Trade Protection and Use of Captured Units

Duckk.

“SDs are tightly packed honeycombs of armoured compartments, built with some of the toughest materials ever built. … let me direct you to what David has to say about naval refits”

Of course, and that is not in dispute. Please note that I am not talking about naval refits at all, and that there seems to be considerable confusion between the terms "refit" and "reconstruction".

They are very different things.

An auxiliary service requirement may be a refit, but it is not necessarily a refit in naval combatant terms, which is what’s discussed there. What’s being talked about there is reconstruction (per the QE class in the 1930s). Refits are not reconstruction. They can be almost negligible affairs depending on the intended function. Let me repeat that: refit to auxiliary purposes is not reconstruction as a combatant and may not necessitate disturbing anything.

I’ll also add that even SD’s are unarmoured in their top and bottomsides, and no refit proposed involves systems deep inside the ship, or major systems such as propulsion or power generation.

For a low-end example, let us say that Nuncio requires a training platform. Let me postulate that due to their outdated educational system, they have to teach basic everything, from ‘here is how you mop the deck’ to ‘basic characteristics of systems’ to ‘boat bay operations and small craft work’. There is no denying the Nuncio needs to train in these areas as part of their basic training.

What ship (which has to be nominal cost – this is a desperately poor society) suits this basic training requirement? If does not have to best suit it, it just has to be able to do the job.

An entirely unmodified Scientist class SD in parking orbit (a ‘harbour training hulk’ equivalent) will suit the role perfectly. It also has the advantage of ‘guys, I think we are on the winning side here’ in political terms. In this scenario, the ‘refit’ required to fit the ship to purpose is de-storing the ship of things it does not need, and re-filling its boat bays with small craft. It needs no shipyard at all, this ‘refit’.

That’s the lowest end of the spectrum. The highest end of the TS spectrum has already been described. That would need a yard, one able to build DD/CL sized units would probably do, as that’s about the scale of the task.

There’s a lot of comment on how hard it might be to do X due to honey-combing and so on. The issue I have there is the inherent assumption that the designers were stupid: that they deliberately built ships which could not be properly maintained, let alone incrementally upgraded, over the life-cycle of the ship. I am forced to reject that inherent assumption as being invalid. To my knowledge, no-one has ever built an operational warship or aircraft class or type that way. I can name a number of less than full scale one-off technology demonstrators built that way, but note that they were built for once-off trials. If you build an operational class that way, you cannot repair battle damage, and we have numerous examples of battle damage being repaired in a timely manner, and of broadside weaponry being swapped out. So this point is invalid. If broadside weapons mounts can be swapped out, then they can simply be removed. And that won’t require a specialist yard (it may require some additional skills and tooling, but that would be it).

As for training - the SLN ships use different software and have slightly different manning requirements for tasks. To train properly, you should be working on the hardware and software (or as close to it as possible) you will be using when you join the fleet.

The key word here is properly. Properly to what point in the training continuum? I am speaking here of basic training requirements from a low-end educational baseline. Let us take a fusion plant tech. Only at the end of his training continuum would he require specific skills for plant fitted to the ship he is posted to. For the bulk of his intermediate training (and for all his basic training) he requires access to any generic fusion plant. Indeed, in the most basic stage, the simpler the better, remembering that he will start with mere images. He does not require training on the systems currently in use until he’s very deep into his training continuum because that’s a layer added to an already deep series of layers. And a good training system will expose him to as many different systems as possible all through his training, specifically to build experience.

The use of commercial yards for even this low level deconstruction/construction work been mentioned by many posters over the years and repeatedly shot down by the author.

Some examples would be interesting. I’d also point out the logical corollary to this is that SD’s cannot be scrapped! Yet scrapping of ships is referred to. This indicates that there exists a contradiction here.

Worse, noting that everyone's SD's have unarmoured topsides and bottomsides, that presents a contradiction in terms.

I can accept that the armour requires a special facility to be scrapped (or cannot be scrapped and is dumped into a convenient gravity well), but I cannot accept as logical that commercial facilities which build such armoured warships have any limits on their capability to conduct work on them, or that lesser facilities cannot strip them through the same access pathways as must be designed in to them to permit battle damage repair and incremental upgrade over the life of the platform.

