David Weber on Frigates, Part 3

The E wrote:

Hutch wrote:It is well-established that the MWW does not see a place for Frigates in the Honorverse at the present time.

So, of course, in Cauldron of Ghosts the only major combat actions is performed by.....RTN Frigates.

I'm grinning even as I type this.

He did not see a place for frigates among major navies. The Torch Navy kinda isn't "major".

You're no fun anymore...

You are right, of course, and Torch is already planning on acquiring new, modern destroyers and getting the ships captured from the SS forces refurbished and into service, but I just thought, given the wailings and gnashings of teeth regarding frigates that they would be the sole warships that were worthy of note in an entire book (of course, he'll probably blame Eric... ).

The E wrote:
He did not see a place for frigates among major navies. The Torch Navy kinda isn't "major".

At this point, describing it as 'minor' might be charitable. Once they get the prized Rozsak gave them online, on the other hand, they'll have quite a respectable force for a minor system.

BrigadeΔ wrote:Isn't 100,000 tons a destroyer even by modern standards, Even the origional hms fearless was only 88,000 tons I am not sure how big a roland is but it can not be much bigger and I think that it would be a much better ship to have

A Roland is 188,000 tons. I think you are missing the context of the discussion. The discussion started when someone suggested that, since the destroyers are now 188,000 tons (the Roland), perhaps there is a place for 100,000 ton frigates. David squashed this flat.

One more nail in the "frigates" coffin, thought with RFC (AKA the author...) would have shut that door entirely. The frigates in question weren't designed for TORCH. They were designed for the "non-Beowulf" parts of the "anti-slavery league", and were being mostly manned by Ballroom members [think, super quick infantry with a grudge], for which you need what?

A hyper capable combatant that can take out pretty much any 2nd line navy's light combatants (AKA close to RMN 1st line missile tech), force any slaver to surrender, and still have a relatively small crew. That is ALL.

The only other thing I was thinking that a Frigate would be good for in the RMN would have been good for was in a FAC (forward air controller) role or drone tender . That's where in the Vietnam era, they used really tiny planes and marker rockets close in, so that the big boys back up there in the skies had better targeting info. Of course, back in the day the US didn't have things like satellites, surveillance drones, and GPS... meaning that there's zero or extremely limited need for FAC planes any more.

Given that even Haven can't pick up a Manticoran DD as of Cutworm, Sanskrit, etc., and we'd have to assume that a Roland is even better -- that's the FAC, drone tender, etc. not a frigate, and the DD has plenty of mayhem distributing capacity (Saltash) of it's own to boot.

SharkHunter wrote:One more nail in the "frigates" coffin, thought with RFC (AKA the author...) would have shut that door entirely. The frigates in question weren't designed for TORCH. They were designed for the "non-Beowulf" parts of the "anti-slavery league", and were being mostly manned by Ballroom members [think, super quick infantry with a grudge], for which you need what?

A hyper capable combatant that can take out pretty much any 2nd line navy's light combatants (AKA close to RMN 1st line missile tech), force any slaver to surrender, and still have a relatively small crew. That is ALL.

The only other thing I was thinking that a Frigate would be good for in the RMN would have been good for was in a FAC (forward air controller) role or drone tender . That's where in the Vietnam era, they used really tiny planes and marker rockets close in, so that the big boys back up there in the skies had better targeting info. Of course, back in the day the US didn't have things like satellites, surveillance drones, and GPS... meaning that there's zero or extremely limited need for FAC planes any more.

Given that even Haven can't pick up a Manticoran DD as of Cutworm, Sanskrit, etc., and we'd have to assume that a Roland is even better -- that's the FAC, drone tender, etc. not a frigate, and the DD has plenty of mayhem distributing capacity (Saltash) of it's own to boot.

Yeah, the problem with a FG FAC or Dronetender is the same as everything else - Mass. As a FAC it has to put itself out where the oposition WILL shoot at it - and in the MDM/POD/laserhead era, that means using CMs - lots of them, in additon to PDLCs for defense. Like a Katana, a FG will burn itself dry in just a few minutes if it is in the frey - and it will be a much bigger (and expensive) target than a Katana will be.

A Dronetender is a similiar proposition - Depending on the Drone, they are Massive - the smallest usually are >250 Tons, with system platforms climbing from there. When you look at the Conventional Gryf class Frigate (the only one we have #s on) it is only 14 K tons larger than a defenseless Dispatch Boat. Even only a handful of drones and going to quickly eat up your available mass, and you still need to allocate weapons, defenses and sensors inside that mass, as well as the extra crew.

Warfare has just passed the Frigate up as a warfighter in a sustainable fight. And as weapons poliferate, the Classic DD will go next and the CL will Bloat into the CA range. By 1940 PD, FGs, DDs, and Classic CLs will only be used by Pirates and 4th rate navies.

A bit of an aside, but I believe the prefix designation for frigates is FF. (Not that it really matters. )

Its been made abundantly clear that there won't be any frigates in the modern RMN, though there's always the slight chance that there might be a story about Honor's time on the Osprey.

