Where where the Beowulf Super Dreadnoughts built?

drothgery wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:The thing to remember is that as of the start of the series in 1900 PD "Solarian Crap" was top-of-the-line hardware and Beowulf already had all, or most, of their SDs already in commission. That means the BSDF has Scientist Class equivalents that don't have anything more advanced than 1900-vintage Manticore tech, which isn't all that advanced over "Solarian crap."

Manticore wasn't much more technologically advanced than the SLN in 1900 (except for things that BSDF couldn't use without blowing their cover, like first-gen FTL comm and advanced missile pods), but SLN warship designs have been pretty much out of date since the introduction of the laser head. Heck, I'd take a first war era Havenite SD over a 'current' SLN design.

Well because of their far larger focus on missile combat I’d bet that even the 1900 RMN missile tubes and CM launchers already had better cyclic times than the SLN ines do. The 1920 era ones are several times more missiles per minute per launcher.

That’s not a sexy tech advance, but it’d be a telling one in prolonged missile combat.

drothgery wrote:Manticore wasn't much more technologically advanced than the SLN in 1900 (except for things that BSDF couldn't use without blowing their cover, like first-gen FTL comm and advanced missile pods), but SLN warship designs have been pretty much out of date since the introduction of the laser head. Heck, I'd take a first war era Havenite SD over a 'current' SLN design.

That is pretty much the point. There simply wasn't any significant "tech advantage" for the BSDF to take advantage of, especially when the majority of their SDs were already built to be compatible with SLN hardware. They might be more similar to Vega-class than Scientist-class, but they are basically SLN designs.

They might have better computers running the same basic programs, or the BSDF's tactical or strategic doctrines might be better. (probably worlds better. ) They may have better drones or decoys than SLN standard issue, but the ships themselves are at best, not much better than a Vega-class.

Another thing to watch in the comparison to 1900 PD SKM versus BSDF is how much of the hardware is legacy when it comes to wallers. Like another said, the design philosophy of wallers in the Laser head era is important.

The RMN never had a large wall until King Roger began his reforms. The King William class differs quite a bit from the previous Manty SD's in greatly increasing the missile broadsides, ~40 from 24 in the Manticore class and 18 in the Ad Astra Class (which to be fair is really more a dreadnought). Later ships like the Gryphon don't actually increase the broadsides in favor of other changes.

The Scientist class, for example, only has 32 broadsides and the Vega 34.

We don't know how the budget cycle has been for the BSDF. We don't know if they use replacing/refitting their homefleet over a cycle of years as way to hold on to the skills to build SDs when the export market is low.

If the Beowulf government was paying attention and doing active building programs, then their entire fleet may be up to pre-war standards as it comes to overall designs. But if they've had budget issues or political demands that slow their cycle (after all its the SDF for a Core World close to Sol and the undefeatable SLN so even if the Peeps took Manticore, fixed Terminus defenses would be more than enough); then it may include a lot more legacy equipment. The RMN after all, kept the Ad Astra class in service over 150 years after they stopped making them.

Looks like one of the most important questions about the Beowulf fleet is his age.

Another question is the place they are build.

Manticore and Beowulf are connected by a whormhole, so the are only hours traveltime away. Manticore had an very big shipyard. Do you really think another shipyard could survive with such a big competitor so close?

I think it is possible that the Beowulf superdreadnoughts are build at Manticore before the war. We all know that the manticorian Navy is an very active navy because of their anti pirate patrols in Silesia. The solarian Battlefleet on the other hand was only sitting at their bases and doing nothing. So, if the Bewuld ships were buid at Manticore before the war, they could be better than the solarian ships because of experience in duty.

I wonder if Beowulf got them for a "deal" from the Solarian Reserve Fleet and updated them themselves?

The economics of building warships at home or contracting them elcewhere get twisted badly when the politics of it is figured in.

One of the questions you have to ask is why Beowulf had such a large SDF in the first place. After all, they were an early member of the League and would have the ability to call on the SLN to protect them. Minor though still of considerable importentce would be the need for Beowulf to provide commerce protection to its own merchant fleet and cover the routes to it from it's major and minor trading partners at least as far as areas not activly patrolled by SLN (which is probably a vast amount of territory.)
I suspect that a major reason, if not the major reason, was the rise of PRH and the potential that the agressive and aquisitive Star Nation was probablly going to get around to attacking Manticore both for the system's wealth and it's major asset, the Wormhole Junction. While there would be treaties involved between Beowulf and Manticore about the Sigma Draconis terminus and it seems to be a jointly held corporation running it, that would mean little if Haven either took just the Junction or conquered Manticore and occupied both ends of the leg to Beowulf. 30 SDs (now) probably wouldn't have kept PRH from comming after the Beowulf end of the terminus though hyperspace if they thought they could get away with it, but it would give them pause to think about Beowulf's abiity to defend the wormhole starting with imminent threat (such as PRH having taken the Manticore System) and scream for the SLN to show up with a couple of hundred SDs (or at the time Dreadnaughts) to defend both the Beowulf System and the terminus. That, of course, would have also carried a major cost in the League extracting concessions from it's member of said protection and defence. Beowulf isn't run by a bunch of idiots.

