Missile Systems Questions

I have been reading all of the Honorverse books and have some questions about Manti missiles and technology.

I know that Nike, Saganami-C, Roland, Agamemnon carry Mk. 16
SD(P) carry Mk. 23
Avalon carry Mk.36

What do the older SDs carry, and the Reliant/Homer BCs carry?
What about the older CAs, CLs and DDs- I think I read that Saganami-B carry Mk 14, and Wolfhounds Mk. 36.

I saw that Nike carries pods attached to her hull- would they also be pods with Mk 16?

Does Apollo control missiles and ECM and Jammers work with Mk 16 or only Mk 23?

Varangian wrote:I have been reading all of the Honorverse books and have some questions about Manti missiles and technology.

I know that Nike, Saganami-C, Roland, Agamemnon carry Mk. 16
SD(P) carry Mk. 23
Avalon carry Mk.36

What do the older SDs carry, and the Reliant/Homer BCs carry?
What about the older CAs, CLs and DDs- I think I read that Saganami-B carry Mk 14, and Wolfhounds Mk. 36.

I saw that Nike carries pods attached to her hull- would they also be pods with Mk 16?

Does Apollo control missiles and ECM and Jammers work with Mk 16 or only Mk 23?

Hello Varangian, welcome to the forum.

Pods are usually of Mk23, because if you're going to carry something externally, it doesn't matter if you can fire that from tubes or not. So you may as well carry the best missiles you have. That's what we're told TG 47.3 carried on their CAs during the Battle of the Ajay-Prime Warp Bridge, even though Commodore Lessem decided not to use those missiles because he didn't feel the need to "waste" them on Solarian BCs that were outside the hyperlimit.

I don't remember if the original Mk23 (not the E or F control missiles) can be fired from older SD tubes. I'd expect that the RMN would design them as such, because at the conclusion of the First War, they had far more SDs than SD(P)s and they needed to rely on those. During the Battle of Manticore, we might have seen them because Home Fleet did have a large complement of non-pod SDs, but I don't think any ships fired more than their external pods before dying.

Given that the Saganami-A and B cannot fire Mk16, I think it's safe to assume that neither can older Homer and Reliant-class BCs. We're told in "An Introduction to Modern Starship Armor Design" that the Mk13 (a.k.a. "Tester's cutting torch") was a CA/BC missile, so I expect that they had similar tubes. It's possible that the BCs were refit with bigger tubes because they had the room to spare, unlike the CAs... but that's also unlikely because this refit would have had to happen at the same time as new construction was going on for the Python Lump, after the resumption of hostilities.

So I expect BCs like HMS Hancock Station (BC-413, formerly HMS Nike) were only equipped with Mk14 ERMs. And you can see how that would put a crimp on the RMN flexibility against the SLN, since it only had about a dozen Nike-class BCs before the stations were destroyed during the Yawata Strike. Most of the operations against the SLN, in particular the Case Lacoöns, were carried out with CAs (not that they needed much more, but still).

Varangian wrote:I have been reading all of the Honorverse books and have some questions about Manti missiles and technology.

I know that Nike, Saganami-C, Roland, Agamemnon carry Mk. 16
SD(P) carry Mk. 23
Avalon carry Mk.36

What do the older SDs carry, and the Reliant/Homer BCs carry?
What about the older CAs, CLs and DDs- I think I read that Saganami-B carry Mk 14, and Wolfhounds Mk. 36.

I saw that Nike carries pods attached to her hull- would they also be pods with Mk 16?

Does Apollo control missiles and ECM and Jammers work with Mk 16 or only Mk 23?

Hi Varangian, welcome to the forum - help yourself to a virtual draft on us.

SDs. The original RMN Laserhead missile was the Mk 19 massing ~130 tons - by the time Honor Among Enemies came out, it was the mk 27/28 massing ~120 tons. The first MDM missile was the Mk 41 capacitor drive missile, and the latest is the Mk 23 fusion drive MDM series.

Heavy and Battle cruisers use the same missile - so early Reliants and Homers used the same Mk 13 missile as the Star Knights did. The Latter Reliants (flight 3/4) probably used the same mk 14/15 ERM that the Saganami Bs used.