But the odds on RMN Frigates appearing at some point in the Manticore Ascendent series are much better IMO.

I see them more as a swear word now.

You know the sensor tech identified the ships that create the unexpected hyper footprint and curses. "Frigates"

Theemile wrote:Yeah, the problem with a FG FAC or Dronetender is the same as everything else - Mass. As a FAC it has to put itself out where the oposition WILL shoot at it - and in the MDM/POD/laserhead era, that means using CMs - lots of them, in additon to PDLCs for defense. Like a Katana, a FG will burn itself dry in just a few minutes if it is in the frey - and it will be a much bigger (and expensive) target than a Katana will be.

There's also the issue of what may be around to do that FAC role. If there are heavy hitters around that need the spotting, they're going to be bringing their own recon drones, Apollo missiles, and/or LAC's to the party, any of which may be doing that instead of some independently hyper-capable unit.

A Dronetender is a similiar proposition - Depending on the Drone, they are Massive - the smallest usually are >250 Tons, with system platforms climbing from there. When you look at the Conventional Gryf class Frigate (the only one we have #s on) it is only 14 K tons larger than a defenseless Dispatch Boat. Even only a handful of drones and going to quickly eat up your available mass, and you still need to allocate weapons, defenses and sensors inside that mass, as well as the extra crew.

And at that point, you may as well fill it up a little more and realize it's pretty much what you want out of a destroyer or light cruiser anyway. (And it may have the tonnage that, 30 years ago, would have made it a heavy cruiser.)

Warfare has just passed the Frigate up as a warfighter in a sustainable fight. And as weapons poliferate, the Classic DD will go next and the CL will Bloat into the CA range. By 1940 PD, FGs, DDs, and Classic CLs will only be used by Pirates and 4th rate navies.

If you're defining the classic ship types by tonnage, certainly. I don't have a quibble with the definition; it did work for centuries in the Honorverse after all. But if you define things by role, you'll still have destroyers (probably) and cruisers. (Heck, the frigate vs. destroyer distinction, if you are not counting it by tonnage, is a bit elusive for me.) You'll just have the typical size range for them jumping way up: destroyer jobs being performed by ships the size of old CA's, cruiser jobs being performed by ships the size of old battlecruisers, battlecruiser jobs being performed by ships the size of smallish old battleships. And there may not be much point in building things to do "destroyer" things without building them a touch larger and letting them do "light cruiser" things too.

JeffEngel wrote:

Theemile wrote:Yeah, the problem with a FG FAC or Dronetender is the same as everything else - Mass. As a FAC it has to put itself out where the oposition WILL shoot at it - and in the MDM/POD/laserhead era, that means using CMs - lots of them, in additon to PDLCs for defense. Like a Katana, a FG will burn itself dry in just a few minutes if it is in the frey - and it will be a much bigger (and expensive) target than a Katana will be.

There's also the issue of what may be around to do that FAC role. If there are heavy hitters around that need the spotting, they're going to be bringing their own recon drones, Apollo missiles, and/or LAC's to the party, any of which may be doing that instead of some independently hyper-capable unit.

A Dronetender is a similiar proposition - Depending on the Drone, they are Massive - the smallest usually are >250 Tons, with system platforms climbing from there. When you look at the Conventional Gryf class Frigate (the only one we have #s on) it is only 14 K tons larger than a defenseless Dispatch Boat. Even only a handful of drones and going to quickly eat up your available mass, and you still need to allocate weapons, defenses and sensors inside that mass, as well as the extra crew.

And at that point, you may as well fill it up a little more and realize it's pretty much what you want out of a destroyer or light cruiser anyway. (And it may have the tonnage that, 30 years ago, would have made it a heavy cruiser.)

Warfare has just passed the Frigate up as a warfighter in a sustainable fight. And as weapons poliferate, the Classic DD will go next and the CL will Bloat into the CA range. By 1940 PD, FGs, DDs, and Classic CLs will only be used by Pirates and 4th rate navies.

If you're defining the classic ship types by tonnage, certainly. I don't have a quibble with the definition; it did work for centuries in the Honorverse after all. But if you define things by role, you'll still have destroyers (probably) and cruisers. (Heck, the frigate vs. destroyer distinction, if you are not counting it by tonnage, is a bit elusive for me.) You'll just have the typical size range for them jumping way up: destroyer jobs being performed by ships the size of old CA's, cruiser jobs being performed by ships the size of old battlecruisers, battlecruiser jobs being performed by ships the size of smallish old battleships. And there may not be much point in building things to do "destroyer" things without building them a touch larger and letting them do "light cruiser" things too.

Basically frigates are death traps. They're great for hunting slavers and for control of space, but for power projection they're useless. Not much space for weapons, reactor mass, armor. Better ship design than frigate is even smallish destroyer they're bigger and have more space for everything.
Drone tender is interesting idea, but useless, better idea and more multirole is to increase size of hangar and boat bay any our ships, frigate hull is to small for that. I think that smallish CA would be best choice for it.