Roland Peacetime duties

Rincewind wrote:

Sigs wrote:

But the main purpose for a warship to exist is in case of war. Having ships that are intentionally weaker warships just so they can be better at anti-piracy seems like a bad trade off. Having a destroyer like the Roland that can do anti-piracy and fight wars is so much better than having dozens or hundreds of ships that are great for peacetime but ill-suited for war time.

I would take a slightly larger version of a Roland that has the ability to carry marines and fight wars than having a destroyer or light cruiser with a larger crew, more marines but a lot less combat capable.

Actually that situation has come up. In WW II the US Navy was reluctant to divert resources from building destroyers to building escorts. They produced a design but it was not put into production. It was pressure to produce escorts for the Royal Navy that led to the adoption of several designs of DE & Patrol Frigate which were also adopted by the USN. Also the Royal Navy produced designs of convoy escorts that could not be used for Fleet Work.

When I posted on this subject my idea was a split between those units like the Rolands that would work with the fleet or Task Forces & Groups whilst the Wolfhounds & the Avalons dealt with convoy escorts & anti-piracy patrols. Certainly, from their description in the Companion these do seem to be the duties that these ships perform.

With regards to your point about building potentially weaker warships several navies have done just that! The Royal Netherlands Navy paid off six of their Karel Doorman class Frigates & replaced them with four Holland class OPVs. Likewise the Italian Navy currently operates three classes of OPVs. Part of the reason you may be thinking that the Navy should not operate Patrol Vessels is that the United States Navy does not. It doesn't have to. In America you have the US Coast Guard who operate those type of vessels. Many other countries do not so their navy would take over that role.

Yeah but the idea to build less capable warships just because they have more marines on board is ridiculous. Buying or building weaker warships because of financial reasons or manning reasons etc... makes more sense which was why the RMN started the war with 40% of its wall made up of DN's rather than 100% of SD's.


Having 30%-40% or more of your light combatants unsuited for actual war because they would be outmatched by anyone other than a pirate is ridiculous. Those ships will be of no use for commerce protection against any actual navy and they will be of no use as raiding forces either. Just like in the first war with Haven the RMN withdrew most of their light warships from Silesia and they were used in the war against Haven, but imagine if the ships they withdrew from counter piracy operations were of no use in the main theater of war because they were outgunned by anyone and everyone.

The whole "we have no marines" was plot hammer, as is pretty obvious if you think about how large the flag facility has to be.

So now that they have had lots of time to think about this I suspect they will mysteriously find space in the new construction to fit them in.

kzt wrote:The whole "we have no marines" was plot hammer, as is pretty obvious if you think about how large the flag facility has to be.

So now that they have had lots of time to think about this I suspect they will mysteriously find space in the new construction to fit them in.

Particurally since they can add facilities for a whole platoon of marines and only need to increase the size of a ship by 5K-10K tons, which is 3-5% the size of a roland.

kzt wrote:The whole "we have no marines" was plot hammer, as is pretty obvious if you think about how large the flag facility has to be.

So now that they have had lots of time to think about this I suspect they will mysteriously find space in the new construction to fit them in.

I'd agree that when they start building ships again, they're not going to continue the "no Marines on ships we're calling destroyers" thing that happened with the Roland.


I don't remember, but I suspect that the bulk, if not entirety, of Roland design work was done under the Janacek/High Ridge Admiralty, where BuShips got very creative with the Sag-C, but BuShips was forced to aggressively cut corners on the Roland. After all, Houseman was doing the RMN's budgeting - Marines? Who needs those knuckle-dragging musclebound morons?

Vince wrote:or incorporate armor in the backstop.

darrell wrote:I doubt very much that ships like Agni (RMN CL, shown to have an internal range at the end of chapter 21 of Field of Dishonor) use armor in the backstop, at least as the primary backstop (problems with bouncers or ricochets come to mind). Instead I suspect they incorporate a system

Can all those #$%&$!!! who have never fired a gun before, and for some moronic reason have swallowed, hook, line and sinker, the completely made up BS Hollywood line about bullet ricochets, burning steel, and concrete that according to moves explodes... please stop spreading your ill informed baloney around?

There is little thing called science... Use it.

Bullets impact, break up, and either keep moving in the direction they were already moving and therefore adhere to the first law of motion, or, some of the smaller fragments "ricochet" at most 95 degrees and drop to the ground in a mere 5 feet or so because once again, those pesky laws of Newtonian motion rear their ugly heads. Honorverse style makes even this minor ricochet near impossible as all they have to do is place a heavy grav field behind the silhouettes. You can test my ricochet statements by placing PAPER and cardboard a mere 5 feet to the side from a steel target and fire away. The paper may have a tiny pin hole in it. The cardboard certainly will not. There will be NOTHING, Uh HEM <NOTHING> in front of the target bouncing back towards the shooter more than a foot.

