Honorverse ramblings and musings

drothgery wrote:

cthia wrote:Many were resilient in trying to figure out what to do with captured SLN junk.

Something occurred to me. What did Erewhon do with its lineup of SLN ships after joining the Manticoran Alliance? And why wouldn't Manticore have taken that opportunity to "observe" SLN hardware?

Erewhon bought Solarian-built ships. There's no textev that what they bought was the same designs that Technodyne & co. built for the SLN, and even if it was, Manticore might reasonably have assumed Erewhon got 'export' versions downgraded from what they'd sell to the SLN.

The SLN's stuff was not always regarded junk. During the first war, Haven was importing SLN tech to try to stay within shouting distance of Manticore whose tech even before Buttercup was better than both.

However, what rendered the SLN ships completely obsolete was the MDM and Ghost Rider which were introduced in the final stage of the first round between Haven and Manticore. If I am remembering correctly, Ghostrider was introduced first and the first massed use of the MDMs happened when White Haven defended the Basilisk Terminal and then a bit later with the attack on Barrnet.

Prior to that time, the SLN designs would have been somewhat behind Manticores' but not completely useless. It became of case of being good in its day, but its day was past.

Don

drothgery wrote:

cthia wrote:
Many were resilient in trying to figure out what to do with captured SLN junk.

Something occurred to me. What did Erewhon do with its lineup of SLN ships after joining the Manticoran Alliance? And why wouldn't Manticore have taken that opportunity to "observe" SLN hardware?

Erewhon bought Solarian-built ships. There's no textev that what they bought was the same designs that Technodyne & co. built for the SLN, and even if it was, Manticore might reasonably have assumed Erewhon got 'export' versions downgraded from what they'd sell to the SLN.

n7axw wrote:
The SLN's stuff was not always regarded junk. During the first war, Haven was importing SLN tech to try to stay within shouting distance of Manticore whose tech even before Buttercup was better than both.

However, what rendered the SLN ships completely obsolete was the MDM and Ghost Rider which were introduced in the final stage of the first round between Haven and Manticore. If I am remembering correctly, Ghostrider was introduced first and the first massed use of the MDMs happened when White Haven defended the Basilisk Terminal and then a bit later with the attack on Barrnet.

Prior to that time, the SLN designs would have been somewhat behind Manticores' but not completely useless. It became of case of being good in its day, but its day was past.

Don

Thanks for the response Don. I thought it had to be exactly something like that. And that "the time of", was important.

There was no way to know if the ships that Erewhon acquired was the same that Technodyne supplied, but if they weren't then they'd be inferior even to that design, wouldn't it? Since the SLN wouldn't commission Technodyne to build anything inferior to what they could already manage themselves.

cthia wrote: quote="drothgery" quote="cthia"]

Many were resilient in trying to figure out what to do with captured SLN junk.

Something occurred to me. What did Erewhon do with its lineup of SLN ships after joining the Manticoran Alliance? And why wouldn't Manticore have taken that opportunity to "observe" SLN hardware?

Erewhon bought Solarian-built ships. There's no textev that what they bought was the same designs that Technodyne & co. built for the SLN, and even if it was, Manticore might reasonably have assumed Erewhon got 'export' versions downgraded from what they'd sell to the SLN.[/quote]

n7axw wrote:
The SLN's stuff was not always regarded junk. During the first war, Haven was importing SLN tech to try to stay within shouting distance of Manticore whose tech even before Buttercup was better than both.

However, what rendered the SLN ships completely obsolete was the MDM and Ghost Rider which were introduced in the final stage of the first round between Haven and Manticore. If I am remembering correctly, Ghostrider was introduced first and the first massed use of the MDMs happened when White Haven defended the Basilisk Terminal and then a bit later with the attack on Barrnet.

Prior to that time, the SLN designs would have been somewhat behind Manticores' but not completely useless. It became of case of being good in its day, but its day was past.

Don

Thanks for the response Don. I thought it had to be exactly something like that. And that "the time of", was important.

