Do we actually need SD(P)s?

Somtaaw wrote:I tried to find the exact text-ev when Honor discovered the difference in Grayson shipbuilding but couldn't find it.

Ch. 5, IEH, thinking about GNS Alvarez?

jchilds wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:I tried to find the exact text-ev when Honor discovered the difference in Grayson shipbuilding but couldn't find it.

Ch. 5, IEH, thinking about GNS Alvarez?

Ah yes, that's exactly the passages I was thinking about, good memory. I was looking in tSVW, FiE and FoD for the quote.

I was also understating the overall reductions, apparently it was 50% of the total mounts were reduced to squeeze in those larger grasers with no lasers at all.

Somtaaw wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Also remember that the Invictus mount Grayson-style grasers, which are heavier (which is why they have no lasers).

Mounting beam weapons "Grayson-style" only applies to below the wall, because Grayson heavy cruisers and Grayson battlecruisers mount dreadnought-sized grasers. All DNs and SD's still only carry dreadnought-sized weapons, they're simply so much larger than cruisers they can mount considerably more graser mounts overall, and fortresses carry even more beams than SD's do but are also still only dreadnought beams.

I tried to find the exact text-ev when Honor discovered the difference in Grayson shipbuilding but couldn't find it. I seem to recall it was mentioned Grayson battlecruisers gave up almost a full third of their possible energy weapons to mount the pure graser mix.

Presumably Grayson wallers (pre-podlayer era) followed the same reduction, giving up almost 1/3 of the total mounts they might have had. But every single one would be a dreadnought graser which is something like 50% more damage compared to a laser due to the gravitic lens focusing & amplifying the beam.


Once the podlayer designs were started, the joint Manticoran-Grayson design teams followed that same Grayson doctrine, and suppressed all lasers for a pure graser mixture. Reducing total energy weapon mounts by 33% undoubtedly helped free the tonnage for a sufficiently large podbay without unacceptably weakening an SD(P)'s energy threat.

The Grayson style all-grazer armament very much applies to the wall as well as below it. It mirrors the real life shift from the mixed batteries of the pre-dreadnoughts to the all big guns of the dreadnoughts. For instance the 1897 Iowa (BB-4) carried a mixed main armament of 4x12 inch guns and 8x8 inch guns, as well as a secondary battery of 4 inch guns, four pounder guns, one pounder guns, and machine guns. The first dreadnought class of battleships, the South Carolina class, carried a main battery of 8x12 inch guns, with no 8 inch guns at all.

This is similar to how the last Manticoran pre-pod SD class, the Gryphon class, had a broadside of 19 lasers and 22 grazers. The last Grayson pre-pod SD class, the Steadholder Denevski class, had a broadside of 34 grazers and no lasers. They concentrated on fitting as many of the "higher caliber" guns at the expense of losing in terms of absolute number of guns.

Another factor in favor of giving up a greater number of lasers for a few grazers is the phase-out of using main energy weapons to supplement point defense fire. The increasing number and size of point defense laser clusters more than made up for losing the relatively minor contribution of the broadside ship-to-ship lasers.

Finally, switching to an all grazer armament didn't save much in tonnage, as grazers are much more massive and volume-intensive than lasers to begin with. Hence why destroyers only mount lasers in their broadsides, even Rolands. There simply isn't room for grasers.

Galactic Sapper wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:Mounting beam weapons "Grayson-style" only applies to below the wall, because Grayson heavy cruisers and Grayson battlecruisers mount dreadnought-sized grasers. All DNs and SD's still only carry dreadnought-sized weapons, they're simply so much larger than cruisers they can mount considerably more graser mounts overall, and fortresses carry even more beams than SD's do but are also still only dreadnought beams.

I tried to find the exact text-ev when Honor discovered the difference in Grayson shipbuilding but couldn't find it. I seem to recall it was mentioned Grayson battlecruisers gave up almost a full third of their possible energy weapons to mount the pure graser mix.

