Would Dispersing Shipyards Blunt or Stop a Second Oyster Bay

tlb wrote:

Theemile wrote:David commented on that back when we were discussing the original dispersing of LAC wings in the TQ and "why wait for CLACS, use a freighter" came up.

It's not the hab module that is important - Using a CLAC allows the Crews to be constantly training on the SIMs built into the CLAC while they are deploying, so skills don't get soft and they are ready to deploy once they hit their destination.

He was very adamant about that.

What kind of SIMs was he talking about? Honor had a games room where SIMs were run after dinners with the invited cadets; so those kind of SIMs would be easy to fit into the living space of a LAC freighter. Perhaps you need a LAC mockup to do what he wanted, that should be just as easy to prefabricate. Alternately it is a SIM were the crew sits in their LAC stations and responds to computer driven events, that should not present a problem either (but a LAC mockup might be easier and safer); but manning each LAC easily within a freighter might be a technical challenge (perhaps there is a series of tubes with mating connections to each LAC wing to provide power and helmetless access).

I'm assuming what he was speaking of was that a CLAC has the ability to have the crews sit in their active LACs in the LAC bays and run sims from a central computer with a team in a CLAC sim holo tank (or some of the LACs) running the Red team. It isn't just important that the LAC crews know their jobs, but that the LAC squadrons and wing can work as one. Having all the LACS available for in-flight maintenance and sims keeps those skills from fading.

To do this, you could essentially turn a Freighter into a CLAC. Either you do a hard conversion (which would take time) or a modular approach. Myself and others over the years have suggested designing a squadron sized module with LAC bays, a small had section and a control room). Such would be sized to fill the bay door of a "standard" freighter type and lock in place, turning the Freighter into a light CLAC.

Other modules (and LACs) could be carried as freight - just connect them and add power, and you would be able to recreate the carriage and sim abilities of a CLAC. When at their location - just drop off the modules and add them to a framework with centralized power and you have a LAC base. (ok, you probably also want magazine modules, defensive modules, and fire control modules (for all those pods you're going to drop off as well), as well as a bigger hab space.)

But David was adamant about using CLACS to drop off the defensive LAC wings in Talbott. He also mentioned it was a "show the flag" gesture - a 6.25 Mton Capital ship shows the support the new government you joined has for you.

Also, every Hydra CLAC has 12 spare birds in storage. If they carry 12 extra crews (120 men), they can drop off a full wing and still have 2 squadrons for self defense on their way home (in addition to their 24 Mk 23 tubes and capital grasers.) We know CLACs can embark a Marine Battalion ion addition to their normal complement so this shouldn't be an issue.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:It's possible David can see further expanded roles for them, the same way that carriers became the defining naval force in the 20th century, displacing the battleships. My only gripe with them is that they should be "CV" like CV-6 USS Enterprise and the COLAC should be called the CAG.

And it would have been so easy for CAG to be Commander Attack Group (especially back in the early days when the LACs weren't seem so much for their defensive - fleet screening - potential.

But while CLACs will probably pick up some additional roles I don't see them displacing battleships (read: SDs) like carriers did. At least not anytime soon.


Carriers became dominant after their aircraft acquired weapons and tactics that let them find and destroy battleships from far beyond the range battleships could threaten them. The Honorverse doesn't really have the equivalent of a torpedo - a weapon a small boat, or even a plane, can carry where even a single hit does devestating damage. (And WWII also saw the advent of guided armor piercing anti-ship bombs which were another way for aircraft to devastate battleships from long range)

A single torpedo has a reasonable probability of inflicting sufficient damage on even the most powerful warship to seriously impact their mission effectiveness; or even force them to return to base. (Say 5-10% change of at least a mission kill from a single torpedo hit; with a small but real chance of a golden BB that might utterly cripple or even sink the target)


Yes, LACs, especially Shrikes, can swarm an SD and cripple or even kill it. But it'll be cumulative damage from a huge number of suicidal close range hits and the LACs will take crippling losses in return. So SDs of one sort or another look to remain the preeminent capital ships for some time to come.

Theemile wrote:To do this, you could essentially turn a Freighter into a CLAC. Either you do a hard conversion (which would take time) or a modular approach. Myself and others over the years have suggested designing a squadron sized module with LAC bays, a small had section and a control room). Such would be sized to fill the bay door of a "standard" freighter type and lock in place, turning the Freighter into a light CLAC.

Other modules (and LACs) could be carried as freight - just connect them and add power, and you would be able to recreate the carriage and sim abilities of a CLAC. When at their location - just drop off the modules and add them to a framework with centralized power and you have a LAC base. (ok, you probably also want magazine modules, defensive modules, and fire control modules (for all those pods you're going to drop off as well), as well as a bigger hab space.)

