Space Combat

The E wrote:

lyonheart wrote:Now the IAN might have up-to-date AMC's, which might be useful at Visigoth etc, but I'm not expecting them without more foreshadowing, though what they might do to the defenses of a SL termini, using missile pods, Mistletoe's etc, before they were recognised might pay despite losing the ship when a fleet came through.

Why would they? Q-Ships, AMCs, whatever you want to call them are things you either build for one specific mission (See Haven) or because there are capabilities you need that can't be filled out of conventional ressources (See RMN). I don't think either case applies to the IAN at this time.

Civilian conversions always seem to be measures of dire need or desperation, not long term viability. The Caravan conversions required less yard time than a new build escort, used weapons already built but were unused, and were designed to hide in plain site - all useful traits for protecting a fleet train or trolling for pirates, but not much else.

The conversions mentioned off camera in the RHN civil war were little more than freighters converted into ammo ships with rudimentary fire control - they were useful stand off platforms as long as there were small to medium units to screen them, allowing the ex-SS warloards to have heavy hitting capabilities on a budget. Despite their offensive power, their captains new to strike their wedge before they tangled wth real capitol ships on their own.

Rozack's Starlifters and their modular concept allowed them to be a useful force multiplier during the early days of Maya's buildup, but Luft showed what wouod happen to them if a real warship was able to range them. Fortunately, they should be able to be used as useful fleet train units once real podlayers are available.

All 3 examples are a "what can we do now" solution, with long term replacement plans (RMN, build more light escorts; Ex-SS Warlords - acquire actual capitol units; Rozack, build BC(p)s and SD(p)s.

SWM wrote:

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:I think the Grand Alliance is between the Republic, and the Manticore Alliance, not just Manticore.

That is definitely not true. The Anderman Empire was a member of the Manticoran Alliance, but is very specifically not a member of the Grand Alliance. The Grand Alliance was established between Haven, Manticore, and Grayson, all of whom had delegates at the meeting which established the GA. Other members may join (Beowulf presumably will once they vote to leave the SL), but the Grand Alliance is definitely not a treaty between the Manticoran Alliance and Haven.

In response to some other things you said, yes, I agree that a military alliance can include trade agreements. But my point is that it does not have to. Smaller members of the Manticoran Alliance do not have to join the Grand Alliance just to have trade agreements with Manticore and the other GA members.

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Unless I'm having a Senior Blonde Moment (they are coming mre often now), the Andermani were to the Manticore Alliance as Beowulf is to the Grand Alliance: an Associated Power, not a full member. Probably because neither one WANTS to be a "full" member. And RFC never described what that difference actually meant. It might stall some future narrativium.

It is true: some trade agreements don't have anything to do with anything but trade. Military ones, like the treaties that ended the various contests between the Hapsburgs and the Valois ended in territorial concessions that amount to the same thing. Oh--by Valois I mean also the Orleans and Borbons/Bourbons and all their other relatives.

The reason I linked trade agreements with the military assistance was, because HONOR linked them as a part of the program when she "publicly spanked" Elizabeth. Today, especially, they try to keep them separate. But I seem to remember there were some very nice fiscal clauses involved in the START treaties to get the Soviets more likely to accept them. You know, like the U.S. PAYING for dismantling those over-aged nukes they took out of service . . . .

Clauses like that allow the folks that make the concessions to tell their folks at home that THEY got the best part of the deal.

Regards,

Robert Thompson

Unless I remember this really poorly, the AE wanted 1/2 of the Confederacy as the price to joint the Manticore Alliance. Under the circumstances the SKM agreed to that deal.

lyonheart wrote:Hi Armed Neo-Bob,

Very clever, or do you prefer Robert Thompson?

Welcome to the forums, enjoy your favorite cg beverage on the cg house.

Just because the Caravan transports mass 7.35 MT's each, doesn't mean it took 7.35 MT's of the same stuff needed to build over a thousand Culverin DD's or 257 Sag-A's.

The Edward Saganami CA wasn't in service until 1913-14, with Mike in command, so it wasn't available to patrol Silesia.

If you don't remember, I got into trouble at the bar by suggesting the production of the lesser classes at the SKM's space stations, using the smaller building slips was much much higher than some had figured, including the MWW, while the whole point of the AMC's was that they were an economy measure, in both military resources and the total number of crewmen out of the several million committed to the war; if you wish to argue with the premises of HAE, take it up with RFC elsewhere.

Rots o' ruck.

The point of my post you quoted was to play down any expectations of seeing Q-ships, how did you miss that?

