MAD-4A wrote:I keep seeing the same people ranting about how all the Manty production has been destroyed and then ranting that "well they can just make new ones cheaper" - HOW? their production is ZERO. Use the hulls you have! I would suggest keeping (at least initially) some of the stock missile tubes and some magazine space or it will get out that they are all bluster and no bight. As I pointed out earlier, the SL missiles are crap against GA tech but not anyone else's. Also, the Talbot and Silesians area not barbarians in loincloths throwing rocks. they are space faring people and can learn to operate these ships, perhaps with great reduction, as suggested, and corresponding reduction in crew needs. but they could serve to deter SL raids into both areas.n7axw wrote:...the project of dismantling and revamping the SDs would be more expensive than simply manufacturing new ships from scratch. So why bother?
hmmm...we can't build new hulls, we need new ships, what do we do with these hulls? oh, just throw them away.
During the Spanish American war, the US sank most of the Spanish Navy, many in Manila Bay. Most of those ships were obsolete junk. But, the US raised, repaired and took into service, several of those junk heaps anyway. A hulls a hull, get it out there.
The tech disparity between the Spanish Navy and the US Navy at that point would have been significantly smaller than the tech disparity between the SLN and Erewhon, much less Haven or Manticore.
If it were 1900 PD or early in the first war, maybe it'd be worth using some of the SLN ships. But it's not - doctrine and technology have advanced to the point that it would be like a modern, first world navy employing pre-World War 1 ships. If it's even that close.
Manticore didn't bother trying to commission the hundreds of Havenite SD(P)s captured at the Battle of Manticore into the RMN, they're not going to try to commission SLN SDs that are probably inferior to their last DNs .. which are probably in the Manticoran Reserve, and in much better condition.
If Manticore were in dire need of ships, which it isn't, Manticore has several options vastly better than using SLN SDs. There's the Manticoran Reserve Fleet (loaded with last-gen conventional SDs), acquiring ships from Haven or the Andermani, or acquiring ships from Erewhon. Any of those options would give Manticore superior ships, in terms of design, construction/maintenance quality, supply capability, etc.
I'm pretty sure that there's Word of Weber that SLN SDs are useless for basically anything that doesn't involve scrapping them for raw materials or live fire target practice. I suppose that Manticore could use some of them to try to refine just how many missiles it takes to stop one, so the RMN doesn't overkill them so much. But that's a one-time thing, really.
Manticore doesn't really need to worry about SLN raids into Silesia or the Talbott Quadrant. Astrogeography is not in the SLN's favor for either of those.