Ideal Pirate Ship Configeration And Size? ...

Roguevictory wrote:A CL also requires a much larger pool of crew then an FF or DD and can cover roughly the same amount of territory alone at a single time. Cl's sensor range is probably better but not overwhelming do IMO.

Pretty incorrect actually. If merchant ships only require in the vicinity of 10-20 people to operate, and uh, which World's of Honor was it, we had a crew of Manticorans on that 'alien artifact' planet, and won a crappy assed destroyer in a hand of poker? They were mostly untrained spacers, on a totally different ship, and still made it work with sub-20.


There are exactly TWO types of people who stuff lots of crew into a ship to maximize effectiveness. The one side is the various Navies, partly because of tradition, but partly because they absolutely, positively MUST have redundancy. Putting a live human being at every single node, and a crew of 2-3 at every single gun gives that redundancy.

The other choice is pirates, and they need a big-assed crew because they keep sending detachments over on every ship they steal. Read how Honor kept slicing off crew in On Basilisk Station, over the 'protests' of her Executive Officer, to fill every duty she felt needed to be filled.

Or to use a pirate example... the Light cruiser that belonged to Warnecke, in Honor Among Enemies, that Warner Caslet picked off. Over the course of two or three months (estimated), they picked off three ships, in five systems before they got nailed by the PNS Vaubon.

"A couple of them, actually, Sir," Caslet admitted. "Look. We first picked up their trail here in Arendscheldt, then followed them straight to Sharon's Star, right?" Jourdain nodded, and Caslet gestured to two more stars. "Well, according to their captain's log, the last two places they tried before Arendscheldt were Sigma and Hera. Before that they took a prize in Creswell—that's why they didn't have the personnel to man Erewhon ; they'd used up their surplus crewmen in Creswell—after failing to hit anything in Slocum. You see? They're coming around in an arc, and Sukowski said they meant to rendezvous before hitting a Posnan-bound convoy. I'd guess that means they were heading for either Magyar or Schiller as their next stop. It may also suggest that their base lies down here to the southwest somewhere, but that's a lot more problematical."

Since they chased Vaubon who they thought was a merchy, that would be four. And they would have continued along towards Schiller to meet up with the pirates that Honor then killed when she also ordered PNS Vaubon to surrender. And that also had three ships already there.


Larger crews = more prizes, but they don't require large crews to operate their own ship. Pirates are far more likely to use computer support and act more like merchant crews, alarms and timers, rather than keep people at stations 100% of the time.

Somtaaw wrote:

Roguevictory wrote:A CL also requires a much larger pool of crew then an FF or DD and can cover roughly the same amount of territory alone at a single time. Cl's sensor range is probably better but not overwhelming do IMO.

Pretty incorrect actually. If merchant ships only require in the vicinity of 10-20 people to operate, and uh, which World's of Honor was it, we had a crew of Manticorans on that 'alien artifact' planet, and won a crappy assed destroyer in a hand of poker? They were mostly untrained spacers, on a totally different ship, and still made it work with sub-20.

It varies. Some as low as 10, some as high as or higher than 50. Passenger transports also come with considerably more crew, although most of them are there to tend to the passengers rather than the ship itself.

A Grand Tour was in the first anthology book. It was more a test run for David Drake's RCN series than a Honorverse story.

munroburton wrote:It varies. Some as low as 10, some as high as or higher than 50. Passenger transports also come with considerably more crew, although most of them are there to tend to the passengers rather than the ship itself.

A Grand Tour was in the first anthology book. It was more a test run for David Drake's RCN series than a Honorverse story.

Yeah, I always have trouble remembering details that come from which anthology. If we got them re-released in one omnibus edition, that'd be awesome for keeping better track of those stories. I always remember vague details in each, but remembering which story specifically then has me opening and ruffling through each book.

Somtaaw wrote:

munroburton wrote:It varies. Some as low as 10, some as high as or higher than 50. Passenger transports also come with considerably more crew, although most of them are there to tend to the passengers rather than the ship itself.

A Grand Tour was in the first anthology book. It was more a test run for David Drake's RCN series than a Honorverse story.

Yeah, I always have trouble remembering details that come from which anthology. If we got them re-released in one omnibus edition, that'd be awesome for keeping better track of those stories. I always remember vague details in each, but remembering which story specifically then has me opening and ruffling through each book.

And while there were only ~20 Manticorans, there was more than 50% pf the original crew still aboard the Melungion CL. There were just no officers aboard.

Somtaaw wrote:

munroburton wrote:It varies. Some as low as 10, some as high as or higher than 50. Passenger transports also come with considerably more crew, although most of them are there to tend to the passengers rather than the ship itself.

A Grand Tour was in the first anthology book. It was more a test run for David Drake's RCN series than a Honorverse story.

Yeah, I always have trouble remembering details that come from which anthology. If we got them re-released in one omnibus edition, that'd be awesome for keeping better track of those stories. I always remember vague details in each, but remembering which story specifically then has me opening and ruffling through each book.

If you use the ebook versions you can make your own omnibus edition, just a little tricky making the menus work properly.

Even a freighter can maneuver to keep their wedge oriented between a small craft and themselves. It simply has to roll and pitch while the small craft has to actually move.