LAC Style Destroyers?

No, DD/CL line has not blurred. The major difference is deployment duration.

Yes, both classes have effectively the same weapons loadout. What has not been effectively displayed in the series is how much of the ship is dedicated to fuel storage. How much of the ship is dedicated to hydroponics. Sure, one can live on vitamin pills, but they do not taste good. "Fighting Spirit" historically and is still true today, is tied directly to the soldiers food quality. These are not sexy topics to write about in a space opera. Nor is it sexy to discuss spares allotment aboard a ship, or the workshops and personnel to go with said spares. One of the major differences between Frigates and Destroyers today.

So, talking tonnage and weapons distinguishing features makes little sense when comparing the two classes. Rather it is WHAT each class's description entails. A DD cannot be waltzing along 200LY from home and then decide to stick its nose out another hundred LY to investigate. Shorter stuff? Sure. DD can fill all those roles that the CL can at short range. Long range scouting and showing the flag? No.

Relax wrote:No, DD/CL line has not blurred. The major difference is deployment duration.

Yes, both classes have effectively the same weapons loadout. What has not been effectively displayed in the series is how much of the ship is dedicated to fuel storage. How much of the ship is dedicated to hydroponics. Sure, one can live on vitamin pills, but they do not taste good. "Fighting Spirit" historically and is still true today, is tied directly to the soldiers food quality. These are not sexy topics to write about in a space opera. Nor is it sexy to discuss spares allotment aboard a ship, or the workshops and personnel to go with said spares. One of the major differences between Frigates and Destroyers today.

So, talking tonnage and weapons distinguishing features makes little sense when comparing the two classes. Rather it is WHAT each class's description entails. A DD cannot be waltzing along 200LY from home and then decide to stick its nose out another hundred LY to investigate. Shorter stuff? Sure. DD can fill all those roles that the CL can at short range. Long range scouting and showing the flag? No.

Actually historically the difference is in mission type. According to wikipedia:

Wikipedia wrote:In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast maneuverable long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller powerful short-range attackers.

In other words, a destroyer is a small warship that is designed to operate with other destroyers in squadron level or larger operations.

Wikipedia wrote:The term "cruiser" was first commonly used in the 17th century to refer to an independent warship. "Cruiser" meant the purpose or mission of a ship, rather than a category of vessel. However, the term was nonetheless used to mean a smaller, faster warship suitable for such a role. In the 17th century, the ship of the line was generally too large, inflexible, and expensive to be dispatched on long-range missions and too strategically important to be put at risk of fouling and foundering by continual patrol duties.

In other words, a cruiser is a small warship that is designed to operate by itself independently of other warships.

It is the SL that defines warship type via tonnage, Manticore breaking from the SL and returning to classification by ship mission would make the roland ideally suited as a destroyer. The "limitations" of the roland are actually optimizing the roland for the destroyer roll of working as squadrons. Without marines or several other things, the roland is not designed to work individually.

With LAC's taking over the screening role, manticore actually needs lots of cruisers and not very many destroyers.

Here is what I would do for ship design of the new light cruiser class, which would address the rolands so called shortcomings and make a warship designed for independent action.
1. Keep the 12 Mk-16 missile tubes (6 each bow and stern)
2. Double the size of the missile storage, from 240 to 480.
3. Increase the bunkerage to make longer duration missions possible.
4. Add a platoon of marines.

My guess, is that since the roland is 188K tons, such a light cruiser would be in the range of about 250K tons.

The other way to go would be to reduce the offensive armament to allow for the marines and extra bunkerage that a cruiser would need, which I personally would not recommend.

Actually:
I don't give a crap about 17th century definitions.
I do give a crap about DW's 41st century definitions.

DW's definitions:
DD is short range
CL is long range

DD is NOT for independent operations
CL is FOR independent operations

DD is shorted in terms of personnel totals
CL is not

Relax wrote:Actually:
I don't give a crap about 17th century definitions.
I do give a crap about DW's 41st century definitions.

DW's definitions:
DD is short range
CL is long range

DD is NOT for independent operations
CL is FOR independent operations

DD is shorted in terms of personnel totals
CL is not

That is the problem with class definitions, what was used in 1800 was different than 1860, was different from 1890, was different from 1915, was different from 1921, was different from 1940, which is different from now. While we can seek analogies with today (or yesterday's) navies, the Honorverse is it's own beast.

Relax wrote:Actually:
I don't give a crap about 17th century definitions.
I do give a crap about DW's 41st century definitions.

DW's definitions:
DD is short range
CL is long range

DD is NOT for independent operations
CL is FOR independent operations

DD is shorted in terms of personnel totals
CL is not

I wouldn't go quite that far. DDs do regularly get dispatched to operate solo, and often for relatively lengthy amounts of time. See the various travels of Hawkwing, for example. It all depends on what the designers chose to emphasize for the particular class. As was covered in House of Steel, destroyers tended to either focus on combat effectiveness for use in the screen, or independent deployment for commerce protection and reconnaissance.

Duckk wrote:I wouldn't go quite that far. DDs do regularly get dispatched to operate solo, and often for relatively lengthy amounts of time. See the various travels of Hawkwing, for example. It all depends on what the designers chose to emphasize for the particular class. As was covered in House of Steel, destroyers tended to either focus on combat effectiveness for use in the screen, or independent deployment for commerce protection and reconnaissance.

