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Ships of the wall

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Re: Ships of the wall
Post by munroburton   » Sun Mar 16, 2014 7:37 am

munroburton
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MAD-4A wrote:
Jonathan_S wrote:And as David Weber pointed out, you don't have training, logistics, or supplies to keep those SLN ships in service…And that's ignoring major things like their ammo is different. So they've got whatever missiles are in their (collective) magazines and that's it.
Use what you have, then cannibalize. The shuttle Atlantis wasn’t used until after the Challenger accident. Before that it sat in a hanger as a spare parts ben. Also where electronics are concerned, there is no such thing as incompatible. You can run MS programs on a Mac & Mac programs on a PC (if you have the right software). In the 60’s the US Navy decided to adopt the OTO Melara compact 76 mm gun. It used a 16 bit FC processor. But the US processors at the time were only 8 bit. Not compatible. But a widget rigged it together & they’re still in service. You just need a tech to figure out an interface.

Jonathan_S wrote:Exactly how long do you think you can keep something as complex as an SD in useful service without access to the full repair manual and the replacement necessary when something breaks or wears out? Stuff is always breaking on the ship and it's a non trivial task to keep one operational even when it's the one you've trained on, have first class experience maintaining, and have full access to repair / replacement parts for it.

Effective active service with absolutely no compatible replacement parts? 6-8 months at-least, or 2-3 minor fights. Jury-rigging & canabelizion out of service & wrecked units a little longer. That’s enough to give a little breathing room for the TC from FF raids and after that just keeping them moving and having the appearance of operation can deter raids and attacks on key areas (the enemy wont know if their systems are failing). That would give time for some production to be restored.


That's the thing - it's going to take the League a minimum of two months to organise those raids and then six months just to travel out that far. It's possible that all of the SDs captured at 2nd Manticore are damaged in some way, which just adds to the troubles and expense in getting them to work.

Besides, there are scores of Gryphons, Sphinxes and the like mothballed. If we're talking about go-faster shoes, those are better than the captured Solly hardware, whether they be cannibalised or deployed to the front.
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Re: Ships of the wall
Post by MAD-4A   » Sun Mar 16, 2014 7:41 am

MAD-4A
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munroburton wrote:Or offered the USN a hundred sailing galleons immediately after Pearl Harbour
No because the IJN wasn't using wooden sailing vessels then. More like the US being offered 100 sailing vessels after Hampton Roads (oh there obsolete we got these new Iron ships now!) – no, most navies – including the US were still using them into the 1870s & the Mantys are still using there old “obsolete” ships as well – ummm… I believe one was at Spindle.
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Almost only counts in Horseshoes and Nuclear Weapons. I almost got the Hand-Grenade out the window does not count.
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Re: Ships of the wall
Post by MAD-4A   » Sun Mar 16, 2014 7:46 am

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munroburton wrote:Imagine you went to a tyre manufacturer with a new design of wooden wheel.
metal cogs were available in the 1850s but in the 1860s the C.S.S. Arkansas used wooden cogs – why? – Because it was what they had available.
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Almost only counts in Horseshoes and Nuclear Weapons. I almost got the Hand-Grenade out the window does not count.
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Re: Ships of the wall
Post by MAD-4A   » Sun Mar 16, 2014 8:01 am

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though the Idea of using the drives to retrofit fast freighter is a good one, & with the embargo there's no shortage of idle hulls. Still I think that kind of refit would need yard time that’s not available. Another use might be to clear out the Mag. spaces. Add a connecting areas to the shuttle hangers. And turn them into makeshift LAC transports (not combat carriers – just transports to carry them to posts – or as replacement birds for the LAC-CVa). Though I think it would be less work & more effective the do the drive upgrades to a freighter and hanger upgrades to its hold (oh - maybe LAC-CV/Q-shps?)
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Almost only counts in Horseshoes and Nuclear Weapons. I almost got the Hand-Grenade out the window does not count.
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Re: Ships of the wall
Post by munroburton   » Sun Mar 16, 2014 8:19 am

munroburton
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MAD-4A wrote:
munroburton wrote:Imagine you went to a tyre manufacturer with a new design of wooden wheel.
metal cogs were available in the 1850s but in the 1860s the C.S.S. Arkansas used wooden cogs – why? – Because it was what they had available.


