peep/hanite BCs

do we know the names of many peep/havenite BC classes?

off the top of my head i only know of Sultan class (PNS Saladin/Thunder of God) and Warlord class (PNS Tepes)

there are mentions in things like Torch of Freedom of Warlord C but no info on how they differed from stock warlords.

yet again of the top of my head i can do 5 RMN BC class. Redoubtable, homer, Reliant, Agamemnon and Nike and can check house of steel for more.

Dauntless wrote:do we know the names of many peep/havenite BC classes?

off the top of my head i only know of Sultan class (PNS Saladin/Thunder of God) and Warlord class (PNS Tepes)

there are mentions in things like Torch of Freedom of Warlord C but no info on how they differed from stock warlords.

yet again of the top of my head i can do 5 RMN BC class. Redoubtable, homer, Reliant, Agamemnon and Nike and can check house of steel for more.

Tiger and Lion are two other Peep BC classes I can think of. The Sultan was a replacement for the Tiger in much the same way the Reliant replaced the Redoubtable, though the older ships continued to be used for a while.

It's unfair to look for an Agamemnon or Nike analog amongst the Havenite lineup, as they haven't been doing much with their lighter vessels. IIRC, some of their ships have been refitted with more missile defense, at the expense of offensive armanent.

One of the next companion books(after House of Steel) should contain a full rundown of current and recent Havenite starships.

Dauntless wrote:do we know the names of many peep/havenite BC classes?

off the top of my head i only know of Sultan class (PNS Saladin/Thunder of God) and Warlord class (PNS Tepes)

there are mentions in things like Torch of Freedom of Warlord C but no info on how they differed from stock warlords.

yet again of the top of my head i can do 5 RMN BC class. Redoubtable, homer, Reliant, Agamemnon and Nike and can check house of steel for more.

I'm not sure Haven ever developed the battlecruiser to the extent that Manticore did - I'm guessing a lot of the effort they put into "tin cans" went toward their numerous and frankly extremely useful battleships. While I expect the BC to remain the pride of the Manticoran navy, with recent developments in Talbott and Silesia, I wouldn't be surprised if the GA influences Manticore to start building battleships again, given their usefulness in policing a multi-system empire. Imagine how useful a few task forces of battleships would be in Talbott, for instance.

roseandheather wrote:I'm not sure Haven ever developed the battlecruiser to the extent that Manticore did - I'm guessing a lot of the effort they put into "tin cans" went toward their numerous and frankly extremely useful battleships. While I expect the BC to remain the pride of the Manticoran navy, with recent developments in Talbott and Silesia, I wouldn't be surprised if the GA influences Manticore to start building battleships again, given their usefulness in policing a multi-system empire. Imagine how useful a few task forces of battleships would be in Talbott, for instance.

Why would Mantacore begin designing and constructing essentially a new class of waller when they could far more quickly and less expensively construct a larger number of updated Nike class BCs, each of which is very nearly as capable as any ship of the wall smaller than a "modern" SD(P,) and is more capable than even the largest Solarian piece of junk?

robert132 wrote:

roseandheather wrote:I'm not sure Haven ever developed the battlecruiser to the extent that Manticore did - I'm guessing a lot of the effort they put into "tin cans" went toward their numerous and frankly extremely useful battleships. While I expect the BC to remain the pride of the Manticoran navy, with recent developments in Talbott and Silesia, I wouldn't be surprised if the GA influences Manticore to start building battleships again, given their usefulness in policing a multi-system empire. Imagine how useful a few task forces of battleships would be in Talbott, for instance.

Why would Mantacore begin designing and constructing essentially a new class of waller when they could far more quickly and less expensively construct a larger number of updated Nike class BCs, each of which is very nearly as capable as any ship of the wall smaller than a "modern" SD(P,) and is more capable than even the largest Solarian piece of junk?

Indeed, by strict traditional tonnage brackets, the Nike is a small battleship. Manticore simply chooses to call it a battlecruiser and use it as one. I suppose a battleship would be a Nike fitted with 3-drive MDM launchers - fewer of them and with less ammo.

