BB(P/C) for rear area security

munroburton wrote:
Only against the RMN/GSN's new range of DDM classes. Haven hasn't demonstrated anything like the Roland, Sag-C or Nike(or Agamemnon for that matter). Bolthole may yield a few more surprises - I really do look forwards to Hemphill's impressions of that facility.

I do think that given rough parity in tonnage, any Havenite formation would win against Solarians. Unquestionably if equipped with MDM pods. But if they are not, the outcome may be similar to the Battle of Torch.

The only way I see the SLN winning anything or at least inflicting losses is running into a smaller GA force composed of SDM ships - which all Havenite subwallers are.

Given rough parity between a RHN force and an SLN force, I'll put my money on the Havenites every time. The tech might be comparable but the experience is not. Any Haven Captain has been there and done that and lived to talk about it. The SLN COs, not so much. In comparable force battles, it is the imponderables that decide the outcome, more often than not: training, doctrine, experience and nerve. Any Haven CO from single ship to squadron level knows his weapon and what it is truly capable of. He has used it before. The same can not be said of the SLN. The Haven CO also has access to all the information that a competent and capable training and planning staff can put together. He is not going to be fighting blind with one hand tied behind his back, like the SLN CO would be. IMHO, it will take a larger force of SLN ships to take on a Haven formation than most of us would believe to have any expectation of winning.

KNick wrote:Given rough parity between a RHN force and an SLN force, I'll put my money on the Havenites every time. The tech might be comparable but the experience is not. Any Haven Captain has been there and done that and lived to talk about it. The SLN COs, not so much. In comparable force battles, it is the imponderables that decide the outcome, more often than not: training, doctrine, experience and nerve. Any Haven CO from single ship to squadron level knows his weapon and what it is truly capable of. He has used it before. The same can not be said of the SLN. The Haven CO also has access to all the information that a competent and capable training and planning staff can put together. He is not going to be fighting blind with one hand tied behind his back, like the SLN CO would be. IMHO, it will take a larger force of SLN ships to take on a Haven formation than most of us would believe to have any expectation of winning.

I agree on the experience telling.

But even on the technical side the haven designs might have marginally longer ranged missiles, and would certainly have faster cycling missile and cm launchers, more point defense, better ECM libraries, and higher accel. (And possibly full bow or stern walls; though not the buckler walls)

So while they're closer to the technical specs if the SLN sub-walkers they've probably got a better edge there than the pre-buttercup Mantie/Grayson designs had over similar era Peep same size ships...

Jonathan_S wrote:I agree on the experience telling.

But even on the technical side the haven designs might have marginally longer ranged missiles, and would certainly have faster cycling missile and cm launchers, more point defense, better ECM libraries, and higher accel. (And possibly full bow or stern walls; though not the buckler walls)

So while they're closer to the technical specs if the SLN sub-walkers they've probably got a better edge there than the pre-buttercup Mantie/Grayson designs had over similar era Peep same size ships...

That the Haven ships are not as advanced as the Manties doesn´t matter nearly as much, because the Haven ships have been developed to be able to fight against Manticore ships, meaning that they MUST be able to pour out a lot more firepower and have plenty better defenses than the SLN ever thought was needed.

Or else they could never have had any chance to even survive against Manticore in the first place.
Although a direct tonnage comparison might not be the best way to do it as Haven compensated by commonly building larger ships and weapons.

Tenshinai wrote:

SWM wrote:No, you were making a straw man argument. And I called you on it. No one was talking about eliminating everything below the size of a battleship, or even replacing everything below the battleship with a single class.

Complete BS.

And frankly, the arguments about "not being able to withstand a fight with a near peer ship"? Try drawing that to its logical conclusion and ALL ships end up being SDs (hence my exaggeration). Especially once you look at Apollo.

And if that was so extremely important, then why was there ANYONE previously building DDs?
When could those DDs ever realistically stand up to a CL? They couldn´t. Still same deal.

And if 2 DDs battled, if one had a tech or size inferiority, it was more likely to loose.
Yet DDs were still built due to NEED.

And while it´s cheaper to build and maintain a single 400kt CL instead of 2 200kt DDs, the CL can only be in one place at a time.

You are misunderstanding the meaning of a ship standing up to an opponent of an equivalent ship. It does not necessarily mean that it would win, or even survive. What it means is that it takes more than one broadside from the opponent to take you out. Up through the middle of the first Havenite War, Manticore designed all it's ships to that spec. The new tech has let offensive power jump far ahead of defensive power. David has said repeatedly that Manticore is seeking to redress that issue. One of the ways they are doing that is by increasing the size of the ships.

If Manticore keeps designing destroyers in the post-War era of widespread DDM deployment, they will build it big enough to meet that criteria. The new destroyer is not going to be half the size of a light-cruiser.

SWM wrote:You are misunderstanding the meaning of a ship standing up to an opponent of an equivalent ship. It does not necessarily mean that it would win, or even survive. What it means is that it takes more than one broadside from the opponent to take you out. Up through the middle of the first Havenite War, Manticore designed all it's ships to that spec. The new tech has let offensive power jump far ahead of defensive power. David has said repeatedly that Manticore is seeking to redress that issue. One of the ways they are doing that is by increasing the size of the ships.

If Manticore keeps designing destroyers in the post-War era of widespread DDM deployment, they will build it big enough to meet that criteria. The new destroyer is not going to be half the size of a light-cruiser.

So, what you´re saying is(for simplicity) a Roland is unable to survive a 12 missile spread?
And that´s only if the enemy also has the ability to launch missiles offbore. Otherwise it´s 6 missiles.

If you want more, then it´s single drive missiles instead. Can´t have both. Can´t have Apollo, because it´s too big for DDs.

