Retrofitting the RMN: A Saganami Island Assignment

Nope. The 300 million people, who apparently mine asteroids with picks and shovels, have no ship yars, factories or anything other then million of people with hammers breaking up rocks.

Yes, it’s fairly crazy, but it’s David’s world.

tlb wrote:The text you highlighted does NOT say that a "great deal of the infrastructure wasn't touched". What it says is that the mining, refining and smelting plants were left alone. Then it says they lost the fabrication and assembly platforms. In the thread he made it clear that what was lost was the specialized and optimized production lines that could produce in volume and the equipment brought back from other places were generalized and so could not replicate the volume of products needed.

As for your hypothesis that the orbital space around the planets, especially Manticore, was crowded with "industrial nodes, most of which were of low strategic value in the war"; I will have to leave that to others. It is my understanding that this does not exist, but perhaps others have better evidence from RFC.

When we heard about OB, I put a list together of ~25 other sources of trained Manty workers and equipment to rebuild the stations. David shot massive holes in my list, I believe bacause he didn't think about 1/2 of them and just had to make them go away.

So things like the Unicorn Belt yard... Not in the unicorn belt but part of Weyland.

I mentioned repurposing Smaller stations around the 3 planets... Nope, all heavy industry was on the 3 big stations. No other industrial platforms exist. ( He kept saying something like imagine if the big 3 automakers, the defense companies, the airplane makers, GE, Westinghouse, all their suppliers, etc were all destroyed).

I mentioned that the smelters and extraction had fab/ support hardware to keep their ships running - nope.

I mentioned the Habs with 300 million people in Manticore B Space. - Nope, no industry here. Not even hardware to repair/ build/ support the Habs.

I mentioned the repair facilities at the wormhole, both in support of the forts, and merchant traffic. Nope, nothing significant.

I mentioned the fleetbases- Hancock, Marsh, etc. David said repair only, no Fabrication facilities, the workers had different skills from construction.

I mentioned the Talbot construction base, which built SDs in the first war. He forgot about it, then when reminded, he spun a yarn about the Manty governments not transferring technology to them during the first war, and the RHN selling them on the political correspondence story, so they stood aside while the second war waged.

Don't look, don't try to find something else, just let it drop.

David wanted it all gone, logic be damed.

Theemile wrote:David wanted it all gone, logic be damed.

And then he got bored with it and decided it didn't matter.

Kizarvexis wrote:Sorry, my fault as I wasn't clear using a term for people when I meant it for the LACs. I didn't mean personnel sharing bunks, as you can stuff bunk rooms anywhere in the ship that will fit. The LACs need access to the cargo bay doors, so I'm sure there is a limit on how many you can stuff in a freighter and have them able to fly in and out. But, if LAC 1010 is on patrol for two weeks, why couldn't LAC 1090 use the LAC bay for maintenance and refurbishment before it's patrol, freeing up the bay for another LAC for maintenance and refurbishment.

So if you can't build the tamale LAC bases for awhile, use the freighters as the base supporting more LACs than it has bays by 'hot bunking' the LACs in the LAC bays. It's not like anyone would want to send an unarmed civilian LAC carrier on an offensive mission that was not direly needed. So they would stay in the system on defense, likely inside the hyper limit, to support the LACs patrolling the system. If you had to pull out to cede the system and had more LACs than it has bays, you ditch and scuttle the extras after the people are off.

That would be eminently practical. With few exceptions I don't think ships (or aircraft) have permanent, uniquely assigned berths or parking spots. An exception might be the one berth at a station that is equipped to support a carrier - deep enough, long enough, proper utilities connections in the right places. I don't think, for example, that Navy Station Everett is equipped to simultaneously handle two Nimitz class carriers. But the pier there can handle any (reasonable) number of DDG-51 or CG-49s. There are pictures of destroyers rafted together, even post-war.

kzt wrote:

Theemile wrote:David wanted it all gone, logic be damed.

And then he got bored with it and decided it didn't matter.

Should we add this to the Dead Horses topic?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

kzt wrote:And then he got bored with it and decided it didn't matter.

Should we add this to the Dead Horses topic?

I wouldn't call it a dead horse, there is just nothing to discuss, David just left it such that any discussion is pointless - the outcome is the way he wanted it, and from our viewpoint, that may change as time goes on.

Kizarvexis wrote:Yeah, stuffing LAC bays and support in freighter cargo hold would take some work by repair ships and those would be busy after Oyster Bay. Although every freighter converted to lug LACs around for defensive purposes, frees up a CLAC from that for other duties.

That presupposes that you have excess LACs; since the LAC production lines went up along with everything else. If you convert freighters into LAC tenders you'd have to reassign existing LACs from other purposes to fill them. So draw down on the LACs already assigned to system defense - or strip LACs out of CLACs into less capable converted freighters.

