Solly Fleet Advancements

I have to wonder if the SLN can afford the time it would take to design a completely new warship, or warships. Seems to me that at a minimum, it would take somewhere on the order of 18 months just to get a new design drawn up. That's best case, as in (in no particular order):

1) No one tries to bring politics into the design process.

2) The SLN is *capable* of designing a ship. They haven't had a new design in decades, AFAIK - only upgrades to existing ships.

3) The SLN has the money to pay for design and construction.

4) The SLN gets it through its skull that there's a *need* for new designs, or newer upgrades.

Frankly, I don't hold out any hope for *any* of those.

Also, while the infodump I had posted previously was talking about the relative value of the frigate vis-a-vis Manticore and Haven, RFC had also come down against frigates in general.

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/322/1

Potato wrote:The point here is that you are targeting such a ridiculously tiny edge case as to make it incredibly implausible. Either:

1) The SLN is so hidebound that it will ignore the need to build matching light combatant capability as the Alliance, in which case it will continue building its usual classes; or

2) The SLN recognizes the need to build matching capability, in which case LACs are back on the table.

A frigate is barely more than a LAC with a hyper generator piled on top. If you are positing that the SLN is capable of radically rethinking its ship design paradigm enough to even think about resurrecting a dead and buried ship type, then it must also be capable of recognizing that building a frigate without the hyper generator (i.e., a LAC) is at least equally desirable, especially given that it knows that the Alliance has also gone to building LACs. And since the SLN knows that it LACs are much cheaper than frigates, and frigates have zero advantages above and beyond hyper capability, I see no reason why they would not go go to LACs first.

The SLN is not going to look at the capability disparity and decide that it wants to build supremely cost inefficient platforms to carry out the missions they need those ships to do. As pointed out in that infodump, frigates have no justification regardless of the tech level, which is why they disappeared from the major navies in the first place.

If anything the SLN is not going to recognize the need for LACs until it is too late. Instead they are going to follow the same convergent design evolution as Erewhon/Maya and build better destroyers, not frigates, to get that defensive capability. The difference in construction time and crew would be minimal over the frigate, but would buy them so much more in capability.

Alizon wrote:That's certainly true when talking about the equipment of the RMN or the RHN but this thread concerns the Solarian League Navy which doesn't have anything resembling a modern LAC and which will take time to develop one.

In such a case you may well need smaller vessels like a Frigate to substitute for a LAC and free up heavier vessels for other duty.

As I've said before, you can't use "cannon gospel truths" about what makes sense for the RMN and attempt to apply that logic to the SLN because the two are operating under radically different realities.

A destroyer or cruiser sized anti-missile platform is not going to be significantly more survivable than a frigate, in the environment it will be deployed (anti-missile screen for wallers). Whatever ship is used, you can expect crushing losses among the screen. So there is some wisdom to making the anti-missile ships as cheap as possible. In this temporary environment, most of the usual arguments against frigates are moot.

The question boils down to this: will X credits spent on disposable frigates give more protection than X credits spent on disposable destroyers or cruisers--with the expectation of 80%+ losses whatever ships you use?

Given that a [edit]destroyer has essentially the same crew size as a frigate[/edit], costs only slightly more, and has considerably more bunkerage and room for PDLCs, I tentatively think a destroyer is the best size for disposable anti-missile platforms. With the understanding that Manticoran-style LACs would be even better, of course. But I'm not as well versed in military matters to make a good judgement.

tonyz wrote:

Alizon wrote:As to the Battleship concept, yes, ton for tone Battleships are faster than an SD given the same drive technology. Manty compensators are significantly superior to those used by Solarian League warships and one way you can at least compensate for this is by building smaller ships. It might take a while for even this strategy create a BB design with the speed and compensator capability of a RMN SD, but it will help the Solarians close the gap so that the disadvantages the labor under now are less pronounced.

This is true, but also almost completely irrelevant given missile ranges. Either you're in missile range or you aren't; if you are, and the enemy can't engage you, you can destroy them in a few minutes before they can get into range of you. If you aren't, and the enemy outranges you, then they can destroy you in a few minutes before you can get into range of them.

If the SLN can't solve the missile range problem before the Grand Alliance disassembles them, then solving the acceleration differential won't help them one iota.

This is true which is why developing this missile is a Phase I priority. In my opinion the only way this can be done with current SLN technology is to build them big, much larger than any SLN vessel can launch from internal launchers. This means that the first flight deployment of this system will need to be pod based. Phase I modifications to existing vessels will therefor be concentrated the ability to tow pods, provide enough fire control to allow the control of as many missiles as possible and improve the CM and Point Defense systems so that they have a fighting chance to defend themselves.

