New Freighter Design.

Ah, but don't forget the context. In peace time, escorting freighters is a huge expense that is not necessary. Right now, Manticore just concluded the largest war to date because someone else started an even bigger three-way war. With Manticore's largest trading parter to boot. All the merchants coming in on Lacoon II need to get back out all along the Verge to keep the cash flowing to Manticore. Not to mention relief supplies for the Verge planets who are pulled out from under OFS's heel. Ships are in short supply due to the Oyster Bay attack and the easiest and fastest fighting unit to build is the LAC.

There will still be a finite number of LACs. Policing the spherical shell of a hyper limit on a trade route will take a large number of LACs and still run the likely hood of just being a witness to an attack they can not reach. 'Looks bad in the newspapers and upsets civilians at their breakfast.' So the GA has a new war with the SLN and finding the MAlign and prosecuting a war against them as well. Running sweeps on hyper footprint ghosts to stop another Oyster Bay at various high value planets WILL be a huge priority to calm the public of the GA. LACs just can not do that kind of sweep, as you need a hyperspace jump just to get out that far out in a reasonable time period. Not to mention Lacoon II is running right now as well siphoning off light units for that mission. So light units are very likely to be even more strapped than when Honor took the Q-ships to Silesia at Klaus Hauptman's urging.

Since the spherical shell of the hyper limit of a solar system is SO large, policing enough of them on all the trade routes would be very expensive. So instead of policing the shell of systems, use a few LACs on the freighters to police the freighters as they enter and leave. A kind of Q-ship conversion that takes just the resources to create the pods and LACs. Create a bubble around the freighters where you can kill or drive off the cruiser and below raiders. If BC's show up, then a DD is in for it anyways, unless it is a Roland DD. And since a Roland DD would be WAY more valuable performing military missions, LACs can fill in the slack for the light units who are off with the various fleets. LACs can not scout an distant solar system, but can ride herd on the freighters on a trade route. And LACs popping off a freighter just after it left hyperspace would be just as good a deterrent as a Q-ship. You can put a lot more LACs out there than Q-ships as Manticore and Grayson lost the ability to convert/build Q-ships.

Kizarvexis wrote:Ah, but don't forget the context. In peace time, escorting freighters is a huge expense that is not necessary. Right now, Manticore just concluded the largest war to date because someone else started an even bigger three-way war. With Manticore's largest trading parter to boot. All the merchants coming in on Lacoon II need to get back out all along the Verge to keep the cash flowing to Manticore. Not to mention relief supplies for the Verge planets who are pulled out from under OFS's heel. Ships are in short supply due to the Oyster Bay attack and the easiest and fastest fighting unit to build is the LAC.

There will still be a finite number of LACs. Policing the spherical shell of a hyper limit on a trade route will take a large number of LACs and still run the likely hood of just being a witness to an attack they can not reach. 'Looks bad in the newspapers and upsets civilians at their breakfast.' So the GA has a new war with the SLN and finding the MAlign and prosecuting a war against them as well. Running sweeps on hyper footprint ghosts to stop another Oyster Bay at various high value planets WILL be a huge priority to calm the public of the GA. LACs just can not do that kind of sweep, as you need a hyperspace jump just to get out that far out in a reasonable time period. Not to mention Lacoon II is running right now as well siphoning off light units for that mission. So light units are very likely to be even more strapped than when Honor took the Q-ships to Silesia at Klaus Hauptman's urging.

Since the spherical shell of the hyper limit of a solar system is SO large, policing enough of them on all the trade routes would be very expensive. So instead of policing the shell of systems, use a few LACs on the freighters to police the freighters as they enter and leave. A kind of Q-ship conversion that takes just the resources to create the pods and LACs. Create a bubble around the freighters where you can kill or drive off the cruiser and below raiders. If BC's show up, then a DD is in for it anyways, unless it is a Roland DD. And since a Roland DD would be WAY more valuable performing military missions, LACs can fill in the slack for the light units who are off with the various fleets. LACs can not scout an distant solar system, but can ride herd on the freighters on a trade route. And LACs popping off a freighter just after it left hyperspace would be just as good a deterrent as a Q-ship. You can put a lot more LACs out there than Q-ships as Manticore and Grayson lost the ability to convert/build Q-ships.

