Solly Fleet Advancements

kzt wrote:

SWM wrote:They can simply pump out more of their current destroyers to meet the needs you outline.

Well, they could, if they have all the long lead-time parts already and the few yards that build them are able to expand in some way.

If the SLN tried to build smaller ships, they would have to design them, work out the best way of building them, calculate the required resource flows (what, where and when) and train their builders to work to the new blueprints rather than the ones they already know how to follow.

In other words, building a smaller ship will take longer than the models they already have, at least for the first flight or two.

The Manties knew this when they were discussing the possibility of building DN(P)s and concluded that the first few iterations would take longer to build than simply repeating SD(P)s, with the end result being less combat capable anyway.

Smaller destroyers ain't gonna happen.

My guess is that if you need lots of new ships fast they will look a whole lot like freighters. Yes, there are lots of obvious issues, but that's where you can get mass production.

Once you build new yards you can build less sucky ships.

SWM wrote:Alizon, the size of ship necessary to do what you are talking about is what is called in the Honorverse a destroyer. And all that the rest of us have been saying is that it would have to be a destroyer, not a frigate. If you are not in fact arguing that it is a frigate, then we are all agreed, and can stop any further mention of frigates.

Solarian destroyers are already on the small end. So there is no point in the League trying to produce a new smaller destroyer. They can simply pump out more of their current destroyers to meet the needs you outline.

I think the only immediate solution is to ramp up to the extent possible the construction of your current DD design.

However, full up fleet DD designs are going to have capabilities you don't need for the internal security mission so relying on this method has it's drawbacks and you may simply not be able to build enough of them to meet the need.

If this ends up being the best solution for the long term then you really have no choice, but I see two alternative approaches that may result in a better solution in the intermediate term.

The first option would be to take an existing DD design, possibly a smaller earlier version of the current fleet DD design, and strip from it all the front line systems that you don't need for the mission and replace them with off the shelf systems where possible or at a minimum less expensive alternatives. The idea here being not to create the best combat vessel possible but to create an adequate one.

The vessel should borrow as heavily as possible from commercial construction techniques to speed construction and reduce cost. It's possible that the drive nodes could be replaced with somewhat less powerful variants and you might be able to install a commercial hyper-generator as well.

This wouldn't result in a Frigate but it would produce a reduced capability DD which has the capabilities needed for it's mission but which costs less to build and can be built more rapidly and hopefully in more places than the current fleet DD designs in production.

In this the modern day comparison between an Arliegh Burke DD and a Perry class FG is probably a good example.

The other way to approach this is from the bottom up. Find an existing commercial design that's suitable to be upgraded with adequate systems to fullfill the same role.

The actual size of the vessel would be determined by the existing design it is based off of and whether that design is large enough to support the capability of it's mission. I suspect vessels that would meet the requirement would fall into the conventional DD range but it's not really the size that's important, it's the capabilities and the cost/speed of production that important.

kzt wrote:Low volume specialty ships do not appear suitable for this purpose. They have the exact same problem as SLN SDs, in that they are rarely built, and then only by a small number of yards with special skills and equipment. You really need your base ship to be widely built.

Well, I wouldn't say that these would be low volume ships, nor am I necessarily speaking about custom designs which use their own special parts and systems.

I think there is plenty of room for there to be lots of these kinds of vessels in existence, almost all of which will have the virtue of being built with off the shelf common commercial parts and being built in commercial shipyards. Some of the systems such as drive nodes and compensators will be less common than the parts used in bulk carriers since the one's we are looking for need to be fast but still probably fairly easy to obtain and also probably at a fraction of the cost of a military grade system.

Michael Everett wrote:If the SLN tried to build smaller ships, they would have to design them, work out the best way of building them, calculate the required resource flows (what, where and when) and train their builders to work to the new blueprints rather than the ones they already know how to follow.

In other words, building a smaller ship will take longer than the models they already have, at least for the first flight or two.

The Manties knew this when they were discussing the possibility of building DN(P)s and concluded that the first few iterations would take longer to build than simply repeating SD(P)s, with the end result being less combat capable anyway.

Smaller destroyers ain't gonna happen.

Actually this is not a good example.

The example you are citing relates to what happens when you try to design a completely new type of vessel. While the RMN does have designs for DN's and could probably have put those designs into production fairly easily, no-one had ever designed or built a DN(P) before which means you're starting from square one.

Also the direction of the question is misleading. In this case it was about whether you could replace current production of SD's with DN's and reduce current construction times. Obviously since no DN(P) design had even been contemplated, the answer was no, that wasn't going to work.

The question being asked here is can a smaller DD design be found which can be used for a reduced threat mission which is both easier to build and cheaper than current production designs.

