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Honorverse ramblings and musings

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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by JeffEngel   » Mon Mar 23, 2015 8:40 pm

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n7axw wrote:Hi SWM,

Just a question here... There is probably something I'm missing.

IIRC, the Mk 16 dual stage missile has a useable range of about 40 million KM. The Mk 23 three stager seems to be used successfully at between 55 and 65 million km. With Apollo that extends out to about 80 million km.

The Catapharact, according to what I remember has a range of about 15.5 million klicks.

So how does this end up meaning that the range advantage has been overcome?

Don

The ranges given are powered ranges, without including a ballistic component. Any missile with multiple drives or stages can put in a ballistic component in between them to get arbitrarily long range. You "just" get issues of:
(1) the target being too far from where the last ballistic stage ends for the final powered stage to catch it from there, due to its own movement in the meantime*, and
(2) the missile being practically on its own so far downrange with light speed control lags applying, so that even if it can reach, it will be helpless against the target's defenses, or too nearly helpless for the whole salvo to produce effective results.

* (Even a single-drive missile could have a ballistic component at the end, leaving the last "stage" as the stand-off attack range of the actual laserhead against the target. That would be enough against some target with absolutely predictable movement, but any final drive stage increases that range astronomically, in that familiar, literal, "space is BIG" sense.)
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by SWM   » Mon Mar 23, 2015 9:03 pm

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cthia wrote:Question. The ballistic component gives them the range, yes, but without FTL control of the missiles that the Manty ballistic component has - along with the recon data sent back to Keyhole - along with the effectiveness of Manty ECM - it doesn't strike me that the Cataphracts would hit the broad side of a barn at extreme ballistic ranges. Especially factoring in optimal evasive maneuvers. No?

Lack of FTL control does mean much lower accuracy. But as others have said, it would be no worse than pre-Apollo MDMs. MDMs were used effectively for years before Apollo was developed.
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by SWM   » Mon Mar 23, 2015 9:09 pm

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Weird Harold wrote:I'm pretty sure that Technodyne did NOT develop the Cataphracts. The pods shipped to Filareta were tagged as coming from Technodyne, but they were shipped from Mesa. The Cataphracts provided the PNE for the attack on Torch also came from Mesa, not from Technodyne. Filareta noted the oddity of the missiles' shipping origin.

The only missiles positively identified as being a Technodyne development were the over-sized extended range system defense pods provided Monica.

Technodyne certainly thinks they developed the Cataphract. They are building and selling them to the League right now. Whether they really did the research themselves or not is besides the fundamental point--there is considerable R&D being done by various League corporations (or at least appearing to be done by League corporations) which could rapidly mitigate some of the tech advantages that Manticore currently possesses.
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by n7axw   » Mon Mar 23, 2015 10:45 pm

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SWM wrote:
Weird Harold wrote:I'm pretty sure that Technodyne did NOT develop the Cataphracts. The pods shipped to Filareta were tagged as coming from Technodyne, but they were shipped from Mesa. The Cataphracts provided the PNE for the attack on Torch also came from Mesa, not from Technodyne. Filareta noted the oddity of the missiles' shipping origin.

The only missiles positively identified as being a Technodyne development were the over-sized extended range system defense pods provided Monica.

Technodyne certainly thinks they developed the Cataphract. They are building and selling them to the League right now. Whether they really did the research themselves or not is besides the fundamental point--there is considerable R&D being done by various League corporations (or at least appearing to be done by League corporations) which could rapidly mitigate some of the tech advantages that Manticore currently possesses.


Technodyne has a Mesa connection. IIRC it has a representative on Mesa's planetary board. That was noted in COG I think. There is also evidence that Mesan researchers, which I would understand as being connected to the Alignment, did actually develop the Cataphract. Using Technodyne to manufacture and distribute the thing would make sense.

Don
Last edited by n7axw on Mon Mar 23, 2015 10:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by Weird Harold   » Mon Mar 23, 2015 10:46 pm

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SWM wrote:Technodyne certainly thinks they developed the Cataphract. They are building and selling them to the League right now. ...


Textev?

IIRC, every Cataphract we've seen came from "Mesa" or was used by the MAlign in Oyster Bay.

kzt wrote:
Weird Harold wrote:I'm pretty sure that Technodyne did NOT develop the Cataphracts. ... Filareta noted the oddity of the missiles' shipping origin.

People keep saying this, but what evidence do you have? Why is it unlikely that they did this monstrosity themselves?


You mean other than RFC rubbing our nose in the fact that they were shipped from Mesa instead of Yildin?

You mean other than the only MAlign plot that involved a representative of Technodyne not only didn't use them, but Levakonic never even hinted at them when griping about not being able to match Manticore's range?
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Answers! I got lots of answers!

