tech gap

JeffEngel wrote:Right. For a missile defense unit, the SLN would need something that could move, easily, with the fleet. CLAC operations with a 40k ton not-light attack craft would be a miserable chore, and would take them building a sublight craft with enough accel and adequate systems and the CLAC. That's not happening in the remaining lifetime of the League, and I doubt they're even going to try for R&D that long-range. So they're practically stuck trying to use DD's in that role - which isn't too far off from their historical fleet role anyway. (They used to be on the fringes of the wall for defense against shenanigans; now they would be up front and to the sides, to shoot down at the incoming missiles.)

Their trouble there is that they'd have to design and build these things - much faster and easier than designing and building more radical departures like LAC's and big things like CLAC's, but still troublesome - or pull in FF units for refit this way, and FF is thin, busy, and scattered. It's one of the least bad hardware options they've got, I suppose, but it's still a bad one.

The SLN doesn't have time for proper CLACs, true. That's not a real obstacle to building and deploying LACs offensively, though - you can use freighters for long hauls and back in HotQ, a battlecruiser's hyper generator was said to have a diameter(or was that radius?) of about 6km, permitting it to ferry LACs into and out of hyperspace.

Not the safest or most efficient method of doing it, but still possible.

Unfortunately, SLN HQ hasn't gotten any reports about LACs and they're going to be fixated on solving the missile capability disparity.

munroburton wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:Right. For a missile defense unit, the SLN would need something that could move, easily, with the fleet. CLAC operations with a 40k ton not-light attack craft would be a miserable chore, and would take them building a sublight craft with enough accel and adequate systems and the CLAC. That's not happening in the remaining lifetime of the League, and I doubt they're even going to try for R&D that long-range. So they're practically stuck trying to use DD's in that role - which isn't too far off from their historical fleet role anyway. (They used to be on the fringes of the wall for defense against shenanigans; now they would be up front and to the sides, to shoot down at the incoming missiles.)

Their trouble there is that they'd have to design and build these things - much faster and easier than designing and building more radical departures like LAC's and big things like CLAC's, but still troublesome - or pull in FF units for refit this way, and FF is thin, busy, and scattered. It's one of the least bad hardware options they've got, I suppose, but it's still a bad one.

The SLN doesn't have time for proper CLACs, true. That's not a real obstacle to building and deploying LACs offensively, though - you can use freighters for long hauls and back in HotQ, a battlecruiser's hyper generator was said to have a diameter(or was that radius?) of about 6km, permitting it to ferry LACs into and out of hyperspace.

Not the safest or most efficient method of doing it, but still possible.

It's possible, but it's clunky as all get out.

Tractored and hyper'ed up and down by another ship, they're vulnerable to damage from unsecured gear and you'll have to avoid grav waves. When you get there, you'll have to get crews aboard, make sure stuff is working, and then get around to moving and fighting.

Tractored or anchored right in against the hull and inside the compensator field, you'll be carrying very few and it's still clunky.

Inside a freighter, you'll have a slow, vulnerable carrier and slow, awkward, probably dangerous entrance and egress. It's still the best option, but it's desperate.

If they had a LAC worth it, and given a realistic appraisal of urgency, I could see them doing this before they had a proper CLAC built, but the SLN admiral relying on it would be popping stomach pills like candy to stave off ulcers.

Unfortunately, SLN HQ hasn't gotten any reports about LACs and they're going to be fixated on solving the missile capability disparity.

Yeah. They don't yet realize how many disparities they need to address.

Still, they've got to realize that they need to address the defensive disparity as badly, and if they have any reports from Second Manticore, the use of LAC's in that should pop out to mind. Even the old-time missile defense role of light units may make them think along those lines. So it's not too unlikely that they'd consider some light missile screen unit in bulk. Going from there to something effective is another story.

Jeff, and Munroburton, regards.

I thought I made the point earlier, but I tend to write too much, so just one point here.

The Sollies may want to build LACs to do the job, but without the prior necessity of concentrating effort on downsizing components (like Hemphill did for S-282) they will never get a satisfactory LAC into commission. Haven's LACs are re-designed pinnaces which weren't initially designed for missile defense, but to try to stop Manti LACs. And, they have yet to see LACs in any other roles except missile defense. . . . "Hello, I am a Shrike, and you are LUNCH!"

