Insanity: Screening elements in the HV

Jonathan_S wrote:The UK had some of similar issues - though more maintenance slips than build slips. The size of some of their designs got limited by the availibity of suitably sized drydocks around the Empire.

They didn't think it much use to build a ship that couldn't be deployed to their forward fleet stations. But they wouldn't a ship somewhere it couldn't be maintained (and if necessarily) repaired.

France on the other hand did have major issues with the size of her building slips; requiring some interesting contortions in the building of her final battleships.

Getting the necessary peacetime funding to expand facilities was difficult (and come wartime when the funding might have been made available there wasn't time)

I'm sure Manticore suffered the same issues with getting infrastructure funding.


Of course Manticore also suffered a bit of the other UK ship problem; a need/desire to prioritize hull numbers over the absolute most powerful ships. That's what led to the UK to tend towards smaller cruiser and destroyers than some other powers. Even when there wasn't a treaty tonnage cap to worry about there were still financial tradeoffs. And if you've identified a need for, say, 100 cruisers it may not matter if you're paying 70% the cost to get 60% the capability per ship if the only way to get the numbers is to do that. If you got the more capable ships you'd end up 30 hulls short and not able to cover all your commitments.

History is replete with such issues sub-par strategic decisions - Britain not switching from low energy/man power intensive coal designs to oil fired boilers is another example - they knew the advantages for years, but Britain had coal on it's shores, not oil. Consequently, they made the decision that an energy starved navy is a pointless waste of money in war time. Let's face it, 2 world wars proved their fears to be not unfounded.

Another example is the Virginia class nuclear cruisers. Originally supposed to be significantly larger, they were shrank to be nuclear Frigates during design, redesignated to DD Leaders then again redesignated as cruisers during construction, despite their size, then finally had their numbers cut from an initial run of 11 ships to just 4. Funds limitations never allowed their early gen twin arm launchers to be updated to later standards, requiring their SM-1's fins to be hand fitted on the deck. Then, in the 90s their manpower saving nuclear control room upgrade was paused, then canceled as all 4 were retired early. Why? Their unique manpower intensive design caused by the un-updated launchers and nuclear control room, and small ship count made them expensive to run and maintain.

Of course, the follow on class was no better, the Spruance destroyers and their gas turbines were much cheaper and less manpower intensive than the Virginias (and thus caused their #s to be curtailed). However, it was decided to cut their firepower in 1/2 as a cost savings measure, under the thought that such systems could be added in a later refit. The refit never happened, and the Spruances were retired 10 years early - why - their limited weapons suites. If they had been armed similarly to the Kidd class (which were essentially fully armed Spruances, originally built for the Shah of Iran, and then absorbed into the US Navy when completed after that country's rebellion) we would have gotten a few more years out of those hulls. Or not - the cost cutters probably would have made the "non-Aegis" argument and put them out to pasture anyway.

I sometimes worry how history will judge us.

Theemile wrote:At some point, modularity just runs out - and when you are trying to shove 20 pounds of potatoes into a 5 pound bag, it's time to upgrade the container, no matter how well it's made.

Hmm, true. I'll admit y'all are probably right here - certainly know a hell of a lot more then me lmao - and while I may not like it, not much reason to argue.

Thanks for correcting me on this, i'm glad I know now :>

ThinksMarkedly wrote:A BC(P) has a very different role: it was meant to lead detached squadrons and maybe thicken a screen. A DN(P) is not a cheap SD(P). It would probably need to be nearly as big as an SLN Vega- or Scientist-class SD, pushing 6 million tonnes.

Okay, in fairness... this is like normal DN-level displacement. The Bellerophon, Majestic and Gladiator mass over six million tons each, and the Bellerophon actually outmasses a Scientist!

Theemile wrote:The Honorverse Wiki is better now than it was years back (When it started with the Notorious List as a base), but even when it is accurate, the information is not usually complete enough to be useful or trustworthy, nor (as mentioned) can you trust that someone hasn't overwritten hard researched, accurate facts with their fan fiction over the weekend.

I find the german wiki arguably better then the normal wiki, to be honest. Tends to have more information, especially on lesser known stuff from House of Steel or Jayne's.

Zendikarofthewest wrote:Okay, in fairness... this is like normal DN-level displacement. The Bellerophon, Majestic and Gladiator mass over six million tons each, and the Bellerophon actually outmasses a Scientist!

