new/old dead horse, futher beating requested

Reading thru the recent postings, Basicly, Solly Scientist Class SD's are at best a scarecrow, with a heavy manning requirement, even if not hyper capable, and too slow at 400-450G's to be a credible threat to any pirate or raider.
They are "maybe" OK as a small, static fort.

For those star-nations that are freed / liberated from the SL / OFS, a multi-platform defensive force seems to be much more credible.

A suggestion --
(1) for those nations signing both non-aggression and mutual trade and assistance treaties provide serviceable ex-SLN Gladiator class CA's and Indefatigable / Nevada BC's to provide a local system defense force.

(2) For those nations signing on both trade and mutual non-aggression AND joining the GA (at least as "associated powers") -- think Meyers, unless I miss my guess, offer / provide Starknight CA's and Homer/Reliant class BC's. Buttercup level FTL with the older class missiles will still be a significant improvement over SLN designs, have no threat to GA forces and help cement the new relationship.

SD's / DN's, even Manticoran designs are too manpower intensive for any starnation that is not ready for a large navy.

Hi Cheopis,

The first half of your post is quite excellent, but I quibble about how much of FF is going to turn piratical.

Getting the crew to join the like inclined officers over the objections of those who see it as betrayal of all they stood for, when there are lots of systems quite willing to provide support for the protection they can still provide, if not quite a few finding accommodation of some type with the GA; "if you protect these 3-4 systems from piracy etc, and don't exploit the planet populations ie no KEW's etc, we'll leave you alone [for the next 6-12 month's]" or even with the RF given the 'great' records so many RF leaders had in the SLN.

Given all the systems clamoring for protection, and all the various crewmen to be overcome, I'd be surprised if 1-2% went pirate, while 4-5% seems far too many even out of 8-9,000 FF ships.

Between them, the present GA powers have over 600 old SD's, besides the 108 current captured BF SD's; if only one per system, that's over 700 more systems with 'good will' towards the GA.

That's a figure I don't think the RF will be able to match.

L

Cheopis wrote:Remember that the greatest weapon in war is information. If you have an old decrepit SL SD in orbit around your planet, and there isn't clear intelligence to indicate that it's unable to fight, any raider or pirate is going to have to give consideration that it might be able to fight.

Manticore could rip the hyper drive out of these ships after delivering them to verge worlds, to make certain that they weren't used offensively.

To create a real world scenario, if you're thinking about breaking into two different houses, and you know the owners of one house have an old dog, and the owners of the other have no dog, you will probably try to break into the house with no dog if all other things are mostly equal.

As a raider, you have to think, is that SD in orbit able to wake up and bite you on the ass if you get too close, or is it toothless and nearly dead? Are you going to risk your ship(s) and crew to find out, or pick an easier target?

Sollie SD's won't have much utility against piracy outside the hyper limit because they are too slow, but raiders going after orbital or even planetary infrastructure in post-SL chaos will have to think twice if there's a SD in orbit.

Frontier fleet is going to scatter when the SL falls apart, and a lot of those ex-Frontier fleet crews are going to take up... alternate careers. If they want to keep those ships running they will need industrial infrastructure, and from what we've seen in the Honorverse, that's normally found in orbit around inhabited planets inside the hyper limit of stars.

Those SD's have tremendous value. Not monetary value, but favor value. Bluff value. Information warfare value. Simply giving away those ships after the SL starts to go belly-up will create huge goodwill for Manticore. Even if none of them ever fire a shot.

Hi Stewart,

Guys, a few thoughts on where this thread has drifted.

Until 9 month's ago [January, 1922] the BF SD's were considered state of the art by 99.9+% of the colonized galaxy.

First, at no time since I suggested the scarecrow potential of 3 ex-BF SD's for each member of the TQ, the 48 captured at Spindle not being a coincidence, did I imply they would ever be almost empty or scarcely manned; rather the opposite given their industrial, medical, energy weapons, marine, and small craft training potential.

