Defensive pods

The closest thing I can think of, that's truly a "defensive" pod, is when Mesa kicked off Osyter Bay.


They sent missile pods in, preceded by a "shield" pod mostly because they couldn't match Manticoran miniaturization to stuff everything into just one pod. So the shield pods had zero missiles, and were simply power supply + particle screens and their only job was to "sweep" a clean path free of particles and dust for the missile pods carrying the Mesan designed Cataphract's.


Which is something we've either forgotten or chosen to ignore, that Technodyne didn't actually design the Cataphract's, they're Mesan, but for purposes of "selling them" to the SLN, TIY is claiming credit for designing them. However in Mission of Honor it credits a Daniel Detweiler's research teams with doing it.

If I'm reading your original post right, you're referring to the Elric battle sequence where the Medusa podnaughts dumped out enough pods to seemingly account for the extra ghost rider drones pretending to be ships. The fire control was still with the SD(p)s etc., however.

The Loreleis are a likely variant on this because they can operate independently from their parent ships. If I'm reading between the lines, what would make sense is for the Lorelies to also be able to tow pods as well, perhaps donkey style. But there's no reason to cut the missile count in that case.

The main problem I see with the approach is that ships manuever more than the decoys and drones, so there's a limit to the fakery available. So the usage would sort of have to be like a "launching minefields". Current tech wise, I suppose it would be like having a set of remotely aimable mortars on a ground battlefield to draw all of the enemy's attention elsewhere while your tanks and missile platforms get into prime position to hammer the enemy's divisions and armor flat, methinks.

Thoughts?

darrell wrote:they are launched by the missile tubes, and usually but not always, most DD tubes can launch a canister with three, BC tubes can launch 4 CM canisters, SD tubes can launch 5 CM canisters.

Can you give me a cite for that information?

What I can tell you is that, at best, you can only fit three, MAYBE four CMs in a Mk-23-sized tube (SD tube) cannister, six if you have a longer cannister and fit three fore and three aft. This info is based on my modeling of these, according to dimensional information on my BuNine missile spreadsheet. No need for me to mention the dimensions. There's missile images on my Deviant Art page linked in my sig that are all to scale, and even has a Viper alongside Mk-16 and Mk-23 missiles. A little careful measuring and some basic math skills will tell you how many can fit.

This is something we at BuNine have worked on in the past, and all I can recall is that the cannisters we built for the Fearless CA only holds three CMs. Those CMs are smaller than Vipers and Mk-30/Mk-31 CMs, but then, the missiles launched from the Fearless' launch tubes were also smaller than current-gen DDMs and MDMs, although DDMs (Mk-16s) are only slightly - a few centimeters - larger in diameter than a Mk-13 (Fearless-era missile). So, even if you used older, outdated CMs you still wouldn't be able to fit more than three CMs per DDM-sized cannister. You could fit four old-style CMs in an MDM-sized (Mk-23) cannister and there will be a bit of room, but trying to fit 4 Mk-30/Mk-31/Viper CMs would be a tight fit (all three have the same diameter, but the Viper is about 75% longer than the other two). I'd be surprised if you could fit three modern CMs into a Mk-16-sized cannister.

MaxxQ wrote:What I can tell you is that, at best, you can only fit three, MAYBE four CMs in a Mk-23-sized tube (SD tube) cannister, six if you have a longer cannister and fit three fore and three aft. ...

It seems to me that an OBS era canister wouldn't need much of a motor/capacitor stack, just enough to clear the wedge before launching the CMs. Textev does say three CMs for DD sized canister up to five CMs for capital missile tubes, so they likely aren't double stacked ('cause that would result in even numbers of CMs.

In the past, we've discussed CM canisters as range extending MIRV packages for defense; That limits CM space to just the warhead and perhaps one (or two) drive ring(s). This idea doesn't seem to need the canisters as missile drives, just a sabot the launch mass-drivers can get ahold of to launch; they might be able to double-stack CMs for that concept.

SharkHunter wrote:The Loreleis are a likely variant on this because they can operate independently from their parent ships. If I'm reading between the lines, what would make sense is for the Lorelies to also be able to tow pods as well, ...

Lorelei decoys launch from Mk-23 tubes. There is no obvious mechanism for them to pick up pods and probably not enough size to fit a tractor as well as the decoy ECM. I'd be very, very surprised if Lorelei decoys could tow anything.

@Kytheros, munroburton & darrell
That is why the defensive pods I am proposing isn't launching counter missiles. The canister/pod is a response to BrigadeΔ's reply suggesting that instead of the one I am proposing, we go for a CM pod instead.

I know there is a limit for the number of CMs that a ship can control. There can only be so many control links. That is why my proposal is to reduce the number of missiles that you need to hit by CMs by getting said attacking missiles to go after drones. Drones that are built into pods that can launch short ranged dazzlers to blind the incoming salvo so more of them will go to local control and go after the easiest/nearest/most obvious/welcoming target which is the drone.

---
As for canisters not being pods. It's just a term. Both contain missiles that are launched from their container (pod/canister). I am sure that canisters can be deployed out of of a pod-ship's pod bay doors if necessary. Hell, I suppose they can kick it out of the small craft bay doors if the control links are intact and all the tubes, both for CM and shipkillers, are thrashed.
---

I repeat, not proposing a pod filled with CMs. The canisters are already there. This is a pod with built in drone capabilities that launches short range dazzlers to blind the incoming missiles to force them to go to local control which will make the pod-drone more effective in spoofing them.

Weird Harold wrote:It seems to me that an OBS era canister wouldn't need much of a motor/capacitor stack, just enough to clear the wedge before launching the CMs. Textev does say three CMs for DD sized canister up to five CMs for capital missile tubes, so they likely aren't double stacked ('cause that would result in even numbers of CMs.

