"Obsolete SDs" Waste not...

Vince wrote:And we saw how BCs, even with the advantage of conducting an ambush from stealth with single drive missile pods, fared against DNs in A Short Victorious War.

Weird Harold wrote:Dolist PRN crews expecting their target to be minutes away encountered RMN Bellerophon. The fate of the PRN BCs had more to do with their level of competence than with any hardware superiority. They dropped out of Hyper within energy range of HMS Bellerophon into a situation vastly different than they were prepared for.

Jonathan_S wrote:I'm pretty sure Vince was talking about the ambush Honor and Sarnow's BCs pulled off against the Peep DNs at Hancock. The Peep BCs that stumbled across Bellerophon didn't have any pods.

That's exactly the situation I was talking about--Chin's DNs versus Sarnow's BCs, CAs and screen. Even with the initial advantage of stealth (surprise) and the initial heavy volley from the missile pods that inflicted heavy damage and losses on the PRN forces, Chin would have still won the battle and be in position to carry through against the fleet base at Hancock Station if Admiral Danislav's DNs hadn't shown up and knew what was going on thanks to the FTL tactical net (ignoring the both the main PRN forces under Admiral Rollins and the main RMN forces under Admiral Parks).

Reordered quotes to avoid embedding limit. Edited my original quote to correct spelling.

kzt wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:The Peep BCs that stumbled across Bellerophon didn't have any pods.

It wouldn't have helped. Missiles would be crawling when the point defenses opened up.

Sure, but not exactly my point. Vince talked about an BC ambush using pods in SVW. The Peep,BCs didn't have pods. Ergo that wasn't the ambush he was talking about.
That's all I was saying.

Vince wrote:

Vince wrote:And we saw how BCs, even with the advantage of conducting an ambush from stealth with single drive missile pods, fared against DNs in A Short Victorious War.

Weird Harold wrote:Dolist PRN crews expecting their target to be minutes away encountered RMN Bellerophon. The fate of the PRN BCs had more to do with their level of competence than with any hardware superiority. They dropped out of Hyper within energy range of HMS Bellerophon into a situation vastly different than they were prepared for.

Jonathan_S wrote:I'm pretty sure Vince was talking about the ambush Honor and Sarnow's BCs pulled off against the Peep DNs at Hancock. The Peep BCs that stumbled across Bellerophon didn't have any pods.

That's exactly the situation I was talking about--Chin's DNs versus Sarnow's BCs, CAs and screen. Even with the initial advantage of stealth (surprise) and the initial heavy volley from the missile pods that inflicted heavy damage and losses on the PRN forces, Chin would have still won the battle and be in position to carry through against the fleet base at Hancock Station if Admiral Danislav's DNs hadn't shown up and knew what was going on thanks to the FTL tactical net (ignoring the both the main PRN forces under Admiral Rollins and the main RMN forces under Admiral Parks).

Reordered quotes to avoid embedding limit. Edited my original quote to correct spelling.

Chin had - what? 8 DNs + 8 BCs and some DDs and/or CLs for screening. Call it around 60 Million Tons of metal. Sarnow had 8 BCs, 8 CAs and ... did he have some destroyers or light cruisers, too? Can't just remember. But, all in all, he couldn't have more than 10 to 12 million tons, prior to Danislavs arrival. That's far away from playing on an even field, given the more or less comparable technology levels. That means, levels where you could bring in additional quantity to negate quality advantages of your contender.

If Sarnow had had, say, 2 additional Divisions of DNs of his own ... than the manticoran technological advantage would've been deciding against Chin. But in that case it would not have been Chin, but Rollins himself, who would've attacked, to make sure they had a sufficiently big mass advantage against the defenders. And Rollins would've known about these DNs, courtesy of the spy-satellites Haven used to guard Hancock and other systems (not Grayson, but more or less any other system).

Eagleeye wrote:Chin had - what? 8 DNs + 8 BCs and some DDs and/or CLs for screening. Call it around 60 Million Tons of metal. Sarnow had 8 BCs, 8 CAs and ... did he have some destroyers or light cruisers, too? Can't just remember. But, all in all, he couldn't have more than 10 to 12 million tons, prior to Danislavs arrival. That's far away from playing on an even field, given the more or less comparable technology levels. That means, levels where you could bring in additional quantity to negate quality advantages of your contender.

If Sarnow had had, say, 2 additional Divisions of DNs of his own ... than the manticoran technological advantage would've been deciding against Chin. But in that case it would not have been Chin, but Rollins himself, who would've attacked, to make sure they had a sufficiently big mass advantage against the defenders. And Rollins would've known about these DNs, courtesy of the spy-satellites Haven used to guard Hancock and other systems (not Grayson, but more or less any other system).

My point is, given the original point upthread:

svenhauke wrote:1. solarian sd are more powerfull then solarian BC,
2. these system need a defense against solarian BC, either a manticorian guard or those useless SD.

is that svenhauke was right, that a SLN SD (even a Scientist) is more powerful than a SLN BC (even the latest Nevada class), on an individual basis. Not that you need to bring in more BCs to compensate for the inferiority of the BC compared to a SD.