I've pointed out repeatedly Crandall brought ~2 dozen supply and 3 repair ships IIRC, besides 2 missile ammunition ships [29 total], so spares aren't going to be a problem even without the ships' fabricators [remember in OBS, making new RD's by the gross?] making replacement parts for quite while.

Again, this is because the deterrent value of a few dozen LAC's, even Shrikes and Katana's isn't that obvious to anyone who doesn't know the difference like 99.9% of the colonized galaxy, and while nothing returning gets spooky if the pirates are coordinating separate raids [?], the likelihood of continued ignorant hostile visitors can irritate business as usual, if they have to stop what they're doing every time some 60 kt POS hopeful pirate appears.

I know I was often frustrated when I was in Iraq when a single mortar or rocket landed a mile or two away [well outside our perimeter] yet I still had to 'gear up'; put on all my personal body armor to 'patrol' our small compound perimeter when obviously nothing was happening for miles around until the all clear was given a couple hours later, ie the whole thing was done to irritate us, NTM we weren't allowed to return fire for several month's.

No, an F-16 going into afterburner at night a couple of days later at high altitude was supposed to frighten them into stopping [!?] -a big whoop-de-do IMO, then a month later it was a B-1 going into after burner at night ; personally it was rather pathetic and embarrassing ; NTM I wondered if they kept at it in order to see what the next nighttime airshow was going to be.

But pirates aren't in the irritation business;
They're pirates because they expect to MAKE A PROFIT QUICKLY.

To a pirate, selling the captured ship may be more valuable in terms of reliable cash than its on board cargo regardless of how valuable it might be some place far away.

Pirates with long term strategies aren't pirates, they're shills for somebody [else] with long term plans.

Those that have suggested major system raiders overwhelming a single SD haven't ever explained how a few dozen LAC's would stop such a determined heavy attack, when one wonders about just how many LAC's are on station at any time, etc.

Feel free to share how they'd easily overwhelm all those BC's that are so eager to swarm the SD, before explaining how against the 3 SD's.

If any of the 108 captured BF SD's were ever given or sold to a non-GA aligned system, removing the hyper generator would be the minimum I'd expect the GA to avoid irritating their neighbors unless they too also received an SD, like the ABC treaty's of the 1950's, or the balancing act the UK had with India and Pakistan.

The fact is 2/3 of the SL only have LAC's, and the age of such indifference to system security by so many systems, not just the SL, is about to end rather abruptly.

So expanding the Talbot Quadrant Guard's naval capabilities is not only a necessity, but a primary responsibility of the TQ government.

Fortunately the Grantville government has set aside a third or half of the Lynx terminus transit fees for the TQ [its early in SoS somewhere], which after 3 years is at least several trillion Manticore Dollars, if not well into the tens of M$ trillions, so the TCG can afford to recruit plenty of new crewmen [besides considerable investments in education, infrastructure, medical improvements etc], which not being part of the RMN yet don't violate his assurances the RMN would never man or use these ships [aside from possible temporary "Trojan horses"].

There several TQ systems with their own hyper navies some with prolong like Spindle and the RTU, who can provide the initial core of spacers to receive such upgraded training, NTM help train all the recruits; the RTU and Rembrandt in particular have heavy cruisers, possibly 20% more than Monica's according to President's Tyler's mental complaints in SoS when his MSN had 5 CA's, 8 CL's, and 19 DD's, for 32 hyper warships.

So if Rembrandt had ~20% more or 38, ie 6 CA's, 10 CL's, 22 DD's, with San Miguel roughly equal to Monica at 32, with Prairie and Redoubt at 26 and 20 either way, the RTU total could be 116 total hyper warships, the construction emphasis being for cruisers; while Spindle has at least light cruisers, we don't don't know who else has hyper warships but there have been hints of 2-3 others, so the 69 ex-FF ships might be only about a 50% increase in ships though the tonnage skew is quite different [from averaging about a FF's CL's mass to a SK's CA's for the
FF ships] so the TQG could have a couple hundred lesser hyper warships to patrol the 16 systems well beyond the hyper limit.

Still a light cruiser or two and 3-4 DD's ought to help patrol member's real estate and infrastructure beyond the hyper limit, besides foreign visits to demonstrate the TQ shouldn't be bothered by its verge neighbors.

