what about escort CLACs?

"Loren Pechtel" <lorenpechtel.RemoveThis@hotmail.invalid.com> wrote in message
news:47d2db31$0$31310$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com...
> On Fri, 7 Mar 2008 21:46:13 -0500, "Baydlor"
> <baydloranti.RemoveThis@spamhotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>During the ambush of the Grayson Fleet & the DD Madrigal in HotQ, the DD
>>was
>>doing a fair job of stopping many of the missles fired by the Peep DD and
>>BC. Madrigal didn't have the PD & CM to stop enough of them, but it seems
>>she stopped more than ten of them even when spreading her defensive fire
>>to
>>protect the Grayson ships. I'll have to get the book from the library and
>>see if I can verify that.
>
> Stopping 10 missiles at once is far harder than stopping 10 over time.
>
>>I hadn't considered how close the pirate vessel may have gotten before the
>>pod was launched. I would suspect the merchant who launched it with the
>>pirate that close and able to pick it up, probably very easily, would
>>take
>>a hit from every weapon the pirate had had ready to fire and was able to
>>before the pod missles detonated, and would die for it's audacity.
>>Merchants, while big, are fairly fragile.
>
> No, I'm assuming the pod is deployed in advance. It's not maneuvering
> or anything, the pirate probably won't know it's there.

If the pod is so close, I imagine the radar would pick it up unless it had
extraordinary military steath systems. The Peeps chasing the Manticore BCs
at Hancock in SVW picked up the mines which were built to be hard to spot
(probably fairly stealthy) at half a million klicks even when the primary
focus of their attention was the BCs they were chasing. The pirates, even
with a less capable
radar, should be able to spot something thats much larger at such a range
and be able to react to it.

How far away was the Peep BC from Honor's Q-ship in HAE when it spotted the
debri or cargo (the pods) that was coming from the rear of her ship. Seems
it was well beyond energy range and done in the bad sensor situation of
hyperspace to boot. It would seem that a pod in normal space would be
detectabe at a fair distance as well, even with a lesser radar. Remember too
that pirates watch for shuttles fleeing from merchants. They don't want the
crews to escape. That implies a radar is scanning the direction of the
merchant.
>
> If the pirate fires on the merchant the pod's deadman system goes off
> and it fires back at the pirate.

If I was commanding a pirate ship and was in the process of firing on an
uncooperative merchant, and an unsurvivable swarm of missles suddenly came
from it's direction towards my ship, I'd order the ready weapons, including
the PD lasers and CM, fired into the merchant and do everything I could to
make sure my killer died as well. The merchant Captain and his crew, who
might have survived, would have committed suicide. The deadman pod trap
would make the merchant Captain a deadman, and take his crew with him.
 >> Stay informed about: what about escort CLACs? 

"Loren Pechtel" <lorenpechtel RemoveThis @hotmail.invalid.com> wrote in message
news:47cc9880$0$25405$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com...
> On Sat, 1 Mar 2008 11:18:34 -0500, "Baydlor"
> <baydloranti RemoveThis @spamhotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Looking at the size diagrams, you might even find it worthwhile to add
>>some
>>tonnage to a new destroyer design and provide space for one LAC and it's
>>support systems. Ten percent more tonnage or so. That grazer carried by
>>the
>>LAC might equal the punch of the destroyers entire battery of lasers.
>>
>>Another thought would be mounting the LACs on the hull along with some of
>>the Andies-style missle pods. The pods on the hull might wind up being
>>safe
>>from proximity kills due to the ships shielding fields and not need to be
>>used right away. Carry them until you really need to fire a larger volley.
>
> I think the answer to pirates is pods, not LAC's.
>
> Make a pod designed to work on it's own--it's simply given the
> coordinates, nothing more. It also has deadman fire capability--it
> can be programmed to fire if it's controller goes off the air. It's
> carried on-hull.
>
> If it looks like trouble you launch the pod. You don't immediately
> fire, though--no pirate in their right mind is going to stick around
> when they see that pod come off. Depending on the tactical situation
> it very well might allow freighters to capture pirates even. After
> all, the pirate was trying to match courses, he's going to be going at
> a velocity similar to the pod. Put a small drive on it so the pod can
> actually match velocities.
>
> Pirate comes in, freighter drops it's pod. The pod goes into deadman
> mode and furthermore is programmed to engage if the target range
> becomes too great. The pirate is trapped, the freighter can summon
> help.

