Three-stage vs. two stage multidrive missiles

DDM and single drive are guns smaller than 12 inches caliber. MDM are guns larger than 12 inches. For example Deutschland had 203 mm guns and he could fight against proper BB but it was very risky. Iowa on the other hand is similar to late Gryphon ships, she could and can eat every ship in her range, same as Gryphon or Invictus.

JeffEngel wrote:I'm wondering how much point there is to the three stage missile design versus the two stage ones, and I don't have the information to make that judgment. So I'm hoping others may have it and/or insights.

My nagging suspicion is that the three stage missiles may be a bit extravagant for most purposes versus the two stage ones, but that depends on my guesses that (1) it's not a trivial additional cost in space, payload, and monetary cost, and (2) having the third stage available doesn't add too terribly much in tactical virtue.

(1) is a guess, but it's pretty confident - that third stage makes the difference between something limited to pods and wallers and something fit even for specially designed destroyers to use. (2) is more contentious.

Obviously, a third stage gives a longer powered range and a higher maximum velocity, especially without having to dial down acceleration for a longer burn. But a ballistic component in between powered stages gets you stupendous range anyway - as much as your ability to control the missile way, way down there and your time and range allow. The typical long range attack seems to run powered burn, ballistic phase, final approach - and for that, a third stage is nothing more than more burn time, if even useful, on one of the first two stages.

So it looks like a capability with fairly limited use at significant expense. This leads me to suspect that wallers and missile pods could quite possibly be better off, most of the time, using capital-missile-sized dual drive missiles, or at least some variant that is in between the cruiser DDM's and the current MDM's, with the costs of the third stage spent instead on more warhead, more missiles, more penaids, and/or longer running stages.

Soooo... am I missing something or did Manticore leap to an excessive multidrive missile and mostly stick with that model since then?

Posting on a time budget again. But quickly perusing the posts, it seems the number one tactical advantage of three stage missiles has been overlooked. Henke taught it to the Sollies. A much smaller force, with smaller elements, can safely take on a much larger force, with larger elements.

Paired with Apollo. Force multiplier.

Edit:
Also, an enemy has to respond from that same distance, giving your tactical crews time to localize.

Relax, your calculations are great, but they don't address what I'm talking about. I guess I'm not making myself clear.

I'm not talking about disguising which ship(s) will be targeted. As your calculations show, that can be hidden almost up to the point that the warheads detonate. What I'm talking about is disguising what path the missiles will take on their approach. What direction will the missiles be coming from when they are, say, 2 million km away from the target? This has implications for point defense. An MDM can disguise that longer than a DDM.

The MDM with three stages would give you better range, even without a ballistic segment or two but you have to factor in targeting information.

In your early, typical, ship engagement is dealing with a force that is comming (or going from) location X to location Y and your shooting needs to take into account the speeds of 1) yourself with direction, 2) your targets, with direction, 3) the ability of the weapons to arrive at a point close enough to the target to hit is.

Manticore has Apllo, Ghost Rider and FTL communication withing solar system sized areas. Since this theoretically lets you have real time tactical information at extreme distances AND pass the instructions you create based on that information to your missiles in flight, you are mostly limited by what your targets can possibly do to avoid your weapons by maneuver.

Remember that if you cause you enemy to effectively manuver to break off the engagement such that they can't 1) engage you ships, 2) activly engage you system infrastructure, you wil. Well, that engagement at least.

That is one reason that Mycroft should be such a major defensive at Beowulf amoung other places, at least when you can see you targets. Spider drive ships are a whole different question. But, you SHOULD be able to use a 3 drive missile- with ballistic components- to engage a target from the other side of a system if you have the sensors, FTL and command systems.

Lets say you beat off and perhaps mostly destroy an attack from one side of you system but have expended all of you pods/mines and your ships engaged there are mostly shot dry. Should a 2nd wave come in, you might be able to engage from the other side of the system with MDM and if you still have your sensors/drones and FTL.

Not the ideal solution but certainly better than having nothing.
Sure, you are initially shooting a long way into a very wide area that you expect your target to have to move into in a specific amount of time but if the enemy is going to try and do X then they will usually actually have to do that and you have some good general parameters for what will happen. Dealing with what does happen is what you use the 2nd and or 3rd stage drives for.

SWM wrote:Relax, your calculations are great, but they don't address what I'm talking about. I guess I'm not making myself clear.