YMMV

Rob

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:But if they can field a DD size missile defense ship for every LAC the GA has, does it matter if it is a bit bigger target? It will have a much deeper magazine to compensate. If FF can manage to get to their own range basket, they could manage to hurt older ships (like Reprise, Cometary, etc )or small independent system stuff.

Hutch wrote:That is one possibility, and given it is for small ships, it might be doable; but I doubt that they can build/rebuild enough to protect a full SD fleet. At least in time to help. But still, an option I imagine the brighter folks (there must be a few around) at SLN HQ might be considering.

Of course, there is the coming money crunch to actually do the work...

Sorry, Hutch, I saw this, but I was writing too many overly-long posts; anyway, I was intending the DDs as screening elements for the commerce warfare BC's Kingsford was talking about; and likely for screening for attempts on the wormhole termini; lots and lots of DDs, so they can try to bring the BCs with their big salvos into range.


Rob

JeffEngel wrote:Yeah. They don't yet realize how many disparities they need to address.

Still, they've got to realize that they need to address the defensive disparity ...

The only thing I can think of that the SLN can field quickly enough to make any sort of difference is converting as many ships as possible to "Aegis Squared" configuration:

A regular Aegis:

Torch of Freedom
Chapter Fifty-eight
(Battle of Torch, PNE POV) wrote:Leon Trotsky's counter-missiles began to launch. The big ship's active antimissile defenses were far weaker than they ought to be for something her size, but the Aegis system which had been added to them went some way towards repairing that weakness. It was scarcely what Luff would have called a sophisticated solution, but there was a certain brutal elegance to the concept. Simply rip out a couple of broadside launchers, use the space they'd previously occupied for additional counter-missile fire control, and then use two of the remaining launchers to toss out canisters of defensive missiles. Even under optimal conditions, Aegis cost the ship which mounted it at least four offensive tubes per broadside. Normally, Luff would have considered it an equitable deal, given Trotsky's original feeble defenses; now, he missed those shipkillers badly.

"Aegis Squared" would replace half a ship's tubes with CM control links and use the rest to launch canisters. It would cede all offensive capability to the heavies, but the basic conversion is already developed and could be installed as quickly as kits could be built and ships routed through a yard for modification. It might even be possible to do a "field modification."

Such a conversion is unlikely to be accomplished before the League disintegrates, but it would be closer to possible than anything else.

Weird Harold wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:Yeah. They don't yet realize how many disparities they need to address.

Still, they've got to realize that they need to address the defensive disparity ...

The only thing I can think of that the SLN can field quickly enough to make any sort of difference is converting as many ships as possible to "Aegis Squared" configuration:

A regular Aegis:

Torch of Freedom
Chapter Fifty-eight
(Battle of Torch, PNE POV) wrote:Leon Trotsky's counter-missiles began to launch. The big ship's active antimissile defenses were far weaker than they ought to be for something her size, but the Aegis system which had been added to them went some way towards repairing that weakness. It was scarcely what Luff would have called a sophisticated solution, but there was a certain brutal elegance to the concept. Simply rip out a couple of broadside launchers, use the space they'd previously occupied for additional counter-missile fire control, and then use two of the remaining launchers to toss out canisters of defensive missiles. Even under optimal conditions, Aegis cost the ship which mounted it at least four offensive tubes per broadside. Normally, Luff would have considered it an equitable deal, given Trotsky's original feeble defenses; now, he missed those shipkillers badly.

"Aegis Squared" would replace half a ship's tubes with CM control links and use the rest to launch canisters. It would cede all offensive capability to the heavies, but the basic conversion is already developed and could be installed as quickly as kits could be built and ships routed through a yard for modification. It might even be possible to do a "field modification."

Such a conversion is unlikely to be accomplished before the League disintegrates, but it would be closer to possible than anything else.

Although Roszak didn't make a point of it, isn't that more or less what his "Marksman" class did--remove two missile launchers and use the hullspace for additional fire control arrays? Same idea, really, just Erewhon/Maya used it for the offense. Of course, they did have ERMs.

Rob

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:Although Roszak didn't make a point of it, isn't that more or less what his "Marksman" class did--remove two missile launchers and use the hullspace for additional fire control arrays? Same idea, really, just Erewhon/Maya used it for the offense. Of course, they did have ERMs.

