Ship building logistics

I was thinking of shipbuilding in the Honorverse.

We know that manticore could build a super Dreadnought in 14 months, as their Space stations were still active.

We know that they develope new ship Systems like better wedge Generators, micro Fusion reactors, grasers, missles and so on.

So, the conclusion is, that manticore can build the hulls and every ship System for therthelfs.

I don´t know if they have to buy something of the production chain like microchips or else.


How does the solarians build ships?

I visit the VW car factory in Wolfsburg a few years ago. The only thing they produce their by theirself is the Chassis. Everything else comes from other factory´s or even other companies.

So, it could be, that some shipyard´s in the league do the same.

Reactors come from planet A, engines from planet B, sensors from planet C, life Support from planet D and so on.

So, it could be, that Lacoon not only hit the solarian economy. It could be, that it hit also the solarian ability to build ships.

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... ngton/91/1

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... ngton/89/1

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/290/1

It's actually 23 months, not 14 for a Manty-style waller. The GSNS Honor Harrington was completed in a record 16 months and that was only possible by diverting components bound for her sisters, delaying their completion.

You're right that some places in the League may export ship components. In the Manticore Ascendant series, they were discussing the importing of impeller rings amongst other items they couldn't produce locally to build their own ships. That was several hundred years ago - those systems are probably exporting Solarian-made LACs to minor SDFs nowadays.

The Solarians have an impressive-sounding Hyperion Yard orbiting Mars. My bet would be that Hephaestus and the other two were based on the Solarian shipbuilding model, as reapplied to a star system with three inhabited planets.

There's also Technodyne of Yildun, one of the SLN's primary builders. Yildun's a system with no inhabitable planets, but a substantial space-borne presence due to abdundant minerals and a wormhole junction.

Good point there, though - if the Sollies operate a "globalised," distributed form of ship production then Laocoon will disrupt it.

munroburton wrote:http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/entry/Harrington/91/1

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... ngton/89/1

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/290/1

It's actually 23 months, not 14 for a Manty-style waller. The GSNS Honor Harrington was completed in a record 16 months and that was only possible by diverting components bound for her sisters, delaying their completion.

You're right that some places in the League may export ship components. In the Manticore Ascendant series, they were discussing the importing of impeller rings amongst other items they couldn't produce locally to build their own ships. That was several hundred years ago - those systems are probably exporting Solarian-made LACs to minor SDFs nowadays.

The Solarians have an impressive-sounding Hyperion Yard orbiting Mars. My bet would be that Hephaestus and the other two were based on the Solarian shipbuilding model, as reapplied to a star system with three inhabited planets.

There's also Technodyne of Yildun, one of the SLN's primary builders. Yildun's a system with no inhabitable planets, but a substantial space-borne presence due to abdundant minerals and a wormhole junction.

Good point there, though - if the Sollies operate a "globalised," distributed form of ship production then Laocoon will disrupt it.

For the GSN Harrington's components were diverted from the Steadholder Dirvinski class SD'S which delayed their completion by 12-18 months. Also a lot of companies in the RW by components from all over the place take a look at Boeing Aircraft it assembles aircraft in the Seattle area and Wichita KS but gets wing components from Spokane WA and buys jet engines from multiple sources IIRC Prat & Whitney Long Island NY, General Electric Cleveland OH and Rolls Royce England.

The fact that Manticore could start production of pretty much all their most sophisticated weapon systems on Beowulf pretty clearly means that there is no supply chain. You just supply plans and the nanofabricator turns out a finished system.

The manties had central ship building yards, while Grayson had dispersed ship yard berths. I can see both being used in manticore. I can see facilities in Lynx and in Trevor star. There might be disperse units in the quadrant, but not necessarily the most important. Refit and repair stations, as well as lesser duties.

I recall that Manticore adopted disperse yards during the war. This is how they increased their ship building capacity dramatically during the conflict with Haven.

rdelorme16 wrote:I recall that Manticore adopted disperse yards during the war. This is how they increased their ship building capacity dramatically during the conflict with Haven.

They eventually adopted some dispersal in their Yards, but Grayson also accepted a lower efficiency in doing it that way. They knew Manticore's method of having everything attached would boost their efficiency by another 20-30%, but they chose to continue doing it 'their way'; which still worked out in their favor when building components and selling them to Manticore due to lower wages and costs.


The primary method of Manticoran construction, has always been their station yards, which according to one of the Detweiler bits (I think as Leonard Detweiler was going to congratulate the first deployment of the Sharks), even the Solarians realize Manticore is the undisputed best at shipbuilding. I don't have the quote for that handy, but I could do diving for it.

Somtaaw wrote:

rdelorme16 wrote:I recall that Manticore adopted disperse yards during the war. This is how they increased their ship building capacity dramatically during the conflict with Haven.

They eventually adopted some dispersal in their Yards, but Grayson also accepted a lower efficiency in doing it that way. They knew Manticore's method of having everything attached would boost their efficiency by another 20-30%, but they chose to continue doing it 'their way'; which still worked out in their favor when building components and selling them to Manticore due to lower wages and costs.


The primary method of Manticoran construction, has always been their station yards, which according to one of the Detweiler bits (I think as Leonard Detweiler was going to congratulate the first deployment of the Sharks), even the Solarians realize Manticore is the undisputed best at shipbuilding. I don't have the quote for that handy, but I could do diving for it.

I believe those would be the best sources for shipyard/shipbuilding info.

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... ngton/89/1

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... ngton/91/1

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/276/1

The second link contains an extract from Echoes of Honor, which the author further expands on.

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... ington/71/ also looks at the armouring of warships.

Keep in mind that Manticore's tech advantage (besides micro-minitiarization in their battle-oriented computers and reactors) has always been the ship's ability to keep the crew alive to fight the ship effectively despite increasing levels of battle damage.

The destruction of the human component aboard the space stations IS the critical damage. Given that they had something like 5 million people building warships with nano-tech and super-ceramics, the 21st Century equivalent would be "take out the GE, Rolls Royce, etc. facilities that build jet engines, the Boeing, Lockheed, and Northrup factories that build the bombers, and the armament factories that make the air-to-air missiles and the guided-bombs.... including every tech that worked at those locations. Assume all of the how-to is backed up but WWIII breaks out... and you have to build new airplane, engine, and munitions factories from SCRATCH.... after training enough workers to milspec quality levels, including top-secret clearance vetting, etc.

Or you can go back to building B-29's and hope for the best. OH wait. B-29 engines are more complicated and don't work as well as et engines, sorry. So it is rocket science after all.

The logistical challenge isn't just the materials and tech specs. It still takes folks likely with the Honorverse equivalent of Master's Degree skills to build the ships.

Where is/was klaus Hauptman's shipyards? He built the Pottawattomee Creek et al for Torch. Wasn't he also building cargo ships? RFC is niggardly with such information. There must be someonr building alpha nodes and beta nodes for commercial vessels.

Also it is much harder for SKM to have multiple sources for components vis-a-vis the SL.

Different companies leasing space on Haphaestus each producing their specialized compnents? Just wondering.