Mk-16G DDM's and the future of light warships

JeffEngel wrote:It'd help confirm that theory if we knew what changes in light unit construction occurred when the Janacek Admiralty fell ...

House of Steel says that only 19 Wolfhounds are in service with the other twenty of the first flight destroyed in the Grendelsbane raid. Small ship yards were dedicated to Rolands and Avalons with limited production of Wolfhounds being resumed -- presumably interrupted by the Yawata Strike.

The limited resumption suggests that Wolfhounds are indeed better than legacy destroyers and useful for traditional destroyer missions. The Rolands are described as a transitional design with flaws to be corrected in the next generation destroyers (nominal 300K ton DD/CL hull?) Most notably, the Rolands lack magazine space and Marine boarding parties.

The Avalons are described as admirably filling the traditional RMN light cruiser role even though it is smaller than a Roland.

Weird Harold wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:It'd help confirm that theory if we knew what changes in light unit construction occurred when the Janacek Admiralty fell ...

House of Steel says that only 19 Wolfhounds are in service with the other twenty of the first flight destroyed in the Grendelsbane raid. Small ship yards were dedicated to Rolands and Avalons with limited production of Wolfhounds being resumed -- presumably interrupted by the Yawata Strike.

The limited resumption suggests that Wolfhounds are indeed better than legacy destroyers and useful for traditional destroyer missions. The Rolands are described as a transitional design with flaws to be corrected in the next generation destroyers (nominal 300K ton DD/CL hull?) Most notably, the Rolands lack magazine space and Marine boarding parties.

The Avalons are described as admirably filling the traditional RMN light cruiser role even though it is smaller than a Roland.

Also, when the war with Haven restarted, and Silesia got partitioned, it would have thrown a major spanner into the shipbuilding plans of the RMN.

Without the running sore of Silesia they needed less anti-piracy units -- system defense LACs could do most of that, and the number of pirates in the area would be sharply reduced by lack of support and fences; even if not all that many were killed or captured.

So that would likely have caused a big swing from laying down Wolfhounds and Avalons towards Rolands. Then you open up Talbott with it's potential for confrontations with the SLN and OFS. Not sure what that does to your ship needs - but I don't see a need for the kind of ongoing transient anti-piracy sweeps that independent (corrupt) Silesia required. So that probably doesn't push all that hard back towards the patrol oriented (useful marine compliment) LERM designs.

JeffEngel wrote:It'd help confirm that theory if we knew what changes in light unit construction occurred when the Janacek Admiralty fell - or, for that matter, had good data on the relative construction and upkeep costs on Wolfhounds, Avalons, Roland's, and Saganami-C's. Still, with Manticoran production lines tending to be on the model "pay a lot to set up, just pay a little to keep cranking out copies thereafter", the Alexander Admiralty may have been content enough to keep building them just because they're cheap and the RMN does now find itself fighting technically inferior enemies but in vast numbers all over: precisely where those cheap but obsolescent designs can shine.

I say if "we" knew, but read that as I don't and wonder if anyone else does.

Ah, but we do know the "relative" costs between the Wolfhound and the Roland - We have RFC's pearl specifically on the subject.

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/entry/Harrington/85/1

According to HoS, The Wolfhounds were all laid down prior to the war (20 lost at Grendlesbane while under construction) with the original launched in 1919 and none ordered after the start of the war, while no Rolands were built yet (the design RFC told us about was still just a study) and the original not launched until 1920. The original Avalon was also launched in 1919, also making it a Janachack build.

Woops, some else already answered....

Theemile wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:I say if "we" knew, but read that as I don't and wonder if anyone else does.

Ah, but we do know the "relative" costs between the Wolfhound and the Roland - We have RFC's pearl specifically on the subject.

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/entry/Harrington/85/1

According to HoS, The Wolfhounds were all laid down prior to the war (20 lost at Grendlesbane while under construction) with the original launched in 1919 and none ordered after the start of the war, while no Rolands were built yet (the design RFC told us about was still just a study) and the original not launched until 1920. The original Avalon was also launched in 1919, also making it a Janachack build.

Woops, some else already answered....

But thanks, that pearl is very handy for this. And thanks to everyone else while I'm at it.

From that pearl, for anyone who's not clicking:

[The Wolfhound DD] is designed primarily to engage "normal" pirates and as an anti-LAC screening unit. The drawback is that with the new electronics and everything else, the smaller design costs about 75% as much as the Roland for far less than 3/4 of the larger design's general combat power.

I don't think that a dedicated hyper-capable anti-LAC screening unit is something the RMN would want to keep now - Katanas do that for the fleet, and blowing up LAC's well enough is something to expect out of any prepared hyper-capable warship of the usual generalist design. Engaging normal pirates would certainly be a fetish for a Janacek Admiralty, but that's not something most RMN admiralties would share.

