First New Manticore Ships

George J. Smith wrote:What class will the first ships to be built in the new Manticore yards be?

Frigates made for Medusans with cat commanders armed with TWTMNBN

First ships out? Probably repair ships. If they didn't "acquire" enough of them from the Sollies. It will have been years since the ships have seen a repair yard. The existing repair ships will have been worked to the nubbins as well.

First actual warship? New BCL probably due to RFC's love affair with the BC class in general. Seems Manticore is swamped in new DD's/CL's at the moment according to HoS.

Seems Manticore is swamped in new DD's/CL's at the moment according to HoS.

Maybe, maybe not.
HoS cuts off before BoMa and (more importantly) OB.
We have no idea how many ships were destroyed during OB, other than it represents a significant loss of combat power according to White Haven.

Given the fact the RMN had manpower shortages after BoMa (for some dumb reason), its possible they acutally mothballed smaller units to come up with the neccessary crews (especially experienced officers).
Those ships would likley be destroyed during OB

Also HoS doesnt cover losses of older ships during the Havenite Wars at all. Some building numbers might look impressive, but i wouldnt bet on many Apollos and Valiants surviving until 1922.

Then there is Silesia. According to HoS many Avalons (and nearly all Kamerlings) were given to Sarnows command for some reason. Personally i dont understand why he needs so many ships, little more than one ships for each system is more than enough to police half of Silesia, but whatever.

All in all i wouldn't be suprised if the RMN has less than 100 CLs (pretty much only Avalons) available for offensive operations against the SLN.
And probably a similar number of Rolands/Culverins/Wolfhounds.

Also, the numbers given in HoS are dubious at best, especially for wallers. They dont work at all with the numbers and clues provided in the actual series (especially AAC).

LACs are pretty much factory built to get the numbers they have. So there is a LOT of work needed to get there, as they also use specialized parts not use elsewhere. Like somewhere to refine the plutonium, as that would have blown up and was probably in Grayson anyhow.

I suspect they would start with DDs as they are more common and require less trained workers per, and cost less to throw away. Realize the first few ships are likely to be very slow to build and at least somewhat flawed as 90 some percent of the workforce is building their first ship.

Who said they will build normal carrier LAC´s? It is more than time, that the Empire get´s a pure System defense LAC, specialized for System patrols and freighter Investigation. And such vessel don´t need a nuclear rector.

LAC´s are also a good choice for trainig your new personal. Remember: Vulcan and Hepheistos are destroyed, but Saganami Island is still working and producing new crew´s.

Nike BC(L) Yes you could build small but You don't need small ships now. Yes you could build small yards or you could just build large yards and build more small ships in larger yards. No need to build one ship per yard. No need to build the way you used to build. New tech automation in everything.

Then you build for the role you need and Manties need larger ships first. SD(P) are being built elsewhere and Nike are not. Saganami C are great and will be of high priority but Sag C can't do the role they are doing while Nike can. In Peace time you build Small in War time you build large.

Add in evolutions of each ship Sag C becomes Sag D, Nike becomes Nike B. ...

Star Knight wrote:

Seems Manticore is swamped in new DD's/CL's at the moment according to HoS.

Maybe, maybe not.
HoS cuts off before BoMa and (more importantly) OB.
We have no idea how many ships were destroyed during OB, other than it represents a significant loss of combat power according to White Haven.

Given the fact the RMN had manpower shortages after BoMa (for some dumb reason), its possible they acutally mothballed smaller units to come up with the neccessary crews (especially experienced officers).
Those ships would likley be destroyed during OB

Mothballed ships aren't parked at the stations - they're probably orbiting one of Manticore's moons, if not one of the inner planets. Otherwise, they're occupying precious repair slips or being a hazard to traffic navigation. There was no specific mention of OB targeting anything other than the stations and the dispersed construction slips.

The ships lost that White Haven referred to were those docked for repairs and maintenance, like Hexapuma. Those would be mostly modern ships stretched past their regular maintenance periods in the run-up to the python lump or damaged in recent battles.

Anywhere between 5 to 25% of the active fleet could be down in this manner. Serious combat power indeed.

munroburton wrote:Mothballed ships aren't parked at the stations - they're probably orbiting one of Manticore's moons, if not one of the inner planets.
Otherwise, they're occupying precious repair slips or being a hazard to traffic navigation. There was no specific mention of OB targeting anything other than the stations and the dispersed construction slips.

Parking them somewhere suitable at the station doesnt mean they take up precious repair slips.
The number of construction yards at the stations may be limited, but there should be more than enough room to park ship somewhere near them. Space is big.
If you think about it, there should be ships waiting for yards to become available all the time anyway.
And parking them somewhere else is just inconvenient for logistical support / routine maintenance.

