Escort Carrier Modification

Thanks for all of the replies to my latest incarnation of silly tech, born of a resentment to Jayne continuing to spurn my advances.

Relax, thanks for digging out and including DW's post from the archives! It is very informative. It appears that the author may have once lost a love interest to some navy man who was affiliated with a Frigate. (I'll deny the remark!)

Anyway, I was envisioning the hot-swapping to be fully automated without needing a support ship. I don't think it would be worth it if it needed a separate ship. It should be fully automated, if not, it should be considered a wash. Of course, it would still leave answering the question of where to leave it after ejecting it. Perhaps somewhere near the hyper limit? Where a rendezvous could collect it like a life pod and reinstall it very quickly. Much much faster than the 6hrs someone posited. Hot-swappable components are generally designed to be accomplished without additional support.

Theemile made an interesting post. I'll snip the appropriate part ...

Theemile wrote:Actually, there was a CL (P)... "ish"....

The Liberty class was a class of 12 75kTon CLs built in Silesia for a group of liberation fronts (Notably the Libau Independance Force) (LIF)) They started Life as a Courier design and had dozens of bolt on Box Launchers from LACs bolted on the Hull. The Box Launchers are usually 6-12 missile cells with mechanical or chemical launchers giving a 1 shot missile capability. Box launchers are evolutionarily on the same family as Pods, but were powered from the mother ship.

This design, allowed a cheap military refit on a large courier design and gave the liberation fronts a quick, cheap Weapons platform, without long term combat capability.

Each broadside had 12, 6 missile boxes, and just had enough firecontrol to control 12 missiles in a salvo. So these light refits could fire huge salvos for a CL, but had no staying power in a fight.

For years I've been thinking about bolt-on missiles but decided it wouldn't work. I envisioned missiles bolted onto just about every area of a ship, but designed to be blown away after use. So even if they covered launch tubes, it would only be temporary. But these add-ons would make a ship look like it had large boils all over its body. I envisioned this way back when pods were first introduced. BTW, do bolt-on missiles cut into accel as does external pods?

Also, although the idea seems to be a wash, I considered a rotary type launcher replacement pod system deployed on the Frigate. As used by the LACs.

At any rate, a redesigned Frigate with a hot swappable hyper generator, masses of blow away external missiles and also towing pods should conspire to make it formidable. Also, support bases for such Frigates could be deployed in friendly systems, like Trevor's Star and Beowulf. Oh well, another crazy idea bites the dust.

cthia wrote:Anyway, I was envisioning the hot-swapping to be fully automated without needing a support ship. I don't think it would be worth it if it needed a separate ship. It should be fully automated, if not, it should be considered a wash. Of course, it would still leave answering the question of where to leave it after ejecting it.

Even if the hot-swapping is fully automated you still need a separate ship to actually bring along whatever it is you're swapping in in place of the hyper generator. Otherwise you're just swapping out the hyper-generator module for empty space

Though at least that solves your "where to leave it" question; leave it with that separate ship.


But I agree that it's not worth it since it does require a separate ship; if only to carry the swap in module(s).

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:Anyway, I was envisioning the hot-swapping to be fully automated without needing a support ship. I don't think it would be worth it if it needed a separate ship. It should be fully automated, if not, it should be considered a wash. Of course, it would still leave answering the question of where to leave it after ejecting it.

Even if the hot-swapping is fully automated you still need a separate ship to actually bring along whatever it is you're swapping in in place of the hyper generator. Otherwise you're just swapping out the hyper-generator module for empty space

Though at least that solves your "where to leave it" question; leave it with that separate ship.


But I agree that it's not worth it since it does require a separate ship; if only to carry the swap in module(s).

Not if it is a bolt-on module to the skin of the ship, or towed with tractors.

cthia wrote:Not if it is a bolt-on module to the skin of the ship, or towed with tractors.

But if it's already there, then why do you need to swap in the first place? If it's a missile pod, then you're going to fire those missiles and an external pod is far easier to carry and fire from than an internal tube. An FF could tow an MDM pod, but it can't fire a Mark 16 DDM from tubes.

And in any case, why are you attacking a system with frigates? Either they have some kind of defences, in which case the FF will not do the job, or they have no defences, in which case you didn't need to bring warships in the first place. If all they have are outdated OWP that can be attacked from outside their range, a simple freigher or Q-ship can fire DDMs and MDMs, and have brought far more missiles to ensure the job is done.

cthia wrote:Thanks for all of the replies to my latest incarnation of silly tech, born of a resentment to Jayne continuing to spurn my advances.