The answer to that is yes. The SLN probably has designs for lots of smaller warships on file, some of which are probably no longer in production or are stripped down designs built for client states. In the Leagues case, if you want a smaller DD, you dust off the plans for one that fits the bill, and most of your design work is now completed. All you need to do is modify what you already have and update it to accommodate the systems you now need.

Chances are much of the production process is automated but since the design is likely one that people have seen before, the startup build delays are likely to be minimized so the lag time you that was noted in the discussion of a new Manticorian DN(P) is likely not to be much of a factor in this case.

Alizon wrote:

SWM wrote:Alizon, the size of ship necessary to do what you are talking about is what is called in the Honorverse a destroyer. And all that the rest of us have been saying is that it would have to be a destroyer, not a frigate. If you are not in fact arguing that it is a frigate, then we are all agreed, and can stop any further mention of frigates.

Solarian destroyers are already on the small end. So there is no point in the League trying to produce a new smaller destroyer. They can simply pump out more of their current destroyers to meet the needs you outline.

I think the only immediate solution is to ramp up to the extent possible the construction of your current DD design.

However, full up fleet DD designs are going to have capabilities you don't need for the internal security mission so relying on this method has it's drawbacks and you may simply not be able to build enough of them to meet the need.

If this ends up being the best solution for the long term then you really have no choice, but I see two alternative approaches that may result in a better solution in the intermediate term.

The first option would be to take an existing DD design, possibly a smaller earlier version of the current fleet DD design, and strip from it all the front line systems that you don't need for the mission and replace them with off the shelf systems where possible or at a minimum less expensive alternatives. The idea here being not to create the best combat vessel possible but to create an adequate one.

The vessel should borrow as heavily as possible from commercial construction techniques to speed construction and reduce cost. It's possible that the drive nodes could be replaced with somewhat less powerful variants and you might be able to install a commercial hyper-generator as well.

This wouldn't result in a Frigate but it would produce a reduced capability DD which has the capabilities needed for it's mission but which costs less to build and can be built more rapidly and hopefully in more places than the current fleet DD designs in production.

In this the modern day comparison between an Arliegh Burke DD and a Perry class FG is probably a good example.

The other way to approach this is from the bottom up. Find an existing commercial design that's suitable to be upgraded with adequate systems to fullfill the same role.

The actual size of the vessel would be determined by the existing design it is based off of and whether that design is large enough to support the capability of it's mission. I suspect vessels that would meet the requirement would fall into the conventional DD range but it's not really the size that's important, it's the capabilities and the cost/speed of production that important.

Alizon, for the last time: a destroyer is the smallest possible design for the missions you are proposing. A destroyer will not have "capabilities you don't need" because these are exactly the missions they were designed for. If it is smaller than a destroyer, then it is a frigate, and a frigate is too small for these missions. You just can't squeeze the necessary capabilities into anything smaller unless you have Manticoran technology and are facing pre-Manticoran enemies.

You are trying to compare the situation to wet-navy ships. But the situation is not the same. There are no destroyer-escorts in the Honorverse; ships of the size you are talking about are called destroyers. And the existing Solaran destroyer designs are just fine for those missions. There is NO NEED for a new Solarian design for these missions. They are already about as small as they can be to do what you want them to do.

SWM wrote:Alizon, for the last time: a destroyer is the smallest possible design for the missions you are proposing. A destroyer will not have "capabilities you don't need" because these are exactly the missions they were designed for. If it is smaller than a destroyer, then it is a frigate, and a frigate is too small for these missions. You just can't squeeze the necessary capabilities into anything smaller unless you have Manticoran technology and are facing pre-Manticoran enemies.

You are trying to compare the situation to wet-navy ships. But the situation is not the same. There are no destroyer-escorts in the Honorverse; ships of the size you are talking about are called destroyers. And the existing Solaran destroyer designs are just fine for those missions. There is NO NEED for a new Solarian design for these missions. They are already about as small as they can be to do what you want them to do.

Ok SWM let's try this again.

Fact #1. I am not advocating for a vessel which matches the size of a traditional frigate. I have repeatedly stated that although I haven't ruled out the possibility that such a vessel could be smaller than a DD, I see it as far more likely that the resulting vessel would be in the DD size range.

Fact #2: Destroyers are not specifically designed for the internal security role. They are designed for combat and are equipped with all of the systems needed to be the best warships of their size, capable of and intended to engage similar enemy vessels. DD's can act in the Internal Security role but the systems needed to combat enemy warships are serious overkill when doing the Honorverse equivalent of picking up Cubans trying to float to Florida in rubber dingy's or dealing with pirates in a rowboat with a machine gun.

