ERIM

BrigadeΔ wrote:

MaxxQ wrote:Won't work. Clearance for missiles between the missile body and the inner wall of the missile tube is only a centimeter or two. Otherwise, one could fire smaller missiles from larger tubes, and that doesn't happen - missile tubes are designed to fit closely around the missile they are designed to launch, with tight tolerances.

I have some older art with a missile that is a few cm smaller in diameter than another. They both use the same tube because there's a sleeve attached to the smaller diameter missile to bring at least the center section *up* to the same size as the other missile.

So missile diameter for missiles of the same type is not standardized? Mk 16's tubes will not fit mk 50's? I thought that the missiles were the same diameter but just longer to allow for multiple drives but I can not remember anything in the textev to say how wide a mk 16 is I think that OBS says exactly how big a mk 50 is and I assumed that they took the same general missile and shoved more drives on the back to give it range, even if they are different sizes couldn't you take a mk 16 sized drive section bolt some capacitators onto it and add a few CM's on the front, probably in a fairing to give it the right size, and fire it out of the same tube though it would only be used by screening units against pod salvos.

No, missile sizes are not standardized, except for variations within models - Mk-23a is the same dimensions as Mk-23b, and so on (excepting the Mk-23-whatever Apollo Control Missile, which is roughly twice the size of a stadard Mk-23).

You won't find any specific textev regarding the dimensions of most missiles, other than "missile X is somewhat larger/smaller than missile Y". David has done this so he wouldn't get locked into something that might need changing later on, a la Great Resizing. Instead, the specifics of missile dimensions are left to BuNine, who, pretty much for the same reasons as David, have kept those dimensions somewhat close. I can give rough ideas of dimensions, but nothing specific, and with the proviso that everything is subject to change at a later date.

As for CMs on a Mk-16 (which is fusion-powered, and doesn't use capacitors), it doesn't work for more than one CM. Looking at my images on these four pages should tell you why:

http://maxxqbunine.deviantart.com/art/F ... -465723413

http://maxxqbunine.deviantart.com/art/F ... -465723294

http://maxxqbunine.deviantart.com/art/C ... -465723044

http://maxxqbunine.deviantart.com/art/C ... -465722583

A couple of people have figured out the rough dimensions of the missiles by using some math tricks based on the height of the guy being 180cm.

Would donkey like PDCs actually have to have fusion plants on board? If not then they would be hard to spot, like donkeys were. You beam power to donkeys and their associated PDC units. The units are pretty small since I would assume they would be energy based defenses. Defenses which would not run out of ammo. In that way they would be unlike CMs since they would take up a fixed space and be able to possibly stop a lot of missiles.

So not like Keyhole at all, since you save the weight and space of the power plant. The general idea is not new, removing the power plant in favor of beamed power is the twist.

WilliamHall wrote:Would donkey like PDCs actually have to have fusion plants on board? If not then they would be hard to spot, like donkeys were. You beam power to donkeys and their associated PDC units. The units are pretty small since I would assume they would be energy based defenses. Defenses which would not run out of ammo. In that way they would be unlike CMs since they would take up a fixed space and be able to possibly stop a lot of missiles.

So not like Keyhole at all, since you save the weight and space of the power plant. The general idea is not new, removing the power plant in favor of beamed power is the twist.

Keyhole has an internal power plant, but usually relies on beamed power anyway. The power plant is not the main reason for the huge size of the system.

Hmm okay the idea that brining the wedge up takes most of the power kills my first idea for extending things, (for those wondering, split the existing drive into two, with one section being the longest lasting but having variable power, the second being the terminal intercept drive).

That does not however kill the idea of carrying them in another missile. Your not going to do it with the Mk 6's and Mk 31's/Mk9's. But you don't need a Mk 31 CM/ Mk9 Vipers. Yes you want a good sensor head and a good molycricllyc's system, but you only need the maneuvering power to to get from launch point to intercept. As little as a 30 second drive will do the trick.

Now sue even then the CM's are probably going to need on missile support hardware that won't fit. So why not go for a dedicated Mk 23 design with 1 or even 2 drives removed, (we know the difference in size between an E and a standard Mk23 would be equal to 1 drive without the extra AI). Thats going to claw back at least some space, (as is the lack of sensor's).

Same deal goes for the control. if the CM channels won't fit, (and they really should i doubt CM's need anywhere near the same capability per channel you can require for full blown attack missiles), you can pull a stage so long as you leave it with one more stage than the carrier missiles

Even with a single stage carrier and a 30 second CM drive endurance your talking a powered range from rest of over 11 million Km and assuming the Control missiles goes to the full 96,000 gravities at the same time the CM's separate they'll only pull ahead by just over 200 thousand Km. That including the FTL control delay is a 1 way time of just 1.25 seconds. That's equivalent to a standard lightspeed link at less than 400 thousand Km. Lateral separation will increase these values, but even if they move away at 90 degrees to the control maximum control link equivalency is still only equal to 820 thousand Km.

