1924 PD - Rebuilding the Solarian League Navy

Theemile wrote:I believe this can be summed up in 2 statements

1) Some assembly required (and some products need more than others)

2) Not all Nanites are equal (Different Nanite technologies are required to build different output technologies.)

Hmm.. Succinct and reasonable.

Or, 'Scotty, activate the doubletalk drive!'

Theemile wrote:I believe this can be summed up in 2 statements

1) Some assembly required (and some products need more than others)

2) Not all Nanites are equal (Different Nanite technologies are required to build different output technologies.)

Joat42 wrote:Hmm.. Succinct and reasonable.

kzt wrote:Or, 'Scotty, activate the doubletalk drive!'

There are things that sound like double-talk, but still contain a kernel of truth. My favorite one comes from the character Sphinx in the movie Mystery Men:

To learn my teachings,
I must first teach you to learn.

kzt wrote:Or, 'Scotty, activate the doubletalk drive!'

Your statement equates to "I believe there is nothing different between manufacturing civilian and milspec components and how they are assembled into a ship".

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:But those Shrikes were not capable of being produced in horrendous numbers, in the tens of thousands.

Remember, the SLN is a G I A N T that is no longer sleeping.

Think twenty to thirty thousand Shrikes.

Actually Shrikes almost assuredly were build in at least the (low) tens of thousands.

Just filling the LAC bays of the 148 CLACs listed in House of Steel would require 16,648 LACs. And that doesn't count spares, replacements for LACs lost in combat, LACs assigned to all the system defense LAC bases, etc. etc. etc. - And production of CLACs continued past that point (heck for Hydra it just says 94+)

Manticore and Grayson probably built at least 50,000 LACs and probably over 1/3rd of those were Shrikes.



Still, your point that the League could afford to build many many times as many is true. You were simply out a couple orders of magnitude in the number

cthia wrote:Thanks for that!

I thought I was insane thinking the SL could produce LAC numbers in the 200k range. What's more is I thought all of you would think I was insane to think such a thing, so I pulled the punch on my post, so to speak.

My thinking was that the SL could easily produce ten times as many LACs as the GA on a bad day. And if the SL were to concentrate its efforts on building LACs only, that number should double or even triple. So, even if Honor did the math, those numbers would top off at around 2,000,000+ LACs!

Are Honor's numbers reasonable?

And if these LACs equal the Shrike design, that is a lot of hurt to another Navy.

One tactic the SL could adopt that was almost unused and unsuccessful in the LAC arena is LACs operating in pairs during dogfights. "I'm not leaving my wingman." Dogfighting originated in the Sol system. I think the RMN adopted some form of it initially, but later abandoned the tactic for reasons I can't recall. But I see no reason the SL cannot come up with some sort of tactical improvement on the LAC design overlooked by Haven and Manticore.

Question: Did Grayson ever produce a LAC? I do not recall that they did, which would be odd since the smaller powerplant is a Grayson design.

Dogfighting and Synchronized flying

In thinking about this more, if the SL can produce numbers of effective-Lacs in the 2M+ range, then they can afford to take dogfighting to the next level. They have the dogfighting numbers.

Dogfighting originated in the Sol system, and I am pretty damn sure Navy Weapons Fighter School(s) can still teach the galaxy a thing or two about dogfighting. Especially since the numbers are there. Original dogfighting utilizes a pair, or pairs, of fighters. I can't exactly recall why the RMN abandoned dogfighting, but I'd guess they didn't have the numbers to afford utilizing pairs of fighters.

What is a pair of fighters called anyway, a strike force/group?

But the SLN can definitely afford to allocate groups of two dogfighters. They can even allocate groups of four LACs as a dogfighting group. Eight LAC packs rather mimic groups of Apollo missiles.

And in the HV, AI and automation can easily slave LAC groups together so they can fly as a single synchronized unit. With perfect synchronization, a group of LACs can be made to appear as one LAC. So the trailing LACs are protected from missile fire by its leader. That tactic ought to make final attack runs deadly.*

Frankly, first time through the novels I thought I had figured out where the author was heading on this matter, but I was wrong. The reason I asked if Grayson ever produced a LAC was because Grayson produced the smaller power plant. So it seemed fitting that Grayson would produce its own LAC designs. I am not talking about simply building LACs, but designing them.

Now back to where I thought the author was headed with that. Well, I always thought that Grayson would not only design a LAC that was superior to RMN LACs but that they would design it with dogfighting in mind. I thought Grayson would development LAC dogfighting tactics to go along with this LAC design ...

The Swords of Damocles?

I was looking for them to make an appearance in the books, but they never did.

*Can a group of four LACs form up in such a fashion that one of the LACs is being towed by the other three?

cthia wrote:Dogfighting and Synchronized flying

In thinking about this more, if the SL can produce numbers of effective-Lacs in the 2M+ range, then they can afford to take dogfighting to the next level. They have the dogfighting numbers.

Dogfighting originated in the Sol system, and I am pretty damn sure Navy Weapons Fighter School(s) can still teach the galaxy a thing or two about dogfighting. Especially since the numbers are there. Original dogfighting utilizes a pair, or pairs, of fighters. I can't exactly recall why the RMN abandoned dogfighting, but I'd guess they didn't have the numbers to afford utilizing pairs of fighters.

