Honorverse ramblings and musings

SWM wrote:

cthia wrote:What exactly are missile colliers? More succinctly, what platform are they built on? Are they just huge lumbering freighters?

Here's the thing. I always thought it very ironic that these behemoths are so vulnerable to attack but carrying so many damn missiles. It's like having a house full of weapons - a veritable arsenal - yet cannot defend yourself against even a single intruder wielding a simple .22.

Hell, a pirate can easily overcome a missile collier that has somehow become separated from the pack.

Why can't the things at least be made to shoot back?

"Come any closer and I swear I will shoot myself dry!"

Alanis Morissette would sing:

Having thousands of bullets when all I need is a gun.
Isn't it ironic. Don't ya think. A little too ironic.
I really do think.

Missile colliers are never sent out loaded without escorts. The escorts are responsible for providing defense. It's just like naval colliers today. And they don't just carry missiles; they also carry all the food, water, air, spare uniforms, medical supplies, spare parts, and other sundries for restocking ships. They are not combat ships, and should never be put into a position of entering combat.

If a collier were built with launchers that could fire every missile in the collier, you would also have to install the equipment to move those missiles into the launcher, cutting your capacity in half. It would also slow down loading and unloading. Without that, you can load missiles in huge cargo containers, a dozen at a time.

And if you build them able to survive being fired back at too - you've built a podlayer. Now you need to build another ship to move its ammunition and supplies in an economical fashion. A... missile collier.

Most missile colliers won't be lumbering. They're built to keep up with a mobile fleet, and get things to them in a timely fashion. So expect military-grade inertial compensators, particle screens, and hypergenerators. They may even have sidewalls, a little point defense, and some EW suite in case they suffer close encounters with missiles while being escorted by an actual warship, but those are all luxuries for the collier's mission - you'll only see them on variants expected to see frequent raiding on their routes, or if getting them is a trivial extra cost (which I'm inclined to think they are not).

Mission, mission, mission - build to the mission, repeat it as a mantra til it sinks in. If a capability is secondary or tertiary or even less of a priority, expect it to be ruthlessly suppressed unless the cost is trivial or you get it as a side-effect of satisfying real priorities. Shooting back or withstanding fire aren't part of a collier's mission any more than it is of a freight train.

SWM wrote:

cthia wrote:What exactly are missile colliers? More succinctly, what platform are they built on? Are they just huge lumbering freighters?

Here's the thing. I always thought it very ironic that these behemoths are so vulnerable to attack but carrying so many damn missiles. It's like having a house full of weapons - a veritable arsenal - yet cannot defend yourself against even a single intruder wielding a simple .22.

Hell, a pirate can easily overcome a missile collier that has somehow become separated from the pack.

Why can't the things at least be made to shoot back?

"Come any closer and I swear I will shoot myself dry!"

Alanis Morissette would sing:

Having thousands of bullets when all I need is a gun.
Isn't it ironic. Don't ya think. A little too ironic.
I really do think.

Missile colliers are never sent out loaded without escorts. The escorts are responsible for providing defense. It's just like naval colliers today. And they don't just carry missiles; they also carry all the food, water, air, spare uniforms, medical supplies, spare parts, and other sundries for restocking ships. They are not combat ships, and should never be put into a position of entering combat.

If a collier were built with launchers that could fire every missile in the collier, you would also have to install the equipment to move those missiles into the launcher, cutting your capacity in half. It would also slow down loading and unloading. Without that, you can load missiles in huge cargo containers, a dozen at a time.

JeffEngel wrote:And if you build them able to survive being fired back at too - you've built a podlayer. Now you need to build another ship to move its ammunition and supplies in an economical fashion. A... missile collier.

Most missile colliers won't be lumbering. They're built to keep up with a mobile fleet, and get things to them in a timely fashion. So expect military-grade inertial compensators, particle screens, and hypergenerators. They may even have sidewalls, a little point defense, and some EW suite in case they suffer close encounters with missiles while being escorted by an actual warship, but those are all luxuries for the collier's mission - you'll only see them on variants expected to see frequent raiding on their routes, or if getting them is a trivial extra cost (which I'm inclined to think they are not).

