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Insanity: Screening elements in the HV

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Re: Insanity: Screening elements in the HV
Post by Theemile   » Tue Mar 25, 2025 2:18 pm

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penny wrote:
IINM, tlb was suggesting that the platforms have a reactor as well as a plasma capacitor to jump start the reactor, in the place of a tender. As he stated, wouldn't that prevent the platform from having to sit on standby with a hot reactor? Thus, saving fuel and maintenance? If startup time is only 18 seconds, why is there a need for a hot reactor? I think he was also suggesting that the plasma capacitor to jump start the reactor to be kept topped off using beamed power.

BTW, do we know how long a reactor will run before its fuel is depleted?


Late edit: Could someone tell me the size of a missile pod? Thanks in advance.


The size of pods has never been mentioned, and different pods are different sizes (Capacitor MDM pods had to be Huge.) Pod masses have never been mentioned, but we can guestimate mass floors based off missile masses.

The one data point we do have is MAXXQ's drawings on Deviantart. Measuring pods and pod bays on BC drawings there give us a size of modern Manty 14x mk16 missile Mk 17 flatpack pods as roughly 19x19x7m iirc (and roughly Keystone shaped). The Mk 15 and mk 19 flatpack pods (12 Mk23s for Mk 15, 8Mk23s, 1ACM for Mk 19) are supposedly roughly the same size and shape.

I don't believe we have ever saw a Micro fusion reactor start from a Plasma capacitor. Not saying it can't happen, but every micro fusion reactor seen being launched has been started by another reactor source providing plasma, and David explicitly called out a reactor providing live plasma to start them.

Reactor run time - as said elsewhere, it all depends on what it it doing. A reactor in a space constrained ship launched pod can sit at standby for a month, and still spin up it's missiles and launch them, it can also run under a tractor load for multiple 10s of hours ("more than a day, less than a week - a tactical period of time") and still fire it's missiles. A missile (with the same reactor, but probably less fuel) can run it's wedge for 9 minutes, have a 45 minute ballistic coast period, and still have enough power to run ECM that can blind a warship 5M KM away and fire it's nuke.

There are also microfusion reactors in Long endurance platforms that are supposed to last months while running sensors, comms and boosting FTL video signals, those probably are slightly larger, and have more fuel and a much longer endurance.
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Re: Insanity: Screening elements in the HV
Post by tlb   » Tue Mar 25, 2025 2:22 pm

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Jonathan_S wrote:But we don't know that pod dumped for immediate firing work the same way pods dumped for much later use do.

That's why I specifically mentioned that pods that are going to be fired immediately might have all their missile reactors spun up by the ship right before the pod is rolled.


If the pod's onboard reactor only needs to be used for drop and wait scenarios then it wouldn't need to be capable of spinning up all the missiles in seconds. (It might still be capable of that; we don't know -- I'm just saying that that wouldn't necessarily be a requirement)

I have no firm opinion about whether there is a difference in missile start up between immediate firing versus drop and wait.

However we know that the pod's reactor has to be running in both cases, because the mass drivers need energy to throw the missiles out of the pod. Since it has to be running, it might be simpler to always use the reactor to start the missiles; but I do not know if that is true.
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Re: Insanity: Screening elements in the HV
Post by Jonathan_S   » Tue Mar 25, 2025 2:40 pm

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Theemile wrote:
Jonathan_S wrote:But we don't know that pod dumped for immediate firing work the same way pods dumped for much later use do.

That's why I specifically mentioned that pods that are going to be fired immediately might have all their missile reactors spun up by the ship right before the pod is rolled.


If the pod's onboard reactor only needs to be used for drop and wait scenarios then it wouldn't need to be capable of spinning up all the missiles in seconds. (It might still be capable of that; we don't know -- I'm just saying that that wouldn't necessarily be a requirement)


I'm not certain why the RMN would want 2 different launch profiles, But I'm willing to concede that we don't have data supporting one scenario over the other, and it is plausable.

Still, drop and wait may still require fairly quick fire times. I don't see energizing a pod's missile reactors taking more than a minute - probably less.
Fair.

And yes, we definitely don't know.

But one reason they might have ended up with two is that charging the missiles right before rolling the pods was what the old-style capacitor powered MDM pods had to do[1] -- and so its plausible they kept that capability as they transitioned to the early pods of microfusion missiles.

