Space Combat

crewdude48 wrote:

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:I either missed the pinata or I wasn't clear--I didn't mean to imply either that the materials used for the Trojans were the same as other, only that the same tonnage of other ship classes would have been preferable, and much less expensive.

This sentence is just wrong. The Trojans were much less expensive than an equal tonnage of smaller ships. The most expensive parts of a ship are things like the hyper generators, the W-sails, the impeller nodes, and the reactors. The hull it self is really quite cheep. Further more, the Trojans used civilan grade of each component, further reducing the costs.

Those are the most expensive capital costs; though don't discount the cost of the tactical systems and sensors. Then there are lifetime costs; and some of the biggest of those are personnel.

And there again the AMCs use far fewer people than their tonnage in light ships would; so they're cheaper over time compared to a swarm of light units.

Individually I'm sure they cost more to build than a CA; once you factor in the LACs (and even if you factor out the temporarily surplus SD energy mounts). And they certainly take more crew than a CA. But not more crew than even 4 or 5 CAs; much less the couple hundred you'd need to match their mass.


Mind you for covering Silesia, where I'm not allowed to secure each system, against normal priate threats I'd rather have a bunch of DDs or CAs than the AMCs. Of course in the face of Peeps commerce raiding with BCs it's probably a good thing Honor wasn't sent there in command of a few DD squadrons.

hanuman wrote:I'm about to throw a snippy fit, so I'd like to ask forgiveness in advance for stepping on anyone's toes.

Except for the Trekkie sideshow, this entire thread has been one long string of complaints and grumps and groans because there ain't enough dramatic space battles in the later books.

Get over yourselves, people.

I'm 39 years old and I've been reading sci-fi and fantasy eversince I discovered the Belgariad when I was only 9 years old. In all that time I have NEVER read a sci-fi novel or series that is set in such a well-developed, complex and 'real' world (or rather, universe) as the Honorverse series.

Although it is classified as a space opera, I don't think it was ever Mr Weber's intention for the series to revolve around space battles - yes, when they take place, they are immensely enjoyable to read, but they've always been nothing more than a sideshow to the real story, which has ALWAYS been about the characters, their relationships with each others and their experiences.

THAT is what made this series such a huge success among its fans, and which make it so immensely enjoyable to read.

If all the series was about were the space battles, then it would long since have died a quiet death from pure boringness.

Okay, my rant is over now.

Oh the Belgariad ... Is Brill still trying to learn how to fly or is he still bouncing.

But no, I'm afraid I have to disagree. It's true, the Honor books have never been exclusively about space combat but that isn't the point. What makes the Honor books uniquely compelling is the combination of elements, from political to personal from the technology and the conflict.

However the books following At All Costs have largely lost this one critical element which detracts from the enjoyment of those books for people who valued that element.

In some ways, there is a close parallel between say Tom Clancy's brilliant initial works like Patriot Games, Red Storm Rising etc ... . Those books based much of their attraction on the same elements as RFC's works, personal stories and developments, as well as riveting action.

The Jack Ryan became older and eventually the books became of Geopolitical in nature and lost that edge that had once kept you on the edge of your seat. He also had a few books of the Cakewalk variety such as the Bear and the Dragon and the worst of all time, "Submarine" where a single US sub essentially defeats the entire Chineese navy.

To escape all of this he began writing some excellent prequels like Red Rabbit and Without Remorse which brought back that knife edge of excitement.

What seems to be happening to Honor is much the same thing as happened to Jack Ryan. As each grew in responsibility each began growing out of the raw edge their lives had been when they were younger and so the nature of the stories change as their positions change.

And as these changes took/take place, each of these storylines began/begin to shed audience. The Honor books would appear to be in this progression.

It would be nice if somehow this trend could somehow be reversed but I think it would hard to argue that it isn't happening.

Hi Jonathan_S,

Back at the bar, before I got there, the consensus had agreed that building a warship regardless of class averaged costing around M$5000/ton.

