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The roof and belly of a ship is naked... here's a fix.

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The roof and belly of a ship is naked... here's a fix.
Post by K. T. Haven   » Fri Feb 28, 2014 4:31 pm

K. T. Haven
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I know you can't mount a missile tube or laser cluster or anything on the roof and belly of the ship because it would be firing right into the wedge right?

Ok... take a page from the ships in EVE - Online...

Mount TURRETS on there that face out. Not only could these turrets add considerable weight to the broadsides, but could also be used to fire out the throat and tail of the wedge allowing a much heavier throw weight in the chase guns category. So instead of 20 missiles out the tail, you could fire 200 missiles out the kilt.

Why do lasers, grazers, and missile tubes HAVE to be mounted inside a ship, the short answer... they don't.

A turret could be built to hold the reload system, targeting system, and onboard crew with ease... aircraft carriers and battleships here on Terra Firma today have this technology right now. In fact, you could even take all the broad side guns and missile tubes and make them into turrets as well, that way you could turn the belly of your wedge at the enemy, close up all the sidewalls, just open the bottom 20 meters of the sidewall on each side, rotate your turrets down towards the sidewall gap, and fire everything in a "ballistic arc" fashion around your wedge. A missile firing slightly off center with a Keyhole Two could easily reacquire the target as soon as it left the edge of the ship's wedge. Aaaand, the floor and roof turrets could be fired as well. Heck the throat and kilt guns could be fired like this too. Think about it like this.

Let's say a SD has 200 missile tubes in each broadside. And let's say it has another 20 in each of the chase armaments. Now make those turrets, add in a system that has them clustered together in a gatling gun loading style to I free up more space to cram in more missile tube turrets on the broadsides and chase armaments, add in another bunch on the floor and roof...

... and ONE SD could have well over 2000 tubes... ALL firing at one time... and an SD(P) could increase it's throw weight by leaps and bounds.

Not only that, but this would also allow for faster target acquisition. Instead of being forced to spin your ship sideways before firing ONE broadside... you could begin firing... AS you are rotating to present your belly because all your missile tubes are already pointed at the enemy. All you have to do is fire them and rotate; just like CURRENT 21ST CENTURY naval combat tactics do now... they would fire their bow cannons, and as their ship turned to port or starboard to free up their aft guns, all their guns would get target lock and would begin firing as soon as they could safely see the target. Thus you have guns firing on the enemy causing damage, and the fire only increases as you present the broadside... instead of wasting those few precious minutes it takes to spins sideways, you could be withering the enemy AS you bring your full firepower to bear.

The name of the game in warfare... is kill him before he kills me. If you can fire one bullet from your pistol that might kill him or get him to run away while you are drawing your machine gun to bring it to bear... would you wait to fire it until after you had your machine gun up?

No. No you would not... or you would be the one on the ground with a sucking chest wound and tension pnuemothorax.
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Re: The roof and belly of a ship is naked... here's a fix.
Post by Duckk   » Fri Feb 28, 2014 4:35 pm

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The dorsal and ventral aspects are already jam packed with stuff that you can't stick an appreciable amount of firepower on them. It's not worth the engineering headaches of finding a place to the turrets while still maintaining the necessary open aspects for sensors, comms, etc, nor figuring out how to best armor and feed those weapons. The weapons are in the broadsides for a very good reason.

On a tangent, it seems you have not gotten House of Steel. I would highly recommend doing so, as it will give you a better picture of the shipbuilding rules that are a part of the Honorverse.

EDIT: I also recommend you browse MaxxQ's Flicker for his 3D renders, in order to get an appreciation of just how things fit in a ship.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4832
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Re: The roof and belly of a ship is naked... here's a fix.
Post by K. T. Haven   » Fri Feb 28, 2014 4:50 pm

K. T. Haven
Ensign

Posts: 17
Joined: Fri Feb 28, 2014 3:10 pm

Hmm, yeah forgot about all the sensors up there and down there, ok, so no more guns or tubes on the dorsalmor pectoral aspects, but still, what about the turrets idea? There is a reason why the navies of Earth use turrets instead of broadsides now, they make the ship at least twice as lethal because you can be more accurate and can fire muuuuuuch faster.
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Re: The roof and belly of a ship is naked... here's a fix.
Post by Duckk   » Fri Feb 28, 2014 4:51 pm