As a matter of fact, they're overkill for pretty much anything less than taking on real enemy warships.

Fact #3: Navies have always used lesser vessels for these types of missions. The US has them and they are called the Cutters of the US Coast Guard. The Coast Guard does not use Destroyers for this task specifically because of the reasons I've just stated. Specifically, Destroyers have capabilities which are largely wasted on an internal security mission and those additional capabilities are EXPENSIVE. Putting those capabilities in to even a High Endurance Cutter would largely be a waste of money and resources.

Fact #4: Lesser vessels do not necessarily mean smaller vessels though that sometimes is the case. If you cared to read my post you would have noted that the case was being made for reduced capability combatants which lack the sophisticated systems needed from front line combat but which were cheaper and easier to build than the latest top of the line DD design. The idea was to base this design on either a smaller SLN DD design or a similarly sized fast commercial vessel.

In this the proposal parallels the concepts demonstrated by the Arliegh Burke DD's and the Perry class FG's. One was designed from the start to be the best warship that could be built in it's class and represents the High portion of the High/Low concept. The other was specifically built to have just enough capability to do it's particular task and designed with a heavy lean towards cost effectiveness, reduced construction times and resources representing the Low portion of the concept.

The fact that pretty much every significant Navy on the planet approaches pretty much the same problem in the same way should provide some evidence that others think it's a valid concept as well.

There is nothing magical about the Honorverse that makes this concept invalid.

Fact #5) Yes the League has a HUGE need for some kind of vessel to fill this role. It has a VAST area or space that requires vessels in the Internal Security role and it's sending most of the vessels previously available for that duty off to perform their primary designed function leaving a MASSIVE gap in the IS requirements of the League.

If you can build enough top of the line Fleet Destroyers that you miraculously don't need for actually performing their designed function that's great, and if you believe you can pull that off, I have some great beachfront property in Arizona you might be interested in.

However chances are that it took a lot of years to build the ships that aren't available to you anymore and it's also highly likely that you can neither afford nor have the time to build as many as you're going to need anytime soon, which is really unfortunate since if you can't figure out how to get them in the moderately near future, you're not going to have a League to perform internal security for.

Since you probably can't build enough of the High portion of the formula, you probably are going to need to consider what the Low part of that structure might be, because if there is an answer, that's probably where you are going to find it.

You are making the assumption that these "less capable DDs" are cheaper and easier to build than the full up fleet DDs. This isn't something we can be sure about, and in any case, building fleets worth of ships that you can't use against your biggest threats strikes me as a particularly unwise decision. Current SLN designs are inadequate for the missions they're tasked to perform in any theater where GA vessels might operate, introducing a new class that's even worse at its job just to free up the marginally more usable ships in your inventory is folly.

All the design time you spend on making these things work is better spent revising current designs to make them more capable, or designing more capable vessels from scratch. Right now, the SLN is not in a situation where they can rob Peter to pay Paul, they need to outfit Paul with the best armor and weapons available just so that he won't immediately die when asked to assault a machine gun position.

The E wrote:Current SLN designs are inadequate for the missions they're tasked to perform in any theater where GA vessels might operate, introducing a new class that's even worse at its job just to free up the marginally more usable ships in your inventory is folly.

In fact, I think the SLN should be building replacements for their War Harvest-class and Rampart-class DDs so those can be cycled back for internal security duty; where a DD is sufficent for that job. Haven used BBs for "internal security" and Manticore used Cruisers (CLs and CAs); DDs may not offer sufficient fire-power.

I'm not sure which is the current design, although the War Harvests are cited as the most numerous and the Ramparts as the most refitted by Frontier Fleet. I'm not sure which DD the yards are currently tooled and supplied for, but the War Harvest looks to be the better starting point from the little I can gather about them.

Take whichever design is current, design a fuselage plug to extend the length without changing any of the existing design; fill the plug with additional fire control links and AMS launchers/clusters. Turn out as many AMS ships as possible and rotate whichever design is used back for modification and send the other to internal security patrols.

In a navy where there are thousands of 8 million ton superdreadnoughts floating around, the cost of your cheap ships is going to end up as a drop in the ocean. The lifetime costs of the vessel is going to be the same as a fleet destroyer because they still have the same crew in the same proportions of specialties, meaning the same personnel costs; and all the big ticket items like the drive and compensator are going to have the same maintenance and upkeep costs. Procurement and construction costs are a rounding error when compared to superdreadnoughts or even battlecruisers. There is no reason to trade a massive amount of capability away if it does not buy anything in return, especially in the midst of a shooting war. It would be one thing to do so if you could churn out a significant difference in numbers, such as the Sherman tanks of WWII, but that is not the case here.