Somewhat later the MWW/RFC informed us that due to the hundreds of SD's the RMN built during the first war, the cost had dropped from ~M$42.5B for a ~8.5 MT SD at the beginning of the war to something closer to M$ 31B IIRC, or about 40% less.

From the M$5000/ton figure a 300KT Star Knight cost around M$1.5 B, before adding missiles and other consumables, which historically could double the construction cost.

We have from HAE, Captain Truman or Mercedes in a staff meeting referring to a recently pirated ~6.8 MT freighter being worth almost a M$ billion, ie fair market value regardless of where it came from, as an indication of its cost, relative to military.

Arming the ship with hundreds of missile pods and LAC's may have doubled that cost, though we now know missiles were practically dirt cheap by then, far less than the million or two from OBS, while only 12 LAC's is fairly cheap as well.

One conflict we have is that HoS says they continued to serve rather well in Silesia until retired in 1920, to free up their crews for new construction, while the section on the 282 LAC they carried say they were retired in 1918, though there are places where HoS states the second war started in 1918 despite text it was 4 years after the truce, or the Lynx bridge was discovered in 1918 not 1919, etc.

The AMC's large crew of 2500 was a surprise to me, given the large marine contingent, I expected to see more ground action, but a Star Knight has a crew of at least 930, maybe 960 IIRC, so only 2.6-2.7 times that of a SK crew, while having far more firepower and ability to sustain extended operations with out risking discovery by taking on fresh supplies in every system they visit.

Not surprisingly, HoS notes that as more Caravan class freighters visited Silesia after the AMC's had been recognised, the Q-ship threat continued to work in protecting these freighters and those with them, even when an AMC wasn't there.

Despite the high costs of purpose built Q-ships, given the tactical advantages of surprise in taking a termini or seizing a planet's orbitals etc, I don't think we've seen the last of AMC's.

L

Jonathan_S wrote:

crewdude48 wrote:**quote="Armed Neo-Bob"**
I either missed the pinata or I wasn't clear--I didn't mean to imply either that the materials used for the Trojans were the same as other, only that the same tonnage of other ship classes would have been preferable, and much less expensive.
**quote**

This sentence is just wrong. The Trojans were much less expensive than an equal tonnage of smaller ships. The most expensive parts of a ship are things like the hyper generators, the W-sails, the impeller nodes, and the reactors. The hull it self is really quite cheep. Further more, the Trojans used civilan grade of each component, further reducing the costs.

Those are the most expensive capital costs; though don't discount the cost of the tactical systems and sensors. Then there are lifetime costs; and some of the biggest of those are personnel.

And there again the AMCs use far fewer people than their tonnage in light ships would; so they're cheaper over time compared to a swarm of light units.

Individually I'm sure they cost more to build than a CA; once you factor in the LACs (and even if you factor out the temporarily surplus SD energy mounts). And they certainly take more crew than a CA. But not more crew than even 4 or 5 CAs; much less the couple hundred you'd need to match their mass.


Mind you for covering Silesia, where I'm not allowed to secure each system, against normal priate threats I'd rather have a bunch of DDs or CAs than the AMCs. Of course in the face of Peeps commerce raiding with BCs it's probably a good thing Honor wasn't sent there in command of a few DD squadrons.

Hi KZT,

RFC has waffled on exactly how many ex-SC systems there are, but the numbers were between 67-70 as I recall, and since the AE wanted SC a lot more than the SKM did, I've always assumed they got the lion's share as the price for coming in on the SKM's side.

The SKM was not in a strong bargaining position at the time, nor that eager to expand in the first place, so I'm sure the AE got pretty much what they wanted.

L

kzt wrote:Unless I remember this really poorly, the AE wanted 1/2 of the Confederacy as the price to joint the Manticore Alliance. Under the circumstances the SKM agreed to that deal.

