Escort SD

floss wrote:You are getting me wrong I ment a sd armed massively with counter missiles .

The problem with lacs is their small magazine size not their capabilities .Think in the terms of shells the lacs first attack the missile storm then when their missiles are exhausted they use their control linkages to control missile volleys launched by the sd. Therebuy enlarging the intercept basket to a far larger area .No stern chases.

The Clacs and the long range podnauts should be as as far as possible back so that their firepower can be deployed effectively without being hammered by enemy fire.

As for putting lacs in harms way the Kantana is built just to do that .

The RMN already can fire more countermissiles than they can control - they had time to fire 11 CM salvos but could only control 8 of those in one of Eighth Fleet's battles.

Building a SD crammed with CMs wouldn't change that issue, at least not until someone develops a fire control trick for countermissiles.

The Invictus already has two hundred and six CM launchers at the total expense of shipboard missile tubes and about half the Gryphon's energy armament, that sounds a lot more impressive when the Gryphon's total of seventy-six is brought up as well, bearing in mind that the Gryphon can't bring more than half of its launchers into action, whilst the Invictus can use all of its.

The solution to missile defense is greater numbers of units, spread out over a larger volume of space, to deepen and widen their interception basket as much as possible.

Note: Subtracting the mass of a Hydra-class from an Invictus leaves 2,622,750 tons - that's enough for 130 LACs! So a CLAC and its hundred-strong wing is actually marginally less tonnage investment than a SD(though obviously the costs and logistics are very different matters). That wing is able to throw more than eight hundred countermissiles per salvo. Essentially, a CLAC and its wing is an escort SD.

Dafmeister wrote:Floss, I understand what you mean, but you're talking about exactly the sort of specialist design that Honorverse navies don't like. You're left with a problematic decision. Do you either

A) include this escort SD (SDE?) in with regular SDs, or

B) build it alongside other SDs that skimp on CM tubes in favour of more offensive firepower?

If you go with option A, you're reducing the firepower of your fleet in favour of defence. It may take longer to kill you, but it'll take you longer to kill your enemy as well, so the benefits are debatable, to say the least.

If you go with option B, you have the same balance of offensive and defensive power, but you've concentrated your defence in fewer hulls, which will be spitting out huge clumps of CMs. If your enemy has decent recon drones (and if you're planning ship designs for your navy, you absolutely have to assume that if you want to do an even marginally competent job), then they'll identify where those clusters are coming from in pretty short order and concentrate their fire on those SDEs, taking them one at a time if need be to overwhelm their defences. Once they've killed or crippled the SDEs, your 'attack' SDs are going to die in very short order.

With modern GA weapons tatics of massive missile waves the problem is surviving the first wave I am only proposing SDE to increase defensive firepower and effect area .With pod attacks their will always be a tendancy to stack large volleys of missiles for a quick victory .

I have read here about semicircles of lacs and such on this site you know what Napoleon said about such tatics .
The object of this proposal is to provide more extended firepower so that a single lac can do far more work than if it is only using onbord ammunition .
Of course once a pod has fired it is dead seeing as they cannot reload and are soft targets once they fire .
I would suggest that the podnauts fire and withdraw to rearm soon as as possible .

I would suggest that future combat will happen at or near the hyper limit or the long range podnauts will smash the locality with repeated volleys of missiles from long range .

floss wrote:
I have read here about semicircles of lacs and such on this site you know what Napoleon said about such tatics .

No, I don't know what Napoleon said about such tactics. In fact, I don't remember there being a Fleet Admiral named Napoleon in the Honorverse. I do remember the tactical motif that Admiral Alexander-Harrington set up for Filaretta's Fiasco (aka Battle of Manticore II).

Theemile wrote:

Dafmeister wrote:Assuming that the SLN has the time to begin work on a wave of new design projects, I can definitely someone at least suggesting this sort of ship. Possibly a classic armchair admiral, a student of history who's convinced that nothing ever really changes once you get down to the fundamentals. Oh, if only the Navy would listen! But the brass hats are so in love with their shiny new ships that they just can't see that the solution to the Manticoran Missile Massacre (TM) was found two thousand years ago. If only they'd read their history, they'd know about something called the Ticonderoga-class cruiser, built to face just such a challenge. A modern day Ticonderoga would surely solve all the SLN's problems. Why, at a single stroke Battle Fleet could be rendered immune to missile attack! The vicious, barbarous Manties would be powerless! Battles would be conducted at energy range again, as they were supposed to be.

Actually, the SLN has a drop in approach available - they have already developed the Aegis CM control plugs for CA/BC and SD missile tubes to thicken their CM launches.

The Aegis system allows more control channels for CMs at the expense of 2 missile tubes - 1 is plugged with the control plug, a 2nd is used to fire CM canisters.

One could imagine an SD with 1/2 of a broadside filled with control plugs and the other 1/2 filled with CM canisters as an "instant" escort SD. No new design necessary, and minimal yard time.

Of course, SLN SD shipkiller tube cycle times are ~45 seconds, compared to Manty CM cycle times of 8 seconds, so it is possible 1 Aegis plug could control several tubes launching canisters at staggered intervals.

Whoops - I remembered it as being a tube plug - like the Marksman CL's shipkiller firecontrol plugs. However, going back to MoH and ToF, BC have a couple tubes REPLACED
(1 in each broadside) with the extra CM firecontrol and SDs lose Energy Mounts. Not plug and play, and quite invasive.

