So....imagine you are Admiral Parnell's staff officer

Theemile wrote:In 1905, the PRN hAd "roughly 50 DNS", 16 were Chevalier class, the rest (~34 or 4 squadrons) were Nouveau Paris class. The Desquesne class SDs were design diritives of an older DN class, the Hempstead class. So the PRN had Dreadnoughts prior to the Chevalier class, all of which had been retired prior to 1905. This is from the class errata in the Jaynes.

Indeed. But the question I'm trying to answer is why build a few DNs at all in the late 19th or even in the 20th century if you can build hundreds of SDs in the period?

The RMN built 3 SDs for every 2 DNs (roughly) from 1850 to 1905, close enough to a near parity. We know from HoS why they needed to do so. The PRN had 8x the number of SDs as it did DNs.

Hypothesis 1: those were BB yards that could not be easily converted to SD production. Better to have a few DNs out of them that could hold their own in a wall of battle than no ship at all (they had enough BBs).

Hypothesis II: based on what you said about the Duquesne SDs being based on the second-to-last generation of DNs, the PRN designed DN classes first and then upscaled to SD. That would allow them to trial technologies and techniques out on a smaller ship before going to a full run. Of course, "smaller" here is just relative, but an SD is still 30 to 50% larger.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Theemile wrote:In 1905, the PRN hAd "roughly 50 DNS", 16 were Chevalier class, the rest (~34 or 4 squadrons) were Nouveau Paris class. The Desquesne class SDs were design diritives of an older DN class, the Hempstead class. So the PRN had Dreadnoughts prior to the Chevalier class, all of which had been retired prior to 1905. This is from the class errata in the Jaynes.

Indeed. But the question I'm trying to answer is why build a few DNs at all in the late 19th or even in the 20th century if you can build hundreds of SDs in the period?

The RMN built 3 SDs for every 2 DNs (roughly) from 1850 to 1905, close enough to a near parity. We know from HoS why they needed to do so. The PRN had 8x the number of SDs as it did DNs.

Hypothesis 1: those were BB yards that could not be easily converted to SD production. Better to have a few DNs out of them that could hold their own in a wall of battle than no ship at all (they had enough BBs).

Hypothesis II: based on what you said about the Duquesne SDs being based on the second-to-last generation of DNs, the PRN designed DN classes first and then upscaled to SD. That would allow them to trial technologies and techniques out on a smaller ship before going to a full run. Of course, "smaller" here is just relative, but an SD is still 30 to 50% larger.

According to Jaynes, in 1905, there were still 2 yards out if the original 6 building Thiumphant BB, the other 4 had transitioned to Desquesnes. So no, the BB yard theory is a bust.

Production of the Nouveau Paris class ceased in the 1890s, so no DNs were under construction in 1905; their yards must have also swapped over to SDs at that point. The design was seen as a "light Superdreadnought" when built, with it's use seen then to be interchangable with SDs. However, it was mentioned that as SD #s increased, the PRN might retire their "lighter Capital ships" early ( this is pre-war talk) for budgetary reasons. The BBs, however, would still be retained for internal security. (Obviously).

If you remember, the pRN later restarted DN construction mid war after it was determined that the only way to reduce the Manty Accel advantage, was smaller capital ships. What this class is, has not been mentioned to date.

Theemile wrote:According to Jaynes, in 1905, there were still 2 yards out if the original 6 building Thiumphant BB, the other 4 had transitioned to Desquesnes. So no, the BB yard theory is a bust.

Wait, what? They were building BBs in the 1900s? Whatever for?

I understand securing rear areas, but you don't need battleships for that. It's not like you have to fight someone with battlecruisers. From the previous discussion in this thread, the PRN used the BBs because they were there and it was useful to give them a second life while holding them in reserve.

But that doesn't align with building more. Yes, the RMN had a comparable number of BCs in service, but the war wouldn't be fought between BB and BC squadrons.

Production of the Nouveau Paris class ceased in the 1890s, so no DNs were under construction in 1905; their yards must have also swapped over to SDs at that point. The design was seen as a "light Superdreadnought" when built, with it's use seen then to be interchangable with SDs. However, it was mentioned that as SD #s increased, the PRN might retire their "lighter Capital ships" early ( this is pre-war talk) for budgetary reasons. The BBs, however, would still be retained for internal security. (Obviously).

Retain, yes. Build more, no. This paragraph makes a lot of sense and is what I would have expected. Build "light SDs" while you still need to, but then swap production for "real SDs" when you have the capacity to. That would even explain the Nouveau Paris class launch date, alongside my Hypothesis II.