I do not want to be too definite about this, since I am going by memory; but I thought he author was emphatic that LACs were NOT dogfighters and never would be.

tlb wrote:I do not want to be too definite about this, since I am going by memory; but I thought he author was emphatic that LACs where NOT dogfighters and never would be.

Though House of Steel referes to the Grayson designed Katana as a "space-superiority fighter with enhanced dogfighting capabilities"

Though it wouldn't engage in dogfights the way a fighter jet, or a Star Wars X-Wing would.

That kind of turning engagement requires the ability to change heading more quickly than you can change speed. A jet might spend 10 minutes at full military throttle and still be able to pull a 180 in just a handful of seconds. A LAC that spent 10 minutes accelerating at full power would require 20 minutes to make that same 180 degree change in vector. (And would actually take even longer if it made a wide sweeping turn; as opposed to just flipping end for end)

Without any medium to use to conserve and redirect existing momentum (like a car can with the ground, a boat with the water, or a plane with the air) a spacecraft can only change its vector by using the exact same engines to first cancel out and then rebuild the vector they already created. (X-Wings and other Star Wars ships "cheat" because Lucas wanted WWII dogfights in space so they invented technobabble, the etheric rudder, to let them make turns just like they were in atmosphere)

The closest a spaceship can get to that is making a gravity assisted turn around a planetary object. But those are rarely where you need to be in Honorverse combat -- and at the velocities the ships routinely achieve don't have much effect anyway. (Even Jupiter's ~25m/s^2 is basically nothing against a LAC that can pull over 6,250m/s^2)

Jonathan_S wrote:Though House of Steel referes to the Grayson designed Katana as a "space-superiority fighter with enhanced dogfighting capabilities"

Though it wouldn't engage in dogfights the way a fighter jet, or a Star Wars X-Wing would.

So LAC on LAC combat is either going to old style age of sail where the LAC formations angle towards each other on roughly parallel courses (so their closing velocities are low enough to be quickly canceled, even if their forward velocity is high) -- or else knights jousting where they fly at each other, quickly blow through their mutual engagement ranges and the have to slow down, reverse course, and charge again.

You can jink around or you can try to interpose your wedge -- but you can't get into a turning dogfight. The physics simply don't allow it.



And while LAC wings do adopt formations they tend to be optimized to provide the best overlapping defensive fire, while leaving room to jink around. They don't have to worry about other LACs getting on their tail -- just on surviving the fire coming their way. And the best way to do that is to spread enough that every LAC can engage any missile sent the formation's way.

So those are more spread out formations, not LACs tucked in close, partially (or fully) behind their leader.

Having watched the way LACs are being used, both in pure System Defense or in the Fleet engagements, the weapons ranges don't really let you work Dogfighting in the WW I though present airborne combat. Your using missiles at really long distances and when your down to energy range (of other LACs) it's mostly variations of passing engagements- still at long range.

The mode for System Defense etc is more on the line of PT-Boats. You are engaging warships way above your weight with missile and then using their stealth and speed and maneuverability to avoid or pick off what is thrown their way. Against a merchant ship it is not quite murder but unless you are working against a heavily armed Q-Ship, even an armed auxiliary (other than the new FSVs) it is some variation of swarm and shoot the crap out of them. Sure, they can go up against other LACs but, again, it's range of your offensive weapons against theirs plus better ECM and CMs

Exactly like PT-Boats. You can -in sufficient numbers- cripple or kill a much larger warship but they also have the tactic which we have seen so many times as being a way to cut down the volume of what your warship opponents are shooting at your warships so your people have fewer missiles to deal with with CM and short range energy defence clusters.

Make it expensive enough to try and close into a system and the other side has to closely weigh their chances. Hitting LACs (RMN or RHN) is hard.

LAC's have 100% of their offensive/defensive firepower fore/aft. Weak sidewalls relative to bow/stern. Sensors/ECM sidewalls as well as fore/aft... yes. Still secondary consideration.

Opposite that of regular warships. In HV, regular warships generally have to turn broadside to engage. Therefore "line of battle", even for cruisers still works using their BROADSIDES to give supporting defensive fire.

LAC defensive fire for mutual support is opposite cruisers-->SD's. A LAC formation, be it manned or unmanned would by necessity have their broadsides as close to one another as possible with all BOW's pointed at incoming fire to better defend against their weak aspects using their wedges while giving mutual overlapping defensive fire at incoming targets where the LAC on the VERY end of this line abreast, would probably have its wedge tilted one direction or the other and spinning to block. We are told LAC's also have "ghost rider" drones IIRC but, that has never been seen since Ashes of Victory so... Not sure if that has been written out or not.

So, LAC's still act like Bigger warships, just oriented in opposite directions and NOT like the analogous air breathing fighter.

That being said, unmanned LAC's, or partially/optionally manned/droned LAC's just seem obvious due to their defensive fire orientation, and acting as fleet defense. This orientation(abreast instead of in-line) giving EASY Line of Sight LASER based communication channels through their broadsides, eliminates the need for communications around wedges. This allows a SINGLE manned LAC could coordinate at least the 2 LAC's on either broadside at minimum if not more.