Other than the small mk 50 missile found in the old Nobelese Destroyer and the Courageous class CL (The original Fearless), all the legacy light units used the Mk 34 DD/CL class missile. until the Avalon/Wolfhound classes came out in 1919, which use the mk 36 Light Extended range missile (LERM).

There is a pod that fires mk 16s, it is the standard pod for the Agamemanon BC(p)s (it fires 14, not 12 missiles, in the same sized flatpack pod as the mk 23). The Nike/Sag-Cs CAN fire it, but the Apollo pod is so much more effective (plus it is a firecontrol multiplier.)

Currently, the ACM (Apollo Control Missile) is only paired with the Mk-23D Capital missile, but there is no "Technical" reason it could not work with the Mk16. In fact, a Mk 16 Apollo variant is often discussed here. However, the Mk 23 is so much more flexible with it's 3 stages, a pod launched Mk16 variant doesn't really make sense, since Apollo is best used for extended range combat. It would make sense for a discussed tube launched ACM variant - but we don't know if that is even possible, and would heavily chew into a Sag-C's or Nike's Broadside.

Varangian wrote:I have been reading all of the Honorverse books and have some questions about Manti missiles and technology.

I know that Nike, Saganami-C, Roland, Agamemnon carry Mk. 16
SD(P) carry Mk. 23
Avalon carry Mk.36

What do the older SDs carry, and the Reliant/Homer BCs carry?
What about the older CAs, CLs and DDs- I think I read that Saganami-B carry Mk 14, and Wolfhounds Mk. 36.

I saw that Nike carries pods attached to her hull- would they also be pods with Mk 16?

Does Apollo control missiles and ECM and Jammers work with Mk 16 or only Mk 23?

Working backwards - You could probably modify the Mk23E Apollo control missile to handle Mk16 missiles -- but it likely doesn't do so "out of the box". It also isn't known whether the Mk23's that each Mk23E controls are "stock" or if they require any modification to work with the 23E.
I see no good no reason to do so however because, to date, it is only fired from a pod containing the 23E and its brood of normal Mk23s. Using Mk16s in place of those Mk23s would be a significant reduction in missile effectiveness -- they've got a lower terminal velocity, take longer to reach the target, are therefore easier to defend against, and carry a lighter warhead -- it'd almost be a waste of a Mk23E to use it on a brood of Mk16s.

When a Nike tows, or 'straps on', pods they might be either Mk16s, Mk23s, or even Apollo pods -- it would depend on the circumstances. (Though the Nike would have to use only light-speed fire control links to the Apollo control missiles)



We don't necessarily know all the missile marks that each ship carried - House of Steel is our main reference source for newer designs and it doesn't routinely include that information. The older novels also do not normally bother to list marks for hte missiles being fired. However there are some old reference books, covering some older ship classes, which David Weber approved. These are related to the Saganami Island Tactical Simulator tabletop wargame; and those have some details for those older (pre-war) ship classes. Those books are the 2 'Jayne's Intelligence Review' and the collection of 'Saganami Island Tactical Simulator Ship Books' (aka SITS)

Historically (aka until ERMs, DDMs, and MDMs came about) the RMN, and most navies, split missiles up into a few categories (from lightest to heaviest):
* LACs having their own missiles
* Destroyers and Light Cruisers sharing a common missile
* Heavy Cruisers and Battlecruisers sharing another common missile
* Capital Ships (Battleships, Dreadnoughts, and Super Dreadnoughts) sharing their own common capital missile
* Ground launchers and other fixed defenses sometimes having their own even more powerful, oversized, missiles.
(Though older ship classes sometimes can't carry the latest missiles; at least not without significant refit to rip out their original missile tubes and feed systems and install larger more modern ones)


The modern micro-fusion powered multi drive missile (MDM) is the 3-drive Mk23; and is carried in the pods of, AFAIK, all RMN and GSN SD(P)s. Additionally a few Gryphon-class SD's are known to have been (massively) refit to carry it. I assume, but do not know for sure, that the missile tubes of the GSN's Harrington II SD(P)s were designed for Mk23s. (The newer builds of Hydra and Covington class CLACs have presumably also been built with Mk23 tubes)

Manticore was at least looking into a larger, 4-drive, system defense variant of the Mk23 and the Apollo control missile (which was termed the Mk23F) but it's not clear if this ever entered service.

