Wasn't the ERM enough? Why bother with the Mk 16?

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:Because it IS a DDM and not a single drive missile. The ability to insert a ballistic phase into the flight profile gives a dual drive missile effectively unlimited range and/or much greater tactical flexibility.

ERMs are still single drive missiles with range and acceleration set once and locked in.

Yes, well beyond the range at which any opponent can respond. But the current opponents don't have the ability to respond to the ERM, either. Haven did; the Andies were coming along; but it is the ability to USE the range for EFFECTIVE fire that matters.

You missed the "and/or greater tactical flexibility" qualifier.

At any range, having a second drive that can be set for a different speed is better than a single drive that tips off it's final maneuver capabilities as soon as it is fired. The improved warhead of the Mk-16G isn't a check in the minus column either.

It's not about giving the opponents a fair fight, it is about destroying the opponents as quickly as possible with the minimum amount of casualties on your side.

Isn't this entire line of argument (which incidentally flies in the face of ~5000 years...excuse me, allowing for the Honorverse setting...~7000 years of military best practice [with the possible exception of the Ferguson rifle] ), entirely put to rest by one phrase:

"...and now there are Cataphracts."

dreamrider

MuonNeutrino wrote:

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:Against Sollies, it is such overkill that combat is far too one-sided, at least right now.

Well, from the point of view of the RMN planners, it's their *job* to generate as lopsided of a combat advantage as they possibly can. The more one-sided the fights, the fewer of your people die, and the bigger of a margin you have against the unexpected. It might cause some narrative issues, but in-universe it's not an unreasonable choice.

In this particular case, it's also good for allowing things like Rolands to punch *way* above their weight - not necessarily just in terms of range, but in terms of destructiveness. It was the MK16-G's waller-level warhead, the way that the insane closing speed DDMs can generate baffles missile defense systems, and the MK-16s onboard-fusion-plant-powered EW systems that let Zavala's Rolands casually obliterate the solly battlecruisers at Saltash, for example. Keep in mind what happened not *that* long beforehand in Monica, when Terekhov's squadron was forced to engage solly-built BCs with normal cruiser/destroyer weight missiles. They still won, but not without allowing the enemy into range since they couldn't just wipe them out with single salvoes.

Sorry if this is late-- I get access through the library, not at home. And yesterday I was sick. Ihave been reading some of the comments, and I will not quote all of them.


Some of these comments seem to indicate that I am ignorant of military tactics, development, or history-- I'm not. I am a former enlisted EW/Voice cryptanalyst from the radio days, and spent several years as an all-source intel analyst. I retired in 2009. Deployed to Germany in both tactical and strategic assignments, before the soviets collapsed, and prior to German re-unification. My initial enlistment (as an indirect fire infantryman) was in 1977.I also deployed to Iraq. So I have been around a long time.

Enough silly bio crap. this is about the RMN and the honorverse.



My point is not that the RMN should not have developed the Mk-16 missiles, or that they should not have built ships to deploy them. My point was, that from the state of development of the PLOT, that there was no need to deploy them YET. I also have a degree in English lit; and another in history. I am not arguing that the RMN wouldn't develop such a missile, or a Sag-C to deploy it. And bringing in MONICA, where none of the destroyers were Wolfhounds, none with the Mk 36, and none of them with off-bore capability--is inappropriate. Reconsider Monica if ALL of the destroyers had been Wolfhounds, and ALL of the light cruisers had been Avalons. It is a totally different tactical situation. It is also a non-starter, since the Janacek Admiralty didn't build the damn ships.

Consider also what would have happened if Terekhov had had 3 Saganami B cruisers instead of one Sag-C and the leftover Star Knights. Their limited off-bore capability gives them a broadside of 23 Mk-14 missiles; a rate of fire double that of the Sag-C; and there isn't any reason why they couldn't stack a double broadside. Enough missiles to blow all three Indefensibles in quick salvos. Again, the author didn't write it that way. For the same reasons--Janacek didn't build the ships, and the ones the RMN had went to both the front, and the exposed allied systems.


Except for Dukk, some people commenting are mixing apples and oranges when they bring up the information available to the RMN as of ART or SoF and apply that to RMN building practices several years before any of those things happen. His comment addressed the tech side; and I really didn't think the fusion system in the Mk16/Mk23 was identical; I thought that at least part of the delay in deployment was needing to further shrink the components to a cruiser-sized missile body.

