its infeasible to convert them to SD(P)s or spider drive ships, so they will be effectively dead weight - really only good for antipiracy or convoy escort.

If anything the smaller units the sollies might give them would be more valuable, since I can see them being converted to carry DDMs - making them actually comparable to RMN designs. Hell, the Nevada-class would make a decent contender to the Saganami-C's given its modularity and tonnage advantage, and I can see their heavy cruisers being contenders with Rolands and Avalons once updated.