Reserve destruction

Brigade XO wrote:If the Reserve ships are primarily DNs or SDs of varying degrees of obsolescence or upgraded refits, how usefull are they going to be for anything but spare parts for the Active Fleet?

The SLN has nothing classified as a DN in the Reserves, nor does it have BBs - they sold/trashed anything below SD status ~200 years ago.

However, we know the ~250 year old Scientist design is bettered by DN designs in modern navies, and would be classified as such in their service, But to the SLN, they are SDs.

As for the rest, you are probably right. We'll see a few ships trickle out of the reserve, maybe enough to get the BF back up to full strength when combined with new builds, but the chances of much more than that (in a timely basis) probably can't happen. And we already know, the SLN is not equipped nor trained for true conflict or power projection, and their spare parts/ammo supply chain is designed around peace time needs and little else. Like previous conflicts, if it ain't moving - it will be stripped for parts and weapons to keep the fighters fighting - or horribly damaged ships will be stripped of their parts, ammo, and crew and the reserves pulled out on a 1:1 basis to replace them as needed.

The thing they discussed building raiding forces, but no clac. It seems strange, and it would be easiest for th league to mass produce and field.

SYED wrote:The thing they discussed building raiding forces, but no clac. It seems strange, and it would be easiest for th league to mass produce and field.

They haven't seen GA LAC's doing much. They do not have the technology or the designs to make RMN or RHN style LAC's to put aboard CLAC's. And while a CLAC in itself isn't anything too terribly ground-breaking on the technical side, it's still a capital ship they'd need to design and build and they haven't the time.

Emergency CLAC stand-in's are a lot more doable (amazing what lowered standards make possible!)- any huge freighter with large cargo bays can qualify for that - but the League is really, really short on freighters right now, and the tough, fast ones are even more in demand.

JeffEngel wrote:They haven't seen GA LAC's doing much. They do not have the technology or the designs to make RMN or RHN style LAC's to put aboard CLAC's. And while a CLAC in itself isn't anything too terribly ground-breaking on the technical side, it's still a capital ship they'd need to design and build and they haven't the time.

Yep.
Remember that without the node design breakthroughs LACs topped out at about 409g acceleration; slower than a pre-war SD!!

And they tended to carry a handful of DD weight missiles in a one-shot box launcher.

They'd still be ok for swarming out to run down unarmed merchant ships - but if anything went wrong, or there was an escort, they'd be far to slow to run. And you need a lot of them to overwhelm the missile defenses of even a Havenite cruiser or destroyer...

Also what can you do quickly? Design and build a new type of ship you barely know about and it's parasite compliment of LACs? Or you could take a fundamentally sound design such as the Nevada and iterate on it in areas you can improve quickly.

The Nevada's are not actaully that bad! even stock they would be competative against non pod designs such as Reliants, Avalons or the hordes or Apollo class ships in the rear areas of the grand alliance, and even stronger against the havenite equivalent classes. Remember that without pods badly manned and obsolescent Indefatigables were able to give a bad mauling to heavy cruisers and destroyers at Monica once the pods had been expended and Terekhov got lucky taking out one at long range with the pre mod G Mk 16s

Take the Nevada design that you have in series production, rip out 1/2 the graser armeourment for laser clusters or CM launchers and Tinker with the electronics and engineering and you have a perfectly sound raider.

Silverwall wrote:Also what can you do quickly? Design and build a new type of ship you barely know about and it's parasite compliment of LACs? Or you could take a fundamentally sound design such as the Nevada and iterate on it in areas you can improve quickly.

The Nevada's are not actaully that bad! even stock they would be competative against non pod designs such as Reliants, Avalons or the hordes or Apollo class ships in the rear areas of the grand alliance, and even stronger against the havenite equivalent classes. Remember that without pods badly manned and obsolescent Indefatigables were able to give a bad mauling to heavy cruisers and destroyers at Monica once the pods had been expended and Terekhov got lucky taking out one at long range with the pre mod G Mk 16s

Take the Nevada design that you have in series production, rip out 1/2 the graser armeourment for laser clusters or CM launchers and Tinker with the electronics and engineering and you have a perfectly sound raider.

The short gist of what you said is: The Nevada is a good ship by 15 years old standards. Unfortunately, standards changed very rapidly about 7 years ago.

And even 15 years ago Manticoran missile launchers had a faster cycle rate than Nevadas currently do. That lack of long-range offensive punch is as bad a deficency as their lack of decent antimissile defenses.

As for the Battle of Monica, I have a suspicion that if the 3 BCs had been (first flight) Havenite Warlords or Manticoran Reliants, even in Monican hands, they would have rolled over Terekhov's squadron with moderate damage to one BC. Most of his ships were older, he only had Hexapuma and an Avalon to boost his side.

Solly ships strike me as if they're configured with energy weapons as primary armanent and missiles as secondary. The GA reversed that philosophy several design generations ago and scrapped everything older than a decade or two. No current Solly ships are going to enjoy "raiding" anything defended by GA units, however weighty their tonnage advantage is.

