Here's an interesting tidbit: while television did exist before WW2 and possibly should not be affected by MSSB on that basis, it was with a completely different technology. The charge coupled devices that are used in modern television, digital cameras, webcams, and phonecams are a product of the silicon revolution of the '80's.
Belated Battleships (KanColle) [REHOST]
- Thread starter theJMPer
- Start date
- Location
- North Carolina
I know, but the AGM-65B Maverick uses a Camera to lock-on to it's target. The Walleye and Walleye II are the same deal. They use Electro-Optical Guidance which is a real fancy way to say that they have a Television Camera to lock-on. To my knowledge from what I have seen, Global Hawks with their Cameras can see the Abyssals just fine, so would a Maverick B, a Walleye, Walleye II, etc. Be able to lock-on to the Abyssals, besides Bunker Busters use GPS Guidance with Laser back-up. Which can be fooled by the Abyssals. However, Cameras can see Abyssals fine. Besides the AGM-65B Maverick entered service in the 70s so its not a product of the Silicon Revolution. The same goes for the Walleye and Walleye II they are also products of the 70s.
So in hindsight it is a valid question.
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Allow me to throw some quotes from the story:
So, that's air-to-surface, although it doesn't say specifically if camera feeds could be used to aim the bombs. The bombs were GPS-guided, but even then they still mostly missed, and that's using an absolute coordinate-tracking system.
So, this bit implies that they can be seen on cameras in conjunction with searchlights, but it says nothing about aiming any of the shipboard missiles, much less camera-guided aerial missiles.
Anyway, focusing so heavily on this stuff is diffusing the focus of the story. Why not lean back and wait for JMPer's next chapter?
- Location
- North Carolina
Well, in the last instance, they were talking about Harpoon Anti-Ship Missiles which have INS and Radar Guidance which is spoofed by the sheer presence of the Abyssals. Again GPS and laser guidance is fooled by the Abyssals.
However, even the high-powered silicon based cameras on a Global Hawk can see Abyssals, so can regular television cameras. So, would that mean that missiles and glide bombs that use Television Guidance would work against the Abyssals.
Not to mention, anything that uses Manual Command Line of Sight would work, because well, the thing leaves the rail, and then you have to track the flare of the rocket engine and the smoke plume, and by using that you guide the warhead to the target. The main downside is that it is dangerous as hell, because you have to fly along the same bearing as the weapon you have just fired in a straight line to make sure that the weapon goes where you want it.
However, even the high-powered silicon based cameras on a Global Hawk can see Abyssals, so can regular television cameras. So, would that mean that missiles and glide bombs that use Television Guidance would work against the Abyssals.
Not to mention, anything that uses Manual Command Line of Sight would work, because well, the thing leaves the rail, and then you have to track the flare of the rocket engine and the smoke plume, and by using that you guide the warhead to the target. The main downside is that it is dangerous as hell, because you have to fly along the same bearing as the weapon you have just fired in a straight line to make sure that the weapon goes where you want it.
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Whiskey Golf
Being of Editing & Technical Assistance
- Location
- Chained to my desk
@Thorthemighty you do realise that the TV Maverick, Walleye and Walleye II have been retired after Desert Storm, right? That's close to thirty years prior.
About the only TV guided weapon still in use in the US arsenal at the moment is TOW, which is 1) fired from Cobras, 2) has an operational range of 4000 meters, placing it within the AA envelope of most WW2 ships, and 3) being a shaped charge ATGM is suboptimal for attacking warships.
You also forget that MCLOS weapons have shown a historically low accuracy rate.
About the only TV guided weapon still in use in the US arsenal at the moment is TOW, which is 1) fired from Cobras, 2) has an operational range of 4000 meters, placing it within the AA envelope of most WW2 ships, and 3) being a shaped charge ATGM is suboptimal for attacking warships.
You also forget that MCLOS weapons have shown a historically low accuracy rate.
Okay, so Television and Radio work off of the same wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum. Specifically transmitters and receivers use these waves. It's one thing when we're talking about a direct connection using wires or what-have-you.
