Would Dispersing Shipyards Blunt or Stop a Second Oyster Bay

But they hadn't built spider-driven ships before the Sharks. They were the first to reach BB or DN size and they needed lots of prototypes before they were confident to scale up to SD size. Then you build one or two and test the hell out of them before building more. See also Fox2!'s reply above.

Who said that the Leonard Detweiler class has Superdreadnought size?

The Wedge limits the size of ships, the Leonard Detweilers don´t have wedges. They could have the size of a Fortress.

Maldorian wrote:

But they hadn't built spider-driven ships before the Sharks. They were the first to reach BB or DN size and they needed lots of prototypes before they were confident to scale up to SD size. Then you build one or two and test the hell out of them before building more. See also Fox2!'s reply above.

Who said that the Leonard Detweiler class has Superdreadnought size?

The Wedge limits the size of ships, the Leonard Detweilers don´t have wedges. They could have the size of a Fortress.

Indeed. The LDs are supposed to have missile tubes sized to launch grazer torpedoes, which are significantly too large to fit on a normal capital ship.

As well as at least one pod core.

Galactic Sapper wrote:Indeed. The LDs are supposed to have missile tubes sized to launch grazer torpedoes, which are significantly too large to fit on a normal capital ship.

As well as at least one pod core.

We are talking LAC sized weapons. Our guess was 12-30 MT.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:But they hadn't built spider-driven ships before the Sharks. They were the first to reach BB or DN size and they needed lots of prototypes before they were confident to scale up to SD size. Then you build one or two and test the hell out of them before building more. See also Fox2!'s reply above.

Maldorian wrote:Who said that the Leonard Detweiler class has Superdreadnought size?

The Wedge limits the size of ships, the Leonard Detweilers don´t have wedges. They could have the size of a Fortress.

Galactic Sapper wrote:Indeed. The LDs are supposed to have missile tubes sized to launch grazer torpedoes, which are significantly too large to fit on a normal capital ship.

As well as at least one pod core.

Since Mission of Honor only gives the Leonrd Detweiler class size as relatively larger than the Shark class; do we have anything definitive about the weight of these ships? I have seen people give numbers in this forum, but have no idea what they are using as a source.

Admittedly the ability to tube launch a spider driven graser torpedo gives some minimum size (which I cannot compute. What if thy are launched axially?); but there might be a maximum practical size; because they do not have a wedge, their only protection is armor (which can be better for bigger ships) and stealth (which can be worse for bigger ships). At some point, with increasing size, the price tag becomes too high in the event one is lost.

kzt wrote:

Galactic Sapper wrote:Indeed. The LDs are supposed to have missile tubes sized to launch grazer torpedoes, which are significantly too large to fit on a normal capital ship.

As well as at least one pod core.

We are talking LAC sized weapons. Our guess was 12-30 MT.

Do we need to call them Monitors, for the next level above superdreadnought?

Maldorian wrote:

But they hadn't built spider-driven ships before the Sharks. They were the first to reach BB or DN size and they needed lots of prototypes before they were confident to scale up to SD size. Then you build one or two and test the hell out of them before building more. See also Fox2!'s reply above.

Who said that the Leonard Detweiler class has Superdreadnought size?

The Wedge limits the size of ships, the Leonard Detweilers don´t have wedges. They could have the size of a Fortress.

The actual size matters little to the conclusion. If it's larger and different than a Shark, they need prototypes.

In fact, the bigger they are, the more likely it is that they have longer lead times, since no one has built anything bigger than 9 million tons.

Also, I have to wonder on the risk represented by not having a wedge for defence. A huge 12 million ton ship, even if 2/3 of it is armour, is very vulnerable to a wedge. There's no known way to penetrate them and no known way to stop them, aside from another, more powerful wedge. The armour may stop lasers and grasers, but wouldn't stop the wedge. A missile that managed an actual collision could slice the ship in two.

And the spider drive is much slower than wedges, no more than 200 gravities. If an LD lost its stealth, even partially (say, prior damage causing radiation leak), an attacking force could close in to a million km and fire a round of missiles, sufficient to saturate the point defence, which would guarantee a kill.

Then again, any damaged ship is vulnerable to such an attack. That probably means the LDs are not meant to operate independently any more than an SD or a DN is. They're escorted and working in divisions and squadrons.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
I never meant that they were few. I meant they are building them slowly, which is why it could still take decades for those ships to go out to the galaxy at large.