The Mk-14 and its cousin (mk-36) were developed because the ghost rider upgrades in drive nodes and energy storage made a capacitor drive missile the enemy couldn't match. They could match the performance if they wanted to build new ships--again-- their existing ships couldn't. They would have needed newer and even bigger missiles.

The ONI under Jurgensen was worthless-- so as far as the policymakers were concerned, until late in 1918, THERE WAS NO NEW THREAT. The ERM-equipped new ships' greater emphasis on missile defense, the long range of the ERM, and the salvo density of off-bore firing were all new developments, and mostly unknown to the Havenite navy, as the ships based on those advantages didn't get built until 1917 (Gauntlet) and 1919 (Avalon class).

Some people in other posts are also positing that the RMN obviously needed the MK16 because the MA/Technodyne had the Cataphract. Bull. The RMN did NOT KNOW about the Cataphract, OR the existence of the Malign. They have a ship design and a weapons load that can beat any current opposition, they already had the ships under construction, the design work was already done . And they were shooting again.

Consider the building program during the first Havenite war. The RMN DID NOT alter the construction of their destroyers during the war; DID NOT introduce a new light cruiser during the war; DID NOT retire ANY of the 50 year old obsolete Falcons until AFTER the shooting stopped. They went with the design of the GRYPHON with almost no modifications AFTER the shooting started, to MAXIMIZE PRODUCTION. Same for the Reliant, Valiant, Culverin; they only introduced the Saganami after several YEARS. From the dates of completion, it looks like the design study for the Sag-B, Avalon and Wolfhound was done during the Cromarty Administration, and production of at least some ships (Reliant III) made some changes.

Another factor in that building phase is the truly abysmal lack of construction of lighter ships. Given the numbers of ships that RFC kills in combat, they shouldn't have had any survivors in the cruiser/DD classes; obviously, the Jan. crowd was doing something about that already when the "emergency construction" started; but from the build numbers of the Avalon, Roland, and Sag-C, the WH admiralty AGREED with that need and continued to build light ships instead of devoting ALL of their construction space to wallers. The big change was for them to shift to the Mk-16 based ships.

In the build numbers in HOS, there are more Reliant III/IV, Saganami-Bs and Avalons than I would have guessed at from the story as told SO FAR. Our point of view is from characters who got deployed in some of the newest hardware. But the older hardware (which we only see in Service of the Sword, where the text is somewhat flawed) hsd some advantages, even if it wasn't as capable.

The decision of the Admiralty to continue with construction of the Avalon--that it meets their requirements very well for a light cruiser-- also means that the Wolfhound should meet their requirements for a destroyer.

The notion that the Mk16 allows the Roland to engage out of its class BECAUSE THE RMN PLANNERS INTENDED IT TO contradicts the author; think about what he said about the NIKE not getting the Mk23, or the reasons why the RMN is not going to build a BB class. RMN planners do not design their ships to engage outside of their class, or their classes' mission parameters. That was a fluke event--if Henke had thought there were BCs at Saltash, she'd have sent Nikes. Or heavy cruisers.

The biggest advantage for the ERM is Rate of Fire--if the RMN upgraded the Warlock to fire its missiles at 8 second intervals (per Monica), then the new, improved launchers in the Saganami-B were probably just as fast. So while the Sag-C had a heavier punch with the MK 16, the Sag-B gets more than twice the missiles in flight in the same time-- a Stacked Salvo for every salvo of the Charlie.

Where I think the RMN should have made a change to the design of the "emergency construction" is in FC systems-- bringing the chase telemetry and control links more in line with the NIKE and the Hexapuma. Then instead of 23 missiles/salvo you get 40. Every EIGHT SECONDS. So a three cruiser group with the same fire control as a Sag-C could have dumped 240 missiles on the sollies every 16 seconds, instead of one Sag-C firing 35 every twenty five seconds to conserve ammo. He could have STARTED the engagement with the pods--firing 1/4 of them at the stealthed ships to see what he was up against. And RFC did use those numbers at Zunker, albeit with the Charlies. Whatever.

Sorry, this is way too long. Why I usually don't bother to comment.

YMMV

Rob

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:The Mk-14 and its cousin (mk-36) were developed because the ghost rider upgrades in drive nodes and energy storage made a capacitor drive missile the enemy couldn't match. They could match the performance if they wanted to build new ships--again-- their existing ships couldn't. They would have needed newer and even bigger missiles.