Here's how this is relevant: GPS works off of radio waves and transmissions. We've already seen that GPS-guided munitions are not effective against Abyssals from the quotes I used earlier.
So, if you're broadcasting a television signal to a remote location, like say a missile, then you can't aim it using radio waves of any kind.
There's this too.
- Location
- North Carolina
I know, but the AGM-65 is modular meaning you can swap out seeker heads. However from what I have read the AGM-65B is still in service. However, while it won't be as accurate as it should be. Maybe Television Guided Missiles should be a bit more trustworthy, as in well. When you let one fly it isn't as much as a dice roll. You could get a weak tone which means it will most likely miss but it could fly straight and true.
Or I could be speaking out my ass. Then again, would Abyssals actually show up as dark spots on Thermal? If that is the case you could modify IIR Missiles to go after dark spots.
Whiskey Golf
Being of Editing & Technical Assistance
- Location
- Chained to my desk
The other thing I forgot to mention is that the way the TV Maverick and Walleyes work is that the camera in the nose takes a photo of the target, and then the missile flies towards the target and tries to match up the image it sees now to the photo it took prior to launch. (This is a simplified explanation of the process.)
This is good for a stationary non-moving target. This is less than okay for an actively maneuvering target. TV Mavericks had accuracy issues, so much so that when IIR Mavericks became a thing the USAF, USN and USMC quickly doubled down on them.
This is good for a stationary non-moving target. This is less than okay for an actively maneuvering target. TV Mavericks had accuracy issues, so much so that when IIR Mavericks became a thing the USAF, USN and USMC quickly doubled down on them.
- Location
- North Carolina
Huh, but would they be sitting in Storage? I am not sure on that.
- Location
- North Carolina
But who knows? I mean hell during the Vietnam War we were using old Iron Bombs from World War II. So who knows!
I've just been running off the assumption that 'it's more modern than WWII, therefore it doesn't work too well' is the rule, with 'it's literal magic' as the justification. Because there is nothing inherently special about visible light or radio waves or any other part of the electromagnetic spectrum, those are just the wavelengths we use for specific tasks.
Also, ninjas.
Also, ninjas.
Whiskey Golf
Being of Editing & Technical Assistance
- Location
- Chained to my desk
Modular the construction may be, but this is still depot level maintennance. This is not something you do on the flightline, bolting on retarded fins and a laser seeker to a Mark 83 to turn it into a Paveway. This is something done at the factory.
Also from what news I've found at least 500 of the remaining TV AGM-65Bs were converted to AGM-65Es given that SAL guidance was considered more relevant than TV.
I'm glad you realise the thought has crossed your mind. Alas, it is only a thought, and has not taken root in your mind.
Most likely it wouldn't work.
The weapons were retired from service 30 years ago. You don't store missiles in storage, you take them out to the desert and you blow them the fuck up in a controlled detonation, because explosives go bad after time. At best, they no longer go bang when you want them to. At worse, chemical reactions from breaking down explosives makes them into fragile shit that'll blow up if you look at it the wrong way. (Now I'm remembering David Khoo's horror stories about dealing with dodgy ammo.) There's also the problems with rocket fuels going bad...
Basically tl;dr you either use it or you blow it up before it blows you up.
- Location
- 'Murica
That's a good assumption! It's not that certain techs don't work, it's that anything that breaks the "battleships rule the seas" paradigm doesn't work to well. Destroyers are Destroyers, end of story.
Fixed that for you
Skywalker_T-65
Writer with too many ideas.
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- Plural/They/He/Her
Which is why the Greeks are very lucky their 'frigates' are destroyer sized. Otherwise they would be screeeewwwwweeeeedddd even more than they already are.
- Location
- North Carolina
That's because their 'frigates' are actually American made Knox-class Destroyers I believe.
Skywalker_T-65
Writer with too many ideas.
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- Plural/They/He/Her
German and Dutch.
It's the Turks who have ex-American ships.
It's the Turks who have ex-American ships.
