David Weber on Frigates, Part 3

Cheopis wrote:I've always been a bit surprised that neither Haven nor Manticore ever bothered to field a specialized ship for covert operations.

kzt wrote:It's kind of self-defeating to have a standard model ship used for spy missions. It's convienient, as it does make things a lot easier, once your automated systems ID it as a mantie spy ship you know what to do, but I doubt that kind of convienience is really helpful.

SWM wrote:Cheopis didn't say a standardized model for covert operations. He said a specialized ship. I took it to mean custom-model, one-of-a-kind ship. Probably multiple ships, each customized differently. And presumably built on an ordinary-looking hull.

Beowulf does have such a ship. It is the one that Anton and Yana took to Mesa in CoG.

fallsfromtrees wrote:Cheopis didn't say a standardized model for covert operations. He said a specialized ship. I took it to mean custom-model, one-of-a-kind ship. Probably multiple ships, each customized differently. And presumably built on an ordinary-looking hull.

Beowulf does have such a ship. It is the one that Anton and Yana took to Mesa in CoG.

For what it's worth, that one isn't so much specialized for that as available for that: a fairly ordinary yacht, as such things go, with a long and boring history and its ownership thoroughly buried.

Hiding who owns and operates a spying vessel may be more important than the gear: it's critical that the gear not give the disguise up, putting a serious limit on how much and what gear you can stick in there. You're faced with either hiding the gear very well (to the extent you even can), or building into the ship only such gear as is completely unexceptional for the cover story. And that cover story has to be one innocent enough that it won't interfere with getting where you must. "RMN light cruiser", for instance, is a cover story that will make for a bit more restrictions placed on you than you want, obviously, but even "astrophysics research vessel" may, just because the sensors you'd have would be too much of a red flag.

fallsfromtrees wrote:Cheopis didn't say a standardized model for covert operations. He said a specialized ship. I took it to mean custom-model, one-of-a-kind ship. Probably multiple ships, each customized differently. And presumably built on an ordinary-looking hull.

Beowulf does have such a ship. It is the one that Anton and Yana took to Mesa in CoG.

JeffEngel wrote:For what it's worth, that one isn't so much specialized for that as available for that: a fairly ordinary yacht, as such things go, with a long and boring history and its ownership thoroughly buried.

Hiding who owns and operates a spying vessel may be more important than the gear: it's critical that the gear not give the disguise up, putting a serious limit on how much and what gear you can stick in there. You're faced with either hiding the gear very well (to the extent you even can), or building into the ship only such gear as is completely unexceptional for the cover story. And that cover story has to be one innocent enough that it won't interfere with getting where you must. "RMN light cruiser", for instance, is a cover story that will make for a bit more restrictions placed on you than you want, obviously, but even "astrophysics research vessel" may, just because the sensors you'd have would be too much of a red flag.

I thought it had a bit more automation than the usual yacht? Enough so two people could operate it. That is as small as the crew for Honor's little runabout back in Yeltsin.


Rob

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:

Beowulf does have such a ship. It is the one that Anton and Yana took to Mesa in CoG.

JeffEngel wrote:For what it's worth, that one isn't so much specialized for that as available for that: a fairly ordinary yacht, as such things go, with a long and boring history and its ownership thoroughly buried.

Hiding who owns and operates a spying vessel may be more important than the gear: it's critical that the gear not give the disguise up, putting a serious limit on how much and what gear you can stick in there. You're faced with either hiding the gear very well (to the extent you even can), or building into the ship only such gear as is completely unexceptional for the cover story. And that cover story has to be one innocent enough that it won't interfere with getting where you must. "RMN light cruiser", for instance, is a cover story that will make for a bit more restrictions placed on you than you want, obviously, but even "astrophysics research vessel" may, just because the sensors you'd have would be too much of a red flag.

I thought it had a bit more automation than the usual yacht? Enough so two people could operate it. That is as small as the crew for Honor's little runabout back in Yeltsin.


Rob

Yes. But that's still within normal parameters for a yacht (I'd think?), and not directly useful to the mission. For that matter, if you want to move more operatives, having a yacht that needs fewer people gives you less cover. On the other hand, you can be free-er with your operative choice when you needn't have much concern for their ability to support the yacht operations. And it could be that the automation provides the cover for useful computer gear, giving it well-concealed, innocuous specialization for the role.