Dont forget, we are talking about Manticore here. According to RFC they basically concentrated everything remotely related to navy logistics there. Its not far fetched at all for mothballed ships to be park in the immediate vicinity as well.

munroburton wrote:The ships lost that White Haven referred to were those docked for repairs and maintenance, like Hexapuma. Those would be mostly modern ships stretched past their regular maintenance periods in the run-up to the python lump or damaged in recent battles.
Anywhere between 5 to 25% of the active fleet could be down in this manner. Serious combat power indeed

Maybe, maybe not. If you think about it, there shouldnt be many ships in the yards. The operational tempo post BoMa was very low, no active combat operations at all. And most of the Mantie fleet is newly build anyway, not real reason for extended yard time.

munroburton wrote:
Mothballed ships aren't parked at the stations - they're probably orbiting one of Manticore's moons, if not one of the inner planets. Otherwise, they're occupying precious repair slips or being a hazard to traffic navigation. There was no specific mention of OB targeting anything other than the stations and the dispersed construction slips.

The ships lost that White Haven referred to were those docked for repairs and maintenance, like Hexapuma. Those would be mostly modern ships stretched past their regular maintenance periods in the run-up to the python lump or damaged in recent battles.

Anywhere between 5 to 25% of the active fleet could be down in this manner. Serious combat power indeed.

Manticore as a rule has less than 15% of the fleet should be down at any time for refit/repair. The only time it was exceeded was during the push for Trevor's Star, and the effects of the draw down after the push (with 25% of the fleet down for maintenance) allowed McQueen's Icarus assault, and probably will not be repeated.

In addition, Manticore has refit/repair stations at Sidemore, Hancock Station, Basilisk, and Trevor's Star, as well as fleet mobile assets, so not all the ~5-12% of the fleet under maintenance was in Manticore or Blackbird shipyards at the time of the attack.

However, you also must account for any ships under construction or fitting out which were at the station prior to launch, of which we were shown 4 ships in such condition being destroyed. Many of these ships would already have whole or partial crews, living on ship or nearby, and would have been lost during the attack.

As for the point on the reserve ships not residing at the stations, an important point supporting the survival si that the RMN was able to return the ~70 captured RHN SD(p)s AFTER BoMA to the RHN - so whatever repository they were at was not collocated with the stations and thus not targeted, proving that there are other RMN installations in the system that were untouched, and such a repository (by definition) is most likely the location of (at least part of) the RMN reserve.

Those SD(P) were foreign units and i doubt Manticore had any intention of doing something with them.
If i remember correctly, RFC even indicated that they would most likely be scrapped before ART came out.
So they probably dumped them at a boneyard or something.
Not really comparable with ships temporarily mothballed due to manpower shortages.

White Havens 'significant loss of combat power' needs to materialize somehow.
I dont think the couple of ships lost because they still were in the process of fitting out after the python lump would matter that much.

Henry Brown wrote:

ericth wrote:If I recall, RFC has said that the next generation beyond the Medusa-Bs that were mostly destroyed by Oyster Bay would be the ones produced.

Aside from missile production, it's a bit of a poser as to which ships will get priority. I was re-reading SftS and Thomas Caparelli mentioned they didnt at that time have the manpower to crew another large building surge beyond what they were working on, and most of that launched just before Oyster Bay.

I'm guessing that replacement of existing inventory with new build ships, but not a huge expansion in hulls is the first order of business.

Did any Medusa-Bs actually ever get produced? I thought they were still building Invictus class ships when Oyster Bay happened. If I remember, Buships was trying to maximize build rates so they kept building Invictuses because of the time delay that would be involved in putting the Medusa-B design into production.

The Python Lump - the mass of SD(p)s laid down at the beginning of the war and completed after BoMA, were Invicti, because the design was already optimized for mass production. However, there were 35 slips in which 1st war builds of Invicti were emptied in early to mid 1920, which were available to build some prototype Medusa-Bs (or follow-on Invictus builds). Following the timeline, it is possible that the first few of these ships may have completed in the weeks preceding Oyster Bay (or were about to launch in the weeks following it)

Were any built and completed? We don't know, it's not in text and David's not talking. However, David did say that Manticore's 3rd generation Podnaught (Medusa-B) program was being passed up and would not be the design built after the rebuild - which is not the same as saying none were completed prior to OB.

Of note, MaxxQ did release a series of details concerning compensators a few weeks ago and the Medusa B was on the list - he did say he edited the list and did not share many designs on the original list he didn't feel relevant or didn't recognize. So it's inclusion could mean nothing - or everything...

A planet's moon is hardly an inconvenient location for a Navy that has its three major bases located around three different planets around two different stars.

Indeed, a little distance is perfect for security considerations. Declaring a no-go area around a moon serves that function whilst keeping those assets close by and covered by the general defensive umbrella.

Theemile wrote:Manticore as a rule has less than 15% of the fleet should be down at any time for refit/repair. The only time it was exceeded was during the push for Trevor's Star, and the effects of the draw down after the push (with 25% of the fleet down for maintenance) allowed McQueen's Icarus assault, and probably will not be repeated.

Their efforts to keep the fleet highly maintained after the post-Trevor's Star pause are given. This combined with the need to keep everything covered after First Manticore, IMO, should equal a surge in maintenance work starting as soon as the python lump commissioned.

Star Knight wrote:White Havens 'significant loss of combat power' needs to materialize somehow.
I dont think the couple of ships lost because they still were in the process of fitting out after the python lump would matter that much.

First, even a 5% loss is a significant number, especially after the carnage of First Manticore. Second, the older ships do not represent 'significant' combat power. Third, they had about 100 to 200 new hulls being laid down.