Because assuming that means assuming that they cannot be easily refitted or repaired from battle damage – and what designer or yard is going to do that? For warships, you deliberately design in features to permit rapid battle damage repair along modular lines.

Training sailors on the specific combat systems became a major hurdle; enough so that it took significant retraining to move them between ship classes within the same navy that had different combat system architectures.

Agreed, and none of which applies to basic training, which is where this focus is, because that’s where the need is in an economically underdeveloped backwater which does not have and cannot afford expensive modern simulators. In addition, simulators are of little value in basic training as it’s, well, basic. There’s a reason basic includes things the Romans did, like marching drill. It’s to inculcate the fundamentals of self-discipline, unit discipline and unit cohesion. I keep mentioning ‘basic training’ as there seems to be a view that there is one type or style of training, and there is not. There is a training continuum which starts with a long haired undisciplined know-nothing oik off the street. I can say that because that’s a self-description of a young Mark, too many moons ago to comfortably count. I am certain there’s plenty of other military types here with the same experience of training systems.

We ALL started off square bashing and being belted for not having our kit laid out properly just like a Roman recruit to Legio VI Ferrata at Paphana in 106. And for the same reason. It works.

The lack here is the basic training system, and oddly enough that’s the hardest thing to build, as it’s surprisingly infrastructure-heavy and demands top-notch trainers. Yes, I do speak from experience and doubtless others here can too. An excellent example to look at is the Empire Air Training Scheme. Enormous infrastructure investments were demanded at the basic level and they had to be done very quickly, well before investment was demanded for intermediate and upper level training. That’s because most of it already existed and it just had to be expanded somewhat – but none of the mass initial (basic) training infrastructure existed at all. It’s a decent parallel to this situation – assuming that there’s an interest in mobilising local assistance. The bottom line, unless you can rapidly develop a mass-training infrastructure at the basic level, nothing else can be done. You will not have the trainees to take to advanced courses.

See here for some basic data:
http://www.ozatwar.com/raaf/eats.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_B ... _Australia
A last call of empire : Australian aircrew, Britain and the Empire Air Training Scheme John McCarthy.


Cheers: mark

Duckk, thank you for the infodump link.

Essentially, DW is saying what I am saying about the difference between refit and reconstruction.

Nonetheless, the fact is that throughout history the sort of "refits" people are talking about when they talk about "upgunning" the older SDs amount to rebuilding. And, historically, people, it's been more efficient to build new than it has been to substantially "up gun" old ships. The fact that most major navies spent a lot of time "refitting" BBs during the period between the Washington Treaty and WW II sometimes inclines people towards assuming that this was the standard practice, but it really wasn't. It was an aberration forced upon the navies in question by the prohibition against new construction embodied in the Washington and London naval treaties. IIRC, the only navy which actually upgunned in the process was Italy, which completely altered the arrangement of some of its ships' main armament and replaced the old guns with new weapons, but most of the upgrades were confined to better (or, at least, thicker) armor, new propulsive machinery, improved secondary armament, and the transition to oil from coal fuel in many cases.

Refits of this nature have, in effect, already been carried out by the RMN with the shift in compensators and the improvements in EW and communications equipment. It is not physically possible to "refit" existing SDs as pod designs. It is possible (although extremely expensive and time consuming) to refit them by removing their old broadside launchers and refitting a smaller number of MDM missile tubes. In the process, however, their magazine space will also have to be ripped out and completely rearranged, including new high-speed ammo handling equipment to move the (much) larger missiles to the launchers. Basically, you'll be removing a triple-14" turret and replacing it with a double-18" turret, with an accompanying 1/3 reduction in ammunition stowage. The time it will take to rip that much of a ship apart and rebuild it would be far better spent in simply building a new one from the keel out. You could probably build half a new ship for the cost of the "refit," and the yard time involved would probably be no more than 25%-30% greater than that which would be required for the "refit."

This is, of course, correct. After the London Treaty extended the Washington Naval Treaty BB building holiday, the Rn was forced to perform 'deviant and unnatural acts' with its BB and BC and reconstruct them.

Warspite's reconstruction cost 2.8 million. A brand new KGV cost 7.4 million. Had the Admiralty the choice, that money would have been far better spent on a new ship.

