Why did it take so long to deal with Silesia?

You are wrong to equate the level of internal trade on Earth in 2012 with the level of external trade a given system does. For one, Earth's population density is much, much higher than that of any Honorverse planet save Earth itself and a very low number of other planets (Manticore not among them). If our Earth was transplanted into the Honorverse, we would struggle to fill the hold of even a single Freighter a year with wares ready for export to another system.

Basically, you need to scale back your expectations. Do not just sum up every bit of cargo that travels the seas these days, instead look at the output of a single country. That's a much better baseline for the amount of exports a given system can generate than our entire economy.

For the past 40 years approxamitely 1/3 of all tonnage carried on the oceans of earth has been OIL. 2005 saw roughly 2.4Billion tons hauled. Or a bit more than 1/3 of all tonnage hauled on the earths oceans.

Same year saw 1.7 Billion tons of coal hauled.

In 2008 3 Billion tons of coal/iron ore were hauled.

I give these two numbers due to the volatility of the market as an example of its change.

Roughly Coal/Iron ore account for 2/3 of all bulk dry trade. Oil is "wet".

Now add in all the Bulk carriers for iron ore, metal shavings, lumber, wheat, soybeans, palm oil, and the total is roughly 2/3 of all tonnage carried.

So, in 2005-2008, the total of actual trade of goods, not bulk goods, is no more than 2.4Billion tons from roughly a population of 7 Billion. Roughly half of which can be said to be purchasing items carried in this trade. So, it can be said that roughly 2.4Billion tons of goods is the demand from roughly 3.5Billion people.

Now lets look at this "tonnage". For our purposes most of this tonnage were carried in TEUs. 15-20% of this tonnage is nothing more than "tare" weight of the container in question. TEU's vary by length/height. Each TEU has roughly 33cbm with a max tonnage allowed of roughly 24,000 tons. Density of ~0.7 tons/cbm. This is max. Average tonnage is WAY, WAY, WAY lower than this. In fact, densities of 0.17 are quite common. Limiting your cargo ship to this density allows far lower duties through Panama for instance.

Ok, the above paragraph was a nice diversion. Lets just call 2.4Billion tons of cargo with 20% as tare weight of shipping containers for a simple WAG. Lets round this to a total of 2Billion tons of goods actually shipped for 3.5Billion people. Something is seriously wrong here as this means that each person individually is roughly responsible for 3/4 ton of goods shipped across the ocean. Hmm. I bet in my very crude search method, that the tonnage of said shipping is a function of DWT of said container ships and not the actual goods shipped. If we take the 3/4 tonnage per person and note that a difference of 4 from the 0.7 number and what is typical of 0.17 which can be as low as 0.13 give a total tonnage per person of 1/12 ton or 80kg/person or 180lbs/person/year. Still seems WAY too high. Don't know about you, but I certainly do not buy 80kg of foreign goods a year. Heck, only foreign thing I buy a year are my shoes. Maybe I am just wierd?

Ok, stop the side issues!

2.4Billion tons of goods in the Honorverse for 3.5Billion people. How much of that will be built on planet or in orbit of said planet? A LOT of it. Lets just call it half.

3.5Billion in HV will ship 1.2Billion tons between stars. Personally, I think it will be no more than a quarter of this, but then again, MWW has Beef being shipped interstellarly, so uh, um

An average 8M ton freighter will gobble up approx 6Million tons of cargo. For simplicity lets call it 5M tons. 1200/5 = 240 ship transits a year.

240 transits/3.5 Billion. Each Billion people in the industrialized worlds will very crudely require 65 8M ton ships a year. Of course said ships will not be packed. Lets give them an 80% usage rate. Roughly 80 ships/Billion people.

How many transits per ship a year? Lets just say a typical ship makes a 4 week one way voyage + transfer. Or 12 trips a year. A single planet would need 80/12 = 7 ships/Billion people.


How many Trillion people are there?

1800 SL worlds. Does not include protectorates. Lets call it 3000 total???

1800 x 3 Billion = 4.8 Trillion
1200 x 1.5 Billion = 1.8 Trillion
SL approx 7 Trillion

How many verge? An equivalent number?
3000 x 1 Billion = 3 Trillion

Total 10 Trillion in very crude terms.