Besides the SD's captured so far, there are slightly over 200 FF warships, counting those captured at Meyers and Torch; besides the Maya Sector's 20 available to the GA, some of whose crew members could certainly provide some training on peculiar equipment, or simply teaching the GA teachers the SLN nuances, which shouldn't take that long, if experience with NATO joint training exercises provides a comparison.

Given their mass is around 80% of the old Home Fleet SD's that had tractored 580 MDM pods at 1st BoMA, they ought to able to carry ~464 each [=16 volleys of 29 each], more than enough to catch any pirate or system raider that ventures an hour or so beyond the hyper limit if they don't rotate guarding the main freighter axis [even from inside the H-L, they would still have a 40+ M km reach in 7 minutes-too little time for a pirate's hyper generator to reset], especially using RD's to reduce the fire control loop's 'arthritis' as Oversteegen demonstrated.

If they don't rotate out for commerce protection [why not?], simply letting system raiders come in for an hour or so before the SD breaks orbit means the raiders then have to brake for well over an hour etc to try to get out of range then reverse course before the SD gets in MDM range.

Of course with 1392 MDM pods, the 3 ex-BF SD's between them might be able to wreck another force of SD's near Crandall's size [ie 64] at 4 at a time [even with only 10 Mk-23's in each not 12] which is something Minister of War Kreitzmann has to be worried about, however remote that such might happen.

Technically, given the RMN ended the first war with around 20 million sailors, and has been mobilized for almost 3 years, the RMN shouldn't be having the textev problems with manning, nor should the RHN old SD's be retired as Tom described in AAC a couple of years back in the Honorverse, not almost 9 in ours, but our heroes have to have obstacles in their way or it becomes too easy.

Just as the TQ is supposed to provide Mike's much expanded ground force, I could see Meyers and other associated systems to the GA providing a police force initially, perhaps for Mobius and Loomis soon, before being helped with its or their own navy['s], which given how Marsh turned into the RMN's Sidemore Station, doesn't sound far fetched at all.

So if the GA had a station for every dozen or two systems, visits by even DD's could be so common that misuse of such gifts or purchased ships would be negligible.

L

stewart wrote:Reading thru the recent postings, Basicly, Solly Scientist Class SD's are at best a scarecrow, with a heavy manning requirement, even if not hyper capable, and too slow at 400-450G's to be a credible threat to any pirate or raider.
They are "maybe" OK as a small, static fort.

For those star-nations that are freed / liberated from the SL / OFS, a multi-platform defensive force seems to be much more credible.

A suggestion --
(1) for those nations signing both non-aggression and mutual trade and assistance treaties provide serviceable ex-SLN Gladiator class CA's and Indefatigable / Nevada BC's to provide a local system defense force.

(2) For those nations signing on both trade and mutual non-aggression AND joining the GA (at least as "associated powers") -- think Meyers, unless I miss my guess, offer / provide Starknight CA's and Homer/Reliant class BC's. Buttercup level FTL with the older class missiles will still be a significant improvement over SLN designs, have no threat to GA forces and help cement the new relationship.

SD's / DN's, even Manticoran designs are too manpower intensive for any starnation that is not ready for a large navy.

Hi Castenea,

While pirates may have done the most damage in shore raids, they are relatively rare compared to seizing ships.

RFC has reflected this in the honorverse where almost all piracy has been taking ships.

Having an old SD withe ~464 MDM pods near the hyper limit able to launch on anything within 40 M km in about 7 minutes will keep most pirates away unless they can drop out of hyper, capture a freighter then escape back into hyper within those 7 minutes.

L

Castenea wrote:

Cheopis wrote:You might say "But there hasn't been any mention of raiders in the Honorverse." True, as far as I am aware, but when the Solarian League falls, there are going to be a whole lot of loose military ships and a whole lot of power vacuum. There will be wars between neighboring systems over time. There will be rogue elements of the Frontier and Battle Fleets that do not align with core worlds to supply their needs.

