What can you put into a pod?

Lord Skimper wrote:Cargo, in a cargo ship that doesn't need an escort...

Why on earth would anyone want to take their wall of battle, gut it of 90% of its firepower, and then disperse it into individual widely-spread units that *invite* being chopped up in detail while simultaneously depriving you of the concentrated combat power that's the entire reason for building a wall of battle in the first place? Even in peacetime that's an absolutely terrible idea, even completely ignoring the numerous practical problems.

Lord Skimper wrote:Cargo, in a cargo ship that doesn't need an escort. Give a use for dangerous routes that will keep the local pirates to a minimal, should any survive an encounter. With a 95% cargo load, in peace time, your SD(P) becomes the wayfarer of the future, no LAC but what doesn't need LAC? an SD(P). Grayson could have 100% Cargo loads given their Missile tubes.

Especially good for those back water worlds that only get one visit a year and have little cargo but critical need. With the reduced crew sizes they are perfect and aren't just sitting idle while peace breaks out. Excellent training platforms and with the current acceleration capabilities the latest SD(P) can run down anything that isn't of similar age.

This is only remotely possible inside single systems, not interstellar. Grayson and her asteroid belt, Manticore and her belts plural.... however with how 'free' energy seems to be, sending cargo on ballistic courses is probably at least a few thousand years out of date.

MuonNeutrino wrote:

Lord Skimper wrote:Cargo, in a cargo ship that doesn't need an escort...

Why on earth would anyone want to take their wall of battle, gut it of 90% of its firepower, and then disperse it into individual widely-spread units that *invite* being chopped up in detail while simultaneously depriving you of the concentrated combat power that's the entire reason for building a wall of battle in the first place? Even in peacetime that's an absolutely terrible idea, even completely ignoring the numerous practical problems.

That post is by Lord Skimper. His ideas are not even half baked, they are completely raw.

Potato wrote:That post is by Lord Skimper. His ideas are not even half baked, they are completely raw.

Oh, I know, I've shot down his crazy ideas before. I just can't let it pass without giving at least some reasons why his latest brainstorm is crazy, is all.

MuonNeutrino wrote:

Lord Skimper wrote:Cargo, in a cargo ship that doesn't need an escort...

Why on earth would anyone want to take their wall of battle, gut it of 90% of its firepower, and then disperse it into individual widely-spread units that *invite* being chopped up in detail while simultaneously depriving you of the concentrated combat power that's the entire reason for building a wall of battle in the first place? Even in peacetime that's an absolutely terrible idea, even completely ignoring the numerous practical problems.

Actually, as a peace-time use for SD(P)s, Skimpy has a viable idea. Using a flat-pack pod shell as a cargo container in place of pods filled with missiles is a workable idea that wouldn't "gut it of 90% of its firepower;" the ratio of cargo pods to missile pods can be adjusted to whatever percentage the threat level dictates. In peacetime, using more than a single pattern of pods against a particularly well-armed pirate would be sufficient firepower.

It's not something that would find much use in a war, but even then a single SD(P) would be a match for a typical commerce raider with only a 25-30% missile load.

Weird Harold wrote:Actually, as a peace-time use for SD(P)s, Skimpy has a viable idea...

It's theoretically possible, yes. My reasoning why it's a bad idea, though, was twofold.

First, you don't really *want* a peacetime use for SD(P)s. Any SD(P) that's hauling cargo might as well not exist from a military perspective, for however long it takes to get it recalled and rearmed. Part of the point of having a bunch of SD(P)s around is that you can maintain things like Home Fleets and other standing forces - not in the *expectation* that you will be imminently attacked, but because it's your responsibility to allow for the *possibility* of attack, or at least force any hypothetical attacker to be able to overcome your fleets. SD(P)s that are off cargo-carrying can't do this.

And second are those practical problems I mentioned. (This also feeds back into the first in some ways.) Mostly, this is the fact that SD(P)s will make lousy cargo vessels.

Certainly a pod design is the only type of warship that could do any cargo-carrying at all, but that doesn't mean they're actually going to be very good at it. Having to package everything in the pod-handling paradigm is going to cut down on how much cargo you can actually transport for a given cubage compared to a freighter, for one, and the SD(P) is additionally going to have a far lower fraction of its internal volume devoted to cargo than the freighter will. (And every regular missile pod you retain for defense just lowers that fraction further, on top of complicating your cargo-handling procedures since those pods would have to be the outermost ones.)

Additionally, the operating costs of an SD(P) are far, far higher than a freighter. For starters, the crew size (whether absolute, or for a given cubage of cargo) is far higher, even with manty automation, and every one of those crew is drawing a paycheck. The operating costs of all the military-grade hardware is also going to be far higher, again both on an absolute and a per-cargo-cubage basis. Ultimately, moving a given amount of cargo somewhere using SD(P)s is probably one of the least efficient possible modes of transport available.

