Where where the Beowulf Super Dreadnoughts built?

olddatsunfan wrote:After reading the posts and thinking about it, I've come to the conclusion that the Beowulf SD's where built either in Beowulf itself to Solarian Navy designs or purchased from a builder who built them in another core world for the Solarian Navy.

In being a member of the Solarian League, this seems to make the most sense to me. However, since Solarian Navy ship designs have been the "best" in their opinion, for so long, I don't think that the majority of the Beowulf SD's are very new.

It seems that if the Beowulf SDF holds the same type of unit organization as seems to be common there are 4 squadrons worth of SD's with 4 spares to allow for refits, therefore it would seem likely that they where purchased over a period of time, along with an appropriate screening element of course.

n7axw wrote:

olddatsunfan wrote:After reading the posts and thinking about it, I've come to the conclusion that the Beowulf SD's where built either in Beowulf itself to Solarian Navy designs or purchased from a builder who built them in another core world for the Solarian Navy.

In being a member of the Solarian League, this seems to make the most sense to me. However, since Solarian Navy ship designs have been the "best" in their opinion, for so long, I don't think that the majority of the Beowulf SD's are very new.

It seems that if the Beowulf SDF holds the same type of unit organization as seems to be common there are 4 squadrons worth of SD's with 4 spares to allow for refits, therefore it would seem likely that they where purchased over a period of time, along with an appropriate screening element of course.

I am in the built in Beowulf camp. Beowulf is a very wealthy system with a strong tech base. My guess would be that their SDs would be similar to the Leagues, but somewhat more technologically advanced. They are probably running their own R & D which though not as pressurized as Manticores, would be better than the Leagues sinse it wouldn't be burdened with the same bureaucratic inertia. If I'm right, the designs would be Scientists and Vegas with better upgrades than the League's.

Don

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feyhunde wrote:I'm of the built in Beowulf camp as well.

First, we know Beowulf has a long history of being the premiere place for Impellar drives and Sails. They were invented there. We know nations that could afford it bought either their ships or impellars from the sollies for a long time. It was a big deal when Manties could start making fusion plants and impellars and no longer needed to import them. There has to be a significant reputation even now to Beowulf's yards.

What makes sense to me is Beowulf probably has a good export market for all sorts of ships and key parts like impellars and fusion plants. Historically it was probably the earliest maker of SDs. The Scientist class including Beowulf Scientists even suggests to me that some were built in Beowulf.

We know the SLN has a steady on going refit and new construction process. Just a handful of SDs are built, mostly to keep the skills alive. Beowulf would be a likely contract for some of those deals. However, we also know the SLN's corruption runs deep. That said, it may be possible the size of the BSDF is in part a political measure to keep the ship building skills alive. Ordering handfuls of ships spaced out over years. The occasional order or refit deal comes in from the SLN, as well as the occasional acceptable customer, such as another core SDF, who appreciates the Beowulf lack of corruption.

I'm sure Technodyne and its ilk build a fair share. But I'm also sure wealthy SL worlds which aren't corrupt wanting a squad of SDs just in case would prefer to buy from someone whose going to be honest.

