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Light bulb Captured Solly fleet

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Re: Light bulb Captured Solly fleet
Post by Relax   » Mon Nov 17, 2014 3:03 am

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kzt wrote:
Relax wrote:Should have Millions of SDM's in storage, unless militaries have vastly changed in 2000 years. I don't see that ever happening.

Well, no. One normally stores your missiles in the general vicinity of your major fleet bases. Which all blowed up some time ago. It appears the MAN was not stupid enough to miss obvious high-value targets like munitions depots.

To quote MoH
"I remain confident that the missiles we have deployed are superior to those of any probable enemy, but the ones we already have aboard ship, or aboard ammunition ships assigned to our fleet formations, are all the missiles we have. All we're going to have until we can rebuild our production facilities . . . "


Ah, forgot that. DOH!(What would we do without Homer Simpson!? See even old guys can learn new words...) Means all the logistics maintenance spares are also gone. An immense problem when reactivating. Ditto for active ships. Any new build will build logistics base for active ships first. So, those mothballed RMN SD's and small fry are as effective as scrap metal. At least the SLN SD's have spares for use in the short term. After that, pick your scrap metal fortress type. RMN or SLN. At this point when the SLN spares are used up, Haven can probably cover.
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Re: Light bulb Captured Solly fleet
Post by Bohica   » Mon Nov 17, 2014 7:05 am

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Gut 'em. Strip out most of the weapons (except for the point defense and CMs). Get rid of most of the interior that isn't needed, and turn them into armed freighters.

Sure, they're older ships, but they're faster, older ships with TWO impeller rings, (older) military compensators, armor, etc.

Stripping out most of the weapons and the redundant/useless (to civilians) equipment/bulkheads/compartments means they don't need nearly the crew numbers that an SD would need.

Sell them cheap to smaller star systems. This also could possibly cut down on the number of pirates/slavers after a while. Nobody likes prey that bites back. Of course, against a warship they are still going to be screwed, but against a lighter armed pirate or slaver ... ?
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Re: Light bulb Captured Solly fleet
Post by Relax   » Mon Nov 17, 2014 7:36 am

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Bohica wrote:Get rid of most of the interior that isn't needed, and turn them into armed freighters.


So, you have never stepped foot on a naval warship and for sure have never stepped foot on a battleship.

Let us all know how a wet navy ship conversion is going to go... Inquiring minds are all quivering in anticipation.
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Re: Light bulb Captured Solly fleet
Post by The E   » Mon Nov 17, 2014 9:07 am

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Bohica wrote:Gut 'em. Strip out most of the weapons (except for the point defense and CMs). Get rid of most of the interior that isn't needed, and turn them into armed freighters.

Sure, they're older ships, but they're faster, older ships with TWO impeller rings, (older) military compensators, armor, etc.

Stripping out most of the weapons and the redundant/useless (to civilians) equipment/bulkheads/compartments means they don't need nearly the crew numbers that an SD would need.

Sell them cheap to smaller star systems. This also could possibly cut down on the number of pirates/slavers after a while. Nobody likes prey that bites back. Of course, against a warship they are still going to be screwed, but against a lighter armed pirate or slaver ... ?


To expand on what Relax said, this makes absolutely no sense. The amount of work required to do all this refitting could be better spent breaking up the ships for raw materials and parts and constructing light combat vessels from scratch. You have to remember that, for the most part, these vessels are pretty much solid hunks of machinery and metal with occasional holes where human beings can run around in; you can't turn them into freighters without breaking them apart and building them from scratch (at which point, again, you'd be better off building entirely new ships).

Also consider that SD-size ships are the wrong tool for anti-pirate/police/customs duty. A pirate hunter has to be at least as mobile as his quarry; SDs are simply too big to be effective in that role. In addition, effective anti-pirate operations need numbers, a Destroyer Flotilla is more effective in the role than a Battlecruiser or Dreadnought.

Honorverse combat ships, just like RL ones, are built with very specific duties in mind. While it is technically possible to refit them for other purposes, this is pretty much never done unless some extraordinary circumstances present themselves because it isn't anywhere near cost-efficient.
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Re: Light bulb Captured Solly fleet
Post by Weird Harold   » Mon Nov 17, 2014 9:29 am

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n7axw wrote:Just to play devil's advocate out of boredom... Another way of phrasing your point above is that they are a significant threat against any system but the ones you listed above... which just happens to include most of the human occupied galaxy!


As cited in Themiles' signature:
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Duckk wrote:Since the idea of using the SLN ships has come and gone for several years now, I thought I'd solicit David's comments on this topic:
<snip>
As far as weapons platforms go, they’re pretty useless
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Part of the reason for RFC's opinion is that the quality and lethality of SLN ships -- especially SLN SDs -- is very much over-rated. So much over-rated that they may, in fact, be inferior to pirates, privateers, and SDF ships of comparable size.

SLN ships probably come closest to their reputation inside
energy range but even there, they're likely a generation or two short of modern standards.
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Answers! I got lots of answers!

(Now if I could just find the right questions.)
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Re: Light bulb Captured Solly fleet
Post by Hutch   » Mon Nov 17, 2014 9:56 am

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kzt wrote:
Relax wrote:Should have Millions of SDM's in storage, unless militaries have vastly changed in 2000 years. I don't see that ever happening.

Well, no. One normally stores your missiles in the general vicinity of your major fleet bases. Which all blowed up some time ago. It appears the MAN was not stupid enough to miss obvious high-value targets like munitions depots.

To quote MoH:
"I remain confident that the missiles we have deployed are superior to those of any probable enemy, but the ones we already have aboard ship, or aboard ammunition ships assigned to our fleet formations, are all the missiles we have. All we're going to have until we can rebuild our production facilities . . . "


Which of course runs into the conudrum from A Rising Thunder, where Honor tells Filareta she has a quarter million missile pods pointed at him,which represents one-tenth of her total capability.