It is even worse at even higher Honorverse velocities, as a ricochet of any angle requires ELASTICITY. Deflection is time based and when velocities INCREASE, deflection TIME, decreases, and therefore the Elasticity of the material impacted has even less time deflect creating an even smaller potential SPRING...

Off rant...

ONCE AGAIN I AM ATTRIBUTED A QUOTE I DID NOT DO! It is I that said

or incorporate armor in the backstop.

Relax wrote:

Vince wrote:or incorporate armor in the backstop.

darrell wrote:I doubt very much that ships like Agni (RMN CL, shown to have an internal range at the end of chapter 21 of Field of Dishonor) use armor in the backstop, at least as the primary backstop (problems with bouncers or ricochets come to mind). Instead I suspect they incorporate a system

Can all those #$%&$!!! who have never fired a gun before, and for some moronic reason have swallowed, hook, line and sinker, the completely made up BS Hollywood line about bullet ricochets, burning steel, and concrete that according to moves explodes... please stop spreading your ill informed baloney around?

There is little thing called science... Use it.

Bullets impact, break up, and either keep moving in the direction they were already moving and therefore adhere to the first law of motion, or, some of the smaller fragments "ricochet" at most 95 degrees and drop to the ground in a mere 5 feet or so because once again, those pesky laws of Newtonian motion rear their ugly heads. Honorverse style makes even this minor ricochet near impossible as all they have to do is place a heavy grav field behind the silhouettes. You can test my ricochet statements by placing PAPER and cardboard a mere 5 feet to the side from a steel target and fire away. The paper may have a tiny pin hole in it. The cardboard certainly will not. There will be NOTHING, Uh HEM <NOTHING> in front of the target bouncing back towards the shooter more than a foot.

It is even worse at even higher Honorverse velocities, as a ricochet of any angle requires ELASTICITY. Deflection is time based and when velocities INCREASE, deflection TIME, decreases, and therefore the Elasticity of the material impacted has even less time deflect creating an even smaller potential SPRING...

Off rant...

Have you ever watched the show "Mythbusters"? they have done several episodes on ricochets. And yes, ricochets can both travel more than 5 feet and bounce at more than a 95 degree angle.

Never the less, the science of stopping bullets is well known and used in indoor rifle and pistol ranges today, 2016 CE. That won't change in the honorvers, and even though a pulser is much faster than a rifle, the materials available for the backstop will be better.

The backstop on Agni is a highly focused grav field, it says it right in the text. The pulser darts, or even Lady Harrington's Colt rounds vaporize on impact, exactly like missiles that directly impact wedges do.

darrell wrote:Have you ever watched the show "Mythbusters"? they have done several episodes on ricochets. And yes, ricochets can both travel more than 5 feet and bounce at more than a 95 degree angle.

Yea it was Vince not you sorry.

I'll go with my own tests thank you very much, not some BS hogwash on TV. Or, you can look up video's on youtube where real people actually place real armor plate etc and then check splatter patterns even upwards of .50cal bullets. Or you could just get your butt to a shooting range and look at the splash patterns from bullets after they have struck the steel targets. It is rather obvious how far the "splatter" goes. As the ground will literally have the outline of said lead bullets spray pattern on it.

The only ricochets that ever happen which could be dangerous to your life are those behind the point of impact. Under no circumstances is anyone in danger in front of the point of impact unless you are literally standing directly beside the point of impact.

A shooting range need not be a large volume. It could be no larger than a square meter by whatever length one wishes. And oh, by the way, only rarely do people shoot to "stay in shape". Like once or twice a week. Not everyday.

Relax wrote:A shooting range need not be a large volume. It could be no larger than a square meter by whatever length one wishes. And oh, by the way, only rarely do people shoot to "stay in shape". Like once or twice a week. Not everyday.

Agreed with the average people, including the majority of navy personnel. So for a small ship with 100 or less navy crew and no marines, such as the roland, (84 crew) One lane would be sufficient.

Marines, OTOH, would practice every day. Therefore, you would need AT LEAST 1-2 lanes per squad, and IMO it wouldn't hurt to have 14-15 lanes for a platoon sized detachment so that an entire squad can practice simultaneously.

Its not just marines Rolands are lacking but extra warm bodies in general to do anything other the run and fight the ship.

A question is how likely is a Roland to encounter a situation that requires boarding parties or prizes crew? Unless they encounter such situations in a regular bases the extra crew and marines are waste of personal that can be used elsewhere.