BC(P)

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.

So.... basically the Battle of Hancock, or if you want to be technical the Battle of Solon where Moriarty first came out to play. Tango One was nothing but mil-spec freighters (so superdreadnought-sized), who got to a certain point and then did nothing but roll pods for someone else (Moriarty) to actually control and fire.

You could do the same thing with the fast minelayers Manticore (Or Haven) already have designs for, that aren't just scaled-down podnoughts (with all the inherent weaknesses).


It's a tactic yes, but it's really more of a defensive strategy than offensive. With inner- and outer-system LAC bases and MDM System-Defense pods, the defensive strategy is done better without Aggies, and offensively, you'd just bring full-out freighters and "pull a Tourville"


"pulling a Tourville" is referring to when he took out Zanzibar by charging in and firing at extended range, before pulling back across the hyper limit to reload from his freighters and coming back in.

Theemile wrote: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.

It's not even really in comparison to just modern capitals, but the other contender for "standard modern" battlecruisers... the big assed Nike's. Comparing an Aggy to a Nike, both being officially battlecruisers, disregarding the size differentials, the Nike just stomps all over the Aggy in everything except burst potential. An Aggy could theoretically roll her entire pod allotment and fire it off in one truly massive salvo. A Nike can't do that, and was designed specifically to make up for the Aggy NOT being able to fire for more than 30 minutes at maximum rate rolling.

Burst damage potential only counts when your enemy either a) can't even fire back to begin with (no DDM/MDMs) or b) has no pods to swamp the Aggy point-defense. Kinda how Haven was from the (re)introduction of Manticoran missile pods, and it took them 5-10 years of war (from Hancock until shortly after losing Trevor's Star) to have their own version deployed leading to the capture of Commodore Harrington.


I wouldn't exactly call a BC(p) a failed design, but it's certainly looking to be something relegated to at best second-tier, maybe third. Something you use to backhand pirates (and similar) that have gotten uppity and more dangerous than usual, and/or leaning on star nations that started thinking they can get away with raiding Manty shipping. But definitely not against an opponent with near parity of tech.

The ~30 million km powered range disparity does tend to make it hard. Assuming that you load effective ammo.

kzt wrote:The ~30 million km powered range disparity does tend to make it hard. Assuming that you load effective ammo.

One advantage of the BC(p) over the BC(L) is that the BC(p) can load Mk-23 or Apollo pods -- although they're limited to light-speed control of the Apollo.

Either option reduces the salvo density and combat endurance, but the BC(p) does have the option of a heavier punch -- and the automatic upgrade to any new pod-based missile.

Weird Harold wrote:

kzt wrote:The ~30 million km powered range disparity does tend to make it hard. Assuming that you load effective ammo.

One advantage of the BC(p) over the BC(L) is that the BC(p) can load Mk-23 or Apollo pods -- although they're limited to light-speed control of the Apollo.

Either option reduces the salvo density and combat endurance, but the BC(p) does have the option of a heavier punch -- and the automatic upgrade to any new pod-based missile.

That latter may well see ex-League SDFs got for BC(P)s; at least initially.

Their missile tech is more likely to be in flux (as they know there are a variety of improved missile technologies already out there that they probably don't have access to. So building BC(P)s lets you deploy better missiles, even the the sizes vary more than built-in tubes could handle, without massive retrofits. (And they can use the BC(P) as a stepping-stone, or practice run, to gain experience before designing domestic SD(P)s.

But Manticore seems pretty comfortable with the basic Mk16 size/package. So they are willing to "lock in" that missile size by building tube based BC(L)s.

Somtaaw wrote:

Theemile wrote: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.

It's not even really in comparison to just modern capitals, but the other contender for "standard modern" battlecruisers... the big assed Nike's. Comparing an Aggy to a Nike, both being officially battlecruisers, disregarding the size differentials, the Nike just stomps all over the Aggy in everything except burst potential. An Aggy could theoretically roll her entire pod allotment and fire it off in one truly massive salvo. A Nike can't do that, and was designed specifically to make up for the Aggy NOT being able to fire for more than 30 minutes at maximum rate rolling.

Burst damage potential only counts when your enemy either a) can't even fire back to begin with (no DDM/MDMs) or b) has no pods to swamp the Aggy point-defense. Kinda how Haven was from the (re)introduction of Manticoran missile pods, and it took them 5-10 years of war (from Hancock until shortly after losing Trevor's Star) to have their own version deployed leading to the capture of Commodore Harrington.


I wouldn't exactly call a BC(p) a failed design, but it's certainly looking to be something relegated to at best second-tier, maybe third. Something you use to backhand pirates (and similar) that have gotten uppity and more dangerous than usual, and/or leaning on star nations that started thinking they can get away with raiding Manty shipping. But definitely not against an opponent with near parity of tech.

BCs are usually considered a capital unit, so I was including the Nike in the analysis.

Just as a point, we have been talking about the Nikes a lot, as they have been featured in the past books (the Talbott Sector and MoH), but I would note that House of Steel (which I personally take as the Word on the topic) showed that just before the First Battle of Manticore (and don't give me no s...stuff about battles fought three centuries earlier), there were only about 12 Nikes built, with more coming. We know Mike Henke got two squadrons (hers' and Oversteengens) and that more probably came out in the Python Lump, but the upshot is that there are a limited number of them and with Oyster Bay there won't be any more for the next several years.

