The roof and belly of a ship is naked... here's a fix.

munroburton wrote:The podlayer's rear chase armament is six missile pod tubes. That's the equivalent of a 60 missile broadside(more if those are MK16 pods or MK23s without apollo). The rear battery's maximum range is well above 60 million kilometres and is able to fire off-bore.

Yes, but for exactly that reason, keeping your aft aspects away from where stray missiles may penetrate your missile core is critical.

My point was more that a podlayer who is forced into energy range combat (I can't see any situation where a podnought would want to be in energy range, anyway) has a lot more pressing problems than a few missing chase weapons. Therefore, finding ways of increasing a podnoughts' viability as an energy range combatant is futile.

As for other types, well, you'd first have to show that these mounts are possible. Which you can't, because we do not have enough canon information to decide this. The only indicator we have for the viability of this tech is the simple fact that noone seems to be considering using it anywhere; That to me means that it's either outright impossible, or that the drawbacks of this approach are too high for it to be practical.

The E wrote:Umm, no. Not really. If you're in a situation where you are in a podlayer and need to use your aft chase batteries, the situation is probably sufficiently fucked that those additional weapons wouldn't help anyway.

munroburton wrote:The podlayer's rear chase armament is six missile pod tubes. That's the equivalent of a 60 missile broadside(more if those are MK16 pods or MK23s without apollo). The rear battery's maximum range is well above 60 million kilometres and is able to fire off-bore.
That means if the podnought's butt is threatened, it can simply turn away and continue to lay pods to deal with the threat.
Most COs make the effort to keep their throat/kilt away from the enemy, though this isn't as essential with bow/stern sidewalls and their buckler versions.

If that were the case, & you can just turn away or use missiles in close range, why have chase weapons at all – turn your broadside missies at them. As seen in HotQ BCs – much less SDs - don’t turn on a dime. And missiles aren’t used in close quarters. So if an enemy BC manages to swing in behind a pod-nought it is (as you say)

The E wrote:”sufficiently fucked”

especially without chase grazers.

The E wrote:If turret mounts are possible, and have all the advantages you cite, why is noone using them? That's the big issue with this and similar "simple, common sense" proposals that pop up here ever so often; they never try to account for the reasons why noone in-universe has tried to make them work already, they always assume that the rules do allow it and it's just the author's insistence on specific modes of combat that is holding it back (which is a quite nonsensical mixture of in-universe and meta reasoning).

For the same reason no one bothered to put “sidewalls” on the bow and stern…until someone did. When the Monitor was first proposed to the navy, John Ericsson was told to “take it home and worship it, it won’t be idol worship because that doesn’t resemble anything in heaven or earth”. In other words the Idea of an Iron ship with TURRETS was rejected outright. Why? Because it’s not “how we do things”. That mentality is the greatest impediment to progress and development. As I say it would be a great (perhaps later) design development for the Honorverse.

If that were the case, & you can just turn away or use missiles in close range, why have chase weapons at all – turn your broadside missies at them. As seen in HotQ BCs – much less SDs - don’t turn on a dime. And missiles aren’t used in close quarters. So if an enemy BC manages to swing in behind a pod-nought it is (as you say)

It doesn't take much of a course change to get a sidewall interposed. The channel created by the sidewalls to either side is fairly narrow.

especially without chase grazers.

Dunno what you folks are talking about, all the SD(P)s have chase energy weapons.

For the same reason no one bothered to put “sidewalls” on the bow and stern…until someone did. When the Monitor was first proposed to the navy, John Ericsson was told to “take it home and worship it, it won’t be idol worship because that doesn’t resemble anything in heaven or earth”. In other words the Idea of an Iron ship with TURRETS was rejected outright. Why? Because it’s not “how we do things”. That mentality is the greatest impediment to progress and development. As I say it would be a great (perhaps later) design development for the Honorverse.

MaxxQ has been explaining why. You just refuse to accept it.

