New Manty ship ideas.

Brigade XO wrote:"
"Don't forget, With Shrikes/Ferrets/Katanas all the gangways, umbillicals and connections are in the nose - all you would need is a nose adaptor for everything BUT heavy maintenance. The rest of the dock could be open volume (With a 20K ton tractor grab)."

Ahhh...not quite all. You need to connect that nose docking assembly to things like power, enviornmental, the ammo handing systems, personel spaces, etc, etc, etc. Sure, you can just mount the docking assemby where you need -or can find a place you can run all the connections to/from- and then make whatever modifications are the minimum needed service said LACs. Little things like ammunition magazines for the missiles (including counter-missiles) and the handling equipment.

Details.

A freighter carrying a LAC does not necessarily need to rearm the LAC or reservice it beyond providing life support. If it is carrying the LAC as simple transport to a new station, then service will be provided at the end station. If the LAC is being carried as convoy protection, the LAC will have plenty of ammunition to deal with any plausible pirates. Rearming can wait until the end of the trade run. If the convoy runs into something more than can be handled with the on-board ammunition, the convoy is screwed anyway.

Brigade XO wrote:"
"Don't forget, With Shrikes/Ferrets/Katanas all the gangways, umbillicals and connections are in the nose - all you would need is a nose adaptor for everything BUT heavy maintenance. The rest of the dock could be open volume (With a 20K ton tractor grab)."

Ahhh...not quite all. You need to connect that nose docking assembly to things like power, enviornmental, the ammo handing systems, personel spaces, etc, etc, etc. Sure, you can just mount the docking assemby where you need -or can find a place you can run all the connections to/from- and then make whatever modifications are the minimum needed service said LACs. Little things like ammunition magazines for the missiles (including counter-missiles) and the handling equipment.

Details.

Correct, But my point was you did not need a full up dock for the modern Manty LACS, Only a Nose adaptor connected to the rest of the infrastructure. What did you think I was recommending - plugging an Ipod in the 3.5mm audio jack on the front of a Shrike, pressing the play button, and calling it docked?

Your "details" are implied.

Brigade XO wrote:At this point, and pending more detail on Silesia, you could deploy LAC squadrons in freighters as an anti-piracy tool in Silesia and free up the newer but non Mk 16 carrying ships like the Culverin DD and Avalon CL for forward work in places like Talbott Quadrant. That would be the primary reason and place for something like a lightly modified freighter with LACs to be used in an escort role. You might want to do things like add a LAC carrying freighter to a convoy that would normally be given a single DD escort if you thought there was something more dangerous than basic pirates -think a CL- operating on the route. A squadron of modern Manticore LACs and one new (if not Mk 16) RMN DD should give a CL or perhaps a CA pause if it tries to attack the convoy. That presumes the warship in question has an actual understanding of what the RMN ships can do.

But now that Manticore and the Andies fully control Silesia you shouldn't need convoys. The LAC wings will be perminantly deployed in each system and chase away any pirates lurking in wait.


Remember, the escorts (especially for anti-piracy) needed to come along to secure a moving bubble of normal space on each system entry and exit. The risk from pirate attack in hyper was virtually non-existent. (Way different from how we're used to thinking of anti-submarine escort where the risk was higher once you were too far from land for air patrols to suppress the subs)


Now like you said, that might change if a major power devoted a lot of ships to commerce raiding. In that case they might have enough concentration to picket 'transit lanes' in hyper; like the rift where Wayfairer ran across the Peep picket line. But for the moment I don't see any need for escorts between system in Silesia.

I believe there will still be a need for escorts, given that there are times when a ship has to drop out of hyper. If I recall correctly, there are times when the convoys transit between grav waves, in normal space. This was one of the places, besides in system, when pirates could strike.

These sorts of doldrums weren't terribly uncommon.

Fireflair wrote:I believe there will still be a need for escorts, given that there are times when a ship has to drop out of hyper. If I recall correctly, there are times when the convoys transit between grav waves, in normal space. This was one of the places, besides in system, when pirates could strike.

These sorts of doldrums weren't terribly uncommon.

You are misremembering. Yes, sometimes convoys have to transit between grav waves, but they are still in hyper as they do it. Transiting between grav waves in normal space would take years even at 0.8 c.