Why would it need any propulsion? The grav driver throws it out of the tube at some number of km/sec. You could either use a reaction booster on each CM to separate them or spin it up and separate them that way.

SharkHunter wrote:If I'm reading your original post right, you're referring to the Elric battle sequence where the Medusa podnaughts dumped out enough pods to seemingly account for the extra ghost rider drones pretending to be ships. The fire control was still with the SD(p)s etc., however.

The Loreleis are a likely variant on this because they can operate independently from their parent ships. If I'm reading between the lines, what would make sense is for the Lorelies to also be able to tow pods as well, perhaps donkey style. But there's no reason to cut the missile count in that case.

The main problem I see with the approach is that ships manuever more than the decoys and drones, so there's a limit to the fakery available. So the usage would sort of have to be like a "launching minefields". Current tech wise, I suppose it would be like having a set of remotely aimable mortars on a ground battlefield to draw all of the enemy's attention elsewhere while your tanks and missile platforms get into prime position to hammer the enemy's divisions and armor flat, methinks.

Thoughts?

I am referring to the Elric battle but not the MDM pods that were deployed. I was referring to the drones the ships' tubes were launching which were Ghostrider drone missiles.

I am also aware that ships maneuver and drone missiles don't have the endurance to keep up indefinitely which is why I am proposing to put the missile based drone capability into a pod. A pod that has a fusion generator big enough to power up 10 MDMs would most likely be enough to provide the drone-pod a hell of a longer endurance than a missile based fusion reactor.

As for giving Lorelie platforms the capability to tow drones, that's making these platforms bigger, equipping them with more equipment making them more expensive, when their main job is to be the sacrificial target so missiles won't hit the real ships.

The GA's pod production capability is already a mature industry. Even if Manticore and Grayson lost their facilities, I'm sure it is at the top of the priority list of things to build immediately.
It would be easy to
1) put in non-MDM Dazzlers instead of MDMs,
2) chuck in a ghostrider drone and 'relocate' its drive system into the pod
3) add additional fusion reactor fuel to give the pod more endurance.
and now you have better drones that can be deployed by any ship, even ones that are not big enough to deploy Lorelie platforms.

As an added factor, you don't need to refit the ships that are going to use these defensive pods.

Weird Harold wrote:

MaxxQ wrote:What I can tell you is that, at best, you can only fit three, MAYBE four CMs in a Mk-23-sized tube (SD tube) cannister, six if you have a longer cannister and fit three fore and three aft. ...

It seems to me that an OBS era canister wouldn't need much of a motor/capacitor stack, just enough to clear the wedge before launching the CMs. Textev does say three CMs for DD sized canister up to five CMs for capital missile tubes, so they likely aren't double stacked ('cause that would result in even numbers of CMs.

SharkHunter wrote:The Loreleis are a likely variant on this because they can operate independently from their parent ships. If I'm reading between the lines, what would make sense is for the Lorelies to also be able to tow pods as well, ...

Lorelei decoys launch from Mk-23 tubes. There is no obvious mechanism for them to pick up pods and probably not enough size to fit a tractor as well as the decoy ECM. I'd be very, very surprised if Lorelei decoys could tow anything.

I just went though all the ebooks and I only found four that refer to canisters to launch CMs.
SoS mentions RMN canisters.
AAC says RHN BCs were refit with extra CM launchers and also threw out CM canisters when operating in the fleet anti-missile roll.
MoH and ToF both talk about how 2 tubes firing CM canisters is part of the SLN's Aegis anti-missile improvement bodge.
None of them talk about numbers of CMs per canister.

Only place I can find that mentioned is in an archived RFC post from way back in 1998 (http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/160/0) where RFC says he "assume" a 5 CM canister from a bigger unit. That was a long time before the great resizing and hardly sounds like something he'd worked through in much detail. So I suspect there's no reason for him to stick to that old assumption...

Also I did a double check on Lorelei. I believe ART is the only place they're mentioned; and I can't see anything there that says they're tube launched. It talks about then being the "latest addition to the Ghost Rider stable" and that it "used the same onboard fusion technology the RMN had developed for Ghost Rider, the Mark 23, and the Mark 16". But Gost Rider recon drones use that same technology and they're deployed from the boat bay. I suspect that unlike the fusion powered decoys used at Elric (which it explicitly said were tube launched) that Lorelie is bigger and must be deployed from a boat bay...

kzt wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:It seems to me that an OBS era canister wouldn't need much of a motor/capacitor stack, just enough to clear the wedge before launching the CMs. Textev does say three CMs for DD sized canister up to five CMs for capital missile tubes, so they likely aren't double stacked ('cause that would result in even numbers of CMs.

Why would it need any propulsion? The grav driver throws it out of the tube at some number of km/sec. You could either use a reaction booster on each CM to separate them or spin it up and separate them that way.

Correct. The cannisters we worked on had no propulsion at all, not even RCS. They're simply containers carrying multiple CMs that fit into attack missile launch tubes.

Edit: Basically, the cannister is launched, and once it clears the wedge, it opens and the CMs take off, probably somewhat staggered, to prevent wedge fratricide.

In addition, David's arguments against powered pods don't hold true for these defensive pods.

From http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/176/1
"You could make them substantially larger, in which case -- depending on the upper size limit you were prepared to accept -- you could probably even also fit the current missile loads into one of them. But what you would have when you got done would be something which would be extraordinarily difficult to conceal from the enemy, would be extraordinarily easy for an enemy to kill, and would (in my view) be of limited tactical utility."

These pods aren't supposed to be hiding from the enemy, they're actually built to be 'seen' by the enemy. These pods are supposed to be taunting the enemy to use missiles on them.