Beowulf does not seem to have any SLN presence in it's system though it could be expected that there would be periodic goodwill visits. The same for the terminus though we haven't seen any prior SLN movement through any of the Junction wormholes. There must be some agreements in place but nothing has been mentioned about any SLN transits, neither BF (probably unlikely) nor FF.
Since we don't really have any background on why BF bases its forces where it does it has to be speculation about the lack of SLN's representation at Beowulf. It is quite possible that Beowulf has not wanted the Navy there as the political and potential difficulties with League corruption and influence (and direct medeling with Beowufian poiticis) outweigh any potential economic advantage such as selling supplies and support to the SLN on station or passing through.
We have the background of Beowulf haveing a number of daughter colonies and a network of close trading partners (some of which are now apparently conspiring to grab trade and other things from Beowulf along with influence) so it is likely that Beowulf grew it's SDF intialy for local protection and then colonial protection and commerce protection. That leads to not wanting to buy ships (and weapons and munitions and all sorts of things) from other places so they license the designs and grow their own shipyard capasity to build this stuff at home (and probably some for export) and keep the money in-system. That also lets them grow the repair and service side of the interstellar transport business.

While SLN may "know what they have", they don't understand what they have as far as a functioning SDF which is motivated and probably experienced, probably well beyond what at least Battle Fleet is in actualy being a navy and fighting more than budget and PR battles along with gaming the system for graft and patronage. We also haven't been told that ANYBODY patricpates in maneuvers or war games with SLN, certainly not been told that BSDF excercies with them. So BSDF, along with what experience it has doing real work in it's own commerce and other roles, has been learning by participating with at least RMN.

Beowulf probably has built the majority of it's ships which were constructed in the last 50 odd years and by this time done what retrofits possible. It is quite possible they are in the process of now buiding their first couple of RMN design SDs along with smaller ships- they certainly are already building a lot of the peices of them and have the designes and specs to do that.

Maldorian wrote:Looks like one of the most important questions about the Beowulf fleet is his age.

Another question is the place they are build.

Manticore and Beowulf are connected by a whormhole, so the are only hours traveltime away. Manticore had an very big shipyard. Do you really think another shipyard could survive with such a big competitor so close?

I think it is possible that the Beowulf superdreadnoughts are build at Manticore before the war. We all know that the manticorian Navy is an very active navy because of their anti pirate patrols in Silesia. The solarian Battlefleet on the other hand was only sitting at their bases and doing nothing. So, if the Bewuld ships were buid at Manticore before the war, they could be better than the solarian ships because of experience in duty.

Unless they are rather new ships, the Manties did not build them. In the HoS and Jayne's Errata, a large point was made about the difficulties producing the Royal Winton, Samothrace and King William classes - the first classes built of the buildup. Being over 75 years since the last SD was built, Manticore literally had to build the infrastructure and support structure for building Wallers, and specifically had no experience (and lots of issues) in mass production of such complex ships.

Now, Beowulf has been a production powerhouse since before the creation of the Star League. Chances are higher that they produced their ships than the Manties did. Also of note - David's comment I am currently using as my sig. Namely that updating Beowulf wallers to Manty technology would be as difficult as the SLN ships. While not a smoking gun - it shows that their ships are considerabley behind the curve.

Theemile wrote:

Maldorian wrote:Looks like one of the most important questions about the Beowulf fleet is his age.

Another question is the place they are build.

Manticore and Beowulf are connected by a whormhole, so the are only hours traveltime away. Manticore had an very big shipyard. Do you really think another shipyard could survive with such a big competitor so close?

I think it is possible that the Beowulf superdreadnoughts are build at Manticore before the war. We all know that the manticorian Navy is an very active navy because of their anti pirate patrols in Silesia. The solarian Battlefleet on the other hand was only sitting at their bases and doing nothing. So, if the Bewuld ships were buid at Manticore before the war, they could be better than the solarian ships because of experience in duty.

Unless they are rather new ships, the Manties did not build them. In the HoS and Jayne's Errata, a large point was made about the difficulties producing the Royal Winton, Samothrace and King William classes - the first classes built of the buildup. Being over 75 years since the last SD was built, Manticore literally had to build the infrastructure and support structure for building Wallers, and specifically had no experience (and lots of issues) in mass production of such complex ships.

Now, Beowulf has been a production powerhouse since before the creation of the Star League. Chances are higher that they produced their ships than the Manties did. Also of note - David's comment I am currently using as my sig. Namely that updating Beowulf wallers to Manty technology would be as difficult as the SLN ships. While not a smoking gun - it shows that their ships are considerabley behind the curve.

I don't think there was competition between the shipbuilders. Beowulf predated the SL. For its own trade and commerce it had to rely on its own resources. I don't know what it may have had to defend itself against, but it would have always had to build its own SDF and M-PARS equivalents.

As late as the Travis Long series, Manticore had -0- merchant marine to speak of and no shipbuilding capacity. By King Roger's reign it was developing a combat construction program and had no surplus capacity for building ships for others.

What Roger's program was developing was uber secret, I seriously doubt the Navy was sharing weapons secrets with anyone. And at that time Beowulf and Haven were on good terms too. All three were the strongest enforcers of the Cherwell Convention. Which, if I read correctly was the main purpose of the BSDF, besides being the most elite special forces unit in The League.

pappilon wrote:All three were the strongest enforcers of the Cherwell Convention. Which, if I read correctly was the main purpose of the BSDF, besides being the most elite special forces unit in The League.

You'r confusing the BSDF with the BSC. That's Self Defense Force with Biological Survey Corps. The latter is the elite special forces, the former owns the SDs.

Weird Harold wrote:

pappilon wrote:All three were the strongest enforcers of the Cherwell Convention. Which, if I read correctly was the main purpose of the BSDF, besides being the most elite special forces unit in The League.

You'r confusing the BSDF with the BSC. That's Self Defense Force with Biological Survey Corps. The latter is the elite special forces, the former owns the SDs.

Yeah, I did, or at least I mixed up my acronyms. Old age, sometimes my one track slips sideways.