The Charles Ward

Theemile wrote:

cthia wrote:A couple of things. I always thought that the backup command deck was also located down in CIC. Who is actually in charge on the backup command deck, the XO? The XO is always on the bridge with the Captain isn't he? It certainly seems that the responsibility would fall on someone's shoulders that could carry the weight...

On DD/CLs/small CAs the aux control is collocated with Damage Control, not CIC. Damage Control is as armored as the ship can get, so it can survive any damage the ship may have survived. It's only manned as aux control during battlestatons.

Is there a reason why the bridge is located where it is and not also within the most heavily armed part of the ship? Why wouldn't the CO command from the most heavily armed location? Is it because they need to be near windows? Observation decks like the Enterprise?

Wherever Buships, or whoever, puts the bridge settles it, I know. But why are they designed that way? I find it awfully ironic.

What? Where do you think the bridge is located. This is not Star Trek. The bridge is always located somewhere in the center third of the ship.

Potato wrote:What? Where do you think the bridge is located. This is not Star Trek. The bridge is always located somewhere in the center third of the ship.

It is not at the most heavily armored part of the ship, courtesy of the attached post. Damage control is. Why would the bridge be less armored than damage control?

Located somewhere in the center third? But not at the most heavily armored of the center third.

...Again, what? DC is not the only armored location on the ship. On any ship with an armored core hull - heavy cruisers and up - critical systems are behind the core hull protection. That means the bridge, CIC, DC, and fusion plants, among other things. And on DDs and CLs, there is no core hull armoring because there is insufficient hull width to incorporate it, so it is all unprotected.

Potato wrote:...Again, what? DC is not the only armored location on the ship. On any ship with an armored core hull - heavy cruisers and up - critical systems are behind the core hull protection. That means the bridge, CIC, DC, and fusion plants, among other things. And on DDs and CLs, there is no core hull armoring because there is insufficient hull width to incorporate it, so it is all unprotected.

Good. I misunderstood. The Charles Ward and its design threw me off my already unclear understanding of Honorverse ship design.

cthia wrote:

Potato wrote:...Again, what? DC is not the only armored location on the ship. On any ship with an armored core hull - heavy cruisers and up - critical systems are behind the core hull protection. That means the bridge, CIC, DC, and fusion plants, among other things. And on DDs and CLs, there is no core hull armoring because there is insufficient hull width to incorporate it, so it is all unprotected.

Good. I misunderstood. The Charles Ward and its design threw me off my already unclear understanding of Honorverse ship design.

Remember that generally the lighter ships are not usually targeted by the really big ones. Capital ships battle out with other ones, not the screens.

Of course, things are changing. Mantie cruisers took out Crandall's SD's pretty easily. I think that is a key element in the Sollie navy's recognition that they were really outclassed.

The CW had the weapons in the Light Crusier range, it was NOT a Light Crusier. It is a up-built military repair and cargo ship that has a squadron of LACs attached (per design). There isn't an armored core. There are practical limitations to where you can put both the Bridge or Damage Control since much of the core of the ship is involved with it's cargo and repair roles. It is not quite as vulnerable as a typical freighter which is little more than a shll with a "spine" out of the way of the cargo capasity.

Same general sort of thing with Wayfarer---an armed merchant ship with mil-spec partile shields, tactical systems, power plants but that is about the limit of good compairson with Wayfarer
The major differences is Charles Ward is not set up to look like a pure freighter (and operate as a Q-Ship - which also wasn't designed to take on an actual warship, even a DD) but it is designed to go places a freighter- especialy a missle collier- really shouldn't be going. Like the ammuntion ship captain really not wanting to go in for resuppling at Monica. He wasn't wrong and his normal operations would have kept him out byond the hyper limit excpet Terekhov ordered him in- and he went.
But CW and it's sistersi are going to be operating in potentialy dangerous places and have both teeth (and a long reach) and fairly good defenceive weapons. Certainly much better than standard Fleet Train military freighters. Just no core armor.
The having of a crew with the capasity- and training and mindset- to work it as warship does help.
At this point, I suspect that many of the RMN Fleet Supply ships crews can out-fight your normal SLN warship crew. The amount of fight in the dog....etc.

