Return Of The Frigate

Hutch wrote:

n7axw wrote:I know it's a bit expense as a way to think. But I'm in favor of overkill myself.

Don

From the "Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries", (see http://schlockmercenary.wikia.com/wiki/ ... ercenaries),

There is no 'overkill.' There is only 'open fire' and 'I need to reload.

Or my fave from that list "24. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a big gun."

HB of CJ wrote:After the Sollies and the Malignment, (MA) Navies get eventually pounded into space dust bunnies, (but not without a great fight) many remaining ex sollie aspiring semi independent star systems might consider taking advantage of the situation ... thus the potential return of lots of nasty pirates.

Using a Rolland or its future larger replacement for potting pirates might be described as a definition of classic overkill. Probably the pirates will be using ships just large and powerful enough to prey on unarmed merchantmen. Thus the need for a smaller, cheaper new pirate suppression warship.

Enter the Frigate. Kinda like our late cold war United States Navy Knox and Perry class vessels designed pretty much just to handle enemy submarines. These new small cheap star ships would be designed just to handle pirates. Thus the need for many new cheap small Frigates. Corvettes are too small.

Just me. Kinda also like the BIG sub chasers of WW2 in the Atlantic. Cheap, slow, expedient, weak, but good enough for the job at hand. No more than that. But also strong enough to take on the occasional larger pirate ship. Post war conditions are going to very interesting. HB of CJ (old coot) Cm.

The difference is that, in the Honorverse, there's very little need for "mid-ocean" escort.

Now depending on where they trade Manticore might still need to send some escorts along to secure their freighters in various star systems (like they used to in Silesia), but given secure star systems freighters can route independently at low risk.


Hmm, I just had one thought on how the term frigate might come back into circulation for the RMN. Reclassify ships carrying LERMs (Wolfhounds and Avalons) to Frigates (or light and heavy frigates if you like; FL and FA) to differentiate them from Destroyers and (future) light cruisers carrying Mk16s.

The LERMs let you have deeper magazines, consistent with the needs of a longer anti-piracy cruise -- kind of like the classic frigates. And they have less firepower than their Mk16 counterparts... (Doubt RFC would do this; but at least it seems a consistent naming scheme; assuming that there is continued desire for new LERM equipped units post-war)

Jonathan_S wrote:The LERMs let you have deeper magazines, consistent with the needs of a longer anti-piracy cruise -- kind of like the classic frigates. And they have less firepower than their Mk16 counterparts... (Doubt RFC would do this; but at least it seems a consistent naming scheme; assuming that there is continued desire for new LERM equipped units post-war)

I would not expect there to be any regular long-term use of single drive missiles on hyper-capable warships. They're simply too limited in both range and flexibility. There are plenty of them, and plenty of ships already built that use them, but apart from LAC's, the units using them are likely to be the last built.

Pirates can get handled with LAC's and system defense pods in-system, by convoy escorts on the rare occasions that it's an issue in hyper, and by hyper-capable warships that are overqualified for that duty wherever the pirate and the warship meet. The cost to maintain a real, competitive light warship isn't so much more than the cost to maintain something useful solely for poking sub-military space criminals that anyone would bother planning for that. (Except perhaps Torch, simply because they've got very finite crews and they are specifically going after the sub-military space criminals wherever they can be found.) Using stuff already on hand, or stuff they can buy cheap to start a real SDF - maybe. Going after obsolete hardware for niche roles at nearly the starting and ongoing expense for an effective warship - will not happen.

On the other hand - if they want to build something like the Mesan/Solarian Cataphract, with only a small increase in size over single-drive missiles but with reduced firepower and a CM drive as the second stage... and if they could build something like that to fit into the missile launchers that had been using single-drive missiles - that could revive the long-term prospects for those ships. And if all that worked, the scheme could go right along on those lines. Given what the new warheads do for firepower, losing half of that - losing 3/4's of it - would still leave you sitting pretty for penetrating the armor or sidewalls of anything short of heavy cruisers. With two drives, you'd have plenty of powered range and an option of a ballistic component as needed to extend it.

Jonathan_S wrote:

HB of CJ wrote:After the Sollies and the Malignment, (MA) Navies get eventually pounded into space dust bunnies, (but not without a great fight) many remaining ex sollie aspiring semi independent star systems might consider taking advantage of the situation ... thus the potential return of lots of nasty pirates.

