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Initial Navy buildup in Travis' time

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Initial Navy buildup in Travis' time
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Thu Sep 26, 2019 8:31 pm

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Now that the http://forums.davidweber.net/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=10246 thread has come to a conclusion why the RMN prior to Roger's build up had so few cruisers compared to all other classes, what do we think the next Manticore Ascendant series books will show?

We know that in 1543, the RMN had 8 BCs (over 100 years old each), a couple of cruisers, destroyers, frigates and corvettes. We know the first transition of the wormhole happened in 1585 and that a new wave of battlecruisers and battleships came online in 1590. Those BCs are much bigger than the Triumph-class ones they replaced.

And we also know you can't build a battleship from scratch in a day or even a year. It isn't clear to me whether Manticore built most of the ships it had or only bought them from Haven or the League. The HMS Casey was refitted in 1535, not built. And we are told Manticore did not have the resources and technology to build impellers at the time.

Somewhere along the way, a new shipbuilding industry comes about in Manticore and they probably built some increasingly bigger warships.

When do we expect the first home-built CL, CC and CAs? And will Capt. Long be commanding one of them? Or only Commodore Long commanding the squadron?
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Re: Initial Navy buildup in Travis' time
Post by Theemile   » Thu Sep 26, 2019 11:04 pm

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:Now that the http://forums.davidweber.net/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=10246 thread has come to a conclusion why the RMN prior to Roger's build up had so few cruisers compared to all other classes, what do we think the next Manticore Ascendant series books will show?

We know that in 1543, the RMN had 8 BCs (over 100 years old each), a couple of cruisers, destroyers, frigates and corvettes. We know the first transition of the wormhole happened in 1585 and that a new wave of battlecruisers and battleships came online in 1590. Those BCs are much bigger than the Triumph-class ones they replaced.

And we also know you can't build a battleship from scratch in a day or even a year. It isn't clear to me whether Manticore built most of the ships it had or only bought them from Haven or the League. The HMS Casey was refitted in 1535, not built. And we are told Manticore did not have the resources and technology to build impellers at the time.

Somewhere along the way, a new shipbuilding industry comes about in Manticore and they probably built some increasingly bigger warships.

When do we expect the first home-built CL, CC and CAs? And will Capt. Long be commanding one of them? Or only Commodore Long commanding the squadron?


The issue was specifically Light Cruisers. BCs and CAs were never an issue. With a peace time, home defense wall, the RMN didn't have a strategic scouting need, and anything the Frigates ran into which they couldn't deal with usually required a CA or BC, so historically, CLs just were not needed in bulk.
******
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: Initial Navy buildup in Travis' time
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Thu Sep 26, 2019 11:35 pm

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Theemile wrote:The issue was specifically Light Cruisers. BCs and CAs were never an issue. With a peace time, home defense wall, the RMN didn't have a strategic scouting need, and anything the Frigates ran into which they couldn't deal with usually required a CA or BC, so historically, CLs just were not needed in bulk.


That's what we're concluding in that thread. But my question is about Travis' time. We know there'll be at least one BC (BC-01) and 11 BBs. Lt Roger Winton's letter:

[quote="House of Steel]
At this time, Her Majesty's Navy's wall of battle consists of eleven Thorsten-class battleships (the youngest of which is 250 years old) and eleven d Astra dreadnoughts (the youngest of which is a century old and three of which are presently mothballed while awaiting long overdue repair and refit).
[...]
—From "On the Event Horizon: Letters from the Deck Plates", Proceedings of the Royal Manticoran Navy Institute, Issue number 3675, 12/10/249 AL[/quote]

This is December 1844 PD, so a strict reading of "the youngest is 250 years old" means it was commissioned in 1594 PD. Even allowing for some rounding, such ship can't have been commissioned any later than 1610 PD.

Battleships take time to build. It's unlikely the Manticore of the 16th century was able to build 5 of them simultaneously. Building 10 of them two at a time for 3 years means 15 years. The prototype ship (HMS Manticore BB-01) must have taken even longer. So make it 20 years from laying down the first to the last commissioning.

