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BB(P/C) for rear area security

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Re: BB(P/C) for rear area security
Post by Tenshinai   » Sun Feb 16, 2014 2:39 pm

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Duckk wrote:http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/entry/Harrington/290/1


A few comments on that:

Of course, the reasons the Brits had armored their flight decks were that they were going to be [operating] in restricted waters (closer to land-based enemy air), that prewar shipboard antiaircraft was woefully anemic, and that the Royal Navy's aircraft -- whose design was controlled prewar by the RAF, not the Navy -- well, frankly… sucked. In short, the British Navy had little hope of defeating air attack by destroying the bases from which that attack might be launched and was forced to accept that the only way its aircraft carriers were likely to survive was to them as tough as possible. As a consequence, their air groups were much smaller, which, coupled with the inferior quality of their aircraft, would have left them at a serious disadvantage in a standup fight with their American or Japanese counterparts.


That is essentially a myth, because the primary reason for those airgroups being small (and the British navy not building more carriers despite being one of the big pioneers in using them) was simple (and very stupidly) due to there being a fixed limit to the number of aircraft that the navy was allowed to have.

Part of the insane turfwar between airforce and navy after WWI.

The second biggest reason for smaller airgroups was also not due to armouring, but instead due to the simple fact that the UK did not utilise deck parks like USA and to a lesser extent Japan did.

Modelling of the ships and the airplanes have in fact shown that if deck parks and cramming the planes together more tightly like the US did had been used, the British carriers would have been able to carry airgroups of similar size.

It should probably also be mentioned that much of the reason for the less than great aircraft designs the UK navy had was due to design requirements that even many of those meant to use them fully agreed with, for example it was felt that navigation over open waters was difficult enough that all carrier aircraft needed at least a crew of 2.


Also, the difference between carrier design is not in wether a carrier is built with wooden deck or with armoured deck, but first of all, wether the flight deck is the main deck ( usually armored ), or the hanger deck is the main deck with the flight deck built as superstructure on top of that.

And once this is understood, it is no surprise that there is still much debate on which design is better.

Superstructure design gives a number of advantages, like much fewer limits on placing aircraft elevators and being less "wetnosed".
And as long as such a carrier wasn´t actually sunk, it could usually be repaired. By spending months in a dock.

However, armoured main/flight deck gave a stronger ship in total, and bombs hitting the deck often resulted in just about nothing, hence the saying about "sweepers man your brooms", damage rarely went internal so it was just a matter of getting rid of any debris(and fire, but those tended to go out on their own eventually) from the flight deck and the carrier could resume normal operations. In a matter of minutes or hours.

Longterm however, the armoured flight decks had a nasty tendency to warp from damage and especially fires, so eventually, the carrier would have to accept a slower top speed to compensate, and repairing this was pretty much a waste of resources, it was cheaper to build a new carrier from zero.


Which means that surprisingly, USA and UK both choose the design more suitable for them, despite not understanding their good/bad sides at the time of making those choices.

UK had few carriers that they needed to stay alive, while USA had the economical option of building many, and could afford to rotate damaged ones back to docks for months or even years of repairs.


That meant the "full-deck strike" she could launch was smaller than the ones her larger sisters could launch, and that whereas Enterprise was designed to carry over 90 aircraft, Ranger was designed to carry only 72. In other words, she was a less effective, less efficient vessel as an aircraft carrier than any of her consorts…. which is the main reason she spent the entire war in the Atlantic, where she wasn't going to go up against anybody else's carriers.


It was also because the Ranger was pretty much USAs only failed carrier design of WWII or the runup to it. It had bad seakeeping and a number of smaller troubles.

Which is rather ironic as it was the first USN carrier built as a carrier from the start.
The Sara and the Lady Lex, despite preceeding the Ranger and conversions, once their 20cm guns were rid of, far superior ships.

Being twice the tonnage probably had something to do with that of course, but the ships also didn´t show any of the troubles and excentricities the Ranger ended up with.