I guess it'd be fair to say that both the Wolfhound and the Roland are transitional designs, in that they're built while feeling the way around to the future. The Wolfhound opted to integrate the new toys (bucklers, beta-squared nodes) but stick with the classic launchers and size. The Roland went with a radical design departure to take advantage of off-bore fire capability to get (a small number of) DDM's into a smaller ship than otherwise possible. (Even if the size makes it far outside the classic DD range; the RMN has tossed classification by size out the window to keep classification by role.) And maybe neither of them are satisfactory for wide deployment for the long haul: the Wolfhound cannot compete with light combatants built with state of the art weapons; the Roland can run dry too quickly for comfort and seems to keep getting drawn into light cruiser roles without light cruiser marines and prize crews.

The Avalon, despite being also without DDM's, seems to be handling the light cruiser job well enough - probably just because the Rolands are drawing the CL job where a lot of shooting happens and it's replacing legacy CA's, CL's and DD's. I get the feeling it's getting that large scale production just because it does do important things the Roland will have a hard time doing, and because that notional 300-400k whatever-they'll-call-it isn't available for production yet. The Avalon seems to be the only hypercapable generalist still being built in large numbers with single-drive missiles, so it can do everything that does not need them - yet.

JeffEngel wrote:But thanks, that pearl is very handy for this. And thanks to everyone else while I'm at it.

From that pearl, for anyone who's not clicking:

[The Wolfhound DD] is designed primarily to engage "normal" pirates and as an anti-LAC screening unit. The drawback is that with the new electronics and everything else, the smaller design costs about 75% as much as the Roland for far less than 3/4 of the larger design's general combat power.

I don't think that a dedicated hyper-capable anti-LAC screening unit is something the RMN would want to keep now - Katanas do that for the fleet, and blowing up LAC's well enough is something to expect out of any prepared hyper-capable warship of the usual generalist design. Engaging normal pirates would certainly be a fetish for a Janacek Admiralty, but that's not something most RMN admiralties would share.

I guess it'd be fair to say that both the Wolfhound and the Roland are transitional designs, in that they're built while feeling the way around to the future. The Wolfhound opted to integrate the new toys (bucklers, beta-squared nodes) but stick with the classic launchers and size. The Roland went with a radical design departure to take advantage of off-bore fire capability to get (a small number of) DDM's into a smaller ship than otherwise possible. (Even if the size makes it far outside the classic DD range; the RMN has tossed classification by size out the window to keep classification by role.) And maybe neither of them are satisfactory for wide deployment for the long haul: the Wolfhound cannot compete with light combatants built with state of the art weapons; the Roland can run dry too quickly for comfort and seems to keep getting drawn into light cruiser roles without light cruiser marines and prize crews.

The Avalon, despite being also without DDM's, seems to be handling the light cruiser job well enough - probably just because the Rolands are drawing the CL job where a lot of shooting happens and it's replacing legacy CA's, CL's and DD's. I get the feeling it's getting that large scale production just because it does do important things the Roland will have a hard time doing, and because that notional 300-400k whatever-they'll-call-it isn't available for production yet. The Avalon seems to be the only hypercapable generalist still being built in large numbers with single-drive missiles, so it can do everything that does not need them - yet.

I think that pretty much summs it up - with the addendum that all 3 designs, no matter their transitional (and flawed in some aspects) nature, represent a clear jump in combat power over previous Manticorian and current opposition designs, and allows the RMN to replace their aging light units with something much more survivable for the time being.

We generally point to Janacek who had nothing to do with design but everything to do with approval, and if you read the story about "I Will Build a House of Steel" in the epynomous book, you'll realize that even as a lieutenant, he was an idiot with connections, easily corruptible by High Ridge into spending big bucks on a new building while gutting fleet capabilities. So the Avalon is a notional "yeah we need more of something for that profitable pain-int-the-arse trading area known as Silesia. Let's build something cheap and good so we can take the rest of the money and run."

One more aspect which may favor some variant of the Avalon, which has been WELL identified in other threads, which is that for privacy suppression, in general you want a higher percentage of Marines, which the Roland has traded out for flag space plus magazine capacity. Be interesting to see what would happen if a Roland-DD found something like a "slaver tran-shipment depot" and needed to capture, then "prize crew" those ships to Torch before the SLN or MAlign could show up and start tossing missiles at those unarmored ships, right?

Defensively, agreement with theemile on heavier defensive capability, plus the bow and stern walls, of the Sag(s). Offensively, I think the next "light cruiser" -- the after the so called transitional designed Roland -- may not have all that much heavier tube salvo weight, but be able to mount more [and un-powered til fire-up] pods, the updated fire control allowing better ghost-rider-ish DDM connectivity, but mainly the additional crewing assumed to be needed for multiple ship-captures and verge planetary ops.