And, actually, I can't remember whether the initial pods for microfusion missiles, before they switched to self-tractoring flatpacks, had an onboard pod reactor at all. If not, then the podlayers would need to spin up the missile reactors before rolling the pod - and the pod would presumably need capacitors for its grav drivers.

And either way, once they had pods with onboard reactors they might have simply utilized the pod reactor to enable a new additional delayed start-up mode; without removing the legacy style start-up mode.

IOW it's plausible that they evolved their way into having two different modes.

But again, we don't know. This is all speculation.

---

[1] Though presumably you need more and/or hotter plasma to spin up a reactor than you do to charge plasma capacitors (see the changes in coffer-damming around launch tubes when switching from capacitor to microfusion missiles). So switching from capacitor to the early microfusion missile pods likely required some refitting of the pod layers -- whether to spin up a pod reactor, the reactors off the pods missiles, or both. But given the amount of plasma a full-up ships reactors can provide starting 15 reactors on the rails shouldn't be much harder than starting 1.
Though I'd also assume, for back-compat, that they'd want to retain the ability to charge pods of old-style capacitor MDMs; first for use during the transition when you might not have as many pods of Mk23s as you want, and then later if case the only avalible pods are those old ones.

[2] Especially if it had to be kept to retain backwards compatibility for early pods of Mk23s
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Re: Insanity: Screening elements in the HV
Post by Theemile   » Tue Mar 25, 2025 3:28 pm

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Jonathan_S wrote:
---

[1] Though presumably you need more and/or hotter plasma to spin up a reactor than you do to charge plasma capacitors (see the changes in coffer-damming around launch tubes when switching from capacitor to microfusion missiles). So switching from capacitor to the early microfusion missile pods likely required some refitting of the pod layers -- whether to spin up a pod reactor, the reactors off the pods missiles, or both. But given the amount of plasma a full-up ships reactors can provide starting 15 reactors on the rails shouldn't be much harder than starting 1.
Though I'd also assume, for back-compat, that they'd want to retain the ability to charge pods of old-style capacitor MDMs; first for use during the transition when you might not have as many pods of Mk23s as you want, and then later if case the only avalible pods are those old ones.

[2] Especially if it had to be kept to retain backwards compatibility for early pods of Mk23s


If I remember correctly, TMMW said the RMN anticipated the Microfusion breakthrough and designed the reactor live plasma start up process into the Medusas, knowing it was a future need. (I don't know if it was completely flushed out, or maybe they just shunted Plasma feeds to the launch portion of the pod bay, knowing it may be required, and the actual pod fitting and handling hardware was then a small changeout and retrofit.)

The IAN Adlers, on the other hand didn't anticipate this, and thus required a redesign to handle the newer fusion missiles.

I don't remember it being said if either generation of the Havenite SD(p)s anticipated Fusion missiles, But one would suspect the Erewhon design to at least anticipate Fusion missiles (Given their later start, and closer inclusion with the RMN pre-war.) the MAN designs probably anticipate fusion missiles, given their knowledge of the Manty designs.
******
RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
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Re: Insanity: Screening elements in the HV
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Tue Mar 25, 2025 4:33 pm

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tlb wrote:However we know that the pod's reactor has to be running in both cases, because the mass drivers need energy to throw the missiles out of the pod. Since it has to be running, it might be simpler to always use the reactor to start the missiles; but I do not know if that is true.


It doesn't have to be that way. The pod can use chemical charges to blow itself open, clearing the pod casing from the missile bodies. The missiles then activate their wedges in a staggered order. Since they were all correctly oriented and tightly packed, the wedges won't scoop up the brethren, and a missile running up at 46,000 gravities will clear 50 km in 0.47 seconds.
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Re: Insanity: Screening elements in the HV
Post by Jonathan_S   » Tue Mar 25, 2025 4:44 pm

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Theemile wrote:If I remember correctly, TMMW said the RMN anticipated the Microfusion breakthrough and designed the reactor live plasma start up process into the Medusas, knowing it was a future need. (I don't know if it was completely flushed out, or maybe they just shunted Plasma feeds to the launch portion of the pod bay, knowing it may be required, and the actual pod fitting and handling hardware was then a small changeout and retrofit.)