The pirate could also just whimper and whine, beg and plead, with the
merchant Captain, long enough to get a really good lock on that pod, which
it then fires it's first volley of shots (lightspeed lasers) at and
destroys. What the pirate might then do to the crew in retaliation for their
threat to imprison or kill the pirates, may not bear thinking on. Both
Honor, during HAE and HotQ, and Admiral Lin, during I believe, Insurrection,
ran across such atrocities

A LAC from an escourt might never even be seen as it sneaks up behind the
pirate whose attention is on the escourt. And fires a BC grade graser into
it with a few shipkiller missles to finish off the scattering pieces of
pirate ship.

How about assigning a few LACs to each convoy as escourts? Scatter them
among the merchants that have the free space in their cargo holds, and if a
pirate shows up, launch them and the pirate has a fatal problem.

The Admiralty might even consider it worthwhile to give every Manty merchant
thats willing to carry one, a LAC. This would free up all those light
warships for use with the warfleets. Wouldn't need to have much in the way
of support supplies along since the LAC would see little, if any, use
between planets. Might need to send along a couple suits of battle armor to
use guarding the LAC in case someone decides to buy a LAC from a merchant
Captain though.

Imagine a convoy of sixty merchants with 45 of them carrying Manty
transponder codes... no pirate in his right or wrong mind would take on a
possible 45 LACs coming from all over. At some point it would cross it's own
T with a LAC and kablooie... no more pirate.

At what point would a pirate decide to risk the presence of LAC(s)? Even
attacking a lone merchant as it enters some lo-tech system would carry the
risk of getting nasty holes blown in your ship.

Or the pirate gets slow and close to an Andie merchant and the transponder
suddenly changes to a Manty code... and the pirate breaks into a cold sweat
as he suddenly wonders if a LAC jockey is at that moment pushing the button
to fire his graser...

I'd love to see what David Weber could come up with if he ran with some of
these ideas.

>Obviously this only works if it's a system where help can be
> summoned, otherwise the freighter just uses the pod to scare away the
> pirate.
>
> The deadman nature of the control means the pirate can't shoot at the
> freighter for dropping it--doing so means the pirate eats a pod full
> of missiles. With the sort of craft they normally have that's
> probably it for them.
 >> Stay informed about: what about escort CLACs? 

You guys are still not taking canon into account.
Most of the potential projectable Navy Combat forces are dead.
Unless they strip the administrative, shipbuilding, training, or
intelligence groups of people, the SKM doesn't have the trained
trustworthy manpower to man such construction, even if they were to
divert the shipyards from making the new Keyhole II SD(P)s that are
needed to keep the SKM from being crushed by Haven.

What is needed is something that uses few people,
existing stuff in possibly unique fashion,
fits into most any relatively trustworthy ship without noticeable
signs of its being there,
leaves no tech behind after its deployment,
and no new construction of any degree of technical difficulty.

Something like a 2-man crew to handle a rack of Mistletoe to be shoved
out the existing loading dock doors. Said rack has Mistletoe controls
and noneraseable recording of use. The Mistletoe seems to have the
full recon missile sensor suite so the ship doesn't have to be
upgraded, has more range than any potential pirate ship's missile,
uses no new ship construction, or munitions. (it might need some
rewiring to have the power there to start the reactors on the missiles
before firing if the racks don't do it or more expensive self-powered
racks) And splice a Ghost Rider sensor suite to an operator console on
the aforementioned rack.

When a probable pirate comes near the ship's crew manuevers the rack
to the cargo door and gets out of the way. Missile crew gets
Mistletoe(s) out of ship and manuevers towards possible pirate under
stealth. Pirate orders ship to stop and SKM crew orders pirate to
abandon ship. Pirates of course do not and repeated Mistletoe strikes
(however many it takes) kill pirate targeting pirate reactors.
Surviving pirates with any weapons signatures are not picked up.
Other pirates are put into self-welding shackles and taken to SKM
authorities for disposition.

Rack and GR interface console are the only new things required and the
console might be locked to those missiles and those crew (DNA
sensitive or some such) to limit utility of stealing same.

Eventually Confederacy people trustworthy enough to help will be
found, but those now trained enough to help are not likely honest
enough to trust with anything NewTech enough to work without massive
superiority (steal and sell to highest bidder), or the incrementally
more capable ships (that would become part of the pirate problem
instead of solving it) that would not be a tech theft problem.