But if you intend to use greater numbers to make up for the force imbalance, where do you get them from? Keep in mind that most of the SLN BCs belong to Frontier Fleet, which is already stretched thin. With the Verge and Shell going up in flames, the SLN will be in a position of a cake decorator with too much cake and not enough icing (where the icing must be a certain thickness to cover the cake properly--thick enough equaling more BCs to deal with a SD) and the whole cake must be covered.

You can get away with robbing Peter to pay Paul for a while, but if you do it enough, you will eventually run short--by definition almost always at the worst possible time.

"Admiral, we're getting downloads from our [yeah really crappy SLN] sensor platforms, there's half a dozen SDs in orbit squawking SLN transponders."
"WTF..."

I mean, maybe there's enough of the Monica SDF left to man a SD but not much more than that. Meyers probably has nothing besides the resource miners and no SDF. Giving them away is fine, but IIRC, Rozak donated the captured remnants of the Torch invasion ships to Torch. And everyone was bemoaning the fact that it swamped their ability to crew them. You still have to train several thousand crew from scratch for each grand gift. and once the supply of missiles are gone, what ... fill out the order form and courier it to Teledyne.

What about using them as a form of transport, such as in situations like Hancock (SVW) where there's more people to evacuate than there's space aboard the warships/freighters currently present in system?

Or as hospital ships?

Maybe even use a couple as Landing assault ships - convert some of the broadside area into hangar space and berthing for troops.

For that matter, what about using them as giant kinetic weapons against the MA when their hidey hole is finally found? (aka the "Unicron solution")

RedBaron wrote:What about using them as a form of transport, such as in situations like Hancock (SVW) where there's more people to evacuate than there's space aboard the warships/freighters currently present in system?

Or as hospital ships?

Maybe even use a couple as Landing assault ships - convert some of the broadside area into hangar space and berthing for troops.

*sigh*

A Superdreadnought has space for about 6000 crew, IIRC. Cram people together, you can get that up to 10000 over a short trip.

An Atlas-class passenger liner, at about a million tons, can carry similar amounts of passengers, while at the same time being faster.

So, litmus test time: Are these things more or at least as economical as passenger transport compared to purpose built vessels? Hell. No.
Is the conversion a good use of the limited amount of spaceborne shipbuilding/ship maintenance capacity the GA has?
No.

Oh, and the same (obviously) holds true for using them as marine assault ships.

For that matter, what about using them as giant kinetic weapons against the MA when their hidey hole is finally found? (aka the "Unicron solution")

AKA the clear Eridani Edict violation? AKA The second most stupid thing you could do with these ships (The most stupid being, of course, to try to operate them as part of the GA fleet)?

AKA the "jesus christ how many times do you need it explained to you that noone on the GA side wishes to engage in that kind of wholesale slaughter" option?

Eagleeye wrote:Chin had - what? 8 DNs + 8 BCs and some DDs and/or CLs for screening. Call it around 60 Million Tons of metal. Sarnow had 8 BCs, 8 CAs and ... did he have some destroyers or light cruisers, too? Can't just remember. But, all in all, he couldn't have more than 10 to 12 million tons, prior to Danislavs arrival. That's far away from playing on an even field, given the more or less comparable technology levels. That means, levels where you could bring in additional quantity to negate quality advantages of your contender.

If Sarnow had had, say, 2 additional Divisions of DNs of his own ... than the manticoran technological advantage would've been deciding against Chin. But in that case it would not have been Chin, but Rollins himself, who would've attacked, to make sure they had a sufficiently big mass advantage against the defenders. And Rollins would've known about these DNs, courtesy of the spy-satellites Haven used to guard Hancock and other systems (not Grayson, but more or less any other system).

Chin had 8 Dreadnoughts, 6 Battlecruisers, and a (light) screen of Heavy and Light Cruisers, no Destroyers.

Sarnow had 8 Battlecruisers, 8 Heavy Cruisers, and an unknown strength of Light Cruisers, excluding the additional Light Cruisers and Destroyers that had been detached in singletons as "pickets" to hide the presence of the FTL net.

The opening salvo's from just the missile pods that could be towed by the BC's and CA's was enough to almost totally wreck one DN outright, and crippled another, with light damage on three or four others. So even a single division of DN's that could have joined the original force, would have towed enough pods by itself to account for at least one more DN kill outright, and their internal launchers (with their bigger missiles) would have guaranteed at least one more hard DN kill between the minefield and the scatter point.

Remember, Sarnow's BC's dished out the beating they did purely with cruiser-weight missiles, if they'd had the bigger capital missiles, they would have "won" well before the scatter point because their superior penaids and larger capital missiles could truly hurt the DNs, while the aid of even two DN's to the Task Group missile defense would have decreased the casualties taken considerably.

