Do we actually need SD(P)s?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:Was SD(P)s possible before the current level of automation?

Yes. The Sovereign of Space class of RHN SD(P)s have nowhere the automation that Medusas and Invictus have.

Thanks.

A Havenite design, as munroburton pointed out to me two klicks upstream were also permitted to the party.

But now I'm wondering if total pod loadout between the two navy's designs was significantly different as a result.

Where is Jayne when you need her.

cthia wrote:Hey, that's right munroburton. Then what made it possible? I'm not doubting you tech heads, you guys are amazing. I'm just wondering what made it possible to eliminate lots of used space to hollow out an SD to make an SD(P). My warped brain is telling me that if so much space was available for the design without a need to reduce the current footprint of the hardware, then lots of space was being wasted. And an Admiral could have had two or three swimming pools and crews could have been taken out of sardine cans.

But I seem to recall the pods themselves created lots of space? You can always stack more of an item if you use "boxes." Plus, ISTR, there is a serious tradeoff in the design because it eliminates a lot of the elements that make a ship more battle hardened, essentially turning them into eggshells. (I'm assuming the eggshell factor is part of the reason the design is being questioned.) Perhaps a lot of it also has to do with the design itself, which I'm sure makes better use of the available space. There's an art to packing. You darn veterans can pack a house in a suit case. LOL

I thought automation had a lot to do with it. At any rate, thanks for the info everybody. I suppose the SL won't have trouble with their own designs after all.

The main thing that went away when pods were added was the conventional missile magazines were deleted or shrunk. (And with them a lot of the multi-meter wide feed tubes carefully snaking their way from the deeply buried magazines to each broadside or chase missile mount)

Also IIRC SD(P)s, at least the early ones, carried fewer missiles than their conventional counterparts. Because pods and pod bays are less space efficient than magazines and feed tubes. But they could flush their missiles so much faster that fights just didn't last long enough for running out of ammo to be a common problem. (They did require more ammo collier support after a fight since despite carrying fewer missiles they tended to fire off more missiles in a given fight than a conventional SD)

Now, since Manticore also rolled in the automation advancements their SD(P)s did have smaller crews than the SDs they were superceeding. So that let them reduce the room spend on crew quarters, mess facilities, stores, etc. So that would have let them fit is a reasonable percentage larger pod bays than if, like Haven, they'd kept crew sizes largely unchanged as they transitioned to podnaughts.


Though in the case of the Haven SD(P)s they entirely ripped the conventional missile tubes out; and hence entirely deleted the conventional missile magazines. (Weren't willing to build tubes large enough to handly Havens MDMs - which even then weren't as compact as Manticores MDMs).

And since the Medusa/Harrington-class retained broadside and forward MDM launchers and some magazines to back them that probably let Haven, even with their larger crews and missiles, come at least close to parity on the number of pods carried - since they were willing to strip out more armaments to make room than Manticore was in it's 1st gen SD(P)s.

cthia wrote:Thanks.

A Havenite design, as munroburton pointed out to me two klicks upstream were also permitted to the party.

But now I'm wondering if total pod loadout between the two navy's designs was significantly different as a result.

Where is Jayne when you need her.

From Salon in AAC, Havenite SD(P)s are seen firing 576 pods each and are commented to have "fired themselves dry". Harrington comments that ONI estimates Havenite SD(P)s carry about the same 500 pods that a first flight Medusa carried (muffing the math in her internal monologue, of course, given that she calculates each one had fired about 400 when they'd fired almost 600).

That is of course using the original Buttercup era MDM pods. Manticore would soon switch to flat packs (already had, maybe?) which kicked a Medusa's pod load up to about 800 and an Invictus over 1200.

cthia wrote:
A Havenite design, as munroburton pointed out to me two klicks upstream were also permitted to the party.

But now I'm wondering if total pod loadout between the two navy's designs was significantly different as a result.

Where is Jayne when you need her.

Not to toot my own horn too loudly, I did a through analysis of BoMA a couple of years ago:

http://forums.davidweber.net/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7976&p=223345&hilit=+sovereign+of+space#p223343

The ships used had ~402 pods per ship, if the details in the book were correct. That is more than 20% lower than the Medusa/Harrington, less then 40% the total loadout of an Invictus/Harrington II, though is 14% greater than an Agamemnon/Couvosier II.

As was pointed out, we are not sure if that was the Sovereign of State class or the Tremeire class.

Galactic Sapper wrote:

cthia wrote:Thanks.

A Havenite design, as munroburton pointed out to me two klicks upstream were also permitted to the party.

But now I'm wondering if total pod loadout between the two navy's designs was significantly different as a result.

Where is Jayne when you need her.

From Salon in AAC, Havenite SD(P)s are seen firing 576 pods each and are commented to have "fired themselves dry". Harrington comments that ONI estimates Havenite SD(P)s carry about the same 500 pods that a first flight Medusa carried (muffing the math in her internal monologue, of course, given that she calculates each one had fired about 400 when they'd fired almost 600).

That is of course using the original Buttercup era MDM pods. Manticore would soon switch to flat packs (already had, maybe?) which kicked a Medusa's pod load up to about 800 and an Invictus over 1200.

