Reserve destruction

munroburton wrote: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

Err.. the Nevada (like all stock SLN ships) is pretty bad. The Nevada class is only marginally different from the Indefetaigable, and that's clearly a pre-laser head design. A Star Knight will hurt a Nevada badly, and any Saganami (even a Sag-A) probably wins more often than not vs one.

drothgery wrote:

munroburton wrote: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

Err.. the Nevada (like all stock SLN ships) is pretty bad. The Nevada class is only marginally different from the Indefetaigable, and that's clearly a pre-laser head design. A Star Knight will hurt a Nevada badly, and any Saganami (even a Sag-A) probably wins more often than not vs one.

Without towed pads the Star Knight is toast. It's cruiser grade missiles just can't really hurt a BC before the BC tears it to pieces, Just look how badly Thunder of God trashed Fearless using Havenite tech and a crew of clueless idiots who did everything wrong and they were still winning handily until a canned package let a nuke through to contact range. A Worked up Nevada is better than Thunder in all respects. A Sag A might manage a mutual annihilation with a Nevada in similar circumstances. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the star league missiles and grazers if they can bring them into effective range, as shown by the damage the badly crewed Indefatigables did to the scratch squadron at Monica. The big issue is that the RMN is being smart about not letting them into effective range and swamping them with pods and massed fire from outside their engagement envelope.

feyhunde wrote:

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.

Thanks for making my point for me.

None of the companies you listed design nor manufacture computers. CPU/GPU/Memory/IO controllers/Capacitors. They assemble parts from real computer companies like IBM, Intel, AMD, MICRON, SAMSUNG ...

How many of those SL worlds building, BC's, CL's, SD's, are all dependent on a single supplier somewhere in the SL? I would be shocked if there was not a single Graser designer and manufacturer somewhere in the SL for their grasers and then they ship them to the assembly sites. Same goes for PDLC's, Impeller nodes, you name it.

Gotta remember MWW has shipping as essentially free. Therefore efficiency in design/manufacturing = maximum profit. Add in folks like lots of graft in the SL, and there has been 700 years of built in corruption in the old boys club, and I frankly would not be surprised if most of those BC assembly yards that TheEmile brought up cannot actually produce organically a BC from the system infrastructure in which they are built.

Silverwall wrote:

drothgery wrote:Err.. the Nevada (like all stock SLN ships) is pretty bad. The Nevada class is only marginally different from the Indefetaigable, and that's clearly a pre-laser head design. A Star Knight will hurt a Nevada badly, and any Saganami (even a Sag-A) probably wins more often than not vs one.

Without towed pads the Star Knight is toast. It's cruiser grade missiles just can't really hurt a BC before the BC tears it to pieces, Just look how badly Thunder of God trashed Fearless using Havenite tech and a crew of clueless idiots who did everything wrong and they were still winning handily until a canned package let a nuke through to contact range. A Worked up Nevada is better than Thunder in all respects. A Sag A might manage a mutual annihilation with a Nevada in similar circumstances. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the star league missiles and grazers if they can bring them into effective range, as shown by the damage the badly crewed Indefatigables did to the scratch squadron at Monica. The big issue is that the RMN is being smart about not letting them into effective range and swamping them with pods and massed fire from outside their engagement envelope.

A worked up Nevada might exceed Thunder of God in effectiveness; but only because of the crew quality. Trained on the equipment, but against unrealistic scenarios should still be substantially better that almost untrained on the capabilities of the equipment.

But at a hardware level even a old pre-war Sultan seems to have several advantages over a Nevada. I don't think we got hard numbers, but like most SL designs it's probably mounts missile and CM tubes with far slower firing cycles than anything Manticore or Haven were using. Also a Sultan carries a surprising number of CM tubes (16 per broadside) more than the similar era Mantie Reliant class (10). (Likely because they had less confidence in the hit probabilities of their CMs)

And we know from the experience of the People's Navy in Exile that the CM and missile software the SLN used wasn't getting the full capabilities out of the hardware; I doubt that's significantly less true on a Nevada than it was on ships the PNE got.

