New Freighter Design.

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.

What this means is that somebody else's merchant marine will be able to undercut Manti shipping costs. This gravitates to eventually a socialist fascist situation where big business and big government work hand in hand.

Not good. Manti bottoms only protected by the Manti navy? Eventually Grand Alliance bottoms protected by GA fleets? Economy in scale? That actually might work OK...but only for awhile. Capitalism at its best is still best.

History shows that any other option just does not work. HB of CJ (old coot) Lt.Cm.

The vast majority of commerce protection costs were, until recently, covered by the Solarian League. Just the presence of the League and the deterrent of the League navy meant that trade within the League - which represents a massive percentage of the galactic human population - would have much lower protection costs than trade anywhere else. Plus Frontier Fleet is much, much larger than the RMN and has essentially the exact same (prewar) mandate - it just mostly patrols safer areas than the RMN historically has. Manticoran commerce protection would happen primarily in Silesia and Matapan, not in the League, and their navy was sufficient for those areas specifically - areas which have a much higher number of pirates, thriving in the utter chaos that was Silesia under the confederacy.

Manticore's commercial dominance is not a product of Manticore's ability to protect commerce, it's a product of its astrographic position and its comparative advantage in building and crewing freighters. The Solarian interstellars surely carry the majority of interstellar trade, but they do it mostly with leased Manticoran-built freighters with crews of the Manticoran merchant marine, because that has represented the lowest costs of freighter transport.

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.

You might want to create more than one safe transit zone, but yeah you don't need LACs stationed every 10 Mkm around the sphere of the hyper limit.

And it's not like Manticore is deploying LACs on their own. They're backed by system defense missile pods. Anybody that tries to drop out at the hyper limit and bag a freighter or two before retreating is likely to eat a few MDMs before their hyper generator has a chance to cycle. (A 3 stage MDM should be able to cover at least 14 Mkm in the minutes it takes a hyper generator to recover and be ready to go)

Catching the Merchant ships inbound is likely to be a bit tricky since they've got a number of bands they would slide into before they approached sensor range, and if they take a fairly steep hyper translation there's only minutes in the Alpha bands (for example) to try to intercept them before they drop all the way to n-space. Attempting to chase them there brings back the threat of LACs and system defense pods.

You'd need to be a bit more careful about outbound traffic; you should randomize that more if you're worried about pickets waiting to pounce on it. But that's easier to coordinate since the merchant and the system defense forces can talk to one another.


The last time we saw someone trying to picket a hostile star system (Seaford 9; back in SVW) it seemed to involve at least one light cruiser flotilla, and that wasn't considered sufficient as another light cruiser flotilla was dispatched to thicken them up. I'm not sure how many ships there are in a CL flotilla, but it sounds like you need a fair number to get coverage on a starsystem. Though from the text (and a passing reference to wanting to aggressively patrol right on the 12 hour limit) those may have been monitoring from n-space, not trying to watch the hyper limit from the Alpha bands.

Crown Loyalist wrote:The vast majority of commerce protection costs were, until recently, covered by the Solarian League. Just the presence of the League and the deterrent of the League navy meant that trade within the League - which represents a massive percentage of the galactic human population - would have much lower protection costs than trade anywhere else. Plus Frontier Fleet is much, much larger than the RMN and has essentially the exact same (prewar) mandate - it just mostly patrols safer areas than the RMN historically has. Manticoran commerce protection would happen primarily in Silesia and Matapan, not in the League, and their navy was sufficient for those areas specifically - areas which have a much higher number of pirates, thriving in the utter chaos that was Silesia under the confederacy.

Manticore's commercial dominance is not a product of Manticore's ability to protect commerce, it's a product of its astrographic position and its comparative advantage in building and crewing freighters. The Solarian interstellars surely carry the majority of interstellar trade, but they do it mostly with leased Manticoran-built freighters with crews of the Manticoran merchant marine, because that has represented the lowest costs of freighter transport.

