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New Manty ship ideas.

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Re: New Manty ship ideas.
Post by Jonathan_S   » Tue Sep 17, 2013 7:45 pm

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Timeonit wrote:Like it was said, the maintenance costs of a freighter/SD module ship would be a lot higher then at the moment.
Also I can't imagine a merchant taking ships from the government with the possibility that they have to give them back in war time. (That would be like airlines taking their planes from the military) It would be to big of a risk for the merchants and easily lose them money f.e. broken contracts, no ships for errant runs etc.
Actually I believe the US gov did subsidise some jet liners with the understanding that, in case of war, they could be pulled from civilian service to move troops.

And going back further varous governments subsidised fast passenger liners for use as fast troop transports. (Not to mention the pre-WW1 armed merchant conversion. Some of those the British gov paid to put gun mountsing hardware and ammo handling into the original design; to speed wartime conversion)
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Re: New Manty ship ideas.
Post by Timeonit   » Tue Sep 17, 2013 8:48 pm

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Okay, thanks for the info, i didn't know that :idea: .
But the fact remains that vessels owned by someone else are a liability to your financial security.

I agree that in terms of overall power the basic cruiser isn't effective anymore. But in times of piece a cruiser bears certain advantages. They are faster than SD, less expensive and need less crew. They are (in my opinion) the best solution to escort merchants (pirates etc.) between different solar systems.
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Re: New Manty ship ideas.
Post by Duckk   » Tue Sep 17, 2013 9:36 pm

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Lord Skimper wrote:3. Rowlands, although a CLAC can do anything a Rowland can do.


Except, you know, being built and operated in large quantities cheaply...

In war SD / CLAC are all you need. If you have enough.


And I'd like a unicorn. But in the real world, navies are constrained by other factors, so having a diverse mix of units is necessary.

In peace freighter's transports and Q ships give you everything you need.

One could always make civilian and military modular frames. Able to use the same modules, but military held back for government use. Military frames could be configured as QShips in peacetimes, and civilian frames configured as reserve military units in time of war.

Thing is with no current shipyards all future ship yards could be designed to accommodate these design parameters. Civil frame yards military frame yards and various module yards. One can then stock pile the various kinds of modules, freighter modules would be dispersed to all the trading worlds, while military modules held back at your core worlds and allied worlds.

Freighters and transports modular would be able to do both jobs or either job with a module change.


As Rozsak so amply demonstrated at the Battle of Torch, civilian conversions have no place in combat. Even if he had defensive modules, Rozsak expected his Masquerade-class ships to be one step above death traps.

Same with the military modulars. While a CLAC module on a SD-P would be a weak point, although a modified armoured CLAC module might not be, an armoured CLAC module would not effect a CLAC much.


Hybrid vessels are not happening, period. David has been quite clear on this point. CLACs may evolve to become tougher, but no one is going to compromise a SD(P)'s ability to absorb damage and dish it out just to carry a handful of LACs.
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Re: New Manty ship ideas.
Post by waddles for desert   » Tue Sep 17, 2013 10:22 pm

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Jonathan_S wrote:
Timeonit wrote:Like it was said, the maintenance costs of a freighter/SD module ship would be a lot higher then at the moment.
Also I can't imagine a merchant taking ships from the government with the possibility that they have to give them back in war time. (That would be like airlines taking their planes from the military) It would be to big of a risk for the merchants and easily lose them money f.e. broken contracts, no ships for errant runs etc.
Actually I believe the US gov did subsidise some jet liners with the understanding that, in case of war, they could be pulled from civilian service to move troops.