The ONI under Jurgensen was worthless-- so as far as the policymakers were concerned, until late in 1918, THERE WAS NO NEW THREAT. The ERM-equipped new ships' greater emphasis on missile defense, the long range of the ERM, and the salvo density of off-bore firing were all new developments, and mostly unknown to the Havenite navy, as the ships based on those advantages didn't get built until 1917 (Gauntlet) and 1919 (Avalon class).

Some people in other posts are also positing that the RMN obviously needed the MK16 because the MA/Technodyne had the Cataphract. Bull. The RMN did NOT KNOW about the Cataphract, OR the existence of the Malign. They have a ship design and a weapons load that can beat any current opposition, they already had the ships under construction, the design work was already done . And they were shooting again.

[snip]
The biggest advantage for the ERM is Rate of Fire--if the RMN upgraded the Warlock to fire its missiles at 8 second intervals (per Monica), then the new, improved launchers in the Saganami-B were probably just as fast. So while the Sag-C had a heavier punch with the MK 16, the Sag-B gets more than twice the missiles in flight in the same time-- a Stacked Salvo for every salvo of the Charlie.

Where I think the RMN should have made a change to the design of the "emergency construction" is in FC systems-- bringing the chase telemetry and control links more in line with the NIKE and the Hexapuma. Then instead of 23 missiles/salvo you get 40. Every EIGHT SECONDS. So a three cruiser group with the same fire control as a Sag-C could have dumped 240 missiles on the sollies every 16 seconds, instead of one Sag-C firing 35 every twenty five seconds to conserve ammo. He could have STARTED the engagement with the pods--firing 1/4 of them at the stealthed ships to see what he was up against. And RFC did use those numbers at Zunker, albeit with the Charlies. Whatever.

You've got a point about how ONI did on identifying specific threats. But SDM ranges had been improving slowly but steadily though the 1st Havenite war. Yes the Mark 14 ERM was a significant jump in capability to make all at once, but better node endurance and denser storage capacitors weren't revolutionary breakthroughs. (Plus the later can be dispensed with if you're willing to oversize your missiles; as Haven had had to do for their MDMs) Even without specific intelligence that Haven (or the Andies, who also built ERM missiles) were making similar advances BuWeaps and BuShips would be worried about a matching capability appearing, and would be working to counter that.
Plus don't forget that at some point along this path Erewhon split from Alliance, taking the Mark 14 tech with them, and shortly signed a mutual defense treaty with Haven.
So again, even without specific intelligence (which ONI did probably fail to get) there should be concern that the ERM missiles won't retain a qualitative edge for long.

And yes the Mark 14 ERM's launchers can be cycled more quickly, useful if you're already within it's range basket. But the Mk 16 carries more powerful deceptive jammers and decoys, and if fired over the same range as the Mk 14 has a 11% higher terminal velocity and higher acceleration to jink around and evade CMs. (Based that on a 16 million km range for the Mk 14; 270 seconds at 46000g. To exactly match that range the Mk 16 would go 1st drive at 46000g for 180 seconds, 33 second coast, 2nd drive at 96000g for 60 seconds. Oddly the transit time is the same. But once the range drops within 6.5 million km (not much inside normal SDM range) the Mk 16 can switch to 2 full accel drives - closing the range in 50s quicker than the Mk 14, with a terminal velocity 41% higher)

So the Mk 16 can't generate the raw number of missiles of the Mk 14; but it can begin engaging much further out, within the same range has a higher terminal velocity and better terminal manouverability; and at all ranges has better ECM. So each Mk16 is much more likely to penetrate the targets defenses than each Mk 14. (Well, unless you've got enough Mk 14 launchers to saturate the enemies defenses through sheer numbers)


I can see why, for the moment, the ERM are sufficient. Especially given that the enemy has switched from Haven (or the Andies) to the SLN. But I don't think BuWeaps or BuShips should have held back on developing and deploying Mk16s, and the ships designed for them. And given their existence I don't see that RFC should have given our various protagonists older less capable ships.

Mk-14 was created when MDM was just coming on line at end of 1st Haven war. An evolutionary step. MDM was a revolutionary step. It doesn't take a hyper scientist to project MDM capability for system defense. At this point, any light attack force equipped with MK-14, just became obsolete and useless as a raiding squadron/task force.