But if you go back and look at the memos and minutes of meetings and discussions about building priorities, it becomes pretty clear that the enormous numbers of CVEs and CVLs which were ultimately ordered were more the result of pressure from the Roosevelt administration than because they were what the Navy wanted.


Quite so, because the US navy, despite being far better in this, like the IJN it was still focused on "real fighting", protecting merchants and transports wasn´t cool enough (nor did it provide easily displayed "kills" to justify costs).

In the event, it turned out that the Navy had a point, and hundreds of destroyer escorts were canceled at the end of the war.]


That was more due to no longer being needed, than being a bad design choice by itself, at the time the choice was made.

Building better ships ALMOST as fast simply isn´t good enough when your primary ally is a hairswidth from disaster.

There´s also the major issue that there was a distinct shortage of certain engine components, meaning that building larger ships would either have resulted in SLOWER ships, or greater delays.

And this is even more true when looking at the small carriers, many of them were simply not very good ships at all. Didn´t matter, their arrival in numbers was one of the things that killed the German submarine war.

Building fewer, larger carriers would instead have made them primary targets for the submarines, as then it would have been a relatively simple way to remove a LOT of important assets(the aircrafts) from a convoy.

And it wasn´t until there were plenty of CVEs that it became realistic to have hunter killer groups that were not part of the convoys.


But ships that size cost a lot of money, and there are constant suggestions and arguments that the "super carriers" are simply too big, too expensive, and too vulnerable, for even the United States to afford. Better that we should invest in a greater number of smaller, less capable, and (whether anyone wants to actually use the word or not) more expendable units. In other words, we're still seeing the same arguments and the same thinking as in the 1920s and 1930s dueling for supremacy when we look at the future of carrier aviation in the United States Navy today.


And the world... For example, the British brand new QE class at 70kt is almost constantly being questioned for being mostly a waste of resources.

Compare to the Italian Cavour that carries half to 3/4 the number of aircraft at well less than half the tonnage, ~30kt.

Meanwhile, Spain and Russia are looking more towards amphibious assault ships with the ability to act as a carrier as a secondary ability. Or like the French Mistral class, primarily set to merely be able to handle helicopters instead.

With Japan having the Hyuga class and soon deploying the Izumo at 14kt and 19kt, both designated as helicopter destroyers, but quite capable of carrying STOL or VTOL planes.

Pretty much just USA and UK building BIG carriers today, but the real question is just how good big vs medium vs small of the various kinds are...
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Re: BB(P/C) for rear area security
Post by Positroll   » Sun Feb 16, 2014 2:49 pm

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Jonathan_S wrote:I love having LACs around for missile defense. I'm just not convinced that having each ship carry their own makes sense.

Except for DDs or CLs on anti-piracy patrols you never really see Honoverse navies operating their ships solo. So you don't seem to need a hybrid that combines missile combat with carrier operations. It tends to work much better simply assigned a dedicated carrier to the squadron, or for system defense shipping in LACs to operate from a fixed station (if you don't want to tie up a CLAC).

What was the saying about admirals fighting the last war? :lol:
Just because SO FAR sending out single ships >CL maybe didn't make much sense (unless the Captain's name is Harrington, Oversteegen or Terekov ... , so let's rather say > CA ;) ) doesn't mean that's true when you are trying to fight a star nation that has thousands of starsystems.
Sorry, but the GA can't build thousands of squadrons. It just might be able to build many hundreds of BBs (and pair them with one System Control Cruiser (and maybe one arsenal ship with pods and another few LACs) that stay in orbit of the newl freed verge world, while the BB Drops off ist marines and then moves back to the hyperlimit to jump on any incoming rading force ...
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Re: BB(P/C) for rear area security
Post by namelessfly   » Sun Feb 16, 2014 2:52 pm

namelessfly

I think that the future of missile defense is remote platforms about the size and mass of a missile pod. All up Mk-23s mass about 150 tons? A pod of eight plus an Apollo control missile would then mass about 1,500ton minimum but more likely 3,000 tons.

