Future Point Defense Options

stewart wrote:FTL CM / FTL CM Control is applicable for an extended / long range CM

similar to the 1960's USN Tartar SAM and later 1990's SM1/2 ER

Not a bad idea, in fact follows a logical development progression.

To fit in the FTL receiver may raise the ER CM (for lack of a better name) to the size for a Shrike B / Ferret launcher. The Ferrets have more magazine capacity.

Propose --
ER CM Ferrets on outer defense ring
Katana's on second layer
Shrike B's on 3rd layer using Graser for second shots thru after aspect

Close Defense
Katanas in outer layer
DD/CL and ships CM / PDLC

-- Stewart

Something to put the Ferret and Shrike missile tubes to work in fleet missile defense would certainly be welcome.

Other than the FTL fire control CM's, how about rotating guidance from the launching ship for CM's, or having several CM's take their cues from a single CM in the same launch - methods that have been used for more control of ship-killers? Effectiveness would be degraded, of course, if you were using that all the way to the end, and you would risk losing many CM's in something happened to the "file leader" one in the second method. But you would be handing them off to their own final guidance when they approach intercepts anyway, and not much happens to CM's that would pick off particular ones: they get lost to EW or fulfilling their suicidal function.

Weird Harold wrote:

captinjoehenry wrote:I am not actually talking about being able to launch more than one launch or extending the range what i am talking about is making the CM more independent of shipboard fire control to allow the use of all of the CM tubes currently mounted on ships which they cannot use because they lack the fire control to be able to handle all of the launchers they are equipped with.

Wrong!

No RMN ship has more launchers than it can control. The problem is cycle times have gotten so fast that the fourth launch is ready to go before the first launch is done with the control links.

Making CMs fire-and-forget would make more launches possible; the problem is making the fire-and-forget with sufficient accuracy to be able to do without ship-board computer support. The latter is where the problem is going to be.

According to this post in pearls of weber ships mount 1.25 - 1.5 times as many CM tubes as they can control http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/162/1

captinjoehenry wrote:According to this post in pearls of weber ships mount 1.25 - 1.5 times as many CM tubes as they can control http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/162/1

It should be noted that this infodump came out before Keyhole II was introduced in the books. The infodump was just after War of Honor came out, introducing Keyhole I. I don't know whether Keyhole II changes the CM control situation.

Weird Harold wrote:

Theemile wrote:At Solon, the RMN ships could launch 11 salvos of cms to deal with a Havenite salvo, but could only control 8 of the cm salvos.

I bow to superior textev chops.

The point remains that RMN SD(P)s (and all other RMN ships) can control every launcher they posses for multiple salvos but can't control as many missiles as they can put into space at one time, thanks to improved cycle times.

Actually that got me thinking about whether it was the improved cycle times, or the Mk31's extended flight time (extra 15 seconds), that unbalanced the control link to CM ratio.

So I changed up my spreadsheet and reran the numbers with the 60 second, Mk30, CMs the Invictus-class SD(P) had as recently as Sidemore.


But you were right, it's the cycle time.
Even launching closer the Mk30 CMs could have had 8 salvos in the 'air' simultaneously; and 9 total -- if they could have controlled them all.

Using the same calculation of a limit of controlling 6 simultaneously, the Mk30s look to get 7 total CM salvos (compared to the 8 the Mk31s can do). [There's technically time for an 8th launch 8/10ths of a second before impact, but it's very questionable whether it could reach the MDM before the laserhead detonated]

Jonathan_S wrote:[
Actually that got me thinking whether it was the improved cycle time, or the Mk31's extended flight (extra 15 seconds) time that unbalanced the control link to CM ratio.

So I changed up my spreadsheet and reran the numbers with the 60 second CM time the Invictus-class SD(P) had as recently as Sidemore.


But you were right, it's the cycle time.
Even launching closer the Mk30 CMs could have had 8 salvos in the 'air' simultaneously; and 9 total -- if they could have controlled them all.

