Sphinx and Gryphon class SD

n7axw wrote:I don't see a need. The GA has SDPs coming out the ying-yang by the time you combine Manticore (400) Grayson (150 minimum) Haven (300+) and programs for building more are going full bore at bolthole and other yards.

Where the GA is short of hulls is in the BC, Heavy and light cruiser, destroyer classes. For the kind of jobs out there that need to be done mostly, a SD of any description is about like hitting a thumb tack with a sledge hammer which would make refurbishing older SDs wasteful unless you have buyers for the units in question.

Don

I think there's some slight problems with that analysis even though it looks solid. Atm, Manticore can't build squat. Ships or missiles. Their yards are off line for at least half a year or more and even then, the building is going to start out small, then increase at a geometric rate. Grayson, as far as I know is stretched to man the ships it currently has (I believe this was a pet peeve High Ridge had with Grayson as during his administration, the Graysons keep building ships despite High Ridge's disapproval). They are a single world to Manticore's three worlds, and likely are at or near the limit of what they can put into their navy.

Haven I will give you with the condition that the RHN has to rebuild its fleet to replace the 200+ SDs they lost in the first Battle of Manticore. A lot of their fleet is likely going to be kept close for security reasons, as will much of the GAs entire fleet. I can see some fleets being released for action, but many will have to be kept on watch just in case. And if the SLs commerce raiding is even half way effective, that will further deplete the number of ships the RMN can deploy. Unless the RHN is allowed to do patrol duty in SEM systems in Silesia.

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:

Draken wrote:Also we have Beowulf which has rather small navy which couldn't have problems with rapid expansion.

Welcome.

Military skills --and the military mindset-- isn't something you pick up overnight. Even if you assume there are enough veterans to provide crews, they will not be cohesive, combat-ready units for several months AFTER they arrive on ship. Even in the RMN, the need to work up crews to combat readiness climbed steeply after personnel losses at BoMa; and other navies don't have the experienced vets to get the job done any faster.

Although, they could work up to Battle Fleet standards.

Rob

Manticoran and Grayson recalled vets might have to work down to Battle Fleet standards.

dreamrider

dreamrider wrote:

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:Welcome.

Military skills --and the military mindset-- isn't something you pick up overnight. Even if you assume there are enough veterans to provide crews, they will not be cohesive, combat-ready units for several months AFTER they arrive on ship. Even in the RMN, the need to work up crews to combat readiness climbed steeply after personnel losses at BoMa; and other navies don't have the experienced vets to get the job done any faster.

Although, they could work up to Battle Fleet standards.

Rob

Manticoran and Grayson recalled vets might have to work down to Battle Fleet standards.

dreamrider

Exactly what I was thinking about the recalled vets dreamrider.

While I imagine that the RMN will probably be getting a wave of fresh recruits both from Manticore and from new regions of the empire by the time they finish training the new shipyards should be online and new ships ready for them.

I considered the possibility of using the older ships for basic helm and nav training cruises but I'm not certain if there are any training cruises in the RMN curriculum before the middy-cruise honestly.

I find the idea of cadets not being sent out on a real ship until their middy-cruise odd but I can't think of any examples of pre-middy cruise training cruises in the books and the honor wiki doesn't mention any either AFAIK.

If the current USNA, NROTC, and USCGA can be used as examples (and I'm not sure that shoe quite fits David's concept), earlier cadet 'cruises' would probably be limited to dedicated training vessels in local space, and to very short term familiarizations on vessels attached to the space stations or in Home Fleet.

We have not had any reason to see anything like that.

The final pre-commissioning middy cruise, however, seems to be deliberately to a vessel on operational deployment, for practical 'make-learnee' polishing in an environment of all the little problems of a live unit, for a substantial length of time, under the guidance of officers and NCOs who are currently primarily operators, not instructors.

dreamrider

dreamrider wrote:If the current USNA, NROTC, and USCGA can be used as examples (and I'm not sure that shoe quite fits David's concept), earlier cadet 'cruises' would probably be limited to dedicated training vessels in local space, and to very short term familiarizations on vessels attached to the space stations or in Home Fleet.

We have not had any reason to see anything like that.

The final pre-commissioning middy cruise, however, seems to be deliberately to a vessel on operational deployment, for practical 'make-learnee' polishing in an environment of all the little problems of a live unit, for a substantial length of time, under the guidance of officers and NCOs who are currently primarily operators, not instructors.

dreamrider

I could understand us not seeing the pre-middy training cruises but it seems odd to me that AFAIK they haven't been mentioned at all, unless they don't happen. There have been no people who last saw each other, or became friends on such a cruise running into each other, and no reminiscing about such cruises that I recall.

On the other hand, these would be much more like classes, or even a few sessions within a larger course, than a 'cruise' of significant length together.

Note that we have seen virtually no reminiscing about being in Saganami classes together, either (except as pertains to certain young persons early admiration of Prof. Honor), either. It just hasn't been pertinent to the story telling.

dreamrider

dreamrider wrote:If the current USNA, NROTC, and USCGA can be used as examples (and I'm not sure that shoe quite fits David's concept), earlier cadet 'cruises' would probably be limited to dedicated training vessels in local space, and to very short term familiarizations on vessels attached to the space stations or in Home Fleet.

We have not had any reason to see anything like that.

The final pre-commissioning middy cruise, however, seems to be deliberately to a vessel on operational deployment, for practical 'make-learnee' polishing in an environment of all the little problems of a live unit, for a substantial length of time, under the guidance of officers and NCOs who are currently primarily operators, not instructors.

dreamrider

There is textev from Service of the Sword to the effect that there are those local space junkets and space station attached vessels used for training purposes.

