“Sovereign of Space” Class SD(p)

This analysis is about the RHN 1st gen podnaught, “Sovereign of Space” Class from data in AoV

Edit : As was pointed out below, the Temeraire class was seen prior to BoMa (at the battle of Salon). AoV is written as if the SD(p)s in 2nd Fleet were consistant in capability, so these stats could be for either the "Sovereign of Space" class or the "Temeraire" class. Or, the fleet could have been hetrogenous, and some of the stats may not be correct or limited by one class or the other. At the time of Boma, at least 460 Havenite SD(p)s had been produced and worked up, at least 48 are known to be lost prior to the battle (Sidemore, Lovat), 240 were in 2nd fleet, 92 were in 5th fleet and ~80 more were defending systems for Haven, making it possible that the indivual fleets were homogenous in class type - but this is never specifically mentioned in text or otherwise.

Looking at the details described in BoMa, I was able to find some details about the class I have not seen previously.

“Sebastian D'Orville's forty-eight pre-pod superdreadnoughts carried 27,840 pods externally, and theoretically, they could have deployed all of them in a single massive wave. In fact, Home Fleet carried a total of almost forty-nine thousand pods, with well over half a million missiles. Lester Tourville's slightly larger superdreadnoughts carried fewer pods, and each of those pods carried fewer missiles, because of the size penalty their bulkier MDMs imposed. So although he had two and a half times as many ships, he had barely twice as many pods, and each of those pods carried seventeen percent fewer missiles. He actually had "only" sixty-four percent more total missiles than Home Fleet.”

What do we get out of this?

1) There were 240 SDs initially in Lester’s Group (stated elsewhere and shown here in math)
2) Each Sovereign of Space class is larger than anything in the MA inventory – Including the 8.779 Mton Harrington II
3) Havenite forces are carrying Donkeys, which are pod sized (and assumedly take up one pod slot in storage.
4) Havenite SD(p)s can tow 20 donkeys (or pods) directly.
5) Each Donkey can power and tow 10 missile pods or Donkeys (fairly well established)
6) Manty Pods at this point carried 12 missiles,
7) Havenite pods carry 17% fewer or 10 missiles.
8) Havenite pods are larger than Manty pods to accommodate the bigger Havenite MDMs (known)
9) Manticorian forces carried ~588,000 missiles in Pods
10) Havenite forces carried almost 2x as many pods
11) Havenite forces carry only 164% as many missiles (in Pods)

So, for the ~49000 pods Manty forces threw, Havenites threw 1.64 time as many missiles or

49,000 x 12 x 1.64 = 964,320 missiles

And the total number of Havenite missiles, divided by the number of ships and the number of pods

964,320 / (240 x10) = 402 pods

So each Sovereign of Space SD was carrying carry ~402 pods

“…and 524,000 Havenite missiles rampaged out to meet them.”

524,000 / (240 x 10) = 218 Pods

218 Pods fired per Havenite SD(p) were fired at Home fleet.

12) So 22 Donkeys were used by each Havenite SD(p), with 2 donkeys in the 2nd layer.
13) Assuming the donkeys were carried internally at some point, each Havenite SD(p) can carry ~424 pods/donkeys)
14) After the fight with Home fleet, Each Havenite SD(p) carried ~184 pods, or 46% of initial loadout or 43% of theoretical max loadout (no donkeys)
15) 2nd fleet should have 6 minutes 12 seconds left of concentrated fire.

…each of Tourville's ships had control links for three hundred and fifty missiles, and by using Shannon Foraker's rotating control technique, they could increase that number by approximately sixty percent.

assuming 12 second, 6 pod rolls…

16) Each Sovereign of Space SD(p) has 350 control links
17) Rotating control links only increases the number of missiles by ~60%
18) Each ship can “natively” control just shy of six, 60 missile rolls, or 1.2 minutes worth of fire.
19) Each ship can control, using the rotating links, 9 and 1/3, 60 missile rolls, or just under 2 minutes worth of fire.

…They must be running their compensators at at least ninety percent of full military power, because current acceleration is right on four-point-eight KPS-squared.

Assuming g=9.8m/s, we get the following ship accels.

20) At 90% 4.8 KPS = 489.8 g
21) At 100% = 544.2 g
22) Or an efficiency of >130%

Good post, but didn't the RHN roll out a second class of SD(P) before hostilities recommenced? Temeraire class.

I suppose it's possible Admiral Chin had the Temeraires and Tourville the Sovereigns. Also, it's unclear how much difference there is between those two classes - presumably enough to make a class distinction, but then again, the difference between a Sphinx and a Gryphon wasn't vast.

munroburton wrote:Good post, but didn't the RHN roll out a second class of SD(P) before hostilities recommenced? Temeraire class.

I suppose it's possible Admiral Chin had the Temeraires and Tourville the Sovereigns. Also, it's unclear how much difference there is between those two classes - presumably enough to make a class distinction, but then again, the difference between a Sphinx and a Gryphon wasn't vast.

The 1st of the Temeraire class was laid prior to the commencement of hostilities in WoH, and 3 months were shaved off construction times. If any have been completed, there is no mention in AoV or later that I could find, and the battle treats the ships as a fairly consistent class, though never specifically says it was just one class.

Of course, if you only have 1 type, you usually don't discuss that fact.

Theemile wrote:The 1st of the Temeraire class was laid prior to the commencement of hostilities in WoH, and 3 months were shaved off construction times. If any have been completed, there is no mention in AoV or later that I could find, and the battle treats the ships as a fairly consistent class, though never specifically says it was just one class.

Hmm. I was sure one for one of the later battles in AAC, either Tourville or Giscard had an SD(P) RHNS Temeraire, which I'd think almost had to be one of them

drothgery wrote:

Theemile wrote:The 1st of the Temeraire class was laid prior to the commencement of hostilities in WoH, and 3 months were shaved off construction times. If any have been completed, there is no mention in AoV or later that I could find, and the battle treats the ships as a fairly consistent class, though never specifically says it was just one class.

Hmm. I was sure one for one of the later battles in AAC, either Tourville or Giscard had an SD(P) RHNS Temeraire, which I'd think almost had to be one of them

The only direct mention of the Temeraire class in At All Costs is RHNS Conquete, which was present at Solon.

This is pretty good work. Thanks.