[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Tk3997

You’re REALLY just not getting what I’m saying at all are you? Yes the magic bolts have no electronics on board (as we know them),

Actually, they must have some equivalent on board. Even a CG missile must have a signal receiver and a control system. Homing will require sensor circuitry and processing circuitry as well.

IMO the bolts themselves are normally quite stupid and it’s the “brains” in the device that’s doing most of the work to make them appear smart, hence electronics.

Again, having the device do most of the guidance work because the rounds are stupid is antithetical to useful homing.

That doesn’t really prove much to me homing is only half the battle you still need to know how to use your weapons effectively, and indeed multi-tasking to be able to manage your weapons while other stuff is happening is important. It’s also worth noting that Nanoha was new, had no formal training, and while somewhat intelligent RH is no tactical mastermind. Just like her jacket is probably based on having watched too many magic girl shows her tactics are probably in many ways similar she might well be using manual guidance, not because that’s the best or most effective method, but because it’s intuitive and she thinks that how it ought to work.

At this point, from my almost 3rd party POV, you two are talking past each other. Keroko's emphasis is on whether the Shooters we saw employed in Ep1 and 5 A's are homing or command-guided, while you are on whether SAH is possible.

Given the above, you've probably just conceded the point he wants - the Shooters are CLOS, even if you think it is stupid. The only question left is whether they are MCLOS, SACLOS or ACLOS.

Since you've conceded above that the rounds themselves are pretty dumb, the idea of homing being necessarily superior looks thin as well. Even granting your workload argument, it is not superior if it keeps missing or you are forced to keep turning the "backup" command guidance function back on. Even the advantage of fire and forget (which is degraded if the homing bombs are dumb) is lost because of all homing methods you chose SAH.

Whether a guidance method is superior depends on a balance of conditions, and we don't have any information to deduce how the balance will fall in mage combat other than the final decision actually taken by our characters. SAH is clearly not the fave method in Terra (heck, when they had a chance, they went to TVM, thus placing the computational workload back on the firing platform!) And from what we can see, it isn't the fave method in Mid either...

Frankly this is even a debate IMO you’ve already admitted homing shots are possible canon says they are, given this semi-active modes are also entirely possible and vastly superior to direct manual control.

The one time we explicitly hear about their guidance method, it is passive (heat seeking). We never hear of an active homing weapon either. Given your linkage below about non-use = a strong sign of non-superiority, by extension SAH is either unworkable or at least not superior to confirmed guidance methods like passive homing or CLOS once all factors are considered.

There are any number of possible reasons, one of which probably involves the enemy mage's emissions effectively blanketing the weak reflections from an active weapon. Then there is your suggestion - the bombs are too dumb for any kind of homing to be very effective.