Independent and Tramp Traders

Hello everyone, this is my first post on these forums. I checked but couldn't see a specific thread on this topic and would really appreciate it if your collective wisdom could shine some light on it for me.

Through the Honorverse series Weber has only made a couple of references to tramp or small-scale independent traders. Most of the interstellar trade focuses on massive cartels and freighters weighing in at millions of tons. Even what is designated a medium freighter, the Mandrake-class, has a mass of 4.5 million tons, and a crew of 450 (Source). This hardly seems within the grasp of a scrappy independent trader. At first I wrote this off that the Honorverse lacked any small-scale traders, but the text itself suggests that such people exist.

I imagine that the type of merchants operating in places like Silesia and Talbott before the integration were more often smaller-scale operators where the market was less stable and security less guaranteed. A big cartel is not likely interested in sending a 9 million ton vessel into a conflict zone, nor would the economies of some of these worlds (Dresden, Nuncio, etc.) warrant a ship of that size.

Do we have any information on the tonnage of freighters operated by tramp traders or smaller operators? What about crew size? Or general cost of those vessels?

I'm very curious on this topic in general. I'll hold off on further questions in case the response to this gives me the information I want.

I think I should point out that the source you linked is non-canonical. Some of it was assembled using existing text references, but other parts are fan assumptions/creations.

There was a comment about the average cost in one of the novels or SS set pirate hunting. It's enormous. Huge as in your mortgage payment on a 30 year note is so huge that a crew size between 20 and 500 is a pretty much a rounding error.

Ah, the Notorious list rears it's head again.....when it was imagined it was interesting, but the Honorverse facts have passed it by. Most merchies have a crew well under 100, unless they are passenger vessels.

Small merchants - 4 small merchies have been shown in some detail in the Honorverse Main line or semi-cannocial works.

The first was the ~ BC sized Hauptman liners. From the given text, they were in the 1-1,5 mton range, had a CA sized crew and armaments, carried 2-3,000 passengers, and cost more than a CA to operate. Definitely not a tramp ship, but a good look at a small passenger carrier.

The next is a 250,000 ton Pegasus liner from the semi-cannonical SITS game. It carried ~1000 passengers in 2nd and 3rd class cabins.

The 3 rd is from the short stories about Judith, a Masadian armed freighter stolen by he wives of it,s owner. Nondetail is really given, but it was definately a tramp.

The 4th definitely fits the definition of a Tramp. In Torch of Freedom, a Trampo freighter is used to inflitrate Mayan space to deliver and pick up Zilwicki and Cachet. Its dilipaded nature was not just cosmetic and it broke down in deep space for months. It was later used to deliver 2 Torch Frigates on a commando raid. I don't believe it's size was ever given, but it most likely massed between .5 and 1.5 mtons, and with around a dozen people onboard for 6 months, living conditions were consided cramped.

The book mentioned that such ships were often manned and owned by extended family units.

Theemile wrote:Ah, the Notorious list rears it's head again.....when it was imagined it was interesting, but the Honorverse facts have passed it by. Most merchies have a crew well under 100, unless they are passenger vessels.

Small merchants - 4 small merchies have been shown in some detail in the Honorverse Main line or semi-cannocial works.

The first was the ~ BC sized Hauptman liners. From the given text, they were in the 1-1,5 mton range, had a CA sized crew and armaments, carried 2-3,000 passengers, and cost more than a CA to operate. Definitely not a tramp ship, but a good look at a small passenger carrier.

The next is a 250,000 ton Pegasus liner from the semi-cannonical SITS game. It carried ~1000 passengers in 2nd and 3rd class cabins.

The 3 rd is from the short stories about Judith, a Masadian armed freighter stolen by he wives of it,s owner. Nondetail is really given, but it was definately a tramp.

The 4th definitely fits the definition of a Tramp. In Torch of Freedom, a Trampo freighter is used to inflitrate Mayan space to deliver and pick up Zilwicki and Cachet. Its dilipaded nature was not just cosmetic and it broke down in deep space for months. It was later used to deliver 2 Torch Frigates on a commando raid. I don't believe it's size was ever given, but it most likely massed between .5 and 1.5 mtons, and with around a dozen people onboard for 6 months, living conditions were consided cramped.

The book mentioned that such ships were often manned and owned by extended family units.

The Hali Sowle was a one million ton tramp freighter:

Torch of Freedom, Chapter 63 wrote:This was the first time the two of them had ever been alone, since they met on the tarmac of the spaceport. The months they'd spent since their escape from Mesa drifting on the Hali Sowle had been the equivalent of months spent in the most densely populated apartment in creation. You'd think that a freighter massing slightly over a million tons would have enormous empty reaches, but . . . it didn't. Or, rather, it did . . . but it was a working commercial vessel, nothing more. Despite the capaciousness of its huge cargo holds, the living quarters were small and Spartan.

Italics are the author's, boldface is my emphasis.

