Escort Carrier Modification

In no particular order: Since have not been around much
FSV: ~3Mton is a light carrier, so it is already designed and being used, but without armor and has a minimal defensive suite of a Avalon CL. Carries 36 maximum LAC's. *** Forget who said each module could carry 36... for over 150... Sanity check, 150*20,000 = 3M tons. So, no to 152LAC/FSV.

As for the Avalon/Wolfhound/Roland/SAG-C and proposed new DD debate:
Everyone is forgetting limpetted pods. All these ships can only take a single Capital Grade missile hit and with everyone going to bolted on, limpetted pods, which coincidentally have capital grade missiles capable of long range... These are all glass cannon ships. Ok, SAG-C can take a couple hits. So, any proposed new ship, even if it increases in tonnage will STILL only be able to take a couple hits at most. Therefore armor as a required increase will not happen outside of VASTLY increased sidewall generator strength. Therefore it is safe to say any increase/decrease in tonnage will enable them to fight on their side using more RD's or associated light KH1 equivalent double use of RD's. RD's are not small nor cheap. Ultimately comes down to $$$ and this requires a small ship. If one wants a WWII example, look up how so called heavy cruisers farred from ANY belligerent nation. They all got their asses handed to them by smaller ships and larger ships. True, London/Washington naval treaties pretty much did not allow them to grow, but this feeds directly into the $$$$ difference between the Alaska/Iowa... By the time you build them, which can withstand modern weaponry, you may as well have built the Iowa's, Yamatos, Tirpitz instead of the Alaskas, Scharnhorsts etc. So, moral to story, I see the SAG-C/Heavy Cruiser completely disappearing as a ship type as soon as everyone catches up to bolted on pods of capital missiles on their DD/CL ships. The way I see it, BC NIKE class just became heavy cruisers and SD's just became Battleships. Can't take nearly as many hits as old SD's. Unless magic sauce increases sidewall strength MASSIVELY.

Cataphract design. Fit in tube... This aspect has always seriously bothered me. RFC writes they are MUCH larger... and yet judging by what is fired, when where how, they are not, or the SLN has VASTLY superior(50%) capacitor/impeller node design. The only way I can wrap my head around the issue is that the Cataphracts are stored as 2 missile halves in the magazines and are magically fused together in the missile tubes and then launched and all of this is done in same time a normal missile is loaded/fired... This way you get a missile which is same diameter, but roughly speaking 2X as long so as to not require baffles between impeller nodes so as not to activate the top missiles impellers drive time and hinder the final drive performance. It would make sense that this SUPER LONG missile would probably have inferior launch velocity which used to be oh so important in an SDM environment at much shorter ranges.

Ok, enough for me here gotta go

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:Actually, a frigate can be transported to another system.....In a raid on a slaver location by Torch using a freighter the to infiltrate the system they had a Torch Frigate in the hold and "related" (I won't say launched) it though cargo hold doors to provide firepower and speed.

The RTN frigates are hyper-capable.

We're talking about the hypothetical scenario of a hyper-incapable frigate. As Theemile suggests, that's probably called a "corvette."

Actually, we have confirmation from T. Pope that a non-hyper combatant greater than ~30 Ktons is classified as a Corvette. I believe this encompases anything up to ~250Ktons when "Fort" takes over.

The Dilligngham corvettes were mentioned in the short story "One Stone" iirc.

Also classified as a HAC (Heavy Assault Craft), we have a Pearl from David stating that no major navy will build one.

https://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/entry/Harrington/76/1/

Brigade XO wrote:"Collier" in the Honorverse is getting used interchangeably as a naval logistics ship and an ammunations ship. Initially it was (wet navy) literally a ship which transported coal as a fuel- mostly to various naval station depots to supply steamships.

Ammuntion ships (what we are seeing now in the Honorverse) are tropically carrying either pods and or missile reload supplies for anti-ship and CM replenishment.
Theoreticaly they are optimized for a either suppling pods (that would be for either system defense or to replenish the pods expended in a fleet action --think Monica or Harrington at Sol. The other optimization scheme would be to able to lighter over missiles and refill the shipboard manazines of anti-ship missile or CMs to regular warships. You are going to package and handle Pods differently than you handle refill loads of whatever size and type of individuals missiles to load into ships

On the other hand the TUFF freighters the SLN in Operation Buccaneer -dispite the fact that they are "just" really large civilian freighters- fit the deffiniton of collier or missile collier because of what they are carrying and what they are doing with them.....dropping them off to be moved and used by the SLN warships.