And going back further varous governments subsidised fast passenger liners for use as fast troop transports. (Not to mention the pre-WW1 armed merchant conversion. Some of those the British gov paid to put gun mountsing hardware and ammo handling into the original design; to speed wartime conversion)


The airlines contractually pledge aircraft to the various segments of Civil Reserve Air Fleet, ready for activation when needed. To provide incentives for civil carriers to commit aircraft to the Civil Reserve Air Fleet program and to assure the United States of adequate airlift reserves, the government makes peacetime airlift business available to civilian airlines that offer aircraft to the Civil Reserve Air Fleet. Department of Defense offers business through the International Airlift Services. For fiscal year 2005, the guaranteed portion of the contract was $418 million. Air Mobility Command (AMC) previously reported that throughout fiscal 2005 it planned to award more than $1.5 billion in additional business beyond the guaranteed portion of the contract.

The National Defense Reserve Fleet (NDRF) consists of "mothballed" ships, mostly merchant vessels, that can be activated within 20 to 120 days to provide shipping for the United States of America during national emergencies, either military or non-military, such as commercial shipping crises.

A Ready Reserve Fleet component was established as a subset of the NDRF to provide rapid deployment of military equipment and later became known as the Ready Reserve Force, which numbers 72 vessels. These are crewed with a reduced crew but kept available for activation within four, five, ten or twenty days.

An additional 28 ships are held under United States Maritime Administration (MARAD) custody for other Government agencies on a cost-reimbursable basis.
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Re: New Manty ship ideas.
Post by Theemile   » Tue Sep 17, 2013 10:25 pm

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Jonathan_S wrote:
Timeonit wrote:Like it was said, the maintenance costs of a freighter/SD module ship would be a lot higher then at the moment.
Also I can't imagine a merchant taking ships from the government with the possibility that they have to give them back in war time. (That would be like airlines taking their planes from the military) It would be to big of a risk for the merchants and easily lose them money f.e. broken contracts, no ships for errant runs etc.
Actually I believe the US gov did subsidise some jet liners with the understanding that, in case of war, they could be pulled from civilian service to move troops.

And going back further varous governments subsidised fast passenger liners for use as fast troop transports. (Not to mention the pre-WW1 armed merchant conversion. Some of those the British gov paid to put gun mountsing hardware and ammo handling into the original design; to speed wartime conversion)

It was not uncommon at the time for governments to subsidize "merchant cruisers" and design in them removable gunmounts. In practice it didn't work so well. Jayne's reported all the merchant cruisers in their annuals, allowing them to be legitimate military targets - just ask the Lusitannia how well that worked.
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Re: New Manty ship ideas.
Post by Lord Skimper   » Tue Sep 17, 2013 11:00 pm

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Even without hybrids moudular ships would allow for upgrades and repairs to take less than a day instead of months or years.

What about civilian or semi civilian hybrids?

Also a CLAC carries something that will out accelerate any DD or CL all while protecting a merchant fleet. Having a merchant fleet carry the LAC's eliminates the need for the CLAC escort.

Remember modular means 3 or many modules. Might have 10 modules, if one module on every ship carries 2-3 LAC's, a fleet of 6 freighters would carry the cargo of 5.4 ships and 12 to 18 LAC's. 12 to 18 LAC's are equal to how many Rowland or CL? 6-9 Shrike and 6-9 Katana. The LAC module could even be totally separate from the freighter crew and other modules. Own sensors and commander.

Even if you need to go to a system with a government that doesn't allow foreign military craft, drop out of space outside the territorial limit and take your ships in without the offending modules. Leave one freighter behind with all 6 LAC modules on board. 5 freighters approach the hyper limit drop off the cargo modules, pick up any new ones and then hyper out to an agreed upon location to swap the LAC modules back again. Although I really doubt that would ever happen.

Such modularity also removes the dangerous travel in a hyper limit that a freighter becomes so vulnerable doing. Even transport modules with people aboard could be unloaded / detached outside the limit. And picked as well, might not even know it is happening.
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Re: New Manty ship ideas.
Post by Garth 2   » Wed Sep 18, 2013 3:52 am

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Lord Skimper wrote:
Garth 2 wrote:

yes, eventually new designs are going to occur and I think it will fall into four main tonnage brackets:

SD/CLAC in the 10 to 12 M ton range
Battlecruisers in the 5 to 6 M ton range
Cruisers in the 2 to 3 M ton range

Just purely due to the size of the missiles, but who knows what the Manties etc. will develop next special given how good they are miniturising things.