DW's comments at the infodump obviate much of the comment above on refit because people seem to assume that what is really being referred to is reconstruction.

it also obviates a lot of the commentary about SD's being difficult to refit. DW notes that they are being refitted all the time (including major internal components like compensators), which also points to the ships being designed to be refitted. Which only makes sense, really.

DW: There is a constant, ongoing upgrading/refitting process in all of these navies. What there is not is what amounts to rebuilding of warships.

Therefore it becomes rather difficult to argue that refitting obsolete SLN SD's for auxiliary purposes such as TS, troop ships etc is even difficult or expensive, let alone impossible, especially when most of such refits is actually downrating and stripping the ship to suit it for a reduced or auxiliary purpose.

This is essentially a direct statement that refit of a SLN Scientist class SD into a training ship also capable of trade protection escort is not only perfectly possible, but also inexpensive and do-able in non-specialised yards.

Cheers: Mark

marklbailey wrote:

The use of commercial yards for even this low level deconstruction/construction work been mentioned by many posters over the years and repeatedly shot down by the author.

Some examples would be interesting. I’d also point out the logical corollary to this is that SD’s cannot be scrapped! Yet scrapping of ships is referred to. This indicates that there exists a contradiction here.

Worse, noting that everyone's SD's have unarmoured topsides and bottomsides, that presents a contradiction in terms.

I can accept that the armour requires a special facility to be scrapped (or cannot be scrapped and is dumped into a convenient gravity well), but I cannot accept as logical that commercial facilities which build such armoured warships have any limits on their capability to conduct work on them, or that lesser facilities cannot strip them through the same access pathways as must be designed in to them to permit battle damage repair and incremental upgrade over the life of the platform.

Because assuming that means assuming that they cannot be easily refitted or repaired from battle damage – and what designer or yard is going to do that? For warships, you deliberately design in features to permit rapid battle damage repair along modular lines.

Cheers: mark

I'm afraid you're under a bit of misapprehension. The armor on the dorsal and ventral surfaces of SD's may be thin - relative to the rest of the ship - but it's still armored. Not sure exactly how thick, as I haven't gotten to the SD's in my modeling, but probably measured in meters - most likely two or so, but maybe more. SD's are designed to take a hell of a lot of punishment, and even the thinner ventral and dorsal surfaces are going to be able to withstand a few hits from laserheads.

For reference, a Roland has seven meters of armor on its hammerhead faces, and maybe a meter on the top and bottom. An SD would have much, much more than that, with a corresponding increase of thickness in less armored areas.

Secondly, it's not that the stripping or refitting *can't* be done... it's more an issue of whether the end result is worth the difficulty of doing it in the first place. The general consensus, and more importantly, the word of David, says "no".

Especially since there are no easily accessible yards to do it with. By the time the yards are rebuilt, or the ships crewed with people (where are *they* coming from?) who can transport them to a system that *might* have yards, the RMN is going to be looking at building new ships to replace those that were destroyed in the Oyster Bay attack. The stations weren't just military yards, civilian ships were built there as well, and if there were a few civilian only yards that escaped destruction, they are probably too small to handle this kind of refitting.

Don't take this the wrong way, but I think the problem is that you're trying to fit real-world logic into a fictional universe. The "rules" in this universe may be similar to what we know for real, but they don't always match (as some folks - you know who you are - enjoy pointing out and bemoaning). David has created the tech for his universe, and while it may not seem logical from a real world standpoint, it *is* much more consistent than most science fiction/space opera, and when he strays, we at BuNine try to get him back on track, or at least try to work things out with him.

marklbailey wrote:For a low-end example, let us say that Nuncio requires a training platform. Let me postulate that due to their outdated educational system, they have to teach basic everything, from ‘here is how you mop the deck’ to ‘basic characteristics of systems’ to ‘boat bay operations and small craft work’. There is no denying the Nuncio needs to train in these areas as part of their basic training.