More Than Honor, The Universe of Honor Harrington, (1) Background (General) wrote:Then, in 1246 pd, the first phased array gravity drive, or impeller, was designed on Beowulf, the colonized world of the Sigma Draconis System. This was a reactionless sublight drive which artificially replicated the grav waves which had been observed in hyper-space for centuries. The impeller drive used a series of nodal generators to create a pair of stressed bands in normal-space, one "above" and one "below" the mounting ship. Inclined towards one another, these produced a sort of wedge-shaped quasi-hyper-space in those regions, having no direct effect upon the generating vessel but creating what might be called a "tame grav wave" which was capable of attaining near-light speeds very quickly. Because of the angle at which the bands were generated relative to one another, the vessel rode a small pocket of normal-space (open ahead of the vessel and closing in astern) trapped between the grav waves, much as a surfboard rides the crest or curl of a wave, which was driven along between the stress bands. Since the stress bands were waves and not particles, the "impeller wedge" was able, theoretically, at least, to attain an instantaneous light-speed velocity. Unfortunately, the normal-space "pocket" had to deal with the conservation of inertia, which meant that the effective acceleration of a manned ship was limited to that which produced a g force the crew could survive. Nonetheless, these higher rates of acceleration could be maintained indefinitely, and no reaction mass was required; so long as the generators had power, the drive's endurance was effectively unlimited.
In terms of interstellar flight, however, the impeller drive was afflicted by one enormous drawback which was not at first appreciated. In essence, it enormously increased the danger grav shear had always presented to reactor drive vessels, for the interference between the immense strength of a grav wave and the artificially produced gravitic stress of an impeller wedge will vaporize a starship almost instantly.
In the military sphere, it was soon discovered that although the bow (or "throat") and stern aspects of an impeller wedge must remain open, additional "sidewall" grav waves could be generated to close its open sides and serve as shields against hostile fire, as not even an energy beam (generated using then-current technology) could penetrate a wave front in which effective local gravity went from zero to several hundred thousand gravities. The problem of generating an energy beam powerful enough to "burn through" even at pointblank ranges was not to be solved for centuries, but within fifty years grav penetrators had been designed for missile weapons, which could also make full use of the incredible acceleration potential of the impeller drive. Since that time, there has been a constant race between defensive designers working new wrinkles in manipulation of the gravity wave to defeat new penetrators and offensive designers adapting their penetrators to defeat the new counters.
The interstellar drawbacks of impeller drive became quickly and disastrously clear to Beowulf's shipbuilders, and for several decades it seemed likely that the new drive would be limited solely to interplanetary traffic. In 1273 pd, however, the scientist Adrienne Warshawski of Old Terra recognized a previously unsuspected FTL implication of the new technology. Prior to her Fleetwing tests in that year, all efforts to employ it in hyper-space had ended in unmitigated disaster, but Dr. Warshawski found a way around the problem. She had already invented a new device capable of scanning hyper-space for grav waves and wave shifts within five light-seconds of a starship (to this day, all grav scanners are known as "warshawskis" by starship crews), which made it possible to use impeller drive between hyper-space grav waves, since they could now be seen and avoided.
That, alone, would have been sufficient to earn Warshawski undying renown, but beneficial as it was, its significance paled beside her next leap forward, for in working out her detector, Dr. Warshawski had penetrated far more deeply into the nature of the grav wave phenomenon than any of her predecessors, and she suddenly realized that it would be possible to build an impeller drive which could be reconfigured at will to project its grav waves at right angles to the generating vessel. There was no converging effect to move a pocket of normal-space, but these perpendicular grav fields could be brought into phase with the grav wave, thus eliminating the interference effect between impellers and the wave. More, the new fields would stabilize a vessel relative to the grav wave, allowing a transition into it which eliminated the traditional dangers grav shear presented to the ship's physical structure. In effect, the alterations she made to Fleetwing to produce her "alpha nodes" provided the ship with gigantic, immaterial sails: circular, plate-like gravity bands over two hundred kilometers in diameter. Coupled with her grav wave detector to plot and "read" grav waves, they would permit a starship to literally "set her sails" and use the focused radiation hurtling along hyper-space's naturally occurring grav waves to derive incredible accelerations.

Maldorian wrote:The only solarian warship designs discussed here are the Vega and the scientist class. We know that the scientists are very old, but how old are the Vega´s?

Are there any other, newer designs at the solarian side?

I could imagine, that Beowulf develope their own design, because they saw the change in warfare that the Laserhead brought to the Battlefield.

n7axw wrote:

olddatsunfan wrote:After reading the posts and thinking about it, I've come to the conclusion that the Beowulf SD's where built either in Beowulf itself to Solarian Navy designs or purchased from a builder who built them in another core world for the Solarian Navy.

In being a member of the Solarian League, this seems to make the most sense to me. However, since Solarian Navy ship designs have been the "best" in their opinion, for so long, I don't think that the majority of the Beowulf SD's are very new.

It seems that if the Beowulf SDF holds the same type of unit organization as seems to be common there are 4 squadrons worth of SD's with 4 spares to allow for refits, therefore it would seem likely that they where purchased over a period of time, along with an appropriate screening element of course.

I am in the built in Beowulf camp. Beowulf is a very wealthy system with a strong tech base. My guess would be that their SDs would be similar to the Leagues, but somewhat more technologically advanced. They are probably running their own R & D which though not as pressurized as Manticores, would be better than the Leagues sinse it wouldn't be burdened with the same bureaucratic inertia. If I'm right, the designs would be Scientists and Vegas with better upgrades than the League's.

Don

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Erls wrote:Two thoughts:

First, I think its 99%+ that the Beowulf navy is built in system. With Beowulf's long-time cynical view of the SL and their general high level of competence, they would not rely on third parties. Additionally, I think its highly likely that they have redundant ship building capacity. By this I mean, even if they operate on 1 1 per 3 (1 SD built every 3 years) time table, they likely have yard capacity to build an entire squad of 8 at one time with additional space for refit. The cost of building that additional capacity in over the past 500 plus years would have been de minimis, and it gives them flexibility.