Beside this being three categorise, what is the point in having battle cruiser?

One might consider just having two maybe three types of hyper ships.
1. SD-P
2. CLAC
3. Rowlands, although a CLAC can do anything a Rowland can do.

4. Freighters or transports, which might have an escort of some type of civilian based Q ship with or without armament but carries a couple LAC.

Again Rowlands don't really have much of a use if you have a Q ship for times of peace, pirate duties.

In war SD / CLAC are all you need. If you have enough.

In peace freighter's transports and Q ships give you everything you need.

One could always make civilian and military modular frames. Able to use the same modules, but military held back for government use. Military frames could be configured as QShips in peacetimes, and civilian frames configured as reserve military units in time of war.

Thing is with no current shipyards all future ship yards could be designed to accommodate these design parameters. Civil frame yards military frame yards and various module yards. One can then stock pile the various kinds of modules, freighter modules would be dispersed to all the trading worlds, while military modules held back at your core worlds and allied worlds.

Freighters and transports modular would be able to do both jobs or either job with a module change.

Same with the military modulars. While a CLAC module on a SD-P would be a weak point, although a modified armoured CLAC module might not be, an armoured CLAC module would not effect a CLAC much.


Fundamentally you different types of ships to undertake different Roles or Missions,

If you wanted to carry-out a show the flag mission:
sending an SD(P)/CLAC would send complete the wrong type of message, but a cruiser would fit the bill nicely.

commerce raiding
sending an SD(P) is a waste of resources, yes it could kill anything it could catch but everyone divert to this sort of mission is one, you know, not concentrated in fleets and available to defend against enemy actions or available to carry out offensive operations.
Sending a CLAC might work with ambushes at the hyper limit, but the individual units wouldn't be able to spend that much time on station nor would they be able to engage units travelling with in a gravity wave (the same is also true to a degree for an SD(P) given that's focused towards missile engagements)

But if you diverted a Battle cruiser or cruiser, not only can it stay on station for a long time, it can engage in both Hyper space and N-space, its more manoeuvrable, has the crew to carry out boarding operations (if there's time) and the enemy has to divert more ships to protect its own shipping.

Anti-slaver/Pirate patrols

Again an SD(P) is just over kill (how many pirates are going to have SD available).
But Battle cruisers/cruisers gives you all the options and fire power you would need.
Within systems you control, yes LACs can do the job but then you don't need to transport them and systems you control showed be unfriendly enough towards this kind of operation that there's no reason for them to turn up in the first place.

Commerce Protection
unless the cargo is a massively critical, an SD(P) would gain be just over kill.

Don't forget you don't send SD(P) out on their own they always move as part of a squadron, which multiple the amount of resources that are tied up in any given assignment.
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Re: New Manty ship ideas.
Post by Timeonit   » Wed Sep 18, 2013 4:12 am

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Lord Skimper wrote:
Even without hybrids moudular ships would allow for upgrades and repairs to take less than a day instead of months or years.

What about civilian or semi civilian hybrids?

Also a CLAC carries something that will out accelerate any DD or CL all while protecting a merchant fleet. Having a merchant fleet carry the LAC's eliminates the need for the CLAC escort.

Remember modular means 3 or many modules. Might have 10 modules, if one module on every ship carries 2-3 LAC's, a fleet of 6 freighters would carry the cargo of 5.4 ships and 12 to 18 LAC's. 12 to 18 LAC's are equal to how many Rowland or CL? 6-9 Shrike and 6-9 Katana. The LAC module could even be totally separate from the freighter crew and other modules. Own sensors and commander.

Even if you need to go to a system with a government that doesn't allow foreign military craft, drop out of space outside the territorial limit and take your ships in without the offending modules. Leave one freighter behind with all 6 LAC modules on board. 5 freighters approach the hyper limit drop off the cargo modules, pick up any new ones and then hyper out to an agreed upon location to swap the LAC modules back again. Although I really doubt that would ever happen.

