Honorverse ramblings and musings

Daryl wrote:Seeing as how they almost ended up shooting at each other I'd say that Beowulf is separate from the SLN, and has some Manty tech as well.

It's unclear how much Mantie tech has been deployed in any Beowulf ships. But they certainly avoided deploying things that a careful observer of their ships or manouvers could notice.

So they almost certainly don't have MDMs deployed and definitely don't (yet) have podlayers or CLACs. And ART tells us they only had 36 SDs. That's a sizable number, for most people, but it's no match to the kinds of fleets that have been slugging it out during the Havenite wars.
Odds are they could have taken on 2, maybe 3, times their number of SLN SDs, but they'd most likely have been unable to effective combat a couple squadrons on SD(P)s.

They're just not (currently) in the same weight class as the RMN, PRN, GSN, or IAN.

The SLN could easily take Erehwon, and I suggested a few years ago they should. It would be bloody, but they could do it. They could also crush Maya if they had reason to as Maya is primarily protected by plot. Torch could be taken by a BC squadron.

It's totally unclear how formidable the MA fleets are. I suspect very formidable, in multiple aspects that reinforce each other.

And no, at the start of the second war the GSN was almost 50% larger then the RMN in terms of SD(P)s and 3 times as large as the AIN.
http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/106/1

maya has podlayers. not SD(p) true but their "arsenal" ships are more then enough to trash any SLN force that tries to take it. they suffered what losses they did due to overconfidence. having been caught out once by missiles an enemy should not have they will use the full range of at least 2 drives, so 30 million kilometres of range min, which means any solly fleet is just doomed if it sticks its nose into Maya

as the pod layers were built in erewhense yards i will be amazed if the erewhoniese don't have several built and deployed while they work on building their own SD(P) or BC(P).

so no the SLN can not take Erewhon or Maya any time they like.

Torch? torch is still dependent on allies for any serious punch. Their frigates are good, especially as they have a lot of high end manty tech and can probably take light cruisers maybe heavey cruisers if they got lucky. assuming of course the enemy is using nothing better then currently deployed solly designs

Vince wrote:

cthia wrote:My bad, I should never have expected a straightforward answer doing election season.

"What do you expect is the most powerful navy sir?"

"Well, it depends on the calculus used -- most ships, most wallers, mass..."

"Well, how about we use the "calculus" itself sir. The area under the curve of the most ships, the most mass, etc... because some of those things don't matter worth a gorilla's ass -- not even an 800lb gorilla's ass."



Stop being a politician Theemile.


Aside:
A recent poll denies that the US continues to house the most powerful military. I failed to catch who has claimed first place.

If you are going to use the calculus of the area under the curve, you also need to consider the ratio of that area under the curve to the area that it must cover.

You can have the biggest tablecloth of anybody, but if your table is even larger, some portions of the table will not be covered at all, or if you stretch the tablecloth out, insufficiently covered, assuming that the tablecloth does not tear giant holes in it while being stretched.

Ah. But, OTOH, the calculus will tell us exactly how to better use the limited area of the tablecloth to more efficiently cover the particular shape of the table.

Then, we would only need to employ the equations used by Theisman to determine where the conflict of interest shall be (which he used with brutal success against Honor's rear area raids) and squash them like a bug. Space kill.

The only thing about space is the absence of roadkill.

Except for the SLN, who managed to get caught like deer in headlights when the missiles began to fly.

Vince wrote:

cthia wrote:My bad, I should never have expected a straightforward answer doing election season.

"What do you expect is the most powerful navy sir?"

"Well, it depends on the calculus used -- most ships, most wallers, mass..."

"Well, how about we use the "calculus" itself sir. The area under the curve of the most ships, the most mass, etc... because some of those things don't matter worth a gorilla's ass -- not even an 800lb gorilla's ass."



Stop being a politician Theemile.


Aside:
A recent poll denies that the US continues to house the most powerful military. I failed to catch who has claimed first place.

If you are going to use the calculus of the area under the curve, you also need to consider the ratio of that area under the curve to the area that it must cover.

You can have the biggest tablecloth of anybody, but if your table is even larger, some portions of the table will not be covered at all, or if you stretch the tablecloth out, insufficiently covered, assuming that the tablecloth does not tear giant holes in it while being stretched.

Printing a Retraction.

Sorry Theemile, it was Vince - the politician.

kzt wrote:The SLN could easily take Erehwon, and I suggested a few years ago they should. It would be bloody, but they could do it. They could also crush Maya if they had reason to as Maya is primarily protected by plot. Torch could be taken by a BC squadron.