But David was adamant about using CLACS to drop off the defensive LAC wings in Talbott. He also mentioned it was a "show the flag" gesture - a 6.25 Mton Capital ship shows the support the new government you joined has for you.

But if the CLAC is not going to stay on station, then you still need all those things to build a LAC base that would be dropped off by freighter. So showing the flag could also be done by any capital ship that accompanies a freighter convoy and stays until the LAC base is up and running. If this is going to be the plan for a large number of systems, then despite the distaste for a specialty designed ship they could build a next generation Wayfarer: half LAC base and half system defense center for pods (borrowing from Mycroft). Such a ship could also serve as a temporary fort, while more capable ones are being assembled, should the need ever arise again.

Theemile wrote:While promoting the Fighter Jock mentality amoungst the crews, David insists on them being an analogue for PT boats (as mentioned elsewhere). The reason: they maneuver in the same medium and axis as the other ships and ruled by the same movement rules. Planes move in a different medium and axis than ships, with different maneuver rules.

Though as noted these "PT" boats lack a torpedo equivalent. LACs are closer to a British Motor Gun Boat (MGB) which was armed with a variety of guns rather than torpedoes.

(Admittedly in many of their roles, especially barge busting, PT boats experimented with field modifications to add more/heavier guns and some did remove their torpedoes to free up room (and weight) for those additional guns)


Still your main point is valid. David's has even compared CLACs to the unusual French torpedo boat tender Foudre; which had racks and cranes to quickly deploy the relatively large boats from their storage spot suspended over her deck.
(Torpedo boat tender is a weird designation because it covered ships like Foudre designed to carry the boats for deployment for combat, but also ships more like destroyer or submarine tenders where they only provide a mobile base and repair support from within some convenient harbor -- but aren't capable of carrying their charges)

tlb wrote:

Theemile wrote:To do this, you could essentially turn a Freighter into a CLAC. Either you do a hard conversion (which would take time) or a modular approach. Myself and others over the years have suggested designing a squadron sized module with LAC bays, a small had section and a control room). Such would be sized to fill the bay door of a "standard" freighter type and lock in place, turning the Freighter into a light CLAC.

Other modules (and LACs) could be carried as freight - just connect them and add power, and you would be able to recreate the carriage and sim abilities of a CLAC. When at their location - just drop off the modules and add them to a framework with centralized power and you have a LAC base. (ok, you probably also want magazine modules, defensive modules, and fire control modules (for all those pods you're going to drop off as well), as well as a bigger hab space.)

But David was adamant about using CLACS to drop off the defensive LAC wings in Talbott. He also mentioned it was a "show the flag" gesture - a 6.25 Mton Capital ship shows the support the new government you joined has for you.

But if the CLAC is not going to stay on station, then you still need all those things to build a LAC base that would be dropped off by freighter. So showing the flag could also be done by any capital ship that accompanies a freighter convoy and stays until the LAC base is up and running. If this is going to be the plan for a large number of systems, then despite the distaste for a specialty designed ship they could build a next generation Wayfarer: half LAC base and half system defense center for pods (borrowing from Mycroft). Such a ship could also serve as a temporary fort, while more capable ones are being assembled, should the need ever arise again.

A modular base was being delivered separately by freighter, along with the defense pods. The LACs were supposed to be dropped off, and left on their own for a few weeks/months until the Freighters showed up (All the systems had existing space infrastructure that the LACs could dock with for support and crew rest and their power sources would be good for years; unless they had a mechanical fault or expended their weapons, all they required was periodic consumables top off.)

The Modded Freighter base was mentioned at the time - it was a lengthy thread and covered lots of stuff LACS- mainly light carriers. Hey, I'm just reporting what the Big Man said was going to happen - don't shoot the messenger.

tlb wrote:I agree. Weren't the biggest changes to the freighter based Q-ship that Honor commanded, the grasers and the ability to launch pods out of doors in the stern? Although they certainly had to add missile control links and may have added a second fusion reactor for redundancy. The point being that the LAC's and flight crew quarters went in without much mention.

Do Honorverse freighters ordinarily come with some passenger space for people who need to travel to out of the way places? It might be very easy to expand the living spaces, rather than gluing in a module.

Expanding the crew space was also a serious construction effort. You're providing living space for well over a thousand people on a freighter designed to have at most a 50 man crew.

