What's the chance of a Streek Drive Super Dreadnought?

Michael Everett wrote:

"A fanatic is one who cannot change his mind and will not change the subject."
Winston Churchill

Minor point for consideration, if big ships are the best, why is the American navy not comprised solely of aircraft carriers?

Waiting for more amusement...

Very different economics. Real world USA simply cannot afford to count the number of carriers it has in the navy or builds over a few decades in the hundreds.

How many SDs have Manticore built, partially built or had in its navy in the last 30 years?
How many have it had at most at any one time?

If USA tried to do the real world equal of just building up the Grendelsbane shipyards, it would be ruined before it got halfway, much less affording the CVs that would equate all those SDs.


Also, there´s another HUGE difference, raw materials in the Honorverse is essentially just a matter of getting the needed machinery and ships and go get it from the most convenient nearby asteroid belt, ie, raw material costs will generally not fluctuate much, and as long as no rare materials are needed in too large quantities, raw materials will effectively be "cheap".

Relax wrote:Small scouts not used? Say what?

No.

I pointed out that scouting for the next few years is essentially useless as the tech imbalance is absurd. Just send the attack force. The targets are not ships/pods as they pose no credible threat, unless your attack force CO is so stupid as to no bother deploying RD’s at all.

You extrapolated this to mean that SD's will be used as scouts.

How else was I supposed to interpret the non-sequitor about an SD's RD capacity?

Scouting is NOT useless, because otherwise you have no idea whether the defense commander is trying something sneaky or some desperate genius hasn't come up with a way to disguise pods or mine-layers or increase the range of missiles other than the Technodyne system defense monsters or cataphracts. When and where are you going to encounter the graser torpedoes used in the Yawata Strike?

Even if scouts confirm your prior assumptions, scouting is important. Otherwise you learn the truth of "Surprise is something you saw that wasn't so." (or whatever the old adage is, precisely.)

The SLN has formed their strategy on the basis of "scouting for the next few years is essentially useless as the tech imbalance is absurd," with the initial assumption that the tech advantage was in their favor. That mindset has run three consecutive attacks into disaster. I doubt the GA is going to make the same mistake.

Thanks for a laugh dude.

Scouting will not tell you anything you do not already know in the next ~2 years. It certainly will not tell you what you postulated.

Only way you find out what you postulated is by sticking your nose in and finding out the hard way.

Weird Harold wrote:

Relax wrote:Small scouts not used? Say what?

No.

I pointed out that scouting for the next few years is essentially useless as the tech imbalance is absurd. Just send the attack force. The targets are not ships/pods as they pose no credible threat, unless your attack force CO is so stupid as to no bother deploying RD’s at all.

You extrapolated this to mean that SD's will be used as scouts.

How else was I supposed to interpret the non-sequitor about an SD's RD capacity?

Scouting is NOT useless, because otherwise you have no idea whether the defense commander is trying something sneaky or some desperate genius hasn't come up with a way to disguise pods or mine-layers or increase the range of missiles other than the Technodyne system defense monsters or cataphracts. When and where are you going to encounter the graser torpedoes used in the Yawata Strike?

Even if scouts confirm your prior assumptions, scouting is important. Otherwise you learn the truth of "Surprise is something you saw that wasn't so." (or whatever the old adage is, precisely.)

The SLN has formed their strategy on the basis of "scouting for the next few years is essentially useless as the tech imbalance is absurd," with the initial assumption that the tech advantage was in their favor. That mindset has run three consecutive attacks into disaster. I doubt the GA is going to make the same mistake.

Relax wrote:Only way you find out what you postulated is by sticking your nose in and finding out the hard way.

Ask Elvis Santino and another dozen or so Janecek appointments how well complacently relying on technical superiority works. Oh wait, you can't be he and the others are dead.

Scouting may not tell you everything, but you can't spot a trap without looking for it. "Sticking your nose in" is probably my last choice of how to find out what the enemy is up to.

Weird Harold wrote:

Relax wrote:Only way you find out what you postulated is by sticking your nose in and finding out the hard way.

Ask Elvis Santino and another dozen or so Janecek appointments how well complacently relying on technical superiority works. Oh wait, you can't be he and the others are dead.

Scouting may not tell you everything, but you can't spot a trap without looking for it. "Sticking your nose in" is probably my last choice of how to find out what the enemy is up to.

Scouting is useful. But sometimes sticking your nose to see what is there in is also useful.

It's called a reconnaissance (or raid) in force.

Which is done with considerably heavier forces than scouting missions, but not a full-blown invasion fleet.

Michael Everett wrote:

"A fanatic is one who cannot change his mind and will not change the subject."
Winston Churchill

Minor point for consideration, if big ships are the best, why is the American navy not comprised solely of aircraft carriers?

Waiting for more amusement...

Because no-oneneeds aircraft carriers anymore, now all that is needed, or shortly after now (whatever that is) aircraft carriers are going to be replaced with Drone carriers. Which will be able to be much smaller when every frigate sized ship can launch 6-12 drones/planes and control them one no longer needs an Aircraft carrier. When super sonic drones are available for deployment the Aircraft and the Carrier will be retired. Much like the SD they just won't be needed any longer.