Neither of these should be confused with Minelayers (which we have see used several times at least having been noted as having been used to emplace (mostly) missile pods but earlier were placing single weapons like at Ceberus (vs multi-missile pods now used in system defenses).

All the ships called Colliers we have seen are armed and have defensive suites - The Armament is probably the important definition.

Relax wrote:In no particular order: Since have not been around much
FSV: ~3Mton is a light carrier, so it is already designed and being used, but without armor and has a minimal defensive suite of a Avalon CL. Carries 36 maximum LAC's. *** Forget who said each module could carry 36... for over 150... Sanity check, 150*20,000 = 3M tons. So, no to 152LAC/FSV.<snip>

I was the one to mention it... and it is CRAZY. The Math doesn't make sense, the proportions don't make sense... but this is the quote from UH where we see them...

The Shrikes and Katanas in Ajay weren’t the only LACs the SLN had failed to detect. Three of David K. Brown’s interchangeable modules had been configured as ammunition holds stuffed with pods of Mark 23s and Mark 16s, but the fourth had been configured to support three full squadrons of LACs, in addition to the eight LACs of her understrength organic squadron.

To be fair, there was an even better reason TG 1027.3 hadn’t spotted the deadly minnows here on the Prime side of the terminus. The FSV had dropped all forty-four of her brood over seventeen million kilometers from the terminus, on the side farthest away from Lessem’s heavy cruisers, on her way to the rendezvous point three light-days away in interstellar space. At that range, a superdreadnought would have been invisible with its wedge down, even without benefit of stealth, and Shrikes were far stealthier than any superdreadnought.

These modules are supposedly interchangable with each other - meaning all the same size. Yet just one (the text is specific on that) can carry 36 LACs. And 4x36+8=152 LACS.

stupid crazy - it shouldn't be - it doesn't make sense, but it is in print.

Theemile wrote:
I was the one to mention it... and it is CRAZY. The Math doesn't make sense, the proportions don't make sense... but this is the quote from UH where we see them...

The Shrikes and Katanas in Ajay weren’t the only LACs the SLN had failed to detect. Three of David K. Brown’s interchangeable modules had been configured as ammunition holds stuffed with pods of Mark 23s and Mark 16s, but the fourth had been configured to support three full squadrons of LACs, in addition to the eight LACs of her understrength organic squadron.

To be fair, there was an even better reason TG 1027.3 hadn’t spotted the deadly minnows here on the Prime side of the terminus. The FSV had dropped all forty-four of her brood over seventeen million kilometers from the terminus, on the side farthest away from Lessem’s heavy cruisers, on her way to the rendezvous point three light-days away in interstellar space. At that range, a superdreadnought would have been invisible with its wedge down, even without benefit of stealth, and Shrikes were far stealthier than any superdreadnought.

Theemile wrote:These modules are supposedly interchangable with each other - meaning all the same size. Yet just one (the text is specific on that) can carry 36 LACs. And 4x36+8=152 LACS.

stupid crazy - it shouldn't be - it doesn't make sense, but it is in print.

Thanks for the quotes, been a long time since I have read it.

Lets try to word parse, uh, massive definition shave..... uh twist like a gordion knot... and try fitting a square peg equal to the diameter into a round hole...

RFC said "support" did not say CARRY
How one can possibly make such a distinction for Tonnage which appears to be based on volume density... Uh, I have no clue, but there you go, the only mental hoop I can come up with.

The only other clue is that it dropped off 44LAC's - 8 "under strength" squadron... Uh, since when is 8 an under strength squadron??? Is a LAC squadron now 12?

44 -8 = 36 Which brings up another question... 44 does not divide by 8... or 6 and 1 module of 3 squadrons which would indicate 12 is a "FULL" LAC squadron now... erm, uh, Got no Idea.

