New ship idea

Lord Skimper wrote:Ideally you want as big of a ship as you can get for any encounter.

What would work best is to just deploy the Nike BCL as convoy escorts.

It sounds like the RMN is moving toward a "minimal armed hyper-capable presence" unit in the 300,000 ton range. A Nike is 2,500,000 tons.

It'd be delightful to have something huge and vastly armed for any encounter, but you need something adequate in too many places to put something like that in all of them.

JeffEngel wrote:

Lord Skimper wrote:Ideally you want as big of a ship as you can get for any encounter.

What would work best is to just deploy the Nike BCL as convoy escorts.

It sounds like the RMN is moving toward a "minimal armed hyper-capable presence" unit in the 300,000 ton range. A Nike is 2,500,000 tons.

It'd be delightful to have something huge and vastly armed for any encounter, but you need something adequate in too many places to put something like that in all of them.

what is holding you back?

Man power? Same Manpower as the multitude of smaller Pre Tech revolution ships.

Cost? Is subjective.

time? Sure you might need more ships now and after Oyster Bay, but given time replacing 3 or four smaller ships with one bigger better Nike would be the answer.

With LAC bases and Mycroft system defense taken up by these systems and freeing up the Nike for other uses. One just doesn't need the multitude of smaller craft.

From a story point of view it might not read as good if Every Manty has a Nike and can absorb all incoming fire from the Sollies and Alignment. But when was the last time there was a good Manty space battle to read about.

JeffEngel wrote:

Lord Skimper wrote:Ideally you want as big of a ship as you can get for any encounter.

What would work best is to just deploy the Nike BCL as convoy escorts.

It sounds like the RMN is moving toward a "minimal armed hyper-capable presence" unit in the 300,000 ton range. A Nike is 2,500,000 tons.

In more recent comments, RFC has suggested that even 300Ktons may be too small, and a Sag-C may be pretty close to the smallest viable hyper-capable ship once everyone of consequence has Mark-16 equivalents.

drothgery wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:It sounds like the RMN is moving toward a "minimal armed hyper-capable presence" unit in the 300,000 ton range. A Nike is 2,500,000 tons.

In more recent comments, RFC has suggested that even 300Ktons may be too small, and a Sag-C may be pretty close to the smallest viable hyper-capable ship once everyone of consequence has Mark-16 equivalents.

I wonder if there mightn't be some use for some ships cheaper and smaller for places where they're not facing off against people of consequence, as that's getting remarkably large.

Anyway - A Saganami-C runs about half the personnel as a Nike. That's been the worst bottleneck, and the second worst, operating costs over time, tend to track crew sizes anyway. So - if that Saganami-C of the future (perhaps reclassified as a destroyer, though I'd say it'd be more fitting to say that the destroyer as a class just goes away as much as the frigate or BB in that case) can do the job, you could do the job in twice as many places with them as with Nike's as your smallest (!) workhorse warship.

JeffEngel wrote:

drothgery wrote:In more recent comments, RFC has suggested that even 300Ktons may be too small, and a Sag-C may be pretty close to the smallest viable hyper-capable ship once everyone of consequence has Mark-16 equivalents.

I wonder if there mightn't be some use for some ships cheaper and smaller for places where they're not facing off against people of consequence, as that's getting remarkably large.

The only people who would be facing off against people of no consequence would be other people of no consequence. Whatever ships they use are (by definition ) of no consequence.

Anyway - A Saganami-C runs about half the personnel as a Nike. That's been the worst bottleneck, and the second worst, operating costs over time, tend to track crew sizes anyway. So - if that Saganami-C of the future (perhaps reclassified as a destroyer, though I'd say it'd be more fitting to say that the destroyer as a class just goes away as much as the frigate or BB in that case) can do the job, you could do the job in twice as many places with them as with Nike's as your smallest (!) workhorse warship.

David's speculation about 300 Kt minimum viable ship is set in future peacetime navy, when things have stabilized a bit and Manticore's new technology has spread everywhere. This isn't something that would happen during this war. The navy would have fewer ships, so manpower would not be a problem.