Nuncio has a functional LAC based SDF. That implies they already have some sort of space station as a base for their LACs. They do NOT have a SLN SD in system to convert, nor does Manticore have a thousand SLN-qualified spacers to ferry one to them. It is far easier and more economical to load a four to six megaton freighter (or two) with a modular support station/fort for Shrike Class LACs and start remedial training there. There is textev for a plan to do just that, and provide every Talbott Quadrant with the LACs and Training Cadre to form and train LAC squadrons from local resources.

marklbailey wrote:The issue I have there is the inherent assumption that the designers were stupid: that they deliberately built ships which could not be properly maintained, let alone incrementally upgraded, over the life-cycle of the ship.

We are talking about the SLN (Battle Fleet) who has been building ships to basically the same design for around 500 years. The designers aren't stupid, but the customer is incredibly conservative and cash strapped.

The SLN is still building and buying "coal fired reciprocating steam power" because they can't afford to make their existing fleet obsolete by converting to "nuclear powered steam turbines." Their obsolescence is simply made worse by lackadaisical maintenance and institutional arrogance.

It isn't that the captured ships can't be maintained or battle damage repaired, but they haven't been maintained and they were pretty much obsolete when built.

MaxxQ wrote:I'm afraid you're under a bit of misapprehension. The armor on the dorsal and ventral surfaces of SD's may be thin - relative to the rest of the ship - but it's still armored. Not sure exactly how thick, as I haven't gotten to the SD's in my modeling, but probably measured in meters - most likely two or so, but maybe more. SD's are designed to take a hell of a lot of punishment, and even the thinner ventral and dorsal surfaces are going to be able to withstand a few hits from laserheads.

For reference, a Roland has seven meters of armor on its hammerhead faces, and maybe a meter on the top and bottom. An SD would have much, much more than that, with a corresponding increase of thickness in less armored areas.

Secondly, it's not that the stripping or refitting *can't* be done... it's more an issue of whether the end result is worth the difficulty of doing it in the first place. The general consensus, and more importantly, the word of David, says "no".

Especially since there are no easily accessible yards to do it with. By the time the yards are rebuilt, or the ships crewed with people (where are *they* coming from?) who can transport them to a system that *might* have yards, the RMN is going to be looking at building new ships to replace those that were destroyed in the Oyster Bay attack. The stations weren't just military yards, civilian ships were built there as well, and if there were a few civilian only yards that escaped destruction, they are probably too small to handle this kind of refitting.

Don't take this the wrong way, but I think the problem is that you're trying to fit real-world logic into a fictional universe. The "rules" in this universe may be similar to what we know for real, but they don't always match (as some folks - you know who you are - enjoy pointing out and bemoaning). David has created the tech for his universe, and while it may not seem logical from a real world standpoint, it *is* much more consistent than most science fiction/space opera, and when he strays, we at BuNine try to get him back on track, or at least try to work things out with him.

And then we know SDs have an entire additional layer of armor that wraps their "core hull", and that would need to include dorsal and ventral armor to protect against broadside shots angling down (or up) into the systems of the core hull.

Plus we know they have (much thinner) armor in many of their internal bulkheads to contain or absorb secondary effects from energy weapon penetration (jagged slivers of bulkhead, or contents turned to plasma, flying around).


But going back to marklbailey's point, yes refitting is less invasive that rebuilding. But any time you're dealing with a component that's larger than the smallest access hatch along the any route to its final location you have to cut armor.

And it's hardly impossible to cut armor; but you need specialized tools; which civilian yards are unlikely to have. So you need repair ships, or yards, equipped to handle removal (and replacement) of warship armor in order to do many refits.
Similar with scrapping; you can scrap an SD but without the specialized equipment to cut armor (which scrap yards specializing in military ships would have) you'd have to chunk equipment up small enough to pull through the hatches and settle for gutting the components out of the ship. (Or you can scrap it extremely destructively by feeding it into a wedge and capturing the mixed spray of particles of raw material that shoots away )

Heck, even adding new electronic systems may require new or enlarged openings through armored bulkheads to run the power or data lines. Again, possible, but taking specialized equipment and training. When adding the extra computers to retrofit support Apollo FTL fire-control into older podlayers this was apparently enough of an issue they choose to do so by installing them at the forward end of the pod bay to bypass the need to cut and replace armor. (Then slapped in an armored bulkhead at separate off the new computer rooms from the somewhat shortened pod-bay)


But for the original basic training you were talking about why do you even need a ship, or a simulator, at all? Basic training is almost exclusively a shoreside base operation. The real problem is having the cadre of instructor; though given the very basic nature of basic training that's not too hard.