There was no way to know if the ships that Erewhon acquired was the same that Technodyne supplied, but if they weren't then they'd be inferior even to that design, wouldn't it? Since the SLN wouldn't commission Technodyne to build anything inferior to what they could already manage themselves.[/quote]


The REN could have just bought a basic design and had them refitted with upgraded tech. In the RW some countries will buy other countries ships for little more than scrape value then refit the hell out of them with things like updated radars new engines new missiles etc. etc.

cthia wrote:There was no way to know if the ships that Erewhon acquired was the same that Technodyne supplied, but if they weren't then they'd be inferior even to that design, wouldn't it? Since the SLN wouldn't commission Technodyne to build anything inferior to what they could already manage themselves.

Certainly somebody like Technodyne would have had no real hesitation to install additional CM tubes and PDLCs if that's what the customer wanted.

So, even if the exact launchers were as slow as those the SLN was using, at least customers with a clue about where missile combat was going could specify less energy mounts and more missile-defense.

Heck even in real life there's some truth to the chestnut that when the Imperial Japanese Navy had their first dreadnaught battlecruiser, Kongo, built by Vickers in the UK that the Royal Navy learned more about how to properly design a battlecruiser than Japan learned about how to build one (which was their goal; as they were to build the other 3 ships of that class in Japanese yards).


But we were also told that the basic Solarian Tech was a lot better that what the SLN was buying. They saw themselves as having such a numerical advantage, and that nobody would dare fight them, that they seemed to be more intersted in cost and "show" than they were in having individually superior units. So it's entirely possible that Erewhon was able to specify higher capability components for their ships that the SLN bothered to buy or refit with. (And remember the last round of SLN rebuilds, Fleet 2000, was focused way more on appearance than on seriously increasing combat effectiveness. So even back then the Erewhonese ships, fresh from the Solarian yards, might have had a non-trivial one-on-one edge against a SLN counterpart. (And after getting some post-delivery tune-ups courtesy of likely tech transfers from Manticore...)

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:There was no way to know if the ships that Erewhon acquired was the same that Technodyne supplied, but if they weren't then they'd be inferior even to that design, wouldn't it? Since the SLN wouldn't commission Technodyne to build anything inferior to what they could already manage themselves.

Certainly somebody like Technodyne would have had no real hesitation to install additional CM tubes and PDLCs if that's what the customer wanted.

So, even if the exact launchers were as slow as those the SLN was using, at least customers with a clue about where missile combat was going could specify less energy mounts and more missile-defense.

Heck even in real life there's some truth to the chestnut that when the Imperial Japanese Navy had their first dreadnaught battlecruiser, Kongo, built by Vickers in the UK that the Royal Navy learned more about how to properly design a battlecruiser than Japan learned about how to build one (which was their goal; as they were to build the other 3 ships of that class in Japanese yards).


But we were also told that the basic Solarian Tech was a lot better that what the SLN was buying. They saw themselves as having such a numerical advantage, and that nobody would dare fight them, that they seemed to be more intersted in cost and "show" than they were in having individually superior units. So it's entirely possible that Erewhon was able to specify higher capability components for their ships that the SLN bothered to buy or refit with. (And remember the last round of SLN rebuilds, Fleet 2000, was focused way more on appearance than on seriously increasing combat effectiveness. So even back then the Erewhonese ships, fresh from the Solarian yards, might have had a non-trivial one-on-one edge against a SLN counterpart. (And after getting some post-delivery tune-ups courtesy of likely tech transfers from Manticore...)

This is similiar to the US Spruance class destroyers- originally they were to be full fledged multipurpose destroyers, but costs parced them back to Anti-submarine destroyers withlimited AA capabilities.

Iran (Under the Shah) ordered 4 Destroyers, but essentially bought Spruances with "all the options". When inducted in the US forces after the Fall of the Shah, the Kidd class as they were known, kept all the extra goodies the Shah had ordered and were operated differently than the rest of the samed hull destroyers. While the Spruances received upgrades to make them more capable, they were never upgraded to the same level as the Kidds.

n7axw wrote:The SLN's stuff was not always regarded junk. During the first war, Haven was importing SLN tech to try to stay within shouting distance of Manticore whose tech even before Buttercup was better than both.

The SLN's underlying tech wasn't junk. The SLN's ship designs were awful. The PRH had worse tech than the SLN for the most part (because it only had what it could acquire illegally and produce in volume)... but its designs were much better. I'd venture to guess every individual part of a People's Navy Duquesne-class SD was less advanced than its equivalent on an SLN Vega ... but given equally skilled crews, a squadron of Duquesnes would defeat one of Vegas nine times out of ten.

