"Obsolete SDs" Waste not...

WeirdlyWired wrote:

munroburton wrote: It would depend whether they have a capacitor missile model in use which can fit into the Solly launchers. They probably do - even if it entails dropping a grade, like the Cataphracts do anyway(eg. SDs forced to fire BC-weight missiles).

Ok, so make the call DO they have stockpiled missiles that WILL actually fit Solly missile tubes? because I don't remember anywhere where the diameter of missle tubes was compared, except to say there's no way they can fire big assed missiles out of the tubes we saw on those BCs." Of course the Solly was referring to pod missiles. But the point remains: what ae you basing your argument on??? manty missiles have been growing in size.

Nowhere. I simply don't think it's completely out of the question that the RMN(which has probably the widest range of missiles of any Navy btw) might have an older model lying around that would be smaller than what a Solly cruiser fires. According to HoS, the RMN still has a substantial number of older destroyers and light cruisers in service - it's more likely than not that those missiles would be smaller than those of Solly BC/CAs.

munroburton wrote:Nowhere. I simply don't think it's completely out of the question that the RMN(which has probably the widest range of missiles of any Navy btw) might have an older model lying around that would be smaller than what a Solly cruiser fires. According to HoS, the RMN still has a substantial number of older destroyers and light cruisers in service - it's more likely than not that those missiles would be smaller than those of Solly BC/CAs.

Even if the RMN have to go with a physically smaller missile to fit into the Sollie tube, they can easily provide a sabot to fill the gap in the tube. And the sabots won't require the use of warship or weapons qualified manufacturers. Any body who can mold a soda bottle can mold a sabot.

Just because the league knows the ships are obsolete, does not mean every world is aware? So the sales need to be quick with no refunds. They might know the league is being stomped, but by how much.

SYED wrote:Just because the league knows the ships are obsolete, does not mean every world is aware? So the sales need to be quick with no refunds. They might know the league is being stomped, but by how much.

And how friendly would the systems who purchase these ships be to the GA once they realize they were screwed?

Please consider that the REAL POWER of Manticore and Haven is their modern missiles not the ship hulls.

I really do like the flamers that attack idea without reading them completely: In may previous proposal I suggested that the SD be used to control system defense pods. If one goes back and reads the requirements for the proposed space station, which have to built in a yard and transported in pieces and then assembled on site, the system defense stations require a SD fire control and a tractored drone with Apollo capacity. It seems to me that that the captured SD have the basic requirements with no "major" refits. I assume that one would want to upgrade the defenses a bit. Manticore needs several system defense stations per star system in the Quadrant. That could run in the hundreds of space stations: thus use of captured SD would actually reduce the strain on shipyard space.

As for the light units BC and CA, I did not suggest replacing their missile launchers, but use missile pods from Haven to give the ships long range fire power. A proposed that Destroyers be converted to survey/ exploration ships: this is a none combat role so for these smaller vessels.

The Talbot sector has to have some shipbuilding capacity as the Rembrandt Association maintained and I assume built a few ships. Also Monica had ship building capacity; I assume that the some of the Quadrant would have some limited space based industry. Conversion of these captured ships would be a way to expand a limited capacity over time. Most of the Manticore Alliance had very little or no ship building capacity at the start of war with Haven, but several systems were building ships before the armistice.
The surrender ships can be claimed under international law a prizes without a declaration of war; as the ships were captured in an "act of war".

ONE final point: There is no reason a traditional dreadnaught cannot carry as many missile pods as a podnaught: There is no reason on cannot put the rail system on the exterior of the ship; the pods would be more vulnerable and the one would most likely have to reposition the side walls generators. There is a mention in one of the books that Andermati Empire explored placing racks of missile pods on their light ships. So beware the Solarian League has thousands of ships they could convert this way. They would be more fragile but the League could swap several conversions for on Manticore or Haven ship.

Some REAL WORLD consideration.

It takes "six months to several years" to build a ship hull: the weapons systems take hours to days to construct. However the majority of cost of a warship is in its weapon systems.

It takes weeks to months to refitting old ships with modern weapon systems.


CONSIDER
IN the Honor Universe I suspect that the same basic economics are in play. Thus refitting old ships saves yard space; a little thing that is in short supply in the Empire. Second, one does not need to be able to build a sophisticated weapon system in order to install it during a refit. Thus the refitting operation can be a lower tech facility.

ONE set of shipyards that has been completely ignored in all this discussions and in the book is Silesia. In the books there is mention of Silisian SD and yards, these may be lower tech than Maniticore, but they could build hulls an install "modern" weapon systems. BUT more important they could build basic shipbuilding yards components for the Manticore Empire.

rdelorme16 wrote:Please consider that the REAL POWER of Manticore and Haven is their modern missiles not the ship hulls.

I really do like the flamers that attack idea without reading them completely: In may previous proposal I suggested that the SD be used to control system defense pods. If one goes back and reads the requirements for the proposed space station, which have to built in a yard and transported in pieces and then assembled on site, the system defense stations require a SD fire control and a tractored drone with Apollo capacity. It seems to me that that the captured SD have the basic requirements with no "major" refits. I assume that one would want to upgrade the defenses a bit. Manticore needs several system defense stations per star system in the Quadrant. That could run in the hundreds of space stations: thus use of captured SD would actually reduce the strain on shipyard space.

