light ships number and type

Tenshinai wrote:

Alizon wrote:The Roland exists because of one simple fact, the SEM does not yet know how to build a light MDM. Period. If they did, the Roland would be smaller, have a much better salvo density and be a far more cost effective vessel for it's mission than it actually is.

Is it even possible to build a much smaller MDM or even DDM?

Alizon wrote: Eventually the SEM will develop a light MDM designed for true light combatants and the Roland will become, or at least should become, a design dead end.

HungryKing wrote:The problem is that the MDM does not really scale down, and for the matter the laser head does not scale gracefully. The Mk-16 is the smallest they can make DDMs (its implied that the minimum size of the fusion bottle is a major factor), and even then they had to loose the third drive ring, and note they were able to shoehorn capital missile's attack package after they pulled 4 rods (hexagonal packing is the most efficient, but still), and figured out how to build a slightly larger but doubly effective focusing array.

It is the same thing that doomed the smaller missiles used by Sileasan frigates (and also the larger but still very light ones used by Couragous-class CL), by the time you've fitted the warhead, penaids and focus array the laserheads are very short, numerous, probably lack individual seekers, and are not particularly useful.

Alizon wrote:Size creep is inevitable. Modern US Navy Frigates are larger than the largest WWII destroyers, current destroyer designs are about the size of WWII light cruisers etc ... .

Mostly this is because as we develop new capabilities we need more room to make full use of those capabilities. Just the increasing density of missile salvo's is going to demand ever more in the way of PD and CM capabilities in order for units to survive and space can be awfully useful for that.

However, I think it's a mistake to view the Roland as a harbinger of things to come. The Roland is designed to give "DD's" and internal MDM capabilities. Now MDM's are larger than SDM's but that doesn't explain the Roland's pretty weak missile salvo density nor it's comparative enormous size.

Typically there are three basic missile sizes for shipborne missile's. Large capital ship missiles with the heaviest, most powerful laserheads fired from BB's, DN's and SD's, Medium missiles designed to be used by BC's and CA's, and finally light missles designe to be used by light combatants like DD's and CL's.

The Roland exists because of one simple fact, the SEM does not yet know how to build a light MDM. Period. If they did, the Roland would be smaller, have a much better salvo density and be a far more cost effective vessel for it's mission than it actually is.

Essentially, the Roland is a DD designed to carry missiles designed to be launched from Battlecruiser.

Wet navy equivalent, take a WWII DD and mount a few 12 inch guns on it, that's the Roland, an eggshell with a sledgehammer. Why don't you see many ship designs like this? Because they are REALLY expensive and navies don't want to spend those kind of resources on an eggshell. If you're going to pay the funds to building something using BC or CA missiles, you're going to want to protect it like a BC or CA.

Eventually the SEM will develop a light MDM designed for true light combatants and the Roland will become, or at least should become, a design dead end.

That doesn't mean that vessels won't continue to increase in size. The MDM world is going to require larger vessels to use them properly at least until someone can figure out how to make the MDM's smaller. Greater salvo densities will require more and better PD systems and whether you're a podlayer or depend on internally launched missiles, as long as missile combat reigns supreme, magazine of pod capacity will increasingly important.

This isn't going to necessarily mean that any ship classification is going to disappear. That is only going to happen if the job a particular class was designed to do disappears and/or the economic, resource and capacity environment which prompted the class changes so radically as to make that class no longer a resource effective solution.

Tenshinai wrote:

Alizon wrote:Size creep is inevitable. Modern US Navy Frigates are larger than the largest WWII destroyers, current destroyer designs are about the size of WWII light cruisers etc ... .

(this post is more FYI than anything else, hope you find something of it interesting)

That is not because sizecreep is inevitable.

That is because there was a paradigm change (or more correctly several), which combined with political idiocy pushed size upwards.

Most noticeable ones:
Missiles in general.
Modern Antiship missiles. Ships that are too small tend to be one-hit kills for modern ASMs/SSMs.
Modern radar. Needs relatively large and tall superstructure to be at its best, which can get troublesome on smaller ships.


Then however comes the issue with how post WWII US politics have messed up a lot of US military equipment purchases, essentially defaulting to "bigger/more is better" whenever in doubt.

In comparison, the Russians have both their current DD classes around 7000t, which seems to be close to what China has also ended up with as their new standard, but it´s still just 20 years since they built 3600t and 4800t DDs.

Italian modern DDs range from 5400t to 7000t.
Australia up until 2001 had the Perth-class DDs at a mere 3500t, despite being DDGs.

The Canadian Iroquois DDG are 5000t ships.

Japan still has the Hatakaze class at a mere 4600t despite being a full out missile destroyer class.
While their latest Atago class comes in at 7700t.

The point being that earlier DDs were not a fully developed class (Japan in WWII found that the optimal DD size was around 4000t), then tech changes added from nil up to a few thousand ton, and since then, DD size have effectively been unchanging at around 5000t-8000t depending on details in intended mission etc.

Sizecreep happens when there is a reason, or when politics get involved.

***Snip***

Alizon wrote:So, I want to make sure that I understand your point. Essentially you are saying that the SEM will not make a light MDM because they can't ... right now. I'm pretty sure the Peeps said the same thing about the killer LAC's, the first MDM's, Ghost Rider, FTL comm, ... ... ... ... ... ... .

The SEM is still around because they have turned centuries of "can't be done's" into "can be done's". I'm also pretty confident that there is probably more than one R&D team assigned to developing just such a weapon simply because it doesn't just make sense, it's almost a requirement for any nation that wants to build enough light fleet elements to do the job without going bankrupt doing it or stealing limited resources from far more critical projects.

And the thing is, just because we haven't seen it in the books doesn't mean it's not "on the horizon" it just means we haven't been told about it yet or seen it yet.

