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Assuming you were in the position of Michelle Henke ...

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Re: Assuming you were in the position of Michelle Henke ...
Post by Theemile   » Sat Aug 06, 2016 11:20 am

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JohnRoth wrote:
Somtaaw wrote:
64 Mannerheim DN's against 36 (possibly 40) Beowulfan SD's, that's almost a level of balance, slightly favoring Mannerheim on tonnage, but we are making considerable amounts of WAGs here. Upto 64 DN's would definitely make them a powerful SDF, and also the single most powerful member of the future RF. Yet it's also rather small compared to any official known Navy, the size of a heavy task force, which is also about what Grayson is compared to Manticore, Haven or Andermani navies.


Why would anyone be building dreadnaughts when they could be building SDs?

I'm serious. These people are supposed to be Mesan Alpha lines - that is, they're at the top level of normal human intelligence. If they're building a fleet for what they see as the coming chaos where they want credibility in extending a shield to neighbors, they'd want to go for quantity of something that could stand up to Frontier Fleet squadrons.

Hm. I seem to have answered my own question. A DN would be perfectly adequate to take on several Frontier Fleet BCs, and there aren't likely to be local satraps that have anything larger in any quantity to worry about. If there are, there are those "invisible superdreadnaughts" in reserve.

Although I'm still wondering where they get "plausible deniability" for building such a strange-looking fleet. What's their cover story? It can't be protecting Felix because, first, they don't want anyone to know they're interested in Felix, and second, the baselines that constitute most of the government, etc., didn't even know about Felix and the junction until a few years ago.


A couple of us have posited in the past that the DNs Mannerheim and Erewhon have are actually SLN Scientist or Vega designs, bought from the same shipyards as the SLN, just their navy is classifying them DNs because that is (in reality) what they are in the current classification system.

There are several other options previously mentioned - Mannerheim bought a large # of the old SLN DNs when they flushed them from the reserve 150 years ago and slowly brings them out and refurbs them as needed. It could be that there is no SL design for a larger warship than the Scientist/Vega (due to incompetence, stagnation, or politics), so the Scientist/Vega size is all that can be produced in the SL currently. Or Mannerheim is actively building up, but doesn't want to get in an overt pissing match with the SLN, so they built DNs.
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RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
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Re: Assuming you were in the position of Michelle Henke ...
Post by Theemile   » Sat Aug 06, 2016 11:41 am

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munroburton wrote:
How is that relevant to an argument about Core/Shell SDFs? :roll:

You'd be better off digging up whichever quote it was that indicated there were approximately 25 navies/sdfs with more than a squadron of wallers, 25 with multiple wallers and 25 with singletons. Based on that, this is pretty much the entire battle wall of the whole Honorverse.

http://i.imgur.com/ljbbkPi.png (1920pd, RHN mislabelled as PRN)


It's the infamous 1% quote. Only 1% of navies in the Honorverse, or roughly 25 navies, have more than 1 squadron of wallers (BB-SDs). I believe it was from OBS or HoQ I believe. Later word from David said that another 1% can field 3-7 Wallers, and ~2% own 1-2 White Elephants, whose readiness varies greatly).

As for Navy sizes, The SLN is #1 (DUH)
Haven is mentioned as #2 many times in the series
The RMN is #3 (mentioned in HoS) and was #3 in 1905

So any other navy in the Honorverse is smaller than the RMN was in 1905 - or ~300 wallers and 200 BCs.

It is important that this # does not reflect forts, of which the RMN had ~150 in 1905, and probably closer to 200 now.