Ditto for battlecruisers: HMS Nike (BC-01) must have been laid down no later than 1585 PD, the same year of the first (official) wormhole crossing.

And building up to a BC probably means a homegrown CA class. King Edward was leading up to that with an effort to refurbish a CL, which leads to building one from scratch, then a CC, then a CA, and so on.

My question is: when do we see home-built cruisers? And are we going to see more DDs and FFs, with sufficient quads and hexes?
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Re: Initial Navy buildup in Travis' time
Post by Fox2!   » Fri Sep 27, 2019 2:07 am

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:
When do we expect the first home-built CL, CC and CAs? And will Capt. Long be commanding one of them? Or only Commodore Long commanding the squadron?


Yes.

Commodore Lisa Long will be the squadron commander, and Captain Travis Long will command one of the ships, and still (along with Senior Chief Petty Officer "Chomps") pulling the odd job for SIS.
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Re: Initial Navy buildup in Travis' time
Post by Fox2!   » Fri Sep 27, 2019 2:17 am

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:And building up to a BC probably means a homegrown CA class. King Edward was leading up to that with an effort to refurbish a CL, which leads to building one from scratch, then a CC, then a CA, and so on.

What type are you using "CC" as the hull symbol for?

In the USN, CC was used for the Lexington class battle cruisers, while the Alaska class Large Cruisers used CB. In the Honorverse, battle cruisers are denoted as BC. CL and CA have their traditional meanings for light (not more than 6 inch guns) and heavy cruisers (more than 6 inch, but not more than 8 inch guns) (Yes, I know that the"light cruiser" HMS Courageous and her sisters had 15 inch guns. I blame Jackie Fisher. )
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Re: Initial Navy buildup in Travis' time
Post by jchilds   » Fri Sep 27, 2019 3:21 am

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House of Steel, under Dreadnoughts wrote:The RMN built two squadrons of battleships shortly after the first transit through the Manticore Wormhole Junction, and they served as the primary defensive component of Home Fleet, with regular overhauls, for nearly 250 years.
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Re: Initial Navy buildup in Travis' time
Post by doug941   » Fri Sep 27, 2019 4:14 am

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Fox2! wrote:
ThinksMarkedly wrote:And building up to a BC probably means a homegrown CA class. King Edward was leading up to that with an effort to refurbish a CL, which leads to building one from scratch, then a CC, then a CA, and so on.

What type are you using "CC" as the hull symbol for?

In the USN, CC was used for the Lexington class battle cruisers, while the Alaska class Large Cruisers used CB. In the Honorverse, battle cruisers are denoted as BC. CL and CA have their traditional meanings for light (not more than 6 inch guns) and heavy cruisers (more than 6 inch, but not more than 8 inch guns) (Yes, I know that the"light cruiser" HMS Courageous and her sisters had 15 inch guns. I blame Jackie Fisher. )


Gun size is not as cut and dried as you think. The closest pre-WW1 equivalent to heavy cruisers was the armoured cruiser (US Navy code ACR). Three of the Tennessee class survived long enough (until the London Naval Treaty) to be reclassified from ACR to CA and their main armament was 4 10"/40 guns. One of the Italian Pisa class (4x10") lasted until 1937 while the Greek modified Pisa (4x9.2") is still afloat today. Argentina still had an Italian built Giuseppe Garibaldi class (2x10") in service until just after the Korean War. Last, many naval historians classify the German Deutschland class (6x11") as heavy cruisers, or as a German version of a CB cruiser.
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Re: Initial Navy buildup in Travis' time
Post by Theemile   » Fri Sep 27, 2019 8:31 am

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doug941 wrote:
Fox2! wrote:What type are you using "CC" as the hull symbol for?

