BC(P)

Somtaaw wrote:

Theemile wrote:We pushed on this when the book came out - we KNEW there were at least 17 Nikes in Service at the time.

Tom Pope let us know that HoS reflects ships accepted into the RMN as of ~May 1st 1921, not as of Oyster Bay (~March 1922) or the end of ART (August 1922), so it is not the definitive count of the RMN at this point in the series.

HoS also does not reflect un-finished construction (Grendlesbane, Oyster Bay) or ships built in RMN yards and sold to foreign powers before being accepted into the RMN. Any ships completed after ~May 1st and accepted into the RMN are not included.

Ships built before ~1900 show their latest refit prior to ~1900, not their original hardware. Ships show their design accel, not built or current accel.

So while the Reliant's construction is done, there may have been more Aggies in the pipeline in addition to the Nikes. Given the blurb that Sarnow got 1/3rd of construction after Monica (prior to that, he was scheduled to get 2/3rds), there probably is at least 1 squadron of Nikes in Silesia, in addition to any working up.

And Eighth Fleet probably scored a squadron or two, after they'd been proven concept and very effective for what Eighth Fleet's role was (the deep raids using light units). Instead of just having the original test-bed Nike which was inserted into a squadron of Aggies simply to field it.

Somtaaw. Theemile, I have no disagreement with you here. I am simply pointing out that we've been 'spoiled' by seeing the Nike's in Talbott in action during Storm from the Shadows, Misson of Honor, and Shadow of Freedom, while the Aggies and Reliants have presumably been stooging around in Silesia or elesewhere. But there is a very limited number of those Nikes' and given the missions coming up for the RMN, I suspect we'll see more of those 'older' BC's in the next book.

Of course, I could be wrong. I remember being wrong in 2002...

Hutch wrote:Somtaaw. Theemile, I have no disagreement with you here. I am simply pointing out that we've been 'spoiled' by seeing the Nike's in Talbott in action during Storm from the Shadows, Misson of Honor, and Shadow of Freedom, while the Aggies and Reliants have presumably been stooging around in Silesia or elesewhere. But there is a very limited number of those Nikes' and given the missions coming up for the RMN, I suspect we'll see more of those 'older' BC's in the next book.

Of course, I could be wrong. I remember being wrong in 2002...

Heh, something we can all probably say, being wrong once or twice (or maybe more ).

I personally think the majority of the Aggies would have been shifted towards Silesia, or other low-danger areas. And with the SLN about to embark on commerce raiding, those poor Sollies aren't going to know what to do.

And yeah, what few Nike-class that are fielded, are in the high threat zones. For that matter, my belief that Eighth Fleet might have gotten Nike's could actually be the same ones that ended up in Tenth Fleet.

After all, the Nike's are true warships, and don't have all that much of a peace-times application. Bigger than most Battleships, designed more like a small Dreadnought (slightly heavy on missiles, but good sized energy banks), even with battlecruiser legs it's a ship designed almost purely for war. And IIRC the crew automation built into the Nike's was even more drastic than what was used on the Aggy, so she's got at best the same crew for a ship that's 30% larger without the "advantage" of low-maintenance pod rails to upkeep.

Somtaaw wrote:And yeah, what few Nike-class that are fielded, are in the high threat zones. For that matter, my belief that Eighth Fleet might have gotten Nike's could actually be the same ones that ended up in Tenth Fleet.

After all, the Nike's are true warships, and don't have all that much of a peace-times application. Bigger than most Battleships, designed more like a small Dreadnought (slightly heavy on missiles, but good sized energy banks), even with battlecruiser legs it's a ship designed almost purely for war.

Nitpick, at 2.5 mtons the Nike's are at the very bottom end of the old BB size scale. Most BBs were bigger, in some case 75% bigger, than a BC(L). It's a huge ship compared to old BCs, but it's just not bigger than most battleships.

Relax posted a little bit on this, but while the "eggshell" part has been addressed -- I thought the main thing the RMN hated about the Aggies and current generation SD(P)s was that "lose the launch bays in the back, you're out of action" compared to a tube-firer. Yes/no?

Considering that a single Aggie could pod launch enough long-range missiles to win any of the battles up to Haven getting MDM(s).

Against a task group, all by itself, saying it's not a survivable ship is silly. The Agamemnon would shoot itself dry and then run away, true -- but at 330 pods x 14 missiles less say 20% shipkillers with Mark-16's in the pods? that's still enough to take out somewhere between 16-20 SD's. Or -- say a dozen SD's plus screen, all before the enemy can range on the ship.

Put two BC(P's) together? I'll take those odds against anybody but Haven, the IAN or a WAY fleet bigger than Crandall's.

Thoughts?

SharkHunter wrote:Relax posted a little bit on this, but while the "eggshell" part has been addressed -- I thought the main thing the RMN hated about the Aggies and current generation SD(P)s was that "lose the launch bays in the back, you're out of action" compared to a tube-firer. Yes/no?

Considering that a single Aggie could pod launch enough long-range missiles to win any of the battles up to Haven getting MDM(s).

Against a task group, all by itself, saying it's not a survivable ship is silly. The Agamemnon would shoot itself dry and then run away, true -- but at 330 pods x 14 missiles less say 20% shipkillers with Mark-16's in the pods? that's still enough to take out somewhere between 16-20 SD's. Or -- say a dozen SD's plus screen, all before the enemy can range on the ship.

Put two BC(P's) together? I'll take those odds against anybody but Haven, the IAN or a WAY fleet bigger than Crandall's.

Thoughts?

Sure Aggies can beat up on anybody who lacks MDMs/DDMs - especially if they have crappy missile defense.
But I think even there you're overstating their effectiveness. It's more deadly than any pre-pod SD; but it's not capble of taking out 16-20 SDs - not unless they came at it one by one without any mutual support.