If you remember, the pRN later restarted DN construction mid war after it was determined that the only way to reduce the Manty Accel advantage, was smaller capital ships. What this class is, has not been mentioned to date.

I didn't remember that. It smacks of desperation, since the SDs couldn't keep up with their Manticoran and Grayson counterparts in either acceleration or firepower. Trying to match acceleration with DNs doesn't solve the other. Though it's exactly what the SLN did a decade later: can't fight with SDs, so let's fight with BCs.

Which class it was doesn't matter. Likely was Nouveau Paris again since the PRH wouldn't have had the resources to design a new one at the time.

Fight somone with battlecruisers? In 1905? Why would Haven be worried about the RMN, who somewhat fetishized battlecruiser raids, conducting battlecruiser raids into Haven’s restive rear areas? I mean, it clearly makes no sense to consider that a serious possibility.

kzt wrote:Fight somone with battlecruisers? In 1905? Why would Haven be worried about the RMN, who somewhat fetishized battlecruiser raids, conducting battlecruiser raids into Haven’s restive rear areas? I mean, it clearly makes no sense to consider that a serious possibility.

That's my point. The war wasn't going to be conducted with BCs, so why did Haven build BBs?

In 1920 that would be a different story, when deep raids were part of the strategy book. Not in 1905. And not with the RMN almost entirely occupied with protecting its allies.

@ThinksMarkedly

You didn't put a time limit on the event occurring. My idea was to translate in on a very gentle downward descent way out. Accelerate up to maximum velocity and tube launch your missiles. Judging where everything will be in orbit is a relatively straight forward astrophysics problem.

Once you launch your missiles, you begin to brake and come to rest relative to the system. So what if it takes 10 months for the missiles to cost into the system? They've been launched with canned routines, told to look for very specifics targets. Your ships can sit way outside the system, watching with light speed sensors and gravitic sensors for what happens. The fleet could sit outside the system for a year without drawing attention as long as they're on zero emcon.

Once your missiles reach their attack range they light off. The destruction would be pretty significant, I'd expect. The shipyards, system defense structures, system defense missiles, offline forts... lots of legitimate targets that won't know it's coming until the missiles light up.

Even if you only do a fraction of the possible damage it's going to throw things into a huge mess. Again, time tables are difficult across interstellar distances but you know how long to get from A to B, you could throw an assault through the wormhole junction, with a significant portion of the forts down it's still going to be a hard row to hoe but it can be done. And you've got the fleet that was sitting outside the system coming in to help.

I'm pretty sure the notion of just plain c-frac strikes was brought up a long time ago. The odds of detecting something coming in were considered very small if it didn't emit any energy and wasn't large enough to occlude something major. So pretty much avoiding ecliptic and coming down on the target would do the trick. The big objection I recall for the c-frac strike was when something went wrong and you hit a planet instead.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

kzt wrote:Fight somone with battlecruisers? In 1905? Why would Haven be worried about the RMN, who somewhat fetishized battlecruiser raids, conducting battlecruiser raids into Haven’s restive rear areas? I mean, it clearly makes no sense to consider that a serious possibility.

That's my point. The war wasn't going to be conducted with BCs, so why did Haven build BBs?

In 1920 that would be a different story, when deep raids were part of the strategy book. Not in 1905. And not with the RMN almost entirely occupied with protecting its allies.

Kzt was being Scarcastic. The RMN at heart was still a BC navy, and had a history of the "sweeping BC Raids" ( to quote David Weber, not kzt.) It was their primary doctrine, to keep the opponent unbalanced with numerous independent BC operations in their rear, holding down enemy resources from reaching the front. The RMN had never fought said war, but it was part of their doctrine for centuries, and everyone knew it. And the best weapon to suppress enemy BCs? BBs.

Unfortunately for the RMN, it was a failed doctrine, especially when you have a prepared opponent.... Who just happens to field 450 BBs...

Also, the RMN was not Haven's only problem- Haven had swallowed 2-3 systems a year, for Decades. As a result, there were numerous "navies in exile" which they had had to dealt with over the years, some of which fielded BCs from their former navy; and at least one system and it's defense force which had gone rogue (with a BC) and had to be put down. BBs had large Marine sections which could be used to deal with rowdy citizens, so overwhelming quick reaction forces of BBs were seen as essential to the Republic's survival.

Fireflair wrote:@ThinksMarkedly

You didn't put a time limit on the event occurring. My idea was to translate in on a very gentle downward descent way out. Accelerate up to maximum velocity and tube launch your missiles. Judging where everything will be in orbit is a relatively straight forward astrophysics problem.

