New Manty ship ideas.

OK maybe some of that won't be practical, leaving weapons and missile tubes, perhaps using automation to what can be automated, and reducing crews and life support where one can. Telemetry for Manty Greyson SD's shouldn't be too big of a jump, the tethered keyhole platforms, from the house of steel pictures, appear about the length of a Shrike just bigger around.

Still if using an upgraded telemetry SD with as much automation as one can Without cchanging the hard things, perhaps removing laser and such weapons and replacing them with point defense. Still using them in home systems with system pods and LAC. I suppose such ships could even do away with their ammunition (missiles), and just use the system pods. Keep the grasers just in case. Haven SD's could be kept for Haven systems with their own pods.

Sollie Sd's could be used with the majority being Manty flagwavers and system multipliers in Silesian Space. Being more than a match for any commerce raids or pirates, 2 to 5 per main system frees up any and all lighter ships and allows one to recruit and train Silesian citizens for both marine and naval operations. Eventually they will be needed for operations of containment in the Solarian League. The best thing with the larger crew requirements as training ships one can put several 1000 recruits on a single ship with a few Manty trainers 500+ and a 100 Manty marines to train and recruit additional marines. Maximize what you have especially when the enemy starts raiding back water systems. Unless SD's start raiding Silesia any raiders and pirates will flee when even a Sollie SD shows up. Add Some Mk16 pods to help disuade anyone who does attack and whatever Catphracts one has left, if need be.

Thus freeing up all the wall and front line units for offensive operations / league actions.

Lord Skimper wrote: <snip for brevity>

Skimper, you need to stop looking at just the numbers and maybe actually *think* about what you are proposing.

I'm going to add to what Duckk said about the size of the energy weapons and tubes and associated magazines. You have *no* idea how much volume is taken up not just by the tubes, their associated capacitors, energy weapons and *their* associated capacitors, and other stuff needed to fight the ship.

I do.

Trust me, I really *do* know what's involved with doing this (granted, I'm talking about a heavy cruiser, but that doesn't change the following list just because you jump up to an SD(P), and in some cases, it's even worse for the larger ships). It's not just surface area you need to look at. It's also internal volume, *after* taking into account:

*The thickness of the armor (hint: even for a heavy cruiser, it's measured in meters)

*The curvature of the hull (why couldn't Honorverse ships be nice flat-sided boxes?)... What? You think missile magazines can just go anywhere? Don't forget about loading arms, transfer rails/trays/arms, storage trays/racks/cylinders/whatever... And you can't cut into the armor to make it fit

*The location of the core hull and how much volume *it* takes up (gawd what a headache *that* is/was), along with its own armor thickness

*Deck spacing and thickness (for power, air, and sundry supply lines)

*Main power (plasma) routing (separate from the abovementioned supply lines embedded between decks, and made more difficult due to plasma not wanting to turn corners easily)

*Lift shafts

*The internal equipment associated with the grav array(s), radar, LIDAR, comm systems, and so forth

*Weapons crew capsules (one per mount and large enough for 6-7 people, and of course, armored)

*Internal armor for each individual weapon and magazine, so that even a close hit won't take the weapon out

*You want me to go on? This list could get pretty damn long.

This is all stuff that is inside the ship, the same place where you seem to think 50 tubes, and their magazines , could fit, and I hope you *do* realize that the Keyhole 2 systems are semi-embedded into the hull, cutting into internal volume even more.

And that's the easy stuff, trying to fit it all into a simple flattened cylinder. Now try to imagine my headaches trying to fit the same weapons into the oddball geometry of a heavily armored hammerhead. The armor alone cuts the internal volume of the hammerheads almost in half. And then you mention removing energy weapons from the chasers and adding three times the number of CM tubes and PDLCs... FYI, a CM tube and its magazine actually takes up more volume than a graser (about 50% more), albeit arranged differently. At least, on a heavy cruiser, it does. You may break even for an SD-grade graser, but then, maybe not, since CM tubes will have larger magazines for more CMs per tube.