Oops, so it does (and the drunken wiki confirms). But the post above quoting RFC saying it would cost 90-95% of an SD(P) is the clincher. There's such thing as economy of scale and very often "bigger is better" and thus cheaper per unit of volume. They are limited in mass/size only by what the compensators can compensate.

It would be interesting to find out what the curve looks like at the size of an Invictus. That is, if you made it 25% bigger, would it cost more than 25% more? Or less than 25% more? From the DN(P) example, a 7.5 MT ship would be 85% of the volume of an Invictus (and 80% of the capability), but is said to cost at least 90%. Or, put in other words, an 16% increase in size and 25% increase in capability only cost 11% more.

I suspect we could approximate it with a flat but with a decreasing marginal cost. Bigger will probably always be better. But you have to factor in the cost of opportunity: even assuming you could compensate 18 million tonnes and it cost only 1.5x an Invictus, it might be better to have two of the latter.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Zendikarofthewest wrote:Okay, in fairness... this is like normal DN-level displacement. The Bellerophon, Majestic and Gladiator mass over six million tons each, and the Bellerophon actually outmasses a Scientist!

Oops, so it does (and the drunken wiki confirms). But the post above quoting RFC saying it would cost 90-95% of an SD(P) is the clincher. There's such thing as economy of scale and very often "bigger is better" and thus cheaper per unit of volume. They are limited in mass/size only by what the compensators can compensate.

It would be interesting to find out what the curve looks like at the size of an Invictus. That is, if you made it 25% bigger, would it cost more than 25% more? Or less than 25% more? From the DN(P) example, a 7.5 MT ship would be 85% of the volume of an Invictus (and 80% of the capability), but is said to cost at least 90%. Or, put in other words, an 16% increase in size and 25% increase in capability only cost 11% more.

I suspect we could approximate it with a flat but with a decreasing marginal cost. Bigger will probably always be better. But you have to factor in the cost of opportunity: even assuming you could compensate 18 million tonnes and it cost only 1.5x an Invictus, it might be better to have two of the latter.

True, especially since a pair of Invictus can be in two places at once, and a hypothetical SDD(P) can only be in one. (Super-Duper Dreadnought (Pod))

I will say, sollie SDs are fucking tiny, why do they mass only six million tons?

Zendikarofthewest wrote:I will say, sollie SDs are fucking tiny, why do they mass only six million tons?

Because they’re effectively a design that’s a couple of centuries old; so they haven’t been experimenting the steady size creep other powers have.

Some of that might be because the League Navy wants to maintain some consistency with their vast reserve fleet; which at least in theory they’d be slowly pulling some ships out of for refit and rotation into active service.

That’s kind of a stupid reason. OTOH the US Navy refused to increase the speed of their later classes of Standard Type battleships in order to maintain common handling characteristics. Meanwhile other powers were making their newest classes faster; which meant as the oldest classes got retired their entire fleet speed ratcheted up. But it shows this kind of locking in characteristics to match older designs has happened historically-just not over such a long time period

Jonathan_S wrote:Because they’re effectively a design that’s a couple of centuries old; so they haven’t been experimenting the steady size creep other powers have.

The Scientist and Vega classes at 6.8 MT is not very far from a King William, at 7.17 MT or a DuQuesne (7.18 MT). The difference is time: the Vegas are a design from somewhere in the 1890s to 1900s, the Scientists were from 1910s, whereas the King Williams were built in the 1870s and entered service in 1877 (the Samothraces of the 1850s were slightly bigger). Considering that the SLN is conservative, they would never be first mover in growing. There's also a bit of arrogance: they may have looked at the Manticore and Havenite designs of the 1870s and 1880s and decided that "neobarbs don't have the right tech, so they build bigger clubs to whack each other over the heads." That is, they decided that their somewhat smaller ship made it up with better technology.

And you know what? They were right, at the time, and at least compared to the Peep designs. Remember that the PN was getting covert technical help from the League and with some technology transfer. A Vega or Scientist was probably equally matched to a Haven, DuQuesne, King William or Anduril classes. The bigger difference was shiphandling and doctrine: the Battle Fleet didn't know how to use their ships effectively.

The Manticore technology didn't start pulling considerably ahead until the Victory, Gryphon and Sphinx classes.

