Revisiting a Gryphon refit.

Understanding that the Mk23 refit was possible but problematic. One wonders if a Mk41 refit would solve many of these problems?

The tubes and feeds would need adjusting. Extra telemetry or keyhole 1 or 2 added. Change half the PD over to CM and update the other half to more modern PD with the keyhole platforms adding at least 32 PD each. This should suffice. Software shouldn't be a problem. Compensator upgrades and new nodes. Bucklers would also be nice.

Yes these upgrades would need be done somewhere one might suggest that a slip would be best but a Grayson style refit station would work and could be built in the Manticore System. Not as intensive as the new ship building slip, the retrofit dispersed stations could be built for the Sphinx and Gryphon but then carry on as other retrofit stations or incorporated into the eventual new stations or added on.

A Gryphon 2 refitted with Mk41 MDM will have the range of the Mk23 MDM, these missiles would need be made and can incorporate the advances of the Modern missiles. Pen aides laser heads EW... Maybe even the ERM incorporation.

Would one add Apollo to the Gryphon 2 or a Mk41 version? Perhaps, perhaps not? I suppose one could add Apollo only pods for added long range. A dozen 6 Apollo missiles per pod, pods would give only 3 off bore salvos double stacked 184 missiles each salvo, 40 EW and 144 laser head + 12 Apollo. 196 missile salvo.

With enough of a refit the Gryphon 2 could reduce crews to twice that of a Nike BCL as a SDC (C for Capacitor MDM Mk41 designation). The advanced Mk41 could even increase the number of lase rods over that of the Mk23.

Add the Minotaur CLAC to the New Gryphon 2 groups gives you either a Silesian backwater surprise for any SLN raiders or a secondary front line unit.

What part of "no, it's never going to happen" do you not understand? That kind of radical refit would suck up so much time and resources that they could just build another SD(P).

Lord Skimper wrote: The tubes and feeds would need adjusting. Extra telemetry or keyhole 1 or 2 added. Change half the PD over to CM and update the other half to more modern PD with the keyhole platforms adding at least 32 PD each. This should suffice. Software shouldn't be a problem. Compensator upgrades and new nodes. Bucklers would also be nice.

Yes these upgrades would need be done somewhere one might suggest that a slip would be best but a Grayson style refit station would work and could be built in the Manticore System. Not as intensive as the new ship building slip....

With enough of a refit the Gryphon 2 could reduce crews to twice that of a Nike BCL Add the Minotaur CLAC to the New Gryphon 2 groups gives you either a Silesian backwater surprise for any SLN raiders or a secondary front line unit.

As others have said, this makes no sense within the construction system of the Honorverse nor does it make sense within Manticoran strategic thought. Let's talk construction first.

Your "plan" is to take an energy heavy waller, rip out all exisiting missile tubes, missile feed lines, most of the point defense system and add in a pair of massive broadside bays for Keyhole. Each of these tasks means going through meters of the grown in place matrix armor. We saw with HMS NIKE at Hancock Station that a fully equipped fleet base going through the top of the thin armor of a battlecruiser to get to the fusion plan is a major multi-month job. Now let's rip out 90 plus single drive missile tubes that are deeply embedded in some of the thickest armor in space, replace those 90 tubes with seventy/eighty/ninety larger tubes. Next let's rip out two long stretches of broadside space by either weakening the overall armor structure or sinking the armor belt inwards so the Keyhole drones are flush(ish) with the hull. After that, let's replace the surface point defense laser mounts with more counter missile tubes that penetrate the armored core. This is at least a year long job, probably closer to eighteen months.

Now let's handwave the economic, engineering and technological challenges away. As you put it the refitted Gryphon is at best a "secondary front line unit." The RMN faced a similar challenge of needing a large, numerous, powerful wall of battle under serious budgetary constraints when they were building up against the Peeps. Battleships were an option as they were cheaper and faster to build than dreadnoughts and superdreadnoughts, but they were at best secondary front line units. If they faced an actual dreadnought, an equal tonnage of battleships were roadkill. Once the RMN starts facing Solarian podlayers, or any other entity with podlayers such as the Mesan Alignment Navy, the Gryphon 2 is a battleship --- a resource sink that is sufficient to scare away light raiders but can't stand in the wall of battle. Manticore has always tried to avoid that as it can more easily and effectively secure its rear areas with a Moriaty installation with several thousand pods.

Refitting for Mk41s will be even more complex, as they are bigger than the Mk23. That will require more yard time, more redesign and so on.

Having said that, I'm surprised there isn't a SD class between the Gryphon and the Medusa, with there being 3 other classes in 11 years prior to this.

WLBjork wrote:Refitting for Mk41s will be even more complex, as they are bigger than the Mk23. That will require more yard time, more redesign and so on.

Having said that, I'm surprised there isn't a SD class between the Gryphon and the Medusa, with there being 3 other classes in 11 years prior to this.

I think that's just a function of the RMN having to rationalize their production capacity. Concentrating on one very good design makes logistics a hell of a lot easier, not to mention that it makes individual Wallers and BatRons much more uniform (A BatRon composed of several different ship designs will, for example, have to conform to the maximum speed attainable by the slowest ship).

