Attacking Darius:

I've suggested in the past that a miniaturized version of normal ship wedge with the entire missile hardened to handle the absurd acceleration directly. This would allow operation of the drive for as long as it has power, varying acceleration from zero to absurd, allowing flip-over to reduce velocity and generally driving the defensive systems operator and PDLC computer completely nuts.

kzt wrote:I've suggested in the past that a miniaturized version of normal ship wedge with the entire missile hardened to handle the absurd acceleration directly. This would allow operation of the drive for as long as it has power, varying acceleration from zero to absurd, allowing flip-over to reduce velocity and generally driving the defensive systems operator and PDLC computer completely nuts.

Yep. I even posited that the computers would hiccup and lose track of a missile with such enormous accelerations and make it appear to have gone ballistic. At least until software is updated.

Ouch! Stop throwing things.

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:I continue to feel... that when a missile reaches attack range, all the time left on its drive is wasted. When the range warrants it, why can a missile not be developed that would expend its drive time immediately at short ranges, producing an insane acceleration. Shoot that surplus wad of drive time immediately.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:This requires a technological revolution we're not allowed to make. Only RFC can do that.

Let's think about a single drive missile, so we do not get caught up in the quantum baffle that allows the MDMs to exist or the Cataphract-like solution. Remember that we all initially thought that the different stages of the MDM could run at different settings, until RFC said no way.

What Penny wants is a drive that can vary its acceleration setting during flight. Remember that most can be set to less than maximum acceleration at time of firing and we do not know what is special about that. If it were possible to change, then it could only go back to the maximum setting; not something higher. There is a compensator function built into the missile drive and so the absolute maximum acceleration must be dictated by that.

As you say, this is RFC's universe and we have to abide by his rules.

I didn't imagine a missile accomplishing it on the fly, rather than a preselected mode before launch.

penny wrote:I continue to feel... that when a missile reaches attack range, all the time left on its drive is wasted. When the range warrants it, why can a missile not be developed that would expend its drive time immediately at short ranges, producing an insane acceleration. Shoot that surplus wad of drive time immediately.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:This requires a technological revolution we're not allowed to make. Only RFC can do that.

tlb wrote:Let's think about a single drive missile, so we do not get caught up in the quantum baffle that allows the MDMs to exist or the Cataphract-like solution. Remember that we all initially thought that the different stages of the MDM could run at different settings, until RFC said no way.

What Penny wants is a drive that can vary its acceleration setting during flight. Remember that most can be set to less than maximum acceleration at time of firing and we do not know what is special about that. If it were possible to change, then it could only go back to the maximum setting; not something higher. There is a compensator function built into the missile drive and so the absolute maximum acceleration must be dictated by that.

As you say, this is RFC's universe and we have to abide by his rules.

penny wrote:I didn't imagine a missile accomplishing it on the fly, rather than a preselected mode before launch.

What is preselected, if not a change in acceleration??? In what way did I not understand then, because I certainly do not understand you now?

Drive time is directly tied to power setting, which is equivalent to acceleration setting.

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:I continue to feel... that when a missile reaches attack range, all the time left on its drive is wasted. When the range warrants it, why can a missile not be developed that would expend its drive time immediately at short ranges, producing an insane acceleration. Shoot that surplus wad of drive time immediately.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:This requires a technological revolution we're not allowed to make. Only RFC can do that.

tlb wrote:Let's think about a single drive missile, so we do not get caught up in the quantum baffle that allows the MDMs to exist or the Cataphract-like solution. Remember that we all initially thought that the different stages of the MDM could run at different settings, until RFC said no way.

What Penny wants is a drive that can vary its acceleration setting during flight. Remember that most can be set to less than maximum acceleration at time of firing and we do not know what is special about that. If it were possible to change, then it could only go back to the maximum setting; not something higher. There is a compensator function built into the missile drive and so the absolute maximum acceleration must be dictated by that.

As you say, this is RFC's universe and we have to abide by his rules.

penny wrote:I didn't imagine a missile accomplishing it on the fly, rather than a preselected mode before launch.

What is preselected, if not a change in acceleration??? In what way did I not understand then, because I certainly do not understand you now?

Drive time is directly tied to power setting, which is equivalent to acceleration setting.

You said what I wanted is this ...

What Penny wants is a drive that can vary its acceleration setting during flight.

I didn't suggest that. I allowed for the possibility that changing the mode during flight might add a bit more complexity to the design; thus, that ability might come in a later iteration. It might be that the mode has to be selected before launch. Besides, mostly, either you are in range to use that mode or not. Mostly.

I suppose you could be close enough that you'd want to launch at the normal setting, then when it gets into range the turbo mode kicks in. So, I can agree that that ability would be more practical. But the ability is to get the missile's accel up quickly at short ranges, and you wouldn't want to waste any of the range you have pussyfooting around. So, shoot that wad immediately!

kzt wrote:I've suggested in the past that a miniaturized version of normal ship wedge with the entire missile hardened to handle the absurd acceleration directly. This would allow operation of the drive for as long as it has power, varying acceleration from zero to absurd, allowing flip-over to reduce velocity and generally driving the defensive systems operator and PDLC computer completely nuts.

