New Freighter Design.

Or retrofit...

Taking a page from the SD(P) / BCL, how about mounting on one side of a freighter a frigate / dispatch boat. It will take up a tiny amount of space compared to the whole freighter. Could be unarmed with a good compensator and enough space for the freighter crew. Think slavers would want to do this too. Fast run to hyper limit then blast in hyper... Lose the freighter keep the crew instead of losing both.

Could mount one like a keyhole on one side. 50-60 kilotons out of a 1-8 megaton ship is almost nothing. Might never be used. It makes for a much better escape means if one is needed than a shuttle or a LAC. One could even disable the freighter and run for help. Blow the hyper drive and the freighter isn't going anywhere. Come back with anything from a Roland to a Nike and the freighter either is going to be there of have been destroyed.

Surely this is better than trying to make a Q ship or lose a crew, for GA anyway. A true life boat.

Lord Skimper wrote:Or retrofit...

Taking a page from the SD(P) / BCL, how about mounting on one side of a freighter a frigate / dispatch boat. It will take up a tiny amount of space compared to the whole freighter. Could be unarmed with a good compensator and enough space for the freighter crew. Think slavers would want to do this too. Fast run to hyper limit then blast in hyper... Lose the freighter keep the crew instead of losing both.

Could mount one like a keyhole on one side. 50-60 kilotons out of a 1-8 megaton ship is almost nothing. Might never be used. It makes for a much better escape means if one is needed than a shuttle or a LAC. One could even disable the freighter and run for help. Blow the hyper drive and the freighter isn't going anywhere. Come back with anything from a Roland to a Nike and the freighter either is going to be there of have been destroyed.

Surely this is better than trying to make a Q ship or lose a crew, for GA anyway. A true life boat.

That seems rather expensive. I don't see any reason why you couldn't do it except the cost. You would have to have an awfully good profit margin on your cargoes to be able to afford it, and the probability that you will need it would be extremely low unless you were traveling in very hazardous territory. And much of the time, even a dispatch boat isn't going to let you get away.

By the time you could possibly get back with a Roland or a Nike, your ship is gone for sure. Pirates wouldn't be operating in a system with a Roland or a Nike. By the time you get back from another system with a Roland or Nike, weeks will have passed.

Commercial shippers barely $break even$ as it is...or run very slim profit margins. Changing the already dynamic profit equation to include unnecessary additional safety systems means less profit for the outfit.

Merchant shipping is about as bare bones as it can possibly be and still somewhat consider the welfare of the crews. A competitor without the "hyper lifeboats" can ship stuff cheaper than you can. Thus the rub.

The system gravitates, (pun intended) to the least expensive method of transport. Kinda like the over the road trucking industry in the USA. Extremely competitive. HB of CJ (old coot) Lt.Cm. (ex trucker)

However...your idea does have merit. Especially in the coming dark ages. Technology is the key .... if somebody can figure out how to better protect merchant crews AND still turn a profit, they will prosper.

Or you could limpet a few LACs to the Freighter as escort. The main time a freighter is attacked by a raider is when said freighter has emerged from hyper and is headed in system. A few LACs who go to battle stations just before translation and detach to escort the freighter in system. You don't have to assign a DD to escort as the freighters carry the LACs. Almost all raiders are older cruisers, destroyers or frigates that should be a fair match for a few LACs. Send along a Katana to defend the freighter and Shrikes/Ferrets to take care of the bad guys. For areas of high threat of military ships attacking freighters, you would still rely on full on escorts. But for areas where the main threat is raiders, then this frees the aforementioned escorts for the high threat areas.

If you had a LAC size pod as a docking pad for each LAC, you could have some basic support as well. Say two tractor beams to latch onto the freighter and graples for the LAC. Some spare parts storage and a few extra missiles for reloading while the freighter is off loading at the planet. A few marines to man the pod and discourage said freighter crew from enriching themselves with some shiny LACs. A little bit more of living space for the crews to spread out and you have a relatively cheap method of escorting freighters who are going into dangerous territory without spreading out your limited supply of DDs everywhere.

Who then pays for the LAC escorts? Eventually the cost gets paid for by the consumer or end user; in the case of the Manties, it results in a swollen fleet presents protecting merchant shipping.

Very large commercial transports run with very small crews. For a 8 million ton freighter, the crew may be as small as about 20 or so? LACS seem to run with about 10-15 man crews? A yery expensive escort.

