New ship idea

Weird Harold wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Ok, their SDMs were biggern than the Manties - but are they enough bigger that their CAs could take a Mk14 ERM derviative without needing enlarged magazines, feed tubes, and launchers? (And your guess is probably as good as mine)

Since we're talking about New-Build Mars B derivatives, there's no reason the have to deal with a Mk14 ERM they can use the launchers for the smaller Mk16G and fill the saved space with the necessary cofferdams.

Better and more anti-missile capability and better computers for sensors, and any other changes in the tactical department would be wonderful but aren't really necessary. The Mars-B CA is a pretty capable warship with its native Havenite equipment. All it really needs is missiles with the reach and power of a DDM; against anything except a RMN peer or larger, a Mk16G armed Mars-B derivative should be a quick and easy interim GA Heavy Cruiser.

To a lesser extent, other smaller Havenite designs that can be converted (during construction) to fire Mk16s would provide interim GA ships as well as upgraded KHII "Bolthole Special" podlayers firing Manticoran Flatpack pods.

I can't see the GA settling on anything less than Mk16G and Mk23/Apollo as the alliance common missiles.

Um, Mk16s (of any revision) are bigger than Mk14s. That's why Sag-Cs needed to be 15% bigger than Sag-Bs.

16s are smaller than a capacitor powered DDM would big, but they're still bigger than a ERM or SDM. Now a Mars-B is significantly closer to the size of a Sag-C than a -B; so I'm pretty sure you could design a Mk16 combatant around a Mars-B hull - but it'd be a lot of interior changes.


On the other hand, figuring out where to put the internal systems, connections, passageways, etc is the hard part; wrapping a hull around them afterwards is (comparatively) easy. It is still probably easier to do a clean sheet design (using as many off the shelf Havenite components as practical) than to attempt to retrofit specific Mantie systems or missiles into existing Havenite designs.

Haven has all sorts of ships still under construction. I suspect that they are going to finish those before they start building RHN ships built with Manty tech.

There is the not so small a problem of both retraining people and retooling the manufacturing at at least part of Bolthole to manufacture things with and too Manty tech spec.

There is going to be a long period of overlap using existing ships and designes before they jump in and build fully Manty tech ships for RHN. Building hybrid ships in the intrem is possible but redesign of existing ships might even take longer than starting over.

The primary thrust in all of this is to:

1st, get RMN ships and components built using Haven facilities

2nd, bring RHN up to the level of RMN classes going forward.

What has not yet been mentioned here is that Haven has a lot of existing ships from their own production going back decades. Many of those- the production of the last 10 years at least- are going to be well superior to SLN and similar forces on a class by class bases. They are going to become an issue in supporting at least backwater areas of Haven and the GA coverage area until both Manticore (and Grayson) infrastructre is rebuilt to support replacemet weapons, repairs and new construction.

Recall that most of what Haven built in the last 10 years is massively ahead of SLN ships in so many ways that those ships could be sent forward to bolster the LACOON II wormhole captures and probably be better than the older RMN ships we have seen being used.

Haven is going to need to keep producing spare parts and consumables (partaicularly missiles) for those older ships as long as they have a useful role in the changing military picture and beyond to dealing with the SL Successor States.

Brigade XO wrote:What has not yet been mentioned here is that Haven has a lot of existing ships from their own production going back decades. Many of those- the production of the last 10 years at least- are going to be well superior to SLN and similar forces on a class by class bases. They are going to become an issue in supporting at least backwater areas of Haven and the GA coverage area until both Manticore (and Grayson) infrastructre is rebuilt to support replacemet weapons, repairs and new construction.

Recall that most of what Haven built in the last 10 years is massively ahead of SLN ships in so many ways that those ships could be sent forward to bolster the LACOON II wormhole captures and probably be better than the older RMN ships we have seen being used.

Haven is going to need to keep producing spare parts and consumables (partaicularly missiles) for those older ships as long as they have a useful role in the changing military picture and beyond to dealing with the SL Successor States.