So when you consider the usefulness of the SD in orbit, remember that pirates don't care what's in orbit and never will. They rarely enter the hyper limit. Planetary / orbital raiders will care a GREAT deal. They can only get what they want if they enter the hyper limit, and you can put that crappy old SD right on top of your most valuable stuff.

I hope that's clearer.

Pirates have always gained the most money from long shore raids, not attacking ships. In the Honorverse this means attacking things like asteroid mining nodes, remote outposts, ect.. These will not always be inside the hyperlimit, and will seldom have a great deal of high value for the system. Think though about what your proposed burgler would do if given the chance to clean out a convenience store at his leisure.

lyonheart wrote:Having an old SD withe ~464 MDM pods near the hyper limit able to launch on anything within 40 M km in about 7 minutes will keep most pirates away unless they can drop out of hyper, capture a freighter then escape back into hyper within those 7 minutes.

Nah, if you want to play that game you go after them on the alpha side as they leave the system. It works much better when you have someone providing a "window of security" on the real space side for you to sit and wait for customers on alpha.

saber964 wrote:On this subject why in the hell would the RMN deploy obsolete SLN SD's when they have a number of there own SD's that are not a manpower intensive. IIRC a SLN Scientist class has a crew of 6500 while a Samothrace class has a crew of 5500 a King William class has a crew of 4900 and the Gryphon class has a crew of 4500. So in other words you can crew 4 Gryphons or crew 3 Scientist

No one has said what you stated. No one.

What everyone has said REPEATEDLY is:

All those old RMN etc ships will be used internally first with the dreck sold/given to friends and allies.

You might have noticed but the list of allies, friends, and new friends is growing exponentially. The "good guys" need far more ships that what they currently have, can build, or can acquire from the SLN. Ya don't think maybe, just maybe, someone like Zunker would really appreciate something more substantial than an OFMOPPD do ya?

All the captured SLN ships will be used. Assuming the Honorverse is a rational universe. Not a good assumption as the best and baddest navy around still can't figure out how to use a power cord.

Hi Zakharra,

KZT and others have noted that trying to steal or loot the SD, even if it almost an inert lump in orbit would be difficult given how much automation there is in even the BF ships, the energy weapons manning etc is mainly for independent control if the computer link is broken.

Then there's the fact that pirates coming in system in a 60-70 kt POS aren't going to be hailed as a peaceful freighter; all ships are going to be inspected long before they near the planet.

If you can forgive the irony, this is such a straw man argument [ ]; I strongly doubt any rational star system, ie any that would get or buy an SD, would let it go to ruin, then permit any captured outside freighter to park anywhere near its only SD even assuming the assumptions about it quickly falling apart, and any visitors not be heavily escorted even if they were permitted to board it, especially if it were essentially empty, given the need for almost all star systems to expand their space capabilities.

The several orders of magnitude [10,000-1 or 100,000-1?] required for successful seizure boggle the mind of any pirate expecting a long life chasing far better odds attacking unarmed freighters.

Given what the Hexapuma did to the Marianne in SoS, no hostile freighter or its shuttles and pinnaces etc has a real chance in the first place.

Given humanity, nothing is impossible or too stupid not to happen; but any system that did let it happen deserves whatever results, including probably being blacklisted for trade by the GA if not everyone else, although knowing your system's galactic reputation is that you were that stupid or inept might be deterrent enough.

L

Zakharra wrote:

n7axw wrote:*quote="Zakharra"*I'm kind of wondering if the idea of (basically) using old SDs as orbital defense would just make a bad situation worse.

OK, so we have this massive ex-warship with a skeleton crew and arguably dubious maintenance/support in orbit. Why do I say dubious for that last? VERGE world, usually with limited means to start with.

Suggesting to me that such a monstrosity may be ALL that a lot of worlds can afford, even if the damn thing is a gift. Forget getting a few LACs or any orbital hardware or even hiring a security / pirate-hunter ship when things get tough, because a big chunk of your budget and manpower will be sucked up just keeping this thing in a stable orbit.