Quotes from AAC
Chapter 1
"After what they did to Grendelsbane, we have only thirty-five SD(P)s
under construction. They should be commissioning within the next six
to ten months, but we won't see any more than that until the ships
we're laying down right this minute commission. Which means our total
available pod-laying wall will consist of no more than a hundred and
ten units for at least another two T-years."
snip
"Essentially, Your Grace," Givens said, "the Andies ...
They projected a total build of roughly a hundred and thirty SD(P)s,
but they have only forty-two currently in commission. The other ninety
are all under construction at various states of completion. Some of
them won't be completed for at least another eighteen months."

Note, 1/3 were not completed by the First Battle for Manticore because
Herr Hertzog pulled the build crews off to expedite the others
assigned to Eight Fleet, so 100 of the eventual total were Andermani

"So," Caparelli said, "looking at every pod-laying waller we can
scrape up between us, Grayson, and the Andies, and including all of
the Andy SD(P)s currently in commission as fully effective units, we
have a total of two hundred and thirty-two. Assuming our construction
times hold up, and allowing for working up time, we can have a total
of just over four hundred within the next eleven to eighteen months"

Eigth Fleet was, before THe beginning of the First Manticore battle,
"fifty-three pod-superdreadnoughts, fifty of them Apollo-capable.
That's fifteen percent of the Alliance's total SD(P)"

tossing away the .333 that makes 353 for the entire Alliance.
Since the total was 353 it is reasonable to figure they didn't get the
18 months let alone 2 years


Eigth Fleet had after Beatrice Bravo (after detatching Admiral
McKeon's units to Admiral Kusak)
"At almost seventy-three million kilometers, the new arrivals were
well outside even MDMs' powered range. Besides, there were only
thirty-eight of them—less than half her own strength, even if all of
them were wallers and not carriers."
That is at a maximum 38 SD(P)s if none of them are carriers, but
"Then instruct Judah to bring Admiral Miklós' carriers and all the
rest of the wallers through in a single transit."
so some of that 38 *were* carriers.

"Home Fleet was . . . gone. Simply gone.
Ninety superdreadnoughts, thirty-one battlecruisers and heavy
cruisers, and twenty-six light cruisers had been effectively destroyed
in less than twelve minutes."

"Of the ninety superdreadnoughts which had just been destroyed, twelve
had been units of the Grayson Space Navy, and another twenty-six had
been Andermani."

That means that 52 SKM SD(P)s died in Home Fleet alone.

"Damned if I know," she acknowledged frankly. "Maybe he just figures
he's still got the firepower to take us. After all, he's still got a
hundred and eighteen wallers, and we've only got fifty-five, even with
Duchess Harrington's orphans."
snip "Thirty of the Manty SDs had been destroyed or hulked. Over
half the survivors had critical damage, and whoever had been equipped
with that new weapons system was among the dead or disabled.


353 Total Alliance Manticore, Andermani, and Grayson
-90 gone from Home Fleet
- ~43 30 dead and 13 (13 is more than half of 25) with critical damage
probably precluding repair since they don't have Keyhole II
~220 Total Alliance SD(P)s

SKM approx. 110/353 (with no casualties)
Andermani approx. 100/353
Grayson remainder 143/353
the 1 SD(P) Solon System and ? 3rd Zanzibar casualties come out of the
SKM potential total. (After 3rd Zanzibar Caparelli stated that "11 of
"our" SP(D)s lost" probably is SKM, but maybe only Alliance)
Of the 50 Apollo capable ships, we don't know how many were SKM, and
how many (if any) were Grayson but we do know from the total that they
didn't have the full 2 years that it was going to take to have more
than 110 SD(P)s and that the SKM Keyhole II ships had to be part of
the 110 calculated SKM using max existing plus construction as total.

110 or less SKM SD(P)s to start First Manticore
52 were lost with Second Fleet
?/43 were lost with Third Fleet only 12 Alliance SD(P)s survived ~OK
less than 38 Eigth Fleet because some of that number was carriers.
Easily safe to estimate less than 40.
That is it for surviving SD(P)s for the SKM
Also major losses in system LACs, but no numbers vs. % are available
for those.
that is a major, major loss of trained Naval people.
 >> Stay informed about: what about escort CLACs? 