Part of the reason we won't see ships filling BB and DN roles again is the shift to pod-laying. Both BB(P)s and DN(P)s have been proposed(the latter in-universe by Willie Alexander), but they run into issues relating to core hull width and hence pod storage capacity as well as some of the same problems DNs had fighting SDs.

Another part is the new LAC and pod/mycroft paradigm. Those provide a system with far more economical protection than BBs can.

munroburton wrote:

robert132 wrote:Why would Mantacore begin designing and constructing essentially a new class of waller when they could far more quickly and less expensively construct a larger number of updated Nike class BCs, each of which is very nearly as capable as any ship of the wall smaller than a "modern" SD(P,) and is more capable than even the largest Solarian piece of junk?

Indeed, by strict traditional tonnage brackets, the Nike is a small battleship. Manticore simply chooses to call it a battlecruiser and use it as one. I suppose a battleship would be a Nike fitted with 3-drive MDM launchers - fewer of them and with less ammo.

You know, the core concepts for battleships and battlecruisers aren't necessarily inconsistent.

The battleship is basically a poor man's waller. If you don't have a real waller around to eat it up, it may as well be a waller as far as anything else is concerned: it's going to stay in this system between you and the planet; you can run away from it, maybe, but if you want the planet, you're going to have to go through it and that's not going to feel good at all.

The battlecruiser is meant to eat up cruisers with glee and ease, to run them down with a little luck, and to run away from wallers unless circumstances just suck.

A Nike really can do that battleship job. Oh, it's got even less business being in a wall than a battleship used to, but with how deadly missile volleys are nowadays, that would go for anything short of a SD(P). Given the faster speeds of cruisers and destroyers, even staying inside of them would demand speed like the Nike, or at least close to it. So if you wanted to fill a BB niche (as reasonable, non-desperate people conceive it), it's got both the size and the design for it. Maybe it will draw that duty in systems waiting for a LAC group and pods.

But yeah, that BB niche is better filled nowadays with LAC's and system defense missile pods anyway. There's been too much pressure against filling the "smallest waller" role, and if the BC(L) can fill the "waller if you're smaller" role, it's only because that's a pleasant side effect of it being built for the "biggest cruiser!" role instead.

Part of the reason we won't see ships filling BB and DN roles again is the shift to pod-laying. Both BB(P)s and DN(P)s have been proposed(the latter in-universe by Willie Alexander), but they run into issues relating to core hull width and hence pod storage capacity as well as some of the same problems DNs had fighting SDs.

As wallers, BB's and DN's were already for a long time a compromise - some waller as better than no waller. The BB's were filling that role - when it was useful - against anything smaller, or in the wall when you got really, really desperate. The desperation use didn't work any better for them than it did for BC(P)'s. DN's weren't used in the wall as a matter of desperation but as a matter of design - the RMN just chose to build a few more DN's instead of a few less SD's. Judging from the production of DN's as the war started and continued, I think that was probably a mistake.

Another part is the new LAC and pod/mycroft paradigm. Those provide a system with far more economical protection than BBs can.

Exactly, yes. Instead of putting a unit that's maneuverable enough to interpose itself between the attacker and the planet and tough and dangerous enough to make them go away or die, you get a lot of things that are cheap, numerous, fast, and hard-to-hit enough that someone can just get out of the system or die.

Properly used, Haven's BB's did a fine job, then. They get a lot of disdain just because circumstances and the CPS put them into places they should not have been. Much the same can be said of BC(P)'s, and Manticore doesn't have the excuse of people's commissioners to excuse them.

roseandheather wrote:

Dauntless wrote:do we know the names of many peep/havenite BC classes?

off the top of my head i only know of Sultan class (PNS Saladin/Thunder of God) and Warlord class (PNS Tepes)

there are mentions in things like Torch of Freedom of Warlord C but no info on how they differed from stock warlords.

yet again of the top of my head i can do 5 RMN BC class. Redoubtable, homer, Reliant, Agamemnon and Nike and can check house of steel for more.