Oh, yeah, and the hammerheads also have their own grav arrays, radar systems, comm panels, LIDAR, and so forth.

Sorry if I seem bitchy, but this is stuff I think about and have to deal with every day (at least, until I take a break for a few months ), and it's irritating to have someone start throwing numbers around without seeming to actually *think* about the full implications on the *insides* of the ship(s) they are proposing.

I presume you started your last post before I finished my last one. Although I would likely even add that if all the old SD's as are where shipped to Silesia with 500 some Manty training crews and a 100+ some Training Marines each. Then add in the recruits for on the job training in the back waters of the Empire. 3-400 SD's on Training patrols in Silesian space with new recruits from everywhere. 1,000,000 recruits or so with training on ship while scaring the crap out of any commerce raiders and pirates. Whether these would be raw recruits or civilian spacers at first then raw recruits added in later on the idea that there are huge crew requirements makes for good training platforms. 1 to 2 years later and you will have a crew waiting for all the new ships, plus all the extra marines with cross training. Fancy new ships but simulators can advance train the best recruits for the new systems.

Initial training might be parked in the home systems, with later freighter escort duties, which freighter in Empire space won't be happy to have an SD riding shotgun?

Home systems will have the LAC and other ships, the ones that are not sent into the league. Plus a new detection grid option. (I'll explain later).

So what don't you like about SD as training ships?

Lord Skimper wrote:I presume you started your last post before I finished my last one. Although I would likely even add that if all the old SD's as are where shipped to Silesia with 500 some Manty training crews and a 100+ some Training Marines each. Then add in the recruits for on the job training in the back waters of the Empire. 3-400 SD's on Training patrols in Silesian space with new recruits from everywhere. 1,000,000 recruits or so with training on ship while scaring the crap out of any commerce raiders and pirates. Whether these would be raw recruits or civilian spacers at first then raw recruits added in later on the idea that there are huge crew requirements makes for good training platforms. 1 to 2 years later and you will have a crew waiting for all the new ships, plus all the extra marines with cross training. Fancy new ships but simulators can advance train the best recruits for the new systems.

Initial training might be parked in the home systems, with later freighter escort duties, which freighter in Empire space won't be happy to have an SD riding shotgun?

Home systems will have the LAC and other ships, the ones that are not sent into the league. Plus a new detection grid option. (I'll explain later).

So what don't you like about SD as training ships?

Okay, so now you propose to train recruits on old-style ships that have little to no similarity to new ships?

That makes a lot of sense.

So, when they get transferred to new ships, they'll need to be trained again, since the new ships will have different systems, different ways of doing things, and just be plain old different.

That would be like training on a Sherman then getting assigned to an Abrams.

Not to mention, you don't train people right off the bat on the biggest, most powerful thing around. You start them off on smaller ships and work them up to the larger ones.

That would be like having your first flying lessons be with a B-52.

Not totally true. There is a lot of value for people to understand the whole part about being in the military and living on ships and doing the things that you need to do on ships.

I'd rather train people who are experts on running and fighting Shermans or T34s on M1s rather than a bunch of people who have spent the last few years becoming experts at soap operas, selling drugs, sponging off their multiple girfriend's welfare checks or flipping burgers.

kzt wrote:Not totally true. There is a lot of value for people to understand the whole part about being in the military and living on ships and doing the things that you need to do on ships.

I'd rather train people who are experts on running and fighting Shermans or T34s on M1s rather than a bunch of people who have spent the last few years becoming experts at soap operas, selling drugs, sponging off their multiple girfriend's welfare checks or flipping burgers.

Yah, but I would prefer somebody who has been to boot camp first. And not whatever it is they call boot camp is Silley space. One of the RMN's main advantages is the highly trained sailors. If somebody from Silesia or the TQ wants to join, let them enlist in the normal fashion. Boot camp is a very important part of a military career; it instilles no just training, but a mindset that is very important.

