April's thought experiment

It's been too quiet around here....

so a little thought experiment.

It's fall of 1923 PD, and the RMN is abut 12-15 months away from restarting low volume construction in the Manticore system.

While construction of Ships as advanced as Sag-cs and Nikes are beyond the yard's capability, it's been found that with a relatively small upgrade and cash infusion, the main fleet shipyard in the Silesia system can begin low volume construction of Sag-B Heavy Cruisers and Reliant flight IVs BCs (All with Mk-14 ERM launchers)

Do you begin construction? why or why not?

What if the ship was an Avalon CL or Wolfhound DD armed with the Mk-36 LERM?

Or what about David Taylor FSBs?

Theemile wrote:It's been too quiet around here....

so a little thought experiment.

It's fall of 1923 PD, and the RMN is abut 12-15 months away from restarting low volume construction in the Manticore system.

While construction of Ships as advanced as Sag-cs and Nikes are beyond the yard's capability, it's been found that with a relatively small upgrade and cash infusion, the main fleet shipyard in the Silesia system can begin low volume construction of Sag-B Heavy Cruisers and Reliant flight IVs BCs (All with Mk-14 ERM launchers)

Do you begin construction? why or why not?

What if the ship was an Avalon CL or Wolfhound DD armed with the Mk-36 LERM?

Or what about David Taylor FSBs?

The David Taylers probably not. First it's unlikely a Silsian yard could support those -- and they a very expensive special purpose ship. Most of your BCs aren't being use on deep raiding missions and so don't need supports ships able to repair and resupply them, while matching their strategic mobility and being able to trade away much of that support feature for self-defense capabilities.

The RMN probably has about all the David Taylors they need, and even if they don't that's not a critical priority.

As for building more Mk14 equipped ships. Probably not. They've got a reasonable number of Sag-Bs already. And if the yard can build something as big as a new Mark 14 equipped Reliant flight it'd be able to handle the size of a Sag-C (which is smaller than even the original Reliants). (Though, yes, it might not be able to handle the launchers for Mk-16 DDMs)

And there isn't any active combat right at the moment. So you don't have a war emergency that could justify building ships right now that you know will only have a very short operational life before becoming obsolete. You can afford to rely on your existing (somewhat more obsolete) ships until you're in a position in a couple years to start laying down actual modern combatants that you think can serve as front line units for decades.


Now Haven might be interested in ERM or DDM ship designs. I can't recall any evidence that they ever deployed any such ships during the 2nd war. They squeeze MDMs into pod-laying SD(P)s -- but as far as I know their DDs - BCs were still firing legacy SDMs; and so had become basically pure anti-missile anti-LAC screening units. Not at all able to tangle with the latest RMN designs - except in overwhelming numbers backed by towed MDM pods.

But Haven would be upgrading their own yards for that (or building them at Bolthole) - not dealing with a Silesian yard.

And of course all of this is ignoring the massive security and espionage risks you might have from letting better military tech into a Silesian yard.



All that said, Wolfhound and Avalons are more useful than Sag-Bs or new ERM Reliants. So there's some argument for building more of those - as they also serve peacetime anti-piracy duties. (Though with Silesian piracy basically stamped out it's unclear how soon and how much of that will be needed). But you still might be better off cutting a deal with Haven to give them the tech and designs in exchange for getting some of their production run. That's probably less of a security/espionage concern than Silesia -- and bad as the older Haven yard's workforces and facilities might have been compared to Manticore's they might still be better than Silesia's.

Theemile wrote:It's been too quiet around here....

so a little thought experiment.

It's fall of 1923 PD, and the RMN is abut 12-15 months away from restarting low volume construction in the Manticore system.

Jonathan_S wrote:Now Haven might be interested in ERM or DDM ship designs. I can't recall any evidence that they ever deployed any such ships during the 2nd war. They squeeze MDMs into pod-laying SD(P)s -- but as far as I know their DDs - BCs were still firing legacy SDMs; and so had become basically pure anti-missile anti-LAC screening units. Not at all able to tangle with the latest RMN designs - except in overwhelming numbers backed by towed MDM pods.

But Haven would be upgrading their own yards for that (or building them at Bolthole) - not dealing with a Silesian yard.

And of course all of this is ignoring the massive security and espionage risks you might have from letting better military tech into a Silesian yard.

I do not understand. Are you assuming that Manticore and Haven are going to split off into separate directions? It is my understanding that Manticore, Beowulf AND Haven are building joint designs that are getting initial construction at Bolthole and then being finished at Beowulf. So Haven, Beowulf AND Manticore will be equipped with the same missiles now. And the Andies?

So why not wonder what the joint force ships will be like in this new political environment? Will the battlecruiser be the biggest combat ship built going forward and equipped with Apollo and the Mark 23? Will the common destroyer be equipped with the Mark 16?

Theemile wrote:It's fall of 1923 PD, and the RMN is abut 12-15 months away from restarting low volume construction in the Manticore system.

