Fall 1924: What will the Admiralty build next

Jonathan_S wrote:Trying to arrange the same permission with singleton successor states requires convincing each one individually to grant that permission -- a many times longer and more tedious process. (Also, as dysfunctional as the Confederacy was, they do have something of a navy, and so their government wasn't worried that two armed freighters could be a threat to them. Whereas many of these verge states have no defenses and could be taken over (again) by a single armed freighter. So they're probably going to be a lot more nervous about allowing same anywhere near their planet)

Additionally, any of those systems could suddenly retract their permissions. Even if they didn't do it while you were already en-route and decide to seize the vessel, that means it's very hard to plan a market and trade routes. Silesian governors might balk and having an armed freighter show up and scatter their pirate friends, but they wouldn't do much against that ship, aside from harassing and delaying, because they wouldn't want the SCN to come pay a visit and leave a ship there for a couple of months.

That's not to say that his eyes and ears might not be useful. Just that the RMN's ONI might have a significantly harder time finagling permission for him to operate in these new areas -- and might have to directly subsidize his operational costs if they want him to stay in business.

Subsidising seems like the only way this could work, but that brings other problems. Now, if someone can prove that you're taking money from a foreign government, they could classify you as a spy and detain you. It would lead at a minimum to a diplomatic incident.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Trying to arrange the same permission with singleton successor states requires convincing each one individually to grant that permission -- a many times longer and more tedious process. (Also, as dysfunctional as the Confederacy was, they do have something of a navy, and so their government wasn't worried that two armed freighters could be a threat to them. Whereas many of these verge states have no defenses and could be taken over (again) by a single armed freighter. So they're probably going to be a lot more nervous about allowing same anywhere near their planet)

Additionally, any of those systems could suddenly retract their permissions. Even if they didn't do it while you were already en-route and decide to seize the vessel, that means it's very hard to plan a market and trade routes. Silesian governors might balk and having an armed freighter show up and scatter their pirate friends, but they wouldn't do much against that ship, aside from harassing and delaying, because they wouldn't want the SCN to come pay a visit and leave a ship there for a couple of months.

That's not to say that his eyes and ears might not be useful. Just that the RMN's ONI might have a significantly harder time finagling permission for him to operate in these new areas -- and might have to directly subsidize his operational costs if they want him to stay in business.

Subsidising seems like the only way this could work, but that brings other problems. Now, if someone can prove that you're taking money from a foreign government, they could classify you as a spy and detain you. It would lead at a minimum to a diplomatic incident.

Isn't he being subsidized now, so to speak?

I was thinking that since piracy will rise substantially in the interim between now and when the SLN 2.0 rises from the ashes, and until the GA comes to terms with their new responsibilities, Bachfish's ships might be a good idea. (It may not be a bad idea if the SL(N) hires Bachfish on certain routes, until they can protect their own.)

I am thinking that some of these successor states might request protection from the GA. The GA might suggest an armed collier to operate in any system who requests protection. Bachfish could move around and pick off a few pirates in several systems. That way, no pirate could be sure it wasn't attacking one of Bachfish's ships.

Piracy is going to go through the roof for a short period of time. These successor states are going to begin trading like crazy to improve their economy in light of the noose being removed from their necks. They stand to lose a lot of income.

These successor states aren't exactly in the same situation as they were before the SL crashed their party, so old gripes with their neighbors may not even be an issue anymore.

It is like what Houseman tried to tell Grayson. It would be far more equitable to trade with Masada, your neighbors.

At any rate, I am thinking that any block of successor states that decide to form an alliance can arrange to have Bachfish at least on part-time retainer.

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Q-ships are supposed to be chameleons who blend in to stay out of notice but carry a punch significant enough to match their mission parameters.
Sirius appears to have been built as a covert raider and intelligence ship with the ability to be able to contribute significantly to the end game of any attack on a target system it was being used against.
Pirates Bain was also purpose built but as stated it was an armed naval auxiliary cargo ship- sold on the surplus market and looking a bit scruffy on the outside. Hiding in plain sight by primarily doing general cargo work. Mostly it was waiting for pirates to come to Bachfish, then taking them for the reward and any insurance money (for recoveries) and what amounts to prize money for "usefull" ships brought in.

