Her assessment was against the 17 battlecruisers that she observed at Monica. Byng's third BC squadron is elsewhere, at the moment.

To bring back something from the 80s, "Is it real, or is it Memorex?"

Fake.

It's a setup to justify the Sollies getting involved.

During an edit I broke the link above:

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/Harrington/h...

You are off on your numbers for capital ship broadsides:

From The Short Victorious War:
>>>Nike and Agamemnon alone spat a hundred and seventy-eight missiles at the Peeps, almost five times the broadside of a Sphinx-class superdreadnought.<<<

That would put a Sphinx's broadside between 36 and perhaps 40.

Regarding the Peeps at Nightigale, that figure of 1200 missiles from 32 SDs is probably just an nice round number.

A Reliant BC has a broadside of 25 tubes, while a Sultan has only 20 tubes per broadside, but greater magazine capacity. This is from the appendix at the end of SVW.

A Peep BB does not have 30% the broadside of an SD.
Rather:

>>>they had little more than fifteen percent of an SD's energy armament but thirty percent of its missile power<<<.

Missile power would be a combination of total tubes plus magazine capacity.

Besides, later in Flag in Exile:

>>>but all twenty-four battleships between them could produce only seven hundred missiles in reply<<<

That works out to exactly 29.16 missiles per BB. Again
Weber seems to be rounding, so call it 30 tubes in a BB broadside. So while a BB has about 75% of a SDs missile broadside, it would have perhaps only a quarter the magazine capacity.

We know than an Andermani Derfflinger SD has half again the broadside of a Sphinx SD, roughly 60 tubes, but very light energy armament.

I think that you are trying scale the number of tubes upwards along with tonnage, and that is not the case. Part of the overall limitation of a ships total missile broadside is partly the total length of the ship and spacing of the tubes. The primary limitation is the fact
that if you put too many missiles in a single broadside,
you risk missile fratricide as they bring up their impellers, and you risk blinding your our fire control from wedge interference:

From Infodump:
>>>One is the need to limit one's self to a total broadside which can avoid impeller wedge fratricide on launch. Another consideration is that, like the gunsmoke of pre-space broadsides, each missile salvo temporarily
causes a massive degradation in the broadside fire

control sensors of the firing ship as the missile wedges block them, which means that there is little point in mounting larger numbers of tubes (or, for that matter, tubes with much shorter cycle times) simply because one must wait for "the range to clear" before launching the next salvo anyway.. There are other considerations, including ammunition supply concerns, but perhaps the overriding one is that prior to the introduction of missile
pods, the defensive power of opposing SDs was such that in a one-on-one duel, no SD was likely to be able to get any significant number of hits through her opponent's active and passive defenses even with the maximum number of tubes which could be packed in (at least, without making totally unacceptable sacrifices in close in [i.e., energy weapons] firepower and/or defensive systems) in a single opening salvo.&lt;&lt;&lt;

<a href="http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/Harrington/h...&lt;spanclass="idc-clear"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;" target="_blank">http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/Harrington/h...&lt;spanclass="idc-clear"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;

I don't even think Byng is trying to prove anything. He KNOWS that the RMN are uppity neobarbs. His preconceptions, and inability to look past them, are going to be his ruin. He won't believe that the RMN might be better, and his decision making is colored for it.

IIRC , the original MDM pods held 10 missiles, and the missiles were capacitor fired. When they went to the smaller fusion powered MDMs they increased the number to 12 per pod. The flat pack pod is smaller and reduces the missile count back to 10. I believe they did this to get more combat endurance at the expense of slightly smaller salvoes, which they could always increase by staging more pod salvoes with delayed launch.

IIRC modern RMN LACs also have smaller downsized FTL recon drones. Nowhere near as capable as all up Ghost Rider drones, but vastly better than standard RDs.

Even with standard drones and light-speed fire control links, a wing of Shrikes with two pods each can hurt a wall. With nearly 800 gees of accel, there's no way an SD can bring Shrikes to action in an open battle. The Shrikes can come hold outside of effective SLN missile range, and let the missiles fly. At 15 million km, the command control loop is "relatively" short, and SLN missile tech is way out of date. They're used to standard broadsides out of a waller, around 40 to 50 missiles every 30 seconds. A podnaught laying double salvoes can fire 120 missiles every 24 seconds, and an Invictus can control around 400 missiles simultaneously.

