BC(P)

Weird Harold wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:Unfortunately for the SLN, it's never had to compete with another navy so it's never learned how, and its hardware and software is, well, flabby ...

So, what you're saying is the 800 Kilo Gorilla everyone has been scared of is more a 400 lb Mall Cop?

Yup. Sometimes - in Frontier Fleet - it can beat up shoplifting kids, if it can catch them, and isn't on the take from them. Sometimes - in Battle Fleet - it poses in front of the mirror with a well-shined gun and goes bang-bang at imaginary enemies.

It's really, really not ready to fight and it's got a hard time understanding that.

Relax wrote:
1) 1000+ pods verses 300? Uh...
2) Discussion of current SLN tech is frankly useless as the Havenites "caught up" to the Manties using SL tech transfers...
3) I do not see RFC going down that path other than possibly special large tubes on a BC. If you need FTL, send the SDP as your intel screwed up and your forces are getting out of Dodge ASAP.

I wouldn´t count on those tech transfers to actually come from the SLN.

Tenshinai wrote:

Relax wrote:
1) 1000+ pods verses 300? Uh...
2) Discussion of current SLN tech is frankly useless as the Havenites "caught up" to the Manties using SL tech transfers...
3) I do not see RFC going down that path other than possibly special large tubes on a BC. If you need FTL, send the SDP as your intel screwed up and your forces are getting out of Dodge ASAP.

I wouldn´t count on those tech transfers to actually come from the SLN.

No kidding. What makes you think anyone ever said the SLN was giving out tech transfers? Hrmm?

JeffEngel wrote:

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:Snipped

Rob

The problem with BC(P)'s is mostly that admirals have this weird compulsion to use them as wallers and get distressed when they go boom, or run out of ammunition. Using them like battlecruisers have traditionally been used, or working out any other doctrine for their use, seems to be just outside their heads.

There may also be this peculiar romance of the guns, of firing large numbers of missiles direct from your vessel, feeling it rumble with the launches, that podlayers just don't deliver. With wallers, good sense has stopped that from being a controlling decision-making factor. With BC's... not so much.

That's the problem the RN had, as at Jutland. BCs have no business mixing it up with ships of the line/wall. A 15 or 16 in gun appears to be a 15 or 16 in gun, regardless of the strength of the platform - sledgehammers wrapped in eggshells, indeed. "Something seems to be wrong with our ships" David Beatty, RADM, RN, Commander, Battlecruisers

Part of that, of course, was that the BC designers had not considered plunging fire in the layout of their armor. And lax discipline regarding flash protection in the ammunition/projectile handling lines.

Fox2! wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:The problem with BC(P)'s is mostly that admirals have this weird compulsion to use them as wallers and get distressed when they go boom, or run out of ammunition. Using them like battlecruisers have traditionally been used, or working out any other doctrine for their use, seems to be just outside their heads.

There may also be this peculiar romance of the guns, of firing large numbers of missiles direct from your vessel, feeling it rumble with the launches, that podlayers just don't deliver. With wallers, good sense has stopped that from being a controlling decision-making factor. With BC's... not so much.

That's the problem the RN had, as at Jutland. BCs have no business mixing it up with ships of the line/wall. A 15 or 16 in gun appears to be a 15 or 16 in gun, regardless of the strength of the platform - sledgehammers wrapped in eggshells, indeed. "Something seems to be wrong with our ships" David Beatty, RADM, RN, Commander, Battlecruisers

Part of that, of course, was that the BC designers had not considered plunging fire in the layout of their armor. And lax discipline regarding flash protection in the ammunition/projectile handling lines.

Coincidence? I mean, it's not as if our writer is a naval historian......<sarcasm off>

In all likelihood, that was exactly what he was trying to make allusions to.

Jonathan_S wrote:But of course any DDM/MDM can add a ballistic segment; so their practical range is limited only by firecontrol. OTOH taking DDMs against MDMs you have the risk that the MDMs can cover most of their range envelope faster than the DDMs can; so you risk damaged or destruction from their opening salvo before yours gets into terminal attack range

I think this got covered in the original Solon attack, just prior to the Moriarty launches. Honor looked over at Andrea, and told her what fireplan to use, which boiled down to the Medusa and Invictii stepping their MDM's down to the same speed as the Aggies for a few launches (sub 6 patterns I think it was).