So, 7 ships per Billion

Total 8M ton ships needed is around 70,000

Add in all those in for repair, longer run time, smaller size, and total number of ships will be double this 70,000 number.

Total Civilian shipping totals is around 150,000 vessels.

1/3 of them are Manticoran Merchant Marine. Roughly 50,000 hulls. Due to the Junction, that number is probably high as the MMM will have a higher percentage of 8M ton freighters. I would peg the MMM at 20,000-30,000 ships.

MMM has roughly 400 DD/CL assigned to MMM protection in crude terms. or 50 8M ton civi ships to 1 DD/CL.

Feel more than free to destroy my late night horrific "calculation".

J6P wrote:For the past 40 years approxamitely 1/3 of all tonnage carried on the oceans of earth has been OIL. 2005 saw roughly 2.4Billion tons hauled. Or a bit more than 1/3 of all tonnage hauled on the earths oceans.

Same year saw 1.7 Billion tons of coal hauled.

In 2008 3 Billion tons of coal/iron ore were hauled.

I give these two numbers due to the volatility of the market as an example of its change.

Roughly Coal/Iron ore account for 2/3 of all bulk dry trade. Oil is "wet".

Now add in all the Bulk carriers for iron ore, metal shavings, lumber, wheat, soybeans, palm oil, and the total is roughly 2/3 of all tonnage carried.

So, in 2005-2008, the total of actual trade of goods, not bulk goods, is no more than 2.4Billion tons from roughly a population of 7 Billion. Roughly half of which can be said to be purchasing items carried in this trade. So, it can be said that roughly 2.4Billion tons of goods is the demand from roughly 3.5Billion people.

Now lets look at this "tonnage". For our purposes most of this tonnage were carried in TEUs. 15-20% of this tonnage is nothing more than "tare" weight of the container in question. TEU's vary by length/height. Each TEU has roughly 33cbm with a max tonnage allowed of roughly 24,000 tons. Density of ~0.7 tons/cbm. This is max. Average tonnage is WAY, WAY, WAY lower than this. In fact, densities of 0.17 are quite common. Limiting your cargo ship to this density allows far lower duties through Panama for instance.

Ok, the above paragraph was a nice diversion. Lets just call 2.4Billion tons of cargo with 20% as tare weight of shipping containers for a simple WAG. Lets round this to a total of 2Billion tons of goods actually shipped for 3.5Billion people. Something is seriously wrong here as this means that each person individually is roughly responsible for 3/4 ton of goods shipped across the ocean. Hmm. I bet in my very crude search method, that the tonnage of said shipping is a function of DWT of said container ships and not the actual goods shipped. If we take the 3/4 tonnage per person and note that a difference of 4 from the 0.7 number and what is typical of 0.17 which can be as low as 0.13 give a total tonnage per person of 1/12 ton or 80kg/person or 180lbs/person/year. Still seems WAY too high. Don't know about you, but I certainly do not buy 80kg of foreign goods a year. Heck, only foreign thing I buy a year are my shoes. Maybe I am just wierd?

Ok, stop the side issues!

2.4Billion tons of goods in the Honorverse for 3.5Billion people. How much of that will be built on planet or in orbit of said planet? A LOT of it. Lets just call it half.

3.5Billion in HV will ship 1.2Billion tons between stars. Personally, I think it will be no more than a quarter of this, but then again, MWW has Beef being shipped interstellarly, so uh, um

An average 8M ton freighter will gobble up approx 6Million tons of cargo. For simplicity lets call it 5M tons. 1200/5 = 240 ship transits a year.

240 transits/3.5 Billion. Each Billion people in the industrialized worlds will very crudely require 65 8M ton ships a year. Of course said ships will not be packed. Lets give them an 80% usage rate. Roughly 80 ships/Billion people.

How many transits per ship a year? Lets just say a typical ship makes a 4 week one way voyage + transfer. Or 12 trips a year. A single planet would need 80/12 = 7 ships/Billion people.


How many Trillion people are there?

