Missile Counter Missile

Hey, work got over much sooner than I thought.

Lets assume an RHN and RMN unit have opened a 6 pack of beer and are just chilling:

How long will it take them to get their respective FTL RD's in place with 10,000g accelerations? What if only 5000g?

3 stage MDM, 48,000g accel for 540s(9min) = Roughly 72M km from each other.

Lets assume both have roughly 4M km CM's. Need from this hypothesized RD. 72-4 = 68Mkm. Need data before CM's.

RD acceleration is constant. Both accelerating and decelerating. Therefore T1=T2 Ttotal = T1+T2

600s obtains 72Mkm, we wanted 68Mkm. Too long. Excellent. Rule of thirds for centroids 850s @5000g obtains 72Mkm as well.

RD@10,000g arrives on station @72Mkm in under 20 minutes.
RD @5000g arrives on station @72Mkm in under 30 minutes.

Now if RMN and RHN units are not opening a 6 pack and both fleets have initial velocity, then RD arrives much sooner.

Hi Weird Harold,

Since the Mk-23 is barely 9 times faster than the RD, the time required is just over 3 times the missile's.

So an RD accelerating at 5000 G's/sec takes only about 3 times longer than an attack missile at 45,100 G's to get to the same range; ie just over 18 minutes instead of 6 to 29.2248 M km, about 27 minutes to 65.7558 M km, or even after almost a 150 second coast after the second drive out to 90 M km an RD would take 31.5 minutes compared to the Apollo's 11.5 minutes, and there are few tactical situations that won't allow an RD to get out to those ranges.

Although, if you want to 'park' them there at those ranges then almost 45 minutes for a zero-zero from launch which isn't very likely, especially when the ghostrider screen should be rather far out at their stations around the ship or TF, having noticed the target in the first place then being sent to investigate further.

Given FTL comms, a 2 LM radius for the RD's seems kinda short, plus the fact that the Reprise's at Meyer's had a 4 LM sensor range in SFtS, something nearer a 3-4 LM radius seems more likely the standard.

L

Weird Harold wrote:

robertamgottlieb wrote:A very simple modification would be to let missiles receive tracking data from RDs.

The problem with that Idea is that RDs have one, or maybe two communications channels; Each missile requires its own fire control channel (or each group of eight slaves to an ACM.) So you can only control up to Eight missiles through a RD without rotating command links. Rotating command links would negate any advantage to using the RD's sensors.

In the Battle of Spindle, RDs' FTL links were used to feed tactical updates fed to the ACMs via light-speed fire control channels.

A second problem with the idea is that RDs are an order of magnitude slower than missiles. At Spindle, they had tree days or so to blanket Adm Crandal's TF with RDs, so using RDs to cut the command & Control loop in half was feasible. In more dynamic, offensive operations, there isn't time to get RDs in place.


In fact, using the ACM and its slave missiles' sensors as fast RDs before assigning targets has been done in simulations. That works for ships with only light-speed fire-control as well as for KHII equipped ships with FTL fire-control -- not as quickly, but still faster than waiting on an RD to arrive.

lyonheart wrote:So an RD accelerating at 5000 G's/sec takes only about 3 times longer than an attack missile at 45,100 G's to get to the same range; ie just over 18 minutes instead of 6 to 29.2248 M km, about 27 minutes to 65.7558 M km, ...

Yep, I can just see it now:

"Hold on a minute. It's going to take another fifteen minutes before we've got everything in place to attack you."

If RDs were useable as a "poor man's Apollo" they'd be used as a "poor man's Apollo." But the best anyone's done is to use the FTL info from RDs to update missiles via light-speed control links.

Someone at RMN's Skonk Works worked through the same ideas you're proposing and spent millions to make it work -- by creating the Apollo ACM.

We've seen an Apollo Pod -- ACM+8xMk23s -- used as a fast recon drone, but we have NOT seem a Recon drone used as an ACM. There probably a reason for that -- like RDs won't work as practical missile control nodes, maybe?

Weird Harold wrote:

J6P wrote:One or two missiles each, be it Apollo, or normal, are still better than 0. Ergo my comment about small class ships running out of RD's.

You still haven't addressed the speed issue. You have to get RDs in position to use them as fire-control relays. They're useful when you have them already in place and are already used to halve the command lag. But RDs don't have the channels or pre-processor capabilities needed for a "poor man's Apollo." (If they did have the capability, it would be used.)

Hi Weird Harold... Correct me if I'm wrong...My memory might be plaaying tricks on me...but as I recall, Terekov did use his dones in a similar fashion at the Battle of Monica. For textev, read the scene where Oversteegen mentions it in the post sim review where Oversteegen is assigned the defensive role against Apollo. It is either in MOH or SOS. I'm not sure which.

Actually, Mistletoe is a warhead strapped onto drones. Not quite the same thing. But Haven had trouble with it. I bet that SLN wouldn't have a prayer.

The obvious answer to how you get the drones in place is to send them out before the fur starts to fly. That is normal proceedure anyway.

Don

n7axw wrote:Hi Weird Harold... Correct me if I'm wrong...My memory might be plaaying tricks on me...but as I recall, Terekov did use his dones in a similar fashion at the Battle of Monica. For textev, read the scene where Oversteegen mentions it in the post sim review where Oversteegen is assigned the defensive role against Apollo. It is either in MOH or SOS. I'm not sure which.

Terekhov used the drones to halve the command loops for the missiles. That is common practice. It is NOT the same thing as relaying fire-control commands to individual missiles through an RD.