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They don't need turrets because they can already fire missiles off bore into most any aspect of the ship.
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Shields at 50%, taunting at 100%! - Tom Pope
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Re: The roof and belly of a ship is naked... here's a fix.
Post by SWM   » Fri Feb 28, 2014 5:35 pm

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K. T. Haven wrote:Not only that, but this would also allow for faster target acquisition. Instead of being forced to spin your ship sideways before firing ONE broadside... you could begin firing... AS you are rotating to present your belly because all your missile tubes are already pointed at the enemy.

Current Manticoran technology allows them to fire both broadsides at the same time at a single target, even if one broadside is facing away from the target. They don't need to turn the ship (or your turrets) to get target acquisition.
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Re: The roof and belly of a ship is naked... here's a fix.
Post by K. T. Haven   » Fri Feb 28, 2014 7:46 pm

K. T. Haven
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Posts: 17
Joined: Fri Feb 28, 2014 3:10 pm

SWM wrote:
K. T. Haven wrote:Not only that, but this would also allow for faster target acquisition. Instead of being forced to spin your ship sideways before firing ONE broadside... you could begin firing... AS you are rotating to present your belly because all your missile tubes are already pointed at the enemy.

Current Manticoran technology allows them to fire both broadsides at the same time at a single target, even if one broadside is facing away from the target. They don't need to turn the ship (or your turrets) to get target acquisition.


I see, I was confused on that point. I thought they had to at least flip each broadside up and down in relation to the target to fire off bore. You are saying that they can have one broadside firing directly at the enemy ship and can still fire the broadside facing away from the enemy and make their missiles arc over top and below themselves to group with the facingnbroadside then?

I thought they had to be presenting the floor or roof of the wedge to the enemy to fire off bore?
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Re: The roof and belly of a ship is naked... here's a fix.
Post by MaxxQ   » Fri Feb 28, 2014 8:39 pm

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K. T. Haven wrote:I see, I was confused on that point. I thought they had to at least flip each broadside up and down in relation to the target to fire off bore. You are saying that they can have one broadside firing directly at the enemy ship and can still fire the broadside facing away from the enemy and make their missiles arc over top and below themselves to group with the facingnbroadside then?

I thought they had to be presenting the floor or roof of the wedge to the enemy to fire off bore?


IIRC, I believe the actual maximum off-bore angle is 120°, so no, you can't fire 180° off-bore and still hit the target. Well, you probably *could*, but it wouldn't be as efficient, because the missile drives would have to compensate for that other 60° on the way to the target.

The advantage to off-bore firing comes into effect when a ship's throat or wedge is pointing at the target (even with a buckler, that's not normally a good idea), giving an off-bore angle of 90°, or when the ship is rolled to present the roof or floor of the wedge to incoming fire and is using something like Keyhole for targeting (since sensors can't see through the wedge), again, a 90° off-bore aspect.

You *could* roll ship 30° one way or the other, which would allow you to use the maximum off-bore capability while providing *some* protection against incoming fire, but that still leaves a fairly open area on one broadside pointing towards the target.
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Re: The roof and belly of a ship is naked... here's a fix.
Post by Duckk   » Fri Feb 28, 2014 8:47 pm

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The latest generation of missiles and launchers can fire a full 180.
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Shields at 50%, taunting at 100%! - Tom Pope
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Re: The roof and belly of a ship is naked... here's a fix.
Post by MaxxQ   » Fri Feb 28, 2014 8:54 pm

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Duckk wrote:The latest generation of missiles and launchers can fire a full 180.


Ah... I must have missed that somewhere. Either that or age is making me... what was I saying?
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Re: The roof and belly of a ship is naked... here's a fix.
Post by KNick   » Fri Feb 28, 2014 9:00 pm

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MaxxQ wrote:
Duckk wrote:The latest generation of missiles and launchers can fire a full 180.


Ah... I must have missed that somewhere. Either that or age is making me... what was I saying?


Sorry, MaxxQ. You're not old enough to pull that one off. Now, having too many balls in air the to juggle, that I would believe.
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