Initial Navy buildup in Travis' time

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
Battleships take time to build. It's unlikely the Manticore of the 16th century was able to build 5 of them simultaneously. Building 10 of them two at a time for 3 years means 15 years. The prototype ship (HMS Manticore BB-01) must have taken even longer. So make it 20 years from laying down the first to the last commissioning.

Ditto for battlecruisers: HMS Nike (BC-01) must have been laid down no later than 1585 PD, the same year of the first (official) wormhole crossing.

And building up to a BC probably means a homegrown CA class. King Edward was leading up to that with an effort to refurbish a CL, which leads to building one from scratch, then a CC, then a CA, and so on.

My question is: when do we see home-built cruisers? And are we going to see more DDs and FFs, with sufficient quads and hexes?

From what David has said (IIRC at con panels) the Battleship is still a very new technology. Gustav Anderman founded the Andermani Empire sometime in the 1500s; and David said that while he was still a mercenary working in the League he was responsible for driving the creation of the first battleship design not long before he left to found his empire. David went on to say that the terms of his leaving involved him getting the first few battleships and then the yard selling the next batches to the League Navy.

It's possible that the Andermani might have gotten a BB capable construction yard of their own up and running by around 1600; but I certainly wouldn't expect Manticore to and I'm doubtful Haven has plans or slips for them yet either. [Edit - I see jchilds found a reference in HoS saying Manticore did build them. I'm shocked]


So for the BBs I'd have expected them to have to buy; and most likely from League yards -- right after they find that shortcut to Beowulf. At least the first flights of BCs are might well also outside of Manticore's ability to build - but those might have come from Haven who we know is (at this time) friendly and has a robust naval construction effort of the widely available types. There are different pros and cons to spreading out or concentrating your ship orders.

Given the newly established wormhole provides both greater need for system security and a revenue stream to fund such, I'd expect the plans to provide Manticore with a high-tech naval yard for domestic and export use will also be acted upon as quickly as possible. (At the cruiser level that might even have been initiated even before the wormhole existence is confirmed; much less the routes mapped)

Jonathan_S wrote:From what David has said (IIRC at con panels) the Battleship is still a very new technology. Gustav Anderman founded the Andermani Empire sometime in the 1500s; and David said that while he was still a mercenary working in the League he was responsible for driving the creation of the first battleship design not long before he left to found his empire. David went on to say that the terms of his leaving involved him getting the first few battleships and then the yard selling the next batches to the League Navy.

It's possible that the Andermani might have gotten a BB capable construction yard of their own up and running by around 1600; but I certainly wouldn't expect Manticore to and I'm doubtful Haven has plans or slips for them yet either. [Edit - I see jchilds found a reference in HoS saying Manticore did build them. I'm shocked]


So for the BBs I'd have expected them to have to buy; and most likely from League yards -- right after they find that shortcut to Beowulf. At least the first flights of BCs are might well also outside of Manticore's ability to build - but those might have come from Haven who we know is (at this time) friendly and has a robust naval construction effort of the widely available types. There are different pros and cons to spreading out or concentrating your ship orders.

Given the newly established wormhole provides both greater need for system security and a revenue stream to fund such, I'd expect the plans to provide Manticore with a high-tech naval yard for domestic and export use will also be acted upon as quickly as possible. (At the cruiser level that might even have been initiated even before the wormhole existence is confirmed; much less the routes mapped)

I wasn't sure whether Manticore had built or had bought the BCs and BBs. It isn't clear whether they had the ability to build any warships prior to 1540 at all. The discussion on bringing the Manticore Colony Trust money back in to fund that development and we know the big problem was that they did not have the industry to build impellers. Whether they could build the rest of the hulls and just buy impellers from Haven is implied, but not explicitly stated. My impression is that they had the industry for small ships, up to corvette size (maybe frigate), but nothing above.

So we're talking about going up the tech ladder from FF in 1540 to the first BC laid down no later than 1586. That means those cruisers I talked about above must be built and the plans for HMS Nike drawn up before the first WH transit.

As for the Andermani, while reading ACTV, I got the distinct impression that the SMS Vergeltung was the only battleship, since it provoked such a reaction. Maybe I'm mistaken and it's not that it's the ship type, but that it's the imperial flagship itself, Gustav Anderman's own ship?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:I wasn't sure whether Manticore had built or had bought the BCs and BBs. It isn't clear whether they had the ability to build any warships prior to 1540 at all. The discussion on bringing the Manticore Colony Trust money back in to fund that development and we know the big problem was that they did not have the industry to build impellers. Whether they could build the rest of the hulls and just buy impellers from Haven is implied, but not explicitly stated. My impression is that they had the industry for small ships, up to corvette size (maybe frigate), but nothing above.

So we're talking about going up the tech ladder from FF in 1540 to the first BC laid down no later than 1586. That means those cruisers I talked about above must be built and the plans for HMS Nike drawn up before the first WH transit.

