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Accuracy of missiles against wedgeless targets?

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Accuracy of missiles against wedgeless targets?
Post by Belial666   » Sat May 18, 2013 5:13 am

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What the title says - how accurate are even Apollo missiles against stealthed targets dodging at 300 gravities that don't have wedges?


An Apollo missile must use lightspeed sensors to locate such targets instead of gravitics and thus is subject to both lightspeed delays and limited by the much reduced sensitivity of such sensors (compared to gravitics).

Say that such a missile can first detect such targets well enough for the information to be accurate at 300.000 kilometers. Coming in at half the speed of light, it has a mere two seconds for its systems to analyze the information, separate it from possible decoys, get a firing solution, maneuver towards this firing solution, deploy lasing rods and maneuver them into position with reaction thrusters and then fire.




The Apollo missile at 10 million kilometers from its SD(P) cannot rely on its FTL link at all in those situations 'cause the transmission delay is about 1 second; the main ship can't directly control it in the given timeframe.
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Re: Accuracy of missiles against wedgeless targets?
Post by The E   » Sat May 18, 2013 6:01 am

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Missiles already have to use lightspeed sensors to detect the target when moving into firing position. Remember that the position of the target inside the wedge is unknown, so you cannot rely on gravitics to give you an exact location (or rather, a location that is exact enough).

Also, given that we've already seen instances of missiles being able to make effective attacks while going past a wedge, I guess that attacking a target that does not have a wedge is not that hard (the hard part being finding that target in the first place).
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Re: Accuracy of missiles against wedgeless targets?
Post by solbergb   » Sat May 18, 2013 9:30 am

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An impeller drive ship without a wedge has no "stealth" capability short of turning off all power, and even then there is waste heat. All of the ability to control EW emissions relies on a wedge.

Spider drive ships don't have as much of that problem, but given that missiles can succeed at a snap shot over a rolled wedge (which makes the ship position uncertain until you are nearly perpendicular to the ship) at .8C, I'd say that if they have any idea at all where the wedgeless ship is, they can likely hit the much larger target (because it isn't covered from nearly every angle with an impenetrable force field)
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Re: Accuracy of missiles against wedgeless targets?
Post by beaker   » Sat May 18, 2013 5:44 pm

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Stupid question here. Does the missile even have to hit the target? Wouldn't a nuke going off at that speed be like shooting a shotgun?


Belial666 wrote:What the title says - how accurate are even Apollo missiles against stealthed targets dodging at 300 gravities that don't have wedges?


An Apollo missile must use lightspeed sensors to locate such targets instead of gravitics and thus is subject to both lightspeed delays and limited by the much reduced sensitivity of such sensors (compared to gravitics).

Say that such a missile can first detect such targets well enough for the information to be accurate at 300.000 kilometers. Coming in at half the speed of light, it has a mere two seconds for its systems to analyze the information, separate it from possible decoys, get a firing solution, maneuver towards this firing solution, deploy lasing rods and maneuver them into position with reaction thrusters and then fire.




The Apollo missile at 10 million kilometers from its SD(P) cannot rely on its FTL link at all in those situations 'cause the transmission delay is about 1 second; the main ship can't directly control it in the given timeframe.
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Re: Accuracy of missiles against wedgeless targets?
Post by The E   » Sat May 18, 2013 6:01 pm

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beaker wrote:Stupid question here. Does the missile even have to hit the target? Wouldn't a nuke going off at that speed be like shooting a shotgun?


Short answer: No, and no.

Honorverse missiles are commonly laser heads, detonating at standoff ranges of several tens of thousands of kilometers. So they don't have to physically connect to the target; however, the laser emitters still have to be positioned carefully so that they can hit the target.

The problem with nuclear weapons in space is that you cannot set them up as you would a fragmentation warhead on a typical AA missile. At the ranges involved, you can't put enough material in front of the warhead to achieve a saturation effect with enough shrapnel to actually do damage (It's like firing a bunch of micrometeorites at the target, I am assuming that Honorverse vessels are routinely armored enough to make those a non-issue). There's a reason why traditional nukes are referred to as "contact nukes" in the text; they have to be inside the targets' sidewall perimeter, preferably in contact with the hull, to do actual damage.

In a way, it would be like a shotgun. A shotgun filled with rock salt fired at a Main Battle Tank.
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Re: Accuracy of missiles against wedgeless targets?
Post by BarryKirk   » Sun May 19, 2013 8:46 am

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Since spider ships have no wedge or sidewall, they have to relie on particle shielding and armor for defense.

From what I understand particle shielding is good against particles at 80% light speed. But what size particles are we talking? Typical micro-meteorites in a star system are going to be the size of dust particles.

What would a KE weapon at 90% light speed that put out a shotgun pattern of depleted uranium rods? Basically the same ammo as used by the main gun on an M1 Abrams tank, except at considerably higher velocity and a scatter pattern of them.

I'm thinking those penetrators wouldn't hurt an impeller wedge or sidewall, but each one would penetrate right through the toughest particle shielding and armor in existence. The total KE of each rod would be several Megatons.
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Re: Accuracy of missiles against wedgeless targets?
Post by Jonathan_S   » Sun May 19, 2013 12:08 pm

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BarryKirk wrote:Since spider ships have no wedge or sidewall, they have to relie on particle shielding and armor for defense.

From what I understand particle shielding is good against particles at 80% light speed. But what size particles are we talking? Typical micro-meteorites in a star system are going to be the size of dust particles.

What would a KE weapon at 90% light speed that put out a shotgun pattern of depleted uranium rods? Basically the same ammo as used by the main gun on an M1 Abrams tank, except at considerably higher velocity and a scatter pattern of them.

I'm thinking those penetrators wouldn't hurt an impeller wedge or sidewall, but each one would penetrate right through the toughest particle shielding and armor in existence. The total KE of each rod would be several Megatons.
If you've localized the spider drive ship well enough to target it with this kinetic rod strike wouldn't it be easier to jump ram it with a missile's wedge? The wedge is, what, 10 km wide? That's pretty decent coverage compared to how far you could spread a reasonable number of KE rods.

And without a sidewall to protect it the wedge should actually more destructive to the target than the a few megatons of KE impact.
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Re: Accuracy of missiles against wedgeless targets?
Post by kzt   » Sun May 19, 2013 12:14 pm

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Space is BIG, and the inverse square law is not your friend. You have to get very, very close to damage a ship.
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Re: Accuracy of missiles against wedgeless targets?
Post by Belial666   » Mon May 20, 2013 8:29 am

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kzt wrote:Space is BIG, and the inverse square law is not your friend. You have to get very, very close to damage a ship.

And since spider drive ships don't have a wedge or sidewalls (not normally anyway), they don't have any limit on the number of PDLCs they can mount. Go ahead. Get that missile close to the ship with the 15.000+ PDLCs*. I triple-dog-dare you.




*assumes PDLC density roughly equal to Katana nose and three 1000x200 meter broadsides.
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Re: Accuracy of missiles against wedgeless targets?
Post by Rakhmamort   » Thu Apr 10, 2014 2:13 am

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I am seeing LACs using their wedges to 'cut' none-wedge based enemies... hell, the LACs don't need to maneuver to 'cut' they can just cross the enemy's T presenting their wedge and let the enemy crash into the wedge.

I dunno if its going to destroy the LACs Beta-squared nodes, but I'm quite sure if a wedge hits something solid, that solid thingie is going to be scattered into millions of bits and pieces.
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