David also said that there are no other large polities in the verge than we know about - all the other verge polities are 1 or 2 stars in size, so there isn't another Andermani empire or Silesia on the other side of the map that we have no info on.

we know of 8 polities which are in the 1 % (SLN,RMN,RHN,IAN,GSN,ESN,BSDF,MSDF)and 2 which may be (Talbot and Asgerd). Most of the rest must be SDFs in the SL because the verge nations, without being a large polity or owning a wormhole junction, cannot USUALLY afford a large fleet.
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RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
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Re: Assuming you were in the position of Michelle Henke ...
Post by kzt   » Sat Aug 06, 2016 1:30 pm

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That quote is from an unreliable narrator. If you are not an expert on the navies of the 3000 or so human settled worlds you probably have no real idea what some subset is composed of. BCs are technically wallets, so he's arguing that only 25 navies have a squadron of BCs. In the old Manticore Alliance there were at least 6, so the odds that the entire rest of human space could only produce a total of 16 others (as Haven, the Confederacy and the Andies had BC squadrons) seems unlikely.
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Re: Assuming you were in the position of Michelle Henke ...
Post by JohnRoth   » Sat Aug 06, 2016 1:36 pm

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kzt wrote:That quote is from an unreliable narrator. If you are not an expert on the navies of the 3000 or so human settled worlds you probably have no real idea what some subset is composed of. BCs are technically wallets, so he's arguing that only 25 navies have a squadron of BCs. In the old Manticore Alliance there were at least 6, so the odds that the entire rest of human space could only produce a total of 16 others (as Haven, the Confederacy and the Andies had BC squadrons) seems unlikely.


I thought it was battleships rather than battlecruisers that were considered the smallest wallers. Your point about the unreliable narrator is well taken, but I think we also have Word of God on that. Unfortunately, I don't have that bit of textev to hand.
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Re: Assuming you were in the position of Michelle Henke ...
Post by Somtaaw   » Sat Aug 06, 2016 1:52 pm

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Battlecruisers are the smallest capital ships but the smallest ship that actually goes in the wall is the battleship, very subtle distinction there.

I'm guessing that capital ship means "will have some form of screen", because heavy cruisers were assigned to "screen" Honor's battlecruiser squadron in Hancock, and Tourville regularly took battlecruisers out that also had equal or superior numbers in heavy cruisers for his raids (which suggests there were primarily there as screen).
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Re: Assuming you were in the position of Michelle Henke ...
Post by Weird Harold   » Sat Aug 06, 2016 4:50 pm

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JohnRoth wrote:Why would anyone be building dreadnaughts when they could be building SDs?

I'm serious. These people are supposed to be Mesan Alpha lines - that is, they're at the top level of normal human intelligence. If they're building a fleet for what they see as the coming chaos where they want credibility in extending a shield to neighbors, they'd want to go for quantity of something that could stand up to Frontier Fleet squadrons.


Considering that SLN's Scientist class SDs are barely larger than a DN and not significantly better than a Haven sector DN, a well designed DN could be better than a Scientist-class SD. A fleet of "DNs" wouldn't attract much concern from the SLN yet be bigger and more effective than the SLN's front line SD.

I don't recall any info on just how big or well armed the Mannerheim DNs might be, but it would be an even bet that they are better that the Scientist class -- effectively SDs whatever they call them.
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Re: Assuming you were in the position of Michelle Henke ...
Post by Somtaaw   » Sat Aug 06, 2016 5:03 pm

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Weird Harold wrote:
JohnRoth wrote:Why would anyone be building dreadnaughts when they could be building SDs?

I'm serious. These people are supposed to be Mesan Alpha lines - that is, they're at the top level of normal human intelligence. If they're building a fleet for what they see as the coming chaos where they want credibility in extending a shield to neighbors, they'd want to go for quantity of something that could stand up to Frontier Fleet squadrons.


Considering that SLN's Scientist class SDs are barely larger than a DN and not significantly better than a Haven sector DN, a well designed DN could be better than a Scientist-class SD. A fleet of "DNs" wouldn't attract much concern from the SLN yet be bigger and more effective than the SLN's front line SD.

I don't recall any info on just how big or well armed the Mannerheim DNs might be, but it would be an even bet that they are better that the Scientist class -- effectively SDs whatever they call them.


Yeah we don't have any information at all on Mannerheim DN's. Just (my oft-repeated) a tiny mention about a DN being the flagship of their Task Force Four. The admiral flying his flag there, is part of the MAlign, nearly all of his officers are also MAlign, and he's thought of as being one of Mannerheim's top Admirals. Being one of the Mannerheim Navy's best, means he isn't going to be a political appointee with all the command experience of a Pavel Young.

