How to mothball RMN ships

Jonathan_S wrote:

Theemile wrote:Actually, placing a underpowered picket at a key location is a valid military strategy. It was seen all the time in the 1st war were a 3rd tier system was picketed by as pair of Wallers or a squadron of BCs. Yes, the day to day work was done by a handful of DD-CAs, but why assign the big ships?

A Pair of wallers is just a light deterrent, right? a squadron can push them out of the system. Yes, but you need a squadron to do so, one or two - or even 3 might be lost if the cards don't go your way. send 4, you might still lose, or severely damage 2 or 3 ships, putting them out of the fight. No, a deterrent force of 2 ships forces you to go into the system in Squadron+ force to ensure light losses. And those ships have to be pulled from somewhere else weakening them there.

That was a deployment policy forced on the Admiralty by domestic RMN politics. It was definitely not because it was a good military strategy.

Yes, a pair of wallers means the attacker needs to bring along wallers of their own if they want to punch out the system defenses. (Though with only two, and given their low acceleration in the early war, a raiding force of CAs or BCs still has a decent chance of avoiding the pair of SDs and tearing up in-system traffic or even some infrastructure and then escaping).

But its easier for the Peeps to peel off enough wallers to utterly overwhelm a detached pair than it is do do the same against an entire 8-ship squadron (this being before the RMN's SD squadron size was reduced from 8 to 6 ships). So if the Peeps were aware of all these isolated pairs of SDs they could take 2-3 squadrons and sequentially hit several systems with these pairs before the RMN could disseminate the news and react. Even with towed pods RMN wallers weren't going to do well against an 4 (or 6) to 1 odds. So potentially the Peeps could knock out a couple squadrons worth of RMN SDs using just a couple squadrons of their own -- because the firepower (and defensive fire) overmatch in each fight allows the Peeps to defeat those RMN units in detail; when that sized Peep force would have lost a straight up fight against all those RMN units had they been concentrated.

Arguably, those pickets weren't underpowered for what they may have been intended to prevent: battleship raiders from the PRH, which the RMN apparently really liked to use ex-PN ships for, possibly as a result of Fourth Yeltsin.

Several Havenite ships of the wall were taken into service during the early war, including five dreadnoughts during the First Battle of Hancock. None of these ships saw frontline service, but four of them spent some time as rear area security operating with captured Havenite superdreadnoughts.

And...

Along with the handful of captured dreadnoughts and smaller classes, these ships provided rear area security for a number of Alliance systems during the early stages of the war, but were relegated to mothballs as their crews were needed to man the new construction, while the ships in best condition were all sold at scrap value to Grayson in early 1917.

And...

Similar to the Duquesnes, the few more modern Haven-class superdreadnoughts captured in the early days of the war served for several years as rear area security, freeing up hulls for the front. None of them saw battle against their sisters still in Havenite service however, and the last were sold to Grayson along with the Duquesnes.

Rear area security is mentioned frequently. Either this practice was extremely successful at deterring battleship attacks or it simply failed to bait the PRH into attacking those kind of systems in strength(until Operation Icarus, anyway).

Jonathan_S wrote:But its easier for the Peeps to peel off enough wallers to utterly overwhelm a detached pair than it is do do the same against an entire 8-ship squadron (this being before the RMN's SD squadron size was reduced from 8 to 6 ships). So if the Peeps were aware of all these isolated pairs of SDs they could take 2-3 squadrons and sequentially hit several systems with these pairs before the RMN could disseminate the news and react. ...

Sure, and if you place a squadron in 30 systems you have placed twice the combat firepower of 3rd fleet distributed where they can be destroyed in detail by say 60 SDs.

You can't be strong everywhere - to attempt it just invites defeat in detail, as you later point out.

These are hard problems and there is no good answer unless you are so massively powerful that nobody can dream of trying to take you on.

Manticore is going to replace it's shipbuilding industry, including warship production. There is no way that SEM is going to allow itself to remain dependent on Haven -and to a lesser extent Beowulf- for warships and all the equipment and ability to produce everything within the Empire starting with the MBS.

That also goes for the reprocessing ability for scrapped ships as well as the astroid mining resource production which is a major contributor to the strength of the MBS. You need the capacity for making all that gear and equipment and ongoing training/educating of people to do all this work from reprocessing and manufacture to building and repair.

A challenge is what SEM & the GA partners are going to end up doing to block strikes like Oyster Bay in the future. Sure, keeping the sidewall defenses up all the time is a start. But what else can they do.