While construction of Ships as advanced as Sag-cs and Nikes are beyond the yard's capability, it's been found that with a relatively small upgrade and cash infusion, the main fleet shipyard in the Silesia system can begin low volume construction of Sag-B Heavy Cruisers and Reliant flight IVs BCs (All with Mk-14 ERM launchers)

Do you begin construction? why or why not?

No, those are obsolete designs. The RMN has enough of those and would be looking to decommission the ones they have, not add more. And as the war with the SL has wound down, the RMN is demobilising, so it doesn't need to add more of the ships it's getting rid of. If it needs stopgap ships, it'll just keep the ones that it already has.

Maybe build them for export, but then I'd expect civilian/export designs too.

And besides, if the RMN needs more ships, it can contract out to Havenite or Andermani yards and pay with a technology transfer.

What if the ship was an Avalon CL or Wolfhound DD armed with the Mk-36 LERM?

Those would make more sense, because they are modern designs, but only if the RMN hasn't already determined they are less than the Minimum Viable Combatant. It would also make sense to spread the shipbuilding capabilities to the new quadrants if the Empire, both as diversification thus reduction of risk, and as economic incentive.

That said, are Silesian yards secure against IP theft?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:And besides, if the RMN needs more ships, it can contract out to Havenite or Andermani yards and pay with a technology transfer.

Hasn't Manticore already done that with Haven and Beowulf? I do not know what other financial arrangements are involved.

tlb wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:And besides, if the RMN needs more ships, it can contract out to Havenite or Andermani yards and pay with a technology transfer.

Hasn't Manticore already done that with Haven and Beowulf? I do not know what other financial arrangements are involved.

Not sure about Beowulf about ships; those were definitely producing missiles for Manticore. And the BSDF was going to get its set of Invictus-class (or equivalent) from Manticore soon, as per a conversation between Holmon-Sanders and Truman. I don't recall if it was before or after Oyster Bay had hit, but it doesn't look likely it was after.

Haven... actually, I don't remember an explicit statement. We know that Hemphill was at Bolthole during TEiF, so it stands to reason Bolthole had switched to producing Manticore designs while the Dynamic Duo was working on improving those for the next generation. And it's very likely Bolthole had enough capacity to produce all the capital ships that the RMN is going to need, especially so if the other Havenite yards have also begun producing those.

It will take time: your scenario is 1923 and the partnership is barely a year old, so at best the first keels were laid down about 6 T-months ago and one should expect a 3-year build this time, not the Manticore/Grayson standard of 2 years. But it doesn't make sense to build lesser designs anywhere else.

The question is whether the Havenite, Andermani and Beowulfan yards can produce the below-the-wall designs and if they have the available capacity. We have not heard of any new Haven sub-wall designs but I am sure this is an area where they'd be eager to adopt Manticore designs, more than replacing their own wallers. The Andermani will probably keep their own sub-wall designs and just launch a new class soon-ish. Beowulf will adopt the Sag-C and Nike designs wholesale however, and if they're not building SLN-style wallers, they may reuse the slips to build Nikes.

So my answer stands: no, don't build Saganami-B or Reliant IV in Silesia, unless that's a civilian effort to build for export. Instead, retool those government yards to build the Nikes and whatever comes after the Sag-C.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:We have not heard of any new Haven sub-wall designs but I am sure this is an area where they'd be eager to adopt Manticore designs, more than replacing their own wallers. The Andermani will probably keep their own sub-wall designs and just launch a new class soon-ish. Beowulf will adopt the Sag-C and Nike designs wholesale however, and if they're not building SLN-style wallers, they may reuse the slips to build Nikes.

I'm not actually sure that Haven would directly adopt Manticoran designs.

Now if they haven't rolled out any new sub-wall designs in the last 10 years they might be happy to temporarily accept surplus RMN ships as they downsize. If they're more capable that what's currently in service, and dirt cheap, then that might not be a bad thing.


But I suspect for the long term Shannon and her design teams would prefer to take Manticoran tech and apply their own design principles and requirements to make their own modern PSN sub-wall designs.

After all, Haven has different manning constraints, quite different doctrine for smaller ships, and (at least historically) far less need for commerce protection. So they probably want small ships with different balances than what the RMN wanted.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:We have not heard of any new Haven sub-wall designs but I am sure this is an area where they'd be eager to adopt Manticore designs, more than replacing their own wallers. The Andermani will probably keep their own sub-wall designs and just launch a new class soon-ish. Beowulf will adopt the Sag-C and Nike designs wholesale however, and if they're not building SLN-style wallers, they may reuse the slips to build Nikes.

Jonathan_S wrote:I'm not actually sure that Haven would directly adopt Manticoran designs.

Now if they haven't rolled out any new sub-wall designs in the last 10 years they might be happy to temporarily accept surplus RMN ships as they downsize. If they're more capable that what's currently in service, and dirt cheap, then that might not be a bad thing.


But I suspect for the long term Shannon and her design teams would prefer to take Manticoran tech and apply their own design principles and requirements to make their own modern PSN sub-wall designs.