Relax, thanks for digging out and including DW's post from the archives! It is very informative. It appears that the author may have once lost a love interest to some navy man who was affiliated with a Frigate. (I'll deny the remark!)

Anyway, I was envisioning the hot-swapping to be fully automated without needing a support ship. I don't think it would be worth it if it needed a separate ship. It should be fully automated, if not, it should be considered a wash. Of course, it would still leave answering the question of where to leave it after ejecting it. Perhaps somewhere near the hyper limit? Where a rendezvous could collect it like a life pod and reinstall it very quickly. Much much faster than the 6hrs someone posited. Hot-swappable components are generally designed to be accomplished without additional support.

Theemile made an interesting post. I'll snip the appropriate part ...

Theemile wrote:Actually, there was a CL (P)... "ish"....

The Liberty class was a class of 12 75kTon CLs built in Silesia for a group of liberation fronts (Notably the Libau Independance Force) (LIF)) They started Life as a Courier design and had dozens of bolt on Box Launchers from LACs bolted on the Hull. The Box Launchers are usually 6-12 missile cells with mechanical or chemical launchers giving a 1 shot missile capability. Box launchers are evolutionarily on the same family as Pods, but were powered from the mother ship.

This design, allowed a cheap military refit on a large courier design and gave the liberation fronts a quick, cheap Weapons platform, without long term combat capability.

Each broadside had 12, 6 missile boxes, and just had enough firecontrol to control 12 missiles in a salvo. So these light refits could fire huge salvos for a CL, but had no staying power in a fight.

For years I've been thinking about bolt-on missiles but decided it wouldn't work. I envisioned missiles bolted onto just about every area of a ship, but designed to be blown away after use. So even if they covered launch tubes, it would only be temporary. But these add-ons would make a ship look like it had large boils all over its body. I envisioned this way back when pods were first introduced. BTW, do bolt-on missiles cut into accel as does external pods?

Also, although the idea seems to be a wash, I considered a rotary type launcher replacement pod system deployed on the Frigate. As used by the LACs.

At any rate, a redesigned Frigate with a hot swappable hyper generator, masses of blow away external missiles and also towing pods should conspire to make it formidable. Also, support bases for such Frigates could be deployed in friendly systems, like Trevor's Star and Beowulf. Oh well, another crazy idea bites the dust.

I called them bolt on, but they were really inset into sockets in the hull, and the whole box could be swapped out to rearm at a maintained facility. The problem is this system sux. It covers the space you put other things, like sensors, lasers, and transmitters. These ships had no armor, because the boxes went through the skin. The ship's fire control could only control 12 missiles at a time, which is alot for a 1900 cl, but not much overall. They worked good as raiders, but quickly were destroyed by real warships.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:Not if it is a bolt-on module to the skin of the ship, or towed with tractors.

But if it's already there, then why do you need to swap in the first place? If it's a missile pod, then you're going to fire those missiles and an external pod is far easier to carry and fire from than an internal tube. An FF could tow an MDM pod, but it can't fire a Mark 16 DDM from tubes.

And in any case, why are you attacking a system with frigates? Either they have some kind of defences, in which case the FF will not do the job, or they have no defences, in which case you didn't need to bring warships in the first place. If all they have are outdated OWP that can be attacked from outside their range, a simple freigher or Q-ship can fire DDMs and MDMs, and have brought far more missiles to ensure the job is done.

Most systems have only LAC's and outdated LAC's at that,or ancient obsolete DD's. So saying a Frigate can't do the job, is not true. The question is efficiency of doing so per $$$ spent to offensive/defensive weapon suite and #personnel required. It is this reason that has seen the demise of the Frigate. Monetary efficiency justifies each subsequent ship class increasing in tonnage. It should be noted, infrastructure keeps increasing each year including system defensive infrastructure. Beating up on ever decreasing neobarbs with Frigates becomes less viable each increasing year as # of Neobarb planets is decreasing near "Galactic earth center". Frigates seem viable for those further out than Silesia for instance, but inside that radius going ever closer to earth? Nope. Manticore used to be on this fringe of neobarb star systems which is why they had Frigates.