A real trick in all of this is to convince anybody who encounters one that it is a merchant. If you primarily stay out of any system that doesn't already know (like dropping shipments to your home system's military outposts or just doing drop & go trans-loading at wormhole warehouse platforms) you retain your cover and ability to operate. Early in WW II, Germany (at least) was operating Q-ships that looked like common civilian merchant shipping and was at great pains to try to only engage merchants from enemy countries in the open ocean and try and sink them before they could get off accurate descriptions of the attacker before the communications were shut down.
So you probably want something that looks like an at least slightly older design with full retractable covers for it's weapons systems and what will appear to be not much more that normal civilian sensor systems for routine operation. You also probably need a camouflaged or retractable sets of up to military grade sensors etc that will also handle your weapons use---with all the preliminary data drawn from the "civilian" sensors but the high power system engaged if you have to use weapons. You also need the ability to carry sufficient cargo to be profitable in "normal" operations with creative use of designs to mask the amount of space and locations where you keep the shipboard weapons, missiles handling gear etc. Things that would survive at least a routine Customs inspection if that was required of ships entering a system. You have cargo holds and cargo handling gear- that could be used to make pods part of your weapons though probably would take longer to bring into engagement than stealthed missile tubes.
Paperwork.....if you are going to carry cargo, you are going to need to accumulate the paperwork that goes with that. Billing, bills of lading, port fees, supplies and services, personal records, certifications and inspections of systems that match what you are supposed to have.

Of course, of possibly greater utility in a lot of cases is just plain civilian merchant shipping which is always recording sensor data and passing information back to ONI about everything it encounters. Like military ship's emissions readings, optical scans of exteriors, who's ships are where [transtellar's, commerical (non-transtellar) freighters, transports, liners, yachts) as part of ongoing data collection. Include informaton provide by local Astro Control for any wormhole transits but also take your own reading. You know, the boring, routine and ordinary work that is the groundwork of all intelligence needs.

Are SDs as big as they can get without losing any tactical advantage?

Because of the GA's much longer ranged missiles, would it be such a disaster if an SD design gave up some acceleration in favor of a much larger size?

cthia wrote:Are SDs as big as they can get without losing any tactical advantage?

Yes. Any bigger and they start to lose a lot of acceleration. Someone else will have the formula and will calculate better, but at 10 million tonnes, it's a turtle and higher than that, the inertial compensators simply won't compensate anything. They wouldn't be able to catch a 250-year-old freigther.

Because of the GA's much longer ranged missiles, would it be such a disaster if an SD design gave up some acceleration in favor of a much larger size?

Some no. But the problem is that the diminishing returns are very high at this range. Carrying a dozen more pods won't turn the tide of the battle. Carrying significant more would make it as slow as a fort.

Jonathan_S wrote:
[And defensively a non-KH SD(P) is far less capable than a KH one. But given that a KH SD(P) can be upgraded to a KHII in just 8-9 weeks I can't imagine they'd leave any, long term, at just KHI -- so running KHII w/ original non-KH Medusas makes the squadron weaker defensively and gives a higher risk of its entire Apollo FTL capability being knocked out early in the fight]

Sure. But it also makes BC(P) enormously more lethal when operating with SDs. And people can finally get rid of the silly Mk16 pods.

Brigade XO wrote:Things that would survive at least a routine Customs inspection if that was required of ships entering a system.

I don't think that is possible unless the inspector is drunk or bribed. A missing 20% of the volume of the ship would be hard to hide. And that your anonymous 8 MT freighter with a crew of 20 has a crew of 600.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:Are SDs as big as they can get without losing any tactical advantage?

Yes. Any bigger and they start to lose a lot of acceleration. Someone else will have the formula and will calculate better, but at 10 million tonnes, it's a turtle and higher than that, the inertial compensators simply won't compensate anything. They wouldn't be able to catch a 250-year-old freigther.

Because of the GA's much longer ranged missiles, would it be such a disaster if an SD design gave up some acceleration in favor of a much larger size?

Some no. But the problem is that the diminishing returns are very high at this range. Carrying a dozen more pods won't turn the tide of the battle. Carrying significant more would make it as slow as a fort.

There is never a need for a new build or old build SD to hunt down a freighter. Certainly with FTL MDM's that now have 62X the range of old missiles limited by light speed hunting freighters is an absurd joke. With FTL missiles they can literally fire light hours away. This puts an ENTIRE solar system under direct control of a single FTL equipped missile ship.

