So I had this idea to modify an existing Drone-A system so that it launches all of it's drone magazine in one shot (hence the "salvo" title...) This would essentially be similar to a WW2 destroyer having their torpedoes all launch at the same time, hoping to hit their target.

BACKGROUND:
At the end of the Four-Powers war, and the testing of speed-12 drones, the Kzinti's wanted to increase the "throw speed" of their ships, and some bright engineer developed essentially a "vertical launch system" for the whole magazine, instead of a rotary magazine which Drone-A racks typically used.

There were drawbacks of course, the targeting system could only face in a limited 120-degree arc (from the weapon mount), and reloading times were much longer.

The Kzinti's did convert two FF's to test the experimental weapon, but only one saw combat. It was involved in a 5-on-5 squadron battle and was able to get close enough to launch a volley close range to a Klingon F5L and crippled it by itself (a feat for a standard Kzinti FF), but the retaliation by the Klingons crippled the FF in return).

In the after action analysis by the Kzinti's the were not impressed with the system and did not develop it further, and converted the undamaged FF back to a standard variant, the crippled FF being refitted back to a standard variant during it's repair.

The design was retired to the "best left forgotten shelf" and was not heard from again, until the Andromedan War. Luckily during this hard times were looking for anything that would help them verses the Andromedans attackers, a Kzinti archivist found the old design (actually a PhD student in weapon history found it) and it was dusted off and reevaluated.

In Y197 the system was deployed to two Needle squadrons and converted a MDC to test the revised system on a ship. The Kzinti replaced two of the Needle-Ds in a flotilla with a version which carried two standard Drone-A racks, and two Drone-S racks. The MDC converted all three forward Drone-B racks with three Drone-S racks.

In the one battle the Klingons encountered the system, they did not realize it was a unique weapon system, because of the fog of war in the battle, they had assumed a scatter pack shuttle had launched and the volley was from the shuttle (in actuality, the Kzinti FF probably did launch a decoy shuttle and in the confusion it was not realized the FF was the actual launchee).

IN GAME AFFECTS:
* The Drone-S launcher holds four spaces of drones a standard Drone-A launcher. It can fire up to all of them in one impulse. The Drone-S launcher has a standard 120-degree firing arc. On a FF hull, typically two replaced the sponsoon mounted Drone-A racks, letting them fire in the LF+L/RF+R arcs. In the MDC, it replaced all three forward hull Drone-Bs with three Drone-S launchers with an FA arc.
* The ship does not increase it's drone control rating, thus it can quickly reach it's guidance capacity
* Reloading the Drone-S rack is at 1/2 the rate of the reloading, except for PFs as these are reloaded from outside the ship to start with.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Thursday, November 17, 2016 - 12:13 am: Edit

Scott Tenhoff:

I like the idea.
A scenario in Y197 (the MDC and Needle Squadron with the Drone-S launcher) would be interesting.

The modifications could be useful in later Years beyond the Andromedan scenario's.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, November 17, 2016 - 01:06 pm: Edit

Being able to launch all of the drones in a given drone rack at one time has been proposed (usually by radical Kzintis) and rejected before.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, November 17, 2016 - 02:17 pm: Edit

Indeed it has. This a game breaker. Dead Horse.