In the First Battle of Nightingale, the Peeps concentrated the fire of 32 SDs on just 8 RMN SDs

>>>>The Peep wall of battle spat twelve hundred birds back at him, and White Haven swallowed a stillborn curse as he realized they'd concentrated solely on BatRon Twenty-One's eight units.<<<<

Thats 150 missiles targeted on each SD, which was considered quite a threat in those days. These days a salvo of that size would get swatted down easily by modern RMN or RHN wallers. In At All Cost, when Giscard ambushed Harrington at Solon, her two SDPs with lighter units and LACs in tow swatted a 1100 missile salvo. Giscard countered with a nearly 11,000 missile salvo, which caused lots of damage to one SDP but didn't kill it. It wasn't until the Peeps sprung Moriarty and launched a 17,000 missile salvo did TF 82 start losing ships.

Prior to Apollo, everyone suffered for the limitations of light-speed control links. Ghost Rider FTL drones could give real time data on the enemy, but the control links still suffered from light-speed limitations.

Oh, and regarding the defensive capabilty of the SLN. A Keyhole equipped Nike is probably a much tougher missile target than a Solly SD, as evidenced by the amount of fire Nike and Hector, supported by 48 Katanas, took in Chapter 27 of At All Cost.

It would depend on how current the CLs systems are, and how well trained the crew is. A recent Peep CL, would be hard pressed against 4 Shrikes because it is slower, with poorer EW, inferior energy armament. It would have far greater missile capacity, but with much can fire far less per salvo, and it's missiles are still shorter ranged with inferior seekers and penaids. In a open space battle, 4 Shrikes can come into extreme missile range (for RMN missiles), fire 80 missiles, then move into energy range to sweep up the pieces. Even the most recent Peep CL would be hard pressed against a 80 missile salvo. 4 Shrikes can handle any return missile fire that a Peep CL could generate. This all of course excludes missile pods.

In the Battle of Manticore, after Home Fleet was destroyed, the surviving LACs, after killing the Peep LACs, numbered 1600 LACs left, 900 of them Shrikes. The Shrikes were sent in on 33 battlecruiser, using only their grasers, since their light missile warheads weren't up to the job against BC grade armor. They killed 28 BCs outright and hulked the last 5, but lost 481 on their number.

Thats about 27 Shrikes attacking each BC, and they lost about 15 of the 27, but they were limited to grasers only.

300 Ferrets attacked 41 CAs, killing them all but losing 112 of their 300. They hit each CA with ~400 missiles, stated as having destroyer weight warheads. Rather light to be taking on CA armor and sidewalls, but in large enough numbers to make that a moot point.

Going back to Honor Among Enemies, near the end, after Wayfarere has been damaged, Harringtion detaches her six LACs to cover Artemis, stating they "can probably stand up to a heavy cruiser for you if they have to."

These are pre-Shrikes. Shrikes are much better, and while Peep systems are also much improved, destroyers and light cruisers really can't tangle with Shrikes unless they catch them totally off guard.

In one of the early books I think Harrington referred to LACs as eggshells armed with hammers.

96 LACs would have more than enough fire control for two pods of missiles, 20 total. Going back to Honor Among Enemies, when Harrington detached 6 LACs to cover Marsh, she stated:

>>>>"I think we'll leave them a few dozen missile pods, as well. We can modify the fire control to let each LAC handle a couple of them at a time and then put them in Sidemore orbit. If any of Warnecke's orphans want to tangle with that kind of firepower, they won't be leaving again."<<<<

These were pre-Shrike LACs. As you point out, have four 5-cell revolver launchers, for 20 missiles total which can be launched in 15 seconds. A pair of pods would be easy for a Shrike to handle. A Shrike would have MORE fire control links than those pre-Shrikes. It would make no sense for a Shrike to be able to empty its magazines in 15 seconds by not be able to control all twenty missiles.

Sorry, the current flat pack missile pods ARE 10 missiles each. You'll see this mentioned later.