Light combatants needed a revolutionary missile to become relevant again.

Several years of R&D later(fusion) with MK-16, light combatants became relevant for their respective roles once again. If Fusion power for missiles was not invented, there would not have been a DDM missile for BC/CA etc. The whole rationale behind the MK-16 was that only for "slightly" more mass than an MK-14(94verses 72) much greater capabilities ensued. Without this missile, BC's, CA's, would have vanished as ship types. With this new missile they can now fulfill their previous roles. Namely raiding, defending against superior foe and scedadeling. Can medium combatants go toe-to-toe with a major defensive system of pods? No. But neither could they with SDM forts/pods either.

Now with the advent of tractored Capital pods, upgrade in MK-16G laser head throughput, invented after the MK-16 and its initial ship types were designed, can someone argue that medium combatants just became irrelevant/obsolete again? I would argue that tractored pods makes the BCL irrelevant for its cost. Not irrelevant as a ship type. Rather irrelevant for its cost(effectively meaning obsolete). Effectively it is a capital ship without the firepower or defensive capabilities, but with a capital ships costs for procurement and lifetime personnel and maintenance costs.

wastedfly wrote:Mk-14 was created when MDM was just coming on line at end of 1st Haven war. An evolutionary step. MDM was a revolutionary step. It doesn't take a hyper scientist to project MDM capability for system defense. At this point, any light attack force equipped with MK-14, just became obsolete and useless as a raiding squadron/task force.

Light combatants needed a revolutionary missile to become relevant again.

Several years of R&D later(fusion) with MK-16, light combatants became relevant for their respective roles once again. If Fusion power for missiles was not invented, there would not have been a DDM missile for BC/CA etc. The whole rationale behind the MK-16 was that only for "slightly" more mass than an MK-14(94verses 72) much greater capabilities ensued. Without this missile, BC's, CA's, would have vanished as ship types.

I'd nitpick that by the time you get up to a BC(L) sized ship, or even a BC(P) that you could afford to build them with a dual drive capacitor powered missile. It would be bigger than a Mk16, and wouldn't have the energy budget for ECM (dazzler / dragons teeth), but would still be smaller than a full up capacitor powered MDM capital missile. That would give them the same range as Mk16s but you'd be able to carry less of them. On the flip side you should be able to cycle the launchers faster (not having to wait for reactor ignition) -- but you'd have to be careful due to the lesser numbers you could carry in a given magazine volume.

But CAs are probably too small to carry a useful number of those big bastards, so CAs as raiding units would probably be out. You might still want some ERM equipped CAs for heavy convoy escort, even if they lack the range to tangle with MDMs - so that ship class might not entirely go away. But it's use would be more limited that a design that can deal with a light pod defense.

Well, as they already designed the BC'P for the much larger 3 stage capital MK-17, the preponderance of evidence suggest that "BuShips" agrees with you. Of course BuShips also states that putting sledghammers in glass cannons is not a smart idea as a ship designer.

A Capacitor DDM for sure would invalidate the SAG-C. It barely has the width for the shorter DDM Mk-16. Of course they could go with a shorter duration capacitor DDM and shrink its length.

Lets also assume, BuShips weren't stupid and could figure out that when one takes a 3 stage MDM and eliminates one stage and its corresponding power, that a DDM is born. We have to assume they already had such a missile on the drawing books and decided it was a waste equipping their smaller classes with such a missile.

Another "breakthrough" was that Mk-16 fires off in 18s. The problem with the Capacitor fired MDM is a reload time of 30s. Why a Pod BC, was viable and a giant tube fired Capacitor MDM BCL was not? Three navies had POD BC and none of them built a corresponding tech tube fired BC. At least two put full up MDM's in them while the Andies had gigantic 2 state DDM, not sure they put them in pods inside their BC class. It could have still been an SDM pod BC. After all, Andies had half pods of SDM's mounted on their CA's.

Still tractored pods changed the equation big time. As even DD's are "capital" ships now.

ERG: Which is it? Capital, or capitol. Why can I never remember which type it is and ALWAYS have to look it up. Grr Guess I got it right. Woo hoo 50-50, I got it right, VEGAS BABY!