One older capacitor powered MDM is the (3-drive) Mk41 - though we don't know if there were any others (we know improvements were made to it during the final months of the first war -- we just don't know if those improvements were considered new marks of missiles or simply updates to the Mk41).
Capacitor powered MDMs were originally carried in the pods of all 1st gen RMN and GSN SD(P)s, as well as launched from the missile tubes of the Medusa and Harrington-classes of SD(P)s, the Minotaur, Hydra, and Covington-classes of CLACs. It is possible, but not entirely confirmed, that some SDs and/or DNs went through the major refit necessary to fire these.

The GSN often equips their Courvosier II-class BC(P)s with pods of full-up MDMs -- depending on the era those would presumably be either be Mk41s or Mk23s; though there's no reason it couldn't be loaded with Apollo pods (again restricted to light-speed fire control links). The RMN's doctrine is to only use Mk16 pods in their BC(P)s.


The Mk16 is, of course, the heavy cruiser and battlecruiser weight micro-fusion powered dual drive missile (DDM), carried in the pods of the aforementioned BC(P)s, as well as the tubes of the Nike, Courvosier II, Saganami-C, and Roland class ships.

The Mk14 is the heavy cruiser (and theoretically BC; though no BC classes were designed to carry it) weight extended range missile (ERM), a single-drive (capacitor-powered) missile capable of operating for more than the normal 180 seconds at half-power/60 seconds at full power. (Exact drive endurance on it isn't stated but ERMs are normally at least 225/75 second endurance; 25% more than normal missiles) and it is carried by the Saganami-B cruiser as well as seemingly some of the later Saganami-A cruisers. (The GSN didn't build any CAs that carried it)

The Mk36 is the destroyer and light cruiser counterpart to the Mk14, it is also an extended range missile but due to being a lighter missile for smaller ships is called the Lightweight Extended Range Missile (LERM). It is carried by the Wolfhound-class destroyers and the Avalon-class light cruiers.

The Mk13 is the final pre-war heavy cruiser and battlecruiser missile (single drive missile, aka SDM) carried by Star Knight-class CAs (like the 2nd Fearless) as well as other RMN (and later GSN) CAs and BCs. It was the first multi-mode CA/BC missile the RMN fielded; with a warhead able to be set to "boom" (contact nuke), "burn" (directed nuke; for burning out sidewalls), or "lase" (laser head) modes -- older missiles you had to physically swap out their warhead to switch from contact nuke to laser head.

Other missiles and the classes that carried them that we know from Jaynes and SITS:
Mk26 - Highlander-class LAC
Mk50 - Courageous-class CL
Mk34 - Falcon, Havoc, Chanson, & Culverin-class DDs; Illustrious & Apollo-class CLs
Mk13 - Warrior, Broadsword, Crusader, Prince Consort, & Star Knight-class CAs; Redoubtable, Homer, & Reliant-class BCs
Mk19 - Majestic-class DN; King William-class SD

Note that while this is the missile each carried around the start of the war, we know at least the Mk13 was a pretty recent design and many of those CAs and BCs significantly pre-date it. They originally would have carried some older mark (or marks) of missiles. It is unknown whether or not they any of these ships had to be refit for larger tubes to carry the newer missiles -- but we know the Courageous-class did not have tubes large enough to carry the newer Mk34 missile (which appears to be the multi-mode DD/CL counterpart to the Mk13).

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Varangian wrote:I have been reading all of the Honorverse books and have some questions about Manti missiles and technology.

I know that Nike, Saganami-C, Roland, Agamemnon carry Mk. 16
SD(P) carry Mk. 23
Avalon carry Mk.36

What do the older SDs carry, and the Reliant/Homer BCs carry?
What about the older CAs, CLs and DDs- I think I read that Saganami-B carry Mk 14, and Wolfhounds Mk. 36.

I saw that Nike carries pods attached to her hull- would they also be pods with Mk 16?

Does Apollo control missiles and ECM and Jammers work with Mk 16 or only Mk 23?

Hello Varangian, welcome to the forum.