Mission, mission, mission - build to the mission, repeat it as a mantra til it sinks in. If a capability is secondary or tertiary or even less of a priority, expect it to be ruthlessly suppressed unless the cost is trivial or you get it as a side-effect of satisfying real priorities. Shooting back or withstanding fire aren't part of a collier's mission any more than it is of a freight train.

Thanks Jeff and SWM for that spanking you just gave me. I knew it wasn't practical, for all the reasons you've stated. But it will always remain ironical (Hollywood starlets make the word sound good) to me.

But about something Johnathan_S stated, which makes sense in a logistics sort of way, but surprises me. No, amazes me.

Johnathan_S wrote:IIRC we saw a pod based ammo ship in one of the Shadow books that was cranking along at over 600g; implying pretty up to date compensators.

Somehow I missed that. Ammo ships can pull that type accel? What is the maximum accel of an SD now? I always considered ammo ships to carry at least the tonnage as the biggest freighters with considerably less accel than 600g.

I'm not doubting Johnathan, just surprised. This means that an ammo ship the size of the biggest freighter can outrun a Solarian BC. Now that... is just... embarrassing.

cthia wrote:

Johnathan_S wrote:IIRC we saw a pod based ammo ship in one of the Shadow books that was cranking along at over 600g; implying pretty up to date compensators.

Somehow I missed that. Ammo ships can pull that type accel? What is the maximum accel of an SD now? I always considered ammo ships to carry at least the tonnage as the biggest freighters with considerably less accel than 600g.

I'm not doubting Johnathan, just surprised. This means that an ammo ship the size of the biggest freighter can outrun a Solarian BC. Now that... is just... embarrassing.

The RMN Volcano class ammo ships are ~4.0 Mtons, probably similar to the JMNT freighters from the 1st war, built with Warship nodes and hyper generators for fast convoys.

While colliers are not warships, Some are armed - see the Ambuscade and Pirate Bane - these Ex-Andermani Colliers had a CL/CA weapons fit, defenses and sidewalls, as well as warship type framing - Unlike a cheap freighter, they were designed to accept a punch and look after themselves. Such items are probably doctrinal items based on the navy they are in and their intended uses, because such items take up cargo space, and increase procurement, maintenance and operating costs of the unit.

While never mentioned, I can imagine the RMN units have at least sidewalls and warship framing, with a possibility of ECM and PDLCs.

Cthia,

what Theemile said--he said it better. And remembered the acronym correctly, which I didn't.

there are three in-story examples of "missile colliers" -- Bachfish's refitted 5Mton ships (they were armed afterward, but they aren't really warships); HMS Wayfarer and the other Caravan class ships (of the Joint Military whatever command, the Alliance's logigistics arm) until Buships modified them as AMCs; and I think you could include the Erewhonese/Mayan arsenal ships. None of which should get anywhere near a true warship unless they are heavily escorted.

And even the Trojans were supposed to avoid ships heavier than cruisers, I think. So of course, our heroes exceeded expectations.

Rob

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:Cthia,

what Theemile said--he said it better. And remembered the acronym correctly, which I didn't.

there are three in-story examples of "missile colliers" -- Bachfish's refitted 5Mton ships (they were armed afterward, but they aren't really warships); HMS Wayfarer and the other Caravan class ships (of the Joint Military whatever command, the Alliance's logigistics arm) until Buships modified them as AMCs; and I think you could include the Erewhonese/Mayan arsenal ships. None of which should get anywhere near a true warship unless they are heavily escorted.

And even the Trojans were supposed to avoid ships heavier than cruisers, I think. So of course, our heroes exceeded expectations.

Rob

Bachfitch "replaced" the grasers in his ships - That seems to imply that the Andermani armed the class.

strike that - here is the actual quote..

"As a matter of fact, she started life as a Vogel-class armed collier for your own Navy something like seventy T-years ago. I picked her up cheap when she was finally listed for disposal about ten T-years ago because her inertial compensator was pretty much shot. Aside from that, she was in fairly good shape, though, so it wasn't too hard to get her back on-line. I replaced and updated her original armament at the same time, and I put a good bit of thought into how to camouflage the weapon ports while I was at it."