Hi Robert Thompson,

Oh I noticed, but I tend to take the actual series textev whenever there's a typo of some kind.

The Bu9 HoS sections were obviously written by different people without a single editor to catch such textev errors, because there are simply too many internal conflicts.

You're quite right about ship losses and decommissionings not being listed, personally I thought having more data about HH's middy cruise CA War Maiden class might have been of pertinent interest to fans.

Consider: If all the new bells and whistles of the Edward Saganami had been available in 1908, bow walls, off-bore missiles, improved ECM, Ghost-rider, RD's etc, before the Shrike that all that was based on and prototyped by, there should have been some considerable buzz about all the new weapons, like her AMC's, before HH and Hamish had that little talk in her Library 3 years later.

For myself, the AMC's in HAE acted as the bridge between the old and new weapons that were highlighted beginning in IEH.

They are obviously dated and HoS states there retirement in 1920, but the tactical advantages to the peeps, and to the IAN in seizing systems or termini etc by surprise, are too great for some to ignore, so some nasty SDF's may well have some Q-ships we have yet to see.

Who knows?

For example, when Mike showed up in Mesa, perhaps a IAN Q-ship waiting for von Rabenstrange and the IAN, proceeded to block any warning to Visigoth while eliminating the Visigoth termini defenses with Mistletoe's and heavy pods, as another in Mesa orbit destroyed the orbital defenses, so Mesa had no choice but to yield so quickly.

Regarding the tSVW 1904 chart numbers; yes, the PRHN numbers total of 1944 is less than the actual 2106 listed in the ship classes, an overlooked needed correction that the MWW mentioned in passing when an uncouth newbie [me] brought it up; which doesn't detract from all the references to the respective ship and waller tonnage cited often in the early books.

It held up very well, and while later size creep has pushed things, ie db's having to be 40Kt when frigates evidently could be smaller, the figures for class sizes cited in UHH in MTH worked for many years.

Regarding the core world attitude to Manticore, it's somewhat surprising given its closer than ~99% of the SL to Sol time wise, so who's really the neo-barb, someone 5 days away or up to more than the 22+ days that might define the 'civilized core' before getting into whether the shells might be almost neo-barbs, near neo-barbs, ex-neo-barbs, former neo-barbs, or no longer neo-barbs despite still being exploited by the mandarins on behalf of the core, when the old league really doesn't need such subsidies.

Or do they?

L


[quote="Armed Neo-Bob"][quote="lyonheart"]Hi Armed Neo-Bob,

Very clever, or do you prefer Robert Thompson?

Welcome to the forums, enjoy your favorite cg beverage on the cg house.

Just because the Caravan transports mass 7.35 MT's each, doesn't mean it took 7.35 MT's of the same stuff needed to build over a thousand Culverin DD's or 257 Sag-A's.

The Edward Saganami CA wasn't in service until 1913-14, with Mike in command, so it wasn't available to patrol Silesia.

If you don't remember, I got into trouble at the bar by suggesting the production of the lesser classes at the SKM's space stations, using the smaller building slips was much much higher than some had figured, including the MWW, while the whole point of the AMC's was that they were an economy measure, in both military resources and the total number of crewmen out of the several million committed to the war; if you wish to argue with the premises of HAE, take it up with RFC elsewhere.

Rots o' ruck.

The point of my post you quoted was to play down any expectations of seeing Q-ships, how did you miss that?

Now the IAN might have up-to-date AMC's, which might be useful at Visigoth etc, but I'm not expecting them without more foreshadowing, though what they might do to the defenses of a SL termini, using missile pods, Mistletoe's etc, before they were recognised might pay despite losing the ship when a fleet came through.

Again, I don't think we're going to see the smaller members of the Manticoran Alliance active in the GA at this time, but given their experience and capabilities, if the SL's data is as out of date as it was for Manticore etc, I expect those systems to easily demonstrate the SL will need something bigger than BC's to harass them successfully.