Theemile wrote:I'm assuming what he was speaking of was that a CLAC has the ability to have the crews sit in their active LACs in the LAC bays and run sims from a central computer with a team in a CLAC sim holo tank (or some of the LACs) running the Red team. It isn't just important that the LAC crews know their jobs, but that the LAC squadrons and wing can work as one. Having all the LACS available for in-flight maintenance and sims keeps those skills from fading.

To do this, you could essentially turn a Freighter into a CLAC. Either you do a hard conversion (which would take time) or a modular approach. Myself and others over the years have suggested designing a squadron sized module with LAC bays, a small had section and a control room). Such would be sized to fill the bay door of a "standard" freighter type and lock in place, turning the Freighter into a light CLAC.

Other modules (and LACs) could be carried as freight - just connect them and add power, and you would be able to recreate the carriage and sim abilities of a CLAC. When at their location - just drop off the modules and add them to a framework with centralized power and you have a LAC base. (ok, you probably also want magazine modules, defensive modules, and fire control modules (for all those pods you're going to drop off as well), as well as a bigger hab space.)

But David was adamant about using CLACS to drop off the defensive LAC wings in Talbott. He also mentioned it was a "show the flag" gesture - a 6.25 Mton Capital ship shows the support the new government you joined has for you.

Also, every Hydra CLAC has 12 spare birds in storage. If they carry 12 extra crews (120 men), they can drop off a full wing and still have 2 squadrons for self defense on their way home (in addition to their 24 Mk 23 tubes and capital grasers.) We know CLACs can embark a Marine Battalion ion addition to their normal complement so this shouldn't be an issue.

Modular is generally bad design, since it requires you to have a supply of modules standing by to switch out on demand. Without that supply you've basically locked each ship into whatever role its first set of modules are intended for. By the time you've created all these interchangeable module types you've probably spent enough that you could have just built the damn carriers you were trying so hard to avoid building.

The Hydras gave up their grasers for the extra 6 missile tubes and 12 LAC slots.

It's safe to assume any carrier is always going to be escorted by at least a few warships and not just its LAC wing. While it's supposed to be rare, if they were attacked in a grav wave they'd be reduced to their point defense clusters in terms of armament - wedges not working means missiles are useless and LACs don't have sails to survive a grav wave long enough to use their grasers.

I don't get why anyone would fight there. Do a crash translation to real-space.

And its well established that it is not possible to just sit in alpha a pick off ship transitioning upward. (OK-not true, but I've been told that David says that won't work because,)

Galactic Sapper wrote:It's safe to assume any carrier is always going to be escorted by at least a few warships and not just its LAC wing. While it's supposed to be rare, if they were attacked in a grav wave they'd be reduced to their point defense clusters in terms of armament - wedges not working means missiles are useless and LACs don't have sails to survive a grav wave long enough to use their grasers.

How do you attack someone in a grav wave? Aside from kzt's idea of just translating downwards, I don't even see how you could get close enough for energy weapons. Any ship in a grav wave has sails, that's both attackers and defenders. Wouldn't they be moving at the same speed and acceleration?

In other words, are ships moving in a grav wave simply a train: they enter together and they leave together, in the same order?

Hmm... ok, a grav-wave is not one-dimensionsal and we know it's possible to tack the wave, moving against its direction. By angling your sails to go left and right, up and down, you can also increase the distance you're travelling and delay your motion so you get closer to anyone coming up behind you or come at them from another vector.

But then attacking someone in a grav wave would be extremely risky, unless you're sure of superiority. If suddenly your prey reveals to have more than what you could bite, you're screwed, since then you can't escape. You can't break off, since every fastest path available to you is also available to the other side, including crash translation. Minimising this risk by coming in on a very a different vector also means your window to attack is also short and could allow even wounded prey to escape.

Or can some ships be faster than others, by having bigger sails or some other technological mechanism?

Unless that exists, I only see battles at transitions: when coming out of a grav wave. Just like WH forts, ships will usually come out of a grav wave one by one, with enough separation to avoid collisions, and opposite force can arrange itself in a hemisphere around the emergence point, thereby maximising angles of attack. And missiles, wedges and sidewalls work again, while the emerging ship is transitioning from sail to wedge. Unlike a WH transit, the ships behind the first can scan ahead and the one being attacked can transmit back. In case of an attack, the ships behind would change course and emerge elsewhere.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Galactic Sapper wrote:It's safe to assume any carrier is always going to be escorted by at least a few warships and not just its LAC wing. While it's supposed to be rare, if they were attacked in a grav wave they'd be reduced to their point defense clusters in terms of armament - wedges not working means missiles are useless and LACs don't have sails to survive a grav wave long enough to use their grasers.