I don't recall if this is something RFC said or if it was only a discussion in the forum, but if Filareta had showed up with 300 SDs in 1905 in the MBS, he'd have won. He needn't have actually finished the job and conquered the system. In fact, even if a small fraction of his ships had had to retreat after the battle, that would still be an effective victory, because the SLN could send another 300 SDs to finish the job, but Manticore could not rebuild in time.

Which begs the question of why Parnell didn't do that. That has also been discussed extensively, and the most likely conclusion is lack of thinking outside the box: Parnell and the Peep admiralty knew only one way to fight, so that's what they did.

That’s kind of a stupid reason. OTOH the US Navy refused to increase the speed of their later classes of Standard Type battleships in order to maintain common handling characteristics. Meanwhile other powers were making their newest classes faster; which meant as the oldest classes got retired their entire fleet speed ratcheted up. But it shows this kind of locking in characteristics to match older designs has happened historically-just not over such a long time period

It's also the same reason why Boeing introduced the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) in the 737 MAX series: so those would fly exactly the same as the NG series, despite having bigger engines placed further to the front, which did produce a small amount of lift at high angles of attack. That way, they wouldn't need to have crews trained for the MAX and they'd keep the exact same type rating. While that's a laudable goal, the fact that they were so insistent on "it's the same, nothing to look here" caused them to actively hide that this system existed.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Because they’re effectively a design that’s a couple of centuries old; so they haven’t been experimenting the steady size creep other powers have.

The Scientist and Vega classes at 6.8 MT is not very far from a King William, at 7.17 MT or a DuQuesne (7.18 MT). The difference is time: the Vegas are a design from somewhere in the 1890s to 1900s, the Scientists were from 1910s, whereas the King Williams were built in the 1870s and entered service in 1877 (the Samothraces of the 1850s were slightly bigger). Considering that the SLN is conservative, they would never be first mover in growing. There's also a bit of arrogance: they may have looked at the Manticore and Havenite designs of the 1870s and 1880s and decided that "neobarbs don't have the right tech, so they build bigger clubs to whack each other over the heads." That is, they decided that their somewhat smaller ship made it up with better technology.

And you know what? They were right, at the time, and at least compared to the Peep designs. Remember that the PN was getting covert technical help from the League and with some technology transfer. A Vega or Scientist was probably equally matched to a Haven, DuQuesne, King William or Anduril classes. The bigger difference was shiphandling and doctrine: the Battle Fleet didn't know how to use their ships effectively.

The Manticore technology didn't start pulling considerably ahead until the Victory, Gryphon and Sphinx classes.

I don't recall if this is something RFC said or if it was only a discussion in the forum, but if Filareta had showed up with 300 SDs in 1905 in the MBS, he'd have won. He needn't have actually finished the job and conquered the system. In fact, even if a small fraction of his ships had had to retreat after the battle, that would still be an effective victory, because the SLN could send another 300 SDs to finish the job, but Manticore could not rebuild in time.

Which begs the question of why Parnell didn't do that. That has also been discussed extensively, and the most likely conclusion is lack of thinking outside the box: Parnell and the Peep admiralty knew only one way to fight, so that's what they did.

That’s kind of a stupid reason. OTOH the US Navy refused to increase the speed of their later classes of Standard Type battleships in order to maintain common handling characteristics. Meanwhile other powers were making their newest classes faster; which meant as the oldest classes got retired their entire fleet speed ratcheted up. But it shows this kind of locking in characteristics to match older designs has happened historically-just not over such a long time period

It's also the same reason why Boeing introduced the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) in the 737 MAX series: so those would fly exactly the same as the NG series, despite having bigger engines placed further to the front, which did produce a small amount of lift at high angles of attack. That way, they wouldn't need to have crews trained for the MAX and they'd keep the exact same type rating. While that's a laudable goal, the fact that they were so insistent on "it's the same, nothing to look here" caused them to actively hide that this system existed.

The Scientist design is ~250 years old. I forget the number, but at least 1/3 of the ships in the in the reserve still have emag guns instead of PDLCs. The Vegas are... Newer... And more missile focused.

Theemile wrote:
The Scientist design is ~250 years old. I forget the number, but at least 1/3 of the ships in the in the reserve still have emag guns instead of PDLCs. The Vegas are... Newer... And more missile focused.

Aint the Vegas literally just a Scientist with a couple more missiles oon em?