In the USN, CC was used for the Lexington class battle cruisers, while the Alaska class Large Cruisers used CB. In the Honorverse, battle cruisers are denoted as BC. CL and CA have their traditional meanings for light (not more than 6 inch guns) and heavy cruisers (more than 6 inch, but not more than 8 inch guns) (Yes, I know that the"light cruiser" HMS Courageous and her sisters had 15 inch guns. I blame Jackie Fisher. )


Gun size is not as cut and dried as you think. The closest pre-WW1 equivalent to heavy cruisers was the armoured cruiser (US Navy code ACR). Three of the Tennessee class survived long enough (until the London Naval Treaty) to be reclassified from ACR to CA and their main armament was 4 10"/40 guns. One of the Italian Pisa class (4x10") lasted until 1937 while the Greek modified Pisa (4x9.2") is still afloat today. Argentina still had an Italian built Giuseppe Garibaldi class (2x10") in service until just after the Korean War. Last, many naval historians classify the German Deutschland class (6x11") as heavy cruisers, or as a German version of a CB cruiser.


The CL=6" and CA=8" and 10,000 ton limits were decisions of the 1921 Washington Naval Treaty defining what ships were. Before and after the Treaty (or any anyone outside of or purposely no longer following the treaty) anything went: the nomenclatures were generalized groups of stats in a pretty much constantly changing design environment, and ship types were classified by (again changing) particuliar design features. The USS Maine, an ACR/Coastal Battleship when launched in 1889, would be a crappy CA in 1921.
******
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: Initial Navy buildup in Travis' time
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Fri Sep 27, 2019 10:50 am

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Fox2! wrote:
ThinksMarkedly wrote:And building up to a BC probably means a homegrown CA class. King Edward was leading up to that with an effort to refurbish a CL, which leads to building one from scratch, then a CC, then a CA, and so on.

What type are you using "CC" as the hull symbol for?

In the USN, CC was used for the Lexington class battle cruisers, while the Alaska class Large Cruisers used CB. In the Honorverse, battle cruisers are denoted as BC. CL and CA have their traditional meanings for light (not more than 6 inch guns) and heavy cruisers (more than 6 inch, but not more than 8 inch guns) (Yes, I know that the"light cruiser" HMS Courageous and her sisters had 15 inch guns. I blame Jackie Fisher. )


"Cruiser", neither heavy nor light. Several ships in Travis time are referred to as simply cruisers and I took "CC" from the wiki page on the 1543 Volsung invasion battle. I don't know if there's a sense in having something in-between CL and CA, what is essentially the size of a heavy cruiser but without the armouring that would go in one (I guess to keep mass down due to limitations in impeller technology of the time).
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Re: Initial Navy buildup in Travis' time
Post by Theemile   » Fri Sep 27, 2019 11:10 am

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:
Fox2! wrote:What type are you using "CC" as the hull symbol for?

In the USN, CC was used for the Lexington class battle cruisers, while the Alaska class Large Cruisers used CB. In the Honorverse, battle cruisers are denoted as BC. CL and CA have their traditional meanings for light (not more than 6 inch guns) and heavy cruisers (more than 6 inch, but not more than 8 inch guns) (Yes, I know that the"light cruiser" HMS Courageous and her sisters had 15 inch guns. I blame Jackie Fisher. )


"Cruiser", neither heavy nor light. Several ships in Travis time are referred to as simply cruisers and I took "CC" from the wiki page on the 1543 Volsung invasion battle. I don't know if there's a sense in having something in-between CL and CA, what is essentially the size of a heavy cruiser but without the armouring that would go in one (I guess to keep mass down due to limitations in impeller technology of the time).


Trust the Wiki with a grain of salt - a big grain. A quick search for the CC designation in the 3 Books doesn't come back with a single hit. and there is no other Source material for the Manticore Ascendant novels other than the pearls.

The RMN had specific Cruiser classes at the time, the Casey was the only CL fielded but the RMN fielded CAs of a larger class. The Volsungs also fielded separate Heavy and Light Cruisers.
******
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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