New Manty ship ideas.

Lord Skimper wrote:More expensive but with a grant from the government and tax reduction or elimination. If you lease the ship from the government except in military actions it would be to the 'owners' benefit to lease such a ship. In military actions either the crew who uses it in civilian times, if commissioned for military, they would either command the ship with additional personal, or operate aspart of the crew under the command of a superior.

Alain686 wrote:

Lord Skimper wrote:More expensive but with a grant from the government and tax reduction or elimination. If you lease the ship from the government except in military actions it would be to the 'owners' benefit to lease such a ship. In military actions either the crew who uses it in civilian times, if commissioned for military, they would either command the ship with additional personal, or operate aspart of the crew under the command of a superior.

The problem with this idea is now the government will be subsidizing the freight line. The internal competitors of the freight line could be persuaded/force to accept such an arrangement. It will be a different story with foreign nations. This happens in the real world, nations will pass laws tha
t ostensibly is meant to promote free trade but is really meant to protect it's shipping industry. So if this was the Star Kingdom doing this and Haven gets wind of this all they have to do is convince the Solarian League to ban these "warships" from operating within Solarian space. And the argument would be fairly simple, the Star Kingdom is not operating fairly since it is paying to build and operate these freighters which gives their shipping lines an unfair advantage over Solarian shipping lines.

If that does not work there is the option of saying that these freighters cannot enter your space unless the design has been thoroughly verified, construction method approved, construction inspected, and so forth. This is what happens with modern freighters. So let's say you had some new technology that you don't want known but want to add to these modular ships such as a new generation compensator, now you will have to let someone else thoroughly inspect the design of your new compensator.

Lord Skimper wrote:
Haven would have these too. What was the last book you read? So would Grayson silestia and the Andermany. There are no Manty freighters in Sollie space right now. (1922+ PD).

tachnyrus wrote:
As others have pointed out, the underlying structure between a warship and a freighter is just too different to be able to slap modules on and call it a day. Using your analogy, you don't see the US Army taking a tractor-trailer frame and strapping on a 120mm cannon and armor and calling it a tank!

Things aren't as simple as "build skeleton, put on engine, profit!". There's a reason technology is so meticulously designed. Even within the same type of vehicle, parts have to mesh for the vehicle to work properly... unless you think there's no performance difference between a Ferrari and a Honda Civic?

munroburton wrote:

tachnyrus wrote:
As others have pointed out, the underlying structure between a warship and a freighter is just too different to be able to slap modules on and call it a day. Using your analogy, you don't see the US Army taking a tractor-trailer frame and strapping on a 120mm cannon and armor and calling it a tank!

Things aren't as simple as "build skeleton, put on engine, profit!". There's a reason technology is so meticulously designed. Even within the same type of vehicle, parts have to mesh for the vehicle to work properly... unless you think there's no performance difference between a Ferrari and a Honda Civic?

There is a terrible film called Death Race. They modified a tractor-trailer rig with armour, guns and a rear-mounted tank cannon. And called it the Dreadnought.

It wouldn't do well against a real tank. Can't even beat a Mustang, heh.

drothgery wrote:

Garth 2 wrote:Currently the Manti ship designs, below the wall are the best available given the technology.

Destroyers - Rolands
Heavy Cruiser - Sag. C
Battlecruisers - Nike

None of these designs are going to go out of date any time soon, all they need is the enhancement to their hyperdrives/sails (streak drive) and any software/hardware updates (e.g. new counter missile handling systems, pdc etc.)

Rolands (and anything in the traditional destroyer or even light cruiser tonnage range) are obsolete as soon as anyone other than the RMN has extended-range missiles widely deployed below the wall; they're not really viable in an environment where they don't have an overwhelming range advantage because their defenses are relatively poor.

And the Sag-C is still a transitional design, too; when the RMN starts building RFC's 300KTon 'notional destroyers', a 500Kton CA is very much on the small side as it's only going to be marginally more powerful (also, the Roland and Sag-C suffered the most from the negative consequences of the RMN/GSN drive to extreme automation in the intrawar and early 2nd war era; any successor designs are likely to include larger Marine contingents at a minimum). Nikes are another matter; I can see that design or a close cousin as the Grand Alliance's first-line BC for the foreseeable future.

Garth 2 wrote:

yes, eventually new designs are going to occur and I think it will fall into four main tonnage brackets:

SD/CLAC in the 10 to 12 M ton range
Battlecruisers in the 5 to 6 M ton range
Cruisers in the 2 to 3 M ton range

Just purely due to the size of the missiles, but who knows what the Manties etc. will develop next special given how good they are miniturising things.