Much like the massive castles of my DND games past, eventually the castle becomes the wall and the keep is no more. Same will the carrier (keep) follow suit, replaced by its escorts and small drones run by kids on video game consoles. Of course eventually the frigates become sub's and warfare on sea adds more depth and altitude.

Weird Harold wrote:

Relax wrote:Only way you find out what you postulated is by sticking your nose in and finding out the hard way.

Ask Elvis Santino and another dozen or so Janecek appointments how well complacently relying on technical superiority works. Oh wait, you can't be he and the others are dead.

Scouting may not tell you everything, but you can't spot a trap without looking for it. "Sticking your nose in" is probably my last choice of how to find out what the enemy is up to.

Are your posts even trying to be relevant anymore?

Santino holding a system as an example? HAHAHAHAHAHA

This discussion need go no further.

Of course you somehow think a DD scouting with RD's can somehow magically see inside pods and tell if missiles are MDM, DDM, or SDM. Or hey, maybe if an RD sits in system for weeks they can tell if there are spider grazer torpedos in the pods! As if an RD from a BC raiding force or an SD task group couldn't find out the exact same thing.

Oh wait, neither could.

Lord Skimper wrote:
Because no-oneneeds aircraft carriers anymore, now all that is needed, or shortly after now (whatever that is) aircraft carriers are going to be replaced with Drone carriers. Which will be able to be much smaller when every frigate sized ship can launch 6-12 drones/planes and control them one no longer needs an Aircraft carrier. When super sonic drones are available for deployment the Aircraft and the Carrier will be retired. Much like the SD they just won't be needed any longer.

Much like the massive castles of my DND games past, eventually the castle becomes the wall and the keep is no more. Same will the carrier (keep) follow suit, replaced by its escorts and small drones run by kids on video game consoles. Of course eventually the frigates become sub's and warfare on sea adds more depth and altitude.

I doubt manned combat aircraft, or carriers for them will be done away with in our lifetimes. All it takes is good comm jamming tech and drones become so much junk, or even worse good hackers to turn them against their controllers.

drone carriers....

Drones are effectively useless without satellites as com relays.

Satellites are very easy targets.

Why do you think there are so many programs being funded by DARPA, the Navy/Airforce for multiple micro satellites able to be launched/grafted from just about anything into LEO or retrograde sub orbitals? IE launched from fighters, or SAM's, etc.

EM spectrum is easily jammed.

Only way for drones to truly be plentiful is for them to communicate via laser. Of course that limits all drones to LOS... That also creates a gigantic fat target for the LOS relay above the carrier at 10,000m allowing drones to operate more than 50km from the carrier. Even then, that height will only allow drone operation via LOS of around 300km. This now means the communication relay must cruise at over 20,000m to be effective making it truly vulnerable as it will necessarily have to be a BIG plane with a gigantic thermal signature. So large a signature that ballistic missiles will be able to see it.

PS. Hackers will never overcome good software. The captured drones today just show how pathetic their initial software implementation combination between one time use data keys, encryption, INS/GPS is.

Lord Skimper wrote:
Because no-oneneeds aircraft carriers anymore, now all that is needed, or shortly after now (whatever that is) aircraft carriers are going to be replaced with Drone carriers. Which will be able to be much smaller when every frigate sized ship can launch 6-12 drones/planes and control them one no longer needs an Aircraft carrier. When super sonic drones are available for deployment the Aircraft and the Carrier will be retired. Much like the SD they just won't be needed any longer.

Much like the massive castles of my DND games past, eventually the castle becomes the wall and the keep is no more. Same will the carrier (keep) follow suit, replaced by its escorts and small drones run by kids on video game consoles. Of course eventually the frigates become sub's and warfare on sea adds more depth and altitude.

Relax wrote:
You need no previous intel regarding pods in orbit.

Intel is good for mobile forces. Not stationary. No commander, admiral is worried about stationary forces.

Until Admiral Akbar is needed.

Moon-based defenses can be built on a scale that makes junction forts look like gnats. The computing power, sensor capability, and storage potential of a moon thousands of kilometers in diameter is absurd. The size of low-tech missiles is not a show stopper for a moon as it might be for a warship.

C-fractional attacks with missiles or RD's on a large moon fortress with a few dozen kilometers of surface mass between the inhabited sections of the moon and the surface would be minimally effective at best. Even if you used RD's to find the access ports used for resupply, with decent engineering, and multiple doglegs and armored doors deep inside, a moon is almost impregnable.

Anything you accelerate to C-fractional speeds that is big enough to crack a substantial moon is easily big enough to track. Whatever is accelerating it is going to be putting out a huge energy signature, whether from the ship drive, the ship's particle shielding, or the unshielded passage of the asteroid or whatever.

Anything that can be accelerated to c-fractional speeds by a ship can likely be destroyed by a weaponized moon.

But such a defensive construction would be beyond anything other than a core world, and a strongly industrial core world at that, probably.