You are correct that there are some places in hyperspace where raiders can get lucky. The Havenites tried that in Silesia, but they needed dozens of ships stretched in a line to the limits of communication to find targets, and even so they were missing a lot of freighter traffic.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:At this point, and pending more detail on Silesia, you could deploy LAC squadrons in freighters as an anti-piracy tool in Silesia and free up the newer but non Mk 16 carrying ships like the Culverin DD and Avalon CL for forward work in places like Talbott Quadrant. That would be the primary reason and place for something like a lightly modified freighter with LACs to be used in an escort role. You might want to do things like add a LAC carrying freighter to a convoy that would normally be given a single DD escort if you thought there was something more dangerous than basic pirates -think a CL- operating on the route. A squadron of modern Manticore LACs and one new (if not Mk 16) RMN DD should give a CL or perhaps a CA pause if it tries to attack the convoy. That presumes the warship in question has an actual understanding of what the RMN ships can do.

But now that Manticore and the Andies fully control Silesia you shouldn't need convoys. The LAC wings will be perminantly deployed in each system and chase away any pirates lurking in wait.


Remember, the escorts (especially for anti-piracy) needed to come along to secure a moving bubble of normal space on each system entry and exit. The risk from pirate attack in hyper was virtually non-existent. (Way different from how we're used to thinking of anti-submarine escort where the risk was higher once you were too far from land for air patrols to suppress the subs)


Now like you said, that might change if a major power devoted a lot of ships to commerce raiding. In that case they might have enough concentration to picket 'transit lanes' in hyper; like the rift where Wayfairer ran across the Peep picket line. But for the moment I don't see any need for escorts between system in Silesia.

In addition, Any EDM combatant (Avalon, Wolfhound, Kamerling, Sag-B, Reliant Flight 3/4) actually has the punch to take on any current combatant one type up from it. Consider that a Wolfhound as 12 EDM launchers, a Kammerling 16 and an Avalon 20.

The Wolfhound has a broadside as large as a Star Knight (which is still potent CA in the eyes of the rest of the universe), longer range missiles, better defenses (12 extended range CMs), and with the new warhead upgrades, it's warheads probably have a cruiser class punch. It just doesn't have a depth of the magazines a Star Knight would. Any CL going up against a Wolfhound would be in trouble.

SWM wrote:

waddles for desert wrote:Compensators use the wedge as an inertial sump.

There should be a way for LACs towed inside of the wedge of a host ship to use beta nodes to use the wedge of the host ship as their inertial sump.

Until the SKM advanced LAC capabilities, this was hardly worth doing. And, it obviously was not incorporated into initial LAC design. But, then, neither were sternwalls.

Imagine that Scotty is summoned, again, to meet with Admiral Hemphill. He arrives to be told that she had a chance encounter with Sir Horace, and that the chat with Sir Horace was quite interesting ...

Uh, I don't see that as plausible. I expect that using the wedge as an inertial sump requires a direct connection to the impeller nodules producing the wedge.

How does the wedge know whether a node is on a LAC or is one of a set of nodes on a larger ship?

It should be possible. There is just nothing to indicate that anything has been done to accomplish it. It would require provisions to tie the LAC node(s) in with the node set of the host ship.

DW can write this any way he wants to or not at all. Maybe there is too much disparity in the size/power of the nodes. Maybe they come up with a "teat" node that can feed the LACs. (Imagine Horace, and later Scotty, explaining that conception to the seemingly staid admiral Hemphill.) Who knows? But, he has created a 'verse that evolves and advances.

Brigade XO wrote:"
Ahhh...not quite all. You need to connect that nose docking assembly to things like power, enviornmental, the ammo handing systems, personel spaces, etc, etc, etc. Sure, you can just mount the docking assemby where you need -or can find a place you can run all the connections to/from- and then make whatever modifications are the minimum needed service said LACs. Little things like ammunition magazines for the missiles (including counter-missiles) and the handling equipment.

How many pirate attacks are you planning to survive on a single trip?

kzt wrote:How many pirate attacks are you planning to survive on a single trip?

This post actually got me thinking about some stuff, thank you. Like how many actions in one cruise we are shown in the books by one ship. Then I chase down a couple of other rabbit holes and the following thought came to me.

HMS Wayfarer was armed like a BC or BB, better in lot of ways. Our heroine then treated it like it was a BC or a BB. With predictable results.

If you arm these paper ships like they are something they are not you might get away with it once, twice even three times or more ... but somewhere, somebody is going to think it is worth more than it is. Bunch of people get killed for little or no return. Think in the OotD how the F-22s shooting down some transports affected other humans thoughts on resistance.

Need to rethink a lot of my past thoughts of other such examples in the series.

Happy Thoughts,
T2M

I wouldn't even store any reloads and just a limited set of repair parts. If should be rare that you need to fight. If you need to fight the odds are that you will just need to do it once on that trip. If the opposition is such that you are in need of reloading you will almost never have sufficient time to do it. And I really don't want merchant ships having to store military ordinance in a ready to use mode, which is what you need to make combat reloads work.