I'd be more impressed if you found something from the 20th or 21st century that used wood as an engineering material because "it's what we have available".
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Re: Ships of the wall
Post by WLBjork   » Sun Mar 16, 2014 8:34 am

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MAD-4A wrote:
munroburton wrote:Or offered the USN a hundred sailing galleons immediately after Pearl Harbour
No because the IJN wasn't using wooden sailing vessels then. More like the US being offered 100 sailing vessels after Hampton Roads (oh there obsolete we got these new Iron ships now!) – no, most navies – including the US were still using them into the 1870s & the Mantys are still using there old “obsolete” ships as well – ummm… I believe one was at Spindle.


The Samothrace-class is still more capable than the SLNs junk, the design being half the age and also having been upgraded far more efficiently. If anything, the SLNs SDs are equivalent to the Manticore-class.

The similie I'd have chosen would have been offering the USN pre-dreadnought battleships after Pearl Harbour. Technically the same class, but a pre-dreadnought would get battered by a WW2 era CA (if not CL).
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Re: Ships of the wall
Post by Jonathan_S   » Sun Mar 16, 2014 10:56 am

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Lord Skimper wrote:Trojans had civilian wedges to make them look like a target to lure pirates in close where they could be forced to surrender while facing SD Grasers.

Hence the name Trojan.
Warships are perfectly capable of reducing their wedge power to looks indistinguishable from a merchant ship's wedge.

The Trojan class Qship had civilian wedges because they were a quick and cheap emergency conversion to provide rear area security; that then got re purposed to deal with pirates in Silesia.


Remember their original design mission wasn't fighting pirates it was hiding among the fleet train to deal with potential Peep raids against it. And the Admiralty really only went along because it was cheap enough that it wasn't a major diversion from the fighting.
Honor Among Enemies wrote:In essence, Hemphill proposed turning some of the RMN's standard Caravan-class freighters into armed merchant cruisers. The Caravans were big ships, over seven million tons, but they were slow and unarmored, with civilian-grade drives. Under normal circumstances, they'd be helpless against any proper warship, but Hemphill wanted to outfit them with the heaviest possible firepower and seed them into the Fleet Train convoys laboring to keep Sixth Fleet supplied. The idea was for them to look just like any other freighter until some unwary raider got close, at which point they were supposed to blow him out of space.


For that the civilian speed was adequate, that's as fast as the other freighters would be going, so it wasn't worth the time and cost to refit a military drive and compensator. But that was a cost effectiveness decisions; they could have been exactly as harmless looking even if they concealed the ability to pull 400+ g when needed.
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Re: Ships of the wall
Post by TheMonster   » Sun Mar 16, 2014 11:13 am

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munroburton wrote:I dislike those "I just have to outrun you" analogies
The "I just have to outrun you" analogy that makes sense is the one where the Zen master and his student are traveling, and are informed that the area they're entering is known for having lions/tigers/etc. attack and kill people. The master gets his best running shoes out of his luggage and puts them on (another version has him ask where the nearest store is that stocks athletic footwear), at which point the student makes the naive remark about the master not being able to outrun the predator.

This version works because it doesn't have the master idiotically stopping to change shoes in the middle of the attack. The distinction underscores the difference between planning at the grand-strategic level and execution. BuShips has to be thinking in terms of getting the best shoes for its spacers to wear. Operational commanders have to think in terms of how to run as fast as they can in the shoes they're wearing.
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Re: Ships of the wall
Post by MaxxQ   » Sun Mar 16, 2014 11:26 am

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TheMonster wrote: Operational commanders have to think in terms of how to run as fast as they can in the shoes they're wearing.


Always have an escape plan. :mrgreen:
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Re: Ships of the wall
Post by munroburton   » Sun Mar 16, 2014 11:36 am

munroburton
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TheMonster wrote:
munroburton wrote:I dislike those "I just have to outrun you" analogies
The "I just have to outrun you" analogy that makes sense is the one where the Zen master and his student are traveling, and are informed that the area they're entering is known for having lions/tigers/etc. attack and kill people. The master gets his best running shoes out of his luggage and puts them on (another version has him ask where the nearest store is that stocks athletic footwear), at which point the student makes the naive remark about the master not being able to outrun the predator.

This version works because it doesn't have the master idiotically stopping to change shoes in the middle of the attack. The distinction underscores the difference between planning at the grand-strategic level and execution. BuShips has to be thinking in terms of getting the best shoes for its spacers to wear. Operational commanders have to think in terms of how to run as fast as they can in the shoes they're wearing.


Yeah, that's a significant improvement over the classic. Thanks for sharing it, I hadn't heard of that version before. :)
Last edited by munroburton on Sun Mar 16, 2014 11:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
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