A bit of that might still make sense. You might reevaluate and determine that Silesia, for example, was over supplied with LACS and you could pull some wings back to redeploy elsewhere. You might even decide there were 2 systems that each needed about 50 LACs, but weren't worth assigning a CLAC carrying 100+ to. The converted freighters would let you split the CLAC's force into two and send half to each system.

But for the most part you'd only need to worry about getting more LAC transport capability once your LAC production lines are restores; a year or more after Oyster Bay. At that point you probably get LAC production restarted and new LACs in service faster than you can get new Manticoran built CLACs built and in service.

tlb wrote:I have more of a problem understanding how someone can think that the equipment to create factories could have escaped being destroyed when all of Manticore's orbital manufacturing capacity was destroyed.

Assuming you're right Haven still has plenty of equipment to make industrial stations. Now the guts of the factory, the advanced machinery that Manticore uses to make their high tech naval equipment, that Manticore would have to replace (or possibly get Beowulf to replace to Manticoran specs) - but the basic shell to stick the orbital factory in could be easily sourced from Haven.

And I'd be flabbergasted if the station shell was the long lead item on their orbital industry. If, as I'd assume, the complex high-tech machinery needed for manufacturing within the factory are the long lead items then it wouldn't mater if you could build a groundside factory building sooner than you could ship in the components from Haven; since either way it'd be sitting around waiting for the guts to be completed and ready to install.

(And of course rebuilding it in space means you don't need to ship the raw materials down to the surface, and ship all the manufactured materials back up into orbit. It's probably a lot simpler logistical problem to run a little, say, 500,000 ton intra-system supply barge full of raw material over from the asteroid belt smelters, or skimmed off gas giants, to the orbital factory than it would be to tranship all that material onto heavy lift shuttles [which can carry what, a few thousand tons, max?] to drop it to surface factory)

SharkHunter wrote:I'm thinking the combination below could be built in about the same time as one SD(p)

So the admiralty orders that "From now on ALL remote commands (2 squadrons) in Talbott or SLN space will consist of --at minimum, the following ships:

1 FSV...
1 Nike
Either 4 Sag-Cs or Sag-Cs and a squadron of Rolands

Slight necro quoting here Every time this comes up I am reminded of the WWII Iowa, Alaska, Brooklyn debate. 1 Alaska = 2/3 of Iowa in terms of man hours to build and cost with almost same manning reqs and is in no way shape or form equal to an Iowa or even half of one.

For same cost as an Alaska, could have ordered 2 Brooklyn CA's.

Now does not really work, as SDP is >> Nike compared to Alaska vrs Iowa, but RFC has shown that the cost is not the hull, in fact he says a NIKE takes just about as much time to build as an SDP, but CA's take ~ half the time. Ultimately you are building slip limited and in this I will continue to argue that the NIKE is actually a lousy ship compared to 2 CA's. They have more defense and more firepower while being able to be in 2 places at the same time.

Far as I am concerned, BC's are the worst ships to EVER build for ANY navy. Just look at age of sail ships and the 3rd rate ships... Pretty much the original BC's. Massive expense, and only ever put to sea when a giant life or death battle is in the offing. Any other time they are put up on the hard.

Relax wrote:Slight necro quoting here Every time this comes up I am reminded of the WWII Iowa, Alaska, Brooklyn debate. 1 Alaska = 2/3 of Iowa in terms of man hours to build and cost with almost same manning reqs and is in no way shape or form equal to an Iowa or even half of one.

For same cost as an Alaska, could have ordered 2 Brooklyn CA's.

Now does not really work, as SDP is >> Nike compared to Alaska vrs Iowa, but RFC has shown that the cost is not the hull, in fact he says a NIKE takes just about as much time to build as an SDP, but CA's take ~ half the time. Ultimately you are building slip limited and in this I will continue to argue that the NIKE is actually a lousy ship compared to 2 CA's. They have more defense and more firepower while being able to be in 2 places at the same time.

Far as I am concerned, BC's are the worst ships to EVER build for ANY navy. Just look at age of sail ships and the 3rd rate ships... Pretty much the original BC's. Massive expense, and only ever put to sea when a giant life or death battle is in the offing. Any other time they are put up on the hard.

I agree that a CA is better than a BC(L) if you need more platforms and you need them fast. A Saganami-C has enough firepower to take on anything it might encounter and win, short of a wall of battle. And it can most definitely run from that wall. It also has the legs for an extended mission.

