Would Dispersing Shipyards Blunt or Stop a Second Oyster Bay

Sigs wrote:

So they can't be building spider-driven SD-sized warships fast. I guess maybe 40 months per ship.

To me the important factor is not how fast they can build them but how many they can build at the same time and how many they have under construction. They will eventually improve the speed, but if they have enough yards to build 100 SD(P)’s in 5 years and they are nearing completion to the first batch they could come as a nasty surprise to the GA.

They won't be because of rational decisions. You don't build 100 ships of the same class in parallel before putting the first one through trials and exercises to figure out how well it fares. You could end up with 100 really defective ships. You need the flexibility to tweak your design, even scrap it and make a new one (like the Invictus are to the Medusas) if you find sufficient flaws or opportunities for improvement.

And you don't make a yard for 100 SD-sized ships that sits mostly idle. That's an investment that doesn't make sense. You start with a few slips for your first ships and then you expand. They could reach eventually 100 building slips, but not until they already have 15-20 ships built and operational. That's at least 10 years down the line.

Finally, you have to convince your populace. Even if the entire flow of information from the outside world is controlled in Darius, someone is bound to ask why they're building 200-500 wallers. They can portray the GA as the enemy, guilty of bombarding Mesa, but you have to be careful with your narrative. Jumping the gun could hurt you.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
And you don't make a yard for 100 SD-sized ships that sits mostly idle. That's an investment that doesn't make sense. You start with a few slips for your first ships and then you expand. They could reach eventually 100 building slips, but not until they already have 15-20 ships built and operational. That's at least 10 years down the line.

Actually Darius already had their initial spin up - they built the ~5 Mton Sharks at Darius. That was 27 small capital ships ships that were trainers and technology demonstrators for the Leonard Detweilers.

They are probably planning on the 2nd and 3rd waves for manning by their RF partners.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
They won't be because of rational decisions. You don't build 100 ships of the same class in parallel before putting the first one through trials and exercises to figure out how well it fares. You could end up with 100 really defective ships.

Oh, come on. Look at the US Navy and LCS! What could possibly go wrong?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:They won't be because of rational decisions. You don't build 100 ships of the same class in parallel before putting the first one through trials and exercises to figure out how well it fares. You could end up with 100 really defective ships. You need the flexibility to tweak your design, even scrap it and make a new one (like the Invictus are to the Medusas) if you find sufficient flaws or opportunities for improvement.

The way it is written in Mission of Honor sure sounds like the Leonard Detweiler Class ships under construction are a more then just a couple ships.

And you don't make a yard for 100 SD-sized ships that sits mostly idle. That's an investment that doesn't make sense. You start with a few slips for your first ships and then you expand. They could reach eventually 100 building slips, but not until they already have 15-20 ships built and operational. That's at least 10 years down the line.

Who says it's idle? They could have been building ships for the RF navies for a long time, hell with how corrupt the League was they could have been building SLN SD's in Darius and no one would be any wiser. Or they could have been building ships for the MAN for decades to get their experience not to mention t the tools the MAN needs to build a competent navy. For all we know the MAN has hundreds of SD's that they have build over the last few decades which have been completed, used for a decade and retired in order to keep the shipyards from going idle.

Finally, you have to convince your populace. Even if the entire flow of information from the outside world is controlled in Darius, someone is bound to ask why they're building 200-500 wallers. They can portray the GA as the enemy, guilty of bombarding Mesa, but you have to be careful with your narrative. Jumping the gun could hurt you.

Everyone of those slaves had been born here in Dairus, and not one of them had ever left the system. Their knowledge of what was happening elsewhere in the galaxy, of the history of Mesa, or their own history had been carefully controlled for generations. They’d been aware for those same generations that they and their parents and grandparents had been labouring to build first the basic industry and then specialized infrastructure to support a massive navy, but they were convinced it was intended as a defensive fleet.

Mission of Honor, Chapter 38


This makes it pretty clear that they in fact have laid the ground work for building a massive navy and it most definitely would be needed for a defensive purpose because the Grand Alliance is going to come for them with everything they have the second they get an idea where the MA is.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:But that's exactly the point: many of them had a need to know. Elizabeth and Honor and probably all of the Lords of the Admiralty had a need: to be convinced of Haven's trustworthiness. A lot of other people had other needs: for example, to figure out the logistics of getting personnel and material shipped there, and hardware shipped back. And the crews of the military ships going there.

