Roland Peacetime duties

kzt wrote:There is a huge difference between 30 million KM missile range and the roughly million km range where energy weapons become marginally dangerous to a ship with a sidewall up. It's not A or B.

Yes, but many of the pirate interceptions we see occur at point blank, energy range. Usually started by the warship in question snarling around, and using their broadsides on the pirate.

All it takes is one pirate who's got gunners who aren't completely braindead, and a little bit of luck and the warship eats a freak hit that takes out their compensator, or say a fusion core, and suddenly the warship blows up.

Freak circumstances, most definitely, but if you aren't all that much bigger, or you're actually smaller than the 'pirate' you're about to try to order to stand down and prepare to be boarded.... are you really going to let them get into energy range just so you can have better odds of not totally blowing them up?

Somtaaw wrote:

kzt wrote:There is a huge difference between 30 million KM missile range and the roughly million km range where energy weapons become marginally dangerous to a ship with a sidewall up. It's not A or B.

Yes, but many of the pirate interceptions we see occur at point blank, energy range. Usually started by the warship in question snarling around, and using their broadsides on the pirate.

All it takes is one pirate who's got gunners who aren't completely braindead, and a little bit of luck and the warship eats a freak hit that takes out their compensator, or say a fusion core, and suddenly the warship blows up.

Freak circumstances, most definitely, but if you aren't all that much bigger, or you're actually smaller than the 'pirate' you're about to try to order to stand down and prepare to be boarded.... are you really going to let them get into energy range just so you can have better odds of not totally blowing them up?

I think historically that's been because the pirates tend to be smaller (quicker) than the normal ships doing anti-piracy. And with SDMs you've got to let them get pretty deep before you've sure they can't survive to run away.
At that point maybe its worth sucking them in all the way were you can be more precise with your targeting, and avoid spending a bunch of very expensive missiles.

But with the accel and missile range of a Roland I tend to agree that they'd want this over one way or another before the apparent pirate made it within, say, 12 million km. If they try to run the Roland has plenty of legs (and missile range) to run them down. Not the case if you're a pre-war CL chasing a frigate . (Unless the pirate is stupid about his approach vectors)

Perhaps, if you were going to assign a Rowland to a convoy, you might just be able to squeeze in a platoon of Marines and a minimal merchant crew sufficent to take a capture ships somewhere. That would also mean you need something to move people between said Rowland and said captured ship larger than a pinnace.

You might not even want to keep any of the pirates alive unless you thought they might have valuable information about their fences, supply and support points and backers. Have a potential problem with them breaking out of the brig in the captured ship--- weld the hatch doors shut (serious weld, 25% of the way around the hatch spread into 4 even lengths).

Just a thought

I think it is very likely that the Roland will be long since retired from service by time peace arrives.

I feel that RMN would design a ship for peacetime duties that would be able to handle multiple types of missions adequately enough to get the job done.

Kytheros wrote:I mostly agree with that, except that even a squadron of Rolands doesn't really have the crew capacity for anti-piracy or convoy escort duties, sure, they'll have the collective crew for it, but each Roland can only afford to give up a handful of people - they can probably manage to find boarding and prize crews for one or two merchants or one small pirate. I'm not sure they'd be able to put even a skeleton prize crew on a proper conventional/legacy warship - and I doubt they'd have the space to keep, much less keep secure, a few hundred prisoners.

In a Convoy Escort mission, a division (4 ships) has at least three flag decks and more than four freighters worth of extra crew space and brig space.

That's why Rolands can best be used for convoy escorts. They don't have the extra manpower and space without the convoy, so they are less useful for solo patrols in an anti-piracy role. They would have to be paired with some other ship type with the necessary manpower and space.

Weird Harold wrote:In a Convoy Escort mission, a division (4 ships) has at least three flag decks and more than four freighters worth of extra crew space and brig space.

We all know that there is an absolute religious prohibition in the RMN about using unused flag bridges and the quarters for the squadron command staff for anything other then a squadron command staff. So stop bringing up this totally logical idea.

kzt wrote:We all know that there is an absolute religious prohibition in the RMN about using unused flag bridges and the quarters for the squadron command staff for anything other then a squadron command staff. So stop bringing up this totally logical idea.

Well they do use them for VIPs and Diplomats, so I guess it just takes at least a Marine General and staff to warrant Flag Deck accommodation.

--snipping--

But I think it's very unlikely that outside of freak circumstances, similar to the Hexapuma in Nuncio, a Roland will be doing non-piracy patrols. As this thread has gone round and round, a Roland is plain and simple a warship killer, it's too specialized to be pigeonholed into the generalist roles of pre-war ships.

If a Roland is actually having to operate (solo) in an anti-pirate role, I'm figuring it'll be in Manticoran space, where the RoE change...

Mostly agreeing with you, given that the thread is "when peace breaks out".

But I don't see Rolands patrolling in singles defending convoys, I see them in pairs, just in case any "former SDF or breakaway SLN formations" decide to get hinky and go into pirating on a squadron level.

I'm thinking about a two ship version of the Sarnow Deployment we saw "In Enemy Hands" where the Prince Adrian was "on point" but was captured because they did not have a range advantage on the Peeps. I think even a single Roland wins that engagement in terms of escaping, by the way.

I like the idea of "one Roland out front, one at the rear, and something like Keyhole-1 or 2 being "moduled on to" one or more freighters to allow the Rolands to control counter-missile fire, etc. near the convoy. Maybe along with said freighter being able to drop a set of Mark-23E armed pods where the trailing Roland could tractor them? Be a bad day for ANY attacking force up to about task group level to run into that combination, yes?

kzt wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:In a Convoy Escort mission, a division (4 ships) has at least three flag decks and more than four freighters worth of extra crew space and brig space.

We all know that there is an absolute religious prohibition in the RMN about using unused flag bridges and the quarters for the squadron command staff for anything other then a squadron command staff. So stop bringing up this totally logical idea.

lets see.
A squad of marines has twice the number bodies that an admirals staff has. I suppose that the marines hot bunk it to double up occupancy.

I suppose that they can store their powered armor in the flag briefing room. lets hope it never needs to be maintained or repaired.

I suppose that they can do their exercises in the main ship gym, but since the average navy crewman only exercises for 10-15 min a day, having a dozen marines using the facility for several hours would put a strain on the facilities.

I suppose that the could hold their boarding action combat training in the flag deck, but I wonder how much they will damage it in the process, even if they don't intend to.

Nope, using a flag deck for marines won't work, the facilities are too small and not designed for the purpose besides. There is a reason that all honorverse navies have dedicated accommodations and training facilities for marines.

In other words, trying to use the flag deck accommodations for marines is a bit like trying to use a day care facility as the training facility for a professional sports team like US football or English rugby.

darrell wrote:lets see.
A squad of marines has twice the number bodies that an admirals staff has.

Cite?

I don't know of any reference to the size of a Roland's Flag Deck or a flag officer's staff. For all we know, a Roland's Flag Deck includes quarters for a squad of marine security personnel.