As for the Andermani, while reading ACTV, I got the distinct impression that the SMS Vergeltung was the only battleship, since it provoked such a reaction. Maybe I'm mistaken and it's not that it's the ship type, but that it's the imperial flagship itself, Gustav Anderman's own ship?

It's be pretty unusualy for even a mercenary force to build/buy a single heavy unit - especially if David stick with what he said about Gustov driving the creation of the design.

I'd find it much more likely they'd bought at least 6; which would easily let then keep a 2-ship division in active service (with the other 4 undergoing refit, upgrade, or working up) and without much difficulty able to surge up to a 4-ship half squadron. (Because frankly if you couldn't have at least 6 you're probably better off sinking that same capital into more BCs; which will be able to work best with your existing BC units)

Still as one of the handful of the newest and most powerful warships in space it'd still be damned impressive, and surprising, to find yourself near one anywhere except deep in the League or in orbit over Potsdamn. (Much less involved in combat at the side of one) [But I admit I haven't gone back to review the text you mentioned; so there might be something there that overrides simple logic ]

Jonathan_S wrote:It's be pretty unusualy for even a mercenary force to build/buy a single heavy unit - especially if David stick with what he said about Gustov driving the creation of the design.

I'd find it much more likely they'd bought at least 6; which would easily let then keep a 2-ship division in active service (with the other 4 undergoing refit, upgrade, or working up) and without much difficulty able to surge up to a 4-ship half squadron. (Because frankly if you couldn't have at least 6 you're probably better off sinking that same capital into more BCs; which will be able to work best with your existing BC units)

Still as one of the handful of the newest and most powerful warships in space it'd still be damned impressive, and surprising, to find yourself near one anywhere except deep in the League or in orbit over Potsdamn. (Much less involved in combat at the side of one) [But I admit I haven't gone back to review the text you mentioned; so there might be something there that overrides simple logic ]

You make good points, though I find it hard to believe a mercenary force could have bought even a single BB at the time, much less a squadron. They were brand new things at the time. But Anderman was the single most successful mercenary, so could be. And he did have the resources of a planet after he saved it.

BTW, I wonder what the stats on the SMS Vergeltung are and how they compare to the HMS Manticore (BB-01) when she commissions. Maybe even against HMS Nike (BC-01). After all, if the previous class of BCs got reclassified as CAs, if the Vergeltung was proportionately sized to BCs of the 1530s, the Nike-class might be close to a match.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:BTW, I wonder what the stats on the SMS Vergeltung are and how they compare to the HMS Manticore (BB-01) when she commissions. Maybe even against HMS Nike (BC-01). After all, if the previous class of BCs got reclassified as CAs, if the Vergeltung was proportionately sized to BCs of the 1530s, the Nike-class might be close to a match.

A quick search through ACTV finds these bits of data:

• One of the Barcan ships was "built on a freighter hull" and "at least a half-million tons, six or seven times the size of one of those cruisers" (Casey class is reported at 73000 tons).
• The Casey and the SMS Vergeltung are drawn side-by-side after the text and the Casey is 70% the length of the Vergeltung. Since the Casey is 365 m long, that would make the Vergeltung 521 m.
• They describe one of the Volsungs' battlecruisers as an "old Beowulfan Stilio-class ships" that "ran to about two hundred thousand tons, and were somewhat more modern than RMN's Lexington-class battlecruisers".

Could a Star Knight CA of 1900 (305200 tons, 523 m in length) be comparable to a BB 1540? A Star Knight has a single chase graser and the Vergeltung is described as having a "single spinal laser."

I'm going to guess that the Vergeltung was more massive due to more armour, at least half a million tons. And I'm going to guess Manticore's new Nike-class BCs were comparable, maybe slightly under at 400kt. If the previous Nike (BC-09) got reclassed as a CA at just under 200kt, the BC-01 should be at least twice as massive.

And I'm going to guess the BB-01 totally outclassed the Vergeltung, at over one million tons. Why? Because they were still in service in 1844, when the RMN had about a hundred of Redoubtables massing 784kt.

BTW, on the number of ships the Andermani might have had:

A Call To Vengeance, ch 29 wrote:[...] “— Captain, I believe that's a genuine, honest-to-God battleship”

“That's…impressive,” Clegg said into the the silence. “I was under the impression that only the League had warships that big. TO?”

“That's what Jane's [sic] says, Ma'am,” Travis confirmed. “According to them, the SLN's the only navy with battleships.”

“Apparently, the bean-counters missed one,” Clegg said.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:And I'm going to guess the BB-01 totally outclassed the Vergeltung, at over one million tons. Why? Because they were still in service in 1844, when the RMN had about a hundred of Redoubtables massing 784kt.

Looks like I was wrong and at least 60% off the mark. House of Steel to the rescue again:

The design of the Ad Astra class was refined over a few decades of operational experience with the Manticore-class battleship, a locally-built, Solarian licensed design. At almost twice the tonnage of the Manticores, ... Subject to several refits, and rebuilt virtually from the keel out in 1878, the ships decommissioned in the early days of the war bear little resemblance to the original ships laid down in the seventeenth century.

