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Would Dispersing Shipyards Blunt or Stop a Second Oyster Bay

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Re: Would Dispersing Shipyards Blunt or Stop a Second Oyster
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Thu Sep 05, 2019 10:05 pm

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Theemile wrote:You're missing 1 point - depending on the definition, CLACs and BCs are Capital Ships. I think we can say BCs are not part of those calculations, they actually could be used for patrolling and day to day operations - besides, the crews on the Agamemnons and Nikes are significantly smaller then pre-war CAs, making them very cost effective for what they bring to the game. About 26 Agamemons were known lost in the war and a single Nike in UC, leaving over 60 Agamemons and 17 known Nikes surviving the war. Combined with the Survivors of the 73 Reliant III/IVs, will give at least 150 ERM and DDM armed BCs - Any surviving Homers still in service will probably be sold or reclaimed - the survivors of the 95 completed Reliant I/II will probably be mothballed or sold as soon as conditions allow, but will probably be kept in service for the immediate future.

* Some of the 24 BC(p)s lost at BoMa might have been Grayson Courvousier IIs.

CLACS, likeways, are actually more useful than SD(p)s for day to day operations. 1st) they escort the Battle squadrons, freeing up escorts and pickets. I believe the ratio we figured previously was going to be 2 CLACs for each 6 ship SD(p) BattleSquadron. 2nd) A single CLAC is presence - if you want to own a system, 1 CLAC's wing will completely fill a system in a few hours. The same "eyes" can be had with a handful of system drones, but the LACs are visible. no other formation, besides a large destroyer Flotilla can do this. Every Fleetbase needs a responce CLAC or 2 just for this purpose. 3rd) Spec-ops: A CLAC on it's own can do alot of damage, and 4th) moving LACs around the empire. Of course, it seems this can now be done with the multipurpose FSVs.

Manticore had a little over 100 CLACs after BoMa's loses, and was still building more up through OB, so are probably fielding in the 120 region at the end of UC. Another 8 may be repaired or declared junk after BoMa. Regardless, some will be going into the Reserve; most likely all the surviving Minotaurs will find their way there, and probably a healthy dollap of the Hydras as well.

My calculations have 43-47 Manticorian SD(p)s surviving BoMa, with ~10 more that could be repaired in time. 20 of which are the non-Keyhole equipped Medusas with Henke. I think we can guarantee that these will definitely be mothballed, and (if economics allow) upgraded to KHII in the Future. The rest of the few surviving Medusas were upgraded to KHII, which reduceded their already limited podcore. Chances are any Medusa that is not a Command variant will be mothballed. Ungraded Gryphons will probably be kept in the reserve for now, most of the the rest will be scrapped. Of course the biggest variable (which we do not know) is the size of the Python Lump. Most likely it was ~200 ships, but it could have been 2-3x that. Up to seeing that comment, I would have said that it could also be just around 100 ships - but then the fleet limit comment would not make as much sense.

Once construction is resumed, assuming a new war has not started, we can expect new construction to push the oldest designs into the reserve and the oldest of the reserve to be sold or destroyed in turn. Ideally all the main fleet will be Mk 35/16/23 ships, with the Mk 14/41 ships filing the reserve.

It will be interesting to watch


Those are good points about CLACs. I hadn't taken them into account, but they should indeed be used. It's possible David can see further expanded roles for them, the same way that carriers became the defining naval force in the 20th century, displacing the battleships. My only gripe with them is that they should be "CV" like CV-6 USS Enterprise and the COLAC should be called the CAG.

You don't need CLACs to ferry LACs around for supplying the empire. You can do that efficiently with crated LACs in an 8-million-ton freighter. Using the CLAC means it has a smaller load, as it's in the DN-size range and the LACs are arranged so they can be launched. You may say a freighter needs an escort, otherwise it's a juicy target, but the same is true of a CLAC that offloads the entire wing. An unescorted CLAC would only be able to deliver some 80 LACs in a trip and does tie up a resource.

Of course, if you have an abundance of CLACs anyway (and your numbers indicate the RMN does), you may as well use them instead of chartering freighters. Can you explain your calculations to get o 100? The 1920 fleet strengths in the Pearls (http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/site/entry/Harrington/106/1) says there were 42 and this was before BoMa.
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Re: Would Dispersing Shipyards Blunt or Stop a Second Oyster
Post by Galactic Sapper   » Fri Sep 06, 2019 1:27 am

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:Those are good points about CLACs. I hadn't taken them into account, but they should indeed be used. It's possible David can see further expanded roles for them, the same way that carriers became the defining naval force in the 20th century, displacing the battleships. My only gripe with them is that they should be "CV" like CV-6 USS Enterprise and the COLAC should be called the CAG.