L

[/quote]


Hi, Lyonheart.

I just had my reply eaten, so this is a second attempt.

I am not particular about what people call me; most of my peers in my units said Bob, while my family says Rob; everyone else has less polite names.

The Core worlds don't pay any attention to the "barbs" out on the Verge; like others, they fear the unknown. History was written by the "civilized" groups who invented writing. You know--the ones who crucified people for millencia BEFORE the Roman empire. Or the guys who came up with the term "decimate"--which means lining everyone up, disregarding age, gender or any other consideration--and killing every tenth one on the spot. It helped the empire of the day (whichever one you pick) avoid pesky local revolts, so you can reduce your garrisons. So I am content to be a neo-barb, with bad pun.

Tonnage as a measure of total shipping is used in all sorts of comparisons, including the pre-war assessment of the capabilities of the RMN vis-a-vis Haven. I either missed the pinata or I wasn't clear--I didn't mean to imply either that the materials used for the Trojans were the same as other, only that the same tonnage of other ship classes would have been preferable, and much less expensive.

The AMC's were NOT an economy measure; they were a desperate attempt to fill a need for escorts when an insufficient number of building slips were being used for new construction, and the Front was swallowing up all the escorts available.

For that matter, I suspect it was partly the fact that the Trojans were a Sonja project --likely funded by the R&D budget, not BuShips, initially, and only as a means of building full sized test bed pod-layers without having to take the time for building a "proper" ship of the wall--that got them funded at all.

Regarding the Saganami A, I used that in the comparison only because the lead ship commissioned in 1908 according to HOS. There still aren't enough of the class to patrol Silesia. I think you didn't like the book much, so maybe you didn't notice? I will also say that they ought to have built a FEW more of them in the time given before Buttercup.

Lack of lighter ships is my biggest peeve with HOS, and the RMN in general. I have a big rant for that, maybe someday I'll post it. It was very long, though.

As far as missing your point--that you meant to indicate that Q-ships were unlikely-- I will retreat into my fundamental blondeness in great confusion. I thought you were proposing them as viable.

On a different subject, in regard to House of Steel--and without pulling up quotes-- it is not possible with the data provided to do OB analysis from the combination of HOS and the tables of fleet strengths at different times. House of Steel gives build numbers--but no LOSSES. Also, while it gives stats and descriptions of ships in commission in 1900--it does NOT give them for the vessels De-commisioned from 1800-1900. Thus, there is no data on the ca. 2Mton Battleships, or the Archenor CA mentioned in the text. Another reason is that the oldest chart is WRONG--just in looking at the numbers of ships and how they don't total correctly shows that. The premise is valid, but the numbers are off. And as far as the fleet strength 1920 chart goes, I don't think RFC considered how many ships he routinely kills off in the offscreen events; it has too many destroyers and cruisers given the retirement of the Prince Consorts and the Falcons. It is like there were no losses. . . . but there were.

Part of this is the age of the oldest material; part of this is the change in direction after Flint invented Cachat and pulled the rudder off course. But my last MOS was all-source analyst, and you just can't do order of battle analysis without any battle damage assessment. Which we can't do.

Thanks, I'll just have coffee.

Regards,

Robert Thompson[/quote]

Lyonheart,

Sorry to take so long to reply--we had some tornado damage up here in upstate NY--and I only use online services at the library, which I visit a couple times a week. Another reason I don't post much. I added some color to your quote to make it easier to find the part referencing Saganami A tech.