Pods are usually of Mk23, because if you're going to carry something externally, it doesn't matter if you can fire that from tubes or not. So you may as well carry the best missiles you have. That's what we're told TG 47.3 carried on their CAs during the Battle of the Ajay-Prime Warp Bridge, even though Commodore Lessem decided not to use those missiles because he didn't feel the need to "waste" them on Solarian BCs that were outside the hyperlimit.

I don't remember if the original Mk23 (not the E or F control missiles) can be fired from older SD tubes. I'd expect that the RMN would design them as such, because at the conclusion of the First War, they had far more SDs than SD(P)s and they needed to rely on those. During the Battle of Manticore, we might have seen them because Home Fleet did have a large complement of non-pod SDs, but I don't think any ships fired more than their external pods before dying.

Given that the Saganami-A and B cannot fire Mk16, I think it's safe to assume that neither can older Homer and Reliant-class BCs. We're told in "An Introduction to Modern Starship Armor Design" that the Mk13 (a.k.a. "Tester's cutting torch") was a CA/BC missile, so I expect that they had similar tubes. It's possible that the BCs were refit with bigger tubes because they had the room to spare, unlike the CAs... but that's also unlikely because this refit would have had to happen at the same time as new construction was going on for the Python Lump, after the resumption of hostilities.

So I expect BCs like HMS Hancock Station (BC-413, formerly HMS Nike) were only equipped with Mk14 ERMs. And you can see how that would put a crimp on the RMN flexibility against the SLN, since it only had about a dozen Nike-class BCs before the stations were destroyed during the Yawata Strike. Most of the operations against the SLN, in particular the Case Lacoöns, were carried out with CAs (not that they needed much more, but still).

HMS Hancock Station BC-413 was a flight 2 (actually, the first flight 2) Reliant - it only fired the Mk 13. Every Reliant built during the 1st war was a 2nd Flight Reliant, and Flight 3 was between war construction, and Flight 4 was built in the Emergency construction Traunche at the beginning of the 2nd war. HoS calls out Flight 3/4s separately, and it is believed that they carry the Mk 14/15. (because why would you build New BCs that are inferior to the CA you are building in the next slip, and the build times correspond to known Mk 14/15 ship construction perfectly) - but this is never specified directly.

Thanks all for making me feel welcome and answering my question.

I understand now, things are much clearer.
One question remains.

Ships equipped with anything other than Mk.23, are they capable of utilizing Apollo? Maybe I am confused, but I took away from reading that Apollo and the jammers, ECW missiles were part of pods mixed in with 'regular' missiles. Nike BC and Saganami-C CAs, I thought when I read accounts of them in combat vs Sollies in the Talbott Quadrant that they used Apollo. So where did it come from- external pods or can it be fired from an internal missile launcher?

Varangian wrote:Thanks all for making me feel welcome and answering my question.

I understand now, things are much clearer.
One question remains.

Ships equipped with anything other than Mk.23, are they capable of utilizing Apollo? Maybe I am confused, but I took away from reading that Apollo and the jammers, ECW missiles were part of pods mixed in with 'regular' missiles. Nike BC and Saganami-C CAs, I thought when I read accounts of them in combat vs Sollies in the Talbott Quadrant that they used Apollo. So where did it come from- external pods or can it be fired from an internal missile launcher?

Only ships equipped with Keyhole 2 modules can use FTL firecontrol, and use the full capability of the Apollo system. Fortunately, Apollo also has standard FTL firecontrol links, so any non-Keyhole 2 ship can communicate with Apollo Command Missiles, you just don't get the FTL com speeds, but you still get the 8:1 multiplier and the ACM AI doing pre-processing. it's not best, but still MUCH better than normal ship control.

In addition Apollo can be "Blind fired" - as in just telling the pod "there's your target, go get it" and leaving it be. The ACM's will mesh with other ACMs in flight and use all the missile sensors to get an accurate picture of the targets and attack them. The AIs are good enough that even on their own, they are more accurate than old single drive missiles under ship control.

ECM missiles are carried in the ship magazines and are pre-loaded in Pods. In Pods, there are a couple loadouts available with selections of dragons teeth or dazzlers (like 7 attack and 1 Dazzler or 6 attack and 1 dazzler and 1 Dragons teeth, etc). And Captains can determine what loadouts they want to carry in advance, and priortize pods loads for each salvo.