20 CM and 30 PD as well as wedge, "walls" and EW should certainly not make it an easy kill.
I rather doubt it would be a kill at all even if hostile is lucky.

I would expect 1-3 to get through defenses out of those 12. That´s not going to be a kill.

Meaning that by your own definition, even the current Roland is "good enough".

KNick wrote:Given rough parity between a RHN force and an SLN force, I'll put my money on the Havenites every time. The tech might be comparable but the experience is not. Any Haven Captain has been there and done that and lived to talk about it. The SLN COs, not so much. In comparable force battles, it is the imponderables that decide the outcome, more often than not: training, doctrine, experience and nerve. Any Haven CO from single ship to squadron level knows his weapon and what it is truly capable of. He has used it before. The same can not be said of the SLN. The Haven CO also has access to all the information that a competent and capable training and planning staff can put together. He is not going to be fighting blind with one hand tied behind his back, like the SLN CO would be. IMHO, it will take a larger force of SLN ships to take on a Haven formation than most of us would believe to have any expectation of winning.

I know the SLN has huge problems with experience and training. A huge percentage of its officers are useless... but all it takes are a few ninety-seventh percentilers to be in the right place at the right time.

I don't want to rule out the possibility of another Roszak(sans treachery) or even a Michael Oversteegen equivalent - a well-connected Battle Fleet officer with brains. We've seen examples of those types in virtually every Navy at varying levels, just as they had their jackasses.

If one of those golden boys goes up against one of the GA's jackasses, the League might just get its token victory. It's likely this will happen due to complacency on someone's part, after seeing so many Solly failures and poking around captured ships that they begin to assume the Sollies can't possibly pull off anything.

Tenshinai wrote:

SWM wrote:You are misunderstanding the meaning of a ship standing up to an opponent of an equivalent ship. It does not necessarily mean that it would win, or even survive. What it means is that it takes more than one broadside from the opponent to take you out. Up through the middle of the first Havenite War, Manticore designed all it's ships to that spec. The new tech has let offensive power jump far ahead of defensive power. David has said repeatedly that Manticore is seeking to redress that issue. One of the ways they are doing that is by increasing the size of the ships.

If Manticore keeps designing destroyers in the post-War era of widespread DDM deployment, they will build it big enough to meet that criteria. The new destroyer is not going to be half the size of a light-cruiser.

So, what you´re saying is(for simplicity) a Roland is unable to survive a 12 missile spread?
And that´s only if the enemy also has the ability to launch missiles offbore. Otherwise it´s 6 missiles.

If you want more, then it´s single drive missiles instead. Can´t have both. Can´t have Apollo, because it´s too big for DDs.

20 CM and 30 PD as well as wedge, "walls" and EW should certainly not make it an easy kill.
I rather doubt it would be a kill at all even if hostile is lucky.

I would expect 1-3 to get through defenses out of those 12. That´s not going to be a kill.

Meaning that by your own definition, even the current Roland is "good enough".

I can't tell whether you are being deliberately obtuse or not. Of course the opposing ship would have to have offbore capability, and the ability to stack missiles.

The old definition of standing up to its own fire (which is the phrase David Weber has used in discussing it) obviously meant a broadside. With the new tech, standing up to one's own fire just as obviously means more than just a single broadside. A Roland would not fire a mere 12 missiles, therefore, a Roland standing up to a Roland has to expect more than 12 missiles. David has said, over and over again, that a Roland cannot stand up to its own fire, and that Manticore considers this a serious flaw.

By Manticore's own standards, a Roland is an inadequate design. During peacetime, when the rest of the galaxy is catching up to Manticore, the RMN will not design a new destroyer unless it can meet the test of standing up to its own fire.

Tenshinai wrote:So, what you´re saying is(for simplicity) a Roland is unable to survive a 12 missile spread?

<snip>

I would expect 1-3 to get through defenses out of those 12. That´s not going to be a kill.

Keep in mind that Rolands can stack double broadsides with full off-bore targeting into any aspect. That means that a Roland's broadside is more like 24 missiles, and don't forget that it's firing mark 16s. With the upgraded grav lensing, and considering that Rolands are effectively unarmored, 1-2 hits probably *would* kill it.

Tenshinai wrote:So, what you´re saying is(for simplicity) a Roland is unable to survive a 12 missile spread?

No, a Roland can deliver a 36 missile salvo. Which will kill it dead at least 50% of the time.

SWM wrote:David has said, over and over again, that a Roland cannot stand up to its own fire, and that Manticore considers this a serious flaw.

I should clarify. After looking for the citations to support this, I don't find an explicit statement that the Roland cannot stand up to its own fire. I do find several statements which imply it, however. There are numerous statements that the Roland is a transitional type, and implications that the RMN would not have made the compromises incorporated into it during peacetime. He says in several places that the Roland is vulnerable, and that the navy is looking toward a future with larger ships to reduce that vulnerability. In 2011, David said (emphasis added):

The Manties are perfectly prepared to continue using transitional types â?? and types which will become highly vulnerable once the other side has MDMs â?? very aggressively and offensively as long as their range advantage allows them to do so without prohibitive casualties, but they are already looking towards the next generation of warships and warship design. Hence the internal studies which are suggesting a 300,000-ton platform as the minimum to perform the light cruiser/destroyer role. In fact, what is probably going to happen is that the destroyer as a type will effectively disappear, with its independently deployable role reverting to the cruiser and its fleet screening role going to the LAC groups. In that respect, the Roland is every bit as much a short-term, transitional type as the BC(P) ever was, and the Admiralty's internal thinking reflects that. They are absolutely great, galaxy-beating ships to have… as long as the other side doesn't have ships with comparable weaponry.