I'm not sure Haven ever developed the battlecruiser to the extent that Manticore did - I'm guessing a lot of the effort they put into "tin cans" went toward their numerous and frankly extremely useful battleships. While I expect the BC to remain the pride of the Manticoran navy, with recent developments in Talbott and Silesia, I wouldn't be surprised if the GA influences Manticore to start building battleships again, given their usefulness in policing a multi-system empire. Imagine how useful a few task forces of battleships would be in Talbott, for instance.

I do think that pride and the romance of the battlecruiser is going to keep the RMN from even calling the Nike a "fast battleship", tonnage be damned. And as has been noted, they've got different approaches possible now to do what BB's once did for Haven.

But traditionally, BB's suited Haven more not just from having more systems but also for having less traffic going shorter distances. The People's Republic just didn't have that much interstellar commerce, and what it did have was mostly moving modest distances between their own systems. Long-ranged super-cruisers - the essential battlecruiser - didn't have long-ranged commerce to protect or pirates to run chase. Haven's BC's tended to be tied more to the fleets (super-duper-destroyers, if you will) for screen duty, much like the GSN conceived of BC's. They didn't need large stores for that job, and it certainly didn't draw the mystique the BC gets in RMN service, or the workhorse, general-purpose, get-the-job-done duty the BB did for Haven.

You know - for a hyper-capable platform for something like what PN BB's did, they may consider a DN-range CLAC with generous Marine provisions and fire control for system defense missile pods. In effect, you take the base for the LAC's and the Mycroft systems and make sure it is itself mobile and pretty tough. The system defense missile pods themselves would take a collier to deliver, but it'd be a nicely escorted one.

JeffEngel wrote:...And as has been noted, they've got different approaches possible now to do what BB's once did for Haven.

The SEM has no need for any ship to "do what BBs once did for Haven." What Haven used BBs for was "system security" or more properly system oppression. They were stationed in systems more to prevent revolts than to deter invaders.

The RMN doesn't need to suppress rebellions often enough to need a specialized ship type. A new-ish heavy cruiser like Hexapuma seemed more than capable of dealing with Agnes Nordbrandt's group.

Weird Harold wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:...And as has been noted, they've got different approaches possible now to do what BB's once did for Haven.

The SEM has no need for any ship to "do what BBs once did for Haven." What Haven used BBs for was "system security" or more properly system oppression. They were stationed in systems more to prevent revolts than to deter invaders.

The RMN doesn't need to suppress rebellions often enough to need a specialized ship type. A new-ish heavy cruiser like Hexapuma seemed more than capable of dealing with Agnes Nordbrandt's group.

Notoriety aside, it's ridiculous to suppose that Havenite BB's were there directly and entirely to keep planetary populations in line. A troop transport with a handful of KEW's could do that - if it were secure from enemy warships. A battleship would be comically excessive for keeping a planet below it in fear, but unlike the troop transport, it's not a pushover if an enemy cruiser (light, heavy, or battle) comes calling.

Haven did have to worry that, if it lost system security - I mean it, no euphemism there - that it wouldn't have a loyal planet at all anymore, and the SEM doesn't have that worry. But the concern about what happens if an enemy secures control of the system is there for both, even if some details are different, and spending as much as Haven did on battleships was to address that.

JeffEngel wrote:Notoriety aside, it's ridiculous to suppose that Havenite BB's were there directly and entirely to keep planetary populations in line. A troop transport with a handful of KEW's could do that - if it were secure from enemy warships. A battleship would be comically excessive for keeping a planet below it in fear, but unlike the troop transport, it's not a pushover if an enemy cruiser (light, heavy, or battle) comes calling.

Given the comic-opera nature of much of the People's Republic of Haven's decision making under the Legislaturalists (when most of the BBs were built and positioned for "system security") using an ostentatious show of force to cow restless populations fits. There is textev that the BBs could not be pulled from their dispersed deployments because they were needed for "system security" by the Committee for Public Safety.

As illogical and inefficient as building and deploying battleships for political oppression might seem, there is textev that the reason had so many was the need for "system security" and textev that the reason they couldn't assemble a force of BBs in a timely manner is the political concern involved with pulling them from "sensitive systems."

Bear in mind that this is the same political mindset that equipped their State Security with SDs and used the latest BC design as a roving propaganda studio and prisoner transport.