- Location
- North Carolina
Oh! Thanks for clearing that
Also, the Greeks had two Battleships, both are American Pre-Dreadnoughts they were the Mississippi-class Battleships, they had four 12in/45 Caliber Guns as the main battery, an intermediate battery of eight 8in/45 Caliber and eight 7in/45 caliber guns, and lastly a anti-torpedo boat armament of twelve 3in/50 Caliber Guns.
The problem was, well they commissioned in 1908 and were sunk in 1941 by the Luftwaffe. So they have no AA, plus they are slow with a speed of only 17 knots.
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Rajvik_wolfboy
Wolf amongst the stars.
- Location
- Florida
the thing with current shipyards is that they are probably full of bulk and container cargo ships. think about all the food that has to be shipped to places like Japan and Britain, i mean granted Britain has the Chunnel, (which i dont believe has a cargo setup, I could be wrong) but still, thats a lot of food and other goods that have to be shipped, and the US is probably the only place they can be built, and then immediately filled for sailing
Omake: cuddle puddles
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Meanwhile, on the other side of a continent, we learn a few things about the psychology of antisubmarine warfare escorts.
Destroyer cuddle puddles: they're not just adorable, they're practical.
==============================================
Naval Station Norfolk was the largest base of the world's largest fleet. Dozens of ships operated from its docks, hundreds of planes came and went every day. It was home to landmark achievements in naval aviation, home to mammoth fleets, home to a great and critical share of the U.S. Navy's twentieth-century history. As America geared up for the Abyssal War, they'd naturally made a few slight adjustments to their facilities. They'd planned ambitiously, expecting present trends to continue, and for Norfolk to become home port for a mighty force of America's new fleet.
The corner of the base set aside for Kanmusu Command Norfolk had indeed been planned ambitiously. Too ambitiously.
Norfolk's enclosed, indoor summoning pool had so far netted six failures and a blimpcat. The baths, with their oddly aromatic blend of oil and seawater, stood virtually unused. Norfolk's kanmusu mess hall, perhaps unique among dedicated shipgirl provisioning facilities the world over, did not have enough to do. Norfolk's shipgirl barracks, fit to house multiple carrier battlegroups, had yet to host a kanmusu of capital tonnage, aside from a few visits by the girls of the RN. The only semi-permanent residents were a scattering of quiet, shy destroyer escorts from elsewhere along the Atlantic coast, who rotated in and out of port as convoys entered and left the Chesapeake Bay.
Most of the rooms had been decorated on the assumption that a host of cruisers, carriers, and battleships would be filling out Norfolk's complement and sweeping the west Atlantic in short order. Instead, they were echoing, empty, oversized, with at least a dozen rooms per girl.
Rear Admiral Roscoe was starting to worry about the DEs' belief that the extra space was "scary." This was a sign of good judgment on his part. Delayed good judgment, unfortunately…
==============================================
Manning watched the two Edsalls came back to the table, carrying heaped platters of food on their trays. Camp sat down first, then produced a tiny glass bottle of hot sauce from a pocket and upended it over a heap of scrambled eggs. She looked up as Freddie Davis sat down… slowly and carefully, picking at her food without interest. "What's wrong, Freddie?"
Camp nodded slightly. Freddie had been nervous ever since they'd come back from the last convoy. Manning was worried too.
"There's… there's a submarine in my closet!" The nervous Edsall sunk her head into her hands. "I… I can hear it at night…" she muttered weakly.
"You're sure it's not just the fan or something?"
"NO! It's a submarine!"
"Only the one, right?" Manning sympathized, that couldn't feel good. But she didn't understand why that was so frightening. "What's so special about one submarine?"
"No, you don't understand! It's not just any submarine. You don't understand..." Freddie's voice quavered. "It's a missile submarine!"
Manning gasped. "It can't be! Those are just a monster story!"
"No, they're real! They, um, uh..." Freddie shuddered. "They sneak up on your coast and then... then..." Freddie sounded a little vague about that part. "Kaboom!" She spread her hands, making an echoing explosion noise. "They're like worst submarines!"
"I don't care if they're worst submarines! They're not hiding in the barracks, and they aren't real!"
"Are too!"
Camp shook her head. "They totally are." Smiling and raising one finger with a sententious air, she clinched her argument. "I heard about them in Vietnam."
