Chapter 75

Sir Victor looked over at David Avers,

"I'm not as hands on with Cruise missile as you are David, but if its anything like the older missiles there is just no room in them for anything else."

David Avers, with all eyes upon him, sat quietly, seeing nothing and it wasn't hard to visualize the flow of schematic diagrams passing before his mental eyes,

"Yeah. Sliding that body tube on and off is a brute of a job; it takes a full maintenance crew of five about forty five minutes to do it; and you have to make sure the anti friction pads are just so. Thankfully we rarely have to go that deep, it's usually a factory task."

Denny reached into his brief case and produced one of his black boxes; Bert Filister's eye lit up and he laid claim immediately.

"Mine! Back! Back you thieves I say!" which raised a laugh from the room. David Avers looked at the box

"Not a chance Sir."

Filister reached over the wardroom table and Denny laughingly placed the box in his hand,

"I'll have a tech come over and fit it for you."

"No need, Mister Denholt. I still have your instruction from "Naseby" and before Colin Bonder and I removed your original we got vids of it. We even put mirrors in to capture all round views. I've done it twice shifting with Colin. I was promotion transferred away from Colin and no disrespect to you Admiral it was not joining you that made me reluctant it was leaving Colin and that black box. Death in the Navy is part of the contract but it doesn't mean you don't minimize the risk."

Michael Underhills's face was tight with anger,

"You had this on "Naseby"? That's was before t' war began. You are getting a one off now! Why hasn't the Fleet had it?"

"Calmly, Michael, calmly. I'll give you the details personally later. I don't have to remind you all that this is close held? Now, the original question please," McCock brought the meeting back.

Slow pointed out,

"Cruise missile doesn't have shields and that mod is for shield generators. I've been away from it for awhile. Mr Carlton has the Navy changed shield generators?"

Sir Victor thought for a moment and looked enquiringly at David Avers,

"No, Captain; and there hasn't been any mods to the sets that I can think of, to the generator but not to the control circuits and that box sits on them if I remember your lectures."

David Avers put in,

"You're not going to do anything to Cruise missile missiles, either the weapon missile or the EW missile. They're just too compact a design. Recon Drone is designed the same and it has stealth. They were both factory designed with their equipment sets."

Polack asked Wamirant,

"The "Vulcan" ejects the nests with the missiles primed with data and then they fire. How do you eject them?"

"Electro magnetic repulsion" replied Wamirant "and No! we can't increase that force to impart velocity to the nests. Above what is there now becomes detectable passively and distortion to the framework becomes a factor.

"What gravities can you get with "Vulcan"? Four hundred?" asked McCock.

"Four twenty max military, four fifty red line, eighty percent cruise three fory" replied Wamirant slowing down as he answered, "but you only need two forty"

"Yes" said Slow, Denny and Polack together.

"How do you pack them?" asked Polack

"Slab mount where twenty joined nests get ejected together and get separated by Cruise missile controller and fired; or spine mount where all nests face outboard and they are ejected and can be fired separately from "Vulcan". There is a penalty for spine mount, fifteen percent reduction in load."

Bert Filister remarked,

"That's still a lot of missiles; what? A Fleets' full supply plus? Why two forty?"

Slow answered,

"We developed this before the war and we didn't really test it out. When we were up in Paracelsus with the V and Ws, we were able to fully research it. Most of our convoy's were between two twenty and thee hundred gravs. The V and Ws can only get four forty at a push anyway. We found that there was no detectable emissions below two sixty and even knowing what you all are looking for two forty makes the hole nearly undetectable. When "Vector" got hit she was at about three sixty coming across the convoy and she must have been shadowed against a freighter by that Harbourian CL."