If I was a particularly clever and ambitious pirate leader, rather than shying away from this thing, I might consider other possibilities. Skeleton crew (even if well-trained and properly looked after) means very limited capabilities and (definitely) limited maintenance.

So our SD is probably an extremely easy target if the attacker (a) has a clue, and (b) can get reasonable surprise. Get a boarding /sabotage party on board either via one of the supply shuttles or via orbital insertion. Destroy / cripple the brute outright, or even capture it. The crew might disable the systems before the pirates grab control, but it is probably that world's sole defense.

From the pirate point of view, this SD is something extra to loot. The systems are not state-of-the-art, but I am sure there would be stuff there a pirate group would happily pry off and make good use of, or just haul away in hopes of sale to other parties. A capital ship graser or two, for example?


You're making several assumptions; that they will all have a skeleton crew and be poorly maintained. since the basic idea is to have them be used as training aids, this means they will have more than a skeleton crew and will be receiving proper maintenance. Why would they have a skeleton crew on an SD anyways when its duty is to provide security for a planet/system? That seems more than a little counter-productive unless you're running a big shell game and bluffing like crazy. And even then if you go long enough, bluffs will be called. If the ships are being used as has been suggested, as training ships, they'd have most of the crew they need. They might have an inexperienced crew, but a skeleton crew? Doubttful unless the ship is just being moved from one system to another.

Also, any raiders aren't going to have state of the art ships The only systems out there with ships better than the SLN ships are the GA ships and the IAN and some of the MAlign warships (but they won't do any system raiding until they are ready to come out in the open). The raiders ships will be very very likely no better than the SLN so there goes any advantage there and SLN SDs can throw bigger missile salvos than thing smaller than them. Aside from the GA/IAN ships.*quote*

Sollie SDs just as well have signs declaring "white elephant sale" hanging from the wedge as far as any defensive purposes are concerned. They are too slow to catch raiders or pirates. And given that, the bluff value goes to zero. All you have to do is locate the thing and stay outside its envelop of fire. Far better to acquire BCs and smaller that are not bluffing if you need a system defense force.

Don

I can't imagine a system having just one SD and no other warships. if a system is valuable to have one SD, it should have other warships too. Also as some have pointed out, SDs are built to take punishment that BBs and BC and smaller ships can't take. Unless said raiders are armed with SEM/GA missiles, there's nothing any raider or pirate has that is a threat. This is something I think a lot of people are missing, any raiders or pirates in the Talbott sector are going to have ships no better than the SLN had. Most pirates in fact are going to have worse ships. Raiders might have equal, but unless they are getting their weapons and ships from some place like the MAlign, those raiders and/or pirates won't be in any position to overpower an SD. Remember that a single SD is or was, capable of standing against the assault of numerous lesser warships. Unless a crapload of BCs jump the SD and are willing to take a LOT of losses, they are just dead ships when engaging a SD, even a Solly one.

Hi KZT,

There's no textev for pirates grabbing anything in hyper, which is why all the anti-pirate patrols are in normal space.

While there places where missiles and thus boarding pinnaces can work, they can't under 'normal hyper conditions' where only Warshawski sails operate, making boarding impossible, the sine qua non of piracy.

From all the textev, hyper is generally seen as the freighter's refuge, like the forest for Bambi; if he doesn't meet Godzilla.

In the case of Helen Zilwicki's convoy, 6 peep heavy cruisers were a lot closer to Godzilla [and still failed] than a typical single converted 60 kt pirate whose weapons suite is pitiful against anything except unarmed freighters.

Given how fruitless such an attempt in hyper for most pirates, would posting a DD on the alpha side be worth it or enough deterrent?

L

kzt wrote:

lyonheart wrote:Having an old SD withe ~464 MDM pods near the hyper limit able to launch on anything within 40 M km in about 7 minutes will keep most pirates away unless they can drop out of hyper, capture a freighter then escape back into hyper within those 7 minutes.

Nah, if you want to play that game you go after them on the alpha side as they leave the system. It works much better when you have someone providing a "window of security" on the real space side for you to sit and wait for customers on alpha.

Hi TheEmile,

My 'scarecrow' proposal doesn't involve the RMN or RHN manning the ex-BF SD's.