Now on the other hand the SLN's current missiles do have a better SDM drive; their missiles have a higher accel and thus marginally better range than those Thunder of God mounted. I don't know how their sensors compare, but in pure propulsion the League has an edge.

So given full worked up home navy crews I'd tend to, with the limited info we have to date, give the edge to the Sultan over the Nevada. But I'd put a SLN Nevada over Thunder of God in her final fight; because crew matters and the Masadans were pretty incompetent.

Relax wrote:{snip} and I frankly would not be surprised if most of those BC assembly yards that TheEmile brought up cannot actually produce organically a BC from the system infrastructure in which they are built.

Amen, it wouldn't suprise me if every SLN compensator was built by a single provider...

...Whose sole manufacturing plant circles Beowulf.

Talking about shooting yourself in the foot...

We do have stats.

Appendix of SftS

Nevada
broadside
28M, 12G, 12CM 16PD
Chase
6M, 4g, 6CM, 8pd

Reliant
Broadside:
22M, 8L, 6G, 2ET, 10CM, 10PD
Chase:
4M, 1L, 2G, 6CM, 6PD

More than twice the rate of fire better missiles in everything but accel. Not worth even talking about. Matter of fact in MTH Appendix a Reliant is said to take out 2 Sultans most of the time.

A couple of things about rate of fire. Assume they have the updated launchers with 35 second launch times. 56 missiles every 70 seconds.

A Star Knight has only 12 tubes in the broadside. 70 seconds at a 8 second launch time 70 seconds 96 missiles.

Where it ends up getting hurt is in CMs it only has 8. And no keyhole.

ECM not even close. What does the BC know about the RMN ECM in the first place. Notta. RMN cannot say the same.

At Monica 216 seconds to launch ~1,100 missiles. Granted in 216 seconds the Star Knight only launches 324 missiles. That BC about 165.

Another important note before the BC went to a ~15 second rate of fire did it really start to chew up Fearless and the DD. That was firing 36 or 40 missiles every 30 seconds or so.(can't remember the actual number of tubes).

Oh did I mention that the RMN has twice plus the range with its CMs.

Not saying that the CA survives. But I wouldn't really bet against it. The BC might but then it has to drag its damaged tail out of the system. And someplace it have significant repairs done. Also in SVW Star Knight herself put Two Sultans in the repair yards for "sometime". In the worst geometry that the PRN could generate. Using 4 BCs (she only had to engage 2 of them).

All that said good luck with that Nevada even without pods.

Have fun,
T2M

Relax wrote:
Thanks for making my point for me.

None of the companies you listed design nor manufacture computers. CPU/GPU/Memory/IO controllers/Capacitors. They assemble parts from real computer companies like IBM, Intel, AMD, MICRON, SAMSUNG ...

How many of those SL worlds building, BC's, CL's, SD's, are all dependent on a single supplier somewhere in the SL? I would be shocked if there was not a single Graser designer and manufacturer somewhere in the SL for their grasers and then they ship them to the assembly sites. Same goes for PDLC's, Impeller nodes, you name it.

Gotta remember MWW has shipping as essentially free. Therefore efficiency in design/manufacturing = maximum profit. Add in folks like lots of graft in the SL, and there has been 700 years of built in corruption in the old boys club, and I frankly would not be surprised if most of those BC assembly yards that TheEmile brought up cannot actually produce organically a BC from the system infrastructure in which they are built.

Actually the list is smaller if you go for CPUs. AMD, VIA and Intel are the only manufacturers for mass market desktops. And AMD is fabless, depending on companies like TSMC. Otoh for stuff like tablets and phones, its a much wider market, with companies like Mediatek, Qualcomm, Marvell, Leadcore, etc. Most of those are fabless though.

So it kinda depends on if you mean they own a complete production line, or the know-how exists there, or if the production ability exists. Also lots of these places are global. Via does design all over the world, does a bunch of manufacturing on their own and via Japanese fabs.

Remember we've got Solly interstellars that are going to do the same thing. Technodyne might be headquartered on Yildun, but they're going to spread out differing parts to different areas. Maybe only in Yildun it makes sense to actually make SDs. But maybe there's a dozen shell worlds they make destroyers on because of the demand. Similarly for missiles.

