"Obsolete SDs" Waste not...

Ed130 The Vanguard" quote="Torlek wrote:

blackjack217 wrote:To be honest, I've thought at bit about this, and came to the conclusion that the only possible use militarily for these ships are twofold:
1. Selling them to idiot separatist core worlds that Mantacore doesn't like/trust to finance the Manty government. Hey, money is money.
2. For wormhole assaults. If the Manty's need to assault through the Torch wormhole for some reason they can automate some of these ships, and send them through to shoot up anything in beam range and soak up mines. They'd only do this because casualties on that sort of operation are appalling, and these ships are useless for anything else anyway.

To your first point: Have you ever noticed some crackpot third world dictator buy an old USN Aircraft carrier? This would be unlikely for much the same reasons.

To your second point: We have word of god that while they could be somewhat more automated with considerable effort, they can not be automated enough for suicide missions.

The Invincible was to be sold to Australia if the Falklands war didn't blow up. The Indian carrier was a former Kiev class and Brazil's flagship was the Foch, an ex-French Clemenceau-class aircraft carrier. Disposing them to trusted star nations could be viable.[/quote]


Yes and no on that. What allied nations do with ships is buy them for little more than scrap value and upgrade the electronics with off the shelf gear. FYI when Taiwan purchased its Knox class frigates was to replace the worn out boilers with diesel engines and upgrade the electronics and some of the weapons. The new owners get a fairly up-to-date ship for a quarter of the cost of a new ship.

Basing any long term strategy or policies on what happened at Fourth Yeltsin is unwise. For one thing, it was way before MDMs changed the nature of combat.

And even after MDMs changed things, the old paradigm that an inferior attacking force retreats stands. When the defenders are unexpectedly more powerful, the attacker disengages - it happened with podnaughts at Sidemore, Trevor's Star, Solon. 4th Yeltsin was a shock because Honor successfully concealed her SDs from the Peep force - which foolishly divided its forces before the engagement.

So using these old SDs as system defense flagships means they'll be a known quantity. Any attacker will know they need to set aside a few hundred missiles for them and make sure to stay out of energy range. No contribution other than to get 6,000 crew killed - or humiliatingly dumped into space, like Honor did to inadequate Havenite SDFs.

Welcome to the forums Lawyerjohnb. Hope the energetic response to your first post hasn't frightened you off. We really are friendly here. *MOSTLY*...

Yes, there are many uses for them. Unfortunately you run up against the knee jerk "NOT INVENTED HERE" syndrome of those on the forum who only will discuss what has already been proscribed in text. Projecting the future is hard. Vision to use less than perfect equipment is also difficult. It is not "efficient" when you have a store you can walk to and buy new. It is a common human trait.

No one wants to admit they are 2nd class and deserve 2nd class equipment. Or in this case, 3rd class. Especially in those who are used to going to a hardware store and buying whatever they want, whenever they want without any idea to the immense logistics and manufacturing pipeline such a store encompasses. Anyone who doesn't live in a 1st world(class) nation and is actually on this forum, or those of us who aren't flush in cash, or live far away from a city, have to live in the reality that "waste not want not", is the first creed of surviving. Anyone living in a 2nd class or 3rd class nation is infinitely aware of their status. Trying to get 1st class nation citizens to think like a 2nd or 3rd class citizen with all of its manifest limitations is very difficult if one has not experienced it themselves.

Depending on how many ships Manticore and the GA needs, no it makes no sense for them to use them. But selling/giving them away to desired allies? Yes, makes infinite sense.

There are literally thousands of 2nd/3rd class nations who would love to have them. They don't stick their noses in the air at "hand-me-down" goods. They are just happy to have something to work with. To modify. To bootstrap their industry with. To improve themselves. To defend themselves with.

Then add that most have no idea how hard it is to design, manufacture, test, from scratch without something to copy, gets the response you get on this forum and in life in general really. It is always easier to say "NO" than, hrmmm, let me think about it.