I don't see that they have any need to know.

"It's a lost colony not far from the end of a wormhole bridge you don't know about" confirmed by treecat that they aren't lying.

Beyond that all they need to know is approximate transit time.

Loren Pechtel wrote:I don't see that they have any need to know.

"It's a lost colony not far from the end of a wormhole bridge you don't know about" confirmed by treecat that they aren't lying.

Beyond that all they need to know is approximate transit time.

That is TOO MUCH information, as it has been pointed out that can serve to dramatically narrow the search area.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
The MAN is getting something different and building the Leonard Detweilers slowly.

The Lenny Dets are not just an untested class, they are an essentially untested type. The only operational use of a spider drive ship was Oyster Bay, and that was entirely an ambush operation. There was no direct engagement of the Sharks and Ghost scouts by the RMN. The only operational test of the graser torpedoes was, again, Oyster Bay and in support of the SLN attack on Beowulf in UH. Not a whole lot of basis to make great plans with.

Of course, there wasn't a whole lot of experience with major carrier offensives (with the exception of the RN vs. the Italian Navy at Taranto) prior to 0730 on December 7, 1941. And the counter lessons at Coral Sea and Midway, barely six months later.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:But that's exactly the point: many of them had a need to know. Elizabeth and Honor and probably all of the Lords of the Admiralty had a need: to be convinced of Haven's trustworthiness. A lot of other people had other needs: for example, to figure out the logistics of getting personnel and material shipped there, and hardware shipped back. And the crews of the military ships going there.

I don't see that they have any need to know.

"It's a lost colony not far from the end of a wormhole bridge you don't know about" confirmed by treecat that they aren't lying.

Beyond that all they need to know is approximate transit time.

And when they get to Bolthole and look around; they will see the original colony vessel in its parking orbit and see that it is "Calvin's Hope". Then they know too much.

kzt wrote:Oh, come on. Look at the US Navy and LCS! What could possibly go wrong?

I think you forgot the "FamousLastWords™" part.

Sigs wrote:The way it is written in Mission of Honor sure sounds like the Leonard Detweiler Class ships under construction are a more then just a couple ships.

I never meant that they were few. I meant they are building them slowly, which is why it could still take decades for those ships to go out to the galaxy at large.

Sigs wrote:

And you don't make a yard for 100 SD-sized ships that sits mostly idle. That's an investment that doesn't make sense. You start with a few slips for your first ships and then you expand. They could reach eventually 100 building slips, but not until they already have 15-20 ships built and operational. That's at least 10 years down the line.

Who says it's idle? They could have been building ships for the RF navies for a long time, hell with how corrupt the League was they could have been building SLN SD's in Darius and no one would be any wiser. Or they could have been building ships for the MAN for decades to get their experience not to mention t the tools the MAN needs to build a competent navy. For all we know the MAN has hundreds of SD's that they have build over the last few decades which have been completed, used for a decade and retired in order to keep the shipyards from going idle.

They couldn't be building big ships for the RF because those ships are out in the public eye. Someone would be asking where the Republic of Mannerheim or one of the others is getting wallers from. The MAlign does not control the entire RF Navy personnel, only top commanders and flag officers. Low-level officers and enlisted would know all the details they crawl under and the distinctiveness of each yard could be eventually detected. Then the GA and SL intelligence services would know that the RF is using ships built by an unknown yard.

They definitely were building smaller ships for the MAN. The keyword here is "smaller": nothing bigger than a BC. You're completely right that they were getting the experience at shipbuilding and for that you have to start from the bottom. It's even possible that they built a few conventional DNs or SDs, just to see if they could, but those ships are likely scrapped by now.

But they hadn't built spider-driven ships before the Sharks. They were the first to reach BB or DN size and they needed lots of prototypes before they were confident to scale up to SD size. Then you build one or two and test the hell out of them before building more. See also Fox2!'s reply above.

So this is why I mean those yards can't have capacity for 100 SD-sized ships in parallel right now: they can't be building 100 Lenny Dets in parallel and no one puts that much capital into a yard until there's need. But if they foresee the need, those yards are being themselves built.

Sigs wrote:This makes it pretty clear that they in fact have laid the ground work for building a massive navy and it most definitely would be needed for a defensive purpose because the Grand Alliance is going to come for them with everything they have the second they get an idea where the MA is.

I admit the propaganda / information control argument is flimsy.