True, currently DW has said FTL's range is not that great, but we already know range is hundreds of millions of kilometers. Maybe not quite a light hour(1 Billion kilometers), but range ability is only increasing not decreasing and we have already seen several hundred kilommeters range. This already means any habitable planets infrastructure can be targetted from outside the hyper limit.

********* Just FYI:
1 light hour on the Sol system is a distance between SOL and between Jupiter and Saturn. DW has the hyperlimit barely outside of mars itself.

With FTL missiles it actually means Manticore and any other planetary system with a wormhole are the SAFEST planets around as the resonance zones make their defensive depth deeper for at least SOME portion of the local year.

They must start building infrastructure near Mercury or equivalent and in resonance zones of solar systems with wormholes.

This also makes ships defending systems from OUTSIDE the hyper limit able to truly cover an entire perimeter from pirates. Yet one more nail in the coffin of a Frigate. Of course governments will still build them to cut costs not to actually fight a war.

Actually at this point, why bother with a hyper generator at all? Just build permanent stations at the periphery somewhere where all traffic is directed and can be covered, Cerberus style.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:Are SDs as big as they can get without losing any tactical advantage?

Yes. Any bigger and they start to lose a lot of acceleration. Someone else will have the formula and will calculate better, but at 10 million tonnes, it's a turtle and higher than that, the inertial compensators simply won't compensate anything. They wouldn't be able to catch a 250-year-old freigther.

You rang?
Best estimate is at 10 million tons and the best compensator the RMN has you'd make just 157.8 gees at full military power.



More Than Honor's appendix tells us that in "1900 pd, 8,500,000 tons represented the edge of a plateau in inertial compensator capability. Above 8,500,000 tons, warship accelerations fell off by approximately 1 g per 2,500 tons"
Now that number has crept upwards slightly in the intervening 22 years, since an Invictus is 8,768,500 tons and quite quick; but we don't know exactly where it sits now.

However we kind of have to assume an Invictus sits at least slightly inside the new edge of that plateau; because Manticore doesn't seem to like building right to the limit but they stay close. A 1900 PD Gryphon-class design is 8,339,000 tons; giving a 1.9% margin. If we assume the design margin is the same for the Invictus that at the time she was designed the limit would have crept up 5% (while acceleration had shot up 41.97%)

We also don't know if the slope beyond the plateau edge has changed (i.o.w. is it still 1 g per 2,500 tons, or did it decrease to, say, 1 g per 3,000 tons or some other value?)

The best compensator improvement we've seen so far is 154.76%.
If we assume the plateau edge is now at 8,925,000 and the post-edge slope hasn't changed then, in theory, with 0% design margin you could build an SD(P) that was 9,400,000 tons and still matched the 410g accel of a classic SD.

But I don't think the 7% tonnage growth over an Invictus (an extra 630,000 tons) is worth throwing away 1/3rd of your acceleration.

Relax wrote:There is never a need for a new build or old build SD to hunt down a freighter. Certainly with FTL MDM's that now have 62X the range of old missiles limited by light speed hunting freighters is an absurd joke. With FTL missiles they can literally fire light hours away. This puts an ENTIRE solar system under direct control of a single FTL equipped missile ship.

True, currently DW has said FTL's range is not that great, but we already know range is hundreds of millions of kilometers. Maybe not quite a light hour(1 Billion kilometers), but range ability is only increasing not decreasing and we have already seen several hundred kilommeters range. This already means any habitable planets infrastructure can be targetted from outside the hyper limit.

Actually, without FTL relays (hello Mycroft), which an attacking SD(P) wouldn't have available to it, UH tells us that the current FTL control range is less than 4.05 light minutes. At least for the 23Es. The system defense variant is supposed to be larger and have a longer range FTL link.

(Or rather, it tells us that at the BoM Chin's fleet which we know to have been at 4.05 LM/73 million km was just beyond FTL range, but the missiles were under FTL control until 'close enough')

So if you're shooting across an entire star system you better hope it's one you've pre-seeded with Mycroft fire control relays, Ghost Rider + Hermes lashups, or else you're leaving it all up to the 23E's onboard 'AI'.