Lord Skimper wrote:

what is holding you back?

Man power? Same Manpower as the multitude of smaller Pre Tech revolution ships.

Cost? Is subjective.

time? Sure you might need more ships now and after Oyster Bay, but given time replacing 3 or four smaller ships with one bigger better Nike would be the answer.

With LAC bases and Mycroft system defense taken up by these systems and freeing up the Nike for other uses. One just doesn't need the multitude of smaller craft.

From a story point of view it might not read as good if Every Manty has a Nike and can absorb all incoming fire from the Sollies and Alignment. But when was the last time there was a good Manty space battle to read about.

This sounds like advocating for more sledge hammers to swat flies. It is obviously nice to have a comfortable margin of superiority against a potential opponent. But most of the potential opposition out there is armed with more comparable with Monica (crusier level and down) than with the SLN. Even if you are facing SLN BCs, Rolands and Sag-Cs are fine. And JeffrEngel is right to note that there are lots of places the GA needs to be able to project power.

Don

n7axw wrote:

Lord Skimper wrote:

what is holding you back?

Man power? Same Manpower as the multitude of smaller Pre Tech revolution ships.

Cost? Is subjective.

time? Sure you might need more ships now and after Oyster Bay, but given time replacing 3 or four smaller ships with one bigger better Nike would be the answer.

With LAC bases and Mycroft system defense taken up by these systems and freeing up the Nike for other uses. One just doesn't need the multitude of smaller craft.

From a story point of view it might not read as good if Every Manty has a Nike and can absorb all incoming fire from the Sollies and Alignment. But when was the last time there was a good Manty space battle to read about.

This sounds like advocating for more sledge hammers to swat flies. It is obviously nice to have a comfortable margin of superiority against a potential opponent. But most of the potential opposition out there is armed with more comparable with Monica (crusier level and down) than with the SLN. Even if you are facing SLN BCs, Rolands and Sag-Cs are fine. And JeffrEngel is right to note that there are lots of places the GA needs to be able to project power.

Don

The problem with the Saganami and more so with the Roland is Ammunition levels and Crews so small they can't board or capture other ships. Not that you want to take ships over, they are useless after all, but You can't even capture a crew and hold them on your own ship. Especially with a Roland, Even Multiple Roland's can only hold what 24 prisoners each? If that.

Remember the Old Crew levels of a Light Cruiser was 1000-1200. Sollie Light Cruisers / Heavy Cruisers carry this many crew members. It would take how many Saganami C or Roland to capture all the Crew of One Sollie Light Cruiser, let alone a Heavy Cruiser or Battle Cruiser.

A single Nike can only be in one place but it can also fulfil the role Half a Dozen Roland or 3+ Saganami C's. Which would also need a Troop Transport or a Kammerling along for the ride. Assuming a Saganami has 3-500 Crew and a Roland 64/65? A Kammerling another 200 plus 200 Marines. The Nike has around 1000-1500 Crew which may include 200-500 Marines.

The Nike in peace time is over kill but then it is made to operate for extended time on its own. It can fight wedge imposed and carries 3-4 times the missile numbers as the Saganami C about 12 times that of a Roland, per tube.

Take the 6 Sollie BC's and Transport or Freighter that Charged the 3 Saganami C and 3,4,5 Roland and a Havok. Sure the Havok had the largest crew Ironically. But they fired a Stacked Salvo of 200+ Mk16's. A Nike carries as many or more Marines, Less crew by half, could fire a stacked Salvo of 50/100/150/200 Mk16's but Likely would haven't have fired a single shot as the 6 BC wouldn't want to tangle with a BB or DR. From their perspective what a Nike would look like.

The end result would have been the same.

Two Nike. Well similar crew levels, Salvo density would have been greater and intimidation factor ten times as much.

In Peace time A Kammerling and a Nike with the occasional CLAC and Oodles of LAC. Can do just about anything.