Using a Rolland or its future larger replacement for potting pirates might be described as a definition of classic overkill. Probably the pirates will be using ships just large and powerful enough to prey on unarmed merchantmen. Thus the need for a smaller, cheaper new pirate suppression warship.

Enter the Frigate. Kinda like our late cold war United States Navy Knox and Perry class vessels designed pretty much just to handle enemy submarines. These new small cheap star ships would be designed just to handle pirates. Thus the need for many new cheap small Frigates. Corvettes are too small.

Just me. Kinda also like the BIG sub chasers of WW2 in the Atlantic. Cheap, slow, expedient, weak, but good enough for the job at hand. No more than that. But also strong enough to take on the occasional larger pirate ship. Post war conditions are going to very interesting. HB of CJ (old coot) Cm.

The difference is that, in the Honorverse, there's very little need for "mid-ocean" escort.

Now depending on where they trade Manticore might still need to send some escorts along to secure their freighters in various star systems (like they used to in Silesia), but given secure star systems freighters can route independently at low risk.


Hmm, I just had one thought on how the term frigate might come back into circulation for the RMN. Reclassify ships carrying LERMs (Wolfhounds and Avalons) to Frigates (or light and heavy frigates if you like; FL and FA) to differentiate them from Destroyers and (future) light cruisers carrying Mk16s.

The LERMs let you have deeper magazines, consistent with the needs of a longer anti-piracy cruise -- kind of like the classic frigates. And they have less firepower than their Mk16 counterparts... (Doubt RFC would do this; but at least it seems a consistent naming scheme; assuming that there is continued desire for new LERM equipped units post-war)

Which seems unlikely. The secret of the MDM is out of the bag, and it won't be too long before everyone has one. The major reason it took so long to create them in the first place was that everyone KNEW that you couldn't pack more than one drive in a missile. After Manticore demonstrated rather conclusively that you can in fact pack more than one drive into a missile, it was game over as far as that secret is concerned.

There is an interesting parallel from the early days after WWII. In something like 1952 there was a report called the Smith Report on Atomic Energy, which covered most of the stuff that was found during the Manhattan Project. IIRC, the biggest secret that was contained in that report was a containment material, other than the fact of the bomb itself. It is the kind of problem you had to the engineers and expect it to be solved in 6 months. The biggest secret of all is that it was possible, and that cat is out of the bag.

I expect that we are going to see SLN MDM missiles before it has been completely dismantled.

Jonathan_S wrote:

HB of CJ wrote:After the Sollies and the Malignment, (MA) Navies get eventually pounded into space dust bunnies, (but not without a great fight) many remaining ex sollie aspiring semi independent star systems might consider taking advantage of the situation ... thus the potential return of lots of nasty pirates.

Using a Rolland or its future larger replacement for potting pirates might be described as a definition of classic overkill. Probably the pirates will be using ships just large and powerful enough to prey on unarmed merchantmen. Thus the need for a smaller, cheaper new pirate suppression warship.

Enter the Frigate. Kinda like our late cold war United States Navy Knox and Perry class vessels designed pretty much just to handle enemy submarines. These new small cheap star ships would be designed just to handle pirates. Thus the need for many new cheap small Frigates. Corvettes are too small.

Just me. Kinda also like the BIG sub chasers of WW2 in the Atlantic. Cheap, slow, expedient, weak, but good enough for the job at hand. No more than that. But also strong enough to take on the occasional larger pirate ship. Post war conditions are going to very interesting. HB of CJ (old coot) Cm.

The difference is that, in the Honorverse, there's very little need for "mid-ocean" escort.

Now depending on where they trade Manticore might still need to send some escorts along to secure their freighters in various star systems (like they used to in Silesia), but given secure star systems freighters can route independently at low risk.


Hmm, I just had one thought on how the term frigate might come back into circulation for the RMN. Reclassify ships carrying LERMs (Wolfhounds and Avalons) to Frigates (or light and heavy frigates if you like; FL and FA) to differentiate them from Destroyers and (future) light cruisers carrying Mk16s.

The LERMs let you have deeper magazines, consistent with the needs of a longer anti-piracy cruise -- kind of like the classic frigates. And they have less firepower than their Mk16 counterparts... (Doubt RFC would do this; but at least it seems a consistent naming scheme; assuming that there is continued desire for new LERM equipped units post-war)

If the warhead of the LERM has been upgraded like the rest of the modern RMN warheads, the Avalons should be able to counter >95% of threats it will encounter while patroling through the mid 1930s.