Once you get below the wall we haven't seen any major new designs out of Haven since the ceasefire at the end of the first war (well until you get down to LACs). And those DD - BC are the ships where the SLN is less obsolete.

I'm sure the Havenite designs have a solid edge, maybe even 25% superiority on a ton for ton basis, just from more/better CMs and more evolved ECM (plus a bit of an accel advantage; though not as much as Manticore has). But they aren't going to be able to simply wipe the floor with Frontier Fleet units, from beyond the range that they can respond, like the newest couple generations of Mantie/Grayson designs can.

And that might actually make for some interesting (to read) battles. Because how many times do we want to see Rolands or Wolfhounds ripping Nevada-class BCs to pieces while the BC can't even get within missile range to respond.

For now better use of Haven ships would be sending them to Manticore and Talbott as system defense forces, so we could take as much as possible from Home Fleet and sent it to execute Lacoon II.
Changing production of Bolthole shouldn't be that hard, they will have plans and a lot of experienced Manticoran and Grayson workers. Pritchair took with her to Manticore something like 10000 POW from Grendelsbane? They're experienced and we could use them as teaches and instructors for new workers and for Havenites in Bolthole.
But more important thing for GA right now is creation of missile production in Beowulf, refitting ships is faster than building new and Keyhole One or Two will be great to have on at least one ship in squadron.
When IV design of Manticoran SD(P) will be ready we should be able to build them in Grayson and Manticore.
Yards should be ready relatively soon and we can finish them first and after that finish other parts of station. What about building another complex in Basilisk and maybe in Silesia. Silesian one could be very easy to hide, just build it in system similar to Hancock and we have place to build prototypes and other experimental weaponry. What about using Andermani yards? They have similar level of technology and they know how to create MDM with fussion plants.
One small though on new battle cruisers, why don't we just take typical Haven BB hull throw out everything which we don't need and put more important stuff and upgrade drive. It should be as deadly as Nike and much easier to build for Haven. They know how to build that type of hull and 4MT hull will be even better than 2.5MT of Nike.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:What has not yet been mentioned here is that Haven has a lot of existing ships from their own production going back decades. Many of those- the production of the last 10 years at least- are going to be well superior to SLN and similar forces on a class by class bases. They are going to become an issue in supporting at least backwater areas of Haven and the GA coverage area until both Manticore (and Grayson) infrastructre is rebuilt to support replacemet weapons, repairs and new construction.

Recall that most of what Haven built in the last 10 years is massively ahead of SLN ships in so many ways that those ships could be sent forward to bolster the LACOON II wormhole captures and probably be better than the older RMN ships we have seen being used.

Haven is going to need to keep producing spare parts and consumables (partaicularly missiles) for those older ships as long as they have a useful role in the changing military picture and beyond to dealing with the SL Successor States.

Once you get below the wall we haven't seen any major new designs out of Haven since the ceasefire at the end of the first war (well until you get down to LACs). And those DD - BC are the ships where the SLN is less obsolete.

I'm sure the Havenite designs have a solid edge, maybe even 25% superiority on a ton for ton basis, just from more/better CMs and more evolved ECM (plus a bit of an accel advantage; though not as much as Manticore has). But they aren't going to be able to simply wipe the floor with Frontier Fleet units, from beyond the range that they can respond, like the newest couple generations of Mantie/Grayson designs can.

And that might actually make for some interesting (to read) battles. Because how many times do we want to see Rolands or Wolfhounds ripping Nevada-class BCs to pieces while the BC can't even get within missile range to respond.

I would think Haven would have been steadily retiring its ships older than the Trojan/Mars/Warlord, if only because the older ships' missiles couldn't match the range of
their own ships with the Haven version of longer-ranged missiles (ca 1912). After the tech exchange with Erewhon (ca 1918), I would have expected more modernization of the light ships to make them more survivable, even if both sides did stop using new class-names for their lighter ships.

But those are not the ships we saw in the back-40 systems Honor was raiding. Remember that most of those systems were second- or third-tier economies, they didn't warrant front-line ships.

I agree that a more even battle would be more interesting than Saltash or New Tuscany, though. Those were more important for the political fallout than the military combat.