Such modularity also removes the dangerous travel in a hyper limit that a freighter becomes so vulnerable doing. Even transport modules with people aboard could be unloaded / detached outside the limit. And picked as well, might not even know it is happening.


I suppose in piece times that would be an idea, that would be workable.
On the other hand, which merchant would give ~20% of his cargo space to the military for LAC. That would mean less profit for him. At the moment he looses nothing from the military escort. It also might be difficult to coordinate between the LAC of different merchant ships. (no/poor training together). Lastly, the equipement/technology would be inferior to a warship, because they would be missing military grade equipment and it is improbable that the government would install the newest technology on an easily accessible merchang vessel.
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Re: New Manty ship ideas.
Post by Jonathan_S   » Wed Sep 18, 2013 9:13 am

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Lord Skimper wrote:Also a CLAC carries something that will out accelerate any DD or CL all while protecting a merchant fleet. Having a merchant fleet carry the LAC's eliminates the need for the CLAC escort.

Remember modular means 3 or many modules. Might have 10 modules, if one module on every ship carries 2-3 LAC's, a fleet of 6 freighters would carry the cargo of 5.4 ships and 12 to 18 LAC's. 12 to 18 LAC's are equal to how many Rowland or CL? 6-9 Shrike and 6-9 Katana. The LAC module could even be totally separate from the freighter crew and other modules. Own sensors and commander.

Even if you need to go to a system with a government that doesn't allow foreign military craft, drop out of space outside the territorial limit and take your ships in without the offending modules. Leave one freighter behind with all 6 LAC modules on board. 5 freighters approach the hyper limit drop off the cargo modules, pick up any new ones and then hyper out to an agreed upon location to swap the LAC modules back again. Although I really doubt that would ever happen.

Such modularity also removes the dangerous travel in a hyper limit that a freighter becomes so vulnerable doing. Even transport modules with people aboard could be unloaded / detached outside the limit. And picked as well, might not even know it is happening.
That could work, but I'm not sure there are all that many systems (even in a fallen post-League world) that are rich enough to justify traffic but poorly managed enough to be unable to effectively patrol for pirates.

Silesia was something of an anomaly - a central government powerful, corrupt, and scared enough to largely enforce restriction on systems having armed forces, despite the central governments inability to maintain order with its own (inadequate) forces.


Without a large pirate threat in a reasonably traveled area it's not cost effective for merchants to give up cargo space for defenses (whether those defenses are parasite LACs, missile pods, or even just point defense installations)
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Re: New Manty ship ideas.
Post by drothgery   » Wed Sep 18, 2013 2:21 pm

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Garth 2 wrote:yes, eventually new designs are going to occur and I think it will fall into four main tonnage brackets:

SD/CLAC in the 10 to 12 M ton range
Battlecruisers in the 5 to 6 M ton range
Cruisers in the 2 to 3 M ton range

Just purely due to the size of the missiles, but who knows what the Manties etc. will develop next special given how good they are miniturising things.

I think you're expecting far more tonnage creep than we'll actually get. Even if RFC decided all warships needed three-stage MDMs and Apollo to be viable, you wouldn't need to grow a Nike all that much, and you'd just drop anything smaller. If you stick to Mark 16s below the wall and look for alternate solutions for FTL fire control if you decided you need it. And at that point you may see 300KTon destroyers ala what Weber (aka RunsForCelery) has talked about in various forums, but you won't see a universe where a Nike is the smallest viable warship.

Also, SD tonnage creep has been pretty minimal because historically they've been as big possible before compensator efficiency starts falling off rapidly. Even brand new orbital fortresses that do exceed that point are under 12 Mtons.

I'm expecting more like

CL/DD - consolidated into one class, ~300 Kton (classic CA range)
CA - ~900 Kton (classic BC range)
BC - ~2.5 Mton (traditional "no man's land" between BC and BB)
SD - ~9 Mton
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