Indeed, but the problem is those ideas go past the point where we can be reasonably sure can happen. There's:

1. Speculation based on dropped hints;
2. Extrapolation based on the rules as stated;
3. Revolutionary concepts based on known rules but not supported by evidence;
4. Wild imagination / magic (Clarke's Third Law applied).

Those million-gravity missiles are between steps 2 and 3. We've seen missile accelerations go up, from the Manticore Ascendant days to current, and even knowing that the Cataphracts were improving. But they go so far out of the known parameters they can't be really said to be extrapolation, and are more like stage 3.

I'm not comfortable going that far in the discussion. You can imagine all you want and make predictions -- you're actually good at it. The fact that you can predict sometimes what will happen (though not exactly correct in the details) is a skill to be harnessed. But you appear to do that by meta-information: that is, you step out of the universe and read the author and the audience.

We can discuss it though. But the discussion needs to have ground rules: what does each side get that they don't today.

penny wrote: But the ability is to get the missile's accel up quickly at short ranges, and you wouldn't want to waste any of the range you have pussyfooting around.

Is this what you want? Because it still sounds to me that you want the ability to increase the acceleration (which what I thought I offered).

penny wrote:I didn't suggest that. I allowed for the possibility that changing the mode during flight might add a bit more complexity to the design; thus, that ability might come in a later iteration. It might be that the mode has to be selected before launch. Besides, mostly, either you are in range to use that mode or not. Mostly.

I suppose you could be close enough that you'd want to launch at the normal setting, then when it gets into range the turbo mode kicks in. So, I can agree that that ability would be more practical. But the ability is to get the missile's accel up quickly at short ranges, and you wouldn't want to waste any of the range you have pussyfooting around. So, shoot that wad immediately!

Maybe you didn't meant to suggest that, but that's how tlb and I understood it.

Ok, let's reset and assume a 3-stage MDM (because it looks like the Ninurta is a true MDM). You're asking for two revolutionary changes: two-million-gravity acceleration and different acceleration levels. Usually, the rules in Sci-Fi is that you can change one thing at a time.

Alternatively, we can have a dual-DDM. If the Cataphract can mount a CM on top of a ship killer and have different accelerations, then you could do that on top of a DDM shipkiller, maybe even true MDM. So this CM stage is the one with the million gravity acceleration.

But those are still wedges, and GA doctrine begin engaging them from 10 light-seconds out, with as many as 5 CM waves going to meet those missiles. That's what happened at the Battle of the Prime-Ajay Hyperbridge, and the GA forces were just a CruRun. So those missiles are still vulnerable to interception during this last run.

Let's assume they accelerated at the standard 46000 gravities for 6 minutes up until this point, reaching a terminal velocity of 0.54c, prior to lighting up the last stage. If we want to avoid relativistic effects, the last stage can provide a delta v of at most 0.36c, which divided by a million gravities gives a maximum endurance of 10 seconds. With those parameters, the missile will burn out the last stage after another 2.1 million km.

Conclusion: either the missile is going ballistic for the last 900,000 km (very easy interception) or it is inside the outer engagement envelope before bringing up this last stage.

I don't know why this is so difficult.

Let's say an LD wins the lottery and finds itself launching from 10 LS away. Theoretically it could be launching from less than half that range. You'd want the missile to launch in that mode even when it lights off.

You want the missile to begin its flight sprinting like Usain Bolt, and not to launch with a leisurely jog then select the kick in mid flight. From 10LS, while in flight, it can be shot down before the mode is selected.

At best you only have 3M km to get that accel up so it won't easily be shot down by point defense. So far so good.

By plot device or by the perils of engineering, it might turn out that the missile has to be in that mode (begin the insane acceleration right out of the gate) before launch or it isn't. I am not saying that would be the case, but it might be.

And, like I told you before, the development of the missile's theoretical max insane accel - be it one million gravs or no - does not have to shoot for the maximum bloated accel during development. It can settle for what it can get.

Necessity is the mother of invention, and no other navy expected to be launching from such close ranges. Heck, energy range? You can see a wedge coming. You can't see a spider crawling until it is too late. So a spider has a reason to develop such a missile. Wedge based ships never had a reason to consider premature ejaculating missiles. And they certainly never had a chance to deploy them.

.

penny wrote:I don't know why this is so difficult.

I thought you were asking for this:

You want a wedge missile with some cruising acceleration (determined by the current technology), that will get it to the target with energy to spare. But you do not to waste energy by having too much left in the capacitors when the missile attacks the target. So, at some point as it nears the target, you want the missile to shift to the absolute maximum acceleration that technology allows; so there is just enough energy to fire the warhead at the attack point.

Did I get anywhere near what you wanted?