New Manty ship ideas.

I'm not saying a modular ship would be better than current propose made designs, it just is that during a war everyone wants a SD and any other ship is a compromise. Not counting CLAC's.

During peace a SD is the last thing one wants. Why send 2000 to do a job that 200 can do.

Civilian ships are needed but during a war they get in the way and require resources best used else where. They are also very vulnerable.

During peace essential, without civilian ship your hooped.

With modular ships you get a ship that the best of both without long refit times. They will only be 90+% as good, but they will cut your war prep time down to months instead of years or decades.

Modular ships also have the ability to upgrade without being withdrawn from service for extended refits. With a modular "keel" or skeleton even if it is damaged it can detach its existing modules for attachment to a new skeleton.
Keeping the ship in service while servicing the core or keel or skeleton of the ship.

Plus any upgrades, like pods or LAC carrying, or streak drivesdrives, new plots, staterooms, bigger missiles, ... Can be carried out without effecting the ship until the week it is brought to they yard or when the upgraded modules are brought to the ship. Not having to return home to be upgraded would be ideal in many circumstance.

As for damage if you have 12 of 16 SD that have taken minor to moderate damage, and you are modular you may be able to swap modules, such that you send 4 heavily damaged ships back but leave 12 on location in mint condition. Those 4 that go back, if their cores are undamaged could meet another group of 8 damaged traditional ships, heading back for repair, while escorting 17 freighter's each having an undamaged SD module they are transporting. Meeting up, repair the 4 Damaged SD's, and take the damaged modules back for replacement, repair and have those 4 SD return as the best ships in their group. Now having the latest and greatest modules...

As said above the hatch is too small or there is just one. This is a refit or a new ship having to be made. If it was just a module it could be designed deployed, have faults found and remade and redeployed before a single new ship could be made and tested and fail.

Modular may not be the best one on one, but it is the best for development, deployment and for maintaining both peace and war. Plus being able to turn any large freighter into a full on SD in a week, or a CLAC, or a small or tramp freighter into a DD, CA or BC and then turn it back and have it full of cargo in a month will make all the difference.

Lord Skimper wrote:Modular may not be the best one on one, but it is the best for development, deployment and for maintaining both peace and war. Plus being able to turn any large freighter into a full on SD in a week, or a CLAC, or a small or tramp freighter into a DD, CA or BC and then turn it back and have it full of cargo in a month will make all the difference.

Except that the modular frame based freighters will be much more expensive, have bigger crews, have higher running costs, and carry less cargo than even military/Streak drive equipped conventional freighters (and look how popular those aren't). Not to mention that having your convoys look like an invasion force of SDs will make them decidedly unpopular with other star nations as well.

Grashtel wrote:

Lord Skimper wrote:Modular may not be the best one on one, but it is the best for development, deployment and for maintaining both peace and war. Plus being able to turn any large freighter into a full on SD in a week, or a CLAC, or a small or tramp freighter into a DD, CA or BC and then turn it back and have it full of cargo in a month will make all the difference.

Except that the modular frame based freighters will be much more expensive, have bigger crews, have higher running costs, and carry less cargo than even military/Streak drive equipped conventional freighters (and look how popular those aren't). Not to mention that having your convoys look like an invasion force of SDs will make them decidedly unpopular with other star nations as well.

It is just the skeleton of an SD. It wont look like an SD. It will cost more, than a freighter but it will cost less than a freighter and an SD. Also cost savings will be found in the quicker turn around and loading unloading of cargos.

As a freighter it will have a freighter wedge and compensator in a freighter node wedge and compensator module. In SD mode it will exchange that for an SD module with SD nodes and compensator. Having military modules laying around willnt be a problem, as you will have lots and lots of freight modules about too All outside the limit or around the terminus.

As an added benefit you can maintain trade without letting otherwise use the terminus. Just like having truck semi or articulated trailers that you hook up to, only in this case the engines and wheels are modular to. Your civilian cab and sleeping box is to military spec. But other than the NBC protection and armour, fancy guages and emp computer protection it is just like every other truck out there till you pull into a yard unhook your trailer, lift your cab onto a 6 or 8 wheel drive frame with military engine, and hook up to a military trailer.

Obviously space ships are not trucks, so the analogy breaks down but it will help you visualise it. The long haul trucker doesn't deliver the goods in the trailer to individual stores, that is the job of the city truckers. Like wise the freighters would dropoff outside the hyper limit and let tugs ferry the modules in to the system.

