Rincewind wrote:
I just can't win! I had Kzt accusing me of wanting to use a Nimitz class CVN to deal with a bunch of pirates with AK47s in a fishing boat; (which I did not) & now you're accusing me of wanting to build warships which cannot stand up to the enemy. Need I remind you of the situation? Any navy is going to need numbers to enable them to deal with all their myriad duties & not all of them are going to be top of the range vessels either. The model I had in mind was Admiral Zumwalt's High Low mix which he proposed in the 1970's when he was CNO. Furthermore the examples I used in the Honorverse were actually in service. Admittedly the construction of the Wolfhound class destroyers had been suspended but the Avalon class light cruisers have not. Furthermore this topic was about peacetime duties & my thinking was that the Rolands would be laid up in reserve whilst the other classes took up the burden of peacetime duties.
My issue is with having ships take a range penalty and subsequent combat penalty. The Avalon is about 77.5% of the size of the Roland but takes a range penalty, in a one on one fight, I would say that the Roland has a good chance of winning and the fight would be from outside avalon's range.
Modify the Roland's to be able to have more crew and marines on board and use them as your smallest hyper capable combat unit. The most important mission of every Honorverse navy is to protect the nation first and foremost, anti-piracy and commerce protection are a distant second. So having ships that are excellent combat ships and ok or mediocre at anti-piracy is much better than having ships that are excellent at anti-piracy duties but mediocre at combat.
Rincewind wrote:Finally, if you will pardon me for saying so, the fact that you are an American seems to be colouring your thinking: (I do not mean it as an insult, just an observation). Your experience of your own navy is that they tend to build just first class ships; Nimitz class CVNs, Assault carriers, Arleigh Burke class DDGs & Virginia class SSNs. In part this is possible because of the 'One Thousand Ship Navy' concept whereby the USN relies on their allies navies to provide them with any minor warships, particularly mine warfare vessels, that they may need & thus can concentrate on building first class vessels. The RMN & indeed, most other navies are not in this fortunate position. They will have to provide all the vessels that they need & using only first class vessels could very well cause them to come up short as indeed they did in Honor Among Enemies.
1) I'm not American, I'm Canadian.
2) In Honor Amongst Enemies, if the RMN had 2nd or 3rd rate warships in anti-piracy missions they would have redeployed them to the front. So having more second rate ships wouldn't solve anything because those second rate ships would be redeployed to the front anyway but ultimately would be weaker than a first rate ship. Because if your back is against the wall, loosing a few merchantmen or even a lot of merchantmen might not be as disastrous as losing your nation.
3)If you could build 2 Battleships or 1 SD what would you choose? Considering that each battleships is half the cost of a SD and half the crew but only 37.5% of the firepower? Are there situation where building the Battleships would be the right choice even with the penalty in mind? Yes. But should you build a lot of Battleships at the expense of SD's simply because the BB's fulfill a secondary duty better than an SD but they take a penalty with their primary duty...Combat.
What would you prefer to have:
-20 Roland's that are modified with a larger crew in mind and marines and their weapons and munitions remain the same.
-20 Avalon's that have a larger crew than a current generation Roland, they have marines but their weapon ranges are significantly lower than those of a Roland?
I would take the Roland's.