1800 SL worlds. Does not include protectorates. Lets call it 3000 total???

1800 x 3 Billion = 4.8 Trillion
1200 x 1.5 Billion = 1.8 Trillion
SL approx 7 Trillion

How many verge? An equivalent number?
3000 x 1 Billion = 3 Trillion

Total 10 Trillion in very crude terms.

So, 7 ships per Billion

Total 8M ton ships needed is around 70,000

Add in all those in for repair, longer run time, smaller size, and total number of ships will be double this 70,000 number.

Total Civilian shipping totals is around 150,000 vessels.

1/3 of them are Manticoran Merchant Marine. Roughly 50,000 hulls. Due to the Junction, that number is probably high as the MMM will have a higher percentage of 8M ton freighters. I would peg the MMM at 20,000-30,000 ships.

MMM has roughly 400 DD/CL assigned to MMM protection in crude terms. or 50 8M ton civi ships to 1 DD/CL.

Feel more than free to destroy my late night horrific "calculation".

Here's one. You're making an assumption based on the raw materials and our "trade" materials being driven around. People are not going to export coal to another planet, nor raw iron, nor are they going to stuff a ship full of Nike's and send it off to Manticore. It wouldn't make sense. Every system does not need to haul around base resources and products to other systems, it's a waste of money, and frankly, a waste of resources.

Products that cannot be locally produced for one reason or another would be what is brought in. These products would either be luxury goods, or products whose quality is superior, or products brought in if there isn't yet an available way of producing basic goods on that planet. Things like hauling in Ag Machinery(basic unproduced good) in the case of Kornati, hauling out Montanan Beef(luxury product) in the case of Montana, and Medical devices and technology(quality products), in the case of Beowulf.

Intra-system haulers would be what haul most of the raw or processed ore around the system, as well as whatever resources were needed. Carriers on the ground would distribute what was brought in and taken to the surface. No way do you need 100,000+ merchant ships to be hauling around things like coal and iron, or Nike shoes.

Almost definitely, all cargo ships could cease operations and go home, and everyone would be fine, more or less. I don't remember the Queen, Honor, or Hamish particularly concerned about starving citizenry if they implemented Lacoon. Given the level of technology, it would be incredibly surprising if each system was not self-sufficient and at least able to supply basic necessities and goods.

So, yes, your numbers are way off.

Uroboros wrote:Here's one. You're making an assumption based on the raw materials and our "trade" materials being driven around. People are not going to export coal to another planet, nor raw iron, nor are they going to stuff a ship full of Nike's and send it off to Manticore. It wouldn't make sense. Every system does not need to haul around base resources and products to other systems, it's a waste of money, and frankly, a waste of resources.

According to More Than Honor:

The Universe of Honor Harrington
In More than Honor
wrote:(2) Warshawski Sail Logistics
By their very natures, the impeller drive and Warshawski Sail had a tremendous impact on the size of spacecraft. With the advent of the impeller drive, mass as such ceased to be a major consideration for sublight travel. With the introduction of the Warshawski Sail, the same became true for starships, as well. In consequence, bulk cargo carriers are entirely practical. Transport of interplanetary or interstellar cargoes is actually cheaper than surface or atmospheric transportation (even with countergrav transporters), though even at 1,200 c (the speed of an average bulk carrier) hauling a cargo 300 light-years takes 2.4 months. It is thus possible to transport even such bulk items as raw ore or food stuffs profitably over interstellar distances.

So yes, pretty much everything that is transported around Earth would have equivalents being transported around interstellar space.

Weird Harold wrote:

Uroboros wrote:Here's one. You're making an assumption based on the raw materials and our "trade" materials being driven around. People are not going to export coal to another planet, nor raw iron, nor are they going to stuff a ship full of Nike's and send it off to Manticore. It wouldn't make sense. Every system does not need to haul around base resources and products to other systems, it's a waste of money, and frankly, a waste of resources.