If we are talking about the Quadrant guard or something similar, giving them SDs is a bad idea in general.

Remember all your training facilities just got blown to heck. You need as many new recruits in 2 or so years, about a million of them. You need all the up to date ships manned by experts right now. Saganami island is for officers not grunts. And all you have are 3-400 ships that have no other use except possibly training or backwater system patrol. All these ships require huge crews but you don't have any. The simulators are good for officers and bridge crews. Bottle engineers can train on SD, point defense gunners can learn on SD but later training in simulators can introduce them to the new systems.

Of course you could train everyone planet side watching HD faxes and the like. Never having set foot on a ship never having fired a graser or point defense or counter missile, never having slept on ship in a berth.

The SD drills this into them, weeds out the 10,000 incompatible or is it 50,000 let's them all experience hyper space travel. See how life works and how to work with others. How to take orders, how to do a and have b happen somewhere else, something you never see or hear. Even the damaged ships train people in emergency repair or in how a graser damages a ship. Especially if they fire the graser then go over and see what they did.

crewdude48 wrote:If we are talking about the Quadrant guard or something similar, giving them SDs is a bad idea in general.

It has the advantage of being something that the RMN has a significant surplus of. They are kind of tight on a even new LACs, but they have a LOT of excess SLN SDs.

They should, in theory, have a lot of excess RMN SDs that would be a much better idea, but something is better then nothing.

Lord Skimper wrote:Remember all your training facilities just got blown to heck. You need as many new recruits in 2 or so years, about a million of them. You need all the up to date ships manned by experts right now. Saganami island is for officers not grunts. And all you have are 3-400 ships that have no other use except possibly training or backwater system patrol. All these ships require huge crews but you don't have any. The simulators are good for officers and bridge crews. Bottle engineers can train on SD, point defense gunners can learn on SD but later training in simulators can introduce them to the new systems.
<<SNIP>>

Almost none of the training facilities were damaged. They are all ground side. The Marines and Army never did have much in the way of orbital training needs and most of the Navy training in space takes place aboard ship. So that part of the infrastructure took no real damage. As for training in damage control, that is best done ground side too, at least until the personnel involved are more than marginally competent. It is extremely dangerous even in atmosphere. Until the damage control people KNOW what they are doing by heart, it is best to not expose them to airlessness. For all the other specialties, it takes a lot more than boot camp to prepare someone for duty aboard a ship. All boot camp is about is the basics of military life. How to salute, take orders, get physically fit, how to wear the uniform and the like. All of the training for a specific shipboard duty is done after boot camp, in different schools with a different imperative and mindset. Almost none of this is done in space. And once again, you want the personnel involved to know their job before they report aboard any ship.

KNick wrote:

Lord Skimper wrote:Remember all your training facilities just got blown to heck.

Almost none of the training facilities were damaged. They are all ground side. The Marines and Army never did have much in the way of orbital training needs and most of the Navy training in space takes place aboard ship. So that part of the infrastructure took no real damage. As for training in damage control, that is best done ground side too, at least until the personnel involved are more than marginally competent. It is extremely dangerous even in atmosphere. Until the damage control people KNOW what they are doing by heart, it is best to not expose them to airlessness. For all the other specialties, it takes a lot more than boot camp to prepare someone for duty aboard a ship. All boot camp is about is the basics of military life. How to salute, take orders, get physically fit, how to wear the uniform and the like. All of the training for a specific shipboard duty is done after boot camp, in different schools with a different imperative and mindset. Almost none of this is done in space. And once again, you want the personnel involved to know their job before they report aboard any ship.

That was basically my thought. There may have been some more advanced training facilities onboard the stations, but most of it makes more sense groundside.

Actually about the only things you really need orbit for are EVA or vacuum work. With grav plates it should be pretty easy to have real 0g training groundside. So you can move to practicing damage control on a notional ship who's lost gravity without having to initially add the dangers of space and vacuum.