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:Cthia,

what Theemile said--he said it better. And remembered the acronym correctly, which I didn't.

there are three in-story examples of "missile colliers" -- Bachfish's refitted 5Mton ships (they were armed afterward, but they aren't really warships); HMS Wayfarer and the other Caravan class ships (of the Joint Military whatever command, the Alliance's logigistics arm) until Buships modified them as AMCs; and I think you could include the Erewhonese/Mayan arsenal ships. None of which should get anywhere near a true warship unless they are heavily escorted.

And even the Trojans were supposed to avoid ships heavier than cruisers, I think. So of course, our heroes exceeded expectations.

Rob

The Trojans stand out in this company for being a whole lot slower.

It does reinforce that "missile collier" can refer to a wide range of specs. Just how far from combat they are expected to be will vary. The pre-refit Trojans wouldn't have been something to get anywhere near it, and couldn't run from it effectively. The Silesian auxiliaries can look after themselves in case of a light raider. RMN ammunition ships get used often enough to deploy missile pods when fleets are maneuvering in a system, but only when they can still be kept far from firing. And the Maya Detachment arsenal ships do even fire, albeit ideally from far, far back.

JeffEngel wrote:The Trojans stand out in this company for being a whole lot slower.

It does reinforce that "missile collier" can refer to a wide range of specs. Just how far from combat they are expected to be will vary. The pre-refit Trojans wouldn't have been something to get anywhere near it, and couldn't run from it effectively. The Silesian auxiliaries can look after themselves in case of a light raider. RMN ammunition ships get used often enough to deploy missile pods when fleets are maneuvering in a system, but only when they can still be kept far from firing. And the Maya Detachment arsenal ships do even fire, albeit ideally from far, far back.

Hello, Jeff.
I wouldn't take even one of the post-refit trojans up against a ship that knew what it was--it couldn't run at all and didn't have enough missile defense to deal with a Sultan's broadside.

Rob

cthia wrote:

Johnathan_S wrote:IIRC we saw a pod based ammo ship in one of the Shadow books that was cranking along at over 600g; implying pretty up to date compensators.

Somehow I missed that. Ammo ships can pull that type accel?

That is a reference to a Mayan Arsenal class ship. It is the pod launch half of the Marksman/Arsenal pairing that gives the Mayans (and Erewhonese) SD(P) firepower without the time lag of building SD(P)s from scratch. It's an interim solution for the Mayans and the battle against the PNE for Torch proved why you don't want ammo ships in range of enemy missiles.

Johnathan_S wrote:IIRC we saw a pod based ammo ship in one of the Shadow books that was cranking along at over 600g; implying pretty up to date compensators.

cthia wrote: Somehow I missed that. Ammo ships can pull that type accel? What is the maximum accel of an SD now? I always considered ammo ships to carry at least the tonnage as the biggest freighters with considerably less accel than 600g.

I'm not doubting Johnathan, just surprised. This means that an ammo ship the size of the biggest freighter can outrun a Solarian BC. Now that... is just... embarrassing.

I think (albeit I could be wrong) that this is what Johnathan was thinking--it is from Mission of Honor, but is during the Battle of Spindle, as Mike Henke brings her BC's in on Crandall's rear:

....At eighty percent power, Michelle's trio of four million-ton milspec ammunition ships—HMS Mauna Loa, New Popocatépetl, and Nova Kilimanjaro—could manage a hundred gravities more than the Solly SDs' maximum military acceleration; running flat out they could manage over six hundred and fifty gravities, while her Nikes could top six hundred and seventy.

Hutch wrote:

....At eighty percent power, Michelle's trio of four million-ton milspec ammunition ships—HMS Mauna Loa, New Popocatépetl, and Nova Kilimanjaro—could manage a hundred gravities more than the Solly SDs' maximum military acceleration; running flat out they could manage over six hundred and fifty gravities, while her Nikes could top six hundred and seventy.

Good catch.