T&R
GJS

Roguevictory wrote:I could understand us not seeing the pre-middy training cruises but it seems odd to me that AFAIK they haven't been mentioned at all, unless they don't happen. There have been no people who last saw each other, or became friends on such a cruise running into each other, and no reminiscing about such cruises that I recall.

There wouldn't be any people who last saw each other or became friends on such a cruise, because they would simply be "All right, class, today is our visit to the HMS Dockbound. We'll spend two days aboard. Be sure to bring your gear." It is just a part of the regular classes. Everyone already knows each other from class.

Haven might be able to field more DD/CL/CA/CH/BC from any reserves they have than Manticore. They got all those crew back from BOM but they had kept grinding out new ships after 1stBOM even while they were expecting RMN to come slamming in to take the Home System.

Not sure they have the mothballed SDs to reactivate. They MAY have some older ships parked in various earlier captured systems but it seems to me that Pritchard had her people well along in the process of working out the details of letting various systems go through the process of self-determination. With the alliance to SEM, that process is going to go back on track and most guard ships will be redeployed and/or the crews for any SDs being used like that will be shifted to other duties. With new SDs comming off the yards out at Bolt Hole, they may be putting the crews there.

Remember that ROH doesn't yet have the level of automation and the reduction of crew size so scrapping or just decommissioning an old SD isn't going to do more than either crew a new SD. They could also be taking really old stuff (that has survived) and reprocessing the ship as scrap while feeding the crews into those new below-the-wall sized units being produced. With the current situation, it is those new units with the latest generations systems and weapons that will provide the most effective means for the plans in place for the SLN.

For the same reason, they should have a lot more of the lighter ships that can stand up to SLN ships even if they don't have the tec advantage of the RMN. They also probably have signifcant stockpiles of the missles and other supplies for those ships as they withdraw from systems opting out of ROH control or just redistribute the supplies they have stored in a lot of places.

SEM does have places it can run Middie Cruises. Mostly Silesia where they enforcing the annexation and dealing with pirates. While many of the ships posted there are probably older and don't have the MDM tech, they at least are on other than training missions and will provide field experience.

Hutch wrote:

Draken wrote:Also we have Beowulf which has rather small navy which couldn't have problems with rapid expansion.

Draken, you obviously feel strongly about this (you'll find most of us do about certain topics.....DO NOT get kzt starterd on the Battle of Manticore from At All Costs... ), but while the Sphinx and Gryphons are still powerful combatants, they are much like the battleships of 1905 AD, still powerful but suddenly rendered obsolete to stand in the line of battle with the commissioning in 1906 of HMS Dreadnought.

Bluntly put, they are old technology, despite being relatively young for warships. Upgrading them will probalby cost nearly as much as building new ones, and all ths spaces that are available are going to be building the next generation of SD's.

Plus I wonder exactly how many are available. According to House of Steel, the Gryphon went into service in 1895PD and 67 were built; the Gryphon first appeared in 1900 and 163 were constructed. Given that they bore the brunt of the First Havenite War and a number of them were with Home Fleet at the Battle of Manticore, I expect the numbers in mothballs are not all that great...maybe no more than 30-40 ships.

So is it worth it to man those ships or to work up and train personnel to man new ships coming off the line?

That all said, we know some of the older ships are still in commission (see Admiral Khumalo's flagship) and the need for ships right now, especially given that instead of the hundreds of systems to consider in the Havenite Wars, we now have litterally thousands of systems all over known space to contend with.

So I wouldn't be surprised to see an old Gryphon or two wnadering about--I just don't see them being pulled out of mothballs unless there is no other option.

We shall see, eventually.

Hutch, we do know roughly how many existing SDs there are - the Fleet list as of ~May 1st 1920 lists 250 Manticorian SDs in service between the active and reserve lists. We know the remaining King Williams and Andurils were sold to Erewhon and the Victories and former Havenite classes were sold to Grayson - thus leaving the Samothraces, Sphinx and Gryphons make up that 250. We also know that fewer than 30 died at BoMA 1 and have a list of <30 others lost after may 1st 1920, leaving >190 tube SDs remaining in Manticorian service prior to OB. We also know that ~15 Grayson SDs were lost in BoMA 1, so Grayson still has >45 former Manty SDs left, plus ~30 native builds/rebuilds, giving >265 SDs left between the two of them.

Manticore still had 6 DN in thr active fleet in 1920, but HoS Mentions the remaining Bellerophons and Gladiators as being in the reserve, though the earlier 1920 fleet list does not, so I'd assume that if both are correct, the DNs are not mothballed in place, but are being used as parts birds, and thus are not readily available for use, if at all.

As for 1st war losses, I assume that proportionally, the majority of the losses were in earlier designs and DNs - the DNs were always the weaker of the 2 vessels, even though, pound for pound, they had the same defenses, they just had less pounds. They were considered even more dangerous for crews in the MDM era than SDs, so obviously their greater vulnerability was shown in their greater loss numbers proportionally. Ditto with the older SDs.

This all being said, The SDs activated earlier in the 2nd war were being placed back in reserve to provide crews for new construction. So it is possible many were destroyed while being mothballed or while undergoing routine maintenance, by the OB strike. How many - only the Gods of the Honorverse know...

Every thing above being said - though I myself advcated upgrading tube SDs to Mk 16s back in Dec 2005, What we have found since makes that upgrade almost as difficult as the mk 23 upgrade - you just don't need to mess with the exterior armor. Given the complexity, time and cost, and the end product, manufacturing a new ship would be preferrable. And without construction shipyards, neither option is available anyway.