New Manty ship ideas.

drothgery wrote:

Lord Skimper wrote:I would agree with what you have said before the Yawata strike, even when at war with the Sollies.

After the YS, or OB if you prefer. You need ships and are relying on Haven to upgrade their ships, and build a your ships and Grayson ships. What you need is as many ships as you can have now, or as soon as possible.

No, they don't. The Grand Alliance has sufficient warships to defeat all other conventional military forces in the known Honorverse, combined. Haven and the Andermani Empire have undamaged yards; Erewhon has brand new yards. Those have sufficient capacity to cover any needs prior to Manticore and Grayson getting their own yards back online.

Also, Grayson, Manticore and Haven have >600 Tube SDs & DNs in Reserve that are superior to any ships fielded by any foes. Each of these ships could take between 2-4 SLN ships. This mass of SDs alone is probably superior in number (and quality) to all the non-aligned SDs in the Universe, and is sufficient to take on the remaining SLN active wall by itself. Throw in Erewhon's Conventional Wall (at least 5 squadrons with mid war Manty tech), Beowulf's wall (4.5 Squadrons) and The Andermani's Converntional Wall (~20 squadrons) - there is a nice powerful 2nd tier of Ships even if no shipyards are available to build new ships.

Theemile wrote:
Also, Grayson, Manticore and Haven have >600 Tube SDs & DNs in Reserve that are superior to any ships fielded by any foes. Each of these ships could take between 2-4 SLN ships. This mass of SDs alone is probably superior in number (and quality) to all the non-aligned SDs in the Universe, and is sufficient to take on the remaining SLN active wall by itself. Throw in Erewhon's Conventional Wall (at least 5 squadrons with mid war Manty tech), Beowulf's wall (4.5 Squadrons) and The Andermani's Converntional Wall (~20 squadrons) - there is a nice powerful 2nd tier of Ships even if no shipyards are available to build new ships.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4088

Is an excellent read, it is an analysis of when Battle Fleet's superiority ended, shortly followed by utter obsolescence. Essentially, between 1910 and 1915 PD. The series is now at 1922 PD.

Having looked up the AMC it appears that it is at least as armoured as a battleship or dreadnaught. About 2% more than the Battle cruiser perhaps a little more. Obviously with civilian wedge instead of military, but one assumes adding a military wedge and compensator would change that.

Lord Skimper wrote:Having looked up the AMC it appears that it is at least as armoured as a battleship or dreadnaught. About 2% more than the Battle cruiser perhaps a little more. Obviously with civilian wedge instead of military, but one assumes adding a military wedge and compensator would change that.

Huh? How do you figure that? Maybe the PRH Q ship in OBS had some armor, but the Trojans were armored like a merchant ship; that is, not at all.

Lord Skimper wrote:What would be the best implementations for the RMN for new ships.

Streak hyper drives, yes.

How about combo SD-P and CLAC, twice or ten times as big or more, half as fast or less, with LAC's capable of running any other ships down, 12 times the number of pods and 100 to 400 LAC's. Grazers etc...

Mobile forts, only with a wedge and hyper capable.

A true dreadnaught, they see it coming, they might be able to out run it, but not the LAC's it is carrying. A true dread inspiring ship capable of taking on or out any fleet the Sollies might put up against it. If it is big enough it might even carry a destroyer or two. Put one of these with Apollo in orbit and that planet is yours, put 10 and anything is yours.

Someone is already building extremely large ships which are likely to be in some ways similar to what you want, they are called Dettweilers. We know that they are being built and that they are big, but we don't know very much of anything else.

As for combining SD(P) and CLACs into a single shiptype, yes, it makes a lot of sense.

BUT

The first thing one would need to do is get rid of most of the "Shoot me here" holes that the current LAC deployment system has.

DW has constantly and very strictly indicated that there will be no specialist combat ships in any Haven sector Navy. Except CLACS.

With Keyhole sensor systems, I'm hoping that we will start seeing the end of the CLAC specialist ship soon, since the keyhole systems will hopefully allow dorsal and ventral sensor systems to be moved off-ship, allowing dorsal and ventral pod and LAC deployment.

Since CLACS are a deviation from all other military thinking in the Honorverse, all the ship designers must be terribly annoyed that they have to build two types of huge ship rather than one, for even greater force flexibility and construction economies of scale.

As for making the ships much bigger? Well, speed has it's own tactical importance, and it would be a very hard sell to create huge Haven sector hulls, and make them far slower to accelerate. Sure they could attack fixed infrastructure that can't run away, but again, that would require a different ship to be able to chase things, and non-CLAC specialist ships in the Haven sectors are verboten.

crewdude48 wrote:

Lord Skimper wrote:Having looked up the AMC it appears that it is at least as armoured as a battleship or dreadnaught. About 2% more than the Battle cruiser perhaps a little more. Obviously with civilian wedge instead of military, but one assumes adding a military wedge and compensator would change that.

Huh? How do you figure that? Maybe the PRH Q ship in OBS had some armor, but the Trojans were armored like a merchant ship; that is, not at all.

