Beating up Frontier Fleet, mercilessly

No, there is still 25% of FF/BF to "police" the protectorates/SL core/Shell who wish to remain. War is not panacea. Yup, some will turn warlord. Some will turn "slave"(as if they are not already)

What it does is nullify FF/BF as any kind of force that can attack your interests.

What it does is destroy the SL and an entity with which you must deal with.

Therefore the GA can deal with individual worlds on a 1-on-1 basis and not on a 1800 SL core world basis.

Therefore this gives the MALIGN ability to maneuver. This maneuvering will expose themselves for who they really are. Therefore allowing the GA to attack those truly responsible. It is impossible with the SLN/FF in the way. Simple reality until the military forces are eliminated, subjugated, one cannot break up an empire.

StealthSeeker wrote:I really like this idea! Maybe each cargo ship could carry 2 LAC modules. A convoy of 8 ships would have 16 LACs. If you added to that a cruiser escort you would have a fairly formidable force to be reckoned with.

"Fairly formidable"? That's more protection that pretty much any convoy we've ever seen!

With just a little luck it could probably eat an entire 8-ship BC squadron for lunch!

JeffEngel wrote:

StealthSeeker wrote:I would like to see a new ship design that would have the offbore tubes chase mounted and would carry up to 8 LACs and carry 8 tractored missile pods. How big of a ship would that have to be? Could it be stuffed in something the size of a BC?

How much of a nightmare would it be to see a squadron of 8 of these ships show up on your door step? There would be 64 LACs and the 8 BCs to make a formidable missile shield in defense and they would be able to throw a lot of missiles when attacking. Even one of these ships patrolling in an area would be a tough nut to crack.

It's hard to build a CLAC that is both good at it and not very large. You _may_ be able to get grossly inefficient more-or-less internal storage of 8 LAC's in a BC-sized hull that lost nearly all armor and internal compartmentalization to get that capability. At that point though, I'd think you may want to change your mind about the project or take a different tack.

If you want to go for LAC carriage that skimps on the quality without being quite so bad on the carrier, carrying them externally may be worth a try. That BC sized hull may be able to limpet them to the sides, a bit like a whole bunch of Keyhole platforms, for a similar scale. Picture three or four LAC's in a row down each flank; or perhaps a pair top and bottom, front and back, on either side to try to keep the center of the broadside clear.

Fitting in effective personnel access would be not too hard. (Speaking here from a new design standpoint; I shudder to consider it on an existing warship - including, yes, an SLN prize.) Fitting in missile and other supply access would be a lot harder; you'd probably just give up and freight that out a cargo hatch on the top or bottom with the wedge down. It's much of the skimping on carrier-role quality. And you'd be sacrificing at least the use of broadside weapons, sensors, and active defenses with the LAC's attached. The designers wouldn't have perfect freedom to arrange those and the LAC attachment points, either, but that's probably livable.

You'd probably also be sacrificing a lot of acceleration when the LACs were attached. That's not the end of the world in a convoy escort; but Manticore tends to shy away from that kind of specialized use ship.

Jonathan_S wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:If you want to go for LAC carriage that skimps on the quality without being quite so bad on the carrier, carrying them externally may be worth a try. That BC sized hull may be able to limpet them to the sides, a bit like a whole bunch of Keyhole platforms, for a similar scale. Picture three or four LAC's in a row down each flank; or perhaps a pair top and bottom, front and back, on either side to try to keep the center of the broadside clear.

You'd probably also be sacrificing a lot of acceleration when the LACs were attached. That's not the end of the world in a convoy escort; but Manticore tends to shy away from that kind of specialized use ship.

This one would have the LAC's well inside the wedge, right up against the hull. If not, the numbers of them would be much less limited and there wouldn't be a problem blocking anything on the hull. But getting crews out there would be a lot more trouble too.

JeffEngel wrote:

StealthSeeker wrote:As far as I understand it, Manticore needs to keep as many cargo ships in business as possible in order to generate funds for rebuilding the systems infrastructure. So I don't think that the merchant marine will be sucked dry.

It certainly won't, but by the same token, what you don't take there you'll need to take or do without somewhere else. I'd peg the merchant marine as another place that is likely to lose a fair number of trained people to jobs elsewhere with the remainder working while training newcomers.

What I think a lot of people are forgetting is the repatriation of all the POWs from Haven, especially all the yard workers from (Grendelsbane?) that Haven captured when they resumed hostilities. So people are going to be available when new facilities become ready for activity.