With 20 missiles, it has the ability to take on (or give a credible threat to) any ship up through all but the most advanced CAs, and can easily run away from anything larger.

Against the verge navy or Pirate threat, it will probably be viable in most regions until the late 2040s or 50s.

Yes, they will go obsolete as other navies develop countering techs, but they will still be viable for a long time, especially if proper regional threat analysis is used prior to planning their deployments.

fallsfromtrees wrote:Which seems unlikely. The secret of the MDM is out of the bag, and it won't be too long before everyone has one.

It's kind of odd. Haven and the Andermani have built true MDMs on their own. The Alignment has known about them just as long as Haven and the Andies have, and has genetically engineered super-techies working on the problem, but does not. And the super-sized league defense contractors that could make a fortune selling new warships if they could prove the League's existing wall of battle needed replacing haven't been able to either.

drothgery wrote:

fallsfromtrees wrote:Which seems unlikely. The secret of the MDM is out of the bag, and it won't be too long before everyone has one.

It's kind of odd. Haven and the Andermani have built true MDMs on their own. The Alignment has known about them just as long as Haven and the Andies have, and has genetically engineered super-techies working on the problem, but does not. And the super-sized league defense contractors that could make a fortune selling new warships if they could prove the League's existing wall of battle needed replacing haven't been able to either.

That was proved at Spindle, if not beforehand(eg, Operation Buttercup). They still sent 11th Fleet to Manticore...

I remember the arguments White Haven made against the new concepts, just before his future wife took him down a peg. This was someone who fought a war in which missile engagements were becoming more and more decisive.

Imagine the arguments in Battle Fleet, which never fights. Doesn't have any Honor either, pardon the pun.

Any advances the SLN could be talked into adopting are probably incremental stuff, if not more for show like the Fleet 2000 update.

drothgery wrote:It's kind of odd. Haven and the Andermani have built true MDMs on their own. The Alignment has known about them just as long as Haven and the Andies have, and has genetically engineered super-techies working on the problem, but does not. And the super-sized league defense contractors that could make a fortune selling new warships if they could prove the League's existing wall of battle needed replacing haven't been able to either.

In regards to the MAlignment, yes, I would expect them to have MDM's in short order..but IIRC what made them practical was the Micro-fusion power sources, which requires a breakthough that no one else seems to have made (fair's fair; Mesa made the breakthough on the streak and spider drive that no one else even thought of).

Superior brains does not always equal superior thinking.

As for the Sollie contractors, I'm sure they'd love to build new classes of ships, but the SLN is the most conservative navy out there--because any real, revolutionary change renders their overwhelming superiority obsolete. (And of course, only the Sollies would develop such technology...you couldn't expect the neobarbs to do so...

Look sometime at the fight over building HMS Dreadnought...because it virtually rendered every battleship there was (including all the British ships of the time) obsolete. Everybody had to start at the beginning again.

Same thing in the Honorverse...except that the SEM (and Grayson) have managed to build a whole fleet of HMS Dreadnoughts while nobody was looking (well, Haven and the Andies were and are close to catching up).

The microfusion plants aren't necessary for MDMs. No one aside from Grayson and Manticore have them in their missiles - Haven, Andermani, and Erewhon are all capacitor based.

We are already shown that the RMN in Silesia have a bunch of the most modern ship types but they also have a lot of older ships with the old missiles. At this point, Sarnow can call on the IAM if they reun into something that comes close RMN capabilites as an opponant.

It depens on you point of view and making do with doing the best with what you have. Silesia does have a pirate problem (getting smaller) and RMN must remain strong to both deal with pirates, crush any insurection in the recently annexed systems and deal with anyf former ConFed or regional independent systems that want to take ground etc. For most of those, the older RMN ships with the singel drive missiles will work just fine. Every older ship or relativly new ship running less than MDM gear taking care of the problems or just forcing the problems to stay intheir holes frees up the state-of-the-tec ships for other duties.

RMN is not likely to reclassify any of its older/smaller/lighter units (something the age and capability of the Hawkwing) as a Frigate though they might starting refering to them lesser capable class of destroyer. Certainly isn't going to start building new things designed to use the older, the lesser capable missiles.It is already using the older ships with more limited weapons systems to cover what SHOULD be missions in which their capabilities should be sufficent for the job. And, of course, the crews will be expected to get the job done using what they have at hand and to the best advantage.