Upcoming designs: regarding the Apollo ACM...

SharkHunter wrote:Looking at the ACM still, with Henke's "sim" tactic from Storm from the Shadows, and a smaller=than-Keyhole capable ship, even just using the lightspeed links for "control." and in circumstances where there's not time to get Ghost Rider RD's out there first.

For the sake of discussion, let's assume a mil-spec freighter with Mark-16's backing up a Sag C, for example. With each attack salvo, the Sag-C drops one Mark-23 pod, at an accel that gets it downrange long enough ahead of the 16's to send FTL updates back to the supporting ship until the very last "calculated to be useful" moment (when the Mark 16's can't be updated from the ships any more or the ACM's accompanying missile's enter attack range of the targets). Or perhaps they are already doing that? Or can the ACM even "see" it's targets before the last moments? aka is there a different "ACM" formation that would allow that usage outside of the sims?

My first question is whether, without a keyhole II, the supporting ship can even 'listen' to the FTL data stream coming back from the 23E...


(Also, while skimming SftS I did notice an interesting quote that might impact our larger speculations about teaming Apollo control missiles with other designs. "The Apollo itself is an almost entirely new design, but, as you can see, the only modifications the Mark 23 required were relatively minor and could be easily incorporated without any break in production schedules" [SftS: Ch 12])

--snipping--

Jonathan_S wrote:My first question is whether, without a keyhole II, the supporting ship can even 'listen' to the FTL data stream coming back from the 23E...

(Also, while skimming SftS I did notice an interesting quote that might impact our larger speculations about teaming Apollo control missiles with other designs. "The Apollo itself is an almost entirely new design, but, as you can see, the only modifications the Mark 23 required were relatively minor and could be easily incorporated without any break in production schedules" [SftS: Ch 12])

That's a likely an RFC/MWW or BuNine question, but I think so.

Elsewhere the text is that the origins of the ACM are Ghost-Rider related. My thought is that "a GR grav pulse is a grav pulse is a GR grav pulse is a...." because what Keyhole II did was get the eyes and ears of the missile outside of the "wedge interference" range of the supporting ship during the "gunsmoke" part of a battle when ships are maneuvering more, firing counter missiles, etc. Battle wise, my reading is that at Spindle the Sag-C's were getting the "take" from their launched missile storms, then updated "which attack profile variant" of "Agincourt" that the ACM's via light speed links that the Apollo missiles then passed on to their attack missiles.

That said and another interesting option just came to mind We know the Keyhole II's are too big to be directly deployed by smaller ships. What would stop the RMN from making a version that's launched from one BIG ship [a KH-II tender] to be used by another, i.e. distributing the platforms to be picked up by tethers/tractors of any ship in ANY formation that they are supporting? After a battle, any surviving platforms would be brought back in, serviced, etc.

Big hmmmm for me to think about. What think ye?

SharkHunter wrote:--snipping--

Jonathan_S wrote:My first question is whether, without a keyhole II, the supporting ship can even 'listen' to the FTL data stream coming back from the 23E...

(Also, while skimming SftS I did notice an interesting quote that might impact our larger speculations about teaming Apollo control missiles with other designs. "The Apollo itself is an almost entirely new design, but, as you can see, the only modifications the Mark 23 required were relatively minor and could be easily incorporated without any break in production schedules" [SftS: Ch 12])

That's a likely an RFC/MWW or BuNine question, but I think so.

Elsewhere the text is that the origins of the ACM are Ghost-Rider related. My thought is that "a GR grav pulse is a grav pulse is a GR grav pulse is a...." because what Keyhole II did was get the eyes and ears of the missile outside of the "wedge interference" range of the supporting ship during the "gunsmoke" part of a battle when ships are maneuvering more, firing counter missiles, etc. Battle wise, my reading is that at Spindle the Sag-C's were getting the "take" from their launched missile storms, then updated "which attack profile variant" of "Agincourt" that the ACM's via light speed links that the Apollo missiles then passed on to their attack missiles.

That said and another interesting option just came to mind We know the Keyhole II's are too big to be directly deployed by smaller ships. What would stop the RMN from making a version that's launched from one BIG ship [a KH-II tender] to be used by another, i.e. distributing the platforms to be picked up by tethers/tractors of any ship in ANY formation that they are supporting? After a battle, any surviving platforms would be brought back in, serviced, etc.

Big hmmmm for me to think about. What think ye?

Apparently Keyhole II requires enough additional ship-side computer support that when retrofit into existing SD(P)s they had to slightly shorten the pod bay to put a new computer room at the forward end.

I'm not sure what you'd need all that computer cubage for, (RFC likes big computers in the Honorverse) but if it holds true then a smaller ship isn't going to have the CPU to run a keyhole II even if it doesn't have to physically move it.
(Plus of course it would be missing the beamed power emitters to run it, and the dedicated very high bandwidth datalinks to tie the keyhole to the onboard computers)


Interesting idea but, until he writes in another tech breakthrough, RFC seems to have pretty thoroughly stacked the deck against sub-wallers having any FTL control of missiles.