The E wrote:

WLBjork wrote:Refitting for Mk41s will be even more complex, as they are bigger than the Mk23. That will require more yard time, more redesign and so on.

Having said that, I'm surprised there isn't a SD class between the Gryphon and the Medusa, with there being 3 other classes in 11 years prior to this.

I think that's just a function of the RMN having to rationalize their production capacity. Concentrating on one very good design makes logistics a hell of a lot easier, not to mention that it makes individual Wallers and BatRons much more uniform (A BatRon composed of several different ship designs will, for example, have to conform to the maximum speed attainable by the slowest ship).

Indeed, the last Sphinxes were identical to the first Gryphons. And the Medusa was officially listed as an updated Gryphon as part of a disinformation campaign.

Want to know what an improved Gryphon looks like? Wander over to Yeltsin's Star and check out the Denevski-class SD and its command variant, Benjamin the Great.

Tracing the lineage back, the early Sphinxes were apparently a modified Victory-class SD design. The Medusa was a radical design departure, but did delay a few Denevskis, indicating that they shared at least a few identical components(e.g. fusion plants, hyper gen).

Lord Skimper wrote:Understanding that the Mk23 refit was possible but problematic. One wonders if a Mk41 refit would solve many of these problems?

The tubes and feeds would need adjusting. Extra telemetry or keyhole 1 or 2 added. Change half the PD over to CM and update the other half to more modern PD with the keyhole platforms adding at least 32 PD each. This should suffice. Software shouldn't be a problem. Compensator upgrades and new nodes. Bucklers would also be nice.

I got the impression (prior to HoS) that at least some of the late flight Gryphons had been modified for Mk41 MDMs before the Mk23s came on the scene. But it would have been a much more astere conversion that the near total rebuild you're advocating.

Yes, the missile tubes would have to be enlarged (with all the cuts through internal armored bulkheads that entails).

But it was pre-keyhole; so that wouldn't have been done. (And redoing all the broadside armor to create the semi-recessed dock for the keyhole is a royal pain in the ass. Way, way, more effort than it's worth.)

Changing PD to CMs is another non-starter. The CM requires you to cut a feed tube all the way back to the CM magazine, adding one CM launcher is significantly more work than enlarging a launch tube for the capital missile.

Compensator upgrade, of course; they got those periodically as the war went on. The bow walls would apparently require new nodes (based on some text in SoS about a Mars class-CA) so I don't know if that would have been done.



But putting that kind of effort in before SD(P)s had proven themselves is one thing. Doing it now is quite another.

If BuShips decides that a SD(L), along the lines of an greatly enlarged Nike, is a good idea they'd make it a clean sheet design. You'd get a more effective ship and it wouldn't take all that much longer to build than the massive mods you're talking about.

The E wrote:I think that's just a function of the RMN having to rationalize their production capacity. Concentrating on one very good design makes logistics a hell of a lot easier, not to mention that it makes individual Wallers and BatRons much more uniform (A BatRon composed of several different ship designs will, for example, have to conform to the maximum speed attainable by the slowest ship).

Turns out the answer is simple, and is hidden in the information for the Medusa. BuShips had already decided the next SD would be a pod laying design around 1900.

I'm surprised that they didn't hedge their bets and create a traditional design as a safeguard against delays or even failure of the pod-laying concept though.

Jonathan_S wrote:
But putting that kind of effort in before SD(P)s had proven themselves is one thing. Doing it now is quite another.

If BuShips decides that a SD(L), along the lines of an greatly enlarged Nike, is a good idea they'd make it a clean sheet design. You'd get a more effective ship and it wouldn't take all that much longer to build than the massive mods you're talking about.

The last time this subject came up, I mentioned all the "real world" obstacles such a proposal would run into. Due to the cost, complexity, time, and shipyard resources required for such a conversion, the only time this upgrade would be done is in a circumstance where politics forbade the construction of further new ships (probably due in part to the cost of all those fairly new, yet outdated ships), yet conditions still required ships with more of the capabilities offered by the new technology.

This however, is definately NOT one of those situations. The leadership recognizes that any new SD(p) would be worth 2 or 3 of these ships, each of which would displace ~80% of a new build. So the few available SD yard slips would be >2x more valuable building a new ship than doing an upgrade.

WLBjork wrote:

The E wrote:I think that's just a function of the RMN having to rationalize their production capacity. Concentrating on one very good design makes logistics a hell of a lot easier, not to mention that it makes individual Wallers and BatRons much more uniform (A BatRon composed of several different ship designs will, for example, have to conform to the maximum speed attainable by the slowest ship).

Turns out the answer is simple, and is hidden in the information for the Medusa. BuShips had already decided the next SD would be a pod laying design around 1900.

I'm surprised that they didn't hedge their bets and create a traditional design as a safeguard against delays or even failure of the pod-laying concept though.

I guess it's possible that the spring style they leaked of a Flight III Gryphon was actually part of a more serious study on a next-gen non-pod SD designs.