Now the IAN might have up-to-date AMC's, which might be useful at Visigoth etc, but I'm not expecting them without more foreshadowing, though what they might do to the defenses of a SL termini, using missile pods, Mistletoe's etc, before they were recognised might pay despite losing the ship when a fleet came through.

Again, I don't think we're going to see the smaller members of the Manticoran Alliance active in the GA at this time, but given their experience and capabilities, if the SL's data is as out of date as it was for Manticore etc, I expect those systems to easily demonstrate the SL will need something bigger than BC's to harass them successfully.

L

Hi, Lyonheart.

I just had my reply eaten, so this is a second attempt.

I am not particular about what people call me; most of my peers in my units said Bob, while my family says Rob; everyone else has less polite names.

The Core worlds don't pay any attention to the "barbs" out on the Verge; like others, they fear the unknown. History was written by the "civilized" groups who invented writing. You know--the ones who crucified people for millencia BEFORE the Roman empire. Or the guys who came up with the term "decimate"--which means lining everyone up, disregarding age, gender or any other consideration--and killing every tenth one on the spot. It helped the empire of the day (whichever one you pick) avoid pesky local revolts, so you can reduce your garrisons. So I am content to be a neo-barb, with bad pun.

Tonnage as a measure of total shipping is used in all sorts of comparisons, including the pre-war assessment of the capabilities of the RMN vis-a-vis Haven. I either missed the pinata or I wasn't clear--I didn't mean to imply either that the materials used for the Trojans were the same as other, only that the same tonnage of other ship classes would have been preferable, and much less expensive.

The AMC's were NOT an economy measure; they were a desperate attempt to fill a need for escorts when an insufficient number of building slips were being used for new construction, and the Front was swallowing up all the escorts available.

For that matter, I suspect it was partly the fact that the Trojans were a Sonja project --likely funded by the R&D budget, not BuShips, initially, and only as a means of building full sized test bed pod-layers without having to take the time for building a "proper" ship of the wall--that got them funded at all.

Regarding the Saganami A, I used that in the comparison only because the lead ship commissioned in 1908 according to HOS. There still aren't enough of the class to patrol Silesia. I think you didn't like the book much, so maybe you didn't notice? I will also say that they ought to have built a FEW more of them in the time given before Buttercup.

Lack of lighter ships is my biggest peeve with HOS, and the RMN in general. I have a big rant for that, maybe someday I'll post it. It was very long, though.

As far as missing your point--that you meant to indicate that Q-ships were unlikely-- I will retreat into my fundamental blondeness in great confusion. I thought you were proposing them as viable.

On a different subject, in regard to House of Steel--and without pulling up quotes-- it is not possible with the data provided to do OB analysis from the combination of HOS and the tables of fleet strengths at different times. House of Steel gives build numbers--but no LOSSES. Also, while it gives stats and descriptions of ships in commission in 1900--it does NOT give them for the vessels De-commisioned from 1800-1900. Thus, there is no data on the ca. 2Mton Battleships, or the Archenor CA mentioned in the text. Another reason is that the oldest chart is WRONG--just in looking at the numbers of ships and how they don't total correctly shows that. The premise is valid, but the numbers are off. And as far as the fleet strength 1920 chart goes, I don't think RFC considered how many ships he routinely kills off in the offscreen events; it has too many destroyers and cruisers given the retirement of the Prince Consorts and the Falcons. It is like there were no losses. . . . but there were.

Part of this is the age of the oldest material; part of this is the change in direction after Flint invented Cachat and pulled the rudder off course. But my last MOS was all-source analyst, and you just can't do order of battle analysis without any battle damage assessment. Which we can't do.

Thanks, I'll just have coffee.

Regards,

Robert Thompson

kzt wrote:Unless I remember this really poorly, the AE wanted 1/2 of the Confederacy as the price to joint the Manticore Alliance. Under the circumstances the SKM agreed to that deal.

Hello,

We don't know how much of the Confederacy they got--only that they addressed their "security concerns" so they may have gotten more than that. Also, Silesia is another reason they can't commit fully to the war-- the need to assert sovereignty and provide protection to such a large region. But I think White Haven told Honor they were an associate power when she learned White Haven was running the admiralty --end of WoH. It might be MY memory at fault, of course...

Regards

Robert Thompson

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:I either missed the pinata or I wasn't clear--I didn't mean to imply either that the materials used for the Trojans were the same as other, only that the same tonnage of other ship classes would have been preferable, and much less expensive.

This sentence is just wrong. The Trojans were much less expensive than an equal tonnage of smaller ships. The most expensive parts of a ship are things like the hyper generators, the W-sails, the impeller nodes, and the reactors. The hull it self is really quite cheep. Further more, the Trojans used civilan grade of each component, further reducing the costs.