YMMV, of course.

Regards, Rob
Rob

Draken wrote:When IV design of Manticoran SD(P) will be ready we should be able to build them in Grayson and Manticore.
Yards should be ready relatively soon and we can finish them first and after that finish other parts of station. What about building another complex in Basilisk and maybe in Silesia. Silesian one could be very easy to hide, just build it in system similar to Hancock and we have place to build prototypes and other experimental weaponry. What about using Andermani yards? They have similar level of technology and they know how to create MDM with fussion plants.

They can't use the Andermani yards, because the Andermani are officially neutral in this conflict. As for Silesia and Basilisk, Manticore is not going to build any navy yards outside of the Manticore system. They have decided that the best protection for their naval shipyards is to put them all into a single system guarded by the biggest and best defense possible, i.e. the Manticore system itself. They simply could not protect yards in other systems nearly as well.

One small though on new battle cruisers, why don't we just take typical Haven BB hull throw out everything which we don't need and put more important stuff and upgrade drive. It should be as deadly as Nike and much easier to build for Haven. They know how to build that type of hull and 4MT hull will be even better than 2.5MT of Nike.

You can't just "throw out everything you don't need". The kind of modifications you are talking about requires a full shipyard, and takes as long as building a new ship from scratch. Hulls are the last thing installed on a new ship, which means that you can move all that equipment in really easily. If the hull is already built, it is a huge pain to pull the equipment out and put new stuff in. We've tried to tell you this several times.

I don't agree with very much of this one, sorry. Also, I'm in a hurry, so I will just hope this isn't rude--not intended to be.

Draken wrote:For now better use of Haven ships would be sending them to Manticore and Talbott as system defense forces, so we could take as much as possible from Home Fleet and sent it to execute Lacoon II.

I doubt Manticore's Parliament would agree with you.

Home Fleet, under Admiral of the Fleet Higgins, will stay in Manticore. Haven has over a hundred under-defended systems flying its flag--the ships it has committed to the Grand Fleet are likely all they can afford (politically) to spare from their home-front defensive build up. When they sent their ships to Manticore, they stripped their own Home Fleet!

And for now, there is no need to reinforce Talbott Quadrant--there isn't anything close enough, strong enough, to threaten it. The League still doesn't know 10th Fleet left, and Khumalo has LACs and pods and whatever patrols Henke didn't take with her.

Changing production of Bolthole shouldn't be that hard, they will have plans and a lot of experienced Manticoran and Grayson workers. Pritchair took with her to Manticore something like 10000 POW from Grendelsbane? They're experienced and we could use them as teaches and instructors for new workers and for Havenites in Bolthole.

Plans, great. Bolthole changing production means 1) new machinery they don't have, and 2) a workforce trained on that new machinery they don't have. Manticore's 40,000 returned POWs are desperately needed to re-train the military and civilian workers and to REBUILD MANTICORE'S SPACE STATIONS. If Manticore doesn't rebuild its civilian industrial capacity fast, they won't have anything to trade to their new trading partners--Haven or anyone else. With loss of the Junction revenue, Manticore goes broke without that production.

But more important thing for GA right now is creation of missile production in Beowulf, refitting ships is faster than building new and Keyhole One or Two will be great to have on at least one ship in squadron.

Someone recently posted the fact that it took the Andies, who were already building SDPs, about 8 MONTHS to refit to keyhole II systems. The RMN ought to take advantage of the fact that Beowulf will be able to build the advanced missiles and drones sooner than Haven will; but the priority for BuWeaps will be restoring their OWN capacity, which was already in progress at Trevor's Star. Missile production ought to be back to replacement-levels by the end of the year, or Jan 1923.

When IV design of Manticoran SD(P) will be ready we should be able to build them in Grayson and Manticore.
Yards should be ready relatively soon and we can finish them first and after that finish other parts of station. What about building another complex in Basilisk and maybe in Silesia.

This is a non-starter. First, because the new SD's will take longer to build, even in Manticore's new yards, than the Invictuses, because you are still training a new workforce. So you are looking at 1923 for the completion of the first shipyards; and around 1926 or 1927 by the time the ships are complete, and they get worked up.

