1924 PD - Rebuilding the Solarian League Navy

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Yes, they should try to acquire by covert means and also by overt ones; maybe someone is willing to sell some decades-old hardware. Also, we do know that the SLN didn't send observers, but other polities did so some of those other small polities may have something to sell to the SL.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Theemile wrote:
LACs have been around for centuries - we see a variant as small corvettes in the Prequal novels. Every major navy had them, but they were anemic, lightly armed and defended patrol craft compared to the modern Manty Super LAC which in turn are comparable to SLN Destroyers and Light cruisers.


I believe the LACS at Montana in SftS were old Solarian designs (I don't have the text in front of me) and while most are probably in the 10 Kton range, I believe the largest one (used against the Freighter) massed 45Ktons (making it technically a modern Corvette)

I wasn't saying the League (or it's SDF) didn't have them -- I was saying we didn't know anything about their specs.


And I'm not seeing anything in SftS about pre-RMN LACs at Montata. Are you possibly thinking of the LACs that Hexapuma's pinnaces hitched a ride on at Nuncio in SoS?

They had 11 of them "and the biggest of them masses all of eighteen thousand tons." (which is huge for a LAC; the other 4 "classic" LAC designs we knew of were in the 10,250 - 12,250 ton range) That said the 6 that were used to ferry the pinnaces were "not that much smaller than the LACs [GSN] had when Lady Harrington took out Thunder of God" (which I believe were the 11,250 ton Faith class); but were capable of at least 500 gravities (which does mean they must have had more powerful impellers than anything the RMN, GSN, SCN, or RHN had prior to the Series 282-class LACs Wayfarer took to Silesia). [That or RFC forgot LACs were normally slow for their mass ]
But the only other thing we seem to know about the Nuncian LACs is that Commodore Karlberg said their "electronics are pretty much crap compared to yours" after saying they were unable to get a good sensor reading on their intruders (one of which turned out to be that pre-ceasefire Mars-class CA).

They don't say those were old League designs - though I admit that's the most likely source. (Though I guess it's possible they may have filtered in from the IAN through their Asgard terminus; as Nuncio is over on that side of the Cluster)

But we don't have their dimensions; we don't have a definitive statement of those 6 LACs max acceleration [see below], nor their tonnage -- just that they're a bit smaller [size or tonnage or both?] than the GSN's pre alliance LACs (class and specs unmentioned). So we still don't know much about them except the biggest is heavy for a LAC [unknown if that means it's bigger than normal or if, like the 282s, Shrikes, etc. its just denser than normal] and at least some of them are much quicker than other old style LACs.

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We also don't know what acceleration level they were at to get 500g. The text does say "the LACs' maximum deceleration rate was five hundred gravities" but I don't know if that means they'd been accelerating the whole time at 0% safety margin, or if 500 is their max at their non-emergency max safety margin. Still, if it isn't 0% it's pretty much got to be under 9% safety margin unless they also have a post-Grayson compensator.

Joat42 wrote:In regards to the whole rebuilding, did the SL change the funding for the navy with the new constitution? I'm wondering because funding is the critical piece to actually getting any kind of research done before even thinking of building anything.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Joat42 wrote:In regards to the whole rebuilding, did the SL change the funding for the navy with the new constitution? I'm wondering because funding is the critical piece to actually getting any kind of research done before even thinking of building anything.

We don't know, that hasn't been stated yet.

I kind of doubt they would change the taxation drastically. The member systems would likely not accept such a direct imposition, even with whichever guarantees of oversight of the central government were put in place. But the funding of the SLN might have changed, from an allocation from the central government to direct appropriation from individual members, so the budget grows. Again, no way of knowing.

Even then, the Constitutional Assembly may have passed a provisional rule to allocate funds for rebuilding the SLN for the next 20 years, completely outside of the regular taxation and funding mechanisms. That is to say, even if they didn't change the long-term sources of funding, there's a good chance they did something for the short and medium terms.

Plus, just getting rid of the blatant corruption should greatly improve the capital utilisation.

Jonathan_S wrote:We also don't know what acceleration level they were at to get 500g. The text does say "the LACs' maximum deceleration rate was five hundred gravities" but I don't know if that means they'd been accelerating the whole time at 0% safety margin, or if 500 is their max at their non-emergency max safety margin. Still, if it isn't 0% it's pretty much got to be under 9% safety margin unless they also have a post-Grayson compensator.

Somtaaw wrote:I'll have to check the book again, but didn't the Manticoran pinnaces decelerate at damned near 0 safety margin themselves? If they did, then I can't quite see the Nuncians not also doing it to get back to support however they could, as quickly as they could. Especially since by this point, they were already starting to lean towards thinking Terekhov and the crew of the Nasty Kitty routinely walk on water if only to avoid wet shoes.

Somtaaw wrote:I'll have to check the book again, but didn't the Manticoran pinnaces decelerate at damned near 0 safety margin themselves? If they did, then I can't quite see the Nuncians not also doing it to get back to support however they could, as quickly as they could. Especially since by this point, they were already starting to lean towards thinking Terekhov and the crew of the Nasty Kitty routinely walk on water if only to avoid wet shoes.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Manticore & Grayson compensators had been operating with 0% safety margin for a decade at this point and the resiliency of the hardware was well-proven. The danger of running them with 0% was negligible.

