Captured Solly SDs

So, my maiden post...

I have not read every damn topic about this, but from what I have looked through I don't believe this has been mentioned before. I'll preface this with what I believe I know to be true:

1- These ~300 captured SDs are useless as combat vessels
2- These ~300 captured SDs are impossible to refit to make them useful combat vessels
3- It is pointless to try and think of a way to use these ~300 captured SDs as a combat vessel.

So, with that stated, I'll add one more which I believe to be true but could be convinced otherwise by someone more knowledgeable than myself:

4- It is beyond pointless to try to turn a Waller into any kind of economically feasible freighter. Due in part to the massive amounts of interlocking armour and bulkheads throughout the core of the ship to survive combat damage, you could never get enough space for storage without a massive initial investment to gut the entire ship and rebuild it. So, this is unlikely (although, again, if feasible it might in theory work).

So, beyond that, what would be a good use for these captured ships besides A- Target Practice and B- Being launched into the closest sun for destruction?

I will start by outlining the core considerations (in my mind) to the RMN ever using these captured SDs as anything beyond target practice:

1- Any modification must be affordable and quick. IE, the cost must be low enough where it will not detract from new Waller construction and be a quick enough mod that they can be turned around fairly quickly (Once the process is known, I would guess this to be within a couple months). Also, it cannot be an extremely labor intensive task. In a post Oyster Bay time, Manticore cannot tie up thousands of trained yard dogs refitting captured Solly SDs.
2- The end product must fit into existing RMN doctrine. Or, at least, be no more than one step removed from existing doctrine. By this I mean whatever role the captured SDs play must be something that a different ship (or technology) currently does, or a natural extension of existing doctrine that hadn't been introduced yet because it would have required building ships from scratch for the role (which would come behind other, pressing concerns). Thus, they must either replace an existing unit or fill in a gap in RMN doctrine which would have been filled in peace time under a forward thinking Admiralty.
3- It must use as little manpower as possible to achieve its function.

So, I think I have stumbled upon an idea, in part thanks to another series (Jack Campbell's Lost Fleet). Basically, why not make the captured SDs into a reverse Trojan Horse?

My idea is: Why not upgrade select aspects of a captured Solly SDs capabilities (automation primarily, as well as EW) to make it appear on gravitics as a full scale GA Waller, while in reality it has been stripped of all offensive weapons and almost (or all) personnel. The sole function of the ship would be to occupy the forward spot in the GA Wall of battle to spew out AI controlled CMs (via FTL) and use its EW to attract enemy missiles to itself. It would be a great big billboard to Solly missiles, screaming "HERE I AM, COME BLOW ME UP" while the real GA Wall of Battle would be located further behind the captured SDs using them as yet another line of defense.

Before I discuss how this could be physically done, a couple more roles these ships could play.
1- Tractoring missile pods on their hulls and deploying them at the start of an engagement (with fire control from other ships) would allow the GA to keep their own "in-ship" missile capability at higher levels while burning "expendable" missiles in the first wave or 3.
2- Force multiplication. If 5 squadrons of these refit SD(F) [F for Fake] were deployed to Talbott, imagine a Solly Admiral's surprise if they came upon an extra 40 of what they though were straight GA wallers. Going further, imagine the Solly reaction to a squad of BC(L)s stopping by their system along with a squad of SD(F)s along? All of a sudden its not just BCs, but 8 freaken WALLERS! It could cause many a Solly Admiral who does not command Wallers himself/herself to just surrender instead of committing what even they know (regardless of the Manty tech advantage) to be suicide.

Now, how could this physically happen?

1- Strip out all offensive weapons. This is mainly as a safety precaution to ensure that these ships are harmless to the GA ships operating near them. That not even a landing party of Special Forces that snuck aboard could engage GA ships at energy range.
2- Upgrade the CM systems to Manty standards and install FTL links.
3- Automate the F*** out of these ships. By that I mean, if you can get everything (Impellers, Thrusters, Drives, etc..) run to one location you do it. Set that up very close to a Docking Bay, and ensure enough LACs are docked there for the entire crew to get in and get away when combat approaches. Basically, the sole function of the limited crew is to ensure that the ships get to where they need to be and then get the hell off before they get blown up.
4- Tie in Helms to FTL so they can be driven by other ships (or via Ghost Rider).
5- Tractor up Missile Pods (if desired).

Thoughts? Has this been proposed before? Basically spending a small amount of money and time to make them into great big targets in order to provide one additional layer of defense for the real GA Wallers.

There's only been about fifty threads on this topic since I joined the forum. Let's do it again?!

