SPOILER end of the MA

drothgery wrote:Who said that?

I did, it seems little bit of an overkill to send a 2 million ton warship or 2.5 million ton warship to do the job of a 500 thousand ton ship. If you start sending BC(L)'s and BC(P)'s on the missions that are traditionally BC missions you might as well go one step up and send SD(P)'s in their stead. BC(P) and BC(L)'s are both too large and powerful to be send to do the same task that a 500k ton ship can handle easily. What would you choose, 1 BC(P)/BC(L) doing 1 mission, 4 Sag-C's doing 4 missions or 8 Roland's doing 8 missions?

LACs will take over almost all of the duties of DDs and CLs anchored to a fixed location or a fleet.

Not likely, even in the Manticore Home System with all of it's LAC's Home Fleet still send out destroyers to search out sensor anomalies before OB. And then there is the shortcoming of a LAC that it requires a CLAC and no matter what. Sending a CLAC and 100 LAC's on a mission where 3 DD's could suffice seems like as much of an overkill as sending a SD(P) to hunt for pirates.

Sag-Cs (or something similar-sized) will only take the DD & CL roles that need an independent, hyper-capable ship, because IMO they're the smallest viable hyper-capable warship once something resembling current RMN tech is widely available.

They can be in only so many places at one time and there is an absolute upper limit to how many the RMN can have in service or more accurately how many the SKM electorate would willingly allow in service having a smaller ship to take up many of the roles that require a smaller ship only makes sense.

The Rolands were explicitly designed to take advantage of a transitory tech imbalance, and no one in-universe expects them to viable long-term. And another 50Ktons is not enough to change that.

Why? If you have 5 Roland's escorting a convoy that is attacked by the equivalent of Sag-C's does the Roland have the ability to fight back and buy the convoy some time? They won't survive and probably won't destroy any of the enemy ships but they will have enough reach to give a good account of themselves and buy the convoy some time.

Nikes will take BC roles (though unless they build a Mark-16 Kammerling variant, they'll be stuck doing most jobs that take a traditional CA's complement of marines, too).

So why don't you send an SD(P) instead? If you are willing to send a 2,5 million ton ship to do a job that a 500k ton ship can do just as well it why not send something bigger? If you are going for overkill and inefficient use of resources why not go completely overboard?

Dauntless wrote:sigs you make good points which I completely agree with and and have said as much before but you seem to be missing the most important thing.

making the changes you suggest make a DD into a CL and RFC himself has said when others have brought up the idea about DDM CL, that the RMN feels there is no need for a DDM equipped light cruiser.

To me it doesn't matter what the classification is, what matters is how can you do the job the most efficient way that uses the available resources the best way.

Actually, in the case of those sensor ghosts, they sent deztroyers because they were way, way, beyond the limit.

I could see them handing that job over to a pod SD. Something that can launch, and monitor, the amount of drones that the SEM will deploy to investigate future ghosts.

Sigs wrote:

drothgery wrote:Who said that?

I did, it seems little bit of an overkill to send a 2 million ton warship or 2.5 million ton warship to do the job of a 500 thousand ton ship. If you start sending BC(L)'s and BC(P)'s on the missions that are traditionally BC missions you might as well go one step up and send SD(P)'s in their stead. BC(P) and BC(L)'s are both too large and powerful to be send to do the same task that a 500k ton ship can handle easily. What would you choose, 1 BC(P)/BC(L) doing 1 mission, 4 Sag-C's doing 4 missions or 8 Roland's doing 8 missions?

In the first place... take that up with the RMN and GSN's shipbuilding people. They designed and built 2-2.5 Mton ships to take the roles of 800-900Kton ships, and no one in-universe seems to think it was a bad idea to do so.

Secondly, you're assuming a degree of linearity in shipbuilding costs, operational costs, and maintenance costs which RFC has explicitly said does not exist. It's more like 1 Nike:2 Sag-Cs:3 Rolands. And if one of the Rolands doesn't come back, then it's a false economy.