NUTZ

Regarding Hyper Generators... I have always pictured them being an integral installation coinhabitating room in and overflowing near the Alpha/Beta impeller nodes and not its own distinct Room/Bays. In other words you cannot remove a hyper generator from a Destroyer and place Missile storage in same space without completely different Fusion room/Impeller installation.

I do not believe we have any nailed down definition of just exactly WHERE this ship part is either in any of the books other than the "hypergenerator was damaged" or some such down in Engineering.

Can anyone think of a clearer reference? Can't find any pearls on TFI

EDIT: The obvious: Hyper generators interact with Warshawki sails coming out of the Alpha Impellers so does this also mean the hyper generator is part of the Alpha Impeller nodes? Uh, did not Colony ships use Warshawki sails before impellers nodes? Or do I have that backwards... ? Hrmm answer should be in Appendix at end of The Short Victorious War I am thinking...

Relax wrote:Regarding Hyper Generators... I have always pictured them being an integral installation coinhabitating room in and overflowing near the Alpha/Beta impeller nodes and not its own distinct Room/Bays. In other words you cannot remove a hyper generator from a Destroyer and place Missile storage in same space without completely different Fusion room/Impeller installation.

I do not believe we have any nailed down definition of just exactly WHERE this ship part is either in any of the books other than the "hypergenerator was damaged" or some such down in Engineering.

Can anyone think of a clearer reference? Can't find any pearls on TFI

EDIT: The obvious: Hyper generators interact with Warshawki sails coming out of the Alpha Impellers so does this also mean the hyper generator is part of the Alpha Impeller nodes? Uh, did not Colony ships use Warshawki sails before impellers nodes? Or do I have that backwards... ? Hrmm answer should be in Appendix at end of The Short Victorious War I am thinking...

I think someone posted that impellers came first. Sails were actually a breakthrough???


Thanks. You may be right about the current design. But silly me was thinking, the Frigate is a small ship. And small ships have a mechanism of easily ejecting the reactor (actually it's just the "Core"). What if the ejection tube could be enlarged to also eject the hyper generator. Albeit, I imagine the hyper generator is quite a bit larger than even the entire reactor. You'd actually want the volume of the hyper generator to be much larger to be worth temporarily ejecting it to reclaim that volume. If, of course, it is feasible. It reminds me of how Japanese planes were configured before takeoff depending on the mission. If feasible, all of the supporting infrastructure of the hyper generator can be left in place. Which reminds me of how some of today's electronics are being totally redesigned to incorporate removable hard drives and batteries.

OK, so the outgrowth of LACs are Corvettes. But would that be so even if LACs grew as much as bigassed BBs grew? Why not bigassed LACs? Essentially FF with the hyper generator removed. Then, LACs wouldn't need a Carrier.

But then, the MA could catch them with their pants down, in the middle of reconfiguring right after ejecting the hyper generator. Caught with pants down just like the Japanese Navy, while in the middle of reconfiguring their planes. LOL

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:
Thanks. However, I was also thinking that the overall benefit would be the possibility of designing an all inclusive LAC. Currently the GA employs three different LAC versions. A missile heavy Shrike. A graser toting Ferret, and the anti-LAC Katana. Perhaps a single larger design can adopt the important characteristics of all three. Although, wanting to incorporate the virtues of an anti-LAC platform in the mix might be too ambitious.

At any rate, I understand that the RMN might pass on it even if possible because it would mean shelving the present designs and infrastructure. They are the same concerns that plagued the SL across the board. But that problem wouldn't exist for a new entity, like the MA. They could upset the GA with a completely new LAC and purpose, like the GA did to the SL. And they'd only have to build one platform.

And of course, the Carrier could be a completely stealthy LD platform?

BTW you got the Shrike and Ferret mixed up - the Shrike is the one with the massive graser, and the Ferret's the one that's missile heavy.

An all in one design is tempting, but often you end up with jack of all trades, master of none -- where you're far less effective than a designs specialized for each specific role it undertakes. There's a reason most aircraft up into the 50 or 60 were were optimized for just one use, with any other uses being afterthoughts. Even as recently as the F-15 program in the 70s and the F-22 program in the 90s air to ground capability was either omitted or minimize in order to maximize each one's effectiveness as an air superiority fighter (especially compared to the "all around" designs of other aircraft). The F-15 program even had a semi-official slogan of "Not a pound for air-to-ground".