Which calculates to 2,250,000 missile pods, which could take out the SLN, the MAlignment, and both Death Stars.

Of course, it coudl be that Honor was employing the "Spock Gambit", i.e.;

Savak: You lied!
Spock: I exaggerated.
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No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow.

What? Look, somebody's got to have some damn perspective around here! Boom. Sooner or later. BOOM! -LT. Cmdr. Susan Ivanova, Babylon 5
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Re: Light bulb Captured Solly fleet
Post by SWM   » Mon Nov 17, 2014 10:21 am

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Relax wrote:How many hundreds of planets are under their influence? How many hundreds more planets will be coming under the GA's influence with zilch for defense? How many GA SD's mothballed again? Not enough. They will need thousands of "fortresses" however one wants to classify the C&C nodes for system defense.

Besides those mothballed SD's will have more important work. Moving, attacking, holding systems till fortresses can be moved in or built. There are potentially thousands of planets needing to be said "Hello" to via a proper Wall of Battle greeting card(RSVP Gift in the mail). Supposedly, Manticore etc has a missile issue as in, not enough. Should have Millions of SDM's in storage, unless militaries have vastly changed in 2000 years. I don't see that ever happening.

Of course Haven is untouched, would it be easier to take existing Haven manufacturing moriarity lines/components and build new? How soon will these system defense net C&C fortresses be needed? How much time to ad hoc coble together an SLN SD into such a node? See, now this, is a very viable point potentially making SLN SD's used as forts irrelevant.

The above dithering strawman withers under 3 seconds of thought. There is a vast hole needing filling(C&C defensive fortresses). Right now SLN SD's are already loaded in the dump truck. Which pile do we toss them in? Recycling, or reclamation yard adjacent to the recycling facility? If you have been around a reclamation yard much, you will note/remember that half the junk in the reclamation yard ends up going to the smelter anyways.

Hmm, scrap prices in Manticore orbit are rather low at the moment... :o Once the local cloud of scrap is cleaned up, smelted, the smelters will have a voracious appetite as there is a giant building boom going on and Manticores finances are fairly shaky after 20 years of war followed by losing all their infrastructure. Cheap source of scrap will be highly appreciated. 8-)

Sharkhunter was not talking about putting these ships around every single planet that comes under the influence of the Grand Alliance. Sharkhunter specifically stated that he was only talking about putting them around the 40 or so planets of the Manticoran Empire. Theemile's reply to Sharkhunter was entirely correct.
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Re: Light bulb Captured Solly fleet
Post by munroburton   » Mon Nov 17, 2014 10:32 am

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Hutch wrote:both Death Stars.


That doesn't add very much, considering it took only two torpedoes to kill the first one and four projectiles to do the second in. :P
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Re: Light bulb Captured Solly fleet
Post by MuonNeutrino   » Mon Nov 17, 2014 12:06 pm

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Hutch wrote:Which of course runs into the conudrum from A Rising Thunder, where Honor tells Filareta she has a quarter million missile pods pointed at him,which represents one-tenth of her total capability.

Which calculates to 2,250,000 missile pods, which could take out the SLN, the MAlignment, and both Death Stars.

Well, one explanation for that could be that those are specifically *system defense missiles*. And therefore:

1) They are *system defense* missiles, so they are *defending the manticore system*. If you cart them off elsewhere to use against the SLN or MAN, then they're not doing that anymore. It'd be much like the state early in the first havenite war - both sides know that either could make a thrust straight to their capital system, so neither can afford to weaken their home fleets. In this case those gazillion system defense pods are the trump card that guarantees that nobody can successfully invade the manticore system even if the fleets are off doing something else, and they might not feel that they can get away with using those missiles offensively - especially if they might be having to redeploy some of them to defend beowulf.

2) They are system defense missiles, and so might be incompatible with SD(P)s. It's been stated (somewhere, I forget where) that the system defense variant of Apollo has missiles with *4* drive stages rather than the 3 of a regular MDM. Presumably, that makes for a bigger/longer missile, and so also presumably bigger pods. In that case, those pods may well not fit into SD(P) pod cores. You may still be able to make use of them by loading them onto freighters and limpeting them to your hulls before battle (assuming they have the internal tractor), but it'd be a jury-rigged system that would be prone to mishap.
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Re: Light bulb Captured Solly fleet
Post by Brigade XO   » Mon Nov 17, 2014 12:19 pm

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IF you are dragging mothballed SEM SDs (and other ships) into the discussion, you COULD salvage some of them for parts to reactive others. Do the usual expedient thing: take one of more in the worst condition of a given class and use it as a parts source for the one in best condition. Repeat as needed.

Your below-the-wall boneyard ships should be more than enough against anything less than 1st line SLN ships of the same class. Certainly against your typical converted freighter to pirate. I have to wonder, however, just how many ships SEM had in mothballs at the time of Oyster Bay. They had sold off a whole lot of the "surplus" new Wall (thank you High Ridge) to Grayson and I suspect that they were using what they had left of the older smaller ships for anti-piracy.

From the point of the reopening of the war with PRH, SEM was salvaging ships as crews were moved into new-built units with the better tech and capabilities including reduced crew size. There won't be a lot of mothballed ships around as I suspect everything they can put back into service is in service and the unservicable ones have been broken up and reprocessed.

Heck, at this point, it would be probably more cost efective to get the surrendered SLN SDs through the wormhole to Beowulf under their own power having come to an arrangement with Beowulf to use the materials from scrapping them to partialy offset the cost of building the things Manticore needs to rebuild it's industries.
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