How do you attack someone in a grav wave? Aside from kzt's idea of just translating downwards, I don't even see how you could get close enough for energy weapons. Any ship in a grav wave has sails, that's both attackers and defenders. Wouldn't they be moving at the same speed and acceleration?

In other words, are ships moving in a grav wave simply a train: they enter together and they leave together, in the same order?

Hmm... ok, a grav-wave is not one-dimensionsal and we know it's possible to tack the wave, moving against its direction. By angling your sails to go left and right, up and down, you can also increase the distance you're travelling and delay your motion so you get closer to anyone coming up behind you or come at them from another vector.

But then attacking someone in a grav wave would be extremely risky, unless you're sure of superiority. If suddenly your prey reveals to have more than what you could bite, you're screwed, since then you can't escape. You can't break off, since every fastest path available to you is also available to the other side, including crash translation. Minimising this risk by coming in on a very a different vector also means your window to attack is also short and could allow even wounded prey to escape.

Or can some ships be faster than others, by having bigger sails or some other technological mechanism?

Unless that exists, I only see battles at transitions: when coming out of a grav wave. Just like WH forts, ships will usually come out of a grav wave one by one, with enough separation to avoid collisions, and opposite force can arrange itself in a hemisphere around the emergence point, thereby maximising angles of attack. And missiles, wedges and sidewalls work again, while the emerging ship is transitioning from sail to wedge. Unlike a WH transit, the ships behind the first can scan ahead and the one being attacked can transmit back. In case of an attack, the ships behind would change course and emerge elsewhere.

Not all ships handle grav waves the same, especially when comparing warships and civilian designs (in SVW, the peeps overtook and destroyed the convoy escort squadron Helen Zilwiki was commanding, for instance).

But in general, warships will all have the same top speed in grav waves - 60% of local light speed, which is the maximum speed particle shielding can handle in hyperspace. Ambushing then becomes the usual battle of who has better sensor capability - detect the other side before they detect you. If both sides have the same top speed, the ambusher will attempt to get in front of the target and travel along the wave at below 60% light, such that the target is catching up on them. When the target detects the ambush, they don't have a lot of options. Can't speed up - and if you did, you're heading right into them. If you try to slow down, they have a lower velocity and can slow down faster than you. They can follow lateral movements as well as you, and as you attempt it they're still closing distance on you. Crash translation downward might work, if you have time to get all the way down before they're on you. Or if you're close enough to the edge of the wave you could break for free space where your missiles and wedge are usable. Or you can simply scatter, giving the enemy the choice of what to attack but assuring at least some ships get away.

The attacker generally isn't as constrained. If they see something they can't handle, they have the option of resuming max speed and maintaining distance. Or if they're overtaking a slower merchant convoy, break off laterally or by slowing down. The escort won't be able to follow without leaving the convoy vulnerable to a potential second attack from a different angle.

The down side for the attacker was also demonstrated in the action mentioned above. You're forced into energy range with no sidewalls to protect you, so even a greatly outgunned opponent can inflict serious, even fatal, damage in the time it takes you to kill them. Even a destroyer can kill an SD under such circumstances if it can take out the alpha nodes such that the SD can no longer stabilize itself in the wave. A ship damaged that way has to be towed out of the wave by an intact ship before turbulence in the wave tears it apart.

Standard hazards of navigation can occasionally do the same thing, thus why the pirates fell for the ruse Harrington used when Wayfarer entered Marsh for the first time in WoH - a ship with a failing alpha node has to get out of a wave as soon as possible because if the node fails in the wave they're all dead.

As I said, actions in grav waves are rare, but they can and do happen. No one is going to risk a capital ship by moving it without an escort when it doesn't even have energy weapons with which to defend itself.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
Sorry, I don't get it. I can summarise what I understood as "they can build ships while upgrading to level X, but not while upgrading to level Y". Anyway, I think the point is moot: so long as the Admiralty doesn't give those plans, it's not going to happen. And David decides what the government will decide.

I don't know the government will forbit the TQ and Silesia from building shipyards and improving their local industries to support those yards, I think the issue is that the SKM/SEM will not fund the expansion of yards in TQ and Silesia until the industry in the Manticore HS is back up and running.

The ship yards might not be that different between Manticore, Talbott and Silesia except in efficiency what is different would be the industries that are needed to build the components for the yards to assemble, something that both Talbott and Silesia are lacking at the moment. If they were to coordinate between the two of them or even just individually they can get significant improvement in the technological capabilities long before the SKM can provide much help.