You don't need to police the entire surface of the sphere defined by the hyper limit. For star systems with inhabitable planets, all you need to police is the valuable real estate in the system (habitable planets that are always inside the hyper limit, and the planets, moons, asteroids and other orbiting bodies that aren't inhabitable - and may or may not be inside the hyper limit) and any wormhole junction associated with the star (almost always well beyond the hyper limit), and a volume of space beyond the hyper limit centered on a line drawn from the inhabitable planet(s) directly away from the planet's star in the plane of the ecliptic (this is the least-time course referred to in the books). Then when unescorted merchantmen make translation, the local LACs pick up and escort them into the system (and the reverse when they leave the system). This significantly reduces the escort force requirement.

HB of CJ wrote:Perhaps, in the end view, the Honorverse merchant commercial transport economic theory is not valid. Somebody eventually has to pay for all the military required infrastructure needed to shotgun merchant commercial shipping.

In War of Honor. Capt Bachfish is able to charge higher shipping rates because his ships are armed. I don't see any particular reason the same logic wouldn't apply to Freighters hosting LAC detachments.

The biggest counter-argument is going to be the necessary reduction in cargo capacity as opposed to a tractored pod system that gives freighters missile capability without impacting cargo capacity as severely; A Fire-control module and small tactical crew would be required, but a significantly heavier punch than a LAC Detachment could be provided.

Vince wrote:You don't need to police the entire surface of the sphere defined by the hyper limit. For star systems with inhabitable planets, all you need to police is the valuable real estate in the system (habitable planets that are always inside the hyper limit, and the planets, moons, asteroids and other orbiting bodies that aren't inhabitable - and may or may not be inside the hyper limit) and any wormhole junction associated with the star (almost always well beyond the hyper limit), and a volume of space beyond the hyper limit centered on a line drawn from the inhabitable planet(s) directly away from the planet's star in the plane of the ecliptic (this is the least-time course referred to in the books). Then when unescorted merchantmen make translation, the local LACs pick up and escort them into the system (and the reverse when they leave the system). This significantly reduces the escort force requirement.

Setting up a LAC base to patrol a system is fine for systems that Manticore controls. But the merchant marine needs to explore new markets to replace the markets lost to Lacoon II. Most governments tend to object to semi-permanent to permanent foreign militarie bases setting up housekeeping in their territory. A few LACs that are escorting the incoming freighter and leaving with it would be much less objectionable than a LAC base.


Limpetting LACs to the outside of the freighter doesn't impact the cargo space of the freighter. Also, since they are LACs, the Shrikes/Ferrets can take the fight to the enemy while the Katana and Freighter run for it. The fragile freighter doesn't need to pretend to be a warship and can run for it like a good freighter should.

Kizarvexis wrote:Limpetting LACs to the outside of the freighter doesn't impact the cargo space of the freighter.

The impact on cargo capacity is for life-support, cubage and spares for the LAC Detachment -- LAC crews cannot live in their LACs for the duration of a typical merchant cruise, they have to be billeted inside the freighter at minimum

Kizarvexis wrote:The fragile freighter doesn't need to pretend to be a warship and can run for it like a good freighter should.

Running at a quarter to fifth of your attackers' acceleration isn't "running," it's suicide.

Vince wrote:You don't need to police the entire surface of the sphere defined by the hyper limit. For star systems with inhabitable planets, all you need to police is the valuable real estate in the system (habitable planets that are always inside the hyper limit, and the planets, moons, asteroids and other orbiting bodies that aren't inhabitable - and may or may not be inside the hyper limit) and any wormhole junction associated with the star (almost always well beyond the hyper limit), and a volume of space beyond the hyper limit centered on a line drawn from the inhabitable planet(s) directly away from the planet's star in the plane of the ecliptic (this is the least-time course referred to in the books). Then when unescorted merchantmen make translation, the local LACs pick up and escort them into the system (and the reverse when they leave the system). This significantly reduces the escort force requirement.

So you set this up and everyone feels very happy. Until ships start to mysteriously vanishing after they enter hyper, or as they prepare to cross the alpha wall from hyper.

Hmm, what could be happening here? Could someone figure out where you have merchants pick-up and drop their LAC escorts? Could they be waiting on the Alpha side (where the mean radius of a hyperlimit is 20 light minutes instead of 20 light hours) and bushwhacking them when the merchant emerges within energy range of the raider? Could the fact that you are shuttling them into and out of hyper with LACs be why the raider knows precisely where to wait?