Lacoon II is bringing the Manticore merchant marine home and that was a large enough part of trade that the SL finance minister was very worried about the impact on trade. Manticore's astrographic position is why commerce flows though and provides the SEM the money to fund a very large navy for so small a spacing nation. The ships have to move freight to make the money and someone has to protect the freighters. If the RMN is as strapped for light units as I think they will be due to all the commitments, SLN war, finding and then prosecuting the MAlign war, Lacoon II securing of the wormholes, chasing Oyster Bay ghost hyper footprints for stragetically important planets and wormhole junctions, then using LACs to provide a way to expand a q-ship like method of deterring piracy and forcing the SLN and MAlign to use significant forces on commerce raiding, it might be worth the risks of putting LACs on freighters to keep the money moving. War is more than blowing up the enemy. Logistics, logistics, logistics is the way to win a war.

Jonathan_S wrote:You might want to create more than one safe transit zone, but yeah you don't need LACs stationed every 10 Mkm around the sphere of the hyper limit.

And it's not like Manticore is deploying LACs on their own. They're backed by system defense missile pods. Anybody that tries to drop out at the hyper limit and bag a freighter or two before retreating is likely to eat a few MDMs before their hyper generator has a chance to cycle. (A 3 stage MDM should be able to cover at least 14 Mkm in the minutes it takes a hyper generator to recover and be ready to go)

Catching the Merchant ships inbound is likely to be a bit tricky since they've got a number of bands they would slide into before they approached sensor range, and if they take a fairly steep hyper translation there's only minutes in the Alpha bands (for example) to try to intercept them before they drop all the way to n-space. Attempting to chase them there brings back the threat of LACs and system defense pods.

You'd need to be a bit more careful about outbound traffic; you should randomize that more if you're worried about pickets waiting to pounce on it. But that's easier to coordinate since the merchant and the system defense forces can talk to one another.


The last time we saw someone trying to picket a hostile star system (Seaford 9; back in SVW) it seemed to involve at least one light cruiser flotilla, and that wasn't considered sufficient as another light cruiser flotilla was dispatched to thicken them up. I'm not sure how many ships there are in a CL flotilla, but it sounds like you need a fair number to get coverage on a starsystem. Though from the text (and a passing reference to wanting to aggressively patrol right on the 12 hour limit) those may have been monitoring from n-space, not trying to watch the hyper limit from the Alpha bands.

You are talking about places with significant fleet presences. I'm sure Lovat, Haven, Grayson, Manticore, the worm hole termini don't have piracy problems due to the fleet presences in those places. But the lower tier systems and allied systems, especially the single polity ones, won't necessarily have that type of security. And while XYZ system may have treaties with Manticore, they may very well not allow semi-permanent to permanent military forces to set up in their system. Sure, a friendly visit by a cruiser division for a month or two is fine, but setting up a LAC base with support personnel living in your system would feel like they are taking over your nation. Look at all the trouble in RL with militaries working in other countries fighting extremists. Having LACs remora like on the sides of freighters as they come and go would be no worse than a tin can escorting the freighters.

The advantage of the fast hyper capable life boat is:

1. Lower insurance rates. Crew costs and insuring crews is a major liability cost, particularly for the SEM. Not so much for slavers.

2. Cost of life boat or boat mounting gets absorbed into ship building cost. After, it costs little to nothing to have. A big rig spare tire costs a fair amount, but after you buy it cost very little to own.

3. No additional crew costs life support provisions, it is a life boat that may never be used. If used it is manned / crewed only by the freighter crew.

4. Only needs acceleration rates of the intial 282 series LAC, not the classified compensators. More than any pirate or larger privateer.

5. Pirate only captures the cargo if they have other ships to off load cargo to or can replace the hyperdrive. Otherwise they destroy the ship. Privateer will just kill the ship. Either way it is best not to be on the ship.

6. Can be docked in any system and world without the problem of tech transfers weapons extra crews extra costs might not even be visibly there.