What could you put on a 3,000 ton platform?

About 100 counter missiles in box launchers?

A couple of PDLCs.

A reasonable drive should allow them to pull a few 1,000 gees, so forward deployment is very possible.


Jonathan_S wrote:
Positroll wrote:Whether its worth it or not depends largely on the question how much you think that improved missile defense is worth.
The RMN (under early Roger Winton?) had a pase where they deliberatly gave up quite a bit of offensive punch with that aim ("enhanced survivability program"). As I see it, my BB(P) would not give up missile tubes as these earlier ships did but some duration of sustained Mk23 fire.
This is partially counteracted by (1) the increased accuracy of Apollo and (2) the possibility of continuing with Mk16 if the ennemy closes (bwt, if you think that's not so mportant you might save space by basing the front end not on the Nike but on a modified hammerhead with Roland style launcher systems ...)

In return, you get a 4-layered missile defense:
- PD laser(clusters)
- Keyhole platforms including PD (cf. http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/165/0 )
- CM
- 8-12 LACS, 4 of them Katanas
I love having LACs around for missile defense. I'm just not convinced that having each ship carry their own makes sense.

Except for DDs or CLs on anti-piracy patrols you never really see Honoverse navies operating their ships solo. So you don't seem to need a hybrid that combines missile combat with carrier operations. It tends to work much better simply assigned a dedicated carrier to the squadron, or for system defense shipping in LACs to operate from a fixed station (if you don't want to tie up a CLAC).
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Re: BB(P/C) for rear area security
Post by Belial666   » Sun Feb 16, 2014 3:39 pm

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I think that the future of missile defense is remote platforms about the size and mass of a missile pod

A bit larger, probably. Too many platforms with wedges and you begin to clutter your own firing arcs for defensive fire - at least if you want them close enough to the defended ship or station to have integrated defenses. The optimal defensive platform would IMHO be a parasitic craft that carries the defensive suite of an entire Shrike-B and nothing else, which should come at around 1/4 to 1/3 the size of a full LAC.


What could you put on a 3,000 ton platform? About 100 counter missiles in box launchers?

Why box launchers? The Shrike-B has 8 standard launchers for its CMs and one standard CM launcher is probably lighter and smaller than a dozen box launchers. It's more efficient mass-wise to carry missiles in magazines than in box launchers. After all, however many CMs a platform could launch at once, you are still limited by the number of control links.





Do note that a serious defense against Apollo would need 4-5 CMs for every incoming missile. So if an enemy podnought can throw 10.000 missiles at you over the course of a battle, you must be able to throw at least 50.000 CMs during the same battle. It is highly unlikely you could put that many CMs on external platforms - so you need to be able to fire them from the ship itself. Ergo, you only put the control links on the parasitic platforms and either seriously up the number of CM tubes per ship or you fire CM pods or canisters.
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Re: BB(P/C) for rear area security
Post by namelessfly   » Sun Feb 16, 2014 4:10 pm

namelessfly

You might be right about box launchers verses a standard CM tube.

These are intended to be forward deployed CM platforms. Engaging an incoming missile salvo with multiple layer defense is more efficient and effective than attempting to engage the salvo in one phase with the same, total number of issues.

KH ships might augment the FC, but the idea is to not only engage a salvo further out from the ship but to reduce the light speed delay.

I choose a platform comparable to a missile pod to be useable by all ships.

A Nike might carry 100 such platforms with a total of 10,000 CMs. This massively increases the number of launchers for not much more tonnage cost than increasing CM magazine capacity.


Belial666 wrote:
I think that the future of missile defense is remote platforms about the size and mass of a missile pod

A bit larger, probably. Too many platforms with wedges and you begin to clutter your own firing arcs for defensive fire - at least if you want them close enough to the defended ship or station to have integrated defenses. The optimal defensive platform would IMHO be a parasitic craft that carries the defensive suite of an entire Shrike-B and nothing else, which should come at around 1/4 to 1/3 the size of a full LAC.