Sigs wrote:

LACs will take over almost all of the duties of DDs and CLs anchored to a fixed location or a fleet.

Not likely, even in the Manticore Home System with all of it's LAC's Home Fleet still send out destroyers to search out sensor anomalies before OB.

That's one squadron in a Home Fleet with thousands of LACs and scores of SDs... and not very many destroyers or light cruisers. And exactly the mission I was thinking of when I said "almost all" instead of "all".

Sigs wrote:

Nikes will take BC roles (though unless they build a Mark-16 Kammerling variant, they'll be stuck doing most jobs that take a traditional CA's complement of marines, too).

So why don't you send an SD(P) instead? If you are willing to send a 2,5 million ton ship to do a job that a 500k ton ship can do just as well it why not send something bigger? If you are going for overkill and inefficient use of resources why not go completely overboard?

Turning this on its head, why don't you want to just build Torch's Nat Turners? Frigates can swat pirates just as well as super-destroyers can, after all, and you could build more of them.

But first-line Honorverse navies do not build frigates, because they're not survivable in combat against a peer post-laserhead. And I'd argue that cruiser-weight dual drive missiles make the same true for destroyers and light cruisers (it's not true for Rolands in the novels to date because they're facing opponents with neither Mark-16 equivalents nor Grayson-inspired compensators, but the RMN is not currently run by fools and so will not be counting on that happy state to persist). So they're going to be sending a much bigger warship than they would have previously for anything that requires a hyper-capable warship at all.

And if they have a mission that requires more marines than a Sag-C carries (which is far fewer than a traditional CA does), then they're going to need a ship that carries more than that. Which means either designing something new or the next-bigger class they already have, and that's a Nike. Or sending a transport with a warship escort, which is often a less than optimal solution.

#1 Doctrine, #2 Mission #3 Design The Roland was specifically designed and built for the Command deck. There was supposed to be a CL class with command decks built, which never materialized which left the navy short of command platforms for commerce protection. So you make mixed squadrons and divisions. Each division is one Roland and 3 Avalons. Gives you the magazine and manpower without gutting the command and control you need anyway which was the raison d'etre of the Roland in the first place.

You talk like an admiral (Michelle Admiral Gold Peak) cannot have her flag on a BC while commanding SD(p)s and if a smaller ship is good enough for the queen's cousin, lesser born Lt Cdrs can suck it up.

Sigs wrote:

Dauntless wrote:
no it isn't.

the roland is a destroyer, it has no business going up against the sort of enemies that require a mk 16.

You mean like other destroyers? Or being able to attack from significant distance thereby not exposing themselves?

This is the reason for multi-drive missiles on a light unit. Being able to stay out of your opponent's envelope is a very valuable thing.

It also makes them much more useful for anti-piracy work, it's much less likely a pirate will be able to stay out of their envelope once detected.

drothgery wrote:And if they have a mission that requires more marines than a Sag-C carries (which is far fewer than a traditional CA does), then they're going to need a ship that carries more than that. Which means either designing something new or the next-bigger class they already have, and that's a Nike. Or sending a transport with a warship escort, which is often a less than optimal solution.

They have a ship for that - It's the Kammerling System Control Cruiser. The Kammerling is the replacement for the Broadsword Marine Cruiser. It's considered a CL even though it has more mass than the Broadsword, and is armed with 16 LERM tubes, broadside Grasers, and 50% more defenses than an Avalon CL, and 3 companies of Marines with enough lift to move them all at once.

one last post then i'm leaving this topic alone.

the MDM and DDM have been a game changer and the ERM ships like the Avalon and Wolfhound will probably be enough for next little bit, maybe as much as 10 years. that said things are going to have to change

while the points about extra range are valid, i'd say it would have more to do with the flexibility of 2 or more drives rather then straight range given the very respectable abilities of the ERM against non ballistic phase cataphracts.

