SharkHunter wrote:--snipping--
Jonathan_S wrote:But until they do
something to address the stated problem with long range CM accuracy (whether or not that problem makes sense to all the posters here
) there's no point in making bigger, even longer ranged CMs.
One of RFC's statement about the difficulty of CM interception had to do with "battlefield smoke", that is, so much happening near in that it's nearly impossible to coordinate and see around all of the ships and missile wedges real time. To "see around the smoke" your control platforms have to be farther away; but simply saying "do that with ghost rider, etc." isn't useful because hello, if you can't get a signal to the drones, they can't get it to the CM's either.
The previous approaches have involved putting men and women in harms way to augment the close in defenses, with the smaller screening formations and LACs basically taking the shots/hits sacrificially instead of the bigger ships. I think Honor and everyone would be far happier to not sacrifice those lives.
The screening formations out along the threat axis are there to provide nearby sighting and counter-missile fire; if they soak up some of it, or become an initial target (blow them away first, then have an easier time blowing away the distant wall), that's an unfortunate but acceptable cost. It's not the intention in this case.
That's where things like unmanned bits such as Mycroft, Keyhole II, the Apollo FTL control missile's AI, etc., plus the size of the Mark 23 missile body are attracting our attention. It's no harder to launch CM's outside of the battlefield space as interceptors if you can get them out there quick enough AND control what each successive CM layer is shooting at.
It'd be nice to replace the vulnerable remote screen with something unmanned, when it's both vulnerable to being picked up as a target accidentally by missiles that haven't got ship-based control anymore, or as targets in their own right. But there we start hitting the limits of what role automated units are allowed in the Honorverse - whether they be automated LAC's, automated recon drones used to control distant CM's, or automated CM fire platforms.
My guess is that those screening, out-toward-the-middle anti-missile formations are going to remain largely LAC-based and largely crewed, and that they're likely to be the core of long-range (measured from the ultimate targets) missile interception. It's not too much unlike classic Honorverse sub-waller deployment, but instead of lurking way out on the fringes of the wall, it's out toward the threat but outside the direct line to it, and instead of being mostly smaller hyper-capable units, it's LAC's.
Doing that with smaller, automated systems - think like a large recon drone with CM's or a PD cluster - would be so much nicer from a preservation of life standpoint. I just doubt it's going to become a central or sufficient part of the doctrine for narrative purposes.
Recon drones out near the enemy wall used for the first view of the incoming volley, that's another thing entirely and is almost certain to be important and routine. For that matter, I could also see a role for a "recon missile", a missile-sized recon drone of sorts, with modest sensors, little or no stealth, and little endurance, used to keep a closer eye on an incoming missile strike, launched by the LAC interception force when the recon missile can more or less keep up with the remaining strike as it heads for the wall.
Anyone have any optimism about "mobile Mistletoe", a recon drone variant used to get into a SD(P)'s cluster of recently deployed missile pods and blow them up (or at least get soft mission kills) before they fire?