It's totally unclear how formidable the MA fleets are. I suspect very formidable, in multiple aspects that reinforce each other.

And no, at the start of the second war the GSN was almost 50% larger then the RMN in terms of SD(P)s and 3 times as large as the AIN.
http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/106/1

At one point the GSN was the largest navy in the galaxy? Damn, what was in that freighter convoy of good will that Elizabeth sent? lol

I feel like Rip Van Winkle falling asleep for twenty years and awakening to a new kid on the block.

Talk about passing the doctrine of the test. The GSN is a rags to riches story. Or is that rivets to warships story?


Why the Masadans don't abandon their Tester is beyond me.

I appreciate that link, kzt.

kzt wrote:And no, at the start of the second war the GSN was almost 50% larger then the RMN in terms of SD(P)s and 3 times as large as the AIN.
http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/106/1

But a fleet is also more than just podnoughts, there's also screen and other related peripheral ships. Having a large number of a single-type, doesn't mean they had an absolute tonnage advantage. Which puts Grayson more or less in the same spot Manticore was pre-First, a much smaller navy, with perhaps a small edge in quality (the higher number of podnoughts only) to try to balance out the smaller absolute navy.

All technology being equal, from MDM's to pods to compensators, I don't think a small edge in just podnoughts is enough to give Grayson at any point in time, a higher rating than the RMN. Between Buttercup, and up until Theisman used Bolthole to equalize, the RMN and GSN both ranked higher than the PN/RHN, but that's the highest Grayson ever got, in terms of naval rating.

Edit: actually looking at the link, I'm sort of verified. Grayson has a grand total of just about bang on 200 Superdreadnoughts in service, 115 of which are podnoughts. The RMN in contrast also had 200 active service superdreadnoughts, with another 100 in reserve that could be reactivated. And with double the CLAC's in service, at a time pre-Katana, also gives the edge to the RMN. In fact, the only other place Grayson had a larger 'fleet' was in it's BCP's, every single other ship Manticore had two or even three times as many as Grayson did in active service, not counting reserves.

I think Thunderbolt and the BoM pretty clearly pointed out the flaws of trying to use SDs against SD(P)s. So yeah, they are still warships, but the USS Monitor and the Iowa (BB-61) were both warships, and I think I know how a fight between them would have ended.

kzt wrote:I think Thunderbolt and the BoM pretty clearly pointed out the flaws of trying to use SDs against SD(P)s. So yeah, they are still warships, but the USS Monitor and the Iowa (BB-61) were both warships, and I think I know how a fight between them would have ended.

Normally yes, but since the technology in both sides would be equal. It's be like the Iowa trying to fight against another Iowa, one that might have been built only slightly later, and with a few tweaks that give it minor improvements. A little faster pivoting perhaps, a slightly different armor distribution. But in the end, it's still firing the same guns, with the same ammo, and moves at the speed.

cthia wrote:Printing a Retraction.

Sorry Theemile, it was Vince - the politician.

It takes more than the "P" word to hurt my feelings - though I love US elections (like this one appears to be headed) where you don't get the choose the best candidate, but the least worst one.

But seriously, there are so many factors in defining the most powerful navy. In 1905, Haven was considered to be the 2nd most powerful (after the SLN) and had a 25% advantage in Wallers over Manticore, had a larger SD/DN ratio, and had the ~450 BBs to back them up, in addition to a major numerical advantage in light units over the Manty fleet.

Yet, Manty hardware was better and their training was better, even though they had an unbloodied wall. Manticore had broad experience swatting pirates & slavers and being a verge policeman, while Haven had captured ~200 systems by various means, and put down multiple rebellions. Manticore had a handful of major tech advantages (early pods, slow FTL coms, FTL remote platforms with microfusion, 6% increase in compensators), but these were not available fleetwide yet.

Manticore also had far fewer fleet commitments (<50) than Haven (with >300 systems to protect), but also less strategic depth to absorb losses.

Haven had more shipyards - Manticore had better shipyards. Haven had a massive, but burdened and stagnant economy - Manticore itself had an insanely powerful economy for a single star system, but few of it's allies contributed much except strategic depth.

In 1905, Manticore was rated #3, yet won pretty much every battle, gelding Haven of ~100 Wallers in the first 12 or so months, with few capitol losses, in a war Haven started with "sneak" attacks.

So who in 1905 really had a more powerful navy? That's why the calculus is hard.