Perhaps a Mk16 carrying Kammerling upgrade as a Patrol ship and a Nike as local system Muscle will keep the Peace.

The CLAC for System integration and The Pod Layers for the Wall if and when needed.

Four ship types.

Patrol

Kammerling - Customs Duties, Patrol, Anti Pirate.

Nike - Heavy Patrol, Escort, Backup Muscle.

System and Wall

CLAC - Carries and maintains the LAC.

SD(P) - Carries and maintains the Pods.

System Defense

LAC - Everything a DD wants to be and none of the Custom Duties other than backup and Guard duty.

Mycroft - Guard Duty.

n7axw wrote:This sounds like advocating for more sledge hammers to swat flies. It is obviously nice to have a comfortable margin of superiority against a potential opponent. But most of the potential opposition out there is armed with more comparable with Monica (crusier level and down) than with the SLN. Even if you are facing SLN BCs, Rolands and Sag-Cs are fine. And JeffrEngel is right to note that there are lots of places the GA needs to be able to project power.

Don

In general, if something he posts seems like a good idea you are misunderstanding it. However, new ships the RMN is planning on building will not be facing current generation SLN ships when they are built in a few years. If they are facing SLN ships they will be facing ships using MDMs comparable to the Haven designs, but with better electronics and power densities, along with massively improved missile defenses.

Worse they will be supported on defense by huge numbers of system defense missiles that are run by some sort of distributed system defense C3 system.

kzt wrote:

n7axw wrote:This sounds like advocating for more sledge hammers to swat flies. It is obviously nice to have a comfortable margin of superiority against a potential opponent. But most of the potential opposition out there is armed with more comparable with Monica (crusier level and down) than with the SLN. Even if you are facing SLN BCs, Rolands and Sag-Cs are fine. And JeffrEngel is right to note that there are lots of places the GA needs to be able to project power.

Don

In general, if something he posts seems like a good idea you are misunderstanding it. However, new ships the RMN is planning on building will not be facing current generation SLN ships when they are built in a few years. If they are facing SLN ships they will be facing ships using MDMs comparable to the Haven designs, but with better electronics and power densities, along with massively improved missile defenses.

Worse they will be supported on defense by huge numbers of system defense missiles that are run by some sort of distributed system defense C3 system.

Hi kzt,

Well, he does make some valid points about size of crews. There are probably ways of dealing with the issues he points out, but he does have a point.

You also have a point about about ships RMN will be facing. As far as League is concerned, I don't think League will be around long enough to develop those ships which leaves us with MAlign which nobody has figured out how to deal with yet.

Still, it undoubtedly would be a mistake to forget that the situation is fluid.

Don

Raiders which usually go after cargo ships usually are fast as hell and very lightly armed, so Nike would be a big overkill and better choice would be sending CA or CL. CL and DD are useless in escort role for wall of battle, unless somebody will use heavier ships as raiders they should be ideal solution for every problem with that and Nike would be paying it cost raiding Sollies cargo and systems. Also when Manticore start building much bigger carriers we could create convoys and use older Minotaurs and Chimeras as a protection. Also there is a lot of Havenite ships which would be useless in our wall of battle, they're much slower but they should be fast enough to accompany cargos. Also Grayson have a lot of Manticoran SD which they bough some time ago, so we could use them as a defense in less important systems. And if I counted correctly we should be able to get something like 9-12 battle squadrons of older SDs from Grayson and Haven. And when Sarnow will finish cleaning Silesia out of privateers, slavers and other nasty stuff. We will get few squadrons from there. Also we should think about asking Andermani to be space police there and protect our systems, so we could pull out everything. How long it will take for Bolthole to switch from building Havenite design for Manticoran designs? Also what about yards in Basilisk? Before Havenite raid there were yards and if I remember it correctly High Ridge rebuilt all orbital installations? Also we have new yards which are under construction in Manticore, if I'm right they could first build yards and start new ships and after that start building other part of stations.