Hi Jonathan_S,
The problem with Apollo missiles is if Mycroft isn't up yet, the Apollo's apparently can't be used by the BSDF, except in a very reduced capacity as Mike did at Spindle.
I don't expect RFC to repeat Spindle even if 3-6 times larger.
Mistletoe's are something than can work without Mycroft, while being explained, if they ever have to be, as something the BSDF came up with after the Grayson assassination attempt on its own, or Theisman's mine equipped drones that were wrecked at the beginning of Buttercup.
I don't expect the BSDF to bother responding to any demands for explanations though, since system security is each system's private prerogative.
RFC has made it plain that Beowulf is a science and tech leader not just in biology, so a Mistletoe type weapon is quite possible to claim as indigenous.
When I tried to estimate daily missile production costs for 5-10,000 MDM's at M$5-8M each, given the Fearless's SDM's in OBS were in the M$1-2M range, RFC explained that mass production vastly reduced the unit cost so MDM's didn't cost much more than the SDM's had, and the war production had even reduced that slightly before High Ridge took over, with RD (including Mistletoe) production also being relatively huge though again with low unit costs.
L
Jonathan_S wrote:**quote="Weird Harold"**[quote="lyonheart"]First of all, there are orders of magnitude difference between that assassination weapon (which apparently had no active stealth etc) and RMN RD's that can accelerate up to 5000 G's before being detected by RMN sensors.**/quote**
You do realize that RMN missiles accelerate at 85,000 to 90,000 Gs? Mistletoe style armed RDs are slow enough even the SLN can interdict them once they know they exist.
That makes them only good the first time they're used. Mistletoe armed RDs would probably be slightly more effective than the assassin missiles, but Appollo can do the same thing with eight Laser heads at 17-18 times the acceleration.
They can only interdict them if they can find them. Right now their sensors aren't good enough to do so.
That said, I don't see a reason to use a slower, more expensive weapon against SL units; especially when you can only carry a limited number of them. MDMs are already very effective, are carried in vast numbers, and don't take as long to reach firing position.
Mistletoe's can be used at even longer range (if you've got time for them to get there) because they've got vastly better onboard sensors (being recon drones). And that makes them useful for sniffing out and gutting fixed defenses. And a fixed defense that at least matches your effective range is sufficient threat to justify using expensive large weapons to neutralize - but current and likely near future SLN ships just don't (IMHO)[/quote]