Meanwhile House of Steel shows at least 85 Aggies having been built, and at least some of the 73 Reliant-class BC's still in service, so unless RFC decides to ignore this, I expect we'll be seeing more of the BC(P) in action against the SLN and MAlignment.

IMHO as always. YMMV.

Hutch wrote:Just as a point, we have been talking about the Nikes a lot, as they have been featured in the past books (the Talbott Sector and MoH), but I would note that House of Steel (which I personally take as the Word on the topic) showed that just before the First Battle of Manticore (and don't give me no s...stuff about battles fought three centuries earlier), there were only about 12 Nikes built, with more coming. We know Mike Henke got two squadrons (hers' and Oversteengens) and that more probably came out in the Python Lump, but the upshot is that there are a limited number of them and with Oyster Bay there won't be any more for the next several years.

Meanwhile House of Steel shows at least 85 Aggies having been built, and at least some of the 73 Reliant-class BC's still in service, so unless RFC decides to ignore this, I expect we'll be seeing more of the BC(P) in action against the SLN and MAlignment.

IMHO as always. YMMV.

We pushed on this when the book came out - we KNEW there were at least 17 Nikes in Service at the time.

Tom Pope let us know that HoS reflects ships accepted into the RMN as of ~May 1st 1921, not as of Oyster Bay (~March 1922) or the end of ART (August 1922), so it is not the definitive count of the RMN at this point in the series.

HoS also does not reflect un-finished construction (Grendlesbane, Oyster Bay) or ships built in RMN yards and sold to foreign powers before being accepted into the RMN. Any ships completed after ~May 1st and accepted into the RMN are not included.

Ships built before ~1900 show their latest refit prior to ~1900, not their original hardware. Ships show their design accel, not built or current accel.

So while the Reliant's construction is done, there may have been more Aggies in the pipeline in addition to the Nikes. Given the blurb that Sarnow got 1/3rd of construction after Monica (prior to that, he was scheduled to get 2/3rds), there probably is at least 1 squadron of Nikes in Silesia, in addition to any working up.

Theemile wrote:

Hutch wrote:Just as a point, we have been talking about the Nikes a lot, as they have been featured in the past books (the Talbott Sector and MoH), but I would note that House of Steel (which I personally take as the Word on the topic) showed that just before the First Battle of Manticore (and don't give me no s...stuff about battles fought three centuries earlier), there were only about 12 Nikes built, with more coming. We know Mike Henke got two squadrons (hers' and Oversteengens) and that more probably came out in the Python Lump, but the upshot is that there are a limited number of them and with Oyster Bay there won't be any more for the next several years.

Meanwhile House of Steel shows at least 85 Aggies having been built, and at least some of the 73 Reliant-class BC's still in service, so unless RFC decides to ignore this, I expect we'll be seeing more of the BC(P) in action against the SLN and MAlignment.

IMHO as always. YMMV.

We pushed on this when the book came out - we KNEW there were at least 17 Nikes in Service at the time.

Tom Pope let us know that HoS reflects ships accepted into the RMN as of ~May 1st 1921, not as of Oyster Bay (~March 1922) or the end of ART (August 1922), so it is not the definitive count of the RMN at this point in the series.

HoS also does not reflect un-finished construction (Grendlesbane, Oyster Bay) or ships built in RMN yards and sold to foreign powers before being accepted into the RMN. Any ships completed after ~May 1st and accepted into the RMN are not included.

Ships built before ~1900 show their latest refit prior to ~1900, not their original hardware. Ships show their design accel, not built or current accel.

So while the Reliant's construction is done, there may have been more Aggies in the pipeline in addition to the Nikes. Given the blurb that Sarnow got 1/3rd of construction after Monica (prior to that, he was scheduled to get 2/3rds), there probably is at least 1 squadron of Nikes in Silesia, in addition to any working up.

And Eighth Fleet probably scored a squadron or two, after they'd been proven concept and very effective for what Eighth Fleet's role was (the deep raids using light units). Instead of just having the original test-bed Nike which was inserted into a squadron of Aggies simply to field it.

Theemile wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:
It's not even really in comparison to just modern capitals, but the other contender for "standard modern" battlecruisers... the big assed Nike's. Comparing an Aggy to a Nike, both being officially battlecruisers, disregarding the size differentials, the Nike just stomps all over the Aggy in everything except burst potential. An Aggy could theoretically roll her entire pod allotment and fire it off in one truly massive salvo. A Nike can't do that, and was designed specifically to make up for the Aggy NOT being able to fire for more than 30 minutes at maximum rate rolling.

Burst damage potential only counts when your enemy either a) can't even fire back to begin with (no DDM/MDMs) or b) has no pods to swamp the Aggy point-defense. Kinda how Haven was from the (re)introduction of Manticoran missile pods, and it took them 5-10 years of war (from Hancock until shortly after losing Trevor's Star) to have their own version deployed leading to the capture of Commodore Harrington.


I wouldn't exactly call a BC(p) a failed design, but it's certainly looking to be something relegated to at best second-tier, maybe third. Something you use to backhand pirates (and similar) that have gotten uppity and more dangerous than usual, and/or leaning on star nations that started thinking they can get away with raiding Manty shipping. But definitely not against an opponent with near parity of tech.

BCs are usually considered a capital unit, so I was including the Nike in the analysis.

I suppose we could be technical and included CLAC's in with the comparison, because Manticoran CLACs anyways are built off Dreaqdnought hulls. Or at least the Minotaur and Hydra classes were DN's. An Aggy compared to a CLAC, suddenly makes the Aggy look a whole lot tougher.