I guess we'll have to wait to find out.

This entire set-up is a well-greased superhighway for leaking valuable military technology.

Consider this scenario:
1. Merchant ship turns up and detaches LACs.
2. Unfriendly government quarantines/confiscates or otherwise prevents the Merchant ship from leaving. If the LACs enter planetary orbit they will be forced to surrender.
3. Week 4 onboard the LACs, 'sneaking' around the outer system. Food is low, water is low, air is low. They will need to surrender or die.
4. Week 6 after scuttling as much as they can, the LAC crews surrender. The Mesan Alignment says "Thanks for the Beta Squared Nodes, Improved Intertial Compensator and Fission Reactors."
5. Mesan Alignment Secret Agent plants a bomb in the planetary president's office on the way out.
6. Mesan Alignment Secret Agent also blows up the merchant vessel while leaving orbit. Like a boss.

Might as well start dropping loaded Mark23 Apollo missile pods around in random neutral systems as 'Easter Eggs' as well.

kzt wrote:So you set this up and everyone feels very happy. Until ships start to mysteriously vanishing after they enter hyper, or as they prepare to cross the alpha wall from hyper.

I still maintain things can't be that simple, or both Manticore and Haven wouldn't be so aggressively adopting LAC-based system defense strategies. Presumably Caparelli and Theisman know what they're doing.

drothgery wrote:

kzt wrote:So you set this up and everyone feels very happy. Until ships start to mysteriously vanishing after they enter hyper, or as they prepare to cross the alpha wall from hyper.

I still maintain things can't be that simple, or both Manticore and Haven wouldn't be so aggressively adopting LAC-based system defense strategies. Presumably Caparelli and Theisman know what they're doing.

It would be pretty effective against pirates, who have plans to do something more then explode the ships they encounter.

Pre-fission LACs did 3 week deployments based on the hydrogen that they could bunker for fuel. Fission LACs have a 18 month fuel bunkerage in the nuclear fuel in the fission pile. Then the question would be on the if enough space was saved amongst all the weapons upgrades for more than 3 weeks worth of life support. You'll also note in my first post, I said the following.

If you had a LAC size pod as a docking pad for each LAC, you could have some basic support as well. Say two tractor beams to latch onto the freighter and graples for the LAC. Some spare parts storage and a few extra missiles for reloading while the freighter is off loading at the planet. A few marines to man the pod and discourage said freighter crew from enriching themselves with some shiny LACs. A little bit more of living space for the crews to spread out...

Tractor beams and life support shouldn't take that much space. If Tractor beams do, then use superconducting magnets to attach to the freighters if the hulls are magnetic enough and plates welded on the inside of the freighters skin can take care of that if need be. So you should not need a large reactor to power the pod and I'm not talking about a full docking port either. Just the most commonly needed spare parts that the crew can swap and a few missiles to reload with if needed. With a small detachment of 3-4 marines, plus the LAC crew and you should be able to put in more life support capacity.

If the freighter and LACs are jumped as they come out of hyper, well the freighter would not have survived anyways and poop happens in war. If the raider is in range to intercept, but not right on top of the freighter, then the freighter and Katana run for it and the Shrikes/Ferrets keep the raider busy.

'To live is to risk' and Manticore is at war and war is an inherently risky enterprise. Any time you send out warships no matter how big, you run the risk of losing technology. The question is, is the risk of someone trying to take the LACs, a bigger issue than not protecting the freighters and the government not having the money to fund the navy to protect Manticore? Remember Manticore just lost the largest trading parter in known space. Manticore needs new markets to keep the money flowing. Manticore has anti-theft devices on the tech to ameliorate the risk of tech loss, but if the fleet is as strapped for light units as I think they might be, then you might have to take the risk to keep the merchant marine moving and the money coming in.

As for setting up ambushes in Hyper, you would need at the bare minimum two to three ships to accomplish this. One to shadow the freighter, one to translate up to hyper to tell the ship in hyper where to go. If everything lined up luckily for you, you might make it with two ships, but you still have to accurately predict where the freighter will translate up to get your ambush set up in time to catch the freighter. If someone is deploying that many ships to catch freighters, then you bring in the tin cans, cruisers and/or battlecruisers to take care of the issue.