Rob

The Marksman class didn't "replace" anything, as they were designed from the keel out as the fire-control half of a Marksman/Arsenal pair. I'm not sure what the design was based on for comparison purposes (and doctored reporting to FF and SLN headquarters) but the Marksman class is a completely new design around a concept not used by any other Navy -- and they are an interim design that was just faster than building everything into one hull.

Weird Harold wrote:The only thing I can think of that the SLN can field quickly enough to make any sort of difference is converting as many ships as possible to "Aegis Squared" configuration:

A regular Aegis:

Torch of Freedom
Chapter Fifty-eight
(Battle of Torch, PNE POV) wrote:Leon Trotsky's counter-missiles began to launch. The big ship's active antimissile defenses were far weaker than they ought to be for something her size, but the Aegis system which had been added to them went some way towards repairing that weakness. It was scarcely what Luff would have called a sophisticated solution, but there was a certain brutal elegance to the concept. Simply rip out a couple of broadside launchers, use the space they'd previously occupied for additional counter-missile fire control, and then use two of the remaining launchers to toss out canisters of defensive missiles. Even under optimal conditions, Aegis cost the ship which mounted it at least four offensive tubes per broadside. Normally, Luff would have considered it an equitable deal, given Trotsky's original feeble defenses; now, he missed those shipkillers badly.

"Aegis Squared" would replace half a ship's tubes with CM control links and use the rest to launch canisters. It would cede all offensive capability to the heavies, but the basic conversion is already developed and could be installed as quickly as kits could be built and ships routed through a yard for modification. It might even be possible to do a "field modification."

Such a conversion is unlikely to be accomplished before the League disintegrates, but it would be closer to possible than anything else.

Exchanging more missile tubes for CMs is a poor move. Better to do what the Havenites did and rip the energy mounts out for those extra countermissiles and control links.

Unless the plan is to throw enough countermissiles to last into energy range, in which case you might as well delete all offensive missile armanent. Aegis cubed! There is, of course, the small issue that a Havenite SD(P) pulls almost as many, if not more, gravities as a Solarian DD.

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:Although Roszak didn't make a point of it, isn't that more or less what his "Marksman" class did--remove two missile launchers and use the hullspace for additional fire control arrays? Same idea, really, just Erewhon/Maya used it for the offense. Of course, they did have ERMs.

Rob

Weird Harold wrote:The Marksman class didn't "replace" anything, as they were designed from the keel out as the fire-control half of a Marksman/Arsenal pair. I'm not sure what the design was based on for comparison purposes (and doctored reporting to FF and SLN headquarters) but the Marksman class is a completely new design around a concept not used by any other Navy -- and they are an interim design that was just faster than building everything into one hull.

Harold, Torch of Freedom is one of my favorite books, but I don't have that one in digits. Hutch helped me out last time, but it isn't really necessary.

Go back to the description of the ship, to the part of the text speaking about a hypothetical observer, who would notice that there is something, well, odd about the symmetry of the Marksman's broadside. You know, the part of the text that stated that the Marksman was designed with 8 missile tubes, not 6? The part that says they will restore those missile tubes when the ship isn't needed for fire control (because they will have SDPs?

Look for it, it's there.

Man, you almost NEVER make those errors. Must be an off day.

Rob

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:You know, the part of the text that stated that the Marksman was designed with 8 missile tubes, not 6? The part that says they will restore those missile tubes when the ship isn't needed for fire control (because they will have SDPs?

Torch of Freedom
Chapter Forty-one wrote:The reason for the apparent peculiarity was that the ships had been designed with eight broadside missile tubes, not six. As built, however, two tubes in each broadside had been replaced by lots and lots of additional fire control. The compartments which had been intended to mount the missile tubes had then been sealed with solid plugs of armor—armor which, in fact, was substantially heavier than that which protected her actual weaponry. The peculiar plethora of arrays dotting her flanks provided the telemetry links for all that fire control, which gave them—despite the fact that they mounted only six tubes each—enough capability to simultaneously control sixty missiles in each broadside firing arc.

Ultimately, all of that massively redundant fire control would be removed and replaced with the missile tubes of the original "official" design. At the moment, however, they were half the key to Rozsak's entire strategy for covering the gap until the Maya Sector began to take delivery of a substantial force of Erewhon-built ships-of-the-wall of its very own.

It can be argued either way:

Two missile tubes were replaced,

OR

Redundant Fire Control will be replaced.

The Marksman never actually had those two additional missile tubes although it is designed to receive them when the fire-control becomes redundant.