Of course any chance the SLN has of fielding any kind of effective force depends on having a missile system with the required range, the pods to launch them and enough fire control to launch enough of them to have a fighting chance of penetrating RMN or RHN defenses.

If you can't somehow figure out how to do that there's nothing you can do unless you can somehow figure out how to get your ships into Graser range. About the only place I think that would even be possible is in the defense of a wormhole terminus.

MAD-4A wrote:idk what’s been suggested (13pg already) but something I’ve used successfully elsewhere is an “escort frigate”. I know there’s a general scorn of the “frigate” but you don’t design them the same as destroyers. Give them 1 maybe 2 offensive missiles & 1 or 2 lasers (1 missile on the bow & 1 small laser each side for anti-piracy offense/anti DD/LAC defense) the rest of the weapons are replaced with AMS (PD clusters & counter missiles). Use them basically like Honor uses her LACs, a huge screen of EFs racing ahead of the fleet providing a cloud of advanced PD against missile salvos. Unlike LACs they are hyper capable, don’t need a LACCV to stay with the fleet, don’t need to be “deployed” once in system. & if a fleet is destroyed the survivors can leave the system on their own so you don’t just loose them as well. They’re fast enough to run from pursuit. And dirt cheap & quick (to build & design) the SL could start pumping them out by the thousands quick. Plus with their tractors they could tow cataphract pods well ahead of the fleet for quicker first salvos & use their shorter data links for some of those missiles. (as a quick stop-gap till better ships are available).

To carry a useful number of CMs I'd tend to this of this more as a anti-missile oriented DD. DD(AM)?

If you have to throw in a hyper drive you might as well give it DD level displacement and mount usefully deep CM magazines (which mitigates one of the big problems with LAC screens; they run out of CMs sooner than the other side is likely to run out of missiles). Plus that extra hull space is just more room of CM fire control links and PDLCs. (Now it may be on the small side for a DD; even by SLN standards. But I still think the optimal size would be bigger than a classic frigate)

But, yeah, I could see desperation pushing the SL into special purpose designs. If they had Manticoran, or even Havenite, LAC tech and experience they're probably still be better off going with LACs. But since they don't, I could see special purpose hyper-capable units. (After all, until the LACs Honor had aboard Wayfarer LACs had underpowered nodes and accelerated slower than an SD, and the weak nodes contributed to lackluster sidewall strength. A unit that can't keep up with your wall hardly suggests itself as an anti-missile screen )


But damn would these be useless except when tucked into a larger force's defensive matrix.

MaxxQ wrote:I have to wonder if the SLN can afford the time it would take to design a completely new warship, or warships. Seems to me that at a minimum, it would take somewhere on the order of 18 months just to get a new design drawn up. That's best case, as in (in no particular order):

1) No one tries to bring politics into the design process.

2) The SLN is *capable* of designing a ship. They haven't had a new design in decades, AFAIK - only upgrades to existing ships.

3) The SLN has the money to pay for design and construction.

4) The SLN gets it through its skull that there's a *need* for new designs, or newer upgrades.

Frankly, I don't hold out any hope for *any* of those.

Well, the Solarian League will have a lot of challenges to overcome in the coming years, but I doubt it's going to take many more Manty victories to begin to convince the majority of the people who need to be convinced that they have a serious problem and that change is needed. The fact that it's becoming ever more clear that even Manty medium combatants, like Heavy Cruisers can take on SLN SD's with a good chance of success should begin to drive the point home.

Certainly the Solarians haven't designed a new SD in a long time but they have recently introduced new classes of smaller vessels up to BC in size fairly recently since these are the vessels most needed to keep the systems around the League in line.

And as I said earlier, just because there are only a few yards which routinely build military vessels, doesn't imply that there aren't a LOT of yards which could.

My suggestion earlier was a designed phased approach moving from Phase I which is simply upgrades to existing vessels to turn them into missile pod tugs with enough fire control, CM's and Point defenses to have a reasonable shot at being somewhat effective, moving on the Phase II construction which takes those existing designs and modifies them with the design intent to make them even better pod tugs which some pods able to be held within the wedge.

Phase III construction incorporates probably a 60% to 70% new design but still borrowing from earlier designs for such things a heavy structural components, power distribution systems and such but with the goal of making them into the most effective external pod carrying vessels they can be.

It wouldn't be until Phase IV where you'd begin to see truly and completely new designs created from the ground up and it's at this point that, hopefully, SLN effective missile sizes have shrunk sufficiently to allow true podlaying or partial podlaying capabilities.

I see each of these phases lasting from one to a year and a half long. All of which will close the gap with the RMN and RHN but none of which will come close to actually catching them. But if the Solarians can harness their vastly superior industrial capability and resources, it is possible that the can build and crew enough of these vessels with enough capability to allow their numbers to begin to tell.

