First Technical Mission To Bolthole

cthia wrote:Think U.S.S. Enterprise. Next Generation...
The emergency separation of the saucer section from battle bridge.

Is it possible to radically redesign a superdreadnaught that will separate into two ships, both with CIC sections of their own? Each warship has redundant systems anyway.

A superdreadnaught separated in half would yield the tonnage of Manticore's big assed BBs.

The tactical benefit being faster ships while separated, and the surprise of being wolves in sheep's clothing.

In the spirit of 'those weren't BBs, they were minelayers.'
'Those weren't four BBs, they were two SDs!'

Hey, let's use Bolthole while we've got it.

For several reasons, this is an unworkable idea. You can construct ships with only a single impeller ring, as Pinnaces and the Corvettes of the Travis Long novels show, but they're not good combat vessels. All you'd get is a ship that has no drive redundancy, cannot mount any additional weaponry compared to a normal one, has to waste tonnage on additional compensators for each half, and has to carry additional crew for redundancy.

Have you read the Travis Long novels? Because this thinking of "Warships have redundant systems, so let's cut out the redundancy so we can have more ships!" is specifically called out and ridiculed there.

cthia wrote:Think U.S.S. Enterprise. Next Generation...
The emergency separation of the saucer section from battle bridge.

Is it possible to radically redesign a superdreadnaught that will separate into two ships, both with CIC sections of their own? Each warship has redundant systems anyway.

A superdreadnaught separated in half would yield the tonnage of Manticore's big assed BBs.

The tactical benefit being faster ships while separated, and the surprise of being wolves in sheep's clothing.

In the spirit of 'those weren't BBs, they were minelayers.'
'Those weren't four BBs, they were two SDs!'

Hey, let's use Bolthole while we've got it.

The saucer separation was the stupidest concept I'd heard of in a long time. Yes, on paper it sounds great, a way to get all those civilians out of danger. Except...

How about 1) Not carrying civilians aboard what amounts to a battleship? 2) Putting civilians on the star-drive section so they can actually run away? 3) Evacuating them via warp-capable shuttlecrafts?

The "Multi-Vector Assault Mode" concept is somewhat better(at least the Prometheus designed each segment to be a completely independent starship - and no civilians!), but to translate this into the Honorverse would essentially mean building a SD fitted with battlecruiser weight armament.

Why not just build four Nikes instead of a SD designed to break up into four Nikes?

munroburton wrote:

cthia wrote:Think U.S.S. Enterprise. Next Generation...
The emergency separation of the saucer section from battle bridge.

Is it possible to radically redesign a superdreadnaught that will separate into two ships, both with CIC sections of their own? Each warship has redundant systems anyway.

A superdreadnaught separated in half would yield the tonnage of Manticore's big assed BBs.

The tactical benefit being faster ships while separated, and the surprise of being wolves in sheep's clothing.

In the spirit of 'those weren't BBs, they were minelayers.'
'Those weren't four BBs, they were two SDs!'

Hey, let's use Bolthole while we've got it.

The saucer separation was the stupidest concept I'd heard of in a long time. Yes, on paper it sounds great, a way to get all those civilians out of danger. Except...

How about 1) Not carrying civilians aboard what amounts to a battleship? 2) Putting civilians on the star-drive section so they can actually run away? 3) Evacuating them via warp-capable shuttlecrafts?

The "Multi-Vector Assault Mode" concept is somewhat better(at least the Prometheus designed each segment to be a completely independent starship - and no civilians!), but to translate this into the Honorverse would essentially mean building a SD fitted with battlecruiser weight armament.

Why not just build four Nikes instead of a SD designed to break up into four Nikes?

Darn!
Hemphill and I only dated a short time, yet it seems I'm finding myself being dressed-down at the Weapons Board. Sound familiar?

I just as well take the Hemphill way out...
"It was always meant to be a test bed!"

munroburton wrote:Why not just build four Nikes instead of a SD designed to break up into four Nikes?

Which you can't do anyway due to the way impeller drive physics work.

munroburton wrote:The "Multi-Vector Assault Mode" concept is somewhat better(at least the Prometheus designed each segment to be a completely independent starship - and no civilians!), but to translate this into the Honorverse would essentially mean building a SD fitted with battlecruiser weight armament.

I am sure I'm mistaken, but I thought SD-Ps were little more than an SD with BB weight armament.

Lemon Meringue please!

cthia wrote:I am sure I'm mistaken, but I thought SD-Ps were little more than an SD with BB weight armament.

Oh, they are....

If you ignore their main battery. It's like saying that a modern supercarrier is a worse combat ship than an Iowa-class BB because it doesn't carry that many guns.

In fact the Spider Torpedo is a ship weapon with all the heat management systems removed to save weight and space. This results in self destruct from heat in three seconds. Ship weapons fire for much longer than three seconds. It takes about that many seconds to go from temp warnings to catastrophic failure.

MoH Chap 28 wrote:Fitting all that into something the size of a torpedo had required some drastic engineering compromises, and there’d never been any possibility of squeezing in the power supply for more than a single shot. Even if there had been, no one could build a graser that small and that powerful which could survive the power bleed and waste heat of actually firing. But that was fine with the MAN’s designers and tacticians. In fact, they were just as happy every graser torpedo would irrevocably and totally destroy itself in the moment it fired, since they weren’t looking forward to the day one of their enemies finally captured one intact and figured out how to duplicate it.

Just an FYI,
T2M

The E wrote:

cthia wrote:I am sure I'm mistaken, but I thought SD-Ps were little more than an SD with BB weight armament.

Oh, they are....

If you ignore their main battery. It's like saying that a modern supercarrier is a worse combat ship than an Iowa-class BB because it doesn't carry that many guns.

Or that it's a worse carrier than an Essex class because it doesn't carry as many planes

What do you mean WWII planes were a lot smaller and less capable?

munroburton wrote:
*snip*

The saucer separation was the stupidest concept I'd heard of in a long time. Yes, on paper it sounds great, a way to get all those civilians out of danger. Except...

How about 1) Not carrying civilians aboard what amounts to a battleship? 2) Putting civilians on the star-drive section so they can actually run away? 3) Evacuating them via warp-capable shuttlecrafts?

*/snip*

1) The Galaxy-class isn't a battleship, it's a deep-space explorer vessel for long-endurance scientific and diplomatic missions, which can also in a military role. The first true warship Starfleet ever built was the DS9 Defiant, which has a hugely different design philosophy.

2) The saucer is capable of sustaining a warp field for a limited period, allowing it to flee while the stardrive section, which contains the warp core and most of the tactical systems and is much faster and more maneuverable once it's not carrying the mass of the saucer, engages whatever caused you to separate the saucer in the first place.

3) The ship doesn't carry anything like enough small craft to conduct that sort of evacuation. That's what the escape pods are for.

Yes, I got the TNG tech manual, I'm that much of a geek.

Yes, I got the TNG tech manual, I'm that much of a geek.

You're on a board which discusses, among other things, the finer points of gravity manipulation and fictional warship design. Don't worry, you're in good company.