7. If costs become a problem either the SEM or GA could mandate inclusion in all their freighters. Or place such a bare bones ship on each freighter for a fraction of the cost of an LAC. Or it could be an insurance thing. No life boat insurance rates are 20% higher. 40% in unstable zones.

Yes it sounds kind of stupid to mount a motorcycle on an 18 wheeler. But add in a madmax theme and that motorcycle is starting to look better and better. Remove the lug nuts on all 18 wheels and the truck and some cargo may well still be there after the pirate picks it over and you return with an interceptor or a tank.

Most of the time, and in most systems across the Honorverse, the threat of piracy is low enough that it simply is not worthwhile to spend much money or effort on protection. This will continue to be true even during the Solarian war--most places that Manticoran merchants want to go will be safe.

Measures like RMN convoy detachments, mounted LACs, and armed merchantmen will only be necessary in certain riskier areas. Presumably, the costs will be made up in the higher prices the merchants will be able to charge--if the demand continues but fewer ships can actually risk the passage, prices must go up. If the trip is not profitable, merchants will presumably stop making that run, which will reduce product availability. Either the prices will rise to meet the added costs, or freighters will stop going there.

In areas where the government wants to promote trade and stability (such as Verge systems and League members they want to woo toward Manticore), I imagine the RMN will essentially subsidize protection of Manticoran freighters, which will give Manticoran merchants an economic advantage in those markets.

Lord Skimper wrote:2. Cost of life boat or boat mounting gets absorbed into ship building cost. After, it costs little to nothing to have. A big rig spare tire costs a fair amount, but after you buy it cost very little to own.

3. No additional crew costs life support provisions, it is a life boat that may never be used. If used it is manned / crewed only by the freighter crew.

I think you're overlooking a big difference in complexity between a big rig spare tire (which only needs occasional checking for air-pressure and eventual replacement if the rubber gets too old) and a hyper-capable starship.

The honorverse doesn't have stasis fields. You can't just seal up a ready to go ship and ignore it for years until it's needed. So the parasite dispatch boat is going to require ongoing maintenance and checks to make sure it's usable when needed. Depending on the frequency of the checks and maintenance it might well require a few extra engineering hands be added to the crew.


Also ships that are offline take quite a while to warm-up.
While I don't know how long it takes an Honorverse fusion reactor to cold start, we do know how long a wedge start-up takes; 40 minutes from a cold-start, and 15 if they've been brought up to standby. (from OBS) And you can't even start that until the reactor is fully up.

Given that lengthy start-up time you'd almost need to power up the parasite boat's fusion reactor and bring the nodes up to standby each time before you exit hyper. Or at least that that precaution in any system risky enough you might need the boat.

Give pirates or raiders more than 40 minutes to build up overtake speed and it won't much matter how high your parasite's acceleration is; they'll have plenty of time to take it under fire while you build up enough speed to get out of missile range. (Assuming they haven't attacked you before you were even able to abandon ship)


But if you're doing a precautionary firing up the reactor and nodes for each of those systems, then that's additional fuel costs, operating lifetime expended, and additional maintenance necessary. It hardly seems the fixed one-time cost you're claiming...

LAC carried is different how?

Jonathan_S already covered the maintenance and fuel costs of your emergency dispatch boat. I doubt it will be that cheap to put an emergency dispatch boat into the freighter in the first place as the hyper-generators and alpha nodes to generate the Warshawski sails are very likely not cheap. The great thing from the freight hauler's perspective about attaching LACs for protection, is that the military is manning and paying for the LAC. As SWM mentioned, the government would be providing the escort to promote trade and stabililty in areas that are riskier to help the government's bottom line in taxes and fees off of that trade. Manticore makes it's money off of the merchant fleets moving freight and paying fees on the junction, warehousing, taxes of business profits and the like. With a LAC that is attached to the side of the ship, once the area that the freighter is plying is safe again, you take the LAC and use it elsewhere. Storage for the docking pods could easily be set up in a military depot somewhere where techs would do the minimal mothball maintenance on it until they are needed again. And if they are cheap and easy enough to build, then the military would just scrap them when they are no longer needed. But for someone like Manticore who has the fission LACs who can do the job of escort, it frees up light ships for other military work.