If they had an unknown but presumably large number under construction right after OB how long would they need to finish them? If it takes decades for them to finish the ships under construction they may want to start working on their terms of surrender. Even if they had 30,40 or 50 under construction I imagine that as soon as they are finished and properly manned and worked up they would be going out and being let loose. The last thing I want is to build this magnificent fleet that takes me 20-30 years to build only to realize that the design isn't as good as I though. They will have an unknown # of Leonard Detweiler class SD(P)'s and 28 Shark Class BB's and they can start launching attacks on the GA to build combat experience and verify that their equipment and doctrine actually work.

They couldn't be building big ships for the RF because those ships are out in the public eye. Someone would be asking where the Republic of Mannerheim or one of the others is getting wallers from. The MAlign does not control the entire RF Navy personnel, only top commanders and flag officers. Low-level officers and enlisted would know all the details they crawl under and the distinctiveness of each yard could be eventually detected. Then the GA and SL intelligence services would know that the RF is using ships built by an unknown yard.

We don't know much about the RF, and we don't know how visible their fleet is. For all we know they have 12 members with 12 very visible navies and a secret combined fleet of unknown size and capabilities. If everything was going according to plan no one who could do much about it would have been around to ask any uncomfortable questions. One of the things that we know about the RF is that it was guarding the other end of the Torch WH, so it would have to be with ships that have fully reliable crews and wont be missed. After all if your navy has 24 SD's/DN's and at anyone time 1/3 to 1/4 of them is unaccounted for someone might ask questions.

They definitely were building smaller ships for the MAN. The keyword here is "smaller": nothing bigger than a BC. You're completely right that they were getting the experience at shipbuilding and for that you have to start from the bottom. It's even possible that they built a few conventional DNs or SDs, just to see if they could, but those ships are likely scrapped by now.

Unless they are using some for Darius Defence. Granted the defence of Darius depends on secrecy but I would still want some warships to back up whatever fixed defences I have even if they aren't front line.

So this is why I mean those yards can't have capacity for 100 SD-sized ships in parallel right now: they can't be building 100 Lenny Dets in parallel and no one puts that much capital into a yard until there's need. But if they foresee the need, those yards are being themselves built.

What if they have been building SD's for the MAN for the last 100 years or so? Started with a couple per years and within the last 30-40 years scaled up to 50-60 per year and now they take all of this already established shipyard capacity and turn out Leonard Detweiler class ships. You don't get trained crews for the Shark Class out of a cereal box and at the same time you want some sort of defence even for a system that no one knows about, I mean do you want the one system that the entire MA plan rests on being able to be taken out by a single pirate ship?


My point is that they have known for 600 years their end goal, unless they are complete idiots they would have started building up their capacity and experience for a few decades before they actually thought they needed to start so they can have the ability to pump out hundreds of capital ships/year when it hits the fan rather than start building their capabilities in the last years before kicking off your plan. Same would go for a navy, building a navy from scratch in a 10-20 years seems like a bad plan if you want a competent navy. The RMN has hundreds of years of experience, their training and institutional experience allows them to be flexible. MAN could have been getting their manpower from the RF but that carries its own risk if people have to permanently disappear, even if the chance is small it still is there.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
The actual size matters little to the conclusion. If it's larger and different than a Shark, they need prototypes.

In fact, the bigger they are, the more likely it is that they have longer lead times, since no one has built anything bigger than 9 million tons.

Also, I have to wonder on the risk represented by not having a wedge for defence. A huge 12 million ton ship, even if 2/3 of it is armour, is very vulnerable to a wedge. There's no known way to penetrate them and no known way to stop them, aside from another, more powerful wedge. The armour may stop lasers and grasers, but wouldn't stop the wedge. A missile that managed an actual collision could slice the ship in two.

And the spider drive is much slower than wedges, no more than 200 gravities. If an LD lost its stealth, even partially (say, prior damage causing radiation leak), an attacking force could close in to a million km and fire a round of missiles, sufficient to saturate the point defence, which would guarantee a kill.

Then again, any damaged ship is vulnerable to such an attack. That probably means the LDs are not meant to operate independently any more than an SD or a DN is. They're escorted and working in divisions and squadrons.

By your description if the GA finds a way to track then the MA's weapons and ships become ineffective?

Sigs wrote:By your description if the GA finds a way to track then the MA's weapons and ships become ineffective?

Maybe not ineffective, but severely compromised. The LDs are big and slow, and they've traded off the protection of the wedge, sidewalls, bowwalls and sternwalls for stealth. Maybe they can generate a bubble-wall as a defensive mechanism, but only after stealth is gone.

The moment that you're shooting missiles and torpedoes at one another, the SD(P)s and the MDMs gain advantage again.