Not that the RoH is likely to part with those designs, since it has plenty of shipyards of its own that will be competing for that market. The TQ shipyards had better form a consortium with some design bureaus in the Manticore Binary System and start producing those. They can be knock-offs of RHN designs and older Shrikes.

There will be a lot of systems needing ships over the decade or two after the end of the war with the League, a few yards in Talbott and a few yards in Silesia will not bankrupt the Republic and will actually strengthen the GA, it might be a little improvement but it will be an improvement.

That's where the shoals of system defence missile pods come in. A surprise attack with anything less than two squadrons of state-of-the-art SD(P) is unlikely to succeed. And besides, why would anyone attack the smaller systems first?

Noone but the GA has state of the art SD(P)'s as of yet but the MA has SD(P) under construction. Five or ten years down the line there might be more nations with SD(P)'s so just because your fixed defences might be enough in 1923 doesent mean you have to ignore mobile capital ships until something bites you in the ass and forces you to build them because it might prove too late.


What do you think happens to the SEM if someone comes in with sufficient forces to wipe away any fixed and mobile assets in 90% of the SEM and the RMN cannot respond? What do you think happens to the SEM's word and promise of assistance to other systems if they cannot or are unwilling to protect their own territory except for a small core group of systems. If I had a fleet of 50 SD(P)'s and I wanted to make the SEM suffer I would crush every bit of military and civilian piece of equipment in orbit and in fact I would make every one of the systems that the SEM deemed unworthy of protection surrender, at which point nothing the SEM says or does will be taken seriously by any verge, shell or core world since they will know that the SEM cannot protect itself so how can it protect them.

The two squadrons of RMN SD(P)s assigned to the TQ are either going to be on patrol or in Spindle. If they are on patrol, finding them with a superior force is hard. If they are in Spindle, the most heavily defended system in the region, those 100 attacking SD(P)s may win, but they will be gutted.

And in the mean time the 50 SD(P)'s will gut the other 15 systems in Talbott. And with someone who is close technologically 50 SD(P)'s can easily deal with 12 SD(P)'s even with a lot of pods, afterall anyone who has paid any attention to the war between the RMN and the SLN knows that they will need a lot of PD and they will have their own CLAC's and their own versions of the Katana on hand. The attacker might lose some ships but it wont be 40 ships to the RMN's 12.

We can check the precise wording, but I came out with the understanding they were going to mothball the Medusas and Invictus too. The problem is that the SEM cannot sustain wartime footing indefinitely. The taxes need to come down at some point and investments into infrastructure and the MMM are badly needed.

I don't understand wartime footing in the honorverse, they have fewer ships then they did in 1905 before the start of the first war and each of those ships is manned by a significantly smaller crew. This is when you also consider they have significantly less forts which are much more capable and once again less manpower intensive. The only increase since 1905 was obviously in LAC's and CLAC's which wouldent add the same numbers as 400 SD/DN's with crews at 3000+/ship. Even with CLAC's and LACs though it would probably not exceed 40% of the Prewar navy's manpower in capital ships which doesn't even account the light warships. In 1920 the RMN had 1/2 as many destroyers in service as they did in 1905 and those destroyers each had only a fraction of the crew. They had 1/3 of the heavy cruisers in 1920 when compared to 1905 and those also had significantly less crews.They have close to 40% of the BCs as well and those also have smaller crew's. The fact is that in 1923 no matter how much was build between 1920 and 1923 it wouldent have made such a difference as to increase the manpower requirements of the navy and when the active shooting stops so does a huge % of the costs associated with the Navy(missiles)


If I remember correctly, in one of the books it was described that with SD(P)'s it was becoming more expensive to arm an SD(P) then to build one. The RMN in 1923 is significantly smaller ship wise and manpower wise then the RMN in 1905 but with exponentially more responsibilities.

We don't know how long it will take to find Darius. We know (but the RMN doesn't) that the MAlign's plan is at least a decade away, possibly more.

And since they don't know they have to assume that it is happening soon. They don't know the timeline that the MA is using and they don't know the plan/end goal of the MA so they have to be as ready as possible soon possible.

There's a good chance the RMN won't do that. They want to be seen as "not the FF", so they won't intervene in systems unless they're threatening neighbours or commerce. So there's nothing they can or should do against some ships falling into local governments' hands. And it's pretty easy to get into grey areas of who's to blame.

Any FF ships that make it into local hands and moonlight as pirates will likely be pissing off their neighbours as well. Most of the corporations from the League will lose their investments when the local corrupt government is deposed anyway and with the loss of the intervention battalions and the loss of the threat of SLN intervention alot of governments will quickly change.