What could you put on a 3,000 ton platform? About 100 counter missiles in box launchers?

Why box launchers? The Shrike-B has 8 standard launchers for its CMs and one standard CM launcher is probably lighter and smaller than a dozen box launchers. It's more efficient mass-wise to carry missiles in magazines than in box launchers. After all, however many CMs a platform could launch at once, you are still limited by the number of control links.





Do note that a serious defense against Apollo would need 4-5 CMs for every incoming missile. So if an enemy podnought can throw 10.000 missiles at you over the course of a battle, you must be able to throw at least 50.000 CMs during the same battle. It is highly unlikely you could put that many CMs on external platforms - so you need to be able to fire them from the ship itself. Ergo, you only put the control links on the parasitic platforms and either seriously up the number of CM tubes per ship or you fire CM pods or canisters.
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Re: BB(P/C) for rear area security
Post by fester   » Mon Feb 17, 2014 9:15 am

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Positroll wrote: Sorry, but the GA can't build thousands of squadrons. It just might be able to build many hundreds of BBs (and pair them with one System Control Cruiser (and maybe one arsenal ship with pods and another few LACs) that stay in orbit of the newl freed verge world, while the BB Drops off ist marines and then moves back to the hyperlimit to jump on any incoming rading force ...


Let's price out the BB-P versus a standard Manticoran superdreadnought.

1) Both have 2 Keyhole 2 drones -- no cost savings there
2) Both have the Ghost Rider defensive suite -- maybe a marginal cost savings for the BB-P as it carries fewer decoys/drones/jammers
3) Both have top end military impellers -- the superdreadnoughts' are bigger and more expensive, marginal savings here.
4) Both have top end compensators -- if the BB-P is getting an acceleration advantage, there is only a marginal cost savings here.
5) The BB-P has a system integration issue of frigates or LACs that the SD-P does not, BB-P more expensive here (plus cost of frigates or LACs as they are integral to your CONOP)
6) The BB-P has 400 pods for Apollo, the Invicitus repeat might have 1,000, significant savings here.
7) The BB-P still requires a senior captain, an experienced tactical team, an experienced capital ship engineering team, and astrogators. On high skill/low availability staff, the BB-P might have marginally lower demands than a superdreadnought.

The big cost savings is the decrease in battle steel being required, but steel is cheap. I believe Duckk upthread indicated that under the Honorverse building model, a 4 MT BB-P will probably cost 2/3rds of a 8.5 MT SD-P.

So let's say the RMN builds 300 of these BB-Ps. They are only good for rear area security against near peer battlecruisers. If they are facing near peer superdreadnoughts, they are toast if they stand and fight. They might inflict losses, but they'll take losses. In your scenario, anything that remotely looks like a 1:1 or even a 2:1 exchange rate in favor of the RMN is a strategic disaester.

At the same time, building these 300 BB-Ps means the RMN decided to forgo building and crewing 200 SD-Ps that are big enough and tough enough to engage in offensive actions against strategic building nodes of the remnents of the Solarian League OR provide rear area defense when not on offensive strikes.

Would a combination of some SD-Ps that are working up, refitting, or even resting plus an ungodly number of pods that are quickly deployable by freighter and controlled by either armored Moriarty or Mycroft nodes on hyper capable hulls be a better use of very scarce resoruces than single purpose ships that can't hold a place in a slug fest.
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Re: BB(P/C) for rear area security
Post by Brigade XO   » Mon Feb 17, 2014 9:50 am