A Nike can take on anything except of GA wallers. No one in the Verge, Fringe, Shell, or even most of the Core is going to want to face a Nike, period. And herein lies the difference: you need some BCs for when running-- ahem, regrouping -- is not an option. If Kotouč had had two or even three Saganami-C instead of a single Nike, it's doubtful he'd have driven 88 BCs away from Hypatia. He'd have inflicted serious damage, but he'd have had to withdraw.

Destroyers, on the other hand, have short legs. They're good for patrolling areas close to a support base. So send them to the Silesia and Talbott Quadrants, the Madras Sector, loan a few to Beowulf so they can patrol around newly- and previously-independent systems, like Cachalot.

For patrolling the Verge, I'd go for a lot of CLs, sufficient CAs and a core of BCs. For example, 2 BCs, 8 CAs and 24 CLs per sector.

Finally, I've said it before: a peace-time BC may look very different from a Nike, especially if it can be built in a significantly shorter time than an SD. Call it a Hexapuma-class BC.

Relax wrote:Slight necro quoting here Every time this comes up I am reminded of the WWII Iowa, Alaska, Brooklyn debate. 1 Alaska = 2/3 of Iowa in terms of man hours to build and cost with almost same manning reqs and is in no way shape or form equal to an Iowa or even half of one.

For same cost as an Alaska, could have ordered 2 Brooklyn CA's.

Now does not really work, as SDP is >> Nike compared to Alaska vrs Iowa, but RFC has shown that the cost is not the hull, in fact he says a NIKE takes just about as much time to build as an SDP, but CA's take ~ half the time. Ultimately you are building slip limited and in this I will continue to argue that the NIKE is actually a lousy ship compared to 2 CA's. They have more defense and more firepower while being able to be in 2 places at the same time.

Far as I am concerned, BC's are the worst ships to EVER build for ANY navy. Just look at age of sail ships and the 3rd rate ships... Pretty much the original BC's. Massive expense, and only ever put to sea when a giant life or death battle is in the offing. Any other time they are put up on the hard.

I think you're overlooking how much of a defensive step change Keyhole provides. Yes the pair of modern Sag-Cs mount more PDLCs and CMs than the one Nike (48 vs 30 PLDC per broadside, 80 vs 64 CM tubes total) - but remember how many extra salvos of CMs a Keyhole equipped SD(P) could pump out; a keyhole equipped BC(L) would be the same.

At All Costs wrote:Nicknamed "Keyhole" by the Navy, the Mark 20 wasn't a traditional tethered decoy, or even an additional sensor platform or Ghost Rider EW platform. These platforms were placed much further from the ships which had launched them, and they had only one function—to serve as fire control telemetry relays. They extended well beyond the boundaries of their motherships' impeller wedges, like an old-style wet-navy submarine's periscope, and they gave the tactical crews aboard those ships the ability to look "down" past the blinding interference of their own outgoing counter-missiles' wedges.
To a civilian, that might have sounded like a small thing, but the implications were huge. The Keyhole platforms were massive and expensive, but they allowed a ship to control multiple counter-missiles for each dedicated shipboard fire control "slot." And they also allowed counter-missile launches to be much more tightly spaced, which added significant depth to the antimissile engagement envelope.

At All Costs wrote:But the Royal Manticoran Navy had added the Keyhole platforms to its bag of tricks.
Instead of a half-dozen or a dozen counter-missiles per ship, they could bring the fire of their entire broadside counter-missile batteries to bear. They weren't restricted to the telemetry links physically mounted on their after hammerheads; they had sufficient links to control all of their counter-missiles aboard each Keyhole, and each ship had two Keyholes deployed. And as missile defense Plan Romeo rolled Honor's ships up on their sides, those platforms gained sufficient "vertical" separation to see past the interference of subsequent counter-missile salvos fired at far tighter intervals than had ever before been possible.
They still couldn't control eleven salvos . . . but they could control eight

The Sag-Cs don't have the telemetry to control all of both broadside's CMs at once, and can probably control only 3 or 4 salvos of CMs; whereas Nike should be able to control 8 salvos from both broadsides.

So in reality while mounting fewer CM tubes Nike can fire and control more CMs at each incoming wave of enemy fire. Plus the Keyholes mount PDLC of their own, beyond the ones on Nike, plus it can control all the point defense rolled behind its wedge. Plus the PDLCs it carries are equivilent to those on SD(P)s, so more emitters than carried by CAs - so higher average shot/second from each PDLC. Oh and it carrier much heavier sidewall generators than the CA.

Nike alone should have little problem dealing with the entire surprise pod launch at Monica but it doesn't seem swapping, say, Warlock for another Sag-C would have let that squadron easily weather that missile storm.


So basically the BC(L) has, in my understanding, a far far tougher defense than a simple comparison of the numbers would show.

That's not necessarily the same thing as saying that they are cost effective. But a single Nike appears to be significantly more survivable than a pair of Sag-Cs.