[snip]

Even upgrading active defenses PDLCs and CMs is non-trivial yard work. Replacing ECM gear, such as was done in Grayson with the captured Peep SDs, is less invasive. The existing antennas and cabling shouldn't need to be messed with, just replace computers and signal generators.

But I think you're overlooking that the SLN SDs have less fire control than modern RMN CAs. They were designed to support firing an admittedly large for their size broadside of 32 missiles ever 40 seconds or so with no allowance for also supporting towed pods. A Saganami-B on the other hand is designed to provide fire control links for a double-broadside of 38 missiles every 9 or so seconds plus extra for towed pods.

Of course neither can use the FTL fire control of the Apollo system defense pods. But retrofitting control for that is a major shipyard task. Integrating it into Andie SD(P)s took months in major shipyards; and the Keyhole II bay is just a part of the work - you also need to drill through hull armor to install the ultra-high bandwidth data links to talk to it and the beamed power to run it - not to mention the extra tonnage of computers which David says it requires. IIRC they retrofitted those into the Keyhole I SD(P)s by inserting a computer room as a plug at the forward end of the pod bays; reducing the number of pods they could carry.

So even for this task of controlling system defense pods the ex-SLN SDs are less useful in light speed mode than RMN BCs, or RMN legacy SDs/DNs that were put in mothballs; much less even the early podlayers. And they wouldn't have the FTL fire-control that the defensive forts would bring to support Apollo (or Apollo + Mycroft) system defenses.
So again they don't seem to bring anything that could be better done and maintained out of existing resources in a stopgap - and fall vastly short of the longer term plans.

Recall the League SD already have broadcast power and wide bandwidth in their obsolete halo system. The power system is probably good enough as is, the command broad band need to be upgrades; but the BOOKs state that solarian computer are top notch; it their software that sucks. To quote from the book "only and idiot would run their ECM that way": I put it down to inexperience and bad training.

As for space: one does not need those marine quarters: the existing missile tubes go through the armor and lead to significant interior space inside the armor, which can be reconfigured into fire control. The space utilization does not have to be optimized; think fast and dirty.

Also consider that currently there is a limited quantity of Apollo missile and no production; thus the real need is for ships that can handle Haven's current long range missiles: which are more than capable of pounding League ships into scrap. Also one is not going to want to give Apollo to newly liberated system in along the "Frontier". A non-Apollo based System Defense Pod system is also needed in the long run.

munroburton wrote:
Nowhere. I simply don't think it's completely out of the question that the RMN(which has probably the widest range of missiles of any Navy btw) might have an older model lying around that would be smaller than what a Solly cruiser fires. According to HoS, the RMN still has a substantial number of older destroyers and light cruisers in service - it's more likely than not that those missiles would be smaller than those of Solly BC/CAs.

Yes they may have mark 10s or mark 12s stuck out at Trevor's Star. But why divert them from their own ships that use/need them. There is NO missile production anywhere in SEM space so what stockpiles they have is all they will have. And again, this is speculation. There is no ev that supplies exist.

But yes you could fire the SLN ships dry and reload a couple of times. Then you have to divert resources from MK17s and 23s to building a line for obsolete missiles. Or you could not divert those missiles to SLN ships and let your own ships use them, because one way or the other, they are in limited supply and the more hulls you spread them over the faster you have useless hulls floating in space.

WeirdlyWired wrote:

munroburton wrote:
Nowhere. I simply don't think it's completely out of the question that the RMN(which has probably the widest range of missiles of any Navy btw) might have an older model lying around that would be smaller than what a Solly cruiser fires. According to HoS, the RMN still has a substantial number of older destroyers and light cruisers in service - it's more likely than not that those missiles would be smaller than those of Solly BC/CAs.

Yes they may have mark 10s or mark 12s stuck out at Trevor's Star. But why divert them from their own ships that use/need them. There is NO missile production anywhere in SEM space so what stockpiles they have is all they will have. And again, this is speculation. There is no ev that supplies exist.

But yes you could fire the SLN ships dry and reload a couple of times. Then you have to divert resources from MK17s and 23s to building a line for obsolete missiles. Or you could not divert those missiles to SLN ships and let your own ships use them, because one way or the other, they are in limited supply and the more hulls you spread them over the faster you have useless hulls floating in space.

Quite. Did I once say they should do it? No. But the possibility exists. Unless the RMN scraps all of its pre-war designs, they'll have to set up missile lines for SDMs and ERMs again. Never mind the thousands of LACs they've got to supply anyway.

My entire point is that ammo constraints are not the biggest issue with putting ex-Solly ships into service. The bigger headaches are in how obsolete the rest of the stuff are - crappy compensators, large crews, slow-firing missile launchers, no FTL comms, Solly RD handling equipment(probably incompatible with ghost rider), regular maintenance and so on. None of those can be fixed without extensive time in shipyard hands.

The missiles by comparision are plug-and-play.