The IAN Adlers, on the other hand didn't anticipate this, and thus required a redesign to handle the newer fusion missiles.

I don't remember it being said if either generation of the Havenite SD(p)s anticipated Fusion missiles, But one would suspect the Erewhon design to at least anticipate Fusion missiles (Given their later start, and closer inclusion with the RMN pre-war.) the MAN designs probably anticipate fusion missiles, given their knowledge of the Manty designs.

That actually sounds reasonable for the Medusa/Harringtons. The Mk23 MDMs weren't out yet when they first entered service, but the microfusion powered Ghost Rider RDs were.
It wouldn't be the world's largest leap to envision that power tech ending up in pods/missiles sooner or later.

Best to future-proof and build in the necessary reactor-start type/scale of plasma runs to the pod launch area from the get-go.
After all, that's a small enough price to pay upfront even if it turns out you never actually end up using that capability.


Whether anybody else built in that future-proofing probably depends on how solid a lock they had on the requirements for spinning up a microfusion reactor. If you're not sure the type/quantity of plasma required I'd think it'd be pretty hard to build in the necessary plasma conduits. Though I guess you could at least leave paths you hope are big enough to install such conduits into later, once you have a working microfusion reactor and thus know its start-up requirements.
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Re: Insanity: Screening elements in the HV
Post by penny   » Tue Mar 25, 2025 8:25 pm

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tlb wrote:
Jonathan_S wrote:But we don't know that pod dumped for immediate firing work the same way pods dumped for much later use do.

That's why I specifically mentioned that pods that are going to be fired immediately might have all their missile reactors spun up by the ship right before the pod is rolled.


If the pod's onboard reactor only needs to be used for drop and wait scenarios then it wouldn't need to be capable of spinning up all the missiles in seconds. (It might still be capable of that; we don't know -- I'm just saying that that wouldn't necessarily be a requirement)

I have no firm opinion about whether there is a difference in missile start up between immediate firing versus drop and wait.

However we know that the pod's reactor has to be running in both cases, because the mass drivers need energy to throw the missiles out of the pod. Since it has to be running, it might be simpler to always use the reactor to start the missiles; but I do not know if that is true.

Before firing off, shouldn't missiles have to wait until they reorient themselves? Offbore launches would be impossible if not. That shouldn't affect the reactor I suppose. And reaction thrusters orient the missiles. So the reactor can start in the interim. Do reaction thrusters need power?
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Re: Insanity: Screening elements in the HV
Post by tlb   » Tue Mar 25, 2025 8:57 pm

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penny wrote:Before firing off, shouldn't missiles have to wait until they reorient themselves? Offbore launches would be impossible if not. That shouldn't affect the reactor I suppose. And reaction thrusters orient the missiles. So the reactor can start in the interim. Do reaction thrusters need power?
Reaction thrusters are plasma jets and so need power and use fuel. There is no off-bore launch from a pod, the pod simply changes orientation to point at the target.
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Re: Insanity: Screening elements in the HV
Post by Jonathan_S   » Tue Mar 25, 2025 9:11 pm

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tlb wrote:
penny wrote:Before firing off, shouldn't missiles have to wait until they reorient themselves? Offbore launches would be impossible if not. That shouldn't affect the reactor I suppose. And reaction thrusters orient the missiles. So the reactor can start in the interim. Do reaction thrusters need power?
Reaction thrusters are plasma jets and so need power and use fuel. There is no off-bore launch from a pod, the pod simply changes orientation to point at the target.

Tiniest nitpick -- there's one situations I can see where you would need off-bore launches from a pod. That's when for whatever tactical reason you need to keep the podlayer's bow pointed directly at the enemy. In that orientation the pod would need to fire off-bore with the missiles dog-legging clear of the ship and its wedge before turning back onto the intercept heading to the enemy.

A few situations might result in this directly bow on approach -- though all involve opting not to tack across the base course. Some are:
1) A straight stern-chase where you're accelerating after a fleeing enemy
2) a head-on closure where you're trying get to effective missile range as far from a planet as possible (though you'd probably change vector as soon as you reached effective missile range, so might not actually fire while in the bow-on orientation)
3) You're decelerating hard while an enemy is engaged in chasing you (possibly as you want to stay out of range of something else, or because you somehow worked yourself up above 0.3c and need to slow down to hyper out)

But with that tiny exception I'd agree that 99.9% of the time the pod would orient itself so its missiles basically launched more or less down the intercept vector to the enemy.


