Attacking Darius:

penny wrote:That equation keeps going over your head. It is easily grasped by Alphas. I am certain it was an equation that was displayed in every MAN production facility and classroom. Don't sweat it.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

penny wrote:Of course no captain will venture any closer than needed. However, any critical mission would hardly be carried out just so he can showcase his self-defense weapons. I agree that the best self-defense weapons are the ones you never have to use. But it is best to have them and not need them, than to need them and not have them.

Very much agreed: having defensive weapons in case you need them, because it's better to have and not need than need and not have.

That may also be true of having some offensive weapons. The MAN designers need to balance the equation of how much defence they need before putting offensive weapons on. Think about this: a squadron of 6 Roland-class destroyers can put out 72 missiles in a double broadside in under a minute, double that for a double double-broadside. They can send several waves of 144 missiles at a target, from 2.5 light-minutes away. Can an LD be defeated by a single desron?

But if you think any navy, especially the MAN, will not risk one capital ship to destroy a fleet of sitting ducks, you are crazy. One very stealthy submarine could have destroyed every ship in Pearl Harbor. And it would have been a windfall for the Japanese navy even if it had lost the sub.

I agree on the principle too, but not on the conclusion you're trying to reach.

Yes, 1 or 2 LD for a fleet of capital ships is worth it ("fleet" being a minimum of 3 squadrons, so 18 capital ship kills minimum). And even then, not many times, because LDs don't grow on trees or asteroids. In a war of attrition, the MAlign loses.

Counter-missile tactics should be different for a 3-second firing g-torp the likes that would embarrass even barricade. 3-second firing g-torps firing in the midst of tightly packed GA launches traveling at such speeds should wipe them out easily. And these are long-legged CMs affording several launches!

3 seconds of firing does not mean multiple ships being hit. No, it probably means no more than 1. The one thing that the 3 seconds can certainly do is deliver more energy and over a longer line, so if it does hit the ship, the ship ceases to exist. If it hits the sidewall, that may cause a generator overload.

That doesn't change the counter-missile strategy: the counter missile must hit the attack missile before the latter fires. The earliest that can be done, the better. The difference in this exchange is not the firing time, but stealth: the warhead may have been able to close to its firing range before being detected, so there are no CMs to deal with.

penny wrote:A sea of 3-second firing missiles bolted to CMs - such as the Hastas - rotating and firing in the midst of an Alpha launch when they interpenetrate each other will decimate the launch.

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:A sea of 3-second firing missiles bolted to CMs - such as the Hastas - rotating and firing in the midst of an Alpha launch when they interpenetrate each other will decimate the launch.

Decimate might well be correct; killing one out of every ten, depending on how the wedges are aligned. However a graser is a heavy thing, which will really make this slow compared to a conventional CM. Also the interpenetration point might be the worst time to shoot; it might be better to fire sooner, so the weapon has a view down the throat.

penny wrote:A sea of 3-second firing missiles bolted to CMs - such as the Hastas - rotating and firing in the midst of an Alpha launch when they interpenetrate each other will decimate the launch.

tlb wrote:Decimate might well be correct; killing one out of every ten, depending on how the wedges are aligned. However a graser is a heavy thing, which will really make this slow compared to a conventional CM. Also the interpenetration point might be the worst time to shoot; it might be better to fire sooner, so the weapon has a view down the throat.

penny wrote:How are wedges aligned? Do wedges encompass a missile? A missile does not have sidewalls.

A 3-second firing graser is deployed on the Hastas. The Hastas are not slow. They use the SLN's Cataphract.

penny wrote:How are wedges aligned? Do wedges encompass a missile? A missile does not have sidewalls.

penny wrote:Invisible force = (force)²

ThinksMarkedly wrote:BTW, you probably meant the other way around:

Force = (invisible force)²

Because you meant that an amount of invisible force is equivalent to a much larger amount of regular, non-invisible force.

However, your statement is actually not wrong, because adding more invisible force is not going to contribute linearly (much less quadratically) to the regular force, as the chance of detection also increases, so long as those invisible forces are weaker than regular when discovered.

Wikipedia wrote:In military science, force multiplication or a force multiplier is a factor or a combination of factors that gives personnel or weapons (or other hardware) the ability to accomplish greater feats than without it.

Jonathan_S wrote:

penny wrote:How are wedges aligned? Do wedges encompass a missile? A missile does not have sidewalls.

A missile has the inclined planes of a wedge above and below it, and extending some km ahead and to the sides of it.

Like with a ship's wedge the throat of the wedge (the forward opening) is going to be taller than than the skirt of the wedge (the aft opening). However IIRC we're told that the wedge planes become slightly closer to parallel under hard acceleration - and with missiles having 75+ times the acceleration of a ship that info should make angle of their wedges less pronounced than a warship (or even an RD) wedge.

This is a copy of the infodump page that includes a diagram of a ship, inside its wedge with sidewalls up. https://web.archive.org/web/20220704001 ... ton/100/0/

penny wrote:Thanks for the infodump.

I understand that it is difficult to obtain a firing angle on an object configured with a wedge. That is why point defense has to wait until the point a missile prepares to fire. (I think it drops its wedge?)

In Layman's terms, an anology if you will ...

If a missile is a human body that has a head and a tail (feet). Fore and aft. And if that human missile is wearing a helmet on its head (wedge) and steel-toed boots on its tail (wedge) and it is boring right in on you, then it is difficult to get a shot at its vulnerable regions. The sides of the human body; the ribs. The ribs are sensitive and vulnerable. That is why sidewalls are necessary. To protect the ribcage.

But if an enemy penetrates an attacker's launch with his own missiles -- storyline has dramatized the idea that launches interpenetrated each other, passed each other like strangers in the night -- then those interpenetrated missiles should have a clearer shot (perfect angle actually) at the opposing missiles' ribcages. No?

Theemile wrote:

penny wrote:Thanks for the infodump.

I understand that it is difficult to obtain a firing angle on an object configured with a wedge. That is why point defense has to wait until the point a missile prepares to fire. (I think it drops its wedge?)

In Layman's terms, an anology if you will ...

If a missile is a human body that has a head and a tail (feet). Fore and aft. And if that human missile is wearing a helmet on its head (wedge) and steel-toed boots on its tail (wedge) and it is boring right in on you, then it is difficult to get a shot at its vulnerable regions. The sides of the human body; the ribs. The ribs are sensitive and vulnerable. That is why sidewalls are necessary. To protect the ribcage.

But if an enemy penetrates an attacker's launch with his own missiles -- storyline has dramatized the idea that launches interpenetrated each other, passed each other like strangers in the night -- then those interpenetrated missiles should have a clearer shot (perfect angle actually) at the opposing missiles' ribcages. No?

Missile wedges are ~10x10 KM with a >.5 Km separation. you would have to be in the same plane as the openings of the missiles' wedge to have a chance at a side shot. interpenetration is more of clouds passing near each other.

When the wedge is up, the wedge itself is a much easier target to hit, Especially using another 10x10KM wedge - that's why wedge on wedge intercept method is used in counter missiles, over using a weapon on the CM.