After all, Haven has different manning constraints, quite different doctrine for smaller ships, and (at least historically) far less need for commerce protection. So they probably want small ships with different balances than what the RMN wanted.

honorverse.fandom.com/wiki/Bolthole wrote:In 1923 PD, Bolthole began an ambitious construction program, building SD(P)s of a common Manticoran-Havenite design. The SD(P)s were built with engines, life support, point defense, counter missile launchers, armor, missile cores and pod rails, broadside weapons, and basic sensors before being transited to the Cassandra Yards in the Sigma Draconis System for installation of Keyhole Two, FTL coms, and current-generations fire control and ECM. The new design was as capable as the Manticoran Invictus class. (HH14)

HH14 is Uncompromising Honor and on pages 622-623 of the hardback, in a section marked as January 1923 Post Diaspora, there is the following text:

Bolthole's stupendous shipyards had undertaken an ambitious construction program of SD(P)s, built to a common Manticore-Haven design. Haven's basic technology in areas like FTL coms and missile tech - Keyhole-Two came to mind in that connection - remained significantly inferior to Manticore and Grayson, but Bolthole's construction rate was almost as high as Manticore's had been at the peak of its pre-Yawata Strike capacity. That meant there'd be a lot of new hulls remarkably soon, but they'd be completed in what could only be called a barebones configuration. They'd be fitted with engines, life-support, point defense, counter-missile launchers, armor, missile cores and pod rails, broadside weapons and basic sensors, then transitioned to Beowulf's Cassandra yards for the installation of Keyhole-Two, FTL coms, and current-generation fire control and ECM suites to create an end product fully as capable as the RMN'S Invictus-class.

. This is hand copied, so any mistakes were made in transcription.

I see no reason why common sub-wall designs will not follow, because they will NOT be going separate ways in the future. Elsewhere we have talked about the number of Verge systems that will no longer be controlled nor protected by the Solarian League. So the Grand Alliance will likely have friendship patrols to see where the problems spots are and those will be carried out by battlecruisers and destroyers and so on. As far as the Grand Alliance goes, they are talking in terms of something like the European Union with Haven and Manticore (and Beowulf?) as founding members.

tlb wrote:I see no reason why common sub-wall designs will not follow, because they will NOT be going separate ways in the future. Elsewhere we have talked about the number of Verge systems that will no longer be controlled nor protected by the Solarian League. So the Grand Alliance will likely have friendship patrols to see where the problems spots are and those will be carried out by battlecruisers and destroyers and so on. As far as the Grand Alliance goes, they are talking in terms of something like the European Union with Haven and Manticore (and Beowulf?) as founding members.

I think the same too: right now, the three main governments don't want to separate. I think the Andermani want also all the benefits of joint designs, but won't want to lose face and accept those designs wholesale; instead, they'll "backport" everything that comes out of the Dynamic Duo at Bolthole onto their own designs. In any case, they had already benefited from Manticore upgrades a few years ago, so they had much less to catch up.

The RHN had much more to catch up. My guess is that the gap was wider in sub-wall ships, only because the Manticore tech allowed far better packing into smaller packages, which couldn't be overcome by sheer brute force. That is, there's far more that an SD(P) can benefit from, but Havenite SD(P)s were already much better than anyone else's so those don't need to be replaced in a hurry. I don't think whatever replaced the Mars-D had the capability to fire off-bore, much less a tube-launched DDM design that Haven didn't have. And thus definitely not a destroyer design, though it's unclear whether destroyers will continue to exist.

If I were in charge of Grand Alliance shipbuilding, I'd build:
* SD(P)s and CLACs in Bolthole
* BCs and CAs in the other Havenite yards and in Beowulf
* leave the Andermani to build whatever they wanted to anyway

Auxiliaries like the David Taylors, I'm not sure. Those are big enough that should require capital-ship-scale slips, which would mean they can't be built yet in Talbott and Silesia. Those probably need Havenite and Beowulfan yards, and I suspect at this point the Cassandra yards in Sigma Draconis would be saturated with Nikes.

And if I were Minister of Industry for the Empire, I'd start funding expansion of civilian yards in Silesia and in Talbott (work with Hauptmann, but not let the monopolise), and try to convince the Fifth Lord to build CLs, marine transports, and LACs there. And convince for an export version of Saganami-B and a DDM-firing BC to compete with Erewhon's Defiant-class BC.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:And if I were Minister of Industry for the Empire, I'd start funding expansion of civilian yards in Silesia and in Talbott (work with Hauptmann, but not let the monopolise), and try to convince the Fifth Lord to build CLs, marine transports, and LACs there. And convince for an export version of Saganami-B and a DDM-firing BC to compete with Erewhon's Defiant-class BC.

The author has been adamant in the past about not building warships in Silesia. I do not remember any similar comments about the Talbott Quarter. However, was this just while the war was being hotly contested and might be relaxed now?

I do NOT expect a export version of anything with Manticore's multi-drive missile capability in the near future. Maybe after the Solarian League cracks the buffer technology that allows multiple drive rings on a single missile body.