At the beginning of the first war, not even Manticore realized that their ship designs were actually better than Solarian. Solarian tech was still considered the best in the galaxy, and everyone else was trying to catch up. Manticoran technology was comparable to Solarian technology at the beginning of the war, and even that was not fully realized by anyone until much later. Manticoran designs had surpassed Solarian designs, but that was not obvious until the designs were tested in battle. Even then, it was difficult to compare with Solarian designs because so few Solarian ships entered battle in the new threat environment of the Haven Quadrant.

If Haven didn't buy from the Sollies, who would they buy from? Solarian ships were the best they could buy, and was still considered the standard to beat. They were far better than Haven's own stuff until they started catching up to Manticore.

SWM wrote:At the beginning of the first war, not even Manticore realized that their ship designs were actually better than Solarian. Solarian tech was still considered the best in the galaxy, and everyone else was trying to catch up. Manticoran technology was comparable to Solarian technology at the beginning of the war, and even that was not fully realized by anyone until much later. Manticoran designs had surpassed Solarian designs, but that was not obvious until the designs were tested in battle. Even then, it was difficult to compare with Solarian designs because so few Solarian ships entered battle in the new threat environment of the Haven Quadrant.

Quite so. The first real tests (in battle) were Monica, where Therekov scratch force led by 2CA's defeated 3 BC's (albeit crewed by Monicans, not Sollies) and Tiberian, where Oversteengen beat four SLN CA's with one RMN CA (again, the crews were Silesians, not ISLN personnel)

And the Sollies would have ignored these since "obviously those neobarbs didn't use our invincible ships properly, and if proper ISLN crews had been there, it would have very different."

The Manties, however, learned a lot and the lesson was proven by Gold Peak at New Tuscany and Spindle.

If Haven didn't buy from the Sollies, who would they buy from? Solarian ships were the best they could buy, and was still considered the standard to beat. They were far better than Haven's own stuff until they started catching up to Manticore.

No argument. And given the tech in the SL, they could still be the best....if they had paid attention and concentrated the R&D on substantial changes.

But that would have required real leadership and the ability to ruthlessly force people to confront facts...and in the ISLN, that force was lacking (in a way, you can't blame them...nothing amounting to a real conflict for several centuries would dull the edge off of any military).

drothgery wrote:

n7axw wrote:The SLN's stuff was not always regarded junk. During the first war, Haven was importing SLN tech to try to stay within shouting distance of Manticore whose tech even before Buttercup was better than both.

The SLN's underlying tech wasn't junk. The SLN's ship designs were awful. The PRH had worse tech than the SLN for the most part (because it only had what it could acquire illegally and produce in volume)... but its designs were much better. I'd venture to guess every individual part of a People's Navy Duquesne-class SD was less advanced than its equivalent on an SLN Vega ... but given equally skilled crews, a squadron of Duquesnes would defeat one of Vegas nine times out of ten.

Possibly, though I'd argue some of the SLN parts weren't living up to their inherent tech base. So some parts would be what I'd consider higher quality in the PNS ships.

For example the SLN still have 35 or 45 second cycle times on their BC offensive missile launchers (SL-13 and SL-11b launchers respectively [SoF]) vs the 18 second cycle times on the (slower cycling) Mk16 tubes! So the BC-weight SDM tubes on an old Reliant-class BC might be even faster than that. But I never heard that a Reliant could pump out missiles even 50% quicker than a Sultan; so presumably the Peeps managed to spec - or upgrade to - faster cycling launchers during the first war than what even the newest SLN ships mount nearly 20 years later.


Maybe, maybe, some of the components of the SL-13 launcher are more refined, or higher tech, that in the 1st war Peep equivalent. But I'd rate the launcher as a whole as significantly less advanced.

Jonathan_S wrote:For example the SLN still have 35 or 45 second cycle times on their BC offensive missile launchers (SL-13 and SL-11b launchers respectively [SoF]) vs the 18 second cycle times on the (slower cycling) Mk16 tubes! So the BC-weight SDM tubes on an old Reliant-class BC might be even faster than that. But I never heard that a Reliant could pump out missiles even 50% quicker than a Sultan; so presumably the Peeps managed to spec - or upgrade to - faster cycling launchers during the first war than what even the newest SLN ships mount nearly 20 years later.

Actually, the text does state that Manticoran launchers were considerably faster than their Havenite counterparts.