Using the same calculation of a limit of controlling 6 simultaneously, the Mk30s look to get 7 total CM salvos (compared to the 8 the Mk31s can do). [There's technically time for an 8th launch 8/10ths of a second before impact, but it's very questionable whether it could reach the MDM before the laserhead detonated]

And this is why I am proposing putting as much fire control in the CM as possible so that the same amount of shop board fire control can manage more CM

captinjoehenry wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:[
Actually that got me thinking whether it was the improved cycle time, or the Mk31's extended flight (extra 15 seconds) time that unbalanced the control link to CM ratio.

So I changed up my spreadsheet and reran the numbers with the 60 second CM time the Invictus-class SD(P) had as recently as Sidemore.


But you were right, it's the cycle time.
Even launching closer the Mk30 CMs could have had 8 salvos in the 'air' simultaneously; and 9 total -- if they could have controlled them all.

Using the same calculation of a limit of controlling 6 simultaneously, the Mk30s look to get 7 total CM salvos (compared to the 8 the Mk31s can do). [There's technically time for an 8th launch 8/10ths of a second before impact, but it's very questionable whether it could reach the MDM before the laserhead detonated]

And this is why I am proposing putting as much fire control in the CM as possible so that the same amount of shop board fire control can manage more CM

Though seriously. Is there a reason why a "boom mode" warhead on a CM couldn't be designed to take out an attack missile by burning out the shipkiller's seekers/electronics, etc.? That seems much more likely to achieve with lower computational requirements than guiding a CM to a wedge collision at multimillion kilometers in real time, above, below, or in the throat of the shipkiller's wedge? or does that wedge still provide enough particle shielding to stop a boom burn from working?

SharkHunter wrote:Though seriously. Is there a reason why a "boom mode" warhead on a CM couldn't be designed to take out an attack missile by burning out the shipkiller's seekers/electronics, etc.? That seems much more likely to achieve with lower computational requirements than guiding a CM to a wedge collision at multimillion kilometers in real time, above, below, or in the throat of the shipkiller's wedge? or does that wedge still provide enough particle shielding to stop a boom burn from working?

That's basically the Ziska defense plan. As we saw in AAC, the Alliance had already figured out and implemented countermeasures.

SharkHunter wrote: Though seriously. Is there a reason why a "boom mode" warhead on a CM couldn't be designed to take out an attack missile by burning out the shipkiller's seekers/electronics, etc.? That seems much more likely to achieve with lower computational requirements than guiding a CM to a wedge collision at multimillion kilometers in real time, above, below, or in the throat of the shipkiller's wedge? or does that wedge still provide enough particle shielding to stop a boom burn from working?

I'm sure it would. If it didn't, people would be going for anti-sensor attacks with nukes against enemy ships, said missiles being aimed for the far side of either wedge. The target wouldn't be able to use a lick of point defense through the wedge, and it's a far wider target than the spaces between the wedge.

Guiding things in for a mere wedge to wedge collision can be a relative piece of cake. The wedges are vastly smaller than the attack range of any form of laser head, and still smaller than some EMP effects. But you don't have any worries about coming in at any dinky little angle.

Brings up another notion - Would the smaller, more powerful power systems becoming available permit similarly sized CM's with much larger wedges? If so, they may be able to manage the terminal intercept with less shepherding by the firing unit - on account of being able to accept a much messier interception - thus reducing the fire control burden on the firing ship and letting them fire off more CM's and at longer ranges.

About mounting a nuclear warhead on the CM look at the triple ripple that the haven LAC used I would imagine that it would work the fir at couple times you use it but after that the attack missiles could maneuver to avoid the nukes which would render them useless.

Another possibility is to mount another Keyhole platform on to a SD(P) which is dedicated to CM fire control. Now I know that Keyhole platforms are quite large but this is a SD(P) we are talking about and even if it adds another weak spot to the armor I would think that the ability to control even more CM would more than make up for that. Sadly this is not something that could easily be fitted to already built ships but for new ships that should provide a nice boost to its ability to defend itself.

captinjoehenry wrote:Another possibility is to mount another Keyhole platform on to a SD(P) which is dedicated to CM fire control. Now I know that Keyhole platforms are quite large but this is a SD(P) we are talking about and even if it adds another weak spot to the armor I would think that the ability to control even more CM would more than make up for that. Sadly this is not something that could easily be fitted to already built ships but for new ships that should provide a nice boost to its ability to defend itself.

Keyholes already manage countermissile fire. It was one of the major defining features of KH1.