Presumably Grayson wallers (pre-podlayer era) followed the same reduction, giving up almost 1/3 of the total mounts they might have had. But every single one would be a dreadnought graser which is something like 50% more damage compared to a laser due to the gravitic lens focusing & amplifying the beam.


Once the podlayer designs were started, the joint Manticoran-Grayson design teams followed that same Grayson doctrine, and suppressed all lasers for a pure graser mixture. Reducing total energy weapon mounts by 33% undoubtedly helped free the tonnage for a sufficiently large podbay without unacceptably weakening an SD(P)'s energy threat.

The Grayson style all-grazer armament very much applies to the wall as well as below it. It mirrors the real life shift from the mixed batteries of the pre-dreadnoughts to the all big guns of the dreadnoughts. For instance the 1897 Iowa (BB-4) carried a mixed main armament of 4x12 inch guns and 8x8 inch guns, as well as a secondary battery of 4 inch guns, four pounder guns, one pounder guns, and machine guns. The first dreadnought class of battleships, the South Carolina class, carried a main battery of 8x12 inch guns, with no 8 inch guns at all.

This is similar to how the last Manticoran pre-pod SD class, the Gryphon class, had a broadside of 19 lasers and 22 grazers. The last Grayson pre-pod SD class, the Steadholder Denevski class, had a broadside of 34 grazers and no lasers. They concentrated on fitting as many of the "higher caliber" guns at the expense of losing in terms of absolute number of guns.

Except Grayson wallers didn't mount a "higher caliber", they have EXACTLY the same grasers on all their wallers. Whether it was the captured Peep superdreadnoughts like GNS Terrible, homebuilt models like the GNS Benjamin the Great (the final SD class Grayson made before podnoughts), and all podnought generations, they all use grasers of the same size.


And after Manticore started seeing Grayson-style at work, they adjusted their own designs to streamline production as well. One of the major reasons why the Roland's, Sag-C's and Nike's all use identical grasers + Mark 16's, and also why all podnoughts and the Manticoran Junction Forts share their own weapon size.


Manticoran & Grayson shipyards now only produce two major variants of missiles (currently Mark 16's and Mark 23's), and two kinds of grasers (cruiser and waller).


Solarian style, which is what the pre-Grayson influence which could arguably be called, you had both a laser & graser variant for every class (DD, CL, CA, BC, waller) and at least 3 missile variants based on the Solarians eventually fielding the Spatha (DD/CL size) Javelins (CA/BC) and Trebutchets (wallers). That's a total of 3 different missiles each with a different size warhead, 5 different lasers and 5 different grasers; which is far more wasteful.

If you swamp your opponent's missile defences and some of your birds get shots at places unprotected by the wedge or shields, your going to hurt them, perhaps kill the ship. If you get, say 25 laserhead missiles into places where they are going to hit a given enemy ship, you are very likely going to kill them. So- podlayers give you that kind of volume even if you have to limit the number of targets you engage at any one time to over saturate the defences.
Come up with a better, faster, thicker defence model and improve your own rates of missile delivery, range and peniaids.
At this point, podlayers do apply somewhat of a blunt force apprch but if it works.........

Somtaaw wrote:Except Grayson wallers didn't mount a "higher caliber", they have EXACTLY the same grasers on all their wallers. Whether it was the captured Peep superdreadnoughts like GNS Terrible, homebuilt models like the GNS Benjamin the Great (the final SD class Grayson made before podnoughts), and all podnought generations, they all use grasers of the same size.

The "caliber" is in reference to mixing grazers (big guns) and lasers (smaller guns) as in the Iowa class pre-dreadnoughts. Grazers being the equivalent of the 12 inch guns and lasers being the equivalent of the 8 inch guns. Standardizing on grazers is the equivalent of mounting all 12 inch guns, which is what the Dreadnought did.