Lawyerjohnb wrote:Having read the whole Honor series and its offshoots for the nth time while awaiting the publication of the new novel, it strikes me that a resource is being wasted in the narative. (at least at this point in the series)
The Grand Alliance possess at least 100 SDs it captured from the Solarian League (Filaretta and Crandall). More, if the less damaged ones are counted.
Obsolete or not, this is a VERY large capital investment in VERY big, still functioning starships with VERY heavy, if obsolete, combat capability.
Bearing in mind what Honor, way back when, did to the invaders of Grayson with 6 rebuilt SDs, it strikes me that sending one or two of these to each system in the Talbot sector and/or Silesia, and then to the verge/shell systems liberated by Mike Henke would be a very efficient use of assets. They could act as flagships/life support outposts, education centers for new crew, anti pirate and anti raider bulwarks etc. etc. With a wing of modern LACs in each system as the mobile element, even without the Mycroft system it would free up a LOT of fleet assets for whatever they need to do.. Big energy weapons are still big energy weapons. God knows that have enough captured missiles
Comments?.

The first round of frosty Old Tillman brew is on us. So are the next 6 rounds. Glug glug glug! ... Belch! Belch! Ahh!

Please do not let the Nazi aspects of this Forum wear you down. Just because its been addressed before don't matter.

Runs For Celery, (Mr. Weber) has said that as combat platforms the Sollie captures are pretty worthless. So what to do?

Dunno. Like already said, probably the best thing would be just to chop up and recycle them all. Some scrap value probably.

Or ... Shut them down and use them for cheap orbiting whatever? But Space Is A Harsh Mistress and very non forgiving.

What might eventually happen is that the cheapest way to get rid of them all is just to nudge them into the nearest star?

This topic just won't die. The simplest way to put it to bed is "Because RFC said so". His universe, his rules and outcomes.
I believe one of the reasons for its persistence is that we are all SiFi readers who remember lots of good stories where Earth is visited by space going invaders and we can't do much to stop them.
A single Solarian SD would have stopped the invaders in -
Larry Niven's Lucifer's Hammer, Harry Turtledove's Worldwar, RFC's own Out of the Dark, John Ringo's Troy, or any number of epics.
Thus it is hard for us to accept that hundreds of undamaged ones are worthless. On the other hand the Argentinian experience where their obsolete WW2 cruiser Belgrano was sunk by a modern submarine does indicate that these ships are useless in the Honorverse at that time.

Daryl wrote:This topic just won't die. The simplest way to put it to bed is "Because RFC said so". His universe, his rules and outcomes.
I believe one of the reasons for its persistence is that we are all SiFi readers who remember lots of good stories where Earth is visited by space going invaders and we can't do much to stop them.
A single Solarian SD would have stopped the invaders in -
Larry Niven's Lucifer's Hammer, Harry Turtledove's Worldwar, RFC's own Out of the Dark, John Ringo's Troy, or any number of epics.
Thus it is hard for us to accept that hundreds of undamaged ones are worthless. On the other hand the Argentinian experience where their obsolete WW2 cruiser Belgrano was sunk by a modern submarine does indicate that these ships are useless in the Honorverse at that time.

How many Vega/Scientists to stop the Posleen? Or the Borg?

Relax wrote:No one wants to admit they are 2nd class and deserve 2nd class equipment. Or in this case, 3rd class.

I think you're being insulting to 3rd-class equipment.

Those who think the captured SLN SDs have any military value to anyone are under-estimating just how obsolete they are. It is much like advocating that HMS Victory and USS Constitution be given to Ethiopia as the core of their navy.

Most of the arguments for gifting the captured ships are good arguments for giving away the smaller ships, but the SDs should be reserved for any emerging nation Manticore wants to drive into bankruptcy.

One thing is that it is seems to be SOP for the crew of surrendering ship to slag their computers before turning it over. So even a ship that was not damaged in battle will require some hefty repairs.

Just a question how big of a crew would be needed for an SD just to ferry a ship from one system to another?

To put the obsolescence of the captured SDs into prospective requires an understanding of their age and why they were still active. We can date the Scientist class to post 1750 pre 1780, provisionally. We know from their energy battery they are post 1750ish (lack of energy torpedoes being mentioned, even as original equipment, plus the mass of the RMN Manticore class gives that), and the inclusion of autocannon pd gives a soft 1780ish as a max, though it was pointed out that they could have had a hybrid pd system.
But more to the point is the fact that the captured SD class was still viable until very recently owes itself to that energy battery, which when not faced with the MDM or the ERM, it gives them an extra layer of defense. As for it using relatively light mounts, well they were supposed to deploy at 2 to 1 advantages minimum. Now that energy battery is effectively useless, except for swatting over adventurous LACs, save for the fact that it is mostly lasers, which probably lack the range.