As for Freighters being armed, RFC has stated that most nations will not allow armed freighters into their territory. So, if your main purpose is trade, as vast majority of nations goals are and not conquest, then a frigate is possible... As for bolting pods onto a freighter, Great... what controls those missiles? What determines what to attack? What gets the information for what to attack? Personally, from an engineering standpoint this is 100% viable. I think one could make a module or two to stick in a standardized freighter bay to do this job, but then we have how humanity works.

Said modules have to be manned by people. People who generally have to be paid or volunteer, make a career out of being military personnel. Uh, how would that commercial go... Join up and become a freighter Module star captain! OOOeeeoooo so sexy commercial baby! Or do you show a commercial of a Frigate or a DD to bring new recruits in? You still have to have the training facilities in either case so... May as well make your training space nearly identical to your actual war fighting equipment and it is here in personnel logistics for WHY Frigates/DD's exist instead of bolt on modules for freighters for backwater nations. Then throw in simple fact that every nations wants to see itself as improving, increasing capability, etc and nothing says this as effectively as being independent. Yes, one can do things to scrape by in the short term. Planning on "scrapping by" does not work long term.

Relax wrote: Yes, one can do things to scrape by in the short term. Planning on "scrapping by" does not work long term.

That's the situation the SKM found itself in during the reigns of Michael I, his son, and daughter, aggravated by the self-aggrandizement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Until outside interests came calling and convinced Elizabeth II that while Manticore might ignore the rest of the galaxy, the rest of the galaxy wasn't going to ignore Manticore.

Fox2! wrote:That's the situation the SKM found itself in during the reigns of Michael I, his son, and daughter, aggravated by the self-aggrandizement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Until outside interests came calling and convinced Elizabeth II that while Manticore might ignore the rest of the galaxy, the rest of the galaxy wasn't going to ignore Manticore.

Right.

The SKM of the time had only to face against ad-hoc armed ships, like the Free Brotherhood was (BTW, that's a story I'd like to be told). To simply defend itself, corvettes and frigates of the time might have done the job. Heck, MPARS was being given sloops, which I guess constituted a kind of HAC (note that the design didn't work).

But even against the Free Brotherhood, the SKM bought 11 battlecruisers so that they could eliminate the threat. From what we've been told, it doesn't look like the Brotherhood attacked the MBS, so the RMN had to go out and fight them, which meant better hyper-capable ships than frigates anyway.

Also note how the deployments in A Call to Arms are of a destroyer and a light cruiser, not of frigates.

Relax wrote:Most systems have only LAC's and outdated LAC's at that,or ancient obsolete DD's. So saying a Frigate can't do the job, is not true. The question is efficiency of doing so per $$$ spent to offensive/defensive weapon suite and #personnel required. It is this reason that has seen the demise of the Frigate. Monetary efficiency justifies each subsequent ship class increasing in tonnage. It should be noted, infrastructure keeps increasing each year including system defensive infrastructure. Beating up on ever decreasing neobarbs with Frigates becomes less viable each increasing year as # of Neobarb planets is decreasing near "Galactic earth center". Frigates seem viable for those further out than Silesia for instance, but inside that radius going ever closer to earth? Nope. Manticore used to be on this fringe of neobarb star systems which is why they had Frigates.

Even then RFC makes the point in the infodump linked above that a frigate is neither cost-effective over the long run nor combat effective against anything except maybe those old-style LACs. The Nat Turner-class frigates the RTN has right now have a very limited timespan in which they are effective against warships because of the lopsided tech imbalance. That will not last and the RTN knows it. I'm sure they've placed orders for some Warrior-class destroyers from Erewhon as soon as they spare capacity.

RFC also makes the point that if the only thing you can build and/or afford is a frigate, then you shouldn't be in the business of having a navy in the first place. That of course won't deter warlords or dictators in the far Fringe, but those are the types of megalomaniacs I'd expect to order cruisers instead, even if it means their population goes hungry.

Anyway, his post is pretty conclusively saying frigates are not coming back, the RTN notwithstanding. Let's not argue with him. And do note the same post is saying that the Roland is an already-obsolete design, only waiting for the rest of the Galaxy to catch up so it can show its obsolescence. He's saying that the minimum viable warship in the face of DDMs and MDMs might be a 300k tonne light cruiser.

Retired naval personnel can man the armed freighters. But I don't see the wisdom in arming freighters which are part of a convoy, unless they are all armed. Engaging pirates will invite reciprocation. Then freighters, possibly civilians and lots of goods may be lost as a result anyway, despite the effort.

Operating an armed freighter alone is a different ball of wax. I must be missing something.