I wouldn't think you'd need significant hands on until you got to the technical schools; which again are primarily shoreside establishments - though now with simulators or at least shoreside installations of the actual equipment being trained on. That's where I guess you could use a training ship instead; but by this point you're starting to get some type training - so working on equipment from a different design philosophy from your navies seems counterproductive.

Jonathan_S wrote:And then we know SDs have an entire additional layer of armor that wraps their "core hull", and that would need to include dorsal and ventral armor to protect against broadside shots angling down (or up) into the systems of the core hull.

Plus we know they have (much thinner) armor in many of their internal bulkheads to contain or absorb secondary effects from energy weapon penetration (jagged slivers of bulkhead, or contents turned to plasma, flying around).

Damn! I knew I was forgetting something. Even though I have the most work on my Fearless model, and it includes the core hull, I totally blanked on that. It was giving me fits when I was first modeling the ship because I was having trouble fitting the weaponry between it and the outer hull.

We appear to presume that basic space training is going to be handled at each individual system. That probably is going to happen though it is going to have to be adjusted in each system to teach to the RMN standards. Rembrandt and Spindle have SDFs and probably have better facilities than most. Nuncio won't have much thought they do have those old LACs and have been able to train up thier people to function and perform in space. The next step is ramp them up to the military standard.
They are also going to have to start rotating SDF people out into the RMN and while they are going to be bringing in RMN people to train and help build up the local service, they are also going to have to recruit locally both to expand locally and to start the flow of recruites RMN.

There is also going to be civilian training. The has to be. Every system is going to both want and need to expand it's orbital and spacebased infrastructure and capacity. That means training civilians how to live and work in space. Some of that is going to come from private industry, either existing in the system or as part of the investment programs set up by Manticore. Nobody is likely to put a new small civilian repair facility at Nuncio just now but they are going to want to expand the serivce and logistic capabilites to handle more traffic.

Weird Harold wrote:

marklbailey wrote:For a low-end example, let us say that Nuncio requires a training platform. Let me postulate that due to their outdated educational system, they have to teach basic everything, from ‘here is how you mop the deck’ to ‘basic characteristics of systems’ to ‘boat bay operations and small craft work’. There is no denying the Nuncio needs to train in these areas as part of their basic training.

Nuncio has a functional LAC based SDF. That implies they already have some sort of space station as a base for their LACs. They do NOT have a SLN SD in system to convert, nor does Manticore have a thousand SLN-qualified spacers to ferry one to them. It is far easier and more economical to load a four to six megaton freighter (or two) with a modular support station/fort for Shrike Class LACs and start remedial training there. There is textev for a plan to do just that, and provide every Talbott Quadrant with the LACs and Training Cadre to form and train LAC squadrons from local resources.

marklbailey wrote:The issue I have there is the inherent assumption that the designers were stupid: that they deliberately built ships which could not be properly maintained, let alone incrementally upgraded, over the life-cycle of the ship.

We are talking about the SLN (Battle Fleet) who has been building ships to basically the same design for around 500 years. The designers aren't stupid, but the customer is incredibly conservative and cash strapped.

The SLN is still building and buying "coal fired reciprocating steam power" because they can't afford to make their existing fleet obsolete by converting to "nuclear powered steam turbines." Their obsolescence is simply made worse by lackadaisical maintenance and institutional arrogance.

It isn't that the captured ships can't be maintained or battle damage repaired, but they haven't been maintained and they were pretty much obsolete when built.

Adding to the above, Mark has indicated how using the SLN ships is possible, but not why it is the preferred method of training. As Harold has indicated, the basics of training are already in each system - LAC wings with simulators. This is mostly to test the existing members of the SDFs, start training their "senior" members on RMN tactics, and to integrate the SDFs into RMN procedures.

This is not intended to start mass training of new TQ spacers into the RMN.

Even if training was required for mass numbers, there still is the question of why the SLN SDs are a better solution than other options. The SLN ships are already in Quadrant, but RMN retired SDs or DNs can be available in 60-90 days, with the crews, traininers, and training materials shipped directly from Manticore.