On Sat, 8 Mar 2008 18:51:22 -0500, "Baydlor"
<baydloranti.DeleteThis@spamhotmail.com> wrote:

>> If the pirate fires on the merchant the pod's deadman system goes off
>> and it fires back at the pirate.
>
>If I was commanding a pirate ship and was in the process of firing on an
>uncooperative merchant, and an unsurvivable swarm of missles suddenly came
>from it's direction towards my ship, I'd order the ready weapons, including
>the PD lasers and CM, fired into the merchant and do everything I could to
>make sure my killer died as well. The merchant Captain and his crew, who
>might have survived, would have committed suicide. The deadman pod trap
>would make the merchant Captain a deadman, and take his crew with him.

The point of the deadman system is to make the pirate run instead of
attacking. In a sense you are describing MAD--and that's a loss for
the pirate. He'll run from any such ship.
 >> Stay informed about: what about escort CLACs? 

"Loren Pechtel" <lorenpechtel.TakeThisOut@hotmail.invalid.com> wrote in message
news:47d44aaa$0$31267$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com...
> On Sat, 8 Mar 2008 18:51:22 -0500, "Baydlor"
> <baydloranti.TakeThisOut@spamhotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> If the pirate fires on the merchant the pod's deadman system goes off
>>> and it fires back at the pirate.
>>
>>If I was commanding a pirate ship and was in the process of firing on an
>>uncooperative merchant, and an unsurvivable swarm of missles suddenly came
>>from it's direction towards my ship, I'd order the ready weapons,
>>including
>>the PD lasers and CM, fired into the merchant and do everything I could to
>>make sure my killer died as well. The merchant Captain and his crew, who
>>might have survived, would have committed suicide. The deadman pod trap
>>would make the merchant Captain a deadman, and take his crew with him.
>
> The point of the deadman system is to make the pirate run instead of
> attacking. In a sense you are describing MAD--and that's a loss for
> the pirate. He'll run from any such ship.

The last two paragraphs of the posting I replied to were:

>No, I'm assuming the pod is deployed in advance. It's not maneuvering
>or anything, the pirate probably won't know it's there.

>If the pirate fires on the merchant the pod's deadman system goes off
>and it fires back at the pirate.

With the pirate not knowing the pod is even there, he might fire on the
merchant in order to get him to behave. When this fire triggers the deadman
circut and the pod fires, then my reply to those two paragraphs might be a
possible reaction to the suddenly revealed danger.
 >> Stay informed about: what about escort CLACs? 

"Baydlor" <baydloranti DeleteThis @spamhotmail.com> wrote in message
news:fqvbt70fhi@enews1.newsguy.com...
>

> ... Admiral Lin, during I believe, Insurrection,
> ran across such atrocities


Close. Admiral Li Han
 >> Stay informed about: what about escort CLACs? 

On 09 Mar 2008 13:35 Loren <lorenpechtel DeleteThis @hotmail.invalid.com> wrote:
>
>The point of the deadman system is to make the pirate run instead of
>attacking. In a sense you are describing MAD--and that's a loss for
>the pirate. He'll run from any such ship.

Any static system would be evaluated by spies and planted employees.
From the corrupt Silesian system governments if nowhere else. Remember
that some of the Silesian system government forces were actively
involved in piracy themselves. Legitimate system anti-piracy patrol
insists on boarding to check and make sure that the ship is not being
controlled by pirates, and when they are in range a single energy
strike takes out something vital to the deadman system (the whole pod
if nothing else) Eventually the pirates *would* find the blind spots
and the system would no longer stop pirates, but rather just cost the
SKM a lot and possibly transfer the tech to unsavory types.
-
John Palmer
jhn1 DeleteThis @gmail.com (swap alpahbetic one for numeric 1)
http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20030520.html
 >> Stay informed about: what about escort CLACs? 

J'hn1 wrote:
> On 09 Mar 2008 13:35 Loren <lorenpechtel DeleteThis @hotmail.invalid.com> wrote:
>> The point of the deadman system is to make the pirate run instead of
>> attacking. In a sense you are describing MAD--and that's a loss for
>> the pirate. He'll run from any such ship.
>
> Any static system would be evaluated by spies and planted employees.
> From the corrupt Silesian system governments if nowhere else. Remember
> that some of the Silesian system government forces were actively
> involved in piracy themselves. Legitimate system anti-piracy patrol
> insists on boarding to check and make sure that the ship is not being
> controlled by pirates, and when they are in range a single energy
> strike takes out something vital to the deadman system (the whole pod
> if nothing else) Eventually the pirates *would* find the blind spots
> and the system would no longer stop pirates, but rather just cost the
> SKM a lot and possibly transfer the tech to unsavory types.
> -
> John Palmer
> jhn1 DeleteThis @gmail.com (swap alpahbetic one for numeric 1)
> http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20030520.html

I don't think basic pod tech is a secret any more.