When you put those two sets of practical concerns together, even *if* you had enough SD(P)s to be able to maintain your fleets and still have leftovers for cargo duty, you're probably better off just mothballing the extras instead and using the saved monetary and personnel resources to move that cargo in traditional freighters under escort. You'll probably spend less money and consume less personnel resources per cargo cubage that way, and depending on how extensive your trade routes are you might even be able to reactivate the mothballed ships faster than you could recall the cargo-carrying ones!

Ultimately I'm not saying this is impossible, just that it's massively impractical and not a good idea.

Well, it's viable if you don't mind paying 30x the operating costs for your shipping. At least, I think it would only be 30x; I may be underestimating badly.

Weird Harold wrote:

MuonNeutrino wrote:Why on earth would anyone want to take their wall of battle, gut it of 90% of its firepower, and then disperse it into individual widely-spread units that *invite* being chopped up in detail while simultaneously depriving you of the concentrated combat power that's the entire reason for building a wall of battle in the first place? Even in peacetime that's an absolutely terrible idea, even completely ignoring the numerous practical problems.

Actually, as a peace-time use for SD(P)s, Skimpy has a viable idea. Using a flat-pack pod shell as a cargo container in place of pods filled with missiles is a workable idea that wouldn't "gut it of 90% of its firepower;" the ratio of cargo pods to missile pods can be adjusted to whatever percentage the threat level dictates. In peacetime, using more than a single pattern of pods against a particularly well-armed pirate would be sufficient firepower.

It's not something that would find much use in a war, but even then a single SD(P) would be a match for a typical commerce raider with only a 25-30% missile load.

Louis R wrote:Well, it's viable if you don't mind paying 30x the operating costs for your shipping. At least, I think it would only be 30x; I may be underestimating badly.

It was presented as "not needing an escort" so calculating excess cost has to include the cost of the convoy escort. It is definitely not a solution for bulk cargo or safe regions that don't worry about piracy. For a place like pre-partition Silesia, it might well be a break even solution for high-value, high-priority, military cargo.

Weird Harold wrote:

Louis R wrote:Well, it's viable if you don't mind paying 30x the operating costs for your shipping. At least, I think it would only be 30x; I may be underestimating badly.

It was presented as "not needing an escort" so calculating excess cost has to include the cost of the convoy escort. It is definitely not a solution for bulk cargo or safe regions that don't worry about piracy. For a place like pre-partition Silesia, it might well be a break even solution for high-value, high-priority, military cargo.

Given the costs of a warship crew, given the operating costs of a waller, you'd still be better off with one of the military-grade movement-related systems freighters, or the cargo version of an Artemis liner.

If for some reason you were deploying a SD(P) to a new station without a full load of missile pods (although it'd be a peculiar logistic situation), then you may have some use for slapping some sort of cargo going that way in there anyway. But really, it's just going to be something to do with some pod bay space that is somehow not getting its regular use. Same would go for LAC bays on a CLAC, for that matter, and it'd be as rare and strange an occasion.

JeffEngel wrote:Given the costs of a warship crew, given the operating costs of a waller, you'd still be better off with one of the military-grade movement-related systems freighters, or the cargo version of an Artemis liner.

A cargo version of an Artemis liner doesn't exist and would require a good bit of modification. A military cargo ship isn't armed at all. That means you have the operating cost of the cargo ship PLUS the cost of one or more convoy escorts to consider.

JeffEngel wrote:If for some reason you were deploying a SD(P) to a new station without a full load of missile pods (although it'd be a peculiar logistic situation), then you may have some use for slapping some sort of cargo going that way in there anyway.

Not all that peculiar; it wasn't uncommon to send an F-4 with cargo pods in place of bomb racks for mission critical parts. There was even a special purpose center-line adapter for the transport of a set of spare tires. I can envision an SD sent to a new station being tasked with transporting spares and supplies -- especially if the new duty station has ample reloads to top off the magazines after arrival.

JeffEngel wrote:But really, it's just going to be something to do with some pod bay space that is somehow not getting its regular use. Same would go for LAC bays on a CLAC, for that matter, and it'd be as rare and strange an occasion.

Replacing a missile pod with a cargo pod of the same dimensions is just a bit simpler than wedging cargo into a space that is largely kept in vacuum. I suppose a LAC shaped cargo pod could be developed, but it would be a difficult shape to use efficiently for cargo.

The original question was "what can you put in a pod." Skimpy's answer is "cargo" and that is, IMHO, the only workable suggestion made; you can put cargo in a Flat-pack sized and shaped container and in some circumstances it could make sense to do so.