****A Call to Insurrection Spoiler****

Brigade XO wrote:The inpeller and other hyper capable ship building capability is a chicken/egg discussion. If you can profitably build starships for export and for domestic use, you can use one variant of that ability to build your own warships.

Not exactly.

You need the seed capital to build the industry and you must have a business case for breaking even on your initial investment. That's not chicken-and-the-egg because Manticore has the funds. The only question is whether they have enough of a market to break even and become profitable.

That said, there are now three people in the Kingdom that think they know why the Volsung attack happened. Given the incredible value of the Junction, they'll have to justify somehow getting more warships for the RMN. Will they bring the new Exchequer into their confidence?

Good points all...

If you were going to use q ships, you would let have to figure out ways of deploying them that minimized their weaknesses , perhaps flanking attacks on warships already focused on the main navy... I don't know.

I wonder if the Sollies are still coming up with the navy in a box concept for systems who can afford to pay. I think that's how Manticore got it's first navy. If you believe you have a wormhole to protect, that could be a good investment.

Don

-

The Exchequer is probably going to be brought into the conversation. There is a practical limit to how many credits the Monarchy can funnel into the Navy. There is also the matter of flowing the funds through "military expenditures", how much could be couched in economic development terms and probably how much can be wrangled in public/private investment for industrial development. But keeping the Exchequer in some sort of blind is asking for trouble unless you have someone like Breakwater who has to have all of the glory and power- in which case things have gone back into the crapper with someone who is trying to direct the government.

The most potentially workable scheme is to support the Economic Development in terms of the creation of an industrial base that will produce parts and equipment to service and repair Starships - initially merchant shipping- but at the same time can produce parts and equipment for the existing military Starships (and even MPARS). Keep the money at home, make your own stuff and draw back from the dependence on out-system manufacture.
You are also going to have to have exports from Manticore to at least partially fill the hulls of it's own merchant shipping. The biggest step is breaking into the impeller and gravplate (and mil grade sensors) to start building your own ships from keel out. It is POSSIBLE that someone or some group on Manticore -in partnership with the government or with economic development funds- could license the nessisary tech and buy the initial manufacturing capability and leverage it up from there. Its probably easier than reverse engineering captured equipment but you also have to pay attention to what the terms are to keep the license from being a strangle hold. This also is one way of getting a base of people trained and experienced in the manufacturing you need.
We don't really yet have a handle on what Manticore exports. We know that there is the very start of a privately owned merchant marine but so far they have to buy (possibly only used so far) ships and don't seem to be manufacturing much in the way of Starship equipment or parts. There is at least some manufacturing for the in-system commerce for extraction and shipping materials and goods around without using hyperspace.

Brigade XO wrote:The biggest step is breaking into the impeller and gravplate (and mil grade sensors) to start building your own ships from keel out.

This just cause me to realize something I'd overlooked. The book described "The battleship’s spin section, which provided her crew with living space outside the microgravity of the rest of her hull". It had been long enough since I'd read the previous books that I didn't immediately twig to the fact that this means, in at least some ways, they're less advanced than Manticore's tricked out light cruiser HMS Casey. (Which had been fitted with grav plates, and hence did not require a spin section).

Also, given the IAN BB's launchers were described as "four twin-armed launchers forward" it doesn't sound like they've got the kind of soft launch system of Casey's railgun missile launchers.

Sure, sheer size, defenses, and toughness means any one of them could crush Casey. But it's interesting that the IAN's biggest, most prestigious units, seem to be somewhat behind the tech curve.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:The biggest step is breaking into the impeller and gravplate (and mil grade sensors) to start building your own ships from keel out.

This just cause me to realize something I'd overlooked. The book described "The battleship’s spin section, which provided her crew with living space outside the microgravity of the rest of her hull". It had been long enough since I'd read the previous books that I didn't immediately twig to the fact that this means, in at least some ways, they're less advanced than Manticore's tricked out light cruiser HMS Casey. (Which had been fitted with grav plates, and hence did not require a spin section).

Also, given the IAN BB's launchers were described as "four twin-armed launchers forward" it doesn't sound like they've got the kind of soft launch system of Casey's railgun missile launchers.

Sure, sheer size, defenses, and toughness means any one of them could crush Casey. But it's interesting that the IAN's biggest, most prestigious units, seem to be somewhat behind the tech curve.

The Andy battleships are most of 50 years old. Railgun launchers seem to be an innovation of the last 10 to 15 year or so.

Fox2! wrote:The Andy battleships are most of 50 years old. Railgun launchers seem to be an innovation of the last 10 to 15 year or so.

Same with grav plate decking. The first time we see them were on RHNS Saintonge, which we're also later told was the first of her class of BC, during ACTD at Secour. It had been mentioned that the Solarians were also experimenting with it, just like they had been with the dumbbell rotating section design, so it appears the Havenites ar the forefront of technology at this time.

It looks like the Andermani are going more for "tried and true" than cutting edge. Casey was refitted to show the cutting edge as much as possible to show that Manticore could do them.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Fox2! wrote:The Andy battleships are most of 50 years old. Railgun launchers seem to be an innovation of the last 10 to 15 year or so.