And yeah, there's going to be key parts they've depended on, but otoh, something like a compensator is going to be built in multiple places due to economics, shipping times, and the need for on-demand production.

Think of it as the flaws and strengths of building in the US using Chinese parts today. Build in China for cheap and in bulk your parts, and then ship it overseas for assembly. The lead time is going to be 3 months for any changes.

Maybe for really long lead time bureaucratic projects like SDs, that lead time will be acceptable. But I doubt Technodyne has only Beowulf as the source of impellars or compensators. The lead times would stink. There would simply be economic encouragement for building more than one.

That said, there would be in the League at least some pressure for corrupt monopolies. Interstellar companies rent seeking off some key piece of industry. Perhaps only one plant in Yildun in licensed to make a specific type of good. Common enough flaw in corrupt governments.

drothgery wrote:

Theemile wrote:If you remove the GA navies from the equation, any of those antiquated SDs is a force to be reckoned with - even the one with the least upgrades and half stripped for part to keep it's sister working.

Eh. Not really. I still think the SLN SDs are a solution in search of a problem in the Honorverse.

If you already have wallers? You already have better wallers than SLN SDs, an enemy would need a huge number of them to threaten you, and no conceivable entity in the Honorverse has the ability to create that level of trained manpower quickly (this is definitely true in the Honorverse, however illogical it might seem to modern sensibilities).

If you don't already have wallers? You almost certainly do not have the infrastructure needed to support them, and trying to do so would just be a resource sink. If you decide that you do in fact need a waller-level navy, it's going to take years to train the people to man it, so you can afford to spend those years building something better than SLN SDs.

And it seems quite likely to me that roughly Moriarity-level (probably worse missiles, but better electronics) system defense pod/fort networks (which will make mincemeat of any conceivable fleet of SLN SDs) will become widely available soon. They're not that hard to make, and are very effective.

I'm going to steal an old saying, and refit it.

You DO bring a knife to a gun fight, if all you have is a knife.

Cheopis wrote:
I'm going to steal an old saying, and refit it.

You DO bring a knife to a gun fight, if all you have is a knife.

Better analogy is a spear/pike.

Grasers are swords/knives.

thinkstoomuch wrote:We do have stats.

Appendix of SftS

Nevada
broadside
28M, 12G, 12CM 16PD
Chase
6M, 4g, 6CM, 8pd

Reliant
Broadside:
22M, 8L, 6G, 2ET, 10CM, 10PD
Chase:
4M, 1L, 2G, 6CM, 6PD

T2M

Yes, I remember reading those specs on the SLN Nevada BC class and thinking, Holy Cow, that is certainly NOT an obsolete design. In fact, neither was the Indefatigueable BC class. With minor tweaking, it is a downright scary design and in fact superior to the Reliant/Sultan. The "only" thing wrong with it is its software, and firing rate. Both easily fixable.

At the time, and to this day, it certainly did/does not jive with the text describing the SL being a backward obsolescent navy when one could argue that the Indefatigueable/Nevada classes with a minor tweak are much superior to anything Haven/Manticore had till the advent of the BC'P/BCL! If the SLN was truly as DESCRIBED IN THE BOOKS was back assward and obsolescent I would have expected far more Lasers/Grasers with fewer missile tubes and fewer counter missile tubes/PDLC(ok we do not know the # of emitters).

Supposedly, the SLN designs do not track the fact that the missile is the predominant force in modern warfare. In fact, the SLN Indefatiguable class showed a predominant flare for missile warfare outside of being let down by its firing rate which to make itself relevant SHOULD only require a missile tube replacement!

If anything, these BC SLN classes should have resembled the HOMER/Redoubtable class BC, not superior to the Reliant/Sultan in terms of missile tubes/Cm/PDLC per broadside. On top of this, Nevadas are VERY big ships. Yet another HUH??? moment. If SLN is all about Small ships, they do not even have an SD class, those Nevadas should have been more the Homer class size in terms of tonnage.

Honestly, I have no clue for the Nevada/Indefatiguable class justifications compared to what is written in the books.