You don't need CLACs to ferry LACs around for supplying the empire. You can do that efficiently with crated LACs in an 8-million-ton freighter. Using the CLAC means it has a smaller load, as it's in the DN-size range and the LACs are arranged so they can be launched. You may say a freighter needs an escort, otherwise it's a juicy target, but the same is true of a CLAC that offloads the entire wing. An unescorted CLAC would only be able to deliver some 80 LACs in a trip and does tie up a resource.

Of course, if you have an abundance of CLACs anyway (and your numbers indicate the RMN does), you may as well use them instead of chartering freighters. Can you explain your calculations to get o 100? The 1920 fleet strengths in the Pearls (http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/site/entry/Harrington/106/1) says there were 42 and this was before BoMa.

My impression was that RFC intentionally avoided the CV and CAG designations to emphasize the differences between aircraft carriers and LAC carriers - as in, a CLAC would be more akin to a ship being able to carry and deploy scores of PT boats rather than aircraft that can only stay aloft for a few hours.

As for using carriers to deliver LACs, it does two things. One, it delivers the LACs in usable condition rather than having to uncrate and assemble them at the destination. Depending on how much prep is needed and the work force available that could take weeks or months to get the whole wing ready.

Two, it also delivers the crews for the LACs as well as the ready-to-deploy LACs themselves. A freighter can't do that and relocating a wing would require a passenger liner or two as well as the ship carrying the crated LACs.
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Re: Would Dispersing Shipyards Blunt or Stop a Second Oyster
Post by kzt   » Fri Sep 06, 2019 2:05 am

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What makes you think that nobody has a hab module to stick in a freighter?

The cargo bay is something like a km long and 120 meters in radius. And it's in zero G, so you could velcro it to the wall. So you can easily fit everything you need.
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Re: Would Dispersing Shipyards Blunt or Stop a Second Oyster
Post by tlb   » Fri Sep 06, 2019 3:32 am

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kzt wrote:What makes you think that nobody has a hab module to stick in a freighter?

The cargo bay is something like a km long and 120 meters in radius. And it's in zero G, so you could velcro it to the wall. So you can easily fit everything you need.

You would also need to hook it up to power for the environmental equipment; unless it also had its own power source (then what about waste heat?).
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Re: Would Dispersing Shipyards Blunt or Stop a Second Oyster
Post by kzt   » Fri Sep 06, 2019 4:08 am

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tlb wrote:
kzt wrote:What makes you think that nobody has a hab module to stick in a freighter?

The cargo bay is something like a km long and 120 meters in radius. And it's in zero G, so you could velcro it to the wall. So you can easily fit everything you need.

You would also need to hook it up to power for the environmental equipment; unless it also had its own power source (then what about waste heat?).

The freighter has a fusion reactor. A couple of hundred meters of superconducting cable is easy enough to install.
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Re: Would Dispersing Shipyards Blunt or Stop a Second Oyster
Post by tlb   » Fri Sep 06, 2019 5:21 am

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kzt wrote:What makes you think that nobody has a hab module to stick in a freighter?

The cargo bay is something like a km long and 120 meters in radius. And it's in zero G, so you could velcro it to the wall. So you can easily fit everything you need.

tlb wrote:You would also need to hook it up to power for the environmental equipment; unless it also had its own power source (then what about waste heat?).

kzt wrote:The freighter has a fusion reactor. A couple of hundred meters of superconducting cable is easy enough to install.

I agree. Weren't the biggest changes to the freighter based Q-ship that Honor commanded, the grasers and the ability to launch pods out of doors in the stern? Although they certainly had to add missile control links and may have added a second fusion reactor for redundancy. The point being that the LAC's and flight crew quarters went in without much mention.

Do Honorverse freighters ordinarily come with some passenger space for people who need to travel to out of the way places? It might be very easy to expand the living spaces, rather than gluing in a module.
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Re: Would Dispersing Shipyards Blunt or Stop a Second Oyster
Post by Theemile   » Fri Sep 06, 2019 8:35 am

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kzt wrote:What makes you think that nobody has a hab module to stick in a freighter?

The cargo bay is something like a km long and 120 meters in radius. And it's in zero G, so you could velcro it to the wall. So you can easily fit everything you need.


David commented on that back when we were discussing the original dispersing of LAC wings in the TQ and "why wait for CLACS, use a freighter" came up.