For each pod salvo it rolls it can fire 4*14 = 56 Mk16s, and it can IIRC quad stack salvos. So up to 224 missiles at a time.
Very impressive, but fired against 16 Sphinx class SDs in a wall of battle they're flying into the face of 432 CM tubes, and 496 PDLCs. If those are pre-war defenses with no updates then the ECM power and the terminal velocity will be big surprises and outside the designed scope; but that's still a wall of CMs to get through. You're not likely to knock out an SD first salvo; you'll need to grind down their defenses.

But you've only got 20 (and a tad) quad-stack salvos worth of pods.



Lets look back at the very first pod engagement. Sarnow's BCs sent 900 missiles (admittedly SDMs, but capital ship weight SDMs) at 7 DNs and 6 BCs. They killed 1 DN, heavily damaged to crippled 3 more, and killed 3 BCs - that were caught nose-on and only able to reply with their forward hammerhead's defenses; not their more numerous broadside ones. Impressive; but that single salvo was equivalent to an 16-deep pod stack from an Agamemnon. (way more than she can control - and even if she could she could do it less than 6 times before running out of pods).


And against a target with better missile defenses than the pitiful ones SLN SDs carry you need even more missiles to grind them down.

Take for example more modern units; at Monica. There Hexapuma and her consorts got hit with roughly that same volume of fire (960 bigger longer ranged, higher velocity, missiles), but 3 CAs, 3 CLs, 4 DD [with only 1 CA, 1 CL, and 2 DDs being designed after pod warfare became common] came out arguably better than the 7 DNs and 7 BCs did (though admittedly even the older units had been refit to a certain degree). Improved missile defenses made those ships far more of an ammo soak.



All that said, I'm not arguing that a Aggie isn't a powerful unit. It's likely capable of killing any pair of pre-podlayer SDs; and quite possibly most of a full squadron's wall of even the best SDF's SDs. But 16-20 SDs together seems very unlikely for a single BC(P).

Basically, you are asking how stupid the defender is. For example, I believe at spindle the SDs were far enough apart they were outside mutual missile defense support. Which likely means that BF doesn't practice integrated fleet or squadron missile defense tactics. If they don't fix that they will be slaughtered in job lots So I assume they will, but how long will it take?

kzt wrote:Basically, you are asking how stupid the defender is. For example, I believe at spindle the SDs were far enough apart they were outside mutual missile defense support. Which likely means that BF doesn't practice integrated fleet or squadron missile defense tactics. If they don't fix that they will be slaughtered in job lots So I assume they will, but how long will it take?

I think they were partially in formation with each other, but probably closer to the old-style Havenite, namely circa First Nightingale (that battle from the first chapter or two of Flag in Exile). Capable of independant movement, and more likely to peel out of a wall formation on their own, to get away from incoming damage.

If the SLN follows the Havenite time frame for copying Manticoran formations (assuming they can actually learn that fast ) it'll take between 10 and 20 T-years for the SLN to tighten up.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:And yeah, what few Nike-class that are fielded, are in the high threat zones. For that matter, my belief that Eighth Fleet might have gotten Nike's could actually be the same ones that ended up in Tenth Fleet.

After all, the Nike's are true warships, and don't have all that much of a peace-times application. Bigger than most Battleships, designed more like a small Dreadnought (slightly heavy on missiles, but good sized energy banks), even with battlecruiser legs it's a ship designed almost purely for war.

Nitpick, at 2.5 mtons the Nike's are at the very bottom end of the old BB size scale. Most BBs were bigger, in some case 75% bigger, than a BC(L). It's a huge ship compared to old BCs, but it's just not bigger than most battleships.

After double checking on the wiki and HoS, I stand corrected. Don't know why I thought the Nike's were larger than most Battleships, I must be taking something really good to confuse 2.5 mtons being larger than the 4.5 mtons of a Triumphant BB.

Somtaaw wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Nitpick, at 2.5 mtons the Nike's are at the very bottom end of the old BB size scale. Most BBs were bigger, in some case 75% bigger, than a BC(L). It's a huge ship compared to old BCs, but it's just not bigger than most battleships.

After double checking on the wiki and HoS, I stand corrected. Don't know why I thought the Nike's were larger than most Battleships, I must be taking something really good to confuse 2.5 mtons being larger than the 4.5 mtons of a Triumphant BB.

They are larger than the Thorstens - Manticore's Original 11 BBs (~2Mtons) which served until the 1870s. Perhaps you were thinking that they were larger than any BB in Manty service.

And, If there was a stand up fight between a Nike and a Triumphant, no one here would put a dime on the Triumphant, despite her mass difference (Except Rose&Heather, who would only drop the dime out of national pride.)

Theemile wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:After double checking on the wiki and HoS, I stand corrected. Don't know why I thought the Nike's were larger than most Battleships, I must be taking something really good to confuse 2.5 mtons being larger than the 4.5 mtons of a Triumphant BB.

They are larger than the Thorstens - Manticore's Original 11 BBs (~2Mtons) which served until the 1870s. Perhaps you were thinking that they were larger than any BB in Manty service.

And, If there was a stand up fight between a Nike and a Triumphant, no one here would put a dime on the Triumphant, despite her mass difference (Except Rose&Heather, who would only drop the dime out of national pride.)

That might be it, but I don't think I'd ever looked up Thorsten tonnage, but it's a handy excuse and I'll happily use it

And I'll just jump the gun and say Rose&Heather will claim that since a Triumphant can kill a Shrike, it can kill a Nike... perhaps once in a thousand simulated battles.