The 1908 date isn't an error, I think. It is 4 years after the Graysons built the Alvarez; long enough to decide what they wanted in the Star Knight's immediate replacement. The main reason for making it so big compared to the Star Knight or Alvarez would probably be to provide the magazine space the smaller ships lacked. However, while you are right that all the bells and whistles of Project Anzio weren't there, you are wrong in that the Edward Saganami had all the bells and whistles. It didn't. According to HOS, the first flight was essentially all testbeds --mostly just a bigger Alvarez; the second flight (no date given--1912?) was the first to have the bow wall; the sternwall wasn't added to a cruiser until the 1917 Sag-B; and the Sag-B was the first cruiser to have the "limited" ability to fire off-bore. (I have strong suspicions about the Reliant III, of course.) Note that the 1918 Gauntlet did NOT have the ability to control all the missiles in a forward or aft aspect--the off-bore capability was to allow the chase missiles to be added to the broadside, giving the ship a Reliant-sized salvo. Firing both broadsides, I think Gauntlet could only manage to control about a third of the missiles it could fire through the chase telemetry.

When Henke gives Honor a ride in her cruiser, it is just the right timing for the refit which gave the Flight I ships the bow wall, and updated the electronics to flight II standards. No mention of ghost rider is ever made for Henke's ship; no mention of beta squared nodes; just Mike saying something about a "surprise" for the first person who tried a down the throat shot. Of course, the Barflies went into extreme speculations over what was there and what wasn't. By that time,(circa 1913?) a new vessel (Flight III maybe) could have had quite a few improvements over the original ship. Just going back and fixing the broadside launchers to fire off-bore would make it capable of killing older BCs like the Sollies Indefatigables. But there is not any evidence that either the Mourncreek Admiralty or the Janacek Admiralty bothered to refit to that extent. They were too busy building the newer capital ships and/or LACs.

Sort of like a lot of the posters who have described the Jessica Epps, in WoH, as a Sag-B. I never found that specified in the book anywhere, and I don't see why it would have been necessary--the IAN had some good equipment, but it wasn't as good as they thought, and their readiness wasn't up to RMN standards either. By that time, even the older Saganami class had ghost rider drones. RFC didn't need a Sag-B to give Hellebarde a BAD DAY.

For what it's worth, I think the Oversteegen's AAR from the battle of Tiberian could have been one of the main reasons for the improvements in chase fire control that you see in the later build ships, such as the Wolfhound and the Avalon, and the Sag-C. Might even be why there is a difference between the flight III and IV Reliant classes. And it may be that the emergency construction of Sag-B cruisers in 1918-19 may have had Sag-C style chase telemetry. We won't know unless we get told.

Regards,

Rob

lyonheart wrote:Hi Robert Thompson,

Oh I noticed, but I tend to take the actual series textev whenever there's a typo of some kind.

The Bu9 HoS sections were obviously written by different people without a single editor to catch such textev errors, because there are simply too many internal conflicts.

You're quite right about ship losses and decommissionings not being listed, personally I thought having more data about HH's middy cruise CA War Maiden class might have been of pertinent interest to fans.

Consider: If all the new bells and whistles of the Edward Saganami had been available in 1908, bow walls, off-bore missiles, improved ECM, Ghost-rider, RD's etc, before the Shrike that all that was based on and prototyped by, there should have been some considerable buzz about all the new weapons, like her AMC's, before HH and Hamish had that little talk in her Library 3 years later.

For myself, the AMC's in HAE acted as the bridge between the old and new weapons that were highlighted beginning in IEH.

They are obviously dated and HoS states there retirement in 1920, but the tactical advantages to the peeps, and to the IAN in seizing systems or termini etc by surprise, are too great for some to ignore, so some nasty SDF's may well have some Q-ships we have yet to see.

Who knows?

For example, when Mike showed up in Mesa, perhaps a IAN Q-ship waiting for von Rabenstrange and the IAN, proceeded to block any warning to Visigoth while eliminating the Visigoth termini defenses with Mistletoe's and heavy pods, as another in Mesa orbit destroyed the orbital defenses, so Mesa had no choice but to yield so quickly.