as i said things have changed, and as Sigs has correctly pointed out you must plan for the future. the roland was a very useful design for its time but so much of what a destroyer did has been taken over by LACs, and yes they are not perfect and N space restricted but the point stands they have taken over much of what was considered the destroyer jobs.

now i'm not going to get into specifics of loadout etc i'm just going to give some basic info.

just about every ships class the over the space of haven wars has grown and now with something resembling a poor mans DDM soon to flourish. I'm sure the MA will leak the basic idea of cataphract, i.e. strapping two missile drives together, if details haven't already leaked from the swiss cheese that was SLN intelligence.

the two greatest flaws of the roland are

1)lack of marines making it hard to use in anti pirate ops, or even customs patrol or any of the numerous jobs having a marine on hand for proves useful.

2) how easy a freak hit could take out a serious amount of missile tubes, due to the compromises that were needed to make them work on such a small hull.

RFC has said more then once, though the last specific comment i can find was over 18 months ago and that was just that he didn't think 300ish Ktons CL would work.

others have said and, i find myself now agreeing that basically the smallest ship is probably going to be a CL of about 500 Ktons. basically what is currently a Sag C, perhaps a few less missile tubes and more CM and PD and a company of marines but that sort of shape and ability.

the CA would now be about 1 M Tons, but still with only a Company of marines, an argument could probably be made for 2 companies. the assault of blackbird is probably one of the few times a battalion has actually been needed. even then clever planning was important then sheer numbers.

BC and up are all currently working quite well and while i'm sure there will be changes, I admit to being very curious what a 3rd Gen SD(P) will look like, unless there is another game changer like the MDM/Apollo they probably won't change much.

now yes i'm probably massively wrong and something below the 500K mark may work, but until R%D shrinks the DDM I've come to believe that if the destroyer type is kept; it will be the hyper capable watchdog partner to the LACs probably DDM capable, the range and flexibility are hard to ignore, but not expected to face a true warship.

So Using the numbers for Roland, Sag-C, and Nike that were present in House of Steel I came up with the following conclusions:

For similar tonnage to 1 Nike you would need 13 Roland-Class destroyers. Those Destroyers would have a total of 156 Missile Tubes, 3,250 missiles, 390 PD and 260 CM.

For the same investment as one Nike you get ~3 times the missile tubes, ~54% of ammunition reserve, 4.6 times the PD and 4 times the CM.

For similar tonnage to 1 Nike you would need 5 Sag-C's. Those cruisers would have a total of 200 missile tubes, 6,000 missiles, 320 PD and 200CM.

For the same investment as 1 Nike you get ~ 4 times the missile tubes, equal ammunition, 3.8 times the PD and 3.125 times the CM.



Now, the conclusion I draw for this is that if it were to come to an equal fight ton for ton the Nike is the weakest of them all, regardless of armour, regardless of qualitative difference of the defences of a nike it still will face overwhelming missile waves from either an equal force of Roland's or an equal force of Sag-C's.

Since they all have the same missile in their magazines they all have the same range, the Nike has an advantage of capital ship grade PD, sidewall and it also has heavier armour even accounting for this in this comparison I do not believe it would not make the Nike as powerful a unit as it seems. Having 13 Roland's instead of 1 Nike means you can be in 13 places at once, or 13 ships in one place. Same goes for Sag-C's they can be on 5 separate missions or 1 mission with 5 ships.

BC(L)'s should be reclassified and re-purposed because having a 2.5 million ton warship doing a job that an equal tonnage of lighter ships can do much better seems like poor use of resources.

Annachie wrote:Actually, in the case of those sensor ghosts, they sent deztroyers because they were way, way, beyond the limit.

I could see them handing that job over to a pod SD. Something that can launch, and monitor, the amount of drones that the SEM will deploy to investigate future ghosts.

So then I send out my 28 Sharks in 28 different area's of your system, you send out 28 SD(P)'s to investigate and I depending on my force levels ambush any number of them and eliminate them from your order of battle. You in system fleet is weaker because half of it's strength is dispersed and a portion of it was ambushed and defeated in detail.