(Now if I could just find the right questions.)
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by BrigadeΔ   » Mon Mar 23, 2015 10:49 pm

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Now that I have had time to think more, you could always just say "good morning, I hope you think it is a good day to die because you are about to find out"
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by kzt   » Tue Mar 24, 2015 1:26 am

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cthia wrote:
Before Apollo, the RMN and the RHN would wait as long as possible to allow the range to enemy fleet to drop to acquire better firing solutions. And this was also before multi-stage missiles, IIRC. With the advent of multistage missiles, and now a ballistic component to boot - without the modern advances that the new missile warfare demands, intuitively, firing at extended multistage ranges -with an added ballistic component - without the Haven sector accompanying technology, how would the SLN acquire decent firing solutions?

Aegis accomplished better missile tracking for them, but IIRC, Aegis was neutralized.

Aegis was an anti missile system.

You have to ask yourself, how well did waiting until their hit probability was really high work out for Home fleet and 3rd fleet? Was it useful that they died with more then 75% of their ammo unused, or perhaps the entire tactical approach used by the RMN has been shown to be flawed?

The other thing is that Stalin was right, quantity has a quality all of it's own. How many crappy missiles can an industrialized system turn out? Iirc, Manticore was building 10,000 a day. How effective do you think the defenses of a BatRon is against salvos of 100,000 missiles?
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by thinkstoomuch   » Tue Mar 24, 2015 6:44 am

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SWM wrote:Lack of FTL control does mean much lower accuracy. But as others have said, it would be no worse than pre-Apollo MDMs. MDMs were used effectively for years before Apollo was developed.


One thing is that in order to use those MDMs the Ghost Rider project improved the sensors on the missiles by a significant amount.

Based on what we have seen of SLN sensors (nothing in particular for the missiles) they are going to be much worse, accuracy wise, than the 1900ish RMN SDMs. IMNHO anyways.

Have fun,
T2M
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by SWM   » Tue Mar 24, 2015 9:02 am

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Weird Harold wrote:
SWM wrote:Technodyne certainly thinks they developed the Cataphract. They are building and selling them to the League right now. ...


Textev?

IIRC, every Cataphract we've seen came from "Mesa" or was used by the MAlign in Oyster Bay.

Here is a series of quotes between Kolokoltsov, Gweon, and Kingsford near the end of ART ("Eleventh Fleet" is Filareta's fleet, and "pod-launched missiles" is the Cataphracts):
Considering all of that, and considering the pod-launched missiles Technodyne made available to Eleventh Fleet, I believe our best option at this time is to go with a commerce and infrastructure-raiding strategy, carried out by battlecruisers and lighter units with missile pods, while simultaneously pushing further development of the new Technodyne birds with the greatest urgency possible."
. . .
"What I am proposing is what I believe is our best option for driving them back on the defensive, or at least blunting their own offensives against us, in a way which will give us time to improve on the present Technodyne platform until, hopefully, we'll be in a position to match their performance."
. . .
"And if this does manage to buy us enough time to push the development on those new Technodyne missiles, the situations going to change radically. We're still way too damned big for them to possibly think they could occupy all of our star systems. We just have to hold everything together long enough to get weapons good enough to give us a chance against them into production."


And later, al-Fanudahi says
"I don't know if it would work, but assuming Beowulf hasn't been completely surrounded by new and nasty missile pods, a big enough force of superdreadnoughts, especially with the new Technodyne missile pods, probably could fight its way in through the BSDF and the fixed defenses."
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by Bill Woods   » Tue Mar 24, 2015 11:50 am

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SWM wrote:
Weird Harold wrote:I'm pretty sure that Technodyne did NOT develop the Cataphracts. The pods shipped to Filareta were tagged as coming from Technodyne, but they were shipped from Mesa. The Cataphracts provided the PNE for the attack on Torch also came from Mesa, not from Technodyne. Filareta noted the oddity of the missiles' shipping origin.

The only missiles positively identified as being a Technodyne development were the over-sized extended range system defense pods provided Monica.

Technodyne certainly thinks they developed the Cataphract. They are building and selling them to the League right now. Whether they really did the research themselves or not is besides the fundamental point--there is considerable R&D being done by various League corporations (or at least appearing to be done by League corporations) which could rapidly mitigate some of the tech advantages that Manticore currently possesses.

Plus, the effort that went into designing the Cataphract doesn't seem all that much. Having learned of the use of extremely long-range missiles in the Mantie–Haven wars, they basically answered the question, 'how can we make some semblance of that, using off-the-shelf components?' Which is perfectly reasonable for a first-generation effort.

There's no need to look for conspiracies. The SLN has a strong bias against thinking their weapons and platforms are obsolete, so they've been systematically ignoring recent events, but weapons makers like Technodyne have a bias for seeing opportunities to sell new stuff.
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Imagined conversation:
Admiral [noting yet another Manty tech surprise]:
XO, what's the budget for the ONI?
Vice Admiral: I don't recall exactly, sir. Several billion quatloos.
Admiral: ... What do you suppose they did with all that money?
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