Modules can be of any snap and any size as long as they fit the modular standardized frame. There they will be specific and always the same. The frame will be strong enough for an armoured SD module, with hatches and grazers, sensors and the quarters and command decks. The skeleton frame will have much better plots and be more expensive than any other freighter, but instead of spending a week or a month or in a queue waiting to dock and unload, it could just drop a quick sever module of cargo and be back in hyper in hours to a day. Just like dropping off a trailer and picking up another, no waiting around.

The first run of such a ship could be a tug/docking module for ferrying such modules from outside the hyper limit.

Think of the Enterprise in star trek next generation. The whole saucer detached. This would of course be different but instead of just one saucer you could have many different designs and versions, cargo saucer, command saucer, warship saucer. From the battle bridge a freighter with a cargo saucer would be different from the saucer command bridge.

Take this to the next step honourverse step.

A SD is a densely packed honeycomb of armored compartments filled with weapons, ammo, defensive systems, and other miscellanea of war. A freighter is a handful of unarmored wide open spaces connected to an inexpensive, easy to operate drive. Converting between either modes means replacing a truly massive amount of ship (I would hazard a guess that it's north of 90%). At that point, you might as well just build the ship from the keel out as one type and not deal with the headaches of trying to merge two incompatible sets of requirements.

Second, warships are built to much higher structural requirements than freighters. Freighters aren't designed to get into pummeling matches with other ships. A modular design must be weaker in comparison to a ship with a solid frame.

Lord Skimper wrote:
As an added benefit you can maintain trade without letting otherwise use the terminus. Just like having truck semi or articulated trailers that you hook up to, only in this case the engines and wheels are modular to. Your civilian cab and sleeping box is to military spec. But other than the NBC protection and armour, fancy guages and emp computer protection it is just like every other truck out there till you pull into a yard unhook your trailer, lift your cab onto a 6 or 8 wheel drive frame with military engine, and hook up to a military trailer.

As others have pointed out, the underlying structure between a warship and a freighter is just too different to be able to slap modules on and call it a day. Using your analogy, you don't see the US Army taking a tractor-trailer frame and strapping on a 120mm cannon and armor and calling it a tank!

Things aren't as simple as "build skeleton, put on engine, profit!". There's a reason technology is so meticulously designed. Even within the same type of vehicle, parts have to mesh for the vehicle to work properly... unless you think there's no performance difference between a Ferrari and a Honda Civic?

Who will own these modular ships when they are in civilian guise? Assuming that the economy of the Honorverse is similar to the economy of today, there is no way any owner of a freight line will willing operate a ship that is not the most efficient ship for it's purpose. If a modular ship is not as efficient a freight hauler as a purpose design ship then it will inevitably have a higher operating cost. This will mean that it will have a lower profit margin or be not cost effective at hauling freight. So who will operate these modular ships in freighter mode?

Alain686 wrote:Who will own these modular ships when they are in civilian guise? Assuming that the economy of the Honorverse is similar to the economy of today, there is no way any owner of a freight line will willing operate a ship that is not the most efficient ship for it's purpose. If a modular ship is not as efficient a freight hauler as a purpose design ship then it will inevitably have a higher operating cost. This will mean that it will have a lower profit margin or be not cost effective at hauling freight. So who will operate these modular ships in freighter mode?

More expensive but with a grant from the government and tax reduction or elimination. If you lease the ship from the government except in military actions it would be to the 'owners' benefit to lease such a ship. In military actions either the crew who uses it in civilian times, if commissioned for military, they would either command the ship with additional personal, or operate aspart of the crew under the command of a superior.

Best to have a fleet on stand by with minimal time to get rready for conflict or actions. Then to have to build a fleet for years while your enemy does the same. In the end if given enough time and s big enough budget you would do better with purpose built ships.

As world war one and two proved. Having the best ships is good having more ships is best. In the honorverse the wait for more SD purpose built ships is only giving the enemies more time to build there own ships and to equalize the technology divide.

tachnyrus wrote:

Lord Skimper wrote:
As an added benefit you can maintain trade without letting otherwise use the terminus. Just like having truck semi or articulated trailers that you hook up to, only in this case the engines and wheels are modular to. Your civilian cab and sleeping box is to military spec. But other than the NBC protection and armour, fancy guages and emp computer protection it is just like every other truck out there till you pull into a yard unhook your trailer, lift your cab onto a 6 or 8 wheel drive frame with military engine, and hook up to a military trailer.