Regarding the tSVW 1904 chart numbers; yes, the PRHN numbers total of 1944 is less than the actual 2106 listed in the ship classes, an overlooked needed correction that the MWW mentioned in passing when an uncouth newbie [me] brought it up; which doesn't detract from all the references to the respective ship and waller tonnage cited often in the early books.

It held up very well, and while later size creep has pushed things, ie db's having to be 40Kt when frigates evidently could be smaller, the figures for class sizes cited in UHH in MTH worked for many years.

Regarding the core world attitude to Manticore, it's somewhat surprising given its closer than ~99% of the SL to Sol time wise, so who's really the neo-barb, someone 5 days away or up to more than the 22+ days that might define the 'civilized core' before getting into whether the shells might be almost neo-barbs, near neo-barbs, ex-neo-barbs, former neo-barbs, or no longer neo-barbs despite still being exploited by the mandarins on behalf of the core, when the old league really doesn't need such subsidies.

Or do they?

L

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:The 1908 date isn't an error, I think. It is 4 years after the Graysons built the Alvarez; long enough to decide what they wanted in the Star Knight's immediate replacement.

Actually, going back to my notes, it looks like Lyonheart is right about the date being in error. 1908 PD is when the first ship was supposed to have been commissioned, but HMS Edward Saganami didn't make it to active service until late 1911, and she STILL spent the next two years undergoing some pretty major refits.

Thanks for the catch, I'll update the errata and post to our website (http://www.bunine.org) shortly.

Oh, and HMS War Maiden was a Warrior-class by the way...

Alizon wrote:

hanuman wrote:I'm about to throw a snippy fit, so I'd like to ask forgiveness in advance for stepping on anyone's toes.

Except for the Trekkie sideshow, this entire thread has been one long string of complaints and grumps and groans because there ain't enough dramatic space battles in the later books.

Get over yourselves, people.

I'm 39 years old and I've been reading sci-fi and fantasy eversince I discovered the Belgariad when I was only 9 years old. In all that time I have NEVER read a sci-fi novel or series that is set in such a well-developed, complex and 'real' world (or rather, universe) as the Honorverse series.

Although it is classified as a space opera, I don't think it was ever Mr Weber's intention for the series to revolve around space battles - yes, when they take place, they are immensely enjoyable to read, but they've always been nothing more than a sideshow to the real story, which has ALWAYS been about the characters, their relationships with each others and their experiences.

THAT is what made this series such a huge success among its fans, and which make it so immensely enjoyable to read.

If all the series was about were the space battles, then it would long since have died a quiet death from pure boringness.

Okay, my rant is over now.

The Jack Ryan became older and eventually the books became of Geopolitical in nature and lost that edge that had once kept you on the edge of your seat. He also had a few books of the Cakewalk variety such as the Bear and the Dragon and the worst of all time, "Submarine" where a single US sub essentially defeats the entire Chinese navy.

Your mixing books up, Submarine was one of his guided tour books the took a look at various aspects of the US military. IIRC the titles to the series were Submarine Marine Carrier Armored Cav and Air Wing. each contained a short story or two that was a realistic look at how the unit type would preform.

The book you are actually referring to was 'SSN' which was based on a PC video game of the same name.

SWM wrote:I'm afraid your memory is at fault. He doesn't use the term "associate power" or "associated power", he uses the term "ally":

War of Honor wrote:"I'm not too sure how I feel about the methodology, but the final outcome is going to be that we get an ally we desperately need"

As I was reading through the thread I saw this debate and remembered something that was pertinent to it. In ART it is specified that the Andermani were/are an associated power.

...and the Andermani Empire was an “associated power” rather than a full member of the Manticoran Alliance, anyway.

saber964 wrote:Your mixing books up, Submarine was one of his guided tour books the took a look at various aspects of the US military. IIRC the titles to the series were Submarine Marine Carrier Armored Cav and Air Wing. each contained a short story or two that was a realistic look at how the unit type would preform.

Yeah, those were actually decent. Rainbow 6 was shark jumping time for me.