When you add in all operating costs, (plus insurance) you can see where one quickly gets to the point where there CAN NOT be a profit margin with Manti shipping. Somebody else will do it $better for less$.

Thus the rub. If future science fiction commercial transport economic operating models are even somewhat like todays USA heavy trucking industry, you gotta run lean and mean. EVERY $cost$ is considered.

HB of CJ (old coot) Lt.Cm.

HB of CJ wrote:Who then pays for the LAC escorts? Eventually the cost gets paid for by the consumer or end user; in the case of the Manties, it results in a swollen fleet presents protecting merchant shipping.

Very large commercial transports run with very small crews. For a 8 million ton freighter, the crew may be as small as about 20 or so? LACS seem to run with about 10-15 man crews? A yery expensive escort.

When you add in all operating costs, (plus insurance) you can see where one quickly gets to the point where there CAN NOT be a profit margin with Manti shipping. Somebody else will do it $better for less$.

Thus the rub. If future science fiction commercial transport economic operating models are even somewhat like todays USA heavy trucking industry, you gotta run lean and mean. EVERY $cost$ is considered.

HB of CJ (old coot) Lt.Cm.

The government is already providing cruisers and DDs for escorts. For areas of a low threat of military raiders, using LACs vs regular raiders frees up the DDs and cruisers for other duties. As for why the government would pay for it, why did they send Honor to Silesia with the Q-ships? To protect the nation's commerce to keep the life blood of maritime trade flowing on which Manticore relies. On convoys of sufficiently large freighters, you might be able to limpet enough LACs to send them into areas where military raiders might appear as well.

Kizarvexis wrote:The government is already providing cruisers and DDs for escorts. For areas of a low threat of military raiders, using LACs vs regular raiders frees up the DDs and cruisers for other duties. As for why the government would pay for it, why did they send Honor to Silesia with the Q-ships? To protect the nation's commerce to keep the life blood of maritime trade flowing on which Manticore relies. On convoys of sufficiently large freighters, you might be able to limpet enough LACs to send them into areas where military raiders might appear as well.

No, military raiders will simply destroy the convoy with long range missile fire. LACs offer no real counter to a BC squadron, as BCs have much deeper missile magazines than LAC CM magazines.

kzt wrote:No, military raiders will simply destroy the convoy with long range missile fire. LACs offer no real counter to a BC squadron, as BCs have much deeper missile magazines than LAC CM magazines.

And any smaller than a CA would suffer the same problem. As Honor discovered in Silesia, if someone is committing significant assets to commerce raiding, it is going to be a challenge until sufficient heavy forces are committed to neutralizing them. The point of the escort - whether it be LAC, destroyer, or light cruiser - is to handle the routine problems in commerce protection, and compel an attacker to devote relatively substantial resources to defeat that protection.

Perhaps, in the end view, the Honorverse merchant commercial transport economic theory is not valid. Somebody eventually has to pay for all the military required infrastructure needed to shotgun merchant commercial shipping.

What this means is that somebody else's merchant marine will be able to undercut Manti shipping costs. This gravitates to eventually a socialist fascist situation where big business and big government work hand in hand.

Not good. Manti bottoms only protected by the Manti navy? Eventually Grand Alliance bottoms protected by GA fleets? Economy in scale? That actually might work OK...but only for awhile. Capitalism at its best is still best.

History shows that any other option just does not work. HB of CJ (old coot) Lt.Cm.

Kizarvexis wrote:The government is already providing cruisers and DDs for escorts. For areas of a low threat of military raiders, using LACs vs regular raiders frees up the DDs and cruisers for other duties. As for why the government would pay for it, why did they send Honor to Silesia with the Q-ships? To protect the nation's commerce to keep the life blood of maritime trade flowing on which Manticore relies. On convoys of sufficiently large freighters, you might be able to limpet enough LACs to send them into areas where military raiders might appear as well.

They sometimes, when they have them available, send warships to the highest risk areas. But even then they aren't escorting all the merchant ships.

Normally it seems even warships in a high piracy risk area, like Silesia was, prefer to pick likely systems and use their stealth to sit and wait for a pirate to show up. Rather than waste 90% of their time in hyper escorting merchants from port to port.

About the only times we've seen convoys they've been diplomatic escorts (Honor of the Queen), Military supply shipments (Short Victorious War, In Enemy Hands), ad-hoc and politically driven (Hawkwing in Honor Among Enemies), or desperation (Wayfairer in Honor Among Enemies).
So there don't appear to be a bunch of convoy escorts to free up.