"You're just trying to scare Freddie!" The Buckley-class scowled, trying unsuccessfully to loom in Camp's general direction, with all the miniscule heft her extra hundred and fifty tons' displacement provided. "Besides, even if missile submarines are real, why would one of them be hiding in her closet?"
"I don't know…" Freddie pulled her flying jacket tight around her shoulders. "Maybe it's just… keeping an eye on us and waiting for us to leave the base, so it can sneak past us?"
Camp nodded. "That makes sense…"
"You're both worrying about nothing and we should tell the Admiral!"
"I, um… tried. He just gave me the face he uses when he thinks we're being stupid. Then he told me there's no such thing as closet monsters."
"Well, there isn't."
Freddie set her jaw in an angry pout. "Oh yeah there are!"
"Are not!"
"Are too!"
At this point, the side of common sense suffered a severe setback. Camp took her sister Freddie's side. She chose to express her support by upending the remains of her plateful of eggs into Manning's face.
The hot sauce-laced eggs.
"AAAAACK!"
==============================================
It was late-o'clock and Freddie couldn't sleep. She couldn't risk closing her eyes. The boomer was there, waiting. She could feel it, even when she didn't hear little clicking and chirping noises. She was pretty sure the submarine must be spoofing her hydrophones somehow, because most of the noises didn't sound like they were actually coming from the closet. But that was just a worst submarine trying to lull her into a false sense of security. She was too smart to fall for a trick like that!
Freddie knew what she had to do. She also knew wasn't supposed to do things like that. At least, not on land. Definitely not on base. Especially not indoors. The Admiral had been very stern. Thinking about his "angry papa" face was scary. But there was a monster. In her closet.
With quiet that would have done a submathief proud, Freddie Davis slipped out of bed. Destroyer escorts knew what to do about sneaky hidden monsters trying to get a shot off at a soft, valuable target.
She knew this was probably a bad idea. Looking for missile submarines was dangerous. U-boats snuck up on you and got the drop on you. But that didn't matter.
Some of the briefings were confusing, but she understood the important parts. This wasn't like '45, or the Med, or even like the bad times back in '42, before she was born. It was worse. Abyssal submarines could sneak up the Chesapeake if they wanted to. They'd snuck up the Delaware before, and they'd-
Never. Again.
If she didn't make it... Camp would understand. Especially Camp.
Freddie sidled nervously up to her closet, still silent, trying not to breathe. A shimmer in the air by her head turned into four faeries, teetering on her shoulder, struggling with the weight of a miniature Mark 9 depth charge the size of a lemon. Gratefully, she plucked the explosive-packed teardrop from their hands, smiling affectionately. Three faeries clapped their hands over the fourth one's mouth before she could shout "Hey!" Then the four vanished.
Blur-fast, the destroyer escort jerked the door open, tossed in the depth charge, and slammed the door shut.
Blind time... blind time... wait a minute… uh-oh.
Realization dawned in the escort's eyes. Freddie bolted for the door of her room, then fled down the hall, screaming at the top of her lungs, "RUUUUNN!"
==============================================
Thomas Roscoe stood and stretched, his report concluded. He knew being such a perfectionist was probably a bad thing, but once in a while it was worth it to stay up as late as it took to get something really, truly right.
Even if Roscoe's base was a glorified waystation, and what he'd hoped would be an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of the Navy's new weapon against the legions of Davy Jones had turned out to be a dead end, he felt like he wasn't doing such a bad job.
They also serve who only stand and wait, right? He could take some pride in running a good waystation, and running it well. Yes, Kanmusu Command Norfolk was useful, efficient, quiet-
Two hundred pounds of Torpex detonated in Freddie Davis's closet.
==============================================
The ensuing structural collapse of the north wing of the shipgirl barracks, and most of the central building, did a lot to solve the problem of the excess space by default.
Whether by luck or by sparkly magic, the storm of debris narrowly avoided killing anyone. The destroyer escorts Manning, Camp, and Frederick C. Davis staggered out of the wreckage, wooden beams and cinder blocks bouncing off their scraped, bruised skins.