At the moment Manticore has a lot of former SLN ships it can strip and reprocess as needed but they are also sending that material to Beowulf (at least) to offset some of the costs of Beowulf's production for the MBS infrastructure rebuild. Sure, it is possible that some of the SLN ships can be flown -via the Junction- to Beowulf but that is probably an interesting political challenge of people (even Beowulf citizens) seeing them moving to the Beowulf breakers.

The posture of using CLACs to transport LAC squadrons (and ship along prefab basing for said squadrons but they are going to have to consider the same sort of anti-Oyster Bay protection for such basing. They also can't just park CLACS in system as it give stationary targets.
It is possible that older CLACS, that might otherwise be recycled, could be posted to systems as part of local defense postures though that would entail mantaining them able to service the newer models/types of LACS if they don't already have the hangers arrangements, and related equipment including servicing/loading missiles & CMs. Still, you can also use them as training ground. The CLACs so assigned would need command and enlisted staff since they really do need to be both able to move around and participate in defence as needed.

What size and what mix of hyper-capable warships would be effective as -not pickets- stationed defensive elements to protect systems is an Admiralty thing influenced by politicians.

Not to make it look like your just tossing a bunch of old hulls at any particular problem but you could mix some of the older ships in the below BC range in with some of the more modern ships.
I do understand that having too much disparity in speeds, types of weapons & capabilities is a bad idea is most squadron or half squadron mixes but you are not going hunting warships.
In most cases your not guarding --for the time being--systems against a raid like the Peeps used to pul but you are looking to keep pirates and opportunist warlord type away.

So, some ships may be older but they can provide mobile patrolling and run out farther (and faster) than the LAC components. They also have teeth and even a 10yr old RMN ship should be able to handle anything it's class as concern SLN type ships, probably fight up a size.
How many systems are likely to be attacked by a squadron of Heavy Cruisers or BCs? What do you need to deal with between 1 to 4 actual warships that show up as a raid or take over the system?
I know, this is crystal ball stuff but at the moment the GA has a lot of the DD-CA size ships that are not that far behind the leading edge of RMN tech and they, as a group, are tough buggers.

kzt wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:But its easier for the Peeps to peel off enough wallers to utterly overwhelm a detached pair than it is do do the same against an entire 8-ship squadron (this being before the RMN's SD squadron size was reduced from 8 to 6 ships). So if the Peeps were aware of all these isolated pairs of SDs they could take 2-3 squadrons and sequentially hit several systems with these pairs before the RMN could disseminate the news and react. ...

Sure, and if you place a squadron in 30 systems you have placed twice the combat firepower of 3rd fleet distributed where they can be destroyed in detail by say 60 SDs.

You can't be strong everywhere - to attempt it just invites defeat in detail, as you later point out.

These are hard problems and there is no good answer unless you are so massively powerful that nobody can dream of trying to take you on.

If there are 60 SDs in the wild that are free to throw at such a peripheral operation, then that implies there is also a gorilla in the wild. In which case you definitely wouldn't have the luxury of considering a mothballed fleet anyway which has lead to a distribution to member states instead. And you wouldn't dare adopt a posture of a pair of SDs as pickets without at least including a supporting pair of fast messenger ships to sound the alarm.

A strategic benefit would be the quick response to a situation with combined forces which are but a stones-throw away. Think the fast response Byng received from Henke times two. And also consider that this gorilla in the midst has to have equivalent tech or their goose will be cooked by a pair of SDs.

The strategy will also enable shutting down the MWJ or any other junction because forces could respond from the massed metal distributed on the other side.

I simply disagree. A pair of SDs isn't trying to be strong everywhere, it is a proper allocation of available forces. Available surplus forces. The HV is huge. Space is huge. I see no reason why a financially secure system like Manticore can't afford to project power in the form of stronger than average bases and pickets that reflect their coffers.

Can't be strong everywhere is true if and only if it is true. If you can be strong everywhere because the traditional prohibitive factor of cost is not an issue, then you can be. A pair of SDs is not being strong, it is being convenient. And it challenges a gorilla to draw down his forces considerably to support an operation using 60 SDs. Actually it forces the gorilla to tip his hand before he comes calling on your home system.

There is another issue that befalls navies in a time of peace. That of preparedness. Having enough ships to fight a war. And having enough personnel, trained personnel to execute that war. A heavily drawn down navy will begin to look unfavorable to someone who would normally have joined the Navy. Your Academies will begin accepting less and less cadets because there is no demand for them.