MAD-4A wrote:If that were the case, & you can just turn away or use missiles in close range, why have chase weapons at all – turn your broadside missies at them. As seen in HotQ BCs – much less SDs - don’t turn on a dime. And missiles aren’t used in close quarters. So if an enemy BC manages to swing in behind a pod-nought it is (as you say)

The E wrote:”sufficiently fucked”

especially without chase grazers.

If an enemy combatant gets inside energy range of your podnought, the situation is already dire. There is no way that is going to happen unless several other parts of the situation have already gone to hell. I mean, what's the scenario here? How is this going to work? How is any ship going to be able to get into energy range of a podnought wall without being engaged?

For the same reason no one bothered to put “sidewalls” on the bow and stern…until someone did.

Uhhh, I think you're misremembering something here. As mentioned in EoH, it was always possible to create bow and stern walls, it's just that noone had any reason to do so. It took the development of a weapons platform for which the drawbacks of a bow/sternwall were irrelevant to make it practical.

When the Monitor was first proposed to the navy, John Ericsson was told to “take it home and worship it, it won’t be idol worship because that doesn’t resemble anything in heaven or earth”. In other words the Idea of an Iron ship with TURRETS was rejected outright. Why? Because it’s not “how we do things”. That mentality is the greatest impediment to progress and development. As I say it would be a great (perhaps later) design development for the Honorverse.

Could you please not use faulty historical analogies? It's not about "this isn't how things are done", it's about your unsupported assumption that things can be done that way.

All I know is that the people who are actually involved in defining what the technological canon for the Honorverse is are saying that a turreted energy mount is impractical. In a debate between them on one side, and people like you and Skimper on the other, guess which side I'll choose?

MAD-4A wrote:I believe that went out the airlock with “Aircraft Carriers” so as I said, maybe your arguments are why they aren’t used but the lack of aft chase position on pod carriers creates a “need” to rethink and develop the tech.

Except that podnauts do have aft chase energy mounts.
From "House of Steel":
Medusa-class pod superdreadnought
Mass: 8,554,750 tons
Dimensions: 1383 × 201 × 187 m
Acceleration: 502.8 G (4.931 kps²)
80% Accel: 402.3 G (3.945 kps²)
Broadside: 26M, 13L, 15G, 54CM, 52PD
Fore: 9M, 4L, 5G, 18CM, 22PD
Aft: 6MP, 4L, 5G, 14CM, 20PD
Missile Pods: 492
Number Built: 63
Service Life: 1914–present

Invictus-class pod superdreadnought
Mass: 8,768,500 tons
Dimensions: 1394 × 202 × 188 m
Acceleration: 562.6 G (5.518 kps²)
80% Accel: 450.1 G (4.414 kps²)
Broadside: 18G, 84CM, 62PD
Fore: 10G, 24CM, 22PD
Aft: 6MP, 10G, 14CM, 24PD
Missile Pods: 1074
Number Built: 53+
Service Life: 1919–present

Grashtel wrote:

MAD-4A wrote:I believe that went out the airlock with “Aircraft Carriers” so as I said, maybe your arguments are why they aren’t used but the lack of aft chase position on pod carriers creates a “need” to rethink and develop the tech.

Except that podnauts do have aft chase energy mounts.
From "House of Steel":[snip]

Even the RMN Agamemnon class BC(P) has Aft: 4MP, 4G, 12PD, which is twice as many chase energy mounts than the (admittedly smaller) Reliant-class BC that preceded it.

The only podlaying warship I see that totally lacks aft energy mounts is the Grayson Courvosier II BC(P) which has Aft: 4MP, 4CM, 12PD. Clearly their BuShips decided more CMs were a better tradeoff than rarely used energy mounts. But that appears to be a unique decision.

(Thought it's possible that there could be Havenite podlayers without chase energy mounts; we don't have any real details on their classes.)

Just throwing an idea here.