On consultation with base psychiatric staff, Admiral Roscoe addressed the underlying issue by mandating that all shipgirls below capital tonnage sleep two or more to a room whenever possible.
Destroyer cuddle puddles: they're not just adorable, they're practical.
==============================================
Naval Station Norfolk was the largest base of the world's largest fleet. Dozens of ships operated from its docks, hundreds of planes came and went every day. It was home to landmark achievements in naval aviation, home to mammoth fleets, home to a great and critical share of the U.S. Navy's twentieth-century history. As America geared up for the Abyssal War, they'd naturally made a few slight adjustments to their facilities. They'd planned ambitiously, expecting present trends to continue, and for Norfolk to become home port for a mighty force of America's new fleet.
The corner of the base set aside for Kanmusu Command Norfolk had indeed been planned ambitiously. Too ambitiously.
Norfolk's enclosed, indoor summoning pool had so far netted six failures and a blimpcat. The baths, with their oddly aromatic blend of oil and seawater, stood virtually unused. Norfolk's kanmusu mess hall, perhaps unique among dedicated shipgirl provisioning facilities the world over, did not have enough to do. Norfolk's shipgirl barracks, fit to house multiple carrier battlegroups, had yet to host a kanmusu of capital tonnage, aside from a few visits by the girls of the RN. The only semi-permanent residents were a scattering of quiet, shy destroyer escorts from elsewhere along the Atlantic coast, who rotated in and out of port as convoys entered and left the Chesapeake Bay.
Most of the rooms had been decorated on the assumption that a host of cruisers, carriers, and battleships would be filling out Norfolk's complement and sweeping the west Atlantic in short order. Instead, they were echoing, empty, oversized, with at least a dozen rooms per girl.
Rear Admiral Roscoe was starting to worry about the DEs' belief that the extra space was "scary." This was a sign of good judgment on his part. Delayed good judgment, unfortunately…
==============================================
Manning watched the two Edsalls came back to the table, carrying heaped platters of food on their trays. Camp sat down first, then produced a tiny glass bottle of hot sauce from a pocket and upended it over a heap of scrambled eggs. She looked up as Freddie Davis sat down… slowly and carefully, picking at her food without interest. "What's wrong, Freddie?"
Camp nodded slightly. Freddie had been nervous ever since they'd come back from the last convoy. Manning was worried too.
"There's… there's a submarine in my closet!" The nervous Edsall sunk her head into her hands. "I… I can hear it at night…" she muttered weakly.
"You're sure it's not just the fan or something?"
"NO! It's a submarine!"
"Only the one, right?" Manning sympathized, that couldn't feel good. But she didn't understand why that was so frightening. "What's so special about one submarine?"
"No, you don't understand! It's not just any submarine. You don't understand..." Freddie's voice quavered. "It's a missile submarine!"
Manning gasped. "It can't be! Those are just a monster story!"
"No, they're real! They, um, uh..." Freddie shuddered. "They sneak up on your coast and then... then..." Freddie sounded a little vague about that part. "Kaboom!" She spread her hands, making an echoing explosion noise. "They're like worst submarines!"
"I don't care if they're worst submarines! They're not hiding in the barracks, and they aren't real!"
"Are too!"
Camp shook her head. "They totally are." Smiling and raising one finger with a sententious air, she clinched her argument. "I heard about them in Vietnam."
"You're just trying to scare Freddie!" The Buckley-class scowled, trying unsuccessfully to loom in Camp's general direction, with all the miniscule heft her extra hundred and fifty tons' displacement provided. "Besides, even if missile submarines are real, why would one of them be hiding in her closet?"
"I don't know…" Freddie pulled her flying jacket tight around her shoulders. "Maybe it's just… keeping an eye on us and waiting for us to leave the base, so it can sneak past us?"
Camp nodded. "That makes sense…"
"You're both worrying about nothing and we should tell the Admiral!"
"I, um… tried. He just gave me the face he uses when he thinks we're being stupid. Then he told me there's no such thing as closet monsters."
"Well, there isn't."
Freddie set her jaw in an angry pout. "Oh yeah there are!"
"Are not!"
"Are too!"