The Charles Ward is a armed auxiliary much like auxiliaries during WWII were armed. All of the U.S. Navy auxiliaries were armed during WWII they carried anywhere from 1 to 6 5 or 4 in guns, 1 to 4 3 in gun and various numbers of light AA guns like 30 and 50 cal 20 mm and 28 mm. All of the guns were removed in the fifties.

saber964 wrote:The Charles Ward is a armed auxiliary much like auxiliaries during WWII were armed. All of the U.S. Navy auxiliaries were armed during WWII they carried anywhere from 1 to 6 5 or 4 in guns, 1 to 4 3 in gun and various numbers of light AA guns like 30 and 50 cal 20 mm and 28 mm. All of the guns were removed in the fifties.

True. On the other hand, The Charles Ward is is vastly better armed in comparison to even one of the better German merchant commerce raiders in the early days of WW II. Given her described weapons, she is (though she shouldn't) certainly capable of going after a DD. She certainly could open any shooting way beyond the engagemenet range of a SLN BC (pesky MDM missles in pods if not in tubes--are her tubes loading LERMs?) and her peni-aids are better. The trick of dropping pods (with MDMs) while running away would open the initial engagement range further even if she had to accept much inferior final targeting solutions and let the pod launched wepons use their on-board systems for the final attack.

Actualy, a variation in cargo configuration on a sister of the Ward could make a formidable very long duration/range commerce raider. Swap out the repair module or reduce it's repair capabilty for more supplies and this "freighter" becomes a real nightmare as far as going after convoys (lightly escorted) or interdictding trade routes. Depending on your view or requirements, there might be space on one of these ships to start out with enough extra personel to be able to put prize crews about a couple of ships and (having dropped the crews in their own lifeboats) send them back to Manticore. Using SEM Merchant Marine crews from some of those idled freighters back home would work, you don't need full crews and you don't (if you drop the original freighter crews) need guards. Just enough (like Hexapuma did "borrowing" the freighter at Montana) to safely operate the ship which is going to be running in hyperspace and probably just enough off any direct line route combination to stay out of accidental encounters with anybody.

Brigade XO wrote:

saber964 wrote:The Charles Ward is a armed auxiliary much like auxiliaries during WWII were armed. All of the U.S. Navy auxiliaries were armed during WWII they carried anywhere from 1 to 6 5 or 4 in guns, 1 to 4 3 in gun and various numbers of light AA guns like 30 and 50 cal 20 mm and 28 mm. All of the guns were removed in the fifties.

True. On the other hand, The Charles Ward is is vastly better armed in comparison to even one of the better German merchant commerce raiders in the early days of WW II. Given her described weapons, she is (though she shouldn't) certainly capable of going after a DD. She certainly could open any shooting way beyond the engagemenet range of a SLN BC (pesky MDM missles in pods if not in tubes--are her tubes loading LERMs?) and her peni-aids are better. The trick of dropping pods (with MDMs) while running away would open the initial engagement range further even if she had to accept much inferior final targeting solutions and let the pod launched wepons use their on-board systems for the final attack.

Actualy, a variation in cargo configuration on a sister of the Ward could make a formidable very long duration/range commerce raider. Swap out the repair module or reduce it's repair capabilty for more supplies and this "freighter" becomes a real nightmare as far as going after convoys (lightly escorted) or interdictding trade routes. Depending on your view or requirements, there might be space on one of these ships to start out with enough extra personel to be able to put prize crews about a couple of ships and (having dropped the crews in their own lifeboats) send them back to Manticore. Using SEM Merchant Marine crews from some of those idled freighters back home would work, you don't need full crews and you don't (if you drop the original freighter crews) need guards. Just enough (like Hexapuma did "borrowing" the freighter at Montana) to safely operate the ship which is going to be running in hyperspace and probably just enough off any direct line route combination to stay out of accidental encounters with anybody.

The Ward's missile armament was never mentioned, but as of 1920, I don't see Manticore building a ship what doesn't have Mk36 (LERM), Mk 15 (ERM), Mk 16 (DDM), or Mk 23 (MDM)launchers. and anything built after 1922 won't have Mk-15s.