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A lot of this depends just what you are expecting for securing in the rear area.
What happens if you have an othewise backwater planet like Zunker -without the wormhole- which is just ticking along and getting visiited only periodicaly by freighters one of which may be on some regular long cyclic run and acting as "regular" ferry service. It is NOT on the front line of anything. It could use modern LACs (and their support logistics) as SDF which is mostly doing customs work and S&R as needed along with regular system patrol and fill in places in the probably limited system tactical net.
This would probably be fine for something like a "regular" pirate that might show up looking to pick off a merchant ship and who had designes on raiding the orbital infrastructure.
On the other hand, what if the system was getting attention from something more than just routine traffic or there was any indication (like in Silesia) that there were more dangerous things slinking around out in the dark? At that point, the local system might want to go with a frigate or two. That would be a modern Hauptman built frigate (Manticorian Export Grade) WHEN THE CAPSISITY TO BUILD NEW ONES IS RECOVERED. One of those, in capable hands and well trained crew, is probably enough for a standard SL (and anybody else other than SEM/RHN/SGN/IAN/Erwhon/Beowulf SDF) DD that might come raiding. At need one could provide local (next ususal destination) for a merchant ship if there were indications it could be needed.
This would be for solid treaty partners who can't afford a DD or larger and for which GA (or Haven or Manticore) can't provide perminent military presence.
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Re: BB(P/C) for rear area security
Post by Positroll   » Mon Feb 17, 2014 12:23 pm

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:D
fester wrote:
Positroll wrote: Sorry, but the GA can't build thousands of squadrons. It just might be able to build many hundreds of BBs (and pair them with one System Control Cruiser (and maybe one arsenal ship with pods and another few LACs) that stay in orbit of the newl freed verge world, while the BB Drops off ist marines and then moves back to the hyperlimit to jump on any incoming rading force ...


Let's price out the BB-P versus a standard Manticoran superdreadnought.

1) Both have 2 Keyhole 2 drones -- no cost savings there
2) Both have the Ghost Rider defensive suite -- maybe a marginal cost savings for the BB-P as it carries fewer decoys/drones/jammers
3) Both have top end military impellers -- the superdreadnoughts' are bigger and more expensive, marginal savings here.
4) Both have top end compensators -- if the BB-P is getting an acceleration advantage, there is only a marginal cost savings here.
5) The BB-P has a system integration issue of frigates or LACs that the SD-P does not, BB-P more expensive here (plus cost of frigates or LACs as they are integral to your CONOP)
6) The BB-P has 400 pods for Apollo, the Invicitus repeat might have 1,000, significant savings here.
7) The BB-P still requires a senior captain, an experienced tactical team, an experienced capital ship engineering team, and astrogators. On high skill/low availability staff, the BB-P might have marginally lower demands than a superdreadnought.

The big cost savings is the decrease in battle steel being required, but steel is cheap. I believe Duckk upthread indicated that under the Honorverse building model, a 4 MT BB-P will probably cost 2/3rds of a 8.5 MT SD-P.

So let's say the RMN builds 300 of these BB-Ps. They are only good for rear area security against near peer battlecruisers. If they are facing near peer superdreadnoughts, they are toast if they stand and fight. They might inflict losses, but they'll take losses. In your scenario, anything that remotely looks like a 1:1 or even a 2:1 exchange rate in favor of the RMN is a strategic disaester.

At the same time, building these 300 BB-Ps means the RMN decided to forgo building and crewing 200 SD-Ps that are big enough and tough enough to engage in offensive actions against strategic building nodes of the remnents of the Solarian League OR provide rear area defense when not on offensive strikes.

Would a combination of some SD-Ps that are working up, refitting, or even resting plus an ungodly number of pods that are quickly deployable by freighter and controlled by either armored Moriarty or Mycroft nodes on hyper capable hulls be a better use of very scarce resoruces than single purpose ships that can't hold a place in a slug fest.


All good arguments.

I can counter only with one:

200 SD(p)s - provided RFC would ever allow them to set out on their own - could only free + protect 200 protectorat systems from Solly BC raiders at any given time.
300 BB(P)s can protect 300 systems. (the difference increases over time if you allow for the possibility that some systems - like Meyers - are stable enough to accept them as allies and put in Mycroft, freeing up hulls)

If you grant them an average population of 500 million / planet, that means freedom and security for an additional 50 billion human beings. Who are also potential customers and might - over time - provide other assets for the GA.
Not to mention that OFS will receive 100 fewer planetary fees.

