Manty Graser Torpedo

Thinking of the Graser Torpedo could a Manty Version be made along the line of the Displacement of a striped down Shrike B. Unmanned and mainly just a Graser with fission pack, sidewalls and bucklers and FTL Ghost Rider EW etc... Beta Squared Wedge. Increase the attack range, power and let it 0/0 intercept the enemy ships. 3000-5000G accellerations and loiter time at Million plus KM ranges. Harder to see than the Hard to see Shrike and with more than one on scene impossible to avoid. May add PD to shoot down CM but wedge and sidewalls should be able to shrug off the CM.

Given Apollo links a SD(P) or SD(G for graser).... 50 such torpedo's could be fired at controlled and engage an enemy ship over a battle all surviving torpedo's returned for reuse. It would cut costs on subsequent battles way down and would be rather easy to produce. Could be carried by any ship that has space for a very small LAC bay or two (5 for each broadside of an SD or Nike) and requires just an FTL communications system, which every ship has.

Given the lack of Enthusiasm for chase LAC bays in SD(P), one could use a larger Torpedo Bay much smaller than LAC bay, either Chase or Broadside mounted.

A Roland like launcher in the Chase with the Fission block powering the Torpedo a Kammerling sized CL Large ship could launch and control a dozen such reusable Torpedoes and have much greater capabilities on the Small ship battle field. With 12 Graser Manty Torpedoes 3000G+ accelerations it could engage any targets at greater range and over a longer time period and recover surviving torpedoes. The Torpedo boat will just keep it's range and attack with a stealthy deadly and reusable torpedo.

They could also do double duty as ghost rider platforms.

A few problems with this idea;


1) Shrike grazers engage at 300-400 kiloclicks, half that if you want good damage vs SDs. Shrikes are NOT stealthy at that range - they'd be detected at 3-4 million kilometers at best.

2) SDs have multiple grazers far more powerful than a Shrike's. Even at 20% power, Shrike will be toast at 500 kiloclicks or more. 20 such grazers in rapid, low-power shots could destroy 50+ targets if prepared for it.

3) A missile can kill a Shrike. Especially armed countermissiles like the Manties have that can be fired from CM tubes. At the cost of 50 tons of ordnance you kill a 10-kiloton "torpedo", which is an extremely favorable ratio -far more favorable for defense than for offense.

4) A torpedo weighing 10 kilotons is equivalent to 30 Apollo-guided missiles. 300 such missiles can kill an SD - 10 torpedoes cannot. So offensively missiles are more efficient tonnage-wise (and almost certainly cost-wise too).

Belial666 wrote:A few problems with this idea;


1) Shrike grazers engage at 300-400 kiloclicks, half that if you want good damage vs SDs. Shrikes are NOT stealthy at that range - they'd be detected at 3-4 million kilometers at best.

2) SDs have multiple grazers far more powerful than a Shrike's. Even at 20% power, Shrike will be toast at 500 kiloclicks or more. 20 such grazers in rapid, low-power shots could destroy 50+ targets if prepared for it.

3) A missile can kill a Shrike. Especially armed countermissiles like the Manties have that can be fired from CM tubes. At the cost of 50 tons of ordnance you kill a 10-kiloton "torpedo", which is an extremely favorable ratio -far more favorable for defense than for offense.

4) A torpedo weighing 10 kilotons is equivalent to 30 Apollo-guided missiles. 300 such missiles can kill an SD - 10 torpedoes cannot. So offensively missiles are more efficient tonnage-wise (and almost certainly cost-wise too).

You do realize that by presenting a coherent refutation of this idea, you have now opened yourself to endless haranguing by LS as to why you are seriously mistaken, most of which will ignore what has been said in order to push his own opinion.

The graser torpedo, even for the Mesans, AFAIK is a specialized weapon for a specific use - which is not attacking ships-of-the-wall (or even active ships at all, probably).