Once you launch your missiles, you begin to brake and come to rest relative to the system. So what if it takes 10 months for the missiles to cost into the system? They've been launched with canned routines, told to look for very specifics targets. Your ships can sit way outside the system, watching with light speed sensors and gravitic sensors for what happens. The fleet could sit outside the system for a year without drawing attention as long as they're on zero emcon.

Once your missiles reach their attack range they light off. The destruction would be pretty significant, I'd expect. The shipyards, system defense structures, system defense missiles, offline forts... lots of legitimate targets that won't know it's coming until the missiles light up.

Even if you only do a fraction of the possible damage it's going to throw things into a huge mess. Again, time tables are difficult across interstellar distances but you know how long to get from A to B, you could throw an assault through the wormhole junction, with a significant portion of the forts down it's still going to be a hard row to hoe but it can be done. And you've got the fleet that was sitting outside the system coming in to help.

I'm pretty sure the notion of just plain c-frac strikes was brought up a long time ago. The odds of detecting something coming in were considered very small if it didn't emit any energy and wasn't large enough to occlude something major. So pretty much avoiding ecliptic and coming down on the target would do the trick. The big objection I recall for the c-frac strike was when something went wrong and you hit a planet instead.

Like the Mesan attack on Manticore, you would need special missiles, not stock ones for what you suggest. Missiles are traditionally charged up in a ship's magazine just prior to launch, and are not designed to hold their charge for a long period.... Days, or low weeks would probably be pushing the limit of what the capacitor can hold. The Mesans used a bolt-on double pod, both to produce a particle shield to defend the missiles from particle wear from the duration coasting at speed in space for months, but also to hold enough energy to top off the missiles prior to launch.

C fractional strikes were discussed as far back as OBS iirc, Groups usually do not engage in them because if they fail to strike their target, and instead strike a planet, you would trigger an Eridani Edict incident, and all 10,000 SDs of the SLN will come knocking on your front door. So no one wanted to do anything to poke the sleeping 800lb gorillia, which even a hint of recklessness for civilian populations could do.

The Mesans did this because 1) they didn't care about the consequences, 2) they effectively controlled the SLN, 3) they are trying to destabilize the status quo anyway, 4) their endgame was the SLN and Manticore tusseling, and 5) Mesa was ready to be sacrificed to the greater goal. Any other sane combatant knew they had a responsibility to their country not to piss off the SLN by doing something stupid, so said attacks quickly came off the table.

In addition, this is why systems have dedicated gravitational detection arrays. The detectors can detect intrusions for light weeks or light months out from a star. The Mesan attack was seen to appear over 2 light months out, and was only ignored because they practiced a maneuver which imitated a sensor ghost, and their invisible drives allowed them to leave the emergence location unseen, or else the investigating Destroyers would have seen them. Manticore's system defense grab sensors are probably the best in the Universe, and can see a target 4 of more light months out, meaning a missile moving at .1c would need to travel for over 3 and a half YEARS to reach it's target unseen.

Really, in 1900 they should have just taken Baselisk and moved on. Outright, none of this pussy footing about.

Eventually trade would start flowing through it and they'd make more money.

They could have still used the excuse of war with Manticore to freeze the BLS, made some token attacks in that direction, and continued on to Silesia anyway.

Welcome to 2020, the year of looking backwards.

Jonathan_S wrote:

munroburton wrote:Wait a minute... Fourth Yeltsin showed us that Havenite-built SDs can annihilate four times their number of Havenite-built BBs with moderate losses. That DuQuesne-class has 12L & 12G in its broadside.

Key point - when the BBs are stupid enough to stray into energy range of the SDs. That was the whole point of Honor's tactics - because suckering them in was the only way she was likely to win. Even with refitted compensators on the SD a BB is sufficiently smaller it can at least slow the rate of closure to a crawl if it wants to - so the SD can't dictate the combat range.


BBs are missile heavy units and while they're nowhere near as tough as SDs, any RHN SD that tangled with 4 RHN BBs on the BB's terms (prolonged missile combat and never closing to energy range) is going to have a very bad day.

The DuQuesne's said to "break the modern Havenite doctrine of win the engagement in the first salvo" by reverting to a more conservative, balanced design. I don't think their BBs are really endurance units; they're meant to swarm in and win quickly against substantially inferior opponents, not peer competitors or superior opponents.

Fleets can only move as quickly as their slowest ship, which becomes a problem if the PN wall include DN/SDs or some of their BBs' impellers are damaged. Home Fleet taking similar impeller damage in return isn't as problematic for it, because damaged ships can be detached and allowed to fall back without being lost as a result. The pursued force does not have that luxury; it must go slower to protect its slow ships or abandon them.