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Detection of upward hyper translations May 2009
c-Fractional pod-based missile attack plan II May 2009
Erewhon and the inertial compensator May 2009
Safeholdian ship design May 2009
PICAs and military manpower needs May 2009
Operation Ark's mission plan May 2009
Church communications May 2009
The missing figures from the Honorverse CD-release of <em>More Than Honor</em>. May 2009
Reportage of Honor's 'trial' by the Committee of Public Safety May 2009
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Pearls of Weber

A collection of posts by David Weber containing background information for his stories, collected and generously made available Joe Buckley.

Missile pods as strap-on weapons?

  • Series: Honorverse
  • Date: October 22, 2002

I'd have to say that would not be a good idea. For one thing, they're bigger than some of you seem to be assuming. In point of fact, the Manties' present capital-ship missile pods are considerably larger than a pinnace or an assault shuttle. In fact, they're a little more than half the beam of a standard DD in their widest dimension, which is why Wayfarer could deploy no more of them simultaneously and why a pod-SD (by the way, I like the term; I hadn't thought of it for myself. Perhaps we should call them SD(P) from now on? ) can deploy even less in a salvo than Wayfarer could. The depth of the after aspect of the wedge is not much of a factor; the physical dimensions of a pod which must pass through a physical hatch are. Moreover, when used as broadside weapons, one would be required to shut down one's sidewalls while one launched (assuming one could launch from a broadside--see below), which could be a major disadvantage if one were under threat of attack at the moment of launch. Why drop the sidewall? Because unlike the fixed, conventional launcher, your pod has no "gunport" in the sidewall through which to eject the missile(s) it is blasting off.