Exactly how many CM's you could bus that way i'm not sure, (though with that kind of control loop you might be able to dispense with a lot of the on CM electronics, maybe even the sensor head if it's short enough), 4 is my optometrist at work, 2 is my pessimist.

Another option would be to sue the Apollo E control missile body. Given they place on a 2 to one ratio you could still pack 4 carriers and with drives knocked off and no AI or FTL com i see no reason whatsoever they couldn't carry an even larger number of CM's per missile, even if the total carry still ends up no more than 4 per carrier.


I'd say we also know from mistletoe that putting a CM cannister on a Drone body becomes reasonable. especially if you strip the stealth systems and most of the coms you don't need to boot and build a dedicated, (but still stealthed), control drone to let you control them. Needs much more pre-positioning but may be even more economical volumetrically.

Carl wrote:I'd say we also know from mistletoe that putting a CM cannister on a Drone body becomes reasonable. especially if you strip the stealth systems and most of the coms you don't need to boot and build a dedicated, (but still stealthed), control drone to let you control them. Needs much more pre-positioning but may be even more economical volumetrically.

How do we know that? Mistletoe is a recon drone with a contact nuke strapped onto it. There's no CM drive or CM canister. (At least not unless they build another Mistletoe variant that I'm forgetting...)

Jonathan_S wrote:

Carl wrote:I'd say we also know from mistletoe that putting a CM cannister on a Drone body becomes reasonable. especially if you strip the stealth systems and most of the coms you don't need to boot and build a dedicated, (but still stealthed), control drone to let you control them. Needs much more pre-positioning but may be even more economical volumetrically.

How do we know that? Mistletoe is a recon drone with a contact nuke strapped onto it. There's no CM drive or CM canister. (At least not unless they build another Mistletoe variant that I'm forgetting...)

Why would they NOT fit? FTL drones are north of 250tons at minimum now. An old style ~1Million km CM is all of 12 tons. A canister is 3? or 4? of them for a total of around 50tons. Throwing an entire missile laser head front end on an RD FTL drone is going to be around 50-100 tons for a capital grade missile head(MK-16 to MK-23)

There is no reason for a missile tube. Just drop them off and 1s later their drives activate clear of all wedge interference.

Relax wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:How do we know that? Mistletoe is a recon drone with a contact nuke strapped onto it. There's no CM drive or CM canister. (At least not unless they build another Mistletoe variant that I'm forgetting...)

Why would they NOT fit? FTL drones are north of 250tons at minimum now. An old style ~1Million km CM is all of 12 tons. A canister is 3? or 4? of them for a total of around 50tons. Throwing an entire missile laser head front end on an RD FTL drone is going to be around 50-100 tons for a capital grade missile head(MK-16 to MK-23)

There is no reason for a missile tube. Just drop them off and 1s later their drives activate clear of all wedge interference.

Fair enough, we can make a reasonable claim from comparative tonnages that you should be able to.

But I wouldn't say that we "know from mistletoe" that it is so. And that's mostly watch I was reacting to; his stated justification. Mistletoe didn't involve what he was suggesting do it seemed a non-sequitur to refer to it.

Uh mistletoe were not contact nukes for what carl was talking about. Clearly, they had to also have an active control link as well. Yes, the ones taking out the pods were, but those taking out the platforms were laser heads.

So, FTL RD's can also act as control links. So, what is the problem again?

Off hand it is a very small step switching a laser head for CM's using the same control links.

Other than author fiat, there is no reason not to use FTL RD's to obtain pseudo one way FTL for CM ballistics

There is really no need to develop 2 stage CMs at the moment. If you need to increase your force's counter missile depth, then just push your LACs out a bit more or put them in 2 groups one handling intercepts at 8-9 million km range and the other at 5-6 million km range and leaving the 3-4 million km basket for the ships.

That doesn't work so well when facing a two pronged attack. For instance attacking a system. Facing the forts and whatever they have in system and then whatever forces hyper in behind you.

Of course the fact it requires a half hour or more to get your LAC's in position. And if someone bothers to develop stealthed pods and your LAC's are out of position for defense when attacking a system, your anti missile defense turns from a good plan into ~40%.

If everyone bunches up nice and tight and it is a simple head-on attack, then sure, you can get LAC's 5-8Mkm out front. With very few CM's. Katana can literally blow through 100% of their missiles in a mere 2 minutes. Don't know about you, but you better have more anti missile defenses than a mere 2 minutes or even 5. Of course this could be fixed if Katana's simply started carrying the old style short legged 12ton CM's instead of the vastly larger ~30ton viper. Sure would make more sense. Haven't seen it so far. Doesn't mean it will not happen, but it should happen ASAP.