At this point, the side of common sense suffered a severe setback. Camp took her sister Freddie's side. She chose to express her support by upending the remains of her plateful of eggs into Manning's face.
The hot sauce-laced eggs.
"AAAAACK!"
==============================================
It was late-o'clock and Freddie couldn't sleep. She couldn't risk closing her eyes. The boomer was there, waiting. She could feel it, even when she didn't hear little clicking and chirping noises. She was pretty sure the submarine must be spoofing her hydrophones somehow, because most of the noises didn't sound like they were actually coming from the closet. But that was just a worst submarine trying to lull her into a false sense of security. She was too smart to fall for a trick like that!
Freddie knew what she had to do. She also knew wasn't supposed to do things like that. At least, not on land. Definitely not on base. Especially not indoors. The Admiral had been very stern. Thinking about his "angry papa" face was scary. But there was a monster. In her closet.
With quiet that would have done a submathief proud, Freddie Davis slipped out of bed. Destroyer escorts knew what to do about sneaky hidden monsters trying to get a shot off at a soft, valuable target.
She knew this was probably a bad idea. Looking for missile submarines was dangerous. U-boats snuck up on you and got the drop on you. But that didn't matter.
Some of the briefings were confusing, but she understood the important parts. This wasn't like '45, or the Med, or even like the bad times back in '42, before she was born. It was worse. Abyssal submarines could sneak up the Chesapeake if they wanted to. They'd snuck up the Delaware before, and they'd-
Never. Again.
If she didn't make it... Camp would understand. Especially Camp.
Freddie sidled nervously up to her closet, still silent, trying not to breathe. A shimmer in the air by her head turned into four faeries, teetering on her shoulder, struggling with the weight of a miniature Mark 9 depth charge the size of a lemon. Gratefully, she plucked the explosive-packed teardrop from their hands, smiling affectionately. Three faeries clapped their hands over the fourth one's mouth before she could shout "Hey!" Then the four vanished.
Blur-fast, the destroyer escort jerked the door open, tossed in the depth charge, and slammed the door shut.
Blind time... blind time... wait a minute… uh-oh.
Realization dawned in the escort's eyes. Freddie bolted for the door of her room, then fled down the hall, screaming at the top of her lungs, "RUUUUNN!"
==============================================
Thomas Roscoe stood and stretched, his report concluded. He knew being such a perfectionist was probably a bad thing, but once in a while it was worth it to stay up as late as it took to get something really, truly right.
Even if Roscoe's base was a glorified waystation, and what he'd hoped would be an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of the Navy's new weapon against the legions of Davy Jones had turned out to be a dead end, he felt like he wasn't doing such a bad job.
They also serve who only stand and wait, right? He could take some pride in running a good waystation, and running it well. Yes, Kanmusu Command Norfolk was useful, efficient, quiet-
Two hundred pounds of Torpex detonated in Freddie Davis's closet.
==============================================
The ensuing structural collapse of the north wing of the shipgirl barracks, and most of the central building, did a lot to solve the problem of the excess space by default.
Whether by luck or by sparkly magic, the storm of debris narrowly avoided killing anyone. The destroyer escorts Manning, Camp, and Frederick C. Davis staggered out of the wreckage, wooden beams and cinder blocks bouncing off their scraped, bruised skins.
On consultation with base psychiatric staff, Admiral Roscoe addressed the underlying issue by mandating that all shipgirls below capital tonnage sleep two or more to a room whenever possible.
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- Location
- North Carolina
HAHAHA! That is funny as hell! It's obviously a love hate relationship with Destroyer Escorts and Destroyers because sometimes they are adorable as hell other times well, you just want to facepalm at the amount of stupidty that they display.
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obssesednuker
Commander of 10 Million Men
- Location
- In the Kremlin, activating Perimtr.
Silly destroyers, boomers aren't interested in you...
They're probably pretty easygoing really. They cruise around and basically wait. If the shit hits the fan in an epic way, they're busy for a few minutes and then never, ever again.
It's the ship equivalent of being paid to hang out.
(It's a joke, I know there's more to it than that, my father served on a ballistic missile sub back in the day.)