The Nuncian LACs were not such. Unless those are actually modern LACs that someone in the Haven Sector produced for them since the Lynx terminus opened, they probably used League manufacture and those compensators do have a non-negligible danger if used above 80%, especially at 100%. I don't think in any of the battles the SLN used 100% themselves, though they did go above 80% for brief periods a couple of times.

Nuncio was also described as one of the poorest systems in the Cluster, so those LACs are unlikely to even be top-shelf hardware, or modern, or even well-maintained. They're probably second- or third-hand, and were probably second-rate the day they were flown out of their yards.

But that same reasoning would say that those shouldn't have reached 500 gravities in the first place, even at 120%.

The small force of Nuncian vessels and their Manticoran parasites were moving towards the freighter at a relative velocity of just a hair over 17,650 KPS, and the LACs' maximum deceleration rate was five hundred gravities. It had taken them an hour of steady acceleration to reach their current velocity before shutting down their wedges to avoid detection, and it would take them another hour to kill their velocity, during which time they would cover another 31,771,000-plus kilometers. At the moment, they were about forty-two million klicks from the freighter, so to decelerate for a zero/zero intercept, they'd have to begin decelerating in no more than four minutes. The pinnaces, with their higher acceleration rate, had a bit more time to play with—they could achieve a zero/zero intercept if they began decelerating any time in the next fifteen minutes. If they didn't begin decelerating, they'd blow past Bogey Three at a range of about 67,500 kilometers and a velocity of over seventeen thousand KPS, in a shade over forty minutes.

Unlike the damage to the hyper generator, the effect of Hawk-Papa-Three's fire was immediately evident as the entire after impeller ring went from standby power to complete shutdown in less than two seconds. It had to be actual battle damage—no human's reaction time was fast enough to cut power that quickly. But, again, it was impossible for Abigail's sensors to confirm the extent of the damage in the flashing seconds her pinnaces took to scud past at over 17,600 KPS.
The fleet little vessels turned, keeping their noses aligned on Bogey Three, and went to maximum power, decelerating at six hundred gravities. Astern of them, the Nuncian LACs had also made turnover, but their deceleration rate was a hundred gravities lower than the pinnaces', and the range between the allied components of the small attack force opened quickly.

*** snip ***

Hawk-Papa Flight continued decelerating hard. The pinnaces' velocity fell by almost six kilometers per second every second, slowing their headlong plunge towards the Nuncio System's Oort Cloud and the endless interstellar deeps beyond. Their sensors continued to hold Bogey Three, and Abigail's grimly satisfied estimate that the freighter had been successfully lamed hardened into virtual certainty as the freighter's position and emissions signature alike remained unchanged.

Somtaaw wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:We also don't know what acceleration level they were at to get 500g. The text does say "the LACs' maximum deceleration rate was five hundred gravities" but I don't know if that means they'd been accelerating the whole time at 0% safety margin, or if 500 is their max at their non-emergency max safety margin. Still, if it isn't 0% it's pretty much got to be under 9% safety margin unless they also have a post-Grayson compensator.

From the context and the situation being described, that 500g deceleration for the Nuncian LACs is definitely zero safety margin. That whole point was to get into weapon range as quickly as possibly for a high-speed pass, where it would either be Manticoran pinnaces for as close to precision as possible and retaking it, or the Nuncian LACs for complete destruction if necessary.

The only way to ensure that the freighter couldn't get away was to scorch in as fast as possible to beat out any passive detector alerts, then decelerate as hard as possible to get back and send boarding teams aboard.

I'll have to check the book again, but didn't the Manticoran pinnaces decelerate at damned near 0 safety margin themselves? If they did, then I can't quite see the Nuncians not also doing it to get back to support however they could, as quickly as they could. Especially since by this point, they were already starting to lean towards thinking Terekhov and the crew of the Nasty Kitty routinely walk on water if only to avoid wet shoes.

Shadows of Saganami wrote:The small force of Nuncian vessels and their Manticoran parasites were moving towards the freighter at a relative velocity of just a hair over 17,650 KPS, and the LACs' maximum deceleration rate was five hundred gravities. It had taken them an hour of steady acceleration to reach their current velocity before shutting down their wedges to avoid detection, and it would take them another hour to kill their velocity, during which time they would cover another 31,771,000-plus kilometers. At the moment, they were about forty-two million klicks from the freighter, so to decelerate for a zero/zero intercept, they'd have to begin decelerating in no more than four minutes. The pinnaces, with their higher acceleration rate, had a bit more time to play with—they could achieve a zero/zero intercept if they began decelerating any time in the next fifteen minutes.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Manticore & Grayson compensators had been operating with 0% safety margin for a decade at this point and the resiliency of the hardware was well-proven. The danger of running them with 0% was negligible.

Jonathan_S wrote:My recollection is that they'd changed from 20% margin down to 10% margin during the ceasefire. But I definitely don't remember them routinely operating at above 90% power, though they would in an emergency.

Storm from the Shadows, ch. 23 wrote:Bearing that in mind, the Admiralty had instructed all of its captains not to exceed seventy percent of maximum military power in the presence of Solarian warships.

SftS, ch. 43 wrote:"Six KPS squared, Sir," Aberu said even more unhappily. "That's one-point-three KPS more than they showed us at MOnica. Call it a twenty-eight percent difference."

"They must be running at maximum military power, Sir," Thimár said, and Byng turned sharply to look at her. "That's over six hundred gravities," the chief of staff continued. "They've got to be redlining their compensators to crank that much accel!"