And after Manticore started seeing Grayson-style at work, they adjusted their own designs to streamline production as well. One of the major reasons why the Roland's, Sag-C's and Nike's all use identical grasers + Mark 16's, and also why all podnoughts and the Manticoran Junction Forts share their own weapon size.


Manticoran & Grayson shipyards now only produce two major variants of missiles (currently Mark 16's and Mark 23's), and two kinds of grasers (cruiser and waller).

All of this is supposition without textev to back it up and with good reason to doubt it. There's absolutely no evidence that the chase grazers on a Roland are the same as those on a Sag-C, which are certainly not the same as those on a Nike, which are not the same as those on an Invictus and may or may not be the same as those on a Hydra. Not to mention the Kamerlings, Avalons, or Wolfhounds. Or the Shrikes, which probably account for the majority of grazers built.

As for missiles, you left off the LERMs with which the Wolfhounds, Avalons, and Kamerlings are armed, as well as the legacy missile types for all the existing pre-war and first-war ships. There are still hundreds of ships with legacy DD/CL missiles, scores with legacy CA/BC missiles, and dozens (possibly over 100) with legacy SD missiles. And of course LAC sized missiles.

Galactic Sapper wrote:All of this is supposition without textev to back it up and with good reason to doubt it. There's absolutely no evidence that the chase grazers on a Roland are the same as those on a Sag-C, which are certainly not the same as those on a Nike, which are not the same as those on an Invictus and may or may not be the same as those on a Hydra. Not to mention the Kamerlings, Avalons, or Wolfhounds. Or the Shrikes, which probably account for the majority of grazers built.

No doubt there are a lot of mistakes in simply assuming like we've done. As you've pointed out, there's a lot of legacy ships still out there that need ammunition.

But it makes logical sense that a war-time production would prioritise flexibility of designs and interchangeable parts, mass-producing them. That saves a lot logistically and gives the Admiralty (both Logistics and Shipbuilding) more tools to work with.

As opposed to a peace-time production where cost-rationalisation and reducing the per unit price would be priorities. With a lower production volume -- for ships too but especially for missiles -- cost savings would be found in having cheaper parts that are less of an overkill.

The other thing is, of course, that DDs can fire missiles previously employed only by cruisers and mount and power grasers only previously carried by cruisers. And battlecruisers can carry SD-killing missiles. Those things have become possible. A Mark 16 is definitely bigger than a Mark 14, which is why the Sag-Bs couldn't carry them, but once you design ships to carry them, why not? We don't know if a Wolfound carries Mark 16s to shoot at pirate and rogue destroyers. That would be a definite overkill, but it might reduce cost elsewhere for the RMN.

On the SD side, there hasn't been a need for a more powerful missile because there's nothing bigger than SD to fight. Anything with a wedge-based compensator (gravity sump) can only carry so much armour if it wants to carry any missiles at all. That might change if the opponents change...

Galactic Sapper wrote:

And after Manticore started seeing Grayson-style at work, they adjusted their own designs to streamline production as well. One of the major reasons why the Roland's, Sag-C's and Nike's all use identical grasers + Mark 16's, and also why all podnoughts and the Manticoran Junction Forts share their own weapon size.

Manticoran & Grayson shipyards now only produce two major variants of missiles (currently Mark 16's and Mark 23's), and two kinds of grasers (cruiser and waller).

As for missiles, you left off the LERMs with which the Wolfhounds, Avalons, and Kamerlings are armed, as well as the legacy missile types for all the existing pre-war and first-war ships. There are still hundreds of ships with legacy DD/CL missiles, scores with legacy CA/BC missiles, and dozens (possibly over 100) with legacy SD missiles. And of course LAC sized missiles.

Bolded the emphasis since it seemingly went over your head. LERM's are not even remotely a major weapon in the era of MDMs, nor are the SDM legacy missiles from legacy classes that Manticore is busy trying to mothball or scrap as fast as they can rebuild shipyards to build the modern ships to replace them with.