And for non-pod ships making off-bore launches I was under the impression that the missile brought up its wedge, got well clear of the launching ship's wedge, and only then make a high acceleration vector change to head towards the enemy. (I did once ask if the launching ship used tractors to help slingshot the off-bore missiles around; but RFC said no the missiles turned on their own)
Last edited by Jonathan_S on Tue Mar 25, 2025 9:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Insanity: Screening elements in the HV
Post by tlb   » Tue Mar 25, 2025 9:23 pm

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tlb wrote:However we know that the pod's reactor has to be running in both cases, because the mass drivers need energy to throw the missiles out of the pod. Since it has to be running, it might be simpler to always use the reactor to start the missiles; but I do not know if that is true.
ThinksMarkedly wrote:It doesn't have to be that way. The pod can use chemical charges to blow itself open, clearing the pod casing from the missile bodies. The missiles then activate their wedges in a staggered order. Since they were all correctly oriented and tightly packed, the wedges won't scoop up the brethren, and a missile running up at 46,000 gravities will clear 50 km in 0.47 seconds.
No, since The Short Victorious War pods have been equipped with the same mass-drivers that ships use, to give them the same initial velocity as a ship launched missile, so no petty chemical explosions.
Chapter 17 wrote:The old pods' launchers had lacked the powerful mass-drivers which gave warships' missiles their initial impetus. That, in turn, gave them a lower initial velocity, and since their missiles had exactly the same drives as any other missile, they couldn't make up the velocity differential unless the ship-launched birds were stepped down to less than optimal power settings. If you didn't step your shipboard missiles down, you lost much of the saturation effect because the velocity discrepancy effectively split your launch into two separate salvos. Yet if you did step them down, the slower speed of your entire launch not only gave the enemy more time to evade and adjust his ECM, but also gave his active defenses extra tracking and engagement time.

--- skip ---

But the Weapons Development Board, not without opposition from its then head, Lady Sonja Hemphill, had resurrected the pods and given them a new and heavier punch. Hemphill rejected the entire concept as "retrograde," but her successor at the WDB had pushed the project energetically, and Honor couldn't quite see the logic behind Hemphill's objections. Given her vocal advocacy of material-based tactics, Honor would have expected her to embrace the pods with enthusiasm . . . unless it was simply that something inside the admiral equated "old" weapon systems with "inherently inferior' ones.

As far as Honor was concerned, an idea's age didn't necessarily invalidate it—especially not with the new launchers, whose development Hemphill herself had overseen. Of course, Hemphill hadn't intended them to be used in something as ancient as pods. She'd been looking for a way to make LACs effective once more as part of the tactical approach her critics called the "Sonja Swarm." The new launchers were far more expensive than traditional LAC launchers, which was the official core of Hemphill's opposition to "wasting" them in pods, but expense hadn't bothered her where the LACs were concerned. Building one with the new launchers pushed its price tag up to about a quarter of a destroyer's, especially with the fire control upgrades to take full advantage of the launchers' capabilities, yet Hemphill had lobbied hard for the resumption of LAC construction, and she'd succeeded.

--- skip ---

But the point at hand was that the same improvements could be applied to parasite pods, and, despite Hemphill's objections, they had been. Of course, the new pods—with ten tubes each, not six—were intended for ships of the wall, which had plenty of redundant fire control to manage them, not battlecruisers. But it sounded like Turner was finding the answer to that, and their missiles were actually heavier than the standard ship-to-ship birds. With the new lightweight mass-drivers BuShips had perfected, their performance could equal or even exceed that of normal, ship-launched missiles, and their warheads were more destructive to boot. The pods were clumsy, of course, and towing them did unfortunate things to a warship's inertial compensator field, which held down maximum accelerations by twenty-five percent or so. They were also vulnerable to proximity soft kills, since they carried neither sidewalls nor radiation shielding of their own, but if they got their shots off before they were killed, that hardly mattered.
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