Given the survivability of ISLN ships against the Grand Alliance, the provision of significant magazines is probably a waste of money. Either one or two missiles is adequate, or death is imminent.

Weird Harold wrote:

SWM wrote:While Manticore has something better than this, the League does not. As a stand-in for Manticore-style LACs, this could serve as a short-term solution.

I think the main problem with the idea is bunkerage and magazine space. Frigates just aren't big enough for both to be adequate for offensive expeditions.

A squadron of frigates would have to be accompanied by a tanker and probably by a missile collier as well. I think it would be simpler to solve the problems of a LAC carrier for an AMS-LAC -- upgradeable as more capable LACs get developed. Use the space saved by excluding the hyper generator and sails for more missiles (CM or SK) or bunkerage.

Frigates as Anti-missile/anti-LAC support is possible, but it doesn't fit with the conservative mind-set of the SLN. They're more likely to favor up-gunned/up-armored/up-sized versions of existing types. (The "super BB" would be considered a down-sized SD/DN or an up-sized BC.)

You are not going to match RMN acceleration, plus it really doesn't matter.

Second, you can't really survive heavy MDM fire without at least SD armor, so light armor isn't that useful and SDs take too long to design and build.

So build your new ships on a modified freighter hull. This should be easy to modify to handle generic (but huge) pods, cover with PDLCs and some sort of containerized CM mount. Possibly doing something like putting all the crew inside a very heavily armored module during combat will provide at least some possibility of survival. After all, it's not like you will need that many pod salvos, I doubt you'll need more 20 at the very most.

SWM wrote:A destroyer or cruiser sized anti-missile platform is not going to be significantly more survivable than a frigate, in the environment it will be deployed (anti-missile screen for wallers). Whatever ship is used, you can expect crushing losses among the screen. So there is some wisdom to making the anti-missile ships as cheap as possible. In this temporary environment, most of the usual arguments against frigates are moot.

The question boils down to this: will X credits spent on disposable frigates give more protection than X credits spent on disposable destroyers or cruisers--with the expectation of 80%+ losses whatever ships you use?

Given that a [edit]destroyer has essentially the same crew size as a frigate[/edit], costs only slightly more, and has considerably more bunkerage and room for PDLCs, I tentatively think a destroyer is the best size for disposable anti-missile platforms. With the understanding that Manticoran-style LACs would be even better, of course. But I'm not as well versed in military matters to make a good judgement.

Well, this all depends on what you plan to use your vessels for. The SLN has any number of needs for vessels which don't include fighting the RMN. They have more systems to patrol, more planets to keep in line than you can shake a supernova at and the LAC's that they can build are essentially the whole rowboat with a machine gun variety.

From a strategic point of view, you have a need to concentrate your forces but if you leave the rest of the SLN and it's client states unpatrolled, any number of bad things can happen. You can't use LAC's because you really don't have them and since in have a bizzilion systems to worry about.

If you use the WWII concept of Destroyer Escorts or in the UK "frigates" you find vessels that aren't a little bit easier to build, but a LOT easier to build with significantly reduced overall capabilities that are not intended in a million years to actually lock horns with a battleline capable combat vessel.

When looked at in this way, and without the availability of LAC's as an alternative, the concept of "what can they do against the Manties" is pretty irrelevant. The question is, "what can they do to keep the peace" and "what can they do to keep client systems in line".

Now, you do have alternatives. Old destroyers that just aren't worth upgrading with Phase I or are waiting their turn can be useful as can older light cruisers and such, but chances are that the needs for vessels like this are going to be far short of the actual supply. If that ends up being the case, you're going to need something that's good enough to do the job but can be built as quickly as possible with only enough capability to do the job so that other more advanced and combat capable vessels don't have to be wasted on tasks with need to be done but for which you really don't need a battle fleet DD to waste it's time on.

Now, what comes out of this could well be a small stripped down destroyer design which is ... well ... pretty much a frigate in concept, if not in name.

Alizon wrote:As I've said before, you can't use "cannon gospel truths" about what makes sense for the RMN and attempt to apply that logic to the SLN because the two are operating under radically different realities.

A "cannon" (2 consecutive Ns) is an artillery piece, while "canon" (single Ns) is a body of literature considered authoritative.

Examples wrote:The British tried to seize the cannons from the armory but the Continentals stopped them.

The Book of Ecclesiasticus is not considered canon by most denominations.

Ma's about done cannin' the strawberries Betty Jo picked this mornin', so we get jam for our biscuits.

A site devoted to discussing military science fiction will inevitably include an argument over whether a particular cannon appears in canon, and this one can go on to consider whether the canon cannon was in Talbot or Talbott. Then we can consider how long the SLN can go on losing battles before someone starts cannin' its top commanders.