Even LAC missiles are a minor system, because LAC's are officially classified as small craft, and even as large and modern as the GA builds them, are ultimately irrelevant compared to major platforms. For the missile-oriented Ferrets to have parity with a single Sag-C, you need 3 squadrons of them (24 total). A single Sag-C carries 1200 Mark 16s, which being DDMs are a minimum of double the range even without utilizing a ballistic phase; while 24 Ferrets each carry 56 shipkillers for a total of 1344 (shorter-ranged) missiles with smaller warheads.




Next up, I will actually concede to your point about Rolands, it is pretty far-fetched. Due to how difficult it was to even give Roland's the Mark 16 launcher packs, and the compromises on those launchers it is doubtful that they also cram cruiser weight grasers in as well.

However, textev concerning the Courvosier IIs/Agamemnons, and by extension Nike's says:

War of Honor, Ch 28 wrote:"At any rate," Brigham went on, returning her attention to McKeon, "the new Courvoisier II-class battlecruisers are a pod design. The Office of Shipbuilding reduced their conventional missile broadsides by over eighty percent, which let them build in superdreadnought-sized energy weapons." McKeon's eyes widened and turned suddenly thoughtful, and the chief of staff shrugged. "I think there was some pressure to go to something more on the lines of the Invictuses and suppress the broadside tubes entirely, but Shipbuilding decided against it.

Courvosier IIs mount SD sized grasers hard fact. Agamemnon's are the Manticoran version of same so they also mount SD grasers. Nike's are not only 30% larger than a Courvosier II physically, they also mass three times as much, so it's not even remotely a question they have the space and tonnage to mount SD grasers.

Whether Sag-C's do or not hasn't been explicitly proven or disproven through actual textev, so we can at most talk around the point through unproven supposition without a pronouncement from a Bu9 member or Himself concerning the Sag-C weapon sizes.

Galactic Sapper wrote:All of this is supposition without textev to back it up and with good reason to doubt it.

You've failed to produce even one scrap of evidence to back your suppositions up though? By your own logic, that makes all of your points something to doubt with good reason. And I actually have been posting textev, so your strawman supposition counter has lost even more weight. I have been dropping textev backing my positions, or at least giving enough detail that jchild placed the specific passage I knew existed but couldn't remember where on my own.

Please bear in mind that "SD sized," etc. is awfully inexact. We know from Jaynes' that the Triumphant class BB mounts 357cm grasers in its broadside and 500cm in the chase. The same weapons are reused in the DuQuesne - just in greater numbers(so was 4th Yeltsin technically an engagement with BB sized weapons?).

I'm not sure where I remember this one from, but I think RMN(or GSN) had scaled up to ~650cm chase grasers on their SDs.

RMN BCs prior to the Nike/Agamemnon had 150cm grasers, which Shrikes also got. That's a lot of wiggle room.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:We don't know if a Wolfound carries Mark 16s to shoot at pirate and rogue destroyers.

We do, actually. Per HoS, they are confirmed to carry "the latest generation of single drive missiles in RMN service, far longer ranged and more powerful than anything in service at the start of the war."

On the SD side, there hasn't been a need for a more powerful missile because there's nothing bigger than SD to fight. Anything with a wedge-based compensator (gravity sump) can only carry so much armour if it wants to carry any missiles at all. That might change if the opponents change...

IIRC the warhead and lasing rods even capacitor-based first gen MDMs were considerably larger and more powerful than the preceding SD sized missiles, but I don't have an efficient means of finding textev for that.

It pays to remember that laser head missiles were still relatively new weapons and most navies (including most of the RMN) were locked into the mindset that missiles were "softening up" weapons to batter your opponent's defenses rather than a serious attempt to kill something as heavy as an SD. That mindset is still visible in the behavior of various SLN officers all the way up to Raging Justice.