Theemile wrote:

Theemile wrote:Actually, the SLN has a drop in approach available - they have already developed the Aegis CM control plugs for CA/BC and SD missile tubes to thicken their CM launches.

The Aegis system allows more control channels for CMs at the expense of 2 missile tubes - 1 is plugged with the control plug, a 2nd is used to fire CM canisters.

One could imagine an SD with 1/2 of a broadside filled with control plugs and the other 1/2 filled with CM canisters as an "instant" escort SD. No new design necessary, and minimal yard time.

Of course, SLN SD shipkiller tube cycle times are ~45 seconds, compared to Manty CM cycle times of 8 seconds, so it is possible 1 Aegis plug could control several tubes launching canisters at staggered intervals.

Whoops - I remembered it as being a tube plug - like the Marksman CL's shipkiller firecontrol plugs. However, going back to MoH and ToF, BC have a couple tubes REPLACED
(1 in each broadside) with the extra CM firecontrol and SDs lose Energy Mounts. Not plug and play, and quite invasive.

IIRC, the SLN Aegis works by using two missile tubes dedicated to firing CM canisters, with the space for fire control being provided by tearing out two energy mounts. This is per broadside.

floss wrote:

Dafmeister wrote:With modern GA weapons tatics of massive missile waves the problem is surviving the first wave I am only proposing SDE to increase defensive firepower and effect area.

Limiting your additional CM capability to a single hull will actually reduce the effective area.

Counter Missiles have a limited range. Putting them in a single hull limits your your coverage to a sphere the radius of a CM's effective range. That may or may not include the more distant elements of the fleet you want to protect.

Put the same number of CM's into one CLAC's wing of LACs and you extend the effective range of those CMs by the distance you place your LACs in advance of the fleet, and as wide as a CM's range plus the width/depth of your LAC formation.

If your goal is to extend the range and area of effect for Counter Missiles, you don't want to limit them to a CM's range from a single hull -- or even three or four very expensive hulls.

floss wrote:

Dafmeister wrote:Floss, I understand what you mean, but you're talking about exactly the sort of specialist design that Honorverse navies don't like. You're left with a problematic decision. Do you either

A) include this escort SD (SDE?) in with regular SDs, or

B) build it alongside other SDs that skimp on CM tubes in favour of more offensive firepower?

If you go with option A, you're reducing the firepower of your fleet in favour of defence. It may take longer to kill you, but it'll take you longer to kill your enemy as well, so the benefits are debatable, to say the least.

If you go with option B, you have the same balance of offensive and defensive power, but you've concentrated your defence in fewer hulls, which will be spitting out huge clumps of CMs. If your enemy has decent recon drones (and if you're planning ship designs for your navy, you absolutely have to assume that if you want to do an even marginally competent job), then they'll identify where those clusters are coming from in pretty short order and concentrate their fire on those SDEs, taking them one at a time if need be to overwhelm their defences. Once they've killed or crippled the SDEs, your 'attack' SDs are going to die in very short order.

With modern GA weapons tatics of massive missile waves the problem is surviving the first wave I am only proposing SDE to increase defensive firepower and effect area .With pod attacks their will always be a tendancy to stack large volleys of missiles for a quick victory .

I have read here about semicircles of lacs and such on this site you know what Napoleon said about such tatics .
The object of this proposal is to provide more extended firepower so that a single lac can do far more work than if it is only using onbord ammunition .
Of course once a pod has fired it is dead seeing as they cannot reload and are soft targets once they fire .
I would suggest that the podnauts fire and withdraw to rearm soon as as possible .

I would suggest that future combat will happen at or near the hyper limit or the long range podnauts will smash the locality with repeated volleys of missiles from long range .

Minor nit here... After Wayfarer destroyed Warnke's navy in Marsh, she did collect the used pod for reuse. So unless something has changed in the meantime, they can be reloaded,

Don

I am kind of curious about why they do not use contact nukes (similar to the triple ripple) or flechette type rounds delivered by a full up missile when the missile storm is still out of CM range?

sturdy00 wrote:I am kind of curious about why they do not use contact nukes (similar to the triple ripple) or flechette type rounds delivered by a full up missile when the missile storm is still out of CM range?

As for the contact nukes, as was seen in the books, there is an easy counter. Also, your attack missiles would be better off spent trying to eliminate the source of the incoming missiles.

For flechettes, considering the range of the CMs and the small (relative to the space they are in) size of an attack missile, it would take so incredibly many flechettes to hit incoming missiles at a range higher than CMs can, that you couldn't possibly carry enough to make a noticeable difference. Plus, any given flechette would be much MUCH more likely to hit a wedge rather than the body of a missile, thus doing absolutely no damage and not even threatening the next salvo.

sturdy00 wrote:I am kind of curious about why they do not use contact nukes (similar to the triple ripple) or flechette type rounds delivered by a full up missile when the missile storm is still out of CM range?

Well, Contact nukes have to make contact which means their wedge will destroy a missile before they can detonate.

The triple-ripple doesn't use contact nukes, it uses "dirty nukes" but it is easily countered so it was only really useful the first few engagements.

"Flechettes" might be useful, but "Space is big. Very Big." It would take a LOT of flechettes to be effective. Since they are unguided ballistic projectiles, they can probably be avoided as easily as the Triple-ripple turned out to be.