The transtellars in the verge and protectorates

Jonathan_S wrote:B) an asymmetrical broadside, with missile tubes on only one broadside; where they extend past the centerline of the ship form that side (which makes it tricky to squeeze in engineering and whatnot that normally live on the centerline)

Assymetry: Is this really a problem?

In battle is it a problem?
1) Fixing problems(can you actually?)
2) Transferring missiles in case of damage
3) Power for missiles, missile tubes, Grasers/Lasers, is "Fusion Plasma"

In the case of #1(Depends, mostly no, especially modern missile combat)
In the case of #2, I do not see why they could still not do this
In the case of #3, this places the fusion conduit not on central core, but near the perimeter and more likely to be hit??? Or need dog legs off central core now, so more shielding etc and more tonnage etc.

#1(Depends) If a slightly fat ship, which has engineering spaces near the tubes in ~close enough proximity, we are talking a slightly longer doglegged passageway = more space required = more compartmentalization = more blast doors = more and more and more, so from an efficiency in tonnage = bad idea. From a pure maintenance perspective, these ships are not THAT big due to great resizing. Initially, these ships WERE that big so as envisioned by the author INITIALLY, yes, this would be a problem for crew efficiency, but after the great resizing, walking an extra ~10m to get to next Missile tube is not the end of the world here.

I think the biggest dichotemy is, THE GREAT RESIZING and DW's books are still written as if the ships never were shrunk and therefore perspective for crewing/maintenance are still ~ a kilometer long, 200+m wide behemoths for a DD and KILOMETERS long for an SD and 400m wide.

Square peg width of diameter of round hole

munroburton wrote:I wonder how bad the piracy issue can really get, considering that OFS/FF was causing some of it via false flag operations to pressure frontier systems into accepting their "protection". They weren't actually capturing and disposing of assets as normal pirates would either, just blowing them up as commerce raiders would, which means ex-SLN deserters turned pirate won't have a support network.

Also there's a massive difference between piracy in the Honorverse and piracy here on Earth.

On Earth pirates can operate anywhere along a shipping route; so currently you have Houthi rebels attacking ships in the Red Sea even though none of those ships are going to or from Yemen. Or in the age of sail you had pirate bases in the Caribbean but much of the trade they were preying on was just passing through going to or from continental ports.

But in the Honorverse (with a handful of partial exceptions like the Selker rift in Silesia) ships are effectively safe while in hyperspace between systems. So pirates can only prey on shipping that is stopping in the system where they're hunting; they can't hunt passing ships. And that means its far easier to defend against, or avoid, piracy in the Honorverse. You don't need armed ships to defend themselves in the deep ocean, or escorts and convoys for the same. If you can protect ships to and from your hyper limit (which even old LACs can do) pirates aren't going to be profitably hunt in your system. And if a system can't protect its space and pirates can hunt there then freighters will quickly stop going there; and, unlike on Earth, those pirates can't then use that for a base to intercept shipping moving between defended and prosperous ports.

So piracy seems like it will be more self-limiting in the Honorverse than on Earth.

Another possible idea might be OFS units going native. Sell their ships and crews to a local system as system navy.
If they keep their noses clean, working for the local rulers rather than taking over local gov't the GA might ignore them.

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MantiMerchie wrote:Another possible idea might be OFS units going native. Sell their ships and crews to a local system as system navy.
If they keep their noses clean, working for the local rulers rather than taking over local gov't the GA might ignore them.

Did OFS have much in the way of warships and crews? Didn't they mostly call on Frontier Fleet for that?

tlb wrote:

MantiMerchie wrote:Another possible idea might be OFS units going native. Sell their ships and crews to a local system as system navy.
If they keep their noses clean, working for the local rulers rather than taking over local gov't the GA might ignore them.

Did OFS have much in the way of warships and crews? Didn't they mostly call on Frontier Fleet for that?

I think he means those. Those FF units may refuse the call to return, because they had this sweet deal with a local OFS bureaucrat and local government. So long as they stay as strictly local defence force, I agree the GA may ignore them.

MantiMerchie wrote:Another possible idea might be OFS units going native. Sell their ships and crews to a local system as system navy.
If they keep their noses clean, working for the local rulers rather than taking over local gov't the GA might ignore them.

tlb wrote:Did OFS have much in the way of warships and crews? Didn't they mostly call on Frontier Fleet for that?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:I think he means those. Those FF units may refuse the call to return, because they had this sweet deal with a local OFS bureaucrat and local government. So long as they stay as strictly local defence force, I agree the GA may ignore them.

The "sweet deals" were between OFS and the transtellar corporations. I do expect the Grand Alliance to pay attention to any OFS holdouts that try to remain in control. I am not sure that low level Frontier Fleet officers got enough of a cut to stay on, particularly with OFS kicked out. But if a Frontier Fleet ship does decide to join a local defense force, then I will agree that that would likely be allowed.

tlb wrote:The "sweet deals" were between OFS and the transtellar corporations. I do expect the Grand Alliance to pay attention to any OFS holdouts that try to remain in control. I am not sure that low level Frontier Fleet officers got enough of a cut to stay on, particularly with OFS kicked out. But if a Frontier Fleet ship does decide to join a local defense force, then I will agree that that would likely be allowed.