Where are all of these worlds getting this Nevada Design? Where are they even getting a GRASER design? Or a missile design. Let alone the knowledge to build all these intricate parts? There are a whopping dozen worlds in the entire several thousand in the Honorverse that have the wherewithal to build these items or design them. 5 of them are the "good guys". They are going to sell it? Possibly.

Take a very basic staple of modern life. The computer. How many countries in this world of ours can develop a modern computer, let alone integrate it into a smart phone? Lets not forget that the cell phone companies just buy the chips and integrate by and large.

Number is probably around 5. USA, Korea, Japan, Germany, China, and... maybe Taiwan. Though China has no engineers able to design a computer, they have been given the manufacturing tech to build them, but not design them. China is fixing this problem and will soon have it.

Can a bunch of countries eventually get there? Sure. Parts of W. Europe have parts of computer design. Of course it would take 5 years or far longer as they do not even have the tools to test the tools to manufacture ancient obsolete computers, let alone a modern equivalent.

There are going to be a lot of Hodge-podge naval craft built in the near future where all these worlds are cutting their teeth by learning on the job. These hokey craft will not exist for a very long time unless said systems can cannibalize a source for even old military tech.

Hrmm, where could an old pile of obsolete military tech possibly be.... Hrmmm

Relax wrote:Where are all of these worlds getting this Nevada Design? Where are they even getting a GRASER design? Or a missile design. Let alone the knowledge to build all these intricate parts? There are a whopping dozen worlds in the entire several thousand in the Honorverse that have the wherewithal to build these items or design them. 5 of them are the "good guys". They are going to sell it? Possibly.

<snip>

There are more than 6 Sollie systems that can build BCs and CAs. The 6 systems was for SDs. However, the BC number is in the low dozens - but your point is still valid - say 24-48 systems out of ~2400 (1800 SL systems and maybe 600 protectorates) can build a top end a Sollie BC or CA - that's just 1-2%. What are the rest going to do?

Like your W. EU example, Many can get there in 3-4 years by pouring cash down the hole and building a shipyard, construction infrastructure and coming up with a design, which will get them the ships they need in what, 5-6 years or more? And how many of those initial designs will have "Bismark Rudders", because the designers don't have the modern experience to know the design failings 1st tier navies have found through trial and error.

And how many systems are going to have the 5-6 years to wait for a few dozen BCs?

Relax wrote:W

Take a very basic staple of modern life. The computer. How many countries in this world of ours can develop a modern computer, let alone integrate it into a smart phone? Lets not forget that the cell phone companies just buy the chips and integrate by and large.

Number is probably around 5. USA, Korea, Japan, Germany, China, and... maybe Taiwan. Though China has no engineers able to design a computer, they have been given the manufacturing tech to build them, but not design them. China is fixing this problem and will soon have it.

Lenovo owns IBM's laptops now (China). Gradiente is Brazilian. Aleutia is UK. DOEL is Bangladesh. This is just a quick top of the head list.

Remember that most Core worlds were specified as having System Defense Forces. Some like Beowulf are suppose to be quite good and more modern than the SLN. Some are even Mesan proxies like Mannerheim.

Exactly where would these tinkered with Nevada designs raid? Talbot Quadrant members of SEM? Sure, if you sent several modified/new built Nevadas to a system defended by a couple of squadrons of LACs and were willing to accept the damage- ok, the SLN brass doesn't really know what they are dealing with and would probably find out about it from SKM diplomatic notes to the SL and press releases of the known casualties/pows plus list of ships destroyed and captured.

At any given time, sufficent newly modified or just more of as-built BF or FF ships could overwhelm one or two ships plus LACs in Talbot.
Same for the older class, or newer class such as Avalons doing anti-piracy, convoy, or showing the flag out in the SKM section of Silesia. Of course, it is going to take a fair while for any SLN warships to get to Silesia and they will still face severe logisitical problems.

A question would be how many LACs had/had SKM deployed for as system defence into the Silesia & Talbot areas after having run several CLACs worth of LACs to Talbot only to have the CLACs and LAC compliments taken by Mike to bolster 10th Fleet.

SLN could send SDs to Silesia to operate in squadron size packages but exactly what are they going to accomplish? Sure, they could probably bull their way into a number of lightly held systems and then destroy any orbital industry & infrastructuer but they are unlikely to be able to actually hold any planet they require to surrender. Fight their way in, sure. Fight their way in and then out again without significant damage is unlikely. Threatening to bombard the planet(s) if any RMN ships still in-system don't allow them to leave is not really going to make great press back in the SL.
What they have to be looking at is catching one or more light warships and/or freighters in system and attempting to destroy them plus any LACs that can't get to something that can take them out of system. Then shoot up the system infrastructure as they leave, thereby demonstrating they can do the raiding. On the other hand, even a 10 yr old RMN CA could get between a Nevada and the hyper limit to make the Nevada fly though stacked salvos of missiles (with Dragons Teeth and Dazzlers) to exit the system. That could be a messy trip for the Nevada- particularly if it looses the ability to go into hyper from damage. Really really long way home in normal space.