I'm not talking about disguising which ship(s) will be targeted. As your calculations show, that can be hidden almost up to the point that the warheads detonate. What I'm talking about is disguising what path the missiles will take on their approach. What direction will the missiles be coming from when they are, say, 2 million km away from the target? This has implications for point defense. An MDM can disguise that longer than a DDM.

You would be correct if CM's were fire and forget where the CM's attacked/patrolled a zone autonomously. Or if CM's sensors were good enough to know where to go on their own. They don't per cannon. True, I would agree with you if they did.

Such a scenario makes far more rational sense when swarms of missiles are present as they should be attacking from 2 different orthogonal planes where it only takes 10s of last second maneuvering to traverse to the opposite orthogonal plane and obtain a shot at a broadside if the ship in question rolled 90 degrees different than what the mama ship told said MDM from FTL RD was true when initially fired. Also allows a task force defender to set up say a task force formation allowing the broadsides to be exposed in one direction more than the other allowing more CM's/LAC's to protect the more exposed side. But, this is not how DW has written his books. He has his CM's babied all the way home. In this scenario the ship already knows the vector as the missile wedge data (position, velocity vector)is FTL at 62c. It makes no difference if there is a ballistic factor or not under this constrained scenario.

Yea, reality is that those CM's are effectively autonomous. Especially when it counts. The last 10s till collision.

Q's we do not know:
1) If 2 missiles are nose to tail; can they be taken out by a single CM?
2) How good of resolution are the Gravitic sensors?
3) Can one blip really contain more than a single missile?
4) At what distance is a single blip able to be distinguished as a single missile?
5) What is the actual error on a blips positional vector? At what distance. Linear? Asymptotic? Quadratic?

Without answers to these Q's. Ascribing a missile defense is rather problematic. Nay, downright impossible.

Brigade XO wrote:The MDM with three stages would give you better range, even without a ballistic segment or two but you have to factor in targeting information.

I would say the real reason is that DW has massively large computers compounded by the problem missiles do not cross talk and therefore cannot create a phased array sensor net. Therefore the missiles in question have piss poor sensor resolution of the target in question and must rely on mama ship.

Now add that DW also, for some nefarious reason(wanted humans in the loop) makes it impossible for MDM's who are already listening for task force positional information along with EW etc profiles from the MAMA ship cannot also listen to the RD's much more recent information who generated that OLD data in the first place! Supposedly those RD's sensors are as good at minimum of a CA for computational fidelity!

Gee, CA quality data or 6 minute old information. Gee, which is more useful?

I seem to recall that there was a thread recently where RFC explicitly stated that missiles communicate with each other to an extent, though it's restricted by wedge interference. Apollo control missiles fly astern of the shipkillers precisely so that they have an unobstructed comm channel.

Dafmeister wrote:I seem to recall that there was a thread recently where RFC explicitly stated that missiles communicate with each other to an extent, though it's restricted by wedge interference. Apollo control missiles fly astern of the shipkillers precisely so that they have an unobstructed comm channel.

Yup, he said it, and from a com perspective it is hogwash for the wedge interference to be an issue.

Comes down to essentially, DW stating per the books and in the pearls, the computers would be too large in an MDM and therefore the apollo control missile is required.

The books were set in ceramacrete in 2005 if not a few years before this. IE when AAC came out.

We are essentially arguing about the weather and if puppies are cute.

It's not just the computers that add to the size of the control missile, it's the FTL comm transceiver.

Relax wrote:Q's we do not know:
1) If 2 missiles are nose to tail; can they be taken out by a single CM?
2) How good of resolution are the Gravitic sensors?
3) Can one blip really contain more than a single missile?
4) At what distance is a single blip able to be distinguished as a single missile?
5) What is the actual error on a blips positional vector? At what distance. Linear? Asymptotic? Quadratic?

Without answers to these Q's. Ascribing a missile defense is rather problematic. Nay, downright impossible.

For your #1 I'd say don't count on it. The CM and the incoming missile should both vaporize virtually instantly the moment their wedges touch. I seriously doubt there's time for the leading missile to be 'knocked back' far enough to also impact the wedge of the trailing missile. I think the wedge just disappears too fast.

So the only way I see the CM taking out the trailing missile as well is if the trailing missile basically killed itself from FOD by slamming into the rapidly dissipating plasma that used to be the leading missile (and/or CM).


Your other questions I've no idea on through.