Light bulb Captured Solly fleet

The actual building process of a ship is a miniscule part of the actual design work. Assembly requires effectively no engineers at all. [/quote]

I work at Sikorsky Aircraft, we build helicopters. I can most definitely assure you this is NOT the case. There is an entire department of engineers who work production. Yes hypothetically the sub assemblies "should" work no problem and its a simple matter of bolting them in. Real world says not a chance in hell. That doesn't even include flight test once the aircraft is built.

Yes the R+D is a far larger group of engineers, but Murphy LOVES to rear his head in production, and there are a large number of engineers on hand to support production. I can only imagine this is the case for larger and vastly more complicated things like super dreadnoughts.

Direwolf18 wrote:

wastedfly wrote:The actual building process of a ship is a miniscule part of the actual design work. Assembly requires effectively no engineers at all.

I work at Sikorsky Aircraft, we build helicopters. I can most definitely assure you this is NOT the case. There is an entire department of engineers who work production. Yes hypothetically the sub assemblies "should" work no problem and its a simple matter of bolting them in. Real world says not a chance in hell. That doesn't even include flight test once the aircraft is built.

Yes the R+D is a far larger group of engineers, but Murphy LOVES to rear his head in production, and there are a large number of engineers on hand to support production. I can only imagine this is the case for larger and vastly more complicated things like super dreadnoughts.

I remember watching a show (Nova?) on PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) that showed the assembly (it was a test fit, not final assembly) of the carbon fiber wing of the first Boeing 777. When the surface was flush at the wing root, the wingtip had about two inches of clearance between the skin and the internal support structure it was supposed to lie flat against.

There was much discussion among the engineers about whether it would be safe (for flight) to bend it down to where it was supposed to be and then secure it with the adhesive. (They eventually decided it would be safe to do so.)

On another show on another network, another aircraft in the testing stage was undergoing cold weather testing where the skin was sprayed with water and frozen on the skin to a depth of 2 (or 3?) inches. The door of the aircraft was then opened from the inside to see if it could be done by the flight attendant crew-members. It could, but (x-ray?) examination of the area around the where the lever to open the locking mechanism showed that the design had positioned the lock too close to the edge of the door, possibly letting cracks form in the area which could potentially lead to catastrophic results.

Again there was a discussion among the engineers of what to do about the problem. The solution (out of several possibilities) they chose was to solidly weld a thin plate of the same metal of the door flush against the inner side to increase the thickness in the area that might develop cracks.

Direwolf18 wrote:Now giving the ships away with the expectation of scrapping them could be a worthwhile enterprise. I imagine there are certain systems on those ships that could be worth salvaging on some of the poorer worlds in places like the Talbott quadrant.

Why scrap them? The most valuable resource in those captured SLN ships is knowledge; knowledge that Nuncio, Dresden, et al need far more than they need scrap. Knowledge that the SEM needs spread about to bring the majority of the Talbot Quadrant up to Manticoran Merchant Marine standards, let alone up to RMN standards.

An SD has all the systems, simulators, and manuals necessary to train Nuncion farmboys or Dresden factory workers into SLN quality spacers. That may not be up to Manticoran, Havenite, or Andermani standards, but is light-years closer than the poorer systems of the Talbot Quadrant can do without a massive (and expensive) infusion of technological resources.

Using a couple of captured SLN ships as "School Ships" in each of the Talbot Quadrant systems -- with a few extras to cannibalize for spare parts -- means the manning requirements aren't a problem; the more berthing space available just means more room for students.

Offer employment to a few of the captured SLN petty officers, ratings, and junior officers as instructors and cadre; along with personnel from the small local defense forces, each system should be able to provide for educating the first class or two through each ship.

Using the LAC squadrons assigned as system defense forces has already been suggested in canon as a recruiting and pre-training resource for bringing Talboters up to RMN standard. Using the Captured SDs and other ships as school ships could speed up that "pre-training."

Also, everyone seems to be forgetting the maintenance/machine shops to be found on a ship of war; While not big enough or extensive enough to take up the lost manufacturing capability of the Manticoran system, they are extensive enough to train technicians and machinists. They are probably extensive enough to boost Nuncio's (et al) technology level and economy significantly just from "class projects" and after class sub-rosa productions.

Everything required for training spacers and/or technicians and machinists is in place with more than sufficient power available to drive systems, simulators, software, and shops.

There's no reason to scrap any of the SLN ships captured in the Talbot Quadrant (other than cannibalization for spares,) and any captured in Manticore can either be used as school ships there or ferried to Silesia or de-milled and sold to some verge system in need of a bit of knowledge/technology boost. Even some of the lesser Havenite systems could probably use the knowledge to be found in just one SLN SD.

Weird Harold wrote:

Direwolf18 wrote:Now giving the ships away with the expectation of scrapping them could be a worthwhile enterprise. I imagine there are certain systems on those ships that could be worth salvaging on some of the poorer worlds in places like the Talbott quadrant.

Why scrap them? The most valuable resource in those captured SLN ships is knowledge; knowledge that Nuncio, Dresden, et al need far more than they need scrap. Knowledge that the SEM needs spread about to bring the majority of the Talbot Quadrant up to Manticoran Merchant Marine standards, let alone up to RMN standards.

We have been through this dozens of times. The Talbott Cluster does not need training vessels at this time.

