Neither is reading the series for you apparently, since the Solarians made a frikking missile wedge that was literally undetectable to within the 20km hard kill radius of a counter missile at literally impact range from the target. It's actually worse than that since unless their computer control technology is a goblin with an abacus and a periscope in the missile, they should have been able to do a systematic countermissile sweep of the entire possible area that the solarian stealth missile occupied. So sorry, but Weber's indulgence in the rule of drama to Sue up Honor some more means that Manticoran capabilities are canonically utter shite.
How so? Remember, missiles can change heading and try and dodge counter fire(which only requires passive sensors). So unless you are able to put out enough counter missiles to encompass all of the possible routes the missile could take in one salvo, then it can dodge. Note that the combatants in this case were LACs and unarmed ships(they did have passive defenses, but there were already homing beacons on the ships). LACs which have rather limited countermissile ability.
Also, given that the missiles are limited to extremely low speeds, I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that a full power wedge would be maskable in this way. Remember, power is generally similar to acceleration(for a given size), and these were noted as being slow by missile standards. Not to mention missiles have weaker drives than ships(which is why missiles aren't used to just ram impellar wedges).
Because again you didn't read the series. Bow and aft walls are a blindingly obvious thing, and if you're sending a fire ship through the center of a wall of battle, you don't need to be maneuvering. If for some reason you do, hey, 150G reaction thrusters, presuming you unaccountably don't up the thrust on a ship that's going to be designed not to have humans on board at the critical moment.
Which is why ships can't use lasers against missiles, right? And I'm not sure why you're imply that I don't know about them, I said as much in my post! The issue is that using them means you cannot maneuver too quickly when those are up(remember, the standard acceleration rate is ~500g to 600g). I don't think 150g thrusters are going to confound fire control systems designed to hit those at minimum, nevermind stuff like missiles. Yeah, sidewalls are a thing. But weapons that destroy sidewalls or at least go through them are also a thing, evidenced by basically every story in the books.
You mean apart from the exquisitely drilled formations of ships that like to roll ship as one to minimize their vulnerable aspects with half the normal separation of a conventional wall of battle, that both the Manties and Havenites have been known to field?
Yes. Unless you get to point blank range(which I doubt you can do and have an effective ship), then you're going to give them time to move.
The entire point was to throw a fireship through the center of a wall of battle, which will have sweet fuck all ability to evade. Since unless you are building something capable of taking out a superdreadnought wedge and remaining unharmed the fire ship is going to die anyway, it getting killed by energy weapons after breaching the formation is an exceedingly moot point.
The issue is that it probably won't get that far. I mean, fuck, missiles are programmed to go around wedges in the first place(because people try and interpose wedges between them and the missiles). Not to mention that even minor adjustments to the formation will mean that parts of the formation are going to be able to fire at the ship before it 'hits'.
A wedge's width of distance from each other as is standard for a wall isn't going to be enough to avoid this tactic unless every single captain maneuvers perfectly, and the asshole throwing ships at you doesn't account for that.
I don't believe it's been implied that breaking formation is that difficult. Especially since if the ships just roll on to their sides: you just changed the distance from 150km between ships to 260km between ships.
You present a target the enemy will want to engage, pulling them in close enough to a course of your choosing that your ships can crank up to .8c at their low acceleration, then come about so that you are moving wedge first at the target. To accelerate towards something(with impellers) you have to have your bow to the enemy. Moving will take care of itself after that acceleration.
Of course you could just overpower the reaction thrusters to crank ships up to the point where relativity starts noticeably impeding your accel, and make the wedge monkeying a thoroughly moot point.
I'd point out that there are several tactics(such as basic scouting) which makes the tactic much less sure.
In addition, your drive can only be kept so low. And even assuming that you can do a repeat of the trap Honor managed to pull out of her ass regarding ships moving without impellar, doing so requires that you have your impellars off, in which case it's going to take time to start up. At which point it becomes much easier to detect you.
You mean if solarian stealth tech makes a mockery of Manty sensors as has been established on multiple occasions?
Multiple being once? And that once had a host of restrictions, including using low power wedges? You know, the kinds specifically unsuited to this strategy? Oh, yes, yes you do.
I'm not saying the stealth doesn't have uses. Just that the missiles you're basing this off of work very differently than the wedgekiller would have to.