Same with grav plate decking. The first time we see them were on RHNS Saintonge, which we're also later told was the first of her class of BC, during ACTD at Secour. It had been mentioned that the Solarians were also experimenting with it, just like they had been with the dumbbell rotating section design, so it appears the Havenites ar the forefront of technology at this time.

It looks like the Andermani are going more for "tried and true" than cutting edge. Casey was refitted to show the cutting edge as much as possible to show that Manticore could do them.

In the original Tech background given to us, the grav plate was attributed to a someone on Beowulf and considerably after the time of ACtA - After we pointed this out, David said the Havenite grav plate technology was a primative, but technological dead-end tech that pre-dated the Beowulf tech, which is the predecessor of what is used "currently" in the Honorverse. Think of it as the spark lamp to the incandescent lamp, or the Edison Vacuum tube to the transistor.

We saw the Andermani interest in the Rail Gun launchers in A Call To Vengeance- when Casey used it's forward Rail Gun to send in the pair of missiles at the missile platforms defending the pirate station. No launch signature with the rail gun and the weapons are ballistic (and given when and what they were doing at the time) high speed and lit off at maximum thrust just as they came into active sensor range of the platforms- which was way too close to let the defenses try to engage them.

What the Andermani have- along with a lot more ships- is a lot more practical experience in organization and combat. They have a lot invested in existing equipment so things like continuing with the spin sections are going to be around until the ships age out. Retrofitting with grave plates might be an option but we have no idea what the long term planning is for the maintenance or replacements of ship. Same with launchers. Of course, changes in missile tech (including counter missiles) will drive that BUT if it's a question of local system defense (more in the line of keeping a lid on opposition on acquired systems) then the older equipment can do the job quite nicely, leaving any new builds to act as flying squad or fire brigade. The newer ships would also be doing things like anti-piracy and general patrol & "diplomatic" work.

Just having Travis and the other officers (and enlisted) watching the Andermain operations -including processing the captured mercenaries and system rebel forces would have opened up all sorts of lines of thinking for having standardized procedures and processes. What did they do and why and how. Having such stuff set up both avoids problems, makes sure you don't forget important stuff and keeps records at the same time. Travis also got in-depth experience of troubleshooting a battleship from a damage control perspective which also gave him practical look at how systems were laid out and controls. Both he and Lisa got practical observations of tactics and procedures. I'm sure the Captain of the diplomatic ship also got an eyeful of what and how the Andy's were doing things. All of this feeds into after-action reports to extract data and understanding tactics- both from the perspective of the Andermani and of the mercenaries.

Some parts of the RMN know they need to learn a lot more and borrow both existing procedures and, more importantly, develop a mindset of actively looking for ways to improve tactics and equipment.

Brigade XO wrote:We saw the Andermani interest in the Rail Gun launchers in A Call To Vengeance- when Casey used it's forward Rail Gun to send in the pair of missiles at the missile platforms defending the pirate station. No launch signature with the rail gun and the weapons are ballistic (and given when and what they were doing at the time) high speed and lit off at maximum thrust just as they came into active sensor range of the platforms- which was way too close to let the defenses try to engage them.

What the Andermani have- along with a lot more ships- is a lot more practical experience in organization and combat. They have a lot invested in existing equipment so things like continuing with the spin sections are going to be around until the ships age out. Retrofitting with grave plates might be an option but we have no idea what the long term planning is for the maintenance or replacements of ship. Same with launchers. Of course, changes in missile tech (including counter missiles) will drive that BUT if it's a question of local system defense (more in the line of keeping a lid on opposition on acquired systems) then the older equipment can do the job quite nicely, leaving any new builds to act as flying squad or fire brigade. The newer ships would also be doing things like anti-piracy and general patrol & "diplomatic" work.

Of course the IAN just got a bunch of it's BBs pretty trashed, not to mention its lighter units that'll need to be replaced.

So it's possible that they end up modernizing the battleships during the rebuild; to the extend of building in railgun launchers, even if the current grav plates are maybe not actually worth their tradeoffs. (Kind of like how significantly the damaged US BBs were updated during their post Pearl Harbor repairs)

And the IAN might have already had plans on the drawing board, or at least getting kicked around, for updated classes of light units.

So once they're able to rebuilt their strength from the insurrection they may well be a more technologically advanced force. (In addition to all the advantages you rightly pointed out)

Theemile wrote:In the original Tech background given to us, the grav plate was attributed to a someone on Beowulf and considerably after the time of ACtA - After we pointed this out, David said the Havenite grav plate technology was a primative, but technological dead-end tech that pre-dated the Beowulf tech, which is the predecessor of what is used "currently" in the Honorverse. Think of it as the spark lamp to the incandescent lamp, or the Edison Vacuum tube to the transistor.

That might also explain why on the Saintonge and on Casey only the hab sections are outfitted with grav plates, with the rest of the ship (including the bridge) still in zero g.