BOOM! Here comes war when you least expect it, and you have limited ships, rusty production lines, a shortage of experienced crew, officers, and resources coming off the assembly line. Both hardware and warm bodies.

Even Project Gram has lost its edge. We have discussed this before when I had the nerve and audacity to petition for Sphinx getting a substantial upgrade in metal. I didn't agree then. I don't agree now.

Perhaps the MA can lure some of the insufficiently defended systems away from the GA. "Your enemy cannot tell if we got ships in the system or not."

And now you have all of these naval officers and crew who have to retire after fighting all of their lives with no place to go.

.

The critical limit on RMN size has been personnel due to the entire economy collapsing if you don't have 80% of the population doing their performance art and gender theorizing.

Money really hasn't been the critical bottleneck.

But at this point it's all plot. Real-world you can't rebuild production systems and the highly skilled techs who run them in the period David is implying.

It takes 4 years to get an engineer through university. And then a few more to get effective. It's typically a few years to train skilled techs and then a few years on the job to become highly productive. Having a building full of equipment without people to run it is not going to be producing complex systems.

Has David said anything about how hundreds of thousands of manticorans have been being trained in Beowulf? Well, no. And if they were, they mostly got all dead.

kzt wrote:The critical limit on RMN size has been personnel due to the entire economy collapsing if you don't have 80% of the population doing their performance art and gender theorizing.

Money really hasn't been the critical bottleneck.

But at this point it's all plot. Real-world you can't rebuild production systems and the highly skilled techs who run them in the period David is implying.

It takes 4 years to get an engineer through university. And then a few more to get effective. It's typically a few years to train skilled techs and then a few years on the job to become highly productive. Having a building full of equipment without people to run it is not going to be producing complex systems.

Has David said anything about how hundreds of thousands of manticorans have been being trained in Beowulf? Well, no. And if they were, they mostly got all dead.

David may have trotted that out to me in that same thread when I was crying for Sphinx. But Manticore is about to receive a huge booster shot in the arm to their population pool. This would also provide jobs and income for these new member states. Which would also provide them an opportunity to share the cost across the board.

kzt wrote:The critical limit on RMN size has been personnel due to the entire economy collapsing if you don't have 80% of the population doing their performance art and gender theorizing.

Money really hasn't been the critical bottleneck.

But at this point it's all plot. Real-world you can't rebuild production systems and the highly skilled techs who run them in the period David is implying.

It takes 4 years to get an engineer through university. And then a few more to get effective. It's typically a few years to train skilled techs and then a few years on the job to become highly productive. Having a building full of equipment without people to run it is not going to be producing complex systems.

Has David said anything about how hundreds of thousands of manticorans have been being trained in Beowulf? Well, no. And if they were, they mostly got all dead.

cthia wrote:David may have trotted that out to me in that same thread when I was crying for Sphinx. But Manticore is about to receive a huge booster shot in the arm to their population pool. This would also provide jobs and income for these new member states. Which would also provide them an opportunity to share the cost across the board.

Some of that engineering staff will appear with downsizing the navy; maybe they will not be trained on a specific piece of equipment, but it will be easier for them to pick it up than someone just out of a technical school.

The other place that the downsized personnel will go is into the merchant marine as interplanetary traffic picks back up with the ending of overt hostilities.

The new member states in Silesia and Talbott are still being brought up to Manticore standards. That is where money will go, not in sharing the cost.

tlb wrote:Some of that engineering staff will appear with downsizing the navy; maybe they will not be trained on a specific piece of equipment, but it will be easier for them to pick it up than someone just out of a technical school.

The other place that the downsized personnel will go is into the merchant marine as interplanetary traffic picks back up with the ending of overt hostilities.

The new member states in Silesia and Talbott are still being brought up to Manticore standards. That is where money will go, not in sharing the cost.

Does the US Navy teach fire control technicians how to manufacture AEGIS antennas? Does the gas turbine technician course include teaching them how to cast single crystal turbine blades? Well, no.

While a Hull Technician skill set includes welding, do you think they do subsafe grade x-ray passing welds 8 hours a day? No, they spend most of their time clearing blocked sewage piping.

The very specialized skills needed to fight and maintain a warship are totally different than the very specialized skills needed to design and build the equipment and the ship itself. Its almost certainly advantageous to have people who are familiar with how the systems work (or fail to work) in the field, it doesn't give them a magic ability to know how to troubleshoot the many subtle ways that high-tech systems can go wrong.