Slightly off topic, but I had an interesting "makes sense" add for the Roland(ish) ship sizes, but for the sake of tactical consideration let's make it close to "Roland size" with 10+1 pods", [or maybe (5+1) * 2 wait for the elaboration though, ok?] The plus is "the towed pod", contains no missiles, and is primarily the "start up reactor" for all of the other pods, which can then be physically linked (un-powered) to the ship.

Once fired up, it powers all of the other pods which tractor to it, Foraker-donkey style. After launch, it can do some Keyhole-lite-ish stuff out there away from the wedge managing those pods and any other missiles until and if the combat environment takes it out, though for the "near" future, I'm not even sure how that happens given that only the RMN and GSN can range on their own ships anyway. (we have no evidence that Haven's smaller combatants are similarly potent or have DDMs).

Thoughts?

SharkHunter wrote:One more aspect which may favor some variant of the Avalon, which has been WELL identified in other threads, which is that for privacy suppression,

I have to say, this is one of the most beautiful typos ever!

in general you want a higher percentage of Marines, which the Roland has traded out for flag space plus magazine capacity. Be interesting to see what would happen if a Roland-DD found something like a "slaver tran-shipment depot" and needed to capture, then "prize crew" those ships to Torch before the SLN or MAlign could show up and start tossing missiles at those unarmored ships, right?

Yeah. It'd be another make-do operation like Saltash, presumably without the benefit of Hearns and Gutierrez. And (rehashing, sorry) it does argue for mixing Avalons and Rolands, finding a way to sub even some Marines in flag bridge spaces, and/or a concerted project in training and/or equipment development for force/utility multipliers for RMN/RMMC boarding parties.

Defensively, agreement with theemile on heavier defensive capability, plus the bow and stern walls, of the Sag(s). Offensively, I think the next "light cruiser" -- the after the so called transitional designed Roland -- may not have all that much heavier tube salvo weight, but be able to mount more [and un-powered til fire-up] pods, the updated fire control allowing better ghost-rider-ish DDM connectivity, but mainly the additional crewing assumed to be needed for multiple ship-captures and verge planetary ops.

Better pod capability is always welcome, but with rapid fire capital-ship-killing DDM's aboard, in greater numbers than on the Roland, for a light combatant they may well be optional if you've got to sacrifice much of anything or pay much to get it.

JeffEngel wrote:"SharkHunter"]One more aspect which may favor some variant of the Avalon, which has been WELL identified in other threads, which is that for privacy suppression,

I have to say, this is one of the most beautiful typos ever!

in general you want a higher percentage of Marines, which the Roland has traded out for flag space plus magazine capacity. Be interesting to see what would happen if a Roland-DD found something like a "slaver tran-shipment depot" and needed to capture, then "prize crew" those ships to Torch before the SLN or MAlign could show up and start tossing missiles at those unarmored ships, right?

Yeah. It'd be another make-do operation like Saltash, presumably without the benefit of Hearns and Gutierrez. And (rehashing, sorry) it does argue for mixing Avalons and Rolands, finding a way to sub even some Marines in flag bridge spaces, and/or a concerted project in training and/or equipment development for force/utility multipliers for RMN/RMMC boarding parties.

Defensively, agreement with theemile on heavier defensive capability, plus the bow and stern walls, of the Sag(s). Offensively, I think the next "light cruiser" -- the after the so called transitional designed Roland -- may not have all that much heavier tube salvo weight, but be able to mount more [and un-powered til fire-up] pods, the updated fire control allowing better ghost-rider-ish DDM connectivity, but mainly the additional crewing assumed to be needed for multiple ship-captures and verge planetary ops.

Better pod capability is always welcome, but with rapid fire capital-ship-killing DDM's aboard, in greater numbers than on the Roland, for a light combatant they may well be optional if you've got to sacrifice much of anything or pay much to get it.[/quote]


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There's always a problem when you have an answer looking for a question, but at this point, the Wolfhounds and Avalons are likely best assigned to Silecia where their crew size can be put to best use against the pirates and privateers who have not gotten the message yet.

-- Stewart

stewart wrote:There's always a problem when you have an answer looking for a question, but at this point, the Wolfhounds and Avalons are likely best assigned to Silecia where their crew size can be put to best use against the pirates and privateers who have not gotten the message yet.

-- Stewart

HoS indicates that 196+ Avalons were built. The SEM's half of Silesia encompasses roughly 30 systems, plus Sidemore. They can easily cover Silesia with 50 of those and all the Wolfhounds, with a squadron of MK16-equipped units as the local heavy response unit. For the next six months, anyway.

Any RMN shortfalls in Silesia could probably be made up by the IAN.