BTW, building the pods should not be hard, and since they would be mostly storage, lifesupport and extra living space. I don't see why you couldn't convert a factory on a planet to do the building and lift the pods into orbit like any other large piece of machinery. That would mean your LAC escorts would not take up precious drydock space in orbit that the fleet needs for repairs/building. If you build enough pods, you could supplement the q-ships and other escorts to the point that a large enough fraction of GA freighters would be protected to the point that raiders would go looking for easier prey. In RL, that is why you lock your car doors, not because real thieves (military commerce raider) can't get in anyways, but to get the casual thief (typical raider looking to make money) to look for an easier score.

Another thought, with just the power and life support on the pod needing mainentance (I would estimate probably similar to power and life support on a pinnace), you could probably have the LAC crew take up the slack in that along with the normal LAC maintenance. You would not need Marines with all their specialized warship weapon and damage control training and could use Army troops with training in boarding actions. That frees up the limited Marine manpower for warships. With the LAC crew maintaining the pod, you could probably get by with two troops per pod. Say you go with four LACs per freighter, Katana, Ferret, and two Shrikes, that gives you a about squad of troops to defend the ship. So, lets say your raider outfoxes or destroys the defending LACs and now has a overcome the troops to take the freighter. Much easier to just go find someone else to raid.

Now as to the logistics of it, lets say you have 10,000 freighters and 50 Q-ships. That means you could take a lot of ships and find the chance of picking a q-ship very low. Say you put out enough LACs to protect 500 freighters (2,000 LACs). You have greatly increased the chance of running into a protected freighter for 20 wings of LACs that are being ferried from system to system by the very freighters that they are protecting. Figure protecting a system takes at least a wing of LACs, so protect 20 systems out of thousands or increase the raider's chance of running into your escorts ten fold? And what raider is going to go after a freighter protected by LACs, when they can just go find some other nations freighters that don't have that large percentage of protection and pick off their ships for free money without the risk to themselves?

Lord Skimper wrote:LAC carried is different how?

Warships tractor missile pods onto their hulls all the time. The docking pod for the LAC would tractor itself to the freighter hull and tractor the LAC to the pod. If tractors are too power and/or manpower intensive, then use magnetic grapples to connect to the hull and the LAC. If the hulls are not magnetic, then mount iron plates on the inside of the hull to hold the magnetic grapples.

Tractors would be much preferred though for grav waves. In normal hyperspace you use a wedge and the freighter would take the LACs into hyperspace. In a grav wave no wedges are used, so a LAC can not maneuver in a grav wave. But with tractors on the pod, you can tractor out the Shrike to shoot at the raider with the BC sized graser it carries. When a raider is coming up on a freighter and a LAC is tractored out to shoot at it, I think said raider will go somewhere else. Raiders want easy, cheap prey and repairing battle damage is expensive.

Kizarvexis wrote:

Lord Skimper wrote:LAC carried is different how?

Warships tractor missile pods onto their hulls all the time. The docking pod for the LAC would tractor itself to the freighter hull and tractor the LAC to the pod. If tractors are too power and/or manpower intensive, then use magnetic grapples to connect to the hull and the LAC. If the hulls are not magnetic, then mount iron plates on the inside of the hull to hold the magnetic grapples.

Tractors would be much preferred though for grav waves. In normal hyperspace you use a wedge and the freighter would take the LACs into hyperspace. In a grav wave no wedges are used, so a LAC can not maneuver in a grav wave. But with tractors on the pod, you can tractor out the Shrike to shoot at the raider with the BC sized graser it carries. When a raider is coming up on a freighter and a LAC is tractored out to shoot at it, I think said raider will go somewhere else. Raiders want easy, cheap prey and repairing battle damage is expensive.

The freighter compensators won't cover the ship tractored against or outside the hull. (For some weird reason). Thus whoever is on the LAC plus everything that can't absorb 150-200 g will be killed/damaged.