Jonathan_S wrote:

wastedfly wrote:Mk-14 was created when MDM was just coming on line at end of 1st Haven war. An evolutionary step. MDM was a revolutionary step. It doesn't take a hyper scientist to project MDM capability for system defense. At this point, any light attack force equipped with MK-14, just became obsolete and useless as a raiding squadron/task force.

Light combatants needed a revolutionary missile to become relevant again.

Several years of R&D later(fusion) with MK-16, light combatants became relevant for their respective roles once again. If Fusion power for missiles was not invented, there would not have been a DDM missile for BC/CA etc. The whole rationale behind the MK-16 was that only for "slightly" more mass than an MK-14(94verses 72) much greater capabilities ensued. Without this missile, BC's, CA's, would have vanished as ship types.

I'd nitpick that by the time you get up to a BC(L) sized ship, or even a BC(P) that you could afford to build them with a dual drive capacitor powered missile. It would be bigger than a Mk16, and wouldn't have the energy budget for ECM (dazzler / dragons teeth), but would still be smaller than a full up capacitor powered MDM capital missile. That would give them the same range as Mk16s but you'd be able to carry less of them. On the flip side you should be able to cycle the launchers faster (not having to wait for reactor ignition) -- but you'd have to be careful due to the lesser numbers you could carry in a given magazine volume.

But CAs are probably too small to carry a useful number of those big bastards, so CAs as raiding units would probably be out. You might still want some ERM equipped CAs for heavy convoy escort, even if they lack the range to tangle with MDMs - so that ship class might not entirely go away. But it's use would be more limited that a design that can deal with a light pod defense.

@OP: Your forgetting a huge factor. Fusion Powered missiles have repeatedly been described as having "vastly greater" energy budgets. So their ability to penetrate terminal defenses goes way up as a result.

The Mk16 was probably at the time of development about as small a missile as you could build and squeeze in a micro-fusion plant. At that point the slight extra mass of a second drive doesn't look like a very bad idea since it would have minimal numbers impact.

At the same time the larger size probably allowed a few other similar low mass and volume cost improvements like much better sensors.

In addition i don;t recall any non-MDM/DDM missile being described with off boresight capabilities, and the text attributes that heavily to the vast velocity increases DDM/MDM makes possible, so i doubt ERM's would be capable of it, or they'd take a vastly greater penalty from it if they are.

Carl wrote:@OP: Your forgetting a huge factor. Fusion Powered missiles have repeatedly been described as having "vastly greater" energy budgets. So their ability to penetrate terminal defenses goes way up as a result.

The Mk16 was probably at the time of development about as small a missile as you could build and squeeze in a micro-fusion plant. At that point the slight extra mass of a second drive doesn't look like a very bad idea since it would have minimal numbers impact.

At the same time the larger size probably allowed a few other similar low mass and volume cost improvements like much better sensors.

In addition i don;t recall any non-MDM/DDM missile being described with off boresight capabilities, and the text attributes that heavily to the vast velocity increases DDM/MDM makes possible, so i doubt ERM's would be capable of it, or they'd take a vastly greater penalty from it if they are.

I agree with most of that, but I have to counter your final addition. The Shrike/Ferrit's LAC missiles & CMs were the first to be described as having the off boresite capabilities - and those definitely aren't MDM/DDM. (IIRC 70 degrees off boresite; allowing the Shrike to claw its nose away from the enemy before dropping the bow wall to launch missiles)

We haven't seen, say, the Mk14 ERM, described that way in the novels, but looking at the Saganami-B-class CA's description in House of Steel it describes a limited off boresite capability (the chase telemetry array aren't able to handle full broadsides).
Also looking at the specs in House of Steel for the Wolfhound-class DD and Avalon-class CL they've got to be carrying off boresite missiles because they don't have any missile tubes (or CM tubes) on their hammerheads. (And there's zero chance that BuShips designed a DD/CL without the ability to launch in a chase situation) We know from HoS that both those classes carry the Mk36 LERM (not a MDM/DDM)

So that's LAC missiles, ERMs, DDMs, and MDMs that all have some degree of off boresite capabilities.

Most people are responding in terms of Manticore's perspective, and the technological development. The original poster was asking from the literary perspective--why did David Weber introduce DDMs to the story at that time, rather than just the ERMs?

I believe the answer is that he knew he was also about to introduce the Cataphract, and other new foreign weapons developments, and that Manticore would no longer have a monopoly on advanced tech.