Wormhole Assault: MA Style

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:If standard naval ratings can do that with whatever facilities are aboard a Roland, then you could easily fit 8-12 Marines aboard a Roland for the length of a cruise.

We should also point out that a destroyer type isn't designed for long cruises, otherwise they'd be designated light cruisers (the Rolands are more massive than the Avalons). So what you're saying that the facilities are sufficient for a short cruise is probably true.

Off-hand, I would say Spindle and Silesia are the only two RMN postings left for forward-deploying Marines, just in case your Rolands need to load up. And in both cases, that's only going to last until the locals can be trained up enough to do a similar, but scaled back job. The Talbotters already decided they're focus primarily on Army, but for what Roland's occasionally need that's good enough, particularly if they obtain some suggestions from Grayson or Haven, both of whom use Army as Marines who do not perform naval duties in addition to marine/army ones.

They may negotiate Marine basing rights on Meyers for example, on double duty as a forward operating base and training the locals.

The long cruise issue was true prior to 1900, when Frigates still had that job. Now, it's less so - see the # of DDs deployed to Silesia prior to the annexation.

Theemile wrote:The long cruise issue was true prior to 1900, when Frigates still had that job. Now, it's less so - see the # of DDs deployed to Silesia prior to the annexation.

But Silesia had basing rights, so the destroyers were never more than a week or two away from resupply. When they were in convoy escort duty, they would also expect to return to Manticore via either terminus of the MWHJ inside of a month or so.

Contrast that to the minimum viable combatant in the post-war period that is expected to be a 300k-tonne light cruiser.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Theemile wrote:The long cruise issue was true prior to 1900, when Frigates still had that job. Now, it's less so - see the # of DDs deployed to Silesia prior to the annexation.

But Silesia had basing rights, so the destroyers were never more than a week or two away from resupply. When they were in convoy escort duty, they would also expect to return to Manticore via either terminus of the MWHJ inside of a month or so.

Contrast that to the minimum viable combatant in the post-war period that is expected to be a 300k-tonne light cruiser.

That size is to mount the weapons, defenses, electronic warfare, etc. systems; not just to gain enough patrol endurance.


The real triangle tradeoff between range, firepower, and cost that gave you the frigate, destroyer, and light cruiser was back when ship sizes were ~55k ton frigate, ~65k ton destroyer, and ~85k ton light cruiser. But by 1905 the minimum viable size for a destroyer was ~88k tons - the hull size you needed for the weapons fit gave you, through the square-cube law, plenty of volume for store to give your basic destroyer a fair fraction of the endurance of an older CL.

Jonathan_S wrote:The real triangle tradeoff between range, firepower, and cost that gave you the frigate, destroyer, and light cruiser was back when ship sizes were ~55k ton frigate, ~65k ton destroyer, and ~85k ton light cruiser. But by 1905 the minimum viable size for a destroyer was ~88k tons - the hull size you needed for the weapons fit gave you, through the square-cube law, plenty of volume for store to give your basic destroyer a fair fraction of the endurance of an older CL.

True, but the RMN classifies their ship types given their roles. I do believe a Roland could sustain a long patrol to match that of other navies' light-cruisers, especially with a crew of only 62. But that's not what they were designed for and probably not what they're provisioned for either.

Jonathan_S wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
But Silesia had basing rights, so the destroyers were never more than a week or two away from resupply. When they were in convoy escort duty, they would also expect to return to Manticore via either terminus of the MWHJ inside of a month or so.

Contrast that to the minimum viable combatant in the post-war period that is expected to be a 300k-tonne light cruiser.

That size is to mount the weapons, defenses, electronic warfare, etc. systems; not just to gain enough patrol endurance.


The real triangle tradeoff between range, firepower, and cost that gave you the frigate, destroyer, and light cruiser was back when ship sizes were ~55k ton frigate, ~65k ton destroyer, and ~85k ton light cruiser. But by 1905 the minimum viable size for a destroyer was ~88k tons - the hull size you needed for the weapons fit gave you, through the square-cube law, plenty of volume for store to give your basic destroyer a fair fraction of the endurance of an older CL.

Actually the notional minimum combatant was mainly being driven by MDMs and MDM launchers. The 300K ton hull was the smallest which could fit MDMs in it's broadsides (picture a shorter version of the Sag-C, with similiar draught and beam.)

As Jonathan pointed out the classic light unit firepower triad had been circumvented by unit size creep by 1905.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
True, but the RMN classifies their ship types given their roles. I do believe a Roland could sustain a long patrol to match that of other navies' light-cruisers, especially with a crew of only 62. But that's not what they were designed for and probably not what they're provisioned for either.

I know where they could put some extra freezers and bags of flour.

Theemile wrote:

cthia wrote:
Rank: What rank is in command of an LD? An LD is equivalent to a flagship in a GA navy. Flagships are commanded by Admirals. Is that …

Admirals that are Alphas or Alphas that are Admirals.

LDs are just capital ships. If they follow the pattern of every other major navy, they are be captained (role) by a senior rate Captain (rank).

And if you argue about Flagships having admirals - Flagships are commanded by Captains (role) - Capital ships are usually commanded by a senior rate Captain (rank). Admirals lead formations, and their office is on a Flagship if they go to space. If the Captain (role) is commanding a Flagship, he may referred to as having the role of a Flag Captain, but his rank will be that of Captain (or whatever rank he holds for the ship size).

So what purpose does that leave for an admiral in the MAN?

On top of that, I can't see how any Navy would attempt to carry out an operation on the level of Raging Justice or BoM without an admiral in command. Again, either a MAN admiral will fly his flag on a purpose built Spider, or Spiders will hunt in conjunction with wedge-based ships.

Strategy & Tactics

The bowshock might not be a problem for the MAN if the GA is not at battle stations, like during peacetime when the MBS is the system being attacked.

cthia wrote:Strategy & Tactics

The bowshock might not be a problem for the MAN if the GA is not at battle stations, like during peacetime when the MBS is the system being attacked.

That depends on how far from attack that bowshock is detected. Even a peace time Navy can go to battlestations and raise interposing wedges (if they're on standby) in a few minutes.

BTW, attacking the MBS reminds me to compare the performance of the Oyster Bay weapons to the Hastas at Galton: in one of those, no bowshocks were detected. So either they were at such lower speeds that their bowshocks weren't detectable or the technology was meaningfully different to permit that. I think it's the former: the torpedoes and missile pods were sufficiently slowed to not show up in sensors.

But if it is the latter, then it's yet another point where Galton didn't have the technology that was used to attack the MBS and Grayson.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:Strategy & Tactics

The bowshock might not be a problem for the MAN if the GA is not at battle stations, like during peacetime when the MBS is the system being attacked.

That depends on how far from attack that bowshock is detected. Even a peace time Navy can go to battlestations and raise interposing wedges (if they're on standby) in a few minutes.

BTW, attacking the MBS reminds me to compare the performance of the Oyster Bay weapons to the Hastas at Galton: in one of those, no bowshocks were detected. So either they were at such lower speeds that their bowshocks weren't detectable or the technology was meaningfully different to permit that. I think it's the former: the torpedoes and missile pods were sufficiently slowed to not show up in sensors.

But if it is the latter, then it's yet another point where Galton didn't have the technology that was used to attack the MBS and Grayson.

That is not what I meant. I am positing that during peacetime only passive scans are being carried out. I don't think passive scans will detect a bowshock at all. I am talking about Oyster-Bay-like results.