Still, it the MAlign might well take a totally fresh look at parasite combat craft and could come up with a totally different set of design trade-offs than the GA navies did.

Though a LAC with a wedge would be hard to hide - making it tricky to coordinate with a spider drive CLAC. But on a ship as small as even a conventional DD, it sounds like the hull would be too short to fit sufficient spider nodes to reach the same acceleration as the larger LDs can. An even slower (but I guess more expendable) spider-LAC would seems an odd kind of trade-off. (Especially given the MAlign's existing very long range capabilities in their GT)

Thanks for the correction about the LACs. Which is ironic because I always thought the Shrike should have the graser. Because "Shrike" sounds more like it could be the sound a graser makes, and what it does.

It makes a lot of sense that the main capability of each could be compromised trying to marry the three.

When thinking about it, there is a significant difference between jetfighters firing on targets in the air than on the ground. A lot of the difference is simply the electronics. Maybe it is mostly unlike a LAC which will only engage targets in space. Personally I'd point out the difference between an F-14 dogfighter and an F-16 Strike Eagle.

For an anti-LAC, I imagine the difference is maneuverability, more of a dogfighter? Or are the differences something other or in addition to that? Like bow walls? At any rate, I don't think a higher top speed is the main difference of a Katana?

But, a larger LAC could offer more room for goodies that could make up for any compromises made of a single homogenous unit.

The RMN rushed new LAC technologies onto the playing field. Their mission was totally unproved. I don't think they had the time to be fancy by designing a single unproved LAC trying out unproven LAC tactics. But now?

Do forgive the double post. My homework is piling up right after I rediscovered the great outdoors. Did all of you know there's a thing called a sun outside???

If a Frigate can eject it's "Core" (which is basically a fission nuclear reactor of Grayson design, it had best have a bunch of capacitor and battery power as the ONLY source of power on the ship is the fission reactor.
A Frigate's hyper-generator would have no need to be included in and Core ejection other than power leads/conduits would need to be shutdown/off.

Somehow I don't think a Grayson fission reactor needs to be ejected, though it is probably configured to SCRAM. Of course there is the whole question of how much of the superstructure of the Frigate is incorporated into holding the reactor, how big the reactor is and if to "eject" the reactor you are going to seriously compromise the superstructure and hull integrity of the Frigate. They are not very big. They are also going to have effectively no secondary power generation if they lose the reactor and very quickly are incapable of maneuvering and praying somebody friendly finds them before the air runs out.
There is also the small matter that a hit that does serious damage to a Frigates reactor is going to kill the Frigate at the same time.

Brigade XO wrote:If a Frigate can eject it's "Core" (which is basically a fission nuclear reactor of Grayson design, it had best have a bunch of capacitor and battery power as the ONLY source of power on the ship is the fission reactor.
A Frigate's hyper-generator would have no need to be included in and Core ejection other than power leads/conduits would need to be shutdown/off.

Somehow I don't think a Grayson fission reactor needs to be ejected, though it is probably configured to SCRAM. Of course there is the whole question of how much of the superstructure of the Frigate is incorporated into holding the reactor, how big the reactor is and if to "eject" the reactor you are going to seriously compromise the superstructure and hull integrity of the Frigate. They are not very big. They are also going to have effectively no secondary power generation if they lose the reactor and very quickly are incapable of maneuvering and praying somebody friendly finds them before the air runs out.
There is also the small matter that a hit that does serious damage to a Frigates reactor is going to kill the Frigate at the same time.

I wasn't claiming that a Frigate's reactor is jettisonable, but rather that it is the smaller warships which tend to have the capability. I don't see a reason that single reactor ships should not include the capability simply because there is only one reactor. It could buy some time to get everyone off the ship, or at least some people. There isn't enough life pods anyway, even for evacuations. The crew can die many different ways.

But what I meant is that ejecting the hyper generator can make removing it rather painless, if it is designed as such. And of course, retrieving it should be a piece of cake, and then tractors can reinstall it if it is designed as a modular system.