You can't automate ships to that degree in the Honorverse. Doesn't work. Removing all the grasers from the ships is probably around as expensive as building a whole new Sag-C cruiser. Installing the gear for Manty counter missiles plus FTL links probably makes the whole thing more expensive than just going ahead and building your own brand new SDP that'll do all of these things better and retain the ability to destroy divisions worth of Sollie SDs.

This is impractical.

Welcome to the forums! A nice summation to begin with too.

There are a couple of issues with using ex-SLN SDs as decoy units. First off the bat, they're too slow to keep up with real GA wallers, so their inclusion would slow any GA formation down. Refitting the impeller drive falls far closer to the category of rebuilding rather than quick refitting.

Second, the SLN SDs mass in at 6.8 million tons(almost identical to now-retired RMN DNs). The smallest GA waller in use is quite a bit larger, at ~8.5MT and the closest warship class in service are the 6.2MT CLACs. So, out in the open, those vessels' masses would stick out like a sore thumb from their wedge strengths.

It would then be easy to set missiles to ignore them, much as happened in the 2nd Battle of Sidemore, when Honor's Task Force 34 + Protector's Own took on Tourville's Second Fleet. Both sides had identified the other's CLACs and non-pod wallers and assigned them lower priorities in the targeting queues. Those units consequently suffered far less damage in those battles than the SD(P)s.

The refits of the Manticore's Gift-class SDs in the first war were done only because those ships were close enough to Manticoran Alliance's significantly lower tech(well, pre-Ghost Rider) standards back then. And even then those captured SDs were younger, bigger and better optimised for missile combat than Battle Fleet's SDs even before the Graysons went over them - in part because Haven was buying more from the League's R&D than the League's own Navy did.

Erls wrote:Thoughts? Has this been proposed before? Basically spending a small amount of money and time to make them into great big targets in order to provide one additional layer of defense for the real GA Wallers.

Pretty sure something like this has come up in the megathread on this subject.

But, to indulge you, here's the main reasons why this won't work:

1. The shipyards that could do the conversion work are busy either rebuilding themselves, or building actual RMN/RHN hardware.
2. Since it's impossible to completely automate these ships, you would be sending crews away to die. Noone's gonna be able to sell that.
3. The only enemy against which these tactics could be used is incapable of throwing enough fire into a GA wall to make this tactic necessary
4. By the time they are, actual RMN/RHN/AN/GSN ships will be coming off the lines again that can do a better job

Hi Erls,

Welcome to the forums. You are invited to belly up to the virtual bar and order the virtual drink of your choice. It's on the house.

As for all of the racket you are hearing in the background, it is headbanging on the bar amoung the veterans here on the forum along with loud groaning because what to do with those captured Solly SDs is the subject that will not die.

If you page back a few weeks on the Honorverse forum, you will find another thread that beat the subject to death for over 100 pages.

But... so what the heck... this is the Honorverse forum. Beating stuff to death is what we do best and lately we've been bored...

Don

n7axw wrote:Hi Erls,

Welcome to the forums. You are invited to belly up to the virtual bar and order the virtual drink of your choice. It's on the house.

As for all of the racket you are hearing in the background, it is headbanging on the bar amoung the veterans here on the forum along with loud groaning because what to do with those captured Solly SDs is the subject that will not die.

If you page back a few weeks on the Honorverse forum, you will find another thread that beat the subject to death for over 100 pages.

But... so what the heck... this is the Honorverse forum. Beating stuff to death is what we do best and lately we've been bored...

Don

But it is engaging in necrotic equine abuse

n7axw wrote:As for all of the racket you are hearing in the background, it is headbanging on the bar amoung the veterans here on the forum along with loud groaning because what to do with those captured Solly SDs is the subject that will not die.

Don

well, Don, at least he didn't suggest converting them all to frigates and arming them with grav lances....

And Eris, welcome, the first Old Tillman is on the house, but yes, this subject has been well-tread on several threads so if most of us have a certain...sardonic..take on this, please forgive us and keep on commenting.

Erls wrote:So, my maiden post...

I have not read every damn topic about this, but from what I have looked through I don't believe this has been mentioned before. I'll preface this with what I believe I know to be true:

1- These ~300 captured SDs are useless as combat vessels

[snip]

So, beyond that, what would be a good use for these captured ships besides A- Target Practice and B- Being launched into the closest sun for destruction?

#1 isn't really true -- they're just useless against GA fleets. Against the SLN or anyone else....

One immediate felt need is to bulk up the defenses of Beowulf. Visibly, so visiting Sollies can see it and believe it. The obvious way — stationing RMN squadrons in orbit over the planet — has been rejected as having too high a political downside. So why not give them a few squadrons of ex-SLN SDs? The Beowulf SDF has a bunch already, so it obviously knows how to operate them. They don't need to actually be fully manned, since they'd basically be scarecrows. They just need to drive around a bit, and occasionally test their weapons.