The same for troopships, while the MMM is not just sitting on it's hands, finding an appropriate ship is not going to be difficult, given time to route one to the necessary location. Any need for a troopship conversion would be short lived and very specific.

Yes, these ship can be a solution to problems - but are they optimal solutions, and are the better solutions available? And in this case, the better solutions are usually available.

Harold noted the following:

Adding to the above, Mark has indicated how using the SLN ships is possible, but not why it is the preferred method of training. As Harold has indicated, the basics of training are already in each system - LAC wings with simulators. This is mostly to test the existing members of the SDFs, start training their "senior" members on RMN tactics, and to integrate the SDFs into RMN procedures.

This is not intended to start mass training of new TQ spacers into the RMN.

This is the sort of issue I’ve been discussing on the training side.
Here, Harold’s pointing out that the RMN is doing a number of things:
1. Integrating the local SDF’s procedures into the new regional trade protection structure.
2. Integrating the local SDF’s tactics into RMN tactics.
3. Working out where and how big the gaps are between the SDF’s operational capability and knowledge, and the RMN’s operational capability and knowledge in both the trade protection and ‘general fleet’ capability and mission sets.

I’ll note here that this seems ‘common sense’ because it is. And it’s also exactly what the Admiralty did historically as the local Colonial trade protection forces evolved into Dominion Naval forces.
I take MaxxQ’s point above (yes, a fictional universe it is: however it’s also firmly based on known historical events and trends if nothing else to provide a comparator or parallel to anchor the plot lines and also to avoid the ‘Alien Space Bat’ problem)

Even if training was required for mass numbers, there still is the question of why the SLN SDs are a better solution than other options.

Precisely. Here we have to consider local politics and economics. Again, I’ll use Nuncio as an example. They are poor, with a poor education system, not much to export (apparently) and have a low population. What changes will they make to government policy as a result of joining the Empire? The classic historical response to this sort of change of circumstances is to ‘provide mercenaries/soldiers’: think Kingdom of Nepal for the last 150 years or every African colony of every 19th century Imperial power. That way rambunctious underemployed men get a valuable job, get out of town, stop making trouble locally because they are bored, get skills and education not available locally which sets them up for life when they return, grow up AND send remittances home. The Nuncio government will see what every other such government saw and what the Kingdom of Nepal still sees: it’s nearly all upside. Oh, and when they return older, wiser, better educated and wealthier? They tend to support the government that encouraged them and act to stabilise local society. Nepalese towns with any sort of concentration of retired Gurkhas have fewer problems with young blokes playing up.

Therefore, the poorer the system, the more they will want to seize this opportunity and develop both contributions to the RMN and local forces doing local trade protection. The local trade protection force is economically important in a way most people don’t realise: it lowers financial costs. Sounds crazy, yes? Yet that’s exactly what it does. It reduces risk to trade, and that lowers insurance costs on that trade route, which reduces transport costs. Even better, once finance houses see a definite commitment to local security PLUS a similar legal/financial framework with a non-corrupt judiciary, both government and private borrowers receive lower-interest loans. That’s why Australian colonies could float loans in London at ~20-30% lower interest rates (as compared to Argentina or the USA) in 19th and early 20th centuries.

Also, do not forget nationalism. It’s a powerful driver to be seen to be a mature member of a partnership and not a colony.

So the drivers to ‘get into the game in a bigger way’ are there (and have historical parallels). Which means the driver for training platforms is also there. But they have to be very low cost, as EATS showed, building the necessary ‘shoreside’ infrastructure is a local cost and will eat most available budget.

The SLN ships are already in Quadrant, but RMN retired SDs or DNs can be available in 60-90 days, with the crews, traininers, and training materials shipped directly from Manticore.

