Posted by: Michael Sandy
« on: February 22, 2017, 07:26:30 PM »Sensor footprint vs range is sort of what makes the concept work. The bigger you make the launching fighter/LAC, the further out they have to fire, the bigger their fire control has to be.
It is only fighter beam fire control that gets the special fighter discount, right?
But you are right, a LAC could also afford to have a much larger magazine to launcher ratio. 1 launcher and 3 magazines means 60 missiles, or 600 seconds of flight, or 7.2 million km inside of the 72 million km missile range.
Sounds reasonable... until you are dealing with ECM, and you have to launch from 30% or more closer in, and that extra 7 million km flying straight at the enemy puts your attack craft in range of their high resolution sensors and fire control.
Scissors, paper, stone... lizard... spock... whatever.
It is only fighter beam fire control that gets the special fighter discount, right?
But you are right, a LAC could also afford to have a much larger magazine to launcher ratio. 1 launcher and 3 magazines means 60 missiles, or 600 seconds of flight, or 7.2 million km inside of the 72 million km missile range.
Sounds reasonable... until you are dealing with ECM, and you have to launch from 30% or more closer in, and that extra 7 million km flying straight at the enemy puts your attack craft in range of their high resolution sensors and fire control.
Scissors, paper, stone... lizard... spock... whatever.