Second, there is a Pearl on Joe Buckley's site, about why the RMN will NOT NOT NOT build a complex in Silesia. RFC's reasons include the lower tech level, poorer education systems, lack of modern infrastructure, and general lawlessness, as well as the inability of the Admiralty to defend it. Think about it some more: those systems amount to Crown Colonies--they are a PROTECTORATE, not integral part of the SKM. And they have an inherant, centuries-long-term tolerance of corruption. That is NOT a managable security risk.

Silesian one could be very easy to hide, just build it in system similar to Hancock and we have place to build prototypes and other experimental weaponry. What about using Andermani yards? They have similar level of technology and they know how to create MDM with fussion plants.

Hiding shipyards, or just placing them in out of the way systems, is hard. Also, commented on recently, at length. But the short version, you need a large trained workforce and regular supplies, and someone will either notice the ship movements or someone working there gets drunk in a bar and spills the beans.

Andie Tech is still not up to producing fusion MDMs. In fact, they loaded Manticore's capacitor-based Mk-41 MDMs into the Andies pods, and Apollo pods were supplied by Manticore.

One small though on new battle cruisers, why don't we just take typical Haven BB hull throw out everything which we don't need and put more important stuff and upgrade drive. It should be as deadly as Nike and much easier to build for Haven. They know how to build that type of hull and 4MT hull will be even better than 2.5MT of Nike.

The author also commented on why he wasn't interested in building battleships (ie., 4-5M ton versions of Nike with Mk23s). Because the build time is too close to that of the full-sized podnought, and it can't fight a full size podnought.

If you take the Warlords and do a Manti-tech upgrade, you don't get a Nike, you get a Flight III Reliant. If you give it DDMs, you either want to wait until Haven could build the DDMs, or you are dependent on a foreign system for your missiles. Haven's government is not a rubber-stamp bunch of drones--and Pritchart still isn't going to get everything she might like out of it. I think they could build them for export to Beowulf if Beowulf wants to provide its own missiles, but politics (and politicians) didn't just stop because Eloise and Elizabeth both like the same coffee.


Regards,

Rob

Hi Rob,

I don't think you're being rude, just forthright about the obvious problems in Draken's post.

Given the RHN already had triple MDM's, developing a DDM shouldn't take that long, simply dropping a drive unit would be the obvious first step, before getting into sizing or magazine issues along with the other ship requirements.

The textev implies that the RHN already has newer designs; ie whole systems dedicated to building light or heavy cruisers etc, that probably use a ERSDM, or extended range single drive missile that some have been prating about on another thread.

I could see Sharon opting to make the tubes on new construction still sized for the RHN's larger DDM's until the RHN has its own Mk-16 production lines, but as a modular unit that eases replacement, including the power requirement to spin the Mk-16 up, if the RHN doesn't prefer its capacitor DDM because it's less of a hassle and almost as good, which seems to be Foraker's motto.

I suspect RFC will contrast the differences between the ERSDM and the Mk-16 frequently in the initial RHN engagements until the RHN's DDM is fully in fleet hands.

I think many of us have done the math for a RHN DDM, which would have a range barely 2 M km less than the Mk-16 or 27 M km, quite enough for the RHN to comfortably deal with the SLN and anybody else other than the GA and its friends like the IAN.

L

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:I don't agree with very much of this one, sorry. Also, I'm in a hurry, so I will just hope this isn't rude--not intended to be.

Draken wrote:For now better use of Haven ships would be sending them to Manticore and Talbott as system defense forces, so we could take as much as possible from Home Fleet and sent it to execute Lacoon II.

I doubt Manticore's Parliament would agree with you.

Home Fleet, under Admiral of the Fleet Higgins, will stay in Manticore. Haven has over a hundred under-defended systems flying its flag--the ships it has committed to the Grand Fleet are likely all they can afford (politically) to spare from their home-front defensive build up. When they sent their ships to Manticore, they stripped their own Home Fleet!