It's not the hab module that is important - Using a CLAC allows the Crews to be constantly training on the SIMs built into the CLAC while they are deploying, so skills don't get soft and they are ready to deploy once they hit their destination.

He was very adamant about that.
Last edited by Theemile on Fri Sep 06, 2019 9:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
******
RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
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Re: Would Dispersing Shipyards Blunt or Stop a Second Oyster
Post by Theemile   » Fri Sep 06, 2019 9:34 am

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:
Theemile wrote:You're missing 1 point - depending on the definition, CLACs and BCs are Capital Ships. I think we can say BCs are not part of those calculations, they actually could be used for patrolling and day to day operations - besides, the crews on the Agamemnons and Nikes are significantly smaller then pre-war CAs, making them very cost effective for what they bring to the game. About 26 Agamemons were known lost in the war and a single Nike in UC, leaving over 60 Agamemons and 17 known Nikes surviving the war. Combined with the Survivors of the 73 Reliant III/IVs, will give at least 150 ERM and DDM armed BCs - Any surviving Homers still in service will probably be sold or reclaimed - the survivors of the 95 completed Reliant I/II will probably be mothballed or sold as soon as conditions allow, but will probably be kept in service for the immediate future.

* Some of the 24 BC(p)s lost at BoMa might have been Grayson Courvousier IIs.

CLACS, likeways, are actually more useful than SD(p)s for day to day operations. 1st) they escort the Battle squadrons, freeing up escorts and pickets. I believe the ratio we figured previously was going to be 2 CLACs for each 6 ship SD(p) BattleSquadron. 2nd) A single CLAC is presence - if you want to own a system, 1 CLAC's wing will completely fill a system in a few hours. The same "eyes" can be had with a handful of system drones, but the LACs are visible. no other formation, besides a large destroyer Flotilla can do this. Every Fleetbase needs a responce CLAC or 2 just for this purpose. 3rd) Spec-ops: A CLAC on it's own can do alot of damage, and 4th) moving LACs around the empire. Of course, it seems this can now be done with the multipurpose FSVs.

Manticore had a little over 100 CLACs after BoMa's loses, and was still building more up through OB, so are probably fielding in the 120 region at the end of UC. Another 8 may be repaired or declared junk after BoMa. Regardless, some will be going into the Reserve; most likely all the surviving Minotaurs will find their way there, and probably a healthy dollap of the Hydras as well.

My calculations have 43-47 Manticorian SD(p)s surviving BoMa, with ~10 more that could be repaired in time. 20 of which are the non-Keyhole equipped Medusas with Henke. I think we can guarantee that these will definitely be mothballed, and (if economics allow) upgraded to KHII in the Future. The rest of the few surviving Medusas were upgraded to KHII, which reduceded their already limited podcore. Chances are any Medusa that is not a Command variant will be mothballed. Ungraded Gryphons will probably be kept in the reserve for now, most of the the rest will be scrapped. Of course the biggest variable (which we do not know) is the size of the Python Lump. Most likely it was ~200 ships, but it could have been 2-3x that. Up to seeing that comment, I would have said that it could also be just around 100 ships - but then the fleet limit comment would not make as much sense.

Once construction is resumed, assuming a new war has not started, we can expect new construction to push the oldest designs into the reserve and the oldest of the reserve to be sold or destroyed in turn. Ideally all the main fleet will be Mk 35/16/23 ships, with the Mk 14/41 ships filing the reserve.

It will be interesting to watch


Those are good points about CLACs. I hadn't taken them into account, but they should indeed be used. It's possible David can see further expanded roles for them, the same way that carriers became the defining naval force in the 20th century, displacing the battleships. My only gripe with them is that they should be "CV" like CV-6 USS Enterprise and the COLAC should be called the CAG.

You don't need CLACs to ferry LACs around for supplying the empire. You can do that efficiently with crated LACs in an 8-million-ton freighter. Using the CLAC means it has a smaller load, as it's in the DN-size range and the LACs are arranged so they can be launched. You may say a freighter needs an escort, otherwise it's a juicy target, but the same is true of a CLAC that offloads the entire wing. An unescorted CLAC would only be able to deliver some 80 LACs in a trip and does tie up a resource.

Of course, if you have an abundance of CLACs anyway (and your numbers indicate the RMN does), you may as well use them instead of chartering freighters. Can you explain your calculations to get o 100? The 1920 fleet strengths in the Pearls (http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/site/entry/Harrington/106/1) says there were 42 and this was before BoMa.