As others have pointed out, the underlying structure between a warship and a freighter is just too different to be able to slap modules on and call it a day. Using your analogy, you don't see the US Army taking a tractor-trailer frame and strapping on a 120mm cannon and armor and calling it a tank!

Things aren't as simple as "build skeleton, put on engine, profit!". There's a reason technology is so meticulously designed. Even within the same type of vehicle, parts have to mesh for the vehicle to work properly... unless you think there's no performance difference between a Ferrari and a Honda Civic?

You don't see this because there are no dedicated semi tank trucks in the military. Truck was only used as an example of a modular vehicle.

Take the panther class car from Ford. It can be a taxi or a police car. Different body arrangement for different purposes. The same frame, although the police version has a heavier duty frame.
The same frame could be used for both cars but just changing a body would convert the taxi to a police car and vice versa. Why would you want to? I don't know but you could. In the honourverse it is a little bit more straight forward. War & Peace.

Lord Skimper wrote:You don't see this because there are no dedicated semi tank trucks in the military. Truck was only used as an example of a modular vehicle.

There's a reason there aren't any dedicated semi-tank trucks in the military. They don't work well in either role.

Take the panther class car from Ford. It can be a taxi or a police car. Different body arrangement for different purposes. The same frame, although the police version has a heavier duty frame.
The same frame could be used for both cars but just changing a body would convert the taxi to a police car and vice versa. Why would you want to? I don't know but you could. In the honourverse it is a little bit more straight forward. War & Peace.

More straightforward? Changing a modular freighter into a modular superdreadnought is not like changing a taxi into a police car. It is like changing a taxi into a tank.

You don't seem to understand how different a dedicated warship is from a merchant ship.

More expensive but with a grant from the government and tax reduction or elimination. If you lease the ship from the government except in military actions it would be to the 'owners' benefit to lease such a ship. In military actions either the crew who uses it in civilian times, if commissioned for military, they would either command the ship with additional personal, or operate aspart of the crew under the command of a superior.

Best to have a fleet on stand by with minimal time to get rready for conflict or actions. Then to have to build a fleet for years while your enemy does the same. In the end if given enough time and s big enough budget you would do better with purpose built ships.

As world war one and two proved. Having the best ships is good having more ships is best. In the honorverse the wait for more SD purpose built ships is only giving the enemies more time to build there own ships and to equalize the technology divide.

If you're lucky, you might have enough forewarning to do that. But it would be the height of irresponsibility to assume that you would be able to do that. To borrow a phrase, you go into war with the navy you have, not the one you want to have. As David is fond of pointing out, you try to have the long-lead items in hand first. That's why King Roger was building up its navy so early, even though the first units started going obsolete even before the war started. A ship now is better than a ship later.

So, following on from that, half-assing it with modular designs which lack the structural rigidity for combat, and would take unacceptably long to mobilize (months to recall them from their trade runs, days or weeks to refit, even more months to integrate the crews and do shakedown tests) is not the way to go about having a combat ready force. What you do do is have as much of ready, standing military as you think you need to provide a visible deterrent effect, serve as an immediately available reaction force, and retain a trained (and hopefully, experienced) cadre in case the military needs to expand in time of war. And you stuff as many ships as you think you need (or can afford) into reserve where they don't incur any operational costs. Wait, that sounds like every navy in the Honorverse, and even the USN in the real world.

You don't see this because there are no dedicated semi tank trucks in the military. Truck was only used as an example of a modular vehicle.

Take the panther class car from Ford. It can be a taxi or a police car. Different body arrangement for different purposes. The same frame, although the police version has a heavier duty frame.
The same frame could be used for both cars but just changing a body would convert the taxi to a police car and vice versa. Why would you want to? I don't know but you could. In the honourverse it is a little bit more straight forward. War & Peace.

As Wikipedia shows me, every vehicle built on the Panther platform was largely the same and confined to the same full-size sedan market segment. The requirements of, say the Crown Victoria police interceptor, is not dissimilar from the Lincoln Town Car. In fact, they're all basically the same vehicle underneath, with the largest differences being the engine. What you don't see on that list is a requirement to be a full-size van, or an armored offroad vehicle. The requirements are wildly dissimilar, just like a SD(P) and a freighter.