Mass times length width and depth. On a Trojan it ends up with less total weapons and greater mass in a smaller ship than a Battle Cruiser or Battle ship. Now I'm assuming that armour has some weight in the future. Given that it is ablative one assumes that it is heavy.

If the AMC had no armour it would either have a lower mass or be bigger. But in this case it is the opposite. Heavier and smaller, carrying less weapons and subtracting the LAC weight, still makes it heavier than a like sized battle cruiser by 2%. About the same with a lot less weapon placements than a Duquesne class super dreadnought from Haven 1906-1917.

The only real difference being the wedge strength.

If everything was civilian massed it would either be a lot bigger, or a great deal less mass.

In fact the invictus class pod superdreadnought is only 0.055% heavier with a much greater armour and weapons load. Than the Trojan class.

This leads one to believe that the trojan class, other than its wedge, is a well armoured ship. Able to stand up to a battle cruiser with dreadnaught armour and superdreadnaught weapons. Adding in the Sollie wedge from the captured SD's. Would give a ship able to do the job of a SD, and escorts for either commerce privateering or backwater duties, although possibly not in Haven territories.

Similar to the Scharnhorst WWII pocket battleship. Only with additional aircraft.

As a modification if one goes by the mentioned docking of LAC being docked nose in. Obviously the LAC would not have enough room to dock more than one ship end to end but would be able to if one extended the LAC docking tube all the way through. (282 LAC are 121 metres long, but the AMC is only 200 metres wide). Extending the tube all the way would allow for the docking of Shrike and Katana LAC nose to nose with reload and rearm /repair systems in between and around. Given that 6 such docks are offset per broadside already doubling the LAC load up to 24 from 12 willn't be a hard problem to solve.

Now using upgraded Havenite, as suggested, they have a great many spares, or captured Sollie SD weapons which are not obsolete, just the ew and missiles electronics are. The weapons and wedges would work fine. Using the Sollie weapons and even missiles with upgraded electronics internally, with either mk 16 or mk 23 pods or havenite pods. again stripping out the captured SD's for spares would yield at minimal parts cost, and with hands on training for merchant crews upgrading their skill plus pulling the retired yardhands wouldn't eat into any active duty personnel. Most of the work could be done inside existing ships, and with repair rescue ships.

Again the Sollie SD's could also be used as quickly cobbled together prisoner ships, hospital ships, with the civil wedges. Or one could use them as and with additional framework as parts of new shipyards. No where near as big or good as real purpose built yards but those are all gone. 60 SD with frames works, simulators and accommodations for 600,000. Spare parts for the Trojan raiders, and patrol craft. Training for new yardhands spacers and crew. Simulators can train crew on any kind of system.

Will it be pretty? Not right away. But new cobbled together orbitals are better than no orbitals. Until they can be replaced and it gives all the recently fired merchant crews something to do for the next 5 years. Plus all the hot headed new volunteers.

With some of the automated systems to reduce the crew numbers, and not a huge number of Sollie non automated weapons and systems, which Beowolf should be able to help with, and help update. The extra crew capacity of the AMC would also give Marines a new ship to deploy from.

A hybrid ship designed modified and crewed with spare parts, plus Beowolf with also have spare parts, plus the as fore mentioned 600 non pod SD that could be converted, over time, to additional AMC although perhaps it should be noted that AMC would stand for Armed Marine Cruisers or Carriers?

800 to 1000 pod laying LAC carrying Marine deploying SD Armed and Dreadnaught armoured military wedges and compensatored without drawing on current or future crews and ships and freeing up any such ships can't be viewed as any thing but a good thing.

Beowolf itself might have the yards to do the conversions of such ships and parking with skeleton crews 600 to 800 non pod SD and a 100,000 pods would be a good surprise for anyone attacking Beowolf.

Plus Beowolf would be a great place for Admiral Tourville to park and take some shore / medical leave.

Again increasing its offensive and defensive capabilities.

The Trojans quite explicitly unarmored. Go reread HAE. Even Sirius, the Peep Q-ship in OBS, was no better armored than a BC, and it had been built keel out as a warship.

Lord Skimper wrote:Mass times length width and depth. On a Trojan it ends up with less total weapons and greater mass in a smaller ship than a Battle Cruiser or Battle ship. Now I'm assuming that armour has some weight in the future. Given that it is ablative one assumes that it is heavy.

If the AMC had no armour it would either have a lower mass or be bigger. But in this case it is the opposite. Heavier and smaller, carrying less weapons and subtracting the LAC weight, still makes it heavier than a like sized battle cruiser by 2%. About the same with a lot less weapon placements than a Duquesne class super dreadnought from Haven 1906-1917.

The only real difference being the wedge strength.

If everything was civilian massed it would either be a lot bigger, or a great deal less mass.

Lord Skimper wrote:In fact the invictus class pod superdreadnought is only 0.055% heavier with a much greater armour and weapons load. Than the Trojan class.

This leads one to believe that the trojan class, other than its wedge, is a well armoured ship. Able to stand up to a battle cruiser with dreadnaught armour and superdreadnaught weapons. Adding in the Sollie wedge from the captured SD's. Would give a ship able to do the job of a SD, and escorts for either commerce privateering or backwater duties, although possibly not in Haven territories.