Simply given the large number of worlds and stations inhabited would require various levels of shipping. Some places may only need a small freighter coming in every few months to supply what trade they need.

Theemile wrote:The 3 rd is from the short stories about Judith, a Masadian armed freighter stolen by he wives of it,s owner. Nondetail is really given, but it was definately a tramp.

There is a brief look at another small/family freighter in a flashback in that story from when Judith was first captured by Templeton. No size was given, but there were less than a dozen family/crew mentioned.

Theemile wrote:The 4th definitely fits the definition of a Tramp. In Torch of Freedom, a Trampo freighter is used to inflitrate Mayan space to deliver and pick up Zilwicki and Cachet.

IIRC, the Halle Sowle was 1 Mton tramp freighter. She was acquired by the Biological Survey Corps (Beowulf special forces) and given to Ganny El & family to insert and extract Z&C from Mesa -- not Maya. Total crew was five or six (not including the six passengers.)

We've also seen Adm Bachfisch's Pirate's Bane (and by implication her twin Ambuscade) which are former IAN fleet support ships; they mass around 4 MTon IIRC. Crew on Pirate's Bane was around 20-30.

We've also seen the Solarian freighter rescued from the PNE at Nuncio. Specs were given for the "camelback" type, and crew complement was also given. I don't recall any specifics on that one, though. My impression is that crew size was under 100.

Theemile wrote:Ah, the Notorious list rears it's head again.....when it was imagined it was interesting, but the Honorverse facts have passed it by. Most merchies have a crew well under 100, unless they are passenger vessels.

Small merchants - 4 small merchies have been shown in some detail in the Honorverse Main line or semi-cannocial works.

The first was the ~ BC sized Hauptman liners. From the given text, they were in the 1-1,5 mton range, had a CA sized crew and armaments, carried 2-3,000 passengers, and cost more than a CA to operate. Definitely not a tramp ship, but a good look at a small passenger carrier.

The next is a 250,000 ton Pegasus liner from the semi-cannonical SITS game. It carried ~1000 passengers in 2nd and 3rd class cabins.

The 3 rd is from the short stories about Judith, a Masadian armed freighter stolen by he wives of it,s owner. Nondetail is really given, but it was definately a tramp.

The 4th definitely fits the definition of a Tramp. In Torch of Freedom, a Trampo freighter is used to inflitrate Mayan space to deliver and pick up Zilwicki and Cachet. Its dilipaded nature was not just cosmetic and it broke down in deep space for months. It was later used to deliver 2 Torch Frigates on a commando raid. I don't believe it's size was ever given, but it most likely massed between .5 and 1.5 mtons, and with around a dozen people onboard for 6 months, living conditions were consided cramped.

The book mentioned that such ships were often manned and owned by extended family units.

For that mater there are hints that even fairly big merchants (6 mtons) carry small crews. The Haupman lines freighter Bonaventure, captured in the prolog of Honor Among Enemies was able to evacuate her entire crew (less Captain and Exec) on a single one of her cargo shuttles. Those things are big; but they're not life support for 500+ big

Though there is the mention in In Enemy Hands (when discussing the Joint Navy Military Transport Command smaller fast freighters) that "a four million-ton ship required the same crew and very nearly the same fuel and maintenance costs as an eight million-ton vessel"

OTOH as pointed out the crew sizes are nowhere near what the original poster was erroneously led to believe. You just don't need all that many crew on a ship that's mostly cargo holds.

Weird Harold wrote:We've also seen Adm Bachfisch's Pirate's Bane (and by implication her twin Ambuscade) which are former IAN fleet support ships; they mass around 4 MTon IIRC. Crew on Pirate's Bane was around 20-30.

That seemed low to me. I dug through HAE and found the report of when the damaged Pirate's Bane arrived at Sidemore. During that fight she suffered 11 KIA + 19 WIA - so there's a hard floor of 30 (assuming 100% casualties) and I got the impression that that was less than half her total crew as casualties.

Frankly given the crew needed to man her weapons, over and above the normal merchant crewmen, I'd be surprised if she carried less than 70-80 men.

It's been said somewhere by David that manticoran freighters have crews of maybe 20 while Typical SL freighters have more like 50. Given the overhead cost of running the freighter and paying off the note on the ship the difference in crew size has very little impact on operating cost unless you assume they are paid exorbitant salaries.

The rescued freighter in SoS was a Dromedary class named IIRC Emerald Dawn and had a crew of at least 30. Now as to crew on a merchant freighter DW is probably under stating the number by 20-30%. Now at a minimum you will have on a ship.
CO
XO/1st Officer
Nav/2nd Officer
Asst.Nav/3rd Officer (optional)
Comm/4th Officer
Purser ships supply officer and accountant
Cargo Master
6-10 able spacemen to handle helm on watch and do ships non-engineering general maintenance and assist in galley.
Chief Engineer
Assistant Engineer x 2
6-10 engineering ratings