To briefly note the relevance of current events, the current situation in the Red Sea serves as an excellent example of the situations that led up to the development of what would, in the fullness of time, become the modern AKV.
Specifically, when you find yourself with the awkward cost offset of lobbing million-dollar missiles at thousand-dollar drones, you find yourself distinctly fond of the notion of getting at least most of the missile back after its mission. Those drives and sensors and guidance packages aren’t cheap, you know.
(Insert picture of detachable-warhead missile landing neatly back in its VLS cell here.)
Not pictured: The willingness of Imperial military planners to accept that their per unit cost may go up nearly 10x to accept a doubling of range at the same performance bracket, and how rare that mindset is elsewhere in the universe.
To be fair to the rest of the universe, much of it does not have such a convenient “have some fuck-you (and the rest of the grid cube you rode in through) money” economy.
Wait a second, you’re telling me AKV-esque systems were invented before the laser point-defense grid? Because I would think the latter would be a much easier solution to the cost offset problem.
So at what point in history was the decision made that it was desirable to put actual sophonts in these things? I assume immediately after a reliable way was found to create a bug-out transmitter that could safely send a mind-state?
Y’know, the point of these things is that they aren’t missiles; you’re supposed to get them back, not kamikaze them. It’s a high-risk job, like a fighter pilot, but it’s not a suicide mission.
Regardless of whether it’s an actual suicide mission or not, I would think you probably want a bug-out transmitter for your AI pilot riding a reusable missile into a point defense grid. Same deal as ejector seats for pilots.
Once the tech is there, certainly. But note, of course, that such things capable of dealing with the noise environment of CQB pre-tangle are hard to build, and there’s no guarantee they won’t be the first thing shot off.
Lots of folk have had to make do with a pre-scramble backup back on the carrier, and a pre-deployment backup back at base. It costs you a chunk of continuity if you get blown out of the sky, but that’s still a better bargain than a lot of folks have had, historically.