...No. Just...no. The text is unquestionably cclear on this point. Wayfarer was killed because it was unarmored and didn't have much, if any, armored compartmentalization that could be found on a BC, or even a CA.

As a modification if one goes by the mentioned docking of LAC being docked nose in. Obviously the LAC would not have enough room to dock more than one ship end to end but would be able to if one extended the LAC docking tube all the way through. (282 LAC are 121 metres long, but the AMC is only 200 metres wide). Extending the tube all the way would allow for the docking of Shrike and Katana LAC nose to nose with reload and rearm /repair systems in between and around. Given that 6 such docks are offset per broadside already doubling the LAC load up to 24 from 12 willn't be a hard problem to solve.

Length of the LAC is not the sole issue. The docking collar itself has to fit somewhere, which adds a considerable amount of length to your projection. Since the collars are what allow the LACs to be serviced and rearmed, they must be included.

Now using upgraded Havenite, as suggested, they have a great many spares, or captured Sollie SD weapons which are not obsolete, just the ew and missiles electronics are. The weapons and wedges would work fine. Using the Sollie weapons and even missiles with upgraded electronics internally, with either mk 16 or mk 23 pods or havenite pods. again stripping out the captured SD's for spares would yield at minimal parts cost, and with hands on training for merchant crews upgrading their skill plus pulling the retired yardhands wouldn't eat into any active duty personnel. Most of the work could be done inside existing ships, and with repair rescue ships.

Again the Sollie SD's could also be used as quickly cobbled together prisoner ships, hospital ships, with the civil wedges. Or one could use them as and with additional framework as parts of new shipyards. No where near as big or good as real purpose built yards but those are all gone. 60 SD with frames works, simulators and accommodations for 600,000. Spare parts for the Trojan raiders, and patrol craft. Training for new yardhands spacers and crew. Simulators can train crew on any kind of system.

Will it be pretty? Not right away. But new cobbled together orbitals are better than no orbitals. Until they can be replaced and it gives all the recently fired merchant crews something to do for the next 5 years. Plus all the hot headed new volunteers.

Two very salient points:

1) The RMN didn't bother to refit the Trojans with military drives back when they actually had the time, manpower, and materiel to do so, so why the heck do you think the RMN will do twice the amount of work (ripping apart a SD for the drives, then refitting them onto the freighters), then you're delusional.

2) And again, where is all the manpower and yard capability coming from? I keep harping on this yet you never address it. You think this work will just magically occur? Until you do come up with a reasonable explanation as to how this is going to occur, there's no point in further discussion.

Beowolf itself might have the yards to do the conversions of such ships and parking with skeleton crews 600 to 800 non pod SD and a 100,000 pods would be a good surprise for anyone attacking Beowolf.

Uh huh. Beowulf has several times more yard capacity than even pre-Oyster Bay Manticore or Haven, both of whom were actually fighting a shooting war. Of course. That's the only possible explanation why you think Beowulf would be able to take on such a stupendous refit job.

That's obviously absurd. Beowulf may be very rich and very prestigious, but it's never had to build any extensive yard infrastructure prior to current events. It's facilities are suited for servicing its own (impressive but small by Haven Quadrant standards) SDF, and not for servicing hundreds of vessels.

Hey I like Q ship ideas. OK something new.

I'm pondering a new use for a CL version of a over powerful LAC. Mount the grav lance and energy torpedos has been done. Perhaps a similar thing with a huge SD grazer and a energy torpedo broadside optimized for point defense. With extra keyhole ghost rider platforms for point defense and an aft SD Grazer. Hyper capable and as much armour and Wedge as possible. A Streak drive might also fit as a fast reaction ship. Get in hit hard and get out as fast as possible.

Hit and run on an off angle attack to just skim whatever is in a system. Use ghost rider with gravatic sensors and start well out of the system, blaze in fast .9c or faster. Hit whatever one can at maximum range, fire an energy torpedo broadside, or as many as one can, and get out. The faster one goes the harder one is to detect without FTL sensors. Energy torpedo's fire at light speed and big grazers will cause merry havok.

If you are going near light speed you can re hard to see coming, and hard to hit while passing and impossible catch unless you have FTL weapons.

Arrive1 light hour out build your speed to .95c have your FTL sensor ghost rider platforms relay in advance anything they can find in the system, cruise through hitting any and everything, pickup your platforms and exit out of the system. Leaving everyone in the system totally bewildered on what just happened. One might replace the energy torpedo's with dumb bombs and then add lots of point defense and counter missile, opening it up as an optional anti missile escort with an increased keyhole anti missile FTL missile defense to increase the envelope with which to eliminate enemy missile fire.

Energy torpedo's don't have ammunition concerns and with work could be an efficient anti missile point defense option. On a ship that is massively overpowered they might just be perfect. Light cruisers are fast and big enough to mount enough energy production although energy torpedo's might benefit from fission piles as well.

No missiles, no pods, no LAC. Strong skinny fast and long.