The 1920 Fleetchart is dated ~March 1st 1920pd, and is supposed to be simultaneous with the date Honor took command of 8th fleet. The list does not take into account of any new construction, only ships accepted into the RMN. We also have House of Steel, dated ~May 1st 1921. It list construction of 18 Minotaurs in the RMN (6 More built for Grayson), and 94+ Hydras. This means that the RMN had accepted 112 CLACS, with more Hydras under construction. Oyster Bay occured on roughly March 1st 1922, allowing an additional 10 months of construction, some of which was destroyed in OB. Subtract the ~12 loses at BoMa and you have a strength of at least 100 CLACS after BoMa (not including new construction after May 1st), and as many as 165 completed by March 1st 1922. That number is very optimistic, so I gave a reliable 120 copmpleted.

(The original Wartime construction was laid down in September 1919, and consisted of repeat of existing designs; an expansion happened in early 1920 that laid down Rolands, Kammerlings, Sag-Cs, and Nikes, and probably more Hydras and Invictuses. David gave the build time for a Invictus as 20-22 months depending on the construction slip type. In light of this, we were figuring a Hydra at 14-16 months, which allows for all of the Sept 1919 build and most of the early 1920 expansion to be completed prior to the May 1st 1921 list (65+ ships total between the 2 build groups), meaning that a 2nd build traunche laid in the slips used for the September 1919 started Hydras might just be completing before or during March 1922, allowing some of that construction to survive, but CLACs laid in the slips vacated by the early 1920 construction would be only ~2/3rds complete.)

As for the CV comment - most people do not realize the 'V" comes from the French word "Voliere" meaning "aviary" (Don't ask me why French, I've never been able to find out). While promoting the Fighter Jock mentality amoungst the crews, David insists on them being an analogue for PT boats (as mentioned elsewhere). The reason: they maneuver in the same medium and axis as the other ships and ruled by the same movement rules. Planes move in a different medium and axis than ships, with different maneuver rules.

Fighter analogues do exist - they are called Sting Ships and assault shuttles. But like LACS, they maneuver similiarly to warships, and have the same speed limits. These ships are the size of true warship's weapons emplacements or smaller: their weapons are so small that singularly they cannot hope to damage a warship - maybe 3-400 stingships swarming a DD might mission kill it.
******
RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
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Re: Would Dispersing Shipyards Blunt or Stop a Second Oyster
Post by tlb   » Fri Sep 06, 2019 10:18 am

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Theemile wrote:David commented on that back when we were discussing the original dispersing of LAC wings in the TQ and "why wait for CLACS, use a freighter" came up.

It's not the hab module that is important - Using a CLAC allows the Crews to be constantly training on the SIMs built into the CLAC while they are deploying, so skills don't get soft and they are ready to deploy once they hit their destination.

He was very adamant about that.

What kind of SIMs was he talking about? Honor had a games room where SIMs were run after dinners with the invited cadets; so those kind of SIMs would be easy to fit into the living space of a LAC freighter. Perhaps you need a LAC mockup to do what he wanted, that should be just as easy to prefabricate. Alternately it is a SIM were the crew sits in their LAC stations and responds to computer driven events, that should not present a problem either (but a LAC mockup might be easier and safer); but manning each LAC easily within a freighter might be a technical challenge (perhaps there is a series of tubes with mating connections to each LAC wing to provide power and helmetless access).
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Re: Would Dispersing Shipyards Blunt or Stop a Second Oyster
Post by Fox2!   » Fri Sep 06, 2019 10:39 am

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tlb wrote:What kind of SIMs was he talking about? Honor had a games room where SIMs were run after dinners with the invited cadets; so those kind of SIMs would be easy to fit into the living space of a LAC freighter. Perhaps you need a LAC mockup to do what he wanted, that should be just as easy to prefabricate. Alternately it is a SIM were the crew sits in their LAC stations and responds to computer driven events, that should not present a problem either (but a LAC mockup might be easier and safer); but manning each LAC easily within a freighter might be a technical challenge (perhaps there is a series of tubes with mating connections to each LAC wing to provide power and helmetless access).


Weren't the workstations tied in to either the Academy or ATC's simulation servers? You would need to add room (and power/heat/cooling/operators/maintainers/spares/supplies) for the servers, in addition to the workstations. Probably double the volume requirements just for the "playroom". As well as making the whole thing into a secure area, if not the Honorverse equivalent of a SCIF.

On a CLAC, the LACs are stowed in their launch bays, with personnel access, power, and communications provided through the normal umbilicals and tubes. You would need an equivalent level of connection to each LAC in the freighter's cargo bay. The LACs couldn't be crated, or hanging from the ceiling, as carriers (used to?) hang spare aircraft from the roof of the hanger deck.
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