And for now, there is no need to reinforce Talbott Quadrant--there isn't anything close enough, strong enough, to threaten it. The League still doesn't know 10th Fleet left, and Khumalo has LACs and pods and whatever patrols Henke didn't take with her.

Changing production of Bolthole shouldn't be that hard, they will have plans and a lot of experienced Manticoran and Grayson workers. Pritchair took with her to Manticore something like 10000 POW from Grendelsbane? They're experienced and we could use them as teaches and instructors for new workers and for Havenites in Bolthole.

Plans, great. Bolthole changing production means 1) new machinery they don't have, and 2) a workforce trained on that new machinery they don't have. Manticore's 40,000 returned POWs are desperately needed to re-train the military and civilian workers and to REBUILD MANTICORE'S SPACE STATIONS. If Manticore doesn't rebuild its civilian industrial capacity fast, they won't have anything to trade to their new trading partners--Haven or anyone else. With loss of the Junction revenue, Manticore goes broke without that production.

But more important thing for GA right now is creation of missile production in Beowulf, refitting ships is faster than building new and Keyhole One or Two will be great to have on at least one ship in squadron.

Someone recently posted the fact that it took the Andies, who were already building SDPs, about 8 MONTHS to refit to keyhole II systems. The RMN ought to take advantage of the fact that Beowulf will be able to build the advanced missiles and drones sooner than Haven will; but the priority for BuWeaps will be restoring their OWN capacity, which was already in progress at Trevor's Star. Missile production ought to be back to replacement-levels by the end of the year, or Jan 1923.

When IV design of Manticoran SD(P) will be ready we should be able to build them in Grayson and Manticore.
Yards should be ready relatively soon and we can finish them first and after that finish other parts of station. What about building another complex in Basilisk and maybe in Silesia.

This is a non-starter. First, because the new SD's will take longer to build, even in Manticore's new yards, than the Invictuses, because you are still training a new workforce. So you are looking at 1923 for the completion of the first shipyards; and around 1926 or 1927 by the time the ships are complete, and they get worked up.

Second, there is a Pearl on Joe Buckley's site, about why the RMN will NOT NOT NOT build a complex in Silesia. RFC's reasons include the lower tech level, poorer education systems, lack of modern infrastructure, and general lawlessness, as well as the inability of the Admiralty to defend it. Think about it some more: those systems amount to Crown Colonies--they are a PROTECTORATE, not integral part of the SKM. And they have an inherant, centuries-long-term tolerance of corruption. That is NOT a managable security risk.

Silesian one could be very easy to hide, just build it in system similar to Hancock and we have place to build prototypes and other experimental weaponry. What about using Andermani yards? They have similar level of technology and they know how to create MDM with fussion plants.

Hiding shipyards, or just placing them in out of the way systems, is hard. Also, commented on recently, at length. But the short version, you need a large trained workforce and regular supplies, and someone will either notice the ship movements or someone working there gets drunk in a bar and spills the beans.

Andie Tech is still not up to producing fusion MDMs. In fact, they loaded Manticore's capacitor-based Mk-41 MDMs into the Andies pods, and Apollo pods were supplied by Manticore.

One small though on new battle cruisers, why don't we just take typical Haven BB hull throw out everything which we don't need and put more important stuff and upgrade drive. It should be as deadly as Nike and much easier to build for Haven. They know how to build that type of hull and 4MT hull will be even better than 2.5MT of Nike.

The author also commented on why he wasn't interested in building battleships (ie., 4-5M ton versions of Nike with Mk23s). Because the build time is too close to that of the full-sized podnought, and it can't fight a full size podnought.

If you take the Warlords and do a Manti-tech upgrade, you don't get a Nike, you get a Flight III Reliant. If you give it DDMs, you either want to wait until Haven could build the DDMs, or you are dependent on a foreign system for your missiles. Haven's government is not a rubber-stamp bunch of drones--and Pritchart still isn't going to get everything she might like out of it. I think they could build them for export to Beowulf if Beowulf wants to provide its own missiles, but politics (and politicians) didn't just stop because Eloise and Elizabeth both like the same coffee.