It's a great help, certainly. Someone with the figures at hand could tell better than I can how the Grendelsbane techs measure up by count to the lost Hephaestus and Vulcan ones. My guess is that they're only a modest fraction, and they will have to brush rust off skills and settle down in new working arrangements. Much better to have them home and working than not, by all means and in many ways, but the gap is a lot larger than they are going to be able to plug.

About 45- 50,000 from Grendlesbane IIRC. Their skills will need updating, but won't be obsolete, esp. for building infrastructure. They are not numerous enough to fill the hole, which probably amounts to 1.5 to 2 million workers.

Now what I am wondering is how many SDPs they got out of the yard before OB moved in. We do know from Hamish's report to the queen when they got the word about Filereta's pending arrival that Manticore had about 400 SDPs in its inventory. But I've never seen a break down on how many of those were new and fresh from the yard and how many were previous inventory.

Don

--snipping

JeffEngel wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:...
Think of what fun all a whole bunch of HMMAC Wayfarer types would have in the DDM/MDM era against SLN attacks. Many ka-booms. Likely few of them merchies.

...
There's also the problem that drawing the enemy in and blowing them away with a Q-ship tends to rely on the enemy not having an interest in just blowing you up, which is what SLN commerce raiders will be planning.
...But it's only going to be RHN pods and missiles that can be spared for the time being, running around with convoys that will hopefully never even see a raider to shoot.

While I'm not impressed with the practicality, it certainly brings a smile to the face picturing it.

That's the fun of equipping the Q ships with DDMs or MDMs; if they're Havenite, MDM's will do just fine. Something about being able to range on any Frontier Fleet BC's anywhere from say 20MM Km out to about 65MM km just seems like a nifty nasty trick.

The Q Ship fire control would have to be upgraded to BoM standards, but then, here we go. In comes FF, the convoy makes like they're going to split up (clearing the Q-ship for action, basically), it drops out the donkey(s) to do the necessary enough towing for enough pods to set up a single volley fireworks show, and then tells the BC's to drop their wedges... or else Bad Things Will Happen.

JeffEngel wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:You'd probably also be sacrificing a lot of acceleration when the LACs were attached. That's not the end of the world in a convoy escort; but Manticore tends to shy away from that kind of specialized use ship.

This one would have the LAC's well inside the wedge, right up against the hull. If not, the numbers of them would be much less limited and there wouldn't be a problem blocking anything on the hull. But getting crews out there would be a lot more trouble too.

They'd be right up against the hull, but assuming a LAC on each side that's making the hull's effective maximum beam 40 - 140 m wider (depending on whether the LACs dock side-on, or nose-in) and most battlecruisers have less than a 100m wide hull to begin with. Stretching the compensator field that far horizontally is supposedly almost the same effect as mounting it in a normally shaped hull of that diameter - taking you from BC territory up into BB to SD+ sizes (and presumably accelerations; so call it 9-15% slower).

Now there's probably some wiggle room. We know that BCs have been able to tractor a few pods inside their wedge without noticeably affecting accel. But there's got to be some limit to how deeply you can tractor stuff on before you stretch your compensator field enough to impact accel.

Kizarvexis wrote:

Bill Woods wrote:Rather than Q-ships, think jeep carriers, equipped with pods and LACs. If you can deter an attack on a convoy, that's good enough.

RFC has talked about a LAC module you could install just inside a cargo door. It would hold some LACs and maintenance equip for giving a freighter temporary protection via LACs while in normal space and transitting grav waves in hyperspace.

If you can do that with a LAC module, you can add a pod module, but then you need fire control and the like, so LACs would probably be easier.

Oh, now that wouldn't that be fun?

I'd probably try to design a modular bay that would let the LAC launch also pull a couple of pods into tow position with it, given that the LAC's full accel and stealth aren't really required for convoy protection. Two shrikes per freighter and now you've got the ability to fire 56 missiles per [not counting the LAC weaponry], using a Sag-C or two Rolands, etc. as the fire controller(s) before the DDs or CA even has to get in the game with it's own pods and tubes. Then your LACs position themselves for anti-missile defense of their convoy ships just in case -- or to take up station after whatever is left of a SLN BC squadron gets the clue, drops their wedges, and surrenders.

For having LACs limpeted to a BC hull, we have the textev from HotQ that a Sultan-class Peep BC can reasonably haul 2 Masadan LAC's.

Manticoran Shrikes & Ferrets, and Peep Cimeterre's I believe are slightly larger than the earlier generations. And the main issue with the Sultan was lack of tractor space, since nobody used pods. Size creep also comes into play, a Sultan is about half the size of post-Second Havenite war battlecruisers, and had limited tractors to "zone" the LACs.

So we can put any BC "LAC carrier" concept at a maximum of approximately 4, maybe 5. If it was a dedicated design, that skimped on broadside weaponry in favour of even more tractors, it might be possible to push it to 6 LACs, but then you'd run into the crew issue.