The pods don't have to be be latest and greatest nor do their missiles
but they would still cost a freaking bundle and aren't likely to show up
on bulk haulers.

Throwing one of these things away even if can be recovered is kind of
high priced.

If they do anything you are apt to find them hooked to a ship that fires
a cluster of missiles and has some sort of control but any such ship is
going to charge extra for the protection.
 >> Stay informed about: what about escort CLACs? 

Dwight E. Howell wrote:
> I don't think basic pod tech is a secret any more.
>
Short Victorious War:

"Sarnow glanced at Corell, who nodded in confirmation. A few
people-notably Commander Houseman-looked skeptical, but Honor felt a
trickle of satisfaction. The concept might be a tactical antique, yet
its very outdatedness should keep the Peeps from expecting it in the
first place.
A parasite pod was nothing more than a drone slaved to the fire control
of the ship towing it astern on a tractor. Each pod mounted several,
usually a half-dozen or so, single-shot missile launchers similar to
those LACs used. The idea was simple-to link the pod with the ship's
internal tubes and launch a greater number of birds in a single salvo in
order to saturate an opponent's defenses-but they hadn't been used in a
fleet engagement for eighty T-years because advances in antimissile
defenses had rendered them ineffective."

The launchers were improved, giving the pod missiles a better initial
boost.
 >> Stay informed about: what about escort CLACs? 

Baydlor wrote:
> "Loren Pechtel" <lorenpechtel.TakeThisOut@hotmail.invalid.com> wrote in message
> news:47cc9880$0$25405$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com...
>> On Sat, 1 Mar 2008 11:18:34 -0500, "Baydlor"
>> <baydloranti.TakeThisOut@spamhotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Looking at the size diagrams, you might even find it worthwhile to add
>>> some
>>> tonnage to a new destroyer design and provide space for one LAC and it's
>>> support systems. Ten percent more tonnage or so. That grazer carried by
>>> the
>>> LAC might equal the punch of the destroyers entire battery of lasers.
>>>
>>> Another thought would be mounting the LACs on the hull along with some of
>>> the Andies-style missle pods. The pods on the hull might wind up being
>>> safe
>> >from proximity kills due to the ships shielding fields and not need to be
>>> used right away. Carry them until you really need to fire a larger volley.
>> I think the answer to pirates is pods, not LAC's.
>>
>> Make a pod designed to work on it's own--it's simply given the
>> coordinates, nothing more. It also has deadman fire capability--it
>> can be programmed to fire if it's controller goes off the air. It's
>> carried on-hull.
>>
>> If it looks like trouble you launch the pod. You don't immediately
>> fire, though--no pirate in their right mind is going to stick around
>> when they see that pod come off. Depending on the tactical situation
>> it very well might allow freighters to capture pirates even. After
>> all, the pirate was trying to match courses, he's going to be going at
>> a velocity similar to the pod. Put a small drive on it so the pod can
>> actually match velocities.
>>
>> Pirate comes in, freighter drops it's pod. The pod goes into deadman
>> mode and furthermore is programmed to engage if the target range
>> becomes too great. The pirate is trapped, the freighter can summon
>> help.
>
> The pirate could also just whimper and whine, beg and plead, with the
> merchant Captain, long enough to get a really good lock on that pod, which
> it then fires it's first volley of shots (lightspeed lasers) at and
> destroys. What the pirate might then do to the crew in retaliation for their
> threat to imprison or kill the pirates, may not bear thinking on. Both
> Honor, during HAE and HotQ, and Admiral Lin, during I believe, Insurrection,
> ran across such atrocities
>
> A LAC from an escourt might never even be seen as it sneaks up behind the
> pirate whose attention is on the escourt. And fires a BC grade graser into
> it with a few shipkiller missles to finish off the scattering pieces of
> pirate ship.
>
> How about assigning a few LACs to each convoy as escourts? Scatter them
> among the merchants that have the free space in their cargo holds, and if a
> pirate shows up, launch them and the pirate has a fatal problem.
>
> The Admiralty might even consider it worthwhile to give every Manty merchant
> thats willing to carry one, a LAC. This would free up all those light
> warships for use with the warfleets. Wouldn't need to have much in the way
> of support supplies along since the LAC would see little, if any, use
> between planets. Might need to send along a couple suits of battle armor to
> use guarding the LAC in case someone decides to buy a LAC from a merchant
> Captain though.
>
> Imagine a convoy of sixty merchants with 45 of them carrying Manty
> transponder codes... no pirate in his right or wrong mind would take on a
> possible 45 LACs coming from all over. At some point it would cross it's own
> T with a LAC and kablooie... no more pirate.
>
> At what point would a pirate decide to risk the presence of LAC(s)? Even
> attacking a lone merchant as it enters some lo-tech system would carry the
> risk of getting nasty holes blown in your ship.
>
> Or the pirate gets slow and close to an Andie merchant and the transponder
> suddenly changes to a Manty code... and the pirate breaks into a cold sweat
> as he suddenly wonders if a LAC jockey is at that moment pushing the button
> to fire his graser...
>
> I'd love to see what David Weber could come up with if he ran with some of
> these ideas.
>