For tube launched, the ECM load can be determined 2-3 salvos in advance, to adapt to the target conditions.

Grayson Pod designs differ from RMN designs as they still carry broadside tubes - this allows them to have a standardized pod load, and use the tubes to alter the ECM density in each salvo.

Theemile wrote:ECM missiles are carried in the ship magazines and are pre-loaded in Pods. In Pods, there are a couple loadouts available with selections of dragons teeth or dazzlers (like 7 attack and 1 Dazzler or 6 attack and 1 dazzler and 1 Dragons teeth, etc). And Captains can determine what loadouts they want to carry in advance, and priortize pods loads for each salvo.

For tube launched, the ECM load can be determined 2-3 salvos in advance, to adapt to the target conditions.

Grayson Pod designs differ from RMN designs as they still carry broadside tubes - this allows them to have a standardized pod load, and use the tubes to alter the ECM density in each salvo.

Though I'm not sure how that flexibility works with Apollo pods. We don't know if Apollo control missiles have any extra control slots - or if they were designed to control exactly the 8 other missiles that can fit in a pod with them.

So when the GSN launched supplementary jammer or decoy missiles to support an Apollo pod salvo launch I don't know if the Mk23Es can 'adopt' those spares to fully integrate them into the strike. I see three possible situations:
1) The Mk23E does have 1 or 2 extra control slots and with careful coordination can pick up control of extra ship-launched missile.
2) The Mk23E has exactly 8 control slots but can, with careful coordination, orphan some normal laser-head attack missiles to take control of replacement ship-launched jammer or decoy missiles
3) The Mk23E cannot switch which missiles it controls and any additional jammer or decoy missiles cannot be fully integrated into the Apollo swarm


Also, as an aside for our new member Varangian, to date no ship is equipped with a missile tube large enough to launch a Mk23E Apollo control missile -- they are only able to be launched from pods. (That's why it may be harder to integrate the GSN's extra ship-launched missiles; they can't ship-launch an extra Mk23E to control them)

Jonathan_S wrote:Though I'm not sure how that flexibility works with Apollo pods. We don't know if Apollo control missiles have any extra control slots - or if they were designed to control exactly the 8 other missiles that can fit in a pod with them.

So when the GSN launched supplementary jammer or decoy missiles to support an Apollo pod salvo launch I don't know if the Mk23Es can 'adopt' those spares to fully integrate them into the strike. I see three possible situations:
1) The Mk23E does have 1 or 2 extra control slots and with careful coordination can pick up control of extra ship-launched missile.
2) The Mk23E has exactly 8 control slots but can, with careful coordination, orphan some normal laser-head attack missiles to take control of replacement ship-launched jammer or decoy missiles
3) The Mk23E cannot switch which missiles it controls and any additional jammer or decoy missiles cannot be fully integrated into the Apollo swarm


Also, as an aside for our new member Varangian, to date no ship is equipped with a missile tube large enough to launch a Mk23E Apollo control missile -- they are only able to be launched from pods. (That's why it may be harder to integrate the GSN's extra ship-launched missiles; they can't ship-launch an extra Mk23E to control them)

The GSN Tube ECM doctrine pre-dates Apollo. Agreeing with Jonathan - we've never "seen" an ACM adopt extra-pod missiles nor had the capability mentioned anywhere. Possible, yes, especially with ACM mesh networking, but never actually observed.

Theemile wrote:Only ships equipped with Keyhole 2 modules can use FTL firecontrol, and use the full capability of the Apollo system. Fortunately, Apollo also has standard FTL firecontrol links, so any non-Keyhole 2 ship can communicate with Apollo Command Missiles, you just don't get the FTL com speeds, but you still get the 8:1 multiplier and the ACM AI doing pre-processing. it's not best, but still MUCH better than normal ship control.

Also, after the latest Sonja & Shannon brainstorm that we've heard of, non-Keyhole II ships can use their regular FTL comms to communicate via a recon drone to the ACMs. Obviously, it's not the same quality and efficiency, otherwise KH2 wouldn't have been needed in the first place (FTL comms are not control links), but it does allow sending some limited control commands.