If memory serves, the ships at Solon were the Tremiere Class (or at least 1 was) it could be the Tremiere class had the 576 pod load, and the Sovereign of Space had the ~402 seen at BoMA.

That is excellent work Theemile, thanks for that. Who says I needed Jayne.

Not that it is likely to do them any good unless they solve their range disadvantage, but the SLN can certainly develop their own podlayers. IIRC, they still don't have laserheads.

But the MA can certainly get inside the GAs reach with their own pods and the pod version of the Cataphract.

BTW, toot that horn! There's a German saying, that, paraphrasing, "Unless you toot your horn, it won't get tooted." Again, amazing work gleaned from text.

Theemile wrote:If memory serves, the ships at Solon were the Tremiere Class (or at least 1 was) it could be the Tremiere class had the 576 pod load, and the Sovereign of Space had the ~402 seen at BoMA.

Could be that they gave 5th Fleet the newer ships for BoMA. At least the six that translated in behind Harrington (at Salon) would have to be Tremiere class ships, as all six of them put out 11 36 pod salvos followed by a 180 pod salvo, for a total of 576 pods launched per ship.

Galactic Sapper wrote:

Theemile wrote:If memory serves, the ships at Solon were the Tremiere Class (or at least 1 was) it could be the Tremiere class had the 576 pod load, and the Sovereign of Space had the ~402 seen at BoMA.

Could be that they gave 5th Fleet the newer ships for BoMA. At least the six that translated in behind Harrington (at Salon) would have to be Tremiere class ships, as all six of them put out 11 36 pod salvos followed by a 180 pod salvo, for a total of 576 pods launched per ship.

Going back to AAC. Text says the ONI data is for the "Latest Havenite Podnaught class" and the RHN Conquete, Honor's target in Giscard's trapping force, is a Temeraire class ship.

Giscard fires 11 salvos initially, each with 6 rolls of 6 pods from each of his 6 ships. - so 396 pods per ship . Seeing the Manticorian ability to shrug this level of firepower off off, he fires a salvo of 1080 pods - or 180 pods for each of his 6 ships. He then fires another "Stupendous" salvo, then loses range on Honor with nearly dry magazines.

Assuming this 13th salvo is the same size as the 12th , he had fired 756 pods per ship. Even if the salvo was only the size of the first 11 (then why "second stupendous missile wave"), each ship had a minimum of 602 pods.

So a Temeraire carried somewhere between 20-50% more than a Medusa, and 60-75% of an Invictus.

Theemile wrote:The real problem here is no one had fought large scale, pitched battles for over 300 years. Every concept was either academic or based off of (at best) BC squadron level action. Technology slowly change, but base assumptions stayed the same. In short, like any peace-time military in history - economics ruled the day. Millions of ideas probably died in those 300+ years on the alter of cost expediency. The missile pod, previously a standard piece of millitary hardware died - because of the high cost of missiles in peacetime and the introduction of shipborn emag and grav based launchers made the older pod versions (and the previous doctrine for their use) untenable in peace-time budgets. Over time, their use fades to the collective memory as "they just don't work", so no one even examines why, because it is just a fact "everyone knows".

There was almost no reason for missile pods. Before the coming of the laser head the missile defenses of wallers were considerably more effective than the missiles. Missiles posed a threat to smaller craft but were basically harassment to a waller. If you went with pods and your opponent increased their point defense to match they would have the superior ship.

Once the laser head came along the point defense situation became much, much harder and missiles went from harassment to the primary battle weapon. Now the pod carrier beats the improved point defense and it didn't take very long for pods to be developed and the podnaught wasn't far behind.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

Theemile wrote:The real problem here is no one had fought large scale, pitched battles for over 300 years. Every concept was either academic or based off of (at best) BC squadron level action. Technology slowly change, but base assumptions stayed the same. In short, like any peace-time military in history - economics ruled the day. Millions of ideas probably died in those 300+ years on the alter of cost expediency. The missile pod, previously a standard piece of millitary hardware died - because of the high cost of missiles in peacetime and the introduction of shipborn emag and grav based launchers made the older pod versions (and the previous doctrine for their use) untenable in peace-time budgets. Over time, their use fades to the collective memory as "they just don't work", so no one even examines why, because it is just a fact "everyone knows".

There was almost no reason for missile pods. Before the coming of the laser head the missile defenses of wallers were considerably more effective than the missiles. Missiles posed a threat to smaller craft but were basically harassment to a waller. If you went with pods and your opponent increased their point defense to match they would have the superior ship.

Once the laser head came along the point defense situation became much, much harder and missiles went from harassment to the primary battle weapon. Now the pod carrier beats the improved point defense and it didn't take very long for pods to be developed and the podnaught wasn't far behind.

Wouldn't a "screen" of BC(P)s have been more than a nuisance even to SDs? Spitting out that many missiles could have bought you a golden BB. It wouldn't have mattered if the SDs point defense would have increased in response, as far as making them the superior ship against BCs. SDs are superior to BCs anyway. BC(P)s would have made a helluva screen back then. No?

Let's say SD(P)s are phased out. What would be done with the extra space, back to being more battle hardened? And, this has probably been covered, aren't podnaughts built much faster?