The real defense is a few ammo ships loaded with missile pods, and the cruisers to control them, parked in some out-of-the-way corner of the system.

Just some random ideas

1. Destroy or Remove all weapons and propulsion turn into prison hulks
2. Scrap them to use as raw materials in the production of new ships or what ever that needs to be produce for the benefit of the Starkingdom and its allies
3. Give them away to trustworthy allies that do not have any shipping of their own; cash-poor resource-poor talbort sector comes to mind
4. Send them on a ballistic course to the sun (cheap way to scrap)
5. Target practice
6. Test platforms for any type of news systesms upgrade
7. After rendering all weapons inoperable, fill them to the bulheads with Sol prisoners and send them back to Solarian League and or New Chicago under a news media escort stating just how worthless the Sol navy truly is.

Erls wrote:So, my maiden post...<snip>

Hi Erls, I'll be kind, As other have mentioned, this horse keeps getting trotted out, only to be taken back to the firing squad - Then brought back by seyonce, ouiji board , or black magic - again and again...and again.
I just wish we had some silver bullets.

To begin with, there are not 300 SLN SDs available for use - ~320 SLN SDs have been destroyed outright and 71 have severe battle damage between BoMA 2 and BoSpindle - see the snip below from ART:

She didn’t know, and she never would, for there had been no survivors from SLNS Philip Oppenheimer. And of the four hundred and twenty-seven superdreadnoughts Massimo Filareta had led into the Manticore Binary System, only sixty had managed to surrender undamaged. Two hundred and ninety-six—including Oppenheimer—had been destroyed (most of them outright, although some had merely been turned into hopelessly shattered and broken hulks), and another seventy-one might have been repairable, assuming anyone was interested in returning such obsolete, outmoded deathtraps to service.

Less than 110 ships, of the original ~500 SDs in Filaretta and Crandall's fleets are in an operational state - and nothing is known of their maintenance state.

As for their use, I have a litmus test, not everyone agrees with it (thank you, RELAX), but to me any use has to pass several logical tests before it's viable.

1) It has to do something a Manty ship cannot. - We know the RMN and GSN have ~230 surviving tube SDs between them that are superior to the Scientists, and the IAN and the RHN each have several hundred which are less capable than a Manty ship, but more so than a SLN ship. They are maintained, updated and use parts which are standard in their navies. Many of these are in mothballs, but many are also in 2nd tier use. Any navy would prefer to pull a known ship out of mothballs, than field an unknown, inferior ship which requires more resources to use. Simultaneously, the RMN just wrote off the last 2 classes of DNs in 1921 - so any project which needs pieces or parts of a Waller has those to pick through.

2) It cannot be combat related - as stated, there are plenty of GA capital ships left which can blow these ships away without breaking a sweat, in fact those DNs that the RMN just disposed of are far superior to the SLN SDs, yet the RMN is actively disposing of them and mothballing SDs because it feels it does not need them. Using a SLN SD over a RMN ship is like switching from a paid for newish Porsche Cayenne to a gifted 1990 Ford Torus.

3) It cannot use a shipyard or repair ship. - Let's face it, practically every shipyard, big or small, in GA friendly territory is extremely busy. Even the smallest, least capable shipyard in former Silensian space is building modular docking tubes or industrial modules for the new Manticorian space stations, or is busy repairing the ships turned away from those shipyards who are. Any shipyard will not be free until months or years after the 6 big stations are completed. Building a new one or upgrading an existing one (how? we already said all the construction assets were in use) will take time and probably won't be available until RMN new construction is also available.

4) If giving them away, it has to address proliferation concerns. These are the nukes of the 40th century. Do you want to give one to Kenya? or Mali? There are reasons Kenya (and especially Mali) doesn't have a nuclear arsenal now. If they were suddenly given one, could they secure it? keep it working? use it responsibly? Only use it for defense? - and best - is there a better, cost effective alternative? And in the Honorverse, with the GA, there are several.

Personally, I hate scarecrow ideas, but Bill's idea of using them to try to strike sense into any SLN commander's mind is as good as any suggestion, though I fear ~140 ships (The SLN intact survivors and the BSDF) is just too few to do so. The SLN assault will be a minimum of 100 strong (Tang had 100 SDs in her force at the Beowulf terminus, and In their shoes, I'd reinforce to at least 300 before I'd push the button) and that many scarecrows might just cause the SLN taskforce to do the stupid thing and go for a c-fractional EE violation.