New Manty ship ideas.

Werrf wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Mind you I'd still prefer driving really long pilings down to solid rock, but if that's not practical...

Well as I recall, the one time we saw any detail of a construction project in the Honorverse that's exactly what they were doing.

You're right about that. They used a drill to set the footings for the sky dome, then cross-cut into the bedrock and set the entire thing in ceramacrete in Flag in Exile. This was for something that was relatively incomplex compared to a building, and it actually exceeded the Sword specifications for safety by a wide margin. I'd imagine they'd use similar techniques for building large buildings.

Werrf wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Mind you I'd still prefer driving really long pilings down to solid rock, but if that's not practical...

Well as I recall, the one time we saw any detail of a construction project in the Honorverse that's exactly what they were doing.

That's exactly what Skydomes was doing.

I just don't know if that's still practical in the Honorverse if you want to build on terrain like New Orleans, where bedrock may be a 1000 feet down through (subject to settling) clay and silt.

Maybe they do dig ultra deep foundations, or maybe they've better sense than to build major structures over such unstable ground, or maybe they 'float' buildings on large foundations and/or piers/pilings. <shrug>

Or maybe they decide that maybe that particular stretch of land doesn't need a humongous skyscraper on it. Recall that the population density of Manticore (and probably a lot of other colonies) is ridiculously low compared to what we are used to today, and given the available transport technology, a lot of the factors we use today to plan our buildings just don't exist.

The E wrote:Or maybe they decide that maybe that particular stretch of land doesn't need a humongous skyscraper on it. Recall that the population density of Manticore (and probably a lot of other colonies) is ridiculously low compared to what we are used to today, and given the available transport technology, a lot of the factors we use today to plan our buildings just don't exist.

This makes more sense. I imagine that permanent cities were planned much more meticulously and carefully planned out with things like this in mind to avoid those sorts of problems. Most cities on Earth didn't really take into consideration that ridiculously massive skyscrapers would eventually be built.

Uroboros wrote:

The E wrote:Or maybe they decide that maybe that particular stretch of land doesn't need a humongous skyscraper on it. Recall that the population density of Manticore (and probably a lot of other colonies) is ridiculously low compared to what we are used to today, and given the available transport technology, a lot of the factors we use today to plan our buildings just don't exist.

This makes more sense. I imagine that permanent cities were planned much more meticulously and carefully planned out with things like this in mind to avoid those sorts of problems. Most cities on Earth didn't really take into consideration that ridiculously massive skyscrapers would eventually be built.

Several years ago I read a study on faultlines and the geography in New York City. The writer asked the reader to look at the Manhatten skyline to determine the depth of the bedrock - where the skyscrappers were tall, the bedrock was shallow, there the buildings are short (<20 stories) the bedrock was deep.

How about LACs mounting energy torpedoes? Since the new generation LACs have become a close strike specialists whose main targets are smaller ships and or damaged capital ships, it would be a good idea to have a variant with energy torpedo launchers. The resulting space freed up from the missile magazine can be used to upgrade the power plant to provide the necessary energy to supply the ETorp launchers.

Rakhmamort wrote:How about LACs mounting energy torpedoes? Since the new generation LACs have become a close strike specialists whose main targets are smaller ships and or damaged capital ships, it would be a good idea to have a variant with energy torpedo launchers. The resulting space freed up from the missile magazine can be used to upgrade the power plant to provide the necessary energy to supply the ETorp launchers.

Not a good idea, ETorps are useless against sidewalls so are very limited in their application, especially as bow and stern walls are becoming increasingly common. Also ETorps require a fusion reactor which due to the way they scale would result in taking up more space than just deleting the missile magazines would free.

Rakhmamort wrote:How about LACs mounting energy torpedoes? Since the new generation LACs have become a close strike specialists whose main targets are smaller ships and or damaged capital ships, it would be a good idea to have a variant with energy torpedo launchers. The resulting space freed up from the missile magazine can be used to upgrade the power plant to provide the necessary energy to supply the ETorp launchers.

Well, first several people have theoretically decided that energy torps are directly fed by the ships fusion reactor. As far as I can tell David has never said anything to support this, but he's also never said it doesn't work that way. So if they are right then you need a DD sized fusion reactor, which is not something that a modern RMN LAC has.

Not to mention that Energy Torps do nothing against a sidewall or buckler, which will pretty much always be interposed by anyone who isn't smoking crack.

Grashtel wrote:Not a good idea, ETorps are useless against sidewalls so are very limited in their application, especially as bow and stern walls are becoming increasingly common. Also ETorps require a fusion reactor which due to the way they scale would result in taking up more space than just deleting the missile magazines would free.

And before anyone mentions it, there's no way you're fitting The Weapon That Must Not Be Named into an LAC.

Lord Skimper wrote:What would be the best implementations for the RMN for new ships.
Streak hyper drives, yes.
How about combo SD-P and CLAC, twice or ten times as big or more, half as fast or less, with LAC's capable of running any other ships down, 12 times the number of pods and 100 to 400 LAC's. Grazers etc...
Mobile forts, only with a wedge and hyper capable.
A true dreadnaught, they see it coming, they might be able to out run it, but not the LAC's it is carrying. A true dread inspiring ship capable of taking on or out any fleet the Sollies might put up against it. If it is big enough it might even carry a destroyer or two. Put one of these with Apollo in orbit and that planet is yours, put 10 and anything is yours.

58 pgs? well no chance to read all this so I’m just going to wade in on the original (& excuse me if I reiterate something) as I see some have mentioned, no need for a super “Death Star”, yes they could build something like that, but it’s still 1 ship. Park it on the junction and the junctions safe but that’s all it does (forts). Send it to Spindle & the junctions no longer covered by it. Better to have multiple pod-noughts to send around & cover more areas. As far as “SD-P/CLAC” these are mutually exclusive. In order to add LAC space you have to take up internal space from something else (in this case the Pods) so fewer pods. The cost of 2 “SD-P/CLAC” would be better spent on 1 SD-P & 1 CLAC which have different missions & can be deployed in different ways. The USN experimented with BV designs in the 20-30s. There was some panic when news of the Nelson class reached Washington (battleships with all the guns forward, Why? the Brits putting aircraft aft!). This ended when it was found to be just a weight saving measure. The study concluded that what makes a BB good interferes with what makes a (conventional) CV good & vice-verse. Put the guns in the middle & they interfere with flight ops (deck length limit, air turbulence from the barrels etc…), move them out of the way & they no longer have optimum arcs of fire. Also the Mag space for the gun ammo means less space for hangers, Av fuel and bomb mags. Also the mission is different, the BB is to close range and blast the enemy with guns where the CV is to run away & launch aircraft to go fight for it. bringing a carrier into a gun fight is just dumb. As I understand it, US disinformation convinced the IJN the opposite which convinced them to rebuild the Ise class into BVs. Wasting lots of material & yard space on white elephants. The Ise class rebuild was a practical failure. (Also its an “eggs in one basket” issue, just takes one “Jedi” and the you lose a lot of tonnage - ) personally I see an “improved Sag-C” Super CAs able to fire Haven or Andi. built Missiles or super BC-Ps (actually small-fast DN-Ps) with Mk23s. - what about CA-Ps with Andi half packs?