It's really not a lot of datum to base much of anything except speculations, and that one bit concerning "logic applied to humanity is simply a way to go wrong with confidence" or something like that. Especially when it's logic applied to a fictional environment :lol:
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Re: Assuming you were in the position of Michelle Henke ...
Post by Rowbi   » Sun Aug 07, 2016 1:28 am

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Weird Harold wrote:
JohnRoth wrote:Why would anyone be building dreadnaughts when they could be building SDs?

I'm serious. These people are supposed to be Mesan Alpha lines - that is, they're at the top level of normal human intelligence. If they're building a fleet for what they see as the coming chaos where they want credibility in extending a shield to neighbors, they'd want to go for quantity of something that could stand up to Frontier Fleet squadrons.


Considering that SLN's Scientist class SDs are barely larger than a DN and not significantly better than a Haven sector DN, a well designed DN could be better than a Scientist-class SD. A fleet of "DNs" wouldn't attract much concern from the SLN yet be bigger and more effective than the SLN's front line SD.

I don't recall any info on just how big or well armed the Mannerheim DNs might be, but it would be an even bet that they are better that the Scientist class -- effectively SDs whatever they call them.


Actually the Scientists aren't any larger than the last 3 generations of Manticoran Dreadnoughts. They're the same size or smaller. A Scientist-Class SD is only a million tons heavier than than the 4 generation back Royal Winton-Class DN (Commissioned 1846 PD). The Gladiator-Class DN (Commissioned 1868 PD) was slightly bigger at 6.846 mt, the Majestic-Class DN (Commissioned 1896 PD) just a little smaller was 6.75 mt, and the Bellerophon-Class DN (Commissioned 1900 PD) was almost 200 kt heavier at 6.985 mt.

Based on what DW has told us about the Scientist and Vega-Classes in Mission of Honor and what is said about the Bellerophon-Class in House of Steel; I would bet that the Bellerophon's of the first Haven War could take on Scientist at a 2 to 3 disadvantage and still carry the day. A Bellerophon that has been refit (if there are any) with MDM's, Ghost Rider, and all the other Manticoran advantages would wipe the floor with 4 or 5 times its number of Scientiest-Class "SD's" easily.
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Re: Assuming you were in the position of Michelle Henke ...
Post by Weird Harold   » Sun Aug 07, 2016 2:34 am

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Rowbi wrote:Actually the Scientists aren't any larger than the last 3 generations of Manticoran Dreadnoughts. They're the same size or smaller. A Scientist-Class SD is only a million tons heavier than than the 4 generation back Royal Winton-Class DN (Commissioned 1846 PD). The Gladiator-Class DN (Commissioned 1868 PD) was slightly bigger at 6.846 mt, the Majestic-Class DN (Commissioned 1896 PD) just a little smaller was 6.75 mt, and the Bellerophon-Class DN (Commissioned 1900 PD) was almost 200 kt heavier at 6.985 mt.


Thanks for the numbers, but the exact Manticore numbers are mostly frosting on a side-issue. The question is really how big Mannerheim's "DN" classes are, and that we don't know.

Whatever size they are, having a few dozen "DNs" will bother the SLN and Mandarins less than having half as many "SDs" would. The SLN isn't going to follow up and investigate a bunch of DNs because the SLN has thousands of SDs and "SDs are better than DNs."

It's an institutional blindness/arrogance that has resulted in situations like RMN destroyers totally vaporizing SLN-FF Battle Cruisers.

Given the MAlign/RF associations, I'll be totally unsurprised to find out that Mannerheim's DNs are comparable to the RMN's Bellerophon-class or bigger/better
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Answers! I got lots of answers!

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Re: Assuming you were in the position of Michelle Henke ...
Post by Lord Skimper   » Mon Aug 08, 2016 8:26 am

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1. contact the Andies and ask if they could send a suitable force to hold Mesa, while she takes and holds the terminus.

2. Take and hold the Terminus under Lacoon II.

3. Secure the systems she used to get to Mesa.
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