Granted that there are already a lot of hardware/sensors on top/bottom sides of warships' hulls, the fact that the IAN found places where (half) pods can be attached to augment the size of their smaller ships' missile salvos should point out that there are areas that can be used for a similar purpose in other ships. My suggestion though would be to incorporate a mechanism that 'extrudes' flat packs on some usable areas in the top/bottom hull (same idea as podnoughts hammerhead missile pack release system except that the half packs wont be jettisoned before firing).

Even if you can only find 4 spots on top and bottom sides (total of 8, 4 pointing to port and 4 on starboard), that would be 40 missiles per salvo per side(if you use flatpacks with 10 missiles each).

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I have this really weird issue about podnoughts having only a hatche on the aft hammerhead to release missile pods. That's a point of failure IMHO. One hit on that hatch and all the immense firepower is put on hold until the hatche are repaired. I don't see any reason why they don't put hatches on the top/bottom side and just move the missile packs out of the wedge using tractor beams.

Rakhmamort wrote:Just throwing an idea here.

Granted that there are already a lot of hardware/sensors on top/bottom sides of warships' hulls, the fact that the IAN found places where (half) pods can be attached to augment the size of their smaller ships' missile salvos should point out that there are areas that can be used for a similar purpose in other ships. My suggestion though would be to incorporate a mechanism that 'extrudes' flat packs on some usable areas in the top/bottom hull (same idea as podnoughts hammerhead missile pack release system except that the half packs wont be jettisoned before firing).

Even if you can only find 4 spots on top and bottom sides (total of 8, 4 pointing to port and 4 on starboard), that would be 40 missiles per salvo per side(if you use flatpacks with 10 missiles each).

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I have this really weird issue about podnoughts having only a hatche on the aft hammerhead to release missile pods. That's a point of failure IMHO. One hit on that hatch and all the immense firepower is put on hold until the hatche are repaired. I don't see any reason why they don't put hatches on the top/bottom side and just move the missile packs out of the wedge using tractor beams.

David's addressed that RMN Buships is not happy with the pod door's single mode failure design either and is trying to come up with a better solution for 4th Gen podnaughts. What that solution is though, has not been mentioned and is up for grabs.

Rakhmamort wrote:Just throwing an idea here.

Granted that there are already a lot of hardware/sensors on top/bottom sides of warships' hulls, the fact that the IAN found places where (half) pods can be attached to augment the size of their smaller ships' missile salvos should point out that there are areas that can be used for a similar purpose in other ships. My suggestion though would be to incorporate a mechanism that 'extrudes' flat packs on some usable areas in the top/bottom hull (same idea as podnoughts hammerhead missile pack release system except that the half packs wont be jettisoned before firing).

Even if you can only find 4 spots on top and bottom sides (total of 8, 4 pointing to port and 4 on starboard), that would be 40 missiles per salvo per side(if you use flatpacks with 10 missiles each).

---
I have this really weird issue about podnoughts having only a hatche on the aft hammerhead to release missile pods. That's a point of failure IMHO. One hit on that hatch and all the immense firepower is put on hold until the hatche are repaired. I don't see any reason why they don't put hatches on the top/bottom side and just move the missile packs out of the wedge using tractor beams.

Multiple hatches. I brought up the point once and was told the 'hatch' is segmented, rather than being two giant doors that slide out of the way.

Word of god is that improved pod deployment points may be on the way. Even if Haven immediately started building them, it'd be three years from start to finish, assuming they don't have snags in the building process.

munroburton wrote:
Multiple hatches. I brought up the point once and was told the 'hatch' is segmented, rather than being two giant doors that slide out of the way.

Word of god is that improved pod deployment points may be on the way. Even if Haven immediately started building them, it'd be three years from start to finish, assuming they don't have snags in the building process.

A lesson learned from the damage Wayfarer took in the Selker Rift, where one disabled pod bay door blocked three of the six launch rails. SD(P)s (at least RMN/GSN designs, though I'd be shocked if Shannon Foraker hadn't worked it out too) have six pod bay doors, each of which could only block a single rail.