The big issue would be pulling the crews inside the BC's hull, until they arrive back in normal space, which is what the Sultan had to do with the Masadan LAC's. This gives us the general impression that the compensator field cannot be stretched far enough out, because 2 of the Masadan LAC's had heavy objects break free and smash the innards.

Additionally, it puts a hard limit on how fast you could deploy those LAC's, because crews would have to exit the BC in skinsuits, and drift to hatches on the LAC's. Since the BC wouldn't be able to use her wedge from the second the decision to board LACs happens, there'd need to be a way to get the crews anchored to the LAC's, and getting the LACs out of the BC's wedge as fast as possible.

Jonathan_S wrote:They'd be right up against the hull, but assuming a LAC on each side that's making the hull's effective maximum beam 40 - 140 m wider (depending on whether the LACs dock side-on, or nose-in) and most battlecruisers have less than a 100m wide hull to begin with. Stretching the compensator field that far horizontally is supposedly almost the same effect as mounting it in a normally shaped hull of that diameter - taking you from BC territory up into BB to SD+ sizes (and presumably accelerations; so call it 9-15% slower).

This would definitely be side on - again, like the Keyhole platforms - so 40m more beam. Maybe a little less if they were snugged up just inside from the hammerheads, where the hull tapers, but that'd be a trivial difference. A lot less if you are willing to mess with hull integrity and give them more or less deep niches to fit into, again like Keyhole platforms. Me, I'm picturing here fairly shallow niches, with only a little help for beam increase and only a little damage to toughness.

Now there's probably some wiggle room. We know that BCs have been able to tractor a few pods inside their wedge without noticeably affecting accel. But there's got to be some limit to how deeply you can tractor stuff on before you stretch your compensator field enough to impact accel.

Yes, and it'd be great to know what. The Sultan example from HotQ below is nice to have some textual basis, but when we consider the differences in design since then and that this would be a critter specifically built for this trick, the variables get to be really obnoxious.

If someone really, really wanted this hybrid BC/CLAC, a 9-15% accel loss would likely be considered acceptable. But between that, and reduced broadside function, and lousy LAC servicing, and reduced defenses, and awkward launching... in the face of alternatives using a second hyper-capable hull and two units each built to do their own specific thing... I at least would give up the notion in the face of cumulative medium-sized reasons against it. I'm just arguing that I haven't seen a single huge one that does the job.

JeffEngel wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:They'd be right up against the hull, but assuming a LAC on each side that's making the hull's effective maximum beam 40 - 140 m wider (depending on whether the LACs dock side-on, or nose-in) and most battlecruisers have less than a 100m wide hull to begin with. Stretching the compensator field that far horizontally is supposedly almost the same effect as mounting it in a normally shaped hull of that diameter - taking you from BC territory up into BB to SD+ sizes (and presumably accelerations; so call it 9-15% slower).

This would definitely be side on - again, like the Keyhole platforms - so 40m more beam. Maybe a little less if they were snugged up just inside from the hammerheads, where the hull tapers, but that'd be a trivial difference. A lot less if you are willing to mess with hull integrity and give them more or less deep niches to fit into, again like Keyhole platforms. Me, I'm picturing here fairly shallow niches, with only a little help for beam increase and only a little damage to toughness.

Now there's probably some wiggle room. We know that BCs have been able to tractor a few pods inside their wedge without noticeably affecting accel. But there's got to be some limit to how deeply you can tractor stuff on before you stretch your compensator field enough to impact accel.

Yes, and it'd be great to know what. The Sultan example from HotQ below is nice to have some textual basis, but when we consider the differences in design since then and that this would be a critter specifically built for this trick, the variables get to be really obnoxious.

If someone really, really wanted this hybrid BC/CLAC, a 9-15% accel loss would likely be considered acceptable. But between that, and reduced broadside function, and lousy LAC servicing, and reduced defenses, and awkward launching... in the face of alternatives using a second hyper-capable hull and two units each built to do their own specific thing... I at least would give up the notion in the face of cumulative medium-sized reasons against it. I'm just arguing that I haven't seen a single huge one that does the job.

And just to restate, I'm pretty sure that the BC/CLAC could regain pretty much the accel you'd expect from the BC hull once the LACs unmoored.

So when in combat you wouldn't have that accel penalty; just while in strategic movement (with the LACs docked). Which doesn't seem like much of a penalty if it's going to always be doing convoy escort; since 90-ish% the accel of a BC is still way faster than merchantmen.

But like you I don't really see it being worth it. To specialized, and too much of a compromise.