It's the TQG that will man the 48 SD's from Crandall, 3 to each system, quite a credible deterrent to all within hundred's of LY's, while the SD's help train millions of volunteers to be sailors, marines, doctors and medical staff, pilots ans small craft crews in ships that until 9 month's ago were considered at least first rank by 99+% of the human race, compared to the unknown capabilities of the few dozen RMN LAC's in system.

There are some 1200 SL systems, besides several hundred protectorates of one flavor or another, with only LAC's that are going to feel very naked quite soon, especially with the brisk GA breeze that's coming.

More than a few of them are going to want something stronger for system protection quickly, and most SL systems have the space infrastructure to support quite an expansion, including an SD.

At the moment the GA has over 700 old SD's, that the GA might provide a 5-10% cadre for to train the locals who desperately need an SD.

Given how the RMN brought Marsh along in a few brief years, some implications of just how long to create a navy seem too pessimistic when part of HH-A's doctrine involves helping develop such allies as much as possible.

Given the inevitable race for influence with the RF,being able to supply SD's however old will be a considerable bargaining chip the RF can't match.

NTM the 700+ ex-SL members will considerably outnumber the RF's 14, while providing quite a deterrent to any new polity seeking to reestablish the old SL and slay the GA dragon.

Given verge system populations in the 2-3 billion range, and 2-3 times that for SL members, a million or two volunteers for the navy is a drop in the bucket, while a navy of 100-200,000 ought to be quite sufficient for around 99% of all systems.

Spreading such volunteers across the GA fleets will mitigate the GA's current apparent manning limits, but being especially concentrated aboard the old SD's and lesser ships will help both pardners prepare for standing up the associated GA navy.

Previous forum speculation has wondered if the SD's will be worth in excess of M$50 Billion or more given how precious they will become.

The 108 untouched BF SD's are less than 22% of the 498 BF SD's that have met the GA for a tete-a-tete; a figure that implies less than 360 out of the remaining ~1650 odd active SD's will survive, while there could easily be 2000 ex-SL systems [including the protectorates] demanding if not pleading for some increased protection, or over twice as many as the available SD's since I expect the BF reserve to be effectively eliminated soon after Beowulf is attacked, if it hasn't been already.

Removing the hyper generator would be the minimum to reassure those who can't get even an old SD.

Granted the early SDP's that are quite obsolete by current RMN tech [200+ for the RMN and GSN alone?] are too powerful to loan, sell or park in lonely systems, so they'll have to be jointly manned if ever shared at some joint local base.

L

Theemile wrote:

Zakharra wrote:
One of the reasons why is because the SEM and GA needs to use all of its SDs for current operations. They can't really spare them. Although most of us have been as n7axw points out, envisioning the SLN SDs used in non combat roles, not combat ones, but half a squadron of them around a planet should give any raiders significant pause.

Zakharra, you are missing one very important plot point - the GA IS doing fine without them.

The GA IS doing fine without the ~250 Manty SDs and DNs in the reserve. The GA IS doing fine without the ~300 Havenite SDs recently retired.

Seeing the RMN reserves can kick the butts of the Ex-SLN SDs and the Havenite reserves can kick the butts of the Ex-SLN SDs, doesn't it make sense that the GA will make use of their own retired ships before they even begin contemplating using the ex-SLN ships?

And more importantly - despite everthing that has happened - they have zero plans of using ANY of their deactivated tube SDs.

So why do they need the Ex-SLN units?

lyonheart wrote:While there places where missiles and thus boarding pinnaces can work, they can't under 'normal hyper conditions' where only Warshawski sails operate, making boarding impossible, the sine qua non of piracy.

No, it's more true to say there are places in hyper where missiles don't work. Most of hyper they work just fine.

And if you know there is roughly a light minute sized area on real space where ships transition from real space to alpha (to protect them from the dreaded pirates) this provides a light second sized area on alpha that they will appear in. "At this range I rarely miss, so I'd suggest you best surrender now."

In a system within a grav wave this won't work for a profit seeking ship, but it works just fine for a raider.