There are obviously people here than have read a great deal more about the specifics of SEM missile design than I have. However I wouldn't want to be the one placing bets about what the SEM R&D establishment can't do.

It may take a few years, but it will happen. The hard part has already been done, the basic principals have already been developed and tested. All that's necessary is to figure out how to put it all into a smaller package.

It's going to happen, it just hasn't happened ... yet.

Vince wrote:One other reason for real world size creep of naval ships is the electronics load out that modern naval ships have in comparison to WWII naval ships. Electronics aren't massive, but do take up lots of volume, and require even more volume to maintain them (spares carried, electronic repair shops, and access ways to allow for in situ repair or enough room to swap out parts). Add in the extra crew necessary to operate and maintain the electronics (not necessarily the same).

Jonathan_S wrote:At (IIRC) this time the Mk16 is the smallest DDM that Manticore believes it can build.

Jonathan_S wrote:I know the tech doesn't exist (so it'd be another breakthrough that we've no indication is on the horizon; but maybe some variant of the baffle would protect missile nodes from their own shutdown), but how useful would a extended range missile (ERM) be if it could restart it's propulsion once?

That would allow a ballistic phase w/o extending the missile's combined powered flight time. Obviously this wouldn't have near the terminal velocity of a DDM, much less a MDM, but it would have the ability to engage at the same ranges (at the expense of a much longer flight time)

Vince wrote:Alternatively, your undersized propulsion comment got me wondering how much room just a second drive ring (and baffle) would take; if you kept the same capacitors as a ERM. That would give you two powered segments with a possible intervening ballistic phase but no more powered endurance time than a ERM already has. This 2nd idea would presumably be bigger than the impossible 'restartable' ERM, but should have pretty similar endurance and performance.

Those compromise designs might give better that just ERM / LERM performance to ships too small to effectively carry full Mk16s.

Alizon wrote:So, I want to make sure that I understand your point. Essentially you are saying that the SEM will not make a light MDM because they can't ... right now. I'm pretty sure the Peeps said the same thing about the killer LAC's, the first MDM's, Ghost Rider, FTL comm, ... ... ... ... ... ... .

The SEM is still around because they have turned centuries of "can't be done's" into "can be done's". I'm also pretty confident that there is probably more than one R&D team assigned to developing just such a weapon simply because it doesn't just make sense, it's almost a requirement for any nation that wants to build enough light fleet elements to do the job without going bankrupt doing it or stealing limited resources from far more critical projects.

And the thing is, just because we haven't seen it in the books doesn't mean it's not "on the horizon" it just means we haven't been told about it yet or seen it yet.

There are obviously people here than have read a great deal more about the specifics of SEM missile design than I have. However I wouldn't want to be the one placing bets about what the SEM R&D establishment can't do.

It may take a few years, but it will happen. The hard part has already been done, the basic principals have already been developed and tested. All that's necessary is to figure out how to put it all into a smaller package.

It's going to happen, it just hasn't happened ... yet.

SWM wrote:Just because you think DDM missile sizes will go down does not mean it will happen. So please don't say "it's going to happen" as if it is a done deal. That is only your speculation, and I ask that you not claim knowledge of David's universe that you don't have. You are certainly welcome to make your speculations, and expand upon the implications of them. Just don't declare something absolutely will happen in the Honorverse when there is no text evidence to support it.

Relax wrote:

SWM wrote:Just because you think DDM missile sizes will go down does not mean it will happen. So please don't say "it's going to happen" as if it is a done deal. That is only your speculation, and I ask that you not claim knowledge of David's universe that you don't have. You are certainly welcome to make your speculations, and expand upon the implications of them. Just don't declare something absolutely will happen in the Honorverse when there is no text evidence to support it.

DDM already shrunk once from full up capital missile with its larger micro fusion bottle and 10 laser heads. It is an obvious and necessary line of ongoing R&D. Things always improve past the initial production product. Always. Yet you blithly claim DDM is at perfection ??? Why the $%#$$#*(*$#*#)(#@)! would you think MDM/DDM would not shrink further? They have only just started designing and working with micro fusion and MDM technology. Improved throughput of the nuclear device via the grav pinch focusing alone will allow smaller laser rods and therefore smaller missiles even if they cannot shrink a micro fusion bottle further.

And BTW, how arrogant is it to type the part of your post I bolded? Besides, your last sentence is categorically not true as delineated in my first paragraph.

Alizon, please keep posting, relevant insightful posts.

SWM wrote:

Relax wrote:

DDM already shrunk once from full up capital missile with its larger micro fusion bottle and 10 laser heads. It is an obvious and necessary line of ongoing R&D. Things always improve past the initial production product. Always. Yet you blithly claim DDM is at perfection ??? Why the $%#$$#*(*$#*#)(#@)! would you think MDM/DDM would not shrink further? They have only just started designing and working with micro fusion and MDM technology. Improved throughput of the nuclear device via the grav pinch focusing alone will allow smaller laser rods and therefore smaller missiles even if they cannot shrink a micro fusion bottle further.

And BTW, how arrogant is it to type the part of your post I bolded? Besides, your last sentence is categorically not true as delineated in my first paragraph.

Alizon, please keep posting, relevant insightful posts.

Where exactly did I claim or even imply that the DDM is at perfection? Where did I say that the DDM can't shrink? I only stated that neither you, nor I, nor Alizon know for certain that they will shrink. And Alizon's absolute statement that "they will" (in response to someone else saying he can't know that for certain) was claiming knowledge of the physics and future of the Honorverse that he did not have. It was Alizon's statement that was arrogant, not mine.

I have no problem with Alizon or anyone making speculations. I heartily approve of speculations, as long as they are clearly stated as speculations. But claiming that a speculation is the absolute truth is not acceptable to me.