Regards,

Rob

Hi Brigade XO,

Thanks for a very good analysis.

The GA probably has around 4000 warships already, not counting Beowulf or the IAN, which the RHN should be at least near half; so yes the RHN should be among the TG's backing up the wormhole groups, who could then visit local FF or SLN bases as needed.

I suspect the new heavy cruiser class might carry only 600-800 RHN DDM's, but that's plenty against the FF and SLN.

Using SF's rotating fire control channels technique, there's very little in the SLN such CA's would worry about.

Having a couple of whole star systems make them under wartime production schedules could be terrifying to the SLN, if they knew what the RoH was doing.

"They can do that too? D-mn when did they get better tech than us? Are we that behind the whole Haven sector?"

Yup, you still don't have a clue.

L

Brigade XO wrote:Haven has all sorts of ships still under construction. I suspect that they are going to finish those before they start building RHN ships built with Manty tech.

There is the not so small a problem of both retraining people and retooling the manufacturing at at least part of Bolthole to manufacture things with and too Manty tech spec.

There is going to be a long period of overlap using existing ships and designes before they jump in and build fully Manty tech ships for RHN. Building hybrid ships in the intrem is possible but redesign of existing ships might even take longer than starting over.

The primary thrust in all of this is to:

1st, get RMN ships and components built using Haven facilities

2nd, bring RHN up to the level of RMN classes going forward.

What has not yet been mentioned here is that Haven has a lot of existing ships from their own production going back decades. Many of those- the production of the last 10 years at least- are going to be well superior to SLN and similar forces on a class by class bases. They are going to become an issue in supporting at least backwater areas of Haven and the GA coverage area until both Manticore (and Grayson) infrastructre is rebuilt to support replacemet weapons, repairs and new construction.

Recall that most of what Haven built in the last 10 years is massively ahead of SLN ships in so many ways that those ships could be sent forward to bolster the LACOON II wormhole captures and probably be better than the older RMN ships we have seen being used.

Haven is going to need to keep producing spare parts and consumables (partaicularly missiles) for those older ships as long as they have a useful role in the changing military picture and beyond to dealing with the SL Successor States.

Hi Draken,

The remaining RHN's BB's have all been scrapped or await scrapping, so rebuilding a decades old 4.5 MT hull doesn't make much sense when it'd be faster to builder something far better from the inside out.

Rob and SWM's points are all very well taken, so consider reviewing the texts a bit more before getting to far ahead of what RFC's likely planned out.

OK?

For example, given the Mars increase over the Star Knights, I wouldn't be surprised if the new RHN BC at the beginning of the second war had been 50% bigger than the known RMN SDM BC's [say 1.3-1.35 MT], which should make it easier to adapt or convert their new construction to their new DDM.

L

Draken wrote:For now better use of Haven ships would be sending them to Manticore and Talbott as system defense forces, so we could take as much as possible from Home Fleet and sent it to execute Lacoon II.
Changing production of Bolthole shouldn't be that hard, they will have plans and a lot of experienced Manticoran and Grayson workers. Pritchair took with her to Manticore something like 10000 POW from Grendelsbane? They're experienced and we could use them as teaches and instructors for new workers and for Havenites in Bolthole.
But more important thing for GA right now is creation of missile production in Beowulf, refitting ships is faster than building new and Keyhole One or Two will be great to have on at least one ship in squadron.
When IV design of Manticoran SD(P) will be ready we should be able to build them in Grayson and Manticore.
Yards should be ready relatively soon and we can finish them first and after that finish other parts of station. What about building another complex in Basilisk and maybe in Silesia. Silesian one could be very easy to hide, just build it in system similar to Hancock and we have place to build prototypes and other experimental weaponry. What about using Andermani yards? They have similar level of technology and they know how to create MDM with fussion plants.
One small though on new battle cruisers, why don't we just take typical Haven BB hull throw out everything which we don't need and put more important stuff and upgrade drive. It should be as deadly as Nike and much easier to build for Haven. They know how to build that type of hull and 4MT hull will be even better than 2.5MT of Nike.