Um dude this isn't going to work in hyper because LAC don't do hyper. I
don't think missiles do hyper. If you get worked over by beams and are
forced to drop out of hyper with no hope of repairs then............?

>> Obviously this only works if it's a system where help can be
>> summoned, otherwise the freighter just uses the pod to scare away the
>> pirate.
>>
>> The deadman nature of the control means the pirate can't shoot at the
>> freighter for dropping it--doing so means the pirate eats a pod full
>> of missiles. With the sort of craft they normally have that's
>> probably it for them.
>
>
>
 >> Stay informed about: what about escort CLACs? 

"Dwight E. Howell" <deowll.DeleteThis@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:G%cMj.20935$Q52.19596@bignews9.bellsouth.net...
> Baydlor wrote:
>> "Loren Pechtel" <lorenpechtel.DeleteThis@hotmail.invalid.com> wrote in message

>> At what point would a pirate decide to risk the presence of LAC(s)? Even
>> attacking a lone merchant as it enters some lo-tech system would carry
>> the risk of getting nasty holes blown in your ship.
>>
>> Or the pirate gets slow and close to an Andie merchant and the
>> transponder suddenly changes to a Manty code... and the pirate breaks
>> into a cold sweat as he suddenly wonders if a LAC jockey is at that
>> moment pushing the button to fire his graser...
>>
>> I'd love to see what David Weber could come up with if he ran with some
>> of these ideas.
>>
>
> Um dude this isn't going to work in hyper because LAC don't do hyper.

In Honor Among Enemies they left the LACs they had in the remaining flight
bay in Hyper to stay with the passenger liner while Honor drew off the other
Haven BC. She told the Liner captain to destroy the LACs after taking off
the crews because they couldn't translate down to normal space with the
Liner for that ten days of playing a hole-in-space
..
> I don't think missiles do hyper

In Honar Among Enemies. They used missles to waste the Haven BC while
protecting the passenger liner.

Hyper can be flown around in provided that any vessel without Warshaski
sails (Alpha nodes required for them) stays clear of grav-waves.

In On Baslisk Station, Honor gives some thought to the history of starflight
in Hyper.


If you get worked over by beams and are
> forced to drop out of hyper with no hope of repairs then............?
>

..
 >> Stay informed about: what about escort CLACs? 

Baydlor wrote:
> Looking at the size diagrams, you might even find it worthwhile to add some
> tonnage to a new destroyer design and provide space for one LAC and it's
> support systems. Ten percent more tonnage or so. That grazer carried by the
> LAC might equal the punch of the destroyers entire battery of lasers.

Just remember the weight of both, OK? A LAC bay is 40,000 tons, I'm
taking that figure to include the LAC, a destroyer traditionally tops at
about 90,000 tons, so the bay is too big.

> Another thought would be mounting the LACs on the hull along with some of
> the Andies-style missle pods. The pods on the hull might wind up being safe
> from proximity kills due to the ships shielding fields and not need to be
> used right away. Carry them until you really need to fire a larger volley.
> Might give a small ship a chance to get away from a larger opponet while
> it's busy worrying about the forty or fifty missles headed it's way. I
> imagine they would have to be fired in waves from a destroyer or light
> cruiser to prevent fratricide but they cound be sent in very rapid
> succession because there would be no tube-reloading delay. While your at it,
> add some pods of anti-missle missles in case your on the receiving end of
> such a volley.

LAC's won't work as a strap on, their too big need bays, as above. You'd
also have to worry about accel. go re-read HoQ.
 >> Stay informed about: what about escort CLACs? 

Using Mistletoe will not work, it's anti-infrastructure, like pod groups
for system defense, not anti-shipping and there's NO way to target
individual components.
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