The problem with the speed differential is not a problem when you have several hours to prep the battlefield. It is a problem when a second force drops out of hyper behind you and starts firing at you immediately; you don't have time to preposition drones to act as command links in that situation.

Weird Harold wrote:

n7axw wrote:Hi Weird Harold... Correct me if I'm wrong...My memory might be plaaying tricks on me...but as I recall, Terekov did use his dones in a similar fashion at the Battle of Monica. For textev, read the scene where Oversteegen mentions it in the post sim review where Oversteegen is assigned the defensive role against Apollo. It is either in MOH or SOS. I'm not sure which.

Terekhov used the drones to halve the command loops for the missiles. That is common practice. It is NOT the same thing as relaying fire-control commands to individual missiles through an RD.

Yep, as I recall he was using the RDs to directly read the ECM / decoy tricks his targets were pulling, and assessing their changing 'signature' due to damage; plus evaluating which of his jamming, decoy, and tactics were working and (near) real-timing that back to his ships. (Instead of waiting for the lightspeed telemetry from the missiles to return that same information).

He then pushed out lightspeed updates and target assignments to his missiles, through their normal fire control channels.

It made his fire control loop much more responsive by giving him the information sooner; but everything ran through his ships. The RDs never talked directly to his missiles (as far as I know); just monitored the target environment and provided timely sensor data.

Hi Weird Harold,

It's an interesting capability, but just how useful will it really be?

Your citation was a simulation at 5 Light Minutes in SFtS, that included a major attack at an unknown target, but if there hadn't been 3 enemy SD's etc all those Apollo's would have been wasted.

Given all the vectors possible firing so many missiles at sensor ghosts blindly could run your SDP out of pods before you really need them.

You really need RD's.

While Beowulf probably started Apollo/Mk-16 production back in September, it will be awhile before the RMN feels flush enough to be so cavalier in real missile expenditure again.

You really need RD's.

Then there's the problem that by launching the Apollo pod to do your recon, followed by the large Apollo salvo and the target results pod, the enemy has been able to backtrack, identify and target their point of origin [you], so if you're wrong about which sensor ghosts are hostile, you may just have identified yourself to a far larger now definitely hostile force with obvious results.

You really need RD's for stealth.

Granted the simulation was aboard Artemis on the way to the TQ before OB, but it still represents a very unique scenario, the 3 SD's were not a direct threat given light speed fire control of MDM's effectiveness beyond ~45 M km, especially the RHN's, is pretty poor.

RD's are far more efficient.

Given all the SLN's limitations, I don't see this happening in the honorverse until the Lenny Det's etc are in action.

The Reprise's RD's were picking up Crandall's SD's in orbit, not under power, from 4 LM out, so refining targeting data from RD's 2-4 LM out combined with the ship's superior sensors that are all part of the ship's sensor package, seems prudent especially when going from 4 LM to 5 doesn't take all that much longer.

L

Weird Harold wrote:

lyonheart wrote:So an RD accelerating at 5000 G's/sec takes only about 3 times longer than an attack missile at 45,100 G's to get to the same range; ie just over 18 minutes instead of 6 to 29.2248 M km, about 27 minutes to 65.7558 M km, ...

Yep, I can just see it now:

"Hold on a minute. It's going to take another fifteen minutes before we've got everything in place to attack you."

If RDs were useable as a "poor man's Apollo" they'd be used as a "poor man's Apollo." But the best anyone's done is to use the FTL info from RDs to update missiles via light-speed control links.

Someone at RMN's Skonk Works worked through the same ideas you're proposing and spent millions to make it work -- by creating the Apollo ACM.

We've seen an Apollo Pod -- ACM+8xMk23s -- used as a fast recon drone, but we have NOT seem a Recon drone used as an ACM. There probably a reason for that -- like RDs won't work as practical missile control nodes, maybe?

I suppose if you're really really desperate you could use main missiles as counter missiles. Better fired in hope than destroyed with the ship and all that.

Weird Harold wrote:

n7axw wrote:Hi Weird Harold... Correct me if I'm wrong...My memory might be plaaying tricks on me...but as I recall, Terekov did use his dones in a similar fashion at the Battle of Monica. For textev, read the scene where Oversteegen mentions it in the post sim review where Oversteegen is assigned the defensive role against Apollo. It is either in MOH or SOS. I'm not sure which.

Terekhov used the drones to halve the command loops for the missiles. That is common practice. It is NOT the same thing as relaying fire-control commands to individual missiles through an RD.

The problem with the speed differential is not a problem when you have several hours to prep the battlefield. It is a problem when a second force drops out of hyper behind you and starts firing at you immediately; you don't have time to preposition drones to act as command links in that situation.

Ok, that was it. Just thinking... Most of the time battles do seem to take some time to develop, but successful ambushes were staged from hyper at Marsh, Solon, Lovat and 1 Manticore although one could argue about who abushed who at Lovat and 1 Manticore since the ambushers were in turn ambushed. That means you can't count on having time to prepare the field of battle.

Don

lyonheart wrote:You really need RD's.

No question about that. But that wasn't my point. The point was that RDs work just fine as RDs but don't work worth a damn as Fire-Control nodes.

The fact that an Apollo pod load CAN be used as a "poor man's" fast RD may lead to development of "Fast RDs" and the idea of combining sensors from several missiles for better passive resolution might result in ganged RDs through a forward control node.

I don't think anyone is suggesting replacing RDs with Apollo pods; At least I'm not suggesting that. But the point remains; just because an Apollo pod can perform the functions of an RD doesn't mean an RD can perform the functions of an Apollo Pod.