According to More Than Honor:

The Universe of Honor Harrington
In More than Honor
wrote:(2) Warshawski Sail Logistics
By their very natures, the impeller drive and Warshawski Sail had a tremendous impact on the size of spacecraft. With the advent of the impeller drive, mass as such ceased to be a major consideration for sublight travel. With the introduction of the Warshawski Sail, the same became true for starships, as well. In consequence, bulk cargo carriers are entirely practical. Transport of interplanetary or interstellar cargoes is actually cheaper than surface or atmospheric transportation (even with countergrav transporters), though even at 1,200 c (the speed of an average bulk carrier) hauling a cargo 300 light-years takes 2.4 months. It is thus possible to transport even such bulk items as raw ore or food stuffs profitably over interstellar distances.

So yes, pretty much everything that is transported around Earth would have equivalents being transported around interstellar space.

"Possible" does not mean "probable." I cannot imagine it'd be cheaper to transport an entire transport of bulk ore when you have things like asteroid belts right at your doorstep. I imagine in systems light on asteroids, it might be worth it, but, for the most part? I really cannot see it being done en masse, at least, Not at the numbers being specified by his math. Especially not when it takes so long to transport goods over interstellar distances. You don't need to supply an entire planet with all (or even most!) it's goods from yet another planet. If that was the case, everyone would have starved to death already.

Uroboros wrote:"Possible" does not mean "probable." I cannot imagine it'd be cheaper to transport an entire transport of bulk ore when you have things like asteroid belts right at your doorstep.

Probable or not, there is textev that bulk ore carriers do operate in the Honorverse.

If you don't have enough industry to support an indigenous mining industry, 8 MTons of raw ore once or twice a year might well be far cheaper than starting and stopping local mining.

There is also the probability that places like Grayson have more transuranics and heavy metals than they need but not enough lighter metals, which some other system might have in excess; A route hauling pitchblende in one direction and bauxite in the other would be mutually beneficial for the systems and profitable for the ship owner(s).

So RFC regarding his universe says "It is thus possible to transport even such bulk items as raw ore or food stuffs profitably over interstellar distances."

Then a commenter here says ""Possible" does not mean "probable." I cannot imagine it'd be cheaper to transport an entire transport of bulk ore"

Now who's opinion will I go with? Decisions, decisions?

His universe, his rules, live with it!

It depends entirely on what is being transported and why. If you take the example of the Great Lakes in North America, iron ore is shipped from the mines, through the lakes to the smelters and processing centers. A quick look at the news showed 6.1 million tons in April 2014. Why? Because it is (and has been) less expensive to move the raw material by water than to build and operate the refining and then next levels of processing and then ship the iron or steel from the mine sites to the further levels of processing. Historicaly the ore has been moved to where the energy supply for processing was available. That was also more efficent to have the workforce to do the processing closer to the energy and the related transportation networks.

At one time in the 19th century, really high grade silver ore was being shipped by sea to England from the American west for processing. Oil shipments now are often raw crude oil which is then processed in refineries closer to the end users. Part of that is the fluctuations (typically seasonal) in the types of final products ranging from gasoline (all grades), heating oil, fuel oil and various industrial uses from lubricants to plastics.

Grain is a classic bulk product. Much easier to handle and less perishable in it's unmilled state. The less that is done to it (beyond drying to reduce moisture content and thus both shipping weight and potential spoilage) the broader the range of end-uses. Raw grain can be processed into things from flour to animal feed to the base for brewing.

Uroboros wrote:
Here's one. You're making an assumption based on the raw materials and our "trade" materials being driven around. People are not going to export coal
So, yes, your numbers are way off.

What is your address? That way I can send you some reading glasses...

David has been very vague about how asteroid mining is done in the Honorverse. Assuming it works like most of us have envisioned it - Which is a very capital intense process using lasers, tractor beams and wedges to cut up asteroids - then it really doesn't matter whether the mining platform is in a local asteroid belt or in some other systems. The cost difference is that a hauler going 2 light hours from mining platform to processing plant doesn't need a hyperdrive, and that presumably you need both less ships and less expensive ships to keep the platform running 24x7.

There are staffing issues that would come up that seem to make running this in a remote uninhabited system kind of a pain, but probably doable. Deep sea oil platforms don't do crew swaps every couple of weeks because the oil companies want to employ more crew, it's because it's cheaper and/or more effective then the alternatives.