Of course, if we're looking at equation changes, and put a squadron of Sag-C's and replaced all the Star Knights and older heavy cruisers that were actually in Hancock, with their Mk 16 Mod-G's.... Chin's Dreadnoughts wouldn't have even made it to the minefield, and surviving the initial pod salvo would have been; shall we say about the same level of luck as the Prince Adrian surviving in Adler took.

Eagleeye wrote:

Vince wrote:That's exactly the situation I was talking about--Chin's DNs versus Sarnow's BCs, CAs and screen.

That's still not an equivalent of my assertion that Frontier Fleet BCs would not be totally outclassed by a Battle Fleet Scientist-class SD.

Perhaps not on a one-for-one basis, and certainly not in the situation at First Hancock -- Adm Chin had a numeric advantage as well as a tonnage advantage. I'm suggesting a situation where the BCs have a numeric advantage as well as a training and maintenance advantage. Also, considering the Cataphracts entering SLN service after Adm Crandall's defeat and being pod based and totally expended by Filareta's Folly, the BCs probably have a range advantage as well.

I think everyone is over-stating the effectiveness of the Scientist-class ships. Perhaps they would be more effective with an OJT crew commanded by one of Honor's protegees given enough time to work out some of the maintenance deficiencies and undergo some realistic training.

Under an SLN/Battle Fleet crew with the maintenance and training deficiencies RFC has portrayed in textev, I'd almost back a squadron of Shrikes against a singleton Scientist-class. I'd definitely back a squadron (8 ships) of Nevada-class BCs with Frontier Fleet crews against a singleton Scientist-class with a Battle Fleet crew. If the BCs have Cataphracts and the SD doesn't, I'd back a singleton Nevada against a singleton Scientist with OJT crews -- as long as Sword Simmons isn't in command of the BC.

Somtaaw wrote:

Eagleeye wrote:Chin had - what? 8 DNs + 8 BCs and some DDs and/or CLs for screening. Call it around 60 Million Tons of metal. Sarnow had 8 BCs, 8 CAs and ... did he have some destroyers or light cruisers, too? Can't just remember. But, all in all, he couldn't have more than 10 to 12 million tons, prior to Danislavs arrival. That's far away from playing on an even field, given the more or less comparable technology levels. That means, levels where you could bring in additional quantity to negate quality advantages of your contender.

If Sarnow had had, say, 2 additional Divisions of DNs of his own ... than the manticoran technological advantage would've been deciding against Chin. But in that case it would not have been Chin, but Rollins himself, who would've attacked, to make sure they had a sufficiently big mass advantage against the defenders. And Rollins would've known about these DNs, courtesy of the spy-satellites Haven used to guard Hancock and other systems (not Grayson, but more or less any other system).

Chin had 8 Dreadnoughts, 6 Battlecruisers, and a (light) screen of Heavy and Light Cruisers, no Destroyers.

Sarnow had 8 Battlecruisers, 8 Heavy Cruisers, and an unknown strength of Light Cruisers, excluding the additional Light Cruisers and Destroyers that had been detached in singletons as "pickets" to hide the presence of the FTL net.

The opening salvo's from just the missile pods that could be towed by the BC's and CA's was enough to almost totally wreck one DN outright, and crippled another, with light damage on three or four others. So even a single division of DN's that could have joined the original force, would have towed enough pods by itself to account for at least one more DN kill outright, and their internal launchers (with their bigger missiles) would have guaranteed at least one more hard DN kill between the minefield and the scatter point.

Remember, Sarnow's BC's dished out the beating they did purely with cruiser-weight missiles, if they'd had the bigger capital missiles, they would have "won" well before the scatter point because their superior penaids and larger capital missiles could truly hurt the DNs, while the aid of even two DN's to the Task Group missile defense would have decreased the casualties taken considerably.

Of course, if we're looking at equation changes, and put a squadron of Sag-C's and replaced all the Star Knights and older heavy cruisers that were actually in Hancock, with their Mk 16 Mod-G's.... Chin's Dreadnoughts wouldn't have even made it to the minefield, and surviving the initial pod salvo would have been; shall we say about the same level of luck as the Prince Adrian surviving in Adler took.

The missiles in the pods ... were they SD/DN-style missiles (Mk 19, according to Jayne's) or were they Cruiser-style missiles (Mk 13, according to Jayne's)? I would think, the pods used Mk 19 missiles, in other words: missiles with much more punch than the on-board-ones the Homers and Reliants could fire. No wonder, that salvo could more or less mission-kill one of Chin's DNs and damage another!

And after the minefield ... no, the cruisers could not really hurt the surviving DNs. Not decisively, at least. They were a nuisance, true, and more than that for the heavy damaged units, courtesy of the pods and the minefield. But without Danislav's DNs Haven would have won.

And if you change the gameplan and use Sag-Cs and Mk-16 Mod-Gs for Manticore, you have to use Havens own new bells and whistles, too. Say, the new defensive doctrine and hardware, developed by Admiral Foraker. Or their own MDMs. Or their Warloard-BCs for screen instead of the old Tigers or Sultans. With that (and without Danislavs arrival, too), I'm convinced, Haven still would've won.