First of all, the Manticores are not of Manticoran design. That probably sped up the construction, since there was no need for a prototype. There were sixteen of them, so if we say 4 batches of 4 for 4 years each, that's 16 years to build them all.

Second, there were "decades of experience", so at least the HMS Manticore and her batchmates need at about 30 years of service life before the Ad Astra design starts. That's about right to commissioning between 1594 and 1610.

The refit ship's stats (see wiki) listed her at 3.9 MT. If we're generous and say they gained nearly a million tons in their 250 years of service, that would put the 1632 construction still at 3 million tons. If that's "almost twice the tonnage", the Manticores must have been between 1.6 and 2 million tons.

But given they were of Solarian design, which in turn must have been inspired by the Vergeltung of 60-70 years before. So the Vergeltung must have been at least a million tons, more likely one and a half.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:And I'm going to guess the BB-01 totally outclassed the Vergeltung, at over one million tons. Why? Because they were still in service in 1844, when the RMN had about a hundred of Redoubtables massing 784kt.

Looks like I was wrong and at least 60% off the mark. House of Steel to the rescue again:

The design of the Ad Astra class was refined over a few decades of operational experience with the Manticore-class battleship, a locally-built, Solarian licensed design. At almost twice the tonnage of the Manticores, ... Subject to several refits, and rebuilt virtually from the keel out in 1878, the ships decommissioned in the early days of the war bear little resemblance to the original ships laid down in the seventeenth century.

First of all, the Manticores are not of Manticoran design. That probably sped up the construction, since there was no need for a prototype. There were sixteen of them, so if we say 4 batches of 4 for 4 years each, that's 16 years to build them all.

Second, there were "decades of experience", so at least the HMS Manticore and her batchmates need at about 30 years of service life before the Ad Astra design starts. That's about right to commissioning between 1594 and 1610.

The refit ship's stats (see wiki) listed her at 3.9 MT. If we're generous and say they gained nearly a million tons in their 250 years of service, that would put the 1632 construction still at 3 million tons. If that's "almost twice the tonnage", the Manticores must have been between 1.6 and 2 million tons.

But given they were of Solarian design, which in turn must have been inspired by the Vergeltung of 60-70 years before. So the Vergeltung must have been at least a million tons, more likely one and a half.

In my notes, I have the Thorstons at ~2Mtons.

HoS says the 3.85Mton Ad Astra class is almost 2x the Mass of the Thorstons, placing them right in the ~2 Mton range at the end of their lives. This is the only size indicator I have been able to find on them.

Theemile wrote:In my notes, I have the Thorstons at ~2Mtons.

HoS says the 3.85Mton Ad Astra class is almost 2x the Mass of the Thorstons, placing them right in the ~2 Mton range at the end of their lives. This is the only size indicator I have been able to find on them.

That was my conclusion too. I just tried to find the lower bound for size and it would be 1.6 MT for the Thorstons/Manticores. Which implies the Vergeltung is no less than a million tonnes.

How is that possible when battlecruisers were 200,000 tonnes in the 1440s?

Maybe battlecruisers were creeping up in size in the late 15th century already and were nearing 300,000. Then someone by the first name Gustav shoots it up to 500 kT. Not happy with a single success, he goes and invents the BB type at 3x that mass, at 1.5 MT. We've seen freighters in the 16th century already massing a couple of million tonnes, so the technology was there.

That would also explain why the RMN reclassified its pre-creep Triumph-class BCs of merely 200 kT as heavy cruiser, quite possibly creating the term "heavy cruiser" to accommodate them. The Nikes are probably in the half a million tonne range.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
That would also explain why the RMN reclassified its pre-creep Triumph-class BCs of merely 200 kT as heavy cruiser, quite possibly creating the term "heavy cruiser" to accommodate them. The Nikes are probably in the half a million tonne range.

Both the RMN and Volsungs had heavy cruisers in their fleet already at the Battle of Manticore. The Ship that was abducted in "A Call to Duty" was a Havenite CA.

Theemile wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
That would also explain why the RMN reclassified its pre-creep Triumph-class BCs of merely 200 kT as heavy cruiser, quite possibly creating the term "heavy cruiser" to accommodate them. The Nikes are probably in the half a million tonne range.

Both the RMN and Volsungs had heavy cruisers in their fleet already at the Battle of Manticore. The Ship that was abducted in "A Call to Duty" was a Havenite CA.

Thank you, I rechecked the text and they do say "heavy cruiser". I was just confused by the wiki saying "CC" instead of "CA".

Back to the original topic: if the RMN is going to commission HMS Nike (BC-01) in 1590 and HMS Manticore (BB-01) in 1590, they have to start with heavier heavy cruisers somewhere and more Casey-class CLs too. I'd expect to see a squadron of Caseys by 1560, a second CL class in the plans, probably with a short run. Then a CA class in the early 1570s. All of this leading up to the Nike-class BC project.

Question is: when did they start the BB project, before or after the Junction is discovered?