A RMM ship needs a crew of 20. So it takes 100 merchantmen to employ the crew of a SD. And those merchant crewman actually exist already. So to employ 200,000 navy folks you need to build another 10,000 multi-billion credit merchant ships.

tlb wrote:Some of that engineering staff will appear with downsizing the navy; maybe they will not be trained on a specific piece of equipment, but it will be easier for them to pick it up than someone just out of a technical school.

The other place that the downsized personnel will go is into the merchant marine as interplanetary traffic picks back up with the ending of overt hostilities.

The new member states in Silesia and Talbott are still being brought up to Manticore standards. That is where money will go, not in sharing the cost.

kzt wrote:Does the US Navy teach fire control technicians how to manufacture AEGIS antennas? Does the gas turbine technician course include teaching them how to cast single crystal turbine blades? Well, no.

While a Hull Technician skill set includes welding, do you think they do subsafe grade x-ray passing welds 8 hours a day? No, they spend most of their time clearing blocked sewage piping.

The very specialized skills needed to fight and maintain a warship are totally different than the very specialized skills needed to design and build the equipment and the ship itself. Its almost certainly advantageous to have people who are familiar with how the systems work (or fail to work) in the field, it doesn't give them a magic ability to know how to troubleshoot the many subtle ways that high-tech systems can go wrong.

A RMM ship needs a crew of 20. So it takes 100 merchantmen to employ the crew of a SD. And those merchant crewman actually exist already. So to employ 200,000 navy folks you need to build another 10,000 multi-billion credit merchant ships.

RFC has given us a good description of how Manticoran heavy industry works (see the discussion copied in below) and the workers are closer to being supervisors than welders.

When the merchant marine was idled by closing the wormholes and pulling all of Manticore's merchant marine home, it is not clear how many of those crewmen sat around and waited for the war to be over. Of those that did wait, how many were killed by the Yawata Strike? I have no reason to believe that all the original crewmen are still available.

The following is copied from this thread:
Post League Eridani

TFLYTSNBN wrote:I get the impression that while parts are fabricated on 3D printers, some assembly may be required. Smallish, mass produced items such as MDMs, DDMs and missile pods are probably assembled by robotic systems. Larger items such as warships are probably assembled by those hardsuited workers Weber has written so much about.

I suspect that not all Honorverse 3D printers are created equal.
Some are bigger than others.
Some are faster than others.
Some have the capability to place particles or even individual atoms more precisely than others.

This last attribute differentistes the truly high tech polities (Manticore, Grayson (years after HotQ), Beawulf, SL core worlds, Andermandi) from the neobarbs such as Silesia, the Verge, Grayson (before HotQ when Honor Harrington brought all of the goodies), and the PRH.

runsforcelery wrote:The printers produce components: period. Most of the sub-assemblies (and some of the "big ticket" items, like Apollo missiles, for example) are then built "assembly line" by robotic assemblers which are permanently mated with the printers dedicated to producing their components. First World star nations (like Manticore, Beowulf, most of the League worlds, etc.) use a lot of robotics in their shipyards --- there have been quite a few references to "construction" robots, I believe. More backward star nations (like pre-Alliance Grayson) use a lot more muscle power. This is not to say that First World shipyards us no "hand-fitted" parts, but they use very, very, very few of them compared to pre-Alliance Grayson.

One of the big elements in Manticore's edge in shipbuilding and munitions production was that the SKM had improved incrementally at almost every stage of the process, including (especially) printer capabilities and better and more efficient use of robotics. In effect, they had "automated" a lot more of the sub-assembly "assembly line" aspects of the job and improved on the versatility and numbers of construction robots. (This is also part of the reason they were able/willing to reduce damage control personnel and rely on remotes to handle combat damage in their newer classes.)

tlb wrote:Take another look at what he said above; I have highlighted the most important part, The top nations use very little manual labor in their ship and weapon construction, while lesser nations (like pre-Alliance Grayson) use much more muscle power.

runsforcelery wrote:Both of you are partly right and partly wrong. The are lots of those hard-suited workers in a First World shipyard someone like Manticore operates, because these guys are building really big units. An 8-9,000,000 ton freighter is a nontrivial project even for Honorverse tech, and an SD or SD(P) is even more so. At the same time, there are enormously less of those hard-suited workers than there would be in a pre-Alliance Grayson level yard because the majority of the First World star nation's workers are out there supervising robotic units that are doing the actual work. And even in a highly advanced yard, some of the work is done by actual human beings because the Honorverse assumes that truly self-aware AI was never achieved and some jobs require judgment value calls, not just jugment calls. Such jobs are very few and far between in the more advanced yards, however.