Unfortunately, the Pearls of Weber are down, or I would find a link to the pearl where he goes over this. The long and short of it, however, is that each ship is less expensive and takes less time to build than a single ship larger than it, but not nearly on the same proportion as the size discrepancy.

X tons of SDs cost less and takes less time than

X tons of DNs cost less and takes less time than

X tons of BC, etc.

So while you could build 257 Sag-As for the same tonnage as the Trojans, it would probably be well under 100 actual ships for the same construction costs.

Further more the Trojan ships were merchant conversions. The RMN bought fully finished merchant ships, and converted them into AMCs. These conversions could have been done in a civilian maintenance yard, rather than a military construction yard. All of the military construction yards were full at the time, so they would have had to build more before they could even begin building your Sag-As, further driving down the numbers you could get for the same costs.

Also, because they converted merchants, rather than constructing new warships, they were able to get it done much faster, allowing them to get the ships deployed much earlier than building new.

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:

kzt wrote:Unless I remember this really poorly, the AE wanted 1/2 of the Confederacy as the price to joint the Manticore Alliance. Under the circumstances the SKM agreed to that deal.

Hello,

We don't know how much of the Confederacy they got--only that they addressed their "security concerns" so they may have gotten more than that. Also, Silesia is another reason they can't commit fully to the war-- the need to assert sovereignty and provide protection to such a large region. But I think White Haven told Honor they were an associate power when she learned White Haven was running the admiralty --end of WoH. It might be MY memory at fault, of course...

Regards

Robert Thompson

As of the events of ART, the IAN has had 2 1/2 years to address the initial concerns of acquiring Silesia, just like the RMN. The stated reason they are not "officially" in the Grand Alliance is to keep them off the Solarian radar and allow them to focus on the MAlign.

Behind the scenes, they are still an integral part of any planning and the RMN and IAN will watch each other's backs. The Andermani know now who tried to murder the Imperial family (or at least members of it), and they are not sitting this one out.

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:

kzt wrote:Unless I remember this really poorly, the AE wanted 1/2 of the Confederacy as the price to joint the Manticore Alliance. Under the circumstances the SKM agreed to that deal.

Hello,

We don't know how much of the Confederacy they got--only that they addressed their "security concerns" so they may have gotten more than that. Also, Silesia is another reason they can't commit fully to the war-- the need to assert sovereignty and provide protection to such a large region. But I think White Haven told Honor they were an associate power when she learned White Haven was running the admiralty --end of WoH. It might be MY memory at fault, of course...

Regards

Robert Thompson

I'm afraid your memory is at fault. He doesn't use the term "associate power" or "associated power", he uses the term "ally":

War of Honor wrote:"I'm not too sure how I feel about the methodology, but the final outcome is going to be that we get an ally we desperately need"

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:

kzt wrote:Unless I remember this really poorly, the AE wanted 1/2 of the Confederacy as the price to joint the Manticore Alliance. Under the circumstances the SKM agreed to that deal.

Hello,

We don't know how much of the Confederacy they got--only that they addressed their "security concerns" so they may have gotten more than that. Also, Silesia is another reason they can't commit fully to the war-- the need to assert sovereignty and provide protection to such a large region. But I think White Haven told Honor they were an associate power when she learned White Haven was running the admiralty --end of WoH. It might be MY memory at fault, of course...

Regards

Robert Thompson

We can make a good guess how much they got based on the protectorate numbers given for the SEM in House of Steel: 34. Including Masada and possibly a few other systems not part of Silesia.

Silesia is said to contain around 60 inhabited planets, so if the SEM got around 30, then the Andermani got around 30 as well.

The Andermani's "security concerns" was more to do with the lawlessness of some of Silesia's systems, whose Governors were involved in piracy, smuggling, extortion and so on - outlaw operations impinging upon Andermani economical interests. I imagine that's why we didn't see any IAN light vessels mentioned during the second round of the war with Haven - they were busy in Silesia.

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:Unless I'm having a Senior Blonde Moment (they are coming mre often now), the Andermani were to the Manticore Alliance as Beowulf is to the Grand Alliance: an Associated Power, not a full member. Probably because neither one WANTS to be a "full" member. And RFC never described what that difference actually meant. It might stall some future narrativium.

The IAN ships were modified for Keyhole II and integrated into Home Fleet and Eighth Fleet. That suggests they were full partners in the Manticoran Alliance.

They were not included in the Grand Alliance so that at least one modern Navy would be neutral towards the SLN and free to pursue the MAlign. Honor made that point to Chien lu Anderman when he arrived for the conference that created the GA (and Prince Roger's wedding.)