Do not forget combat and societal relativities here!
There are some systems where the ex-RMN DN will be a much better option. Rembrandt springs instantly to mind. Meanwhile, down at the poorest end of the pond, it would be a waste of resources. That DN is a very valuable second line asset. Rembrandt can afford to operate that ex-RMN DN quite quickly and they will operate it for training AND trade protection purposes simultaneously. Against any SLN raiding group, an obsolescent ex-RMN DN is a lethally superior asset. It’s better than anything the SLN has. Meanwhile, a really poor, backward system like Nuncio is years away from being able to properly utilise an asset like that (yes, it will be in the plan for the future). What they might need instead down at their low end of the food chain is an entirely unmodified SLN prize as a ‘stationary training hulk’ equivalent. They might then cut a deal to do some of their advanced training for the cream of their crop (a small number) with the Rembrandt SDF and their ‘advanced training ship’.

Yes, these ship can be a solution to problems - but are they optimal solutions, and are the better solutions available? And in this case, the better solutions are usually available.

This is the whole point I’ve been raising with this interesting digression away from trade protection and relating to ex-SLN prizes. The RMN Admiralty is not stupid. Some staff group will get the question of ‘Work out what, if anything, we can use all these SLN prizes for, including local use in TQ and noting the local political advantages of doing so’.

Some of that’s going to be really simple:
1. ‘hey, that’s a pretty good repair ship, buy it into RMN service’
2. ‘so, the Flax SDF has a fairly decent and experienced crew of 500 operating that complete heap of rubbish impersonating a cruiser? And this ex-SLN cruiser is ten times the operational value of the ship they are in? And they can man it, but they cannot man an obsolescent but even better RMN ship from reserve? Well, then…’
3. ‘Right, so that ex-Silesian system we now control needs some hyper-capable light warships for local anti-piracy work but cannot afford anything? Well, there’s those two ex-SLN Rampart class DD just sitting there….’

Some won’t be. The point I am making is that it appears that a lot of these options might not have been considered, and perhaps it might be an idea to do so.

On the SLN SD’s, I expect that the executive summary of the recommendations of the Staff Group’s report will look like this:

1. The SLN Scientist and Vega classes are of no value as capital ships and cannot be upgraded to have any value as capital ships, or even as front-line warships in any role. This does not mean they are totally useless – quite the opposite
2. The Scientist and Vega classes have variable value in auxiliary, training and political support roles, and potentially in the trade protection role.
a. Political. None of these vessels should be scrapped. Those not used in any auxiliary or training role are to be retained in maintained reserve for future gifting transfer to the Maya Sector government, to obtain political good will and strengthen it when it declares independence. While their uses there cannot be predicted they might conceivably range from rear-area picket against light-scale SLN raiders or if nothing else, simply for parts as a considerable proportion of the MSF will be ex-SLN ships for the foreseeable future.
b. Auxiliary use in TQ will demand careful analysis on a case-by-case basis to ensure cost-effectiveness. These vessels may find auxiliary uses in training functions (ranging from stationary TS entirely unmodified to in-system TS use after minor refit), in combined training and trade protection functions (combining advanced training with a modest refit to allow use as a convoy escort), in trade protection (modest downgrade refit to a heavy close escort cruiser status), as depot and administrative command ships as HMS Hercules has been utilised, or stripped out and refitted for local uses ranging from depot, troop, store or deployable LAC support ships; any secondary or tertiary function which require strong hulls and their scale of life support.
c. Civil Use. Each SD is, at basis, a very strong hull with large power supplies, excellent power connections to the exterior shell of the ship and life support for about 10,000 (with a reserve capacity) with large and numerous boat bays for small craft operations. In the case of the poorest systems in TQ, a stripped SD hull represents a significant increase to their orbital or belt-based space station infrastructure, being able to provide the power, life support and structural foundation for a significant civil facility able to be expanded by additions in the usual way. Provision of such stripped hulls may be a viable civil infrastructure development proposal for a number of the least developed systems. All serviceable parts removed from ships used for this function should be stored for future transfer to Maya.

And so on.

Cheers: Mark

You missed c)

There are no external power connections on DW's ships. All of DW's engineers were dead drunk on alcohol and floating in a weed haze when designing that aspect of his universes ships. Otherwise, his ships should be able to hold multiple Pods of missiles on their hulls indefinitely. Power cords are also forbidden...
EVA and hooking said cord to said pod is also forbidden...
Or the horror of simply using microwave beamed power... Oh wait, DW has that already, but I guess only ECM decoys can use that technology...

Let us all know when DW enters rational reality and publishes simple fixes(power cords) to his stated "problems".