Sigs wrote:If they had an unknown but presumably large number under construction right after OB how long would they need to finish them? If it takes decades for them to finish the ships under construction they may want to start working on their terms of surrender. Even if they had 30,40 or 50 under construction I imagine that as soon as they are finished and properly manned and worked up they would be going out and being let loose. The last thing I want is to build this magnificent fleet that takes me 20-30 years to build only to realize that the design isn't as good as I though. They will have an unknown # of Leonard Detweiler class SD(P)'s and 28 Shark Class BB's and they can start launching attacks on the GA to build combat experience and verify that their equipment and doctrine actually work.

My argument is that they didn't have a large number under construction during OB or shortly thereafter. The entire type and design was untested and the evidence for that is the Shark class itself. They wouldn't have any more than 3 hulls under construction at the time and the yard may have capacity for at most 10 at a time. So "how long would it take to finish" is a question that can't be answered, they have to start them first.

Remember that the plan itself had a timeline of decades. OB was anticipated by several years, maybe a decade. See the other thread on the plan being derailed: the idea would be that both SEM would cease to exist, Haven would have fought the SL until it lost the ability to fight, with the human settled space left in ruins. The plan was for the fleet only to be needed 15-20 years from now.

In any case, your argument is also why you don't build 50 untested units of a class at a time. You build a few to see how they fare, how they handle, how maintenance is done, then you iron out the kinks and build more.

Sigs wrote:We don't know much about the RF, and we don't know how visible their fleet is. For all we know they have 12 members with 12 very visible navies and a secret combined fleet of unknown size and capabilities. If everything was going according to plan no one who could do much about it would have been around to ask any uncomfortable questions. One of the things that we know about the RF is that it was guarding the other end of the Torch WH, so it would have to be with ships that have fully reliable crews and wont be missed. After all if your navy has 24 SD's/DN's and at anyone time 1/3 to 1/4 of them is unaccounted for someone might ask questions.

We know enough about the RF, including that they had two very visible Solarian League members: Mannerheim and Visigoth. Mannerheim was one of the league members to have an unusually large navy. Even the SLN and the Mandarins knew about this, so Mannerheim showing up with ships that couldn't be accounted for would raise a lot of suspicions.

I'm also making a distinction between the MAN and the RFN: the former is a secret navy, the latter is quite visible. There may be some cross-training between the two, with good and trusted officers from the RFN helping train the MAN and create the doctrine for the LDs. But it can't be widespread.

As for Mannerheim destroying the HMS Haverst Joy at the Twins, that was a squadron of BCs. The commanding officers and crew knew why, but I doubt the impeller techs on third shift knew. They know that they are protecting a wormhole that is a secret but think it's an economic reason.

Sigs wrote:What if they have been building SD's for the MAN for the last 100 years or so? Started with a couple per years and within the last 30-40 years scaled up to 50-60 per year and now they take all of this already established shipyard capacity and turn out Leonard Detweiler class ships. You don't get trained crews for the Shark Class out of a cereal box and at the same time you want some sort of defence even for a system that no one knows about, I mean do you want the one system that the entire MA plan rests on being able to be taken out by a single pirate ship?

They may have built conventional SDs, but they can't have a lot of them. First, there was no need to have more than maybe a squadron. Second, we know that the MAN itself was a relatively new navy, so they can't have been building for centuries and can't have got the pace to build 50 per year. Third, we think the Lenny Dets are much bigger than SDs, so the slips need to be expanded. Fourth, their design is also radically different, so the yard needs to be retooled from building SDs.

Having a defence makes sense. But I don't see the need for investing in more than a squadron of SDs.

Sigs wrote:My point is that they have known for 600 years their end goal, unless they are complete idiots they would have started building up their capacity and experience for a few decades before they actually thought they needed to start so they can have the ability to pump out hundreds of capital ships/year when it hits the fan rather than start building their capabilities in the last years before kicking off your plan. Same would go for a navy, building a navy from scratch in a 10-20 years seems like a bad plan if you want a competent navy. The RMN has hundreds of years of experience, their training and institutional experience allows them to be flexible. MAN could have been getting their manpower from the RF but that carries its own risk if people have to permanently disappear, even if the chance is small it still is there.

Agreed: a few decades before they need them. My argument is that they were on timeline of the plan: they didn't expect the need for them for a couple more decades. They were preparing to be ready by the time they themselves threw the shit on the fan (they didn't want to be surprised). They'd have time to train their navy, which we see evidence of with the Sharks.

They couldn't have predicted the breakthrough in the spider drive, but it was timely, since they didn't have a fleet made obsolete by it. It gave them a tactical advantage that no one else has.

But the plan derailed. The human space is not in the state that they wanted it to be at this point in the Plan.