Indeed, but the local FF CO may have been given a part of the sweet deal. Not nearly as much money, but enough to keep enforcing the local potentate's wishes on the populace.

Now the transstellar and OFS will withdraw, but the people who were running the scheme may decide to ask for asylum to that very same potentate and will stay. It makes sense then to also grant said asylum to the FF CO and their crew so that ship will stay.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Dauntless wrote:

The RMN really needs a ship smaller then a Sag-C, with the Roland's range and bite but still capable of everything asked of the Avalon.

That would be useful, though it'd be another unusual designs.

If it's smaller than a Sag-C then its beam is too narrow to mount broadside launchers for Mk16s. So it would either need to be:
A) basically a stretched Roland, with the same fore and aft missile tubes but a bit more space for extra crew and marines for patrol, S&R, boarding, prize crew, or landing parties.
B) an asymmetrical broadside, with missile tubes on only one broadside; where they extend past the centerline of the ship form that side (which makes it tricky to squeeze in engineering and whatnot that normally live on the centerline)

(Well, you could build a fat ship that was as wide as a Sag-C but stubbier and lower tonnage. But the way Honorverse compensators work that would result in a ship without the greater accel you'd expect from a smaller ship)

A Fat Ship ? Maybe but what would be wrong with offset tubes?
i.e. If we call the Central Deck (Widest) "D" we put the Port Side tubes on deck "C" and the Starbord Tubes on "E". The Main Deck has PDLC and the Energy broadside. Or the Missile transfer and Magazine tubes. Issue is still turing the missiles to load.

Given the Success of Pods why not do away with the Larger tubes and provide an "external" POD Rack Space to carry Pods of Mk16's to supliment the Bow and stern tubes. Servicing the PODS may be a vacume operation restricted to N Space which would be less effective than the pod bays but I am sure that the needs to service pods has been reduced over the first generation.

I Do think a Stretched Roland with room for 30~40 Marines would be a good idea. Also the Rolands carry room for a Flag Staff and Deck - if that was stripped out and repurposed (Even if in new builds) how big a Marine contingent could be shipped ?

The whole flag deck on every Destroyer looks wasteful - great when Rolands are being used as Escort Group commands with a mix of other escorts but not good when being used as single scouts or in a flottia. Being able to "Soft" reconfigure the space to other roles would create flexability.

Roles :-
1) Flottia Command
2) LAC SHQ with an onboard LAC Squadron team.
3) Marine Company/Battalion HQ. (When Several ships Marine contingents are combined for an operation). Perhaps permanent for the Marines across a Flottia.
4) Back up Bridge. (Do I need a full second bridge or can I switch to the Flag Bridge as secondary bridge).
5) Training Bridge. Useful when carrying Midshipmen or acting as part of the School fleet.

I am sure others can come up with other uses - some just a software reconfig on the consoles in the bridge. Others needing a yard reconfig to do.

Captain Golding wrote:A Fat Ship ? Maybe but what would be wrong with offset tubes?
i.e. If we call the Central Deck (Widest) "D" we put the Port Side tubes on deck "C" and the Starbord Tubes on "E". The Main Deck has PDLC and the Energy broadside. Or the Missile transfer and Magazine tubes. Issue is still turing the missiles to load.

You might be able to - but then where you do you the things that normally live on a ship's centerline? With asymmetric broadsides they can get displaced to one side -- but if you've got missile tubes zippered past each other there's no room for engineering, passageways would need to either zigzag around the ends of the tubes or else give up and only have through passages on the deck(s) above and below the missile deck(s),

If you actually wanted overlong tubes on both broadsides I suspect the better design would be a group of tubes portside forward, and another group of tubes starboard aft, and a gap in the middle for engineering. Then the passageways only need to do the full zigzag once. (dodge starboard of the forward broadside tube cluster, back to normal, then dodge port of the aft broadside tube cluster.

But I suspect the actual answer will either be a stretched Roland, if they stay with ships that small, or else the concept RFC talked about where the minimum viable hyper-capable combatant in DDM/MDM combat might end up being about the size of a Sag-C.

Captain Golding wrote:Given the Success of Pods why not do away with the Larger tubes and provide an "external" POD Rack Space to carry Pods of Mk16's to supliment the Bow and stern tubes. Servicing the PODS may be a vacume operation restricted to N Space which would be less effective than the pod bays but I am sure that the needs to service pods has been reduced over the first generation.

External-only pods will probably be a bad idea. Limpeted pods are known to obscure sensors (and the other tubes), so they have to be employed on the first shot. They're good to make a big Alpha Launch at an enemy, but that's not a good solution for a ship if it's also the only shot it can fire. And mind you, even if it could decide to not fire all of them, it has to finish firing them all before the enemy missiles arrive, due to proximity kills.

I Do think a Stretched Roland with room for 30~40 Marines would be a good idea. Also the Rolands carry room for a Flag Staff and Deck - if that was stripped out and repurposed (Even if in new builds) how big a Marine contingent could be shipped ?

That seems to be the direction the RMN is going to: the minimum viable combatant is something bigger than a Roland, which probably means the destroyer type itself is not long-term viable. So we should be talking about light cruisers here.