Not really disagreeing. But how far was Hawkwing from a "friendly" planet.

Silesia does represent issues with whether it is long or short term deployments. Much like my deployments to the Persian Gulf in the 90's. Never very far from the "gas station", fresh food or ...

Now on the other hand the cruiser to the same area in 86-87 well we had 6 mail calls while underway. To give you an idea.

Hard and fast definitions of much of anything in DW's work are difficult to find. Much like real life.

Makes it interesting,
T2M

thinkstoomuch wrote:

Duckk wrote:I wouldn't go quite that far. DDs do regularly get dispatched to operate solo, and often for relatively lengthy amounts of time. See the various travels of Hawkwing, for example. It all depends on what the designers chose to emphasize for the particular class. As was covered in House of Steel, destroyers tended to either focus on combat effectiveness for use in the screen, or independent deployment for commerce protection and reconnaissance.

Not really disagreeing. But how far was Hawkwing from a "friendly" planet.

Silesia does represent issues with whether it is long or short term deployments. Much like my deployments to the Persian Gulf in the 90's. Never very far from the "gas station", fresh food or ...

Now on the other hand the cruiser to the same area in 86-87 well we had 6 mail calls while underway. To give you an idea.

Hard and fast definitions of much of anything in DW's work are difficult to find. Much like real life.

Makes it interesting,
T2M

To go with this, destroyer flotilla's were commonly used in "extended" recon purposes, especially early in the First War. A good example of extended patrolling by destroyers, was out at Hancock Station, and the flotilla's watching over Seaford Nine. The entire time Nike was in for repairs, and the working up of BatCruRon 5, destroyers were watching Seaford, and we have zero data on how often they were cycled for refueling, if at all.


Destroyers probably have a larger cruising radius than light cruisers, but their combat endurance is going to be much smaller, is what I imagine. They were used as scouts and solo pickets far too often, for them to have to be scurrying back to 'friendly' space to fill their bunkers all the time. So it makes sense for destroyers to have rather large bunker to ship size, comparatively to anything smaller than a battlecruiser.

Destroyers in the Honorverse are shown being used for fleet screen, convoy/anti-piracy patrols, scouting and recon. They are light, hyper-capable platforms that can fight, just not for long given the depth of magazine. The effective patrol range and linger time is much less than any of the cruiser classes. You are trading range and weapons for numbers of platforms.

We have seen RMN DDs engage things way out of their class but that was at dire need- Hawkwing against Peep cruisers - and defending it's convoy and the Hauptmann liner. Nobody had expected to face not only an actual warship, let alone multiple warships. If they had, they would have tasked something more powerful and consistant with the known threat.
On the other hand, that is both the job and the tradition of RMN (and a number of other militaries), the other side will have to go thought you to get what you are protecting. That you are overmatched doesn't really matter, you fight and fight as smart as you can.

In the scout/recon role, a DD is expected to get the hell out of Dodge if found and engaged. Fight while you run away is then part of the job description. The idea is to get your information home and try and stay in one piece while doing it.

A better example of a DD getting itself into trouble is the Peep that went to check "Pirates Bane" and discovered that it was an armed, former Aldermani fleet auxiliary, freighter with a well trained crew and fighting for their lives.

Brigade XO wrote:Destroyers in the Honorverse are shown being used for fleet screen, convoy/anti-piracy patrols, scouting and recon. They are light, hyper-capable platforms that can fight, just not for long given the depth of magazine. The effective patrol range and linger time is much less than any of the cruiser classes. You are trading range and weapons for numbers of platforms.

I think you're right but I do suspect that the 1900 PD era DDs might have been approaching the patrol endurance of the older, smaller, 1820 PD era CLs.

For example HMS Fearless (from OBS) was a Courageous-class CL; a class laid down in 1820 PD and massing a relatively svelte 88,250 tons. I wouldn't be surprised if a Javelin-class DD; introduced in 1883 PD and massing 87,250 tons had roughly the same endurance. And the 1899 PD Culverin-class, weighing in at 104,000 tons, might exceed it.
But those DDs likely still have less patrol endurance than their contemporary CL counterparts.

Certainly in the navies here on Earth DDs grew significantly in size and range from the 1890s through, say, the 1940s. Though different navies still had different ideas about the necessary endurance of a destroyer. The RN having lots of bases to refuel at, was willing to trade off endurance for affordability. The USN and IJN went for longer ranged designs despite their increased costs.

Hold the boat!

In HAE, it was a new Peep CL hanging out in the middle of nowhere. Not a peep DD. The Peep DD(WoH), was afixed to a gas station in orbit and was effectively being used as a single directional courier to a fleet train whom also probably had a moving gas station with them for when they attacked Marsh. Foraker and company were on a CL far from home(HAE). Not a Peep DD. So, peeps had roughly the same doctrine as the RMN concerning DD/CL distinctions.

Hawking, while a single DD tasked with the Hauptman Liner, was supposed to have company and was only tasked as it was the ONLY platform available. IE two DD's or so. Common practice was for several DD's and a CL to be together on convoy protection duties.

So, DD's do not act independently in the Honorverse. They act in division or squadron strength. Even when scouting as was shown in AAC during the cutworm raids. CL's on the other hand DO act independently.

Even back in HotQ, the multiple DD's were "flagged" by a CL or CA.

In WoH, the scout ship through the new wormhole terminai was a... CL. Same goes for ToF.