Sometimes, quantity has a quality of its own. I think this is one of these times ....

P.S: That doesn't mean we shouldn't still build some new SD(P)s to protect the central nodes. But if Grayson can build a hundred wallers for itself a few years after being brought up to speed by Mantcore, what do you think the potential of a reinvigorated RH is?
Not to mention that the SEM - once its yards are newly constructed and the economy of Talbott is brought up to spead (reminds me of West Germany after WWII and East Germany after 1990, btw) should really kick ass from an industial perspective ...

P.P.S: BTW, the fact that Manticores yards still need some time to be rebuilt (and Havens yards need time to be upgraded to Mantie standards, this is the perfect time for BuSips to develop some new ship types, be that BBs, Sag-Ds, new CLs or anything else ... - oh, and they all should have extra large engine rooms to fit the streak drive ...
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Re: BB(P/C) for rear area security
Post by SWM   » Mon Feb 17, 2014 12:37 pm

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Positroll--your premise rests on the assumption that Manticore will have to free hundreds or thousands of Protectorate planets and then leave at least one large ship in each one. I disagree completely with that assumption.

First of all, there is not really any reason for Manticore to do anything at all with most Protectorate planets. Manticore has developed the deep strike strategy, so it can bypass all the piddling little planets that don't mean anything. Almost none of those planets have any significant ships based there anyway. Second of all, even the planets that Manticore does free do not need anything as big as your BB(P/C) left behind. A simple destroyer would be quite sufficient--it doesn't even need to be a Roland. A destroyer could take care of piracy and keeping a thumb on the local government if necessary. And if the League comes in with something it can't handle, the destroyer can escape and call on nodal forces to kick the League out again.

There is absolutely no need to put anything as big as a battleship into captured planets.
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Re: BB(P/C) for rear area security
Post by Duckk   » Mon Feb 17, 2014 12:52 pm

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200 SD(p)s - provided RFC would ever allow them to set out on their own - could only free + protect 200 protectorat systems from Solly BC raiders at any given time.
300 BB(P)s can protect 300 systems. (the difference increases over time if you allow for the possibility that some systems - like Meyers - are stable enough to accept them as allies and put in Mycroft, freeing up hulls)


This is the fundamental problem with the whole idea. You cannot be strong everywhere. Trying to be strong everywhere is just a recipe for spreading your forces thin to the point of uselessness. This is a running refrain in AAC, for example.

A defender is typically going to be worried about 2 things:

1) Light combatants (like pirates), up to commerce raiders operating under national flag (like SLN raiders)

2) A heavy, concerted attack by capital ships

If you're worried about 1, then you don't need the heavy metal of a battleship. The entire point of the new model LACs was to provide economical local defense to free up the hyper capable units. Couple that with modern Alliance warships and system defense pods (don't even need a system like Moriarty), and you've got a tough nut to crack for any run of the mill raider. And given the state of SLN technology, such defenses could even tangle up SLN waller task groups.

If you're worried about a genuine, serious attack on the system, then I have to ask what the heck is worth attacking in the system in the first place. Granted, you could be looking at a strategy similar to the Cutworm raids in which minor systems were attacked to force the enemy into defensive dispersal. But that just leads right back to maintaining concentration of force, as Theisman's subsequent response illustrated. More importantly, if the SLN is willing to fritter his heavy fighting strength on beating his head against the "light" defenses of the second- and third-string systems, I'd be all for it. The losses inflicted would get very prohibitive very quickly.

In either case, there's no need for a pod laying battleship. It falls firmly in between the two stools of strategic requirements. Neither fish nor fowl, it has no use given the current advantages the Alliance enjoys.
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