All Manticoran naval and marine personnel get years of training on the ground before they ever get shipboard time. By the time the Talbott Cluster has any large number of personnel ready for shipboard duty, Manticore will have new ships for them to use.

SWM wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:

Why scrap them? The most valuable resource in those captured SLN ships is knowledge; knowledge that Nuncio, Dresden, et al need far more than they need scrap. Knowledge that the SEM needs spread about to bring the majority of the Talbot Quadrant up to Manticoran Merchant Marine standards, let alone up to RMN standards.

We have been through this dozens of times. The Talbott Cluster does not need training vessels at this time.

All Manticoran naval and marine personnel get years of training on the ground before they ever get shipboard time. By the time the Talbott Cluster has any large number of personnel ready for shipboard duty, Manticore will have new ships for them to use.

And then there's the problem with the appearance of creating a two tier navy where the Star Kingdom personnel get the good ships and the Talbot personnel get the deathtraps. How many Talbott recruits are you going to get when they're guaranteed to be on ships that can contribute nothing to an actual fight except being meatshields for the Mantis?

keylime314 wrote:

SWM wrote:We have been through this dozens of times. The Talbott Cluster does not need training vessels at this time.

All Manticoran naval and marine personnel get years of training on the ground before they ever get shipboard time. By the time the Talbott Cluster has any large number of personnel ready for shipboard duty, Manticore will have new ships for them to use.

And then there's the problem with the appearance of creating a two tier navy where the Star Kingdom personnel get the good ships and the Talbot personnel get the deathtraps. How many Talbott recruits are you going to get when they're guaranteed to be on ships that can contribute nothing to an actual fight except being meatshields for the Mantis?

And while tactics and theory are universal, hardware and software are not. The ships and their sims are using Sollie hardware and Sollie software. No one in the modern workforce would train their users on a 1993 Macintosh and then drop them into a work environment using Windows 8 on a PC.

It's not just software that will be different, it's switch layouts, workflows, nomenclature, etc, etc. In the RMN, every ATAC officer might handle a task, in the SLN, it's at the AuxNAV station. You're teaching engineers the secrets to keep up hardware they will never touch once they "graduate" to the real navy, and no where are you training them in any of the new technology that has been developed in the last 30 years.

Yes, you can rewrite software and re-label a panel, but it will still be SLN hardware and not have the abilities current RMN ships will have. In essence you would get no training advantages you would not get using the current Talbott Quadrant hardware.

I can't remember who posted it up-line, but it seems to me that the best use for the Sollie ships in the quadrant would be to provide healthcare facilities that many of the systems there do not have.

Whether they remain in the ships in orbit and shuttles are used to take patients to & fro, or are stripped from the ships and transported down to planet for use there, would be determined by the system governments.

The machine shops could be stripped out and shipped to the planets, and if the healthcare facilities are also shipped to planets then all the environmental systems and human resource support systems could be shipped to the planets as well.

The remaining hulk could be towed out to the asteroid belt and used for target practice by the LAC forces which will become the "local" navy presence in each system.

T&R
GJS

George J. Smith wrote:I can't remember who posted it up-line, but it seems to me that the best use for the Sollie ships in the quadrant would be to provide healthcare facilities that many of the systems there do not have.

Whether they remain in the ships in orbit and shuttles are used to take patients to & fro, or are stripped from the ships and transported down to planet for use there, would be determined by the system governments.

The machine shops could be stripped out and shipped to the planets, and if the healthcare facilities are also shipped to planets then all the environmental systems and human resource support systems could be shipped to the planets as well.

The remaining hulk could be towed out to the asteroid belt and used for target practice by the LAC forces which will become the "local" navy presence in each system.

T&R
GJS

It would be perfectly reasonable to pull out what useful hardware and portable stuff you can from the ships. But before you think that this would make a big difference on a Verge world, I would point out that a medical facility for 6000 people would be a bit overwhelmed on a planet of hundreds of millions or billions.

Well, to be fair, medical facilities for half a million people.

That'll help out a good sized city, and given that it's designed for war trauma, it may well be able to exceed the capacity of a continent's normal everyday mayhem....and the fact that there are about 40 units means you can spread them around to various population centers.

They'd not be full tier hospitals, but they'd be a hell of a trauma center to add to any existing medical facility. While supplies last, and assuming some of the trained Sollies decide to stay and help make them work.

I've no idea if the "good stuff" in the med bays is portable enough to remove without a major yard that doesn't exist, but that's a rare suggestion that might actually have some merit. Likewise the small craft and such are probably useful to some non-military organization.

solbergb wrote:Well, to be fair, medical facilities for half a million people.

I can tell you that a hospital can support 500,000 people is far, far larger that that. Because I work at one of the 3 hospitals that supports a city of 500,000 and we have over 7000 staff and 2 million square feet for just our organization. There are probably 20,000 staff and 2-3 million cubic meters needed for a city of 500,000. Which I kind of doubt is going to fit in the sickbay of a warship. These are typically going to be designed for 20-50 patients max before you have people laying on the deck.

Plus there are the issues of getting to/from the "hospital" and that you need a thousand plus trained crew to keep the rest of the ship working.

The damn things are warships, if your idea for employment can be done as well or better by ships that don't mount SD grasers and multiple meters of armor then it's probably not a good idea.