Second, I think any post 1900 (and especially post-Buttercup) SDs Beowulf has built have some flexibility built into them.. By that I mean while outwardly - and in armament - identical to SLN designs there are some unconventional aspects that will allow for quick overhaul. Think changing the placements of weapons systems to allow for a quicker removal of multiple grasers/lasers in favor of additional fire control. Or changes to the stern that allow for easier adoption of the the Foraker Donkey. Even being able to add 5 fire control links per broadside quickly would allow each SD to control 40 additional attack missiles via the Apollo bird (although without the FTL component).

One final note - Does anyone think that Manticore may have very recently "sold" a small amount of Sag-Cs or Nikes to Beowulf? Even adding a division or two of the Sag-C to the Beowulf navy would be a gigantic force multiplier in terms of missile control - and these could be ships crewed entirely by Beowulf citizens, under Beowulf command (with a Manticore adviser or two) - in order to ensure that it only is Beowulf forces defending themselves until the referendum passes.

Erls wrote:Two thoughts:

First, I think its 99%+ that the Beowulf navy is built in system. With Beowulf's long-time cynical view of the SL and their general high level of competence, they would not rely on third parties. Additionally, I think its highly likely that they have redundant ship building capacity. By this I mean, even if they operate on 1 1 per 3 (1 SD built every 3 years) time table, they likely have yard capacity to build an entire squad of 8 at one time with additional space for refit. The cost of building that additional capacity in over the past 500 plus years would have been de minimis, and it gives them flexibility.

Second, I think any post 1900 (and especially post-Buttercup) SDs Beowulf has built have some flexibility built into them.. By that I mean while outwardly - and in armament - identical to SLN designs there are some unconventional aspects that will allow for quick overhaul. Think changing the placements of weapons systems to allow for a quicker removal of multiple grasers/lasers in favor of additional fire control. Or changes to the stern that allow for easier adoption of the the Foraker Donkey. Even being able to add 5 fire control links per broadside quickly would allow each SD to control 40 additional attack missiles via the Apollo bird (although without the FTL component).

One final note - Does anyone think that Manticore may have very recently "sold" a small amount of Sag-Cs or Nikes to Beowulf? Even adding a division or two of the Sag-C to the Beowulf navy would be a gigantic force multiplier in terms of missile control - and these could be ships crewed entirely by Beowulf citizens, under Beowulf command (with a Manticore adviser or two) - in order to ensure that it only is Beowulf forces defending themselves until the referendum passes.

WLBjork wrote:

Erls wrote:Two thoughts:

First, I think its 99%+ that the Beowulf navy is built in system. With Beowulf's long-time cynical view of the SL and their general high level of competence, they would not rely on third parties. Additionally, I think its highly likely that they have redundant ship building capacity. By this I mean, even if they operate on 1 1 per 3 (1 SD built every 3 years) time table, they likely have yard capacity to build an entire squad of 8 at one time with additional space for refit. The cost of building that additional capacity in over the past 500 plus years would have been de minimis, and it gives them flexibility.

Second, I think any post 1900 (and especially post-Buttercup) SDs Beowulf has built have some flexibility built into them.. By that I mean while outwardly - and in armament - identical to SLN designs there are some unconventional aspects that will allow for quick overhaul. Think changing the placements of weapons systems to allow for a quicker removal of multiple grasers/lasers in favor of additional fire control. Or changes to the stern that allow for easier adoption of the the Foraker Donkey. Even being able to add 5 fire control links per broadside quickly would allow each SD to control 40 additional attack missiles via the Apollo bird (although without the FTL component).

One final note - Does anyone think that Manticore may have very recently "sold" a small amount of Sag-Cs or Nikes to Beowulf? Even adding a division or two of the Sag-C to the Beowulf navy would be a gigantic force multiplier in terms of missile control - and these could be ships crewed entirely by Beowulf citizens, under Beowulf command (with a Manticore adviser or two) - in order to ensure that it only is Beowulf forces defending themselves until the referendum passes.

Extremely unlikely. Manticore didn't have enough of their own Sags or Nikes, and both Manticore and Beowulf were concerned about the SLN federalising SDF, at which point they find out hat all that wild speculation about what those barbarians on Manticore are armed with isn't merely hyperbole.