After that, the SD's started firing full power MDM's, which raced across faster, and almost created a hammer impact, where the faster (but later launched) MDMs started detonating only a minute or two ahead of the slower (but launched first) DDMs from the Aggies.



And you're right, you really don't want to use a smaller, and slower missile. Since the Technodyne birds already technically have DDM, even if one is only a CM drive, handicapping oneself with large stockpiles of DDM Mk 16G's isn't bright.


Still... that it's a cruiser-weight missile that is powerful enough to just hammer wallers, it's really just boils down to one of two tactical camps. A good historic comparison would be the flat top admirals versus battleships, although adjusted slightly to be "waller versus cruisers".


If cruisers can now massacre superdreadnoughts, despite being numerically outnumbered (what was the Battle of Spindle, 2:1 hull advantage to the Scientists?) and excluding the tonnage differential, then wallers don't exactly provide quite as much edge as they did pre-FHW.

And my love is for the slashing, precision strikes of Manticore's Battlecruisers circa Battle of Hancock, and before. If the DDM and Mk 16-G had been around at Hancock, that single squadron of Battlecruisers could have mopped Chin's Dreadnoughts as an appetizer , and then chased after Rollin's Superdreadnoughts for the main meal

Somtaaw wrote:And my love is for the slashing, precision strikes of Manticore's Battlecruisers circa Battle of Hancock, and before. If the DDM and Mk 16-G had been around at Hancock, that single squadron of Battlecruisers could have mopped Chin's Dreadnoughts as an appetizer , and then chased after Rollin's Superdreadnoughts for the main meal

But then it would have been a very short story, as Pierre would have realized the war was unwinnable pre-coup and so would have hastily apologized, blamed the Legislaturalists, and went back to oppressing his own people.

drothgery wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:And my love is for the slashing, precision strikes of Manticore's Battlecruisers circa Battle of Hancock, and before. If the DDM and Mk 16-G had been around at Hancock, that single squadron of Battlecruisers could have mopped Chin's Dreadnoughts as an appetizer , and then chased after Rollin's Superdreadnoughts for the main meal

But then it would have been a very short story, as Pierre would have realized the war was unwinnable pre-coup and so would have hastily apologized, blamed the Legislaturalists, and went back to oppressing his own people.

More likely, SDs equipped with commensurate broadsides would mince Capital Fleet and compel Haven's surrender. Then Pierre or his successor would have to balance those demands with those of the as yet unreconstructed dolists.

Haven would be forced to release the vast majority of annexed systems, leaving it with an even larger deficit.

I just had a BC(P)/Apollo tactic idea...

... since Aggies aren't terribly survivable, why not have a few of them drop highly stealthed pods at the beginning of a battle and have them race back across the hyper limit into safety. Then SD(P)'s could occasionally light off the pods, providing missile attacks from additional positions which might make defense more difficult.

Hard to see a (near-)peer coming along where quirky tactics are actually necessary at this point, though.

happycube76 wrote:I just had a BC(P)/Apollo tactic idea...

... since Aggies aren't terribly survivable, why not have a few of them drop highly stealthed pods at the beginning of a battle and have them race back across the hyper limit into safety. Then SD(P)'s could occasionally light off the pods, providing missile attacks from additional positions which might make defense more difficult.

Hard to see a (near-)peer coming along where quirky tactics are actually necessary at this point, though.

They are not really necessary even in that role - Assault fleets can stop in deep space (or anyplace in hyper outside of a grav wave) and have ammoships drop off tractored pods. The Volcano ammoships are 4 Mtons and carry 1,000-1,500 pods.

BC(P)s have gotten a bad rap - they have defenses numerically superior to a Pre-War DN and routinely survive missile swarms that would destroy said DN. Yes, they have a glass jaw and cannot shake off damage as easily as even a previous generation tube BC 1/2 their size, but it is many times harder to land a serious hit a BC(P) than on any previous BC. Only in comparison to other modern capital systems is the BC(P) lacking due to it's glass Jaw - and even there it is a contender to be dealt with.