If we assume that a Sag-C can read the FTL comm signals from a Mk-23E in the first place, it would only be possible if the Sag-C has its broadside toward the Mk-23E. If the Sag-C turns its wedge toward the enemy (as it normally would), the wedge will block the FTL signals. That's one of the reasons that the Keyhole is critical.

SWM wrote:If we assume that a Sag-C can read the FTL comm signals from a Mk-23E in the first place, it would only be possible if the Sag-C has its broadside toward the Mk-23E. If the Sag-C turns its wedge toward the enemy (as it normally would), the wedge will block the FTL signals. That's one of the reasons that the Keyhole is critical.

Wouldn't that block the signals from the Ghost Rider platforms as well?

Jonathan_S wrote:My first question is whether, without a keyhole II, the supporting ship can even 'listen' to the FTL data stream coming back from the 23E...


(Also, while skimming SftS I did notice an interesting quote that might impact our larger speculations about teaming Apollo control missiles with other designs. "The Apollo itself is an almost entirely new design, but, as you can see, the only modifications the Mark 23 required were relatively minor and could be easily incorporated without any break in production schedules" [SftS: Ch 12])

there are 2 questions here: can it "hear" the messages - and can a ship understand them in time?

Presumabedly, the reason the keyhole module is necessary for the FTL is the signal rate is so high (and output per pulse is so low) that the wedge interferes with the signal and the transmitter (and possibly receiver) need to be away from a wedge to pick up the transmission and not be drowned out by the wedge.

The need for the computers suggests that a fair amount of number crunching is necessary to use the Apollo systems - so without the extra computers, can you translate the signals, analyse the data, parse it, and have it usable in a given time? perhaps not.

JohnRoth wrote:

SWM wrote:If we assume that a Sag-C can read the FTL comm signals from a Mk-23E in the first place, it would only be possible if the Sag-C has its broadside toward the Mk-23E. If the Sag-C turns its wedge toward the enemy (as it normally would), the wedge will block the FTL signals. That's one of the reasons that the Keyhole is critical.

Wouldn't that block the signals from the Ghost Rider platforms as well?

I am sure it would. It does seem to pose a problem if you face an enemy with a similar range.

SWM wrote:If we assume that a Sag-C can read the FTL comm signals from a Mk-23E in the first place, it would only be possible if the Sag-C has its broadside toward the Mk-23E. If the Sag-C turns its wedge toward the enemy (as it normally would), the wedge will block the FTL signals. That's one of the reasons that the Keyhole is critical.

That's where my second speculation is coming into play: if the beamed power tethers can be made strong enough, then ANY RMN ship should be able to tow them, albeit with a degradation in their acceleration. That doesn't take into account the need for more computing capacity in the smaller ship, but if Rolands and Sag-C's have space for a flag officer, you'd think some of that capacity would be computing capacity. I've always figured that that the reason the smaller ship's "couldn't do it" was related to independent operations in their mission design.

What I'd surmise as my thoughts in this thread is that with FF commerce raiding about to go into effect, "independent operations" have to back-seat to the capability for cruisers to be long-range fire controllers, something that the Foraker / Hemphill ACM designer geeks would likely LOVE to improve upon.

Question is will RFC/MWW let them, I guess.

Yes, they could. That is why David added that absurd computer requirement. Consider what a thousand tons of computers 4-10 orders of magnitude more power than our existing computers can do. Incidentally, an entire rack (42U) of computers would occupy about 1/2 ton in the honorverse. So a thousand tons of honorverse computers is a data center with about 500 racks of computers (assuming you need some work space around them). IIRC, he said they needed 30,000 tons, so you are taking about 6000 racks of computers, which is about 12,000 square meters of deck, or a square room 360 feet on a side.

Of course, the solution now is to have a freighter haul around some of the miraculous Mycroft modules. which have the computers and fusion reactors all built in.

JohnRoth wrote:

SWM wrote:If we assume that a Sag-C can read the FTL comm signals from a Mk-23E in the first place, it would only be possible if the Sag-C has its broadside toward the Mk-23E. If the Sag-C turns its wedge toward the enemy (as it normally would), the wedge will block the FTL signals. That's one of the reasons that the Keyhole is critical.

Wouldn't that block the signals from the Ghost Rider platforms as well?

How big is a transister radio? Tiny. How big is the transmitter? Large. Of course all ships can "read" the FTL MK-23E. Doesn't do them much good though as any commands they send BACK are obsolescent before they are even sent.

SVW: What on earth gives you the impression that without Keyhole, ships cannot communicate with the MK-23E in question? It would be barmy stupid to not have the same transmitters on the side of the ship as well especially as said Keyholes are Wide open to attack. Military is all about REDUNDANCY. Triple redundancy if they can get it.

Opens HOS, sure enough, arrays on Keyhole platform shown are same as on ship shown. In fact, the broadside has more arrays than the Keyholes. In a rational universe, for max alpha strike, an Invicuts, or any other Keyhole equipped ship, for total missile control would be Keyholes + Broadside fire control = total available. Not, one or the other.