Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles

[sloanjh]

Another important factor is how big the crater is vs how large the target.  When you start getting craters that are around 1/3 of the total columns on the ship the chances of getting an early internal hit go up much faster than what the sandblasting will get you.  A quick example with a smaller ship (17 columns and 6 points of armor each) and size 16 warheads.  (Size 16 gets a maximum of 4 levels of penetration and damages at least 7 columns.)  By the fourth hit you will already have some damage overlaping.  On that fourth hit you have a small chance to get internals.  If you didn't then by the fifth you are pretty much garrunteed hitting somewhere that has already lost enough armor to have that hit get through.  In comparison the same total damage (64 or 80 points for 4 or 5 missiles respectivly.) from size 1 warheads will probably have penetrated the first 3-4 rows with about half of the next row being down as well.  You still need about 20 more hits before you are likely to get any internal.  Of course by the point that a sandplasting attack is getting internals the target is pretty much dead.  Flip this example around and have a much bigger target with 40 columns and it takes a lot more hits to start getting your clustering.  In effect you are having to partially sandblast the ship anyway before you get to the point that the larger warheads are actually helpfull.

I think the salvo size and RoF needs to be looked at here for a good comparison with sandblasting.  Let's pretend that you have a salvo size of 1, with str-16 warheads, and a RoF of 1 (in some units).  This is to be compared with a salvo size of 16, str-1 warheads, with RoF of 16.  In this case, the str-1 missiles can do 256 points of damage to the target for each 16 point salvo of the str-16 missiles.  Since there are only 102 points of armor on the target, sandblasting will have probably annihilated it before the second heavy-warhead salvo is away.  The issue is that you'll have ended up burning more missile volume with the sandblasting than with the heavy missiles (unless the enemy has AM defences, in which case each AM hit is 16x as effective in the heavy warhead case).

That being said, you make a good point that if you can get good internal damage on the target in a single salvo then this is one of the regimes where heavy warheads come out ahead.

John

[Arwyn]

I think that is an excellent point, and along with that, comes the rate of fire component as well.

At reload 4, your size 1 launchers are running at 10 seconds per volley. Size 4 launchers are running at 30. So, the ship with size one launchers is running 6 salvos to the 2 salvos from the size 4 ship. Assuming similar warhead sizes and range, the damage ratio is clearly in the favor of the smaller launchers. As the reload rate comes up, their is a noticeable shift in the favor of the larger missiles.

(For illustrations sake, this is using the following for baselines. Cobalt warheads (10pts) and Magnetic Confinement drive tech, compressed carbon armor. Range is identical, speeds are identical, hit chance is identical.)

Size 1 missile

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Missile Size: 1 MSP  (0.05 HS)     Warhead: 4    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 20
Speed: 31200 km/s    Endurance: 34 minutes   Range: 64.2m km
Cost Per Missile: 1.7708
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 624%   3k km/s 200%   5k km/s 124.8%   10k km/s 62.4%
Materials Required:    1x Tritanium   0.5208x Gallicite   Fuel x625
Size 4 missile

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Missile Size: 4 MSP  (0.2 HS)     Warhead: 12    Armour: 0.2     Manoeuvre Rating: 20
Speed: 31200 km/s    Endurance: 34 minutes   Range: 64.2m km
Active Sensor Strength: 0.28   Sensitivity Modifier: 140%
Resolution: 30    Maximum Range vs 1500 ton object (or larger): 210,000 km
Cost Per Missile: 5.6633
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 624%   3k km/s 200%   5k km/s 124.8%   10k km/s 62.4%
Materials Required:    3.05x Tritanium   0.28x Uridium   2.8333x Gallicite   Fuel x2500
At reload 6, the size 1 launchers drop to 5 seconds, for 12 salvos a minute. With a damage of 4, thats 48 pts of damage output per launcher.

At reload 6 the size 4 launchers drop to 20 seconds, for 3 salvos a minute. With a damage of 12, thats 36 pts of damage per launcher.

At reload 8 the size 1 launchers are still 5 seconds, for 12 salvos a minute. With a damage of 4, thats 48 pts of damage output per launcher.

At reload 8 the size 1 launchers are now 15 seconds, for 4 salvos a minute. With a damage of 12, thats 48 pts of damage per launcher.


So, at Reload 8, from a total damage perspective, the missile sizes are a wash. The advantages of the smaller missiles are still there (numbers) and with the hit % being identical, the chances are that the smaller missiles are still going to get things through to do damage.

As the tech goes up, missile intercepts go up as well as anti-missile defenses improve, more missiles are intercepted. This would argue strongly for the numbers approach with more numerous but smaller missiles.

Arguably though, the larger missiles are becoming MORE capable as the tech goes up. In the size 4 design above, the missile includes some armor and sensors, which the size 1 lacks. In the case of the size 4, its relatively easy to modify the missile further to improve survival, or speed, or range while maintaining the same warhead yield. Thats not possible with the size 1 missile. The larger missile also has improved penetration vs. the size 1.

So, the question at middle and later tech is smaller + numbers vs. larger + damage/penetration/flexibility.

I think that the smaller missiles have a significant number of advantages, especially so early in the game. In fact, they are probably game breakingly advantageous early on. By middle tech levels, there are some advantages to the bigger missiles that start to become apparent. In terms of flexibility, the advantage goes to the bigger missiles, since its easier to modify the fuel/speed parameters of the design without losing damage. This flexibility is ESPECIALLY pronounced if sensors/ecm are part of the mixture.