Theemile wrote:Maybe not SD(p)s, They were only conceived in ~1910, and first fielded in ~1913, so no one would have been building one prior to that. Darius, knowing they would be building Spider drive ships (or knowing that the spider drive was nearing a usable form) probably did not build (or complete building) wedge SD(p)s, instead building the 27 Sharks. BB/DN sized warships still take 24-40 months to complete, so having 8-10 years to build them isn't inconceivable.
So I'd agree that Darius probably has some SDs, I doubt they built many (or any) wedge SD(p)s.
I think they did build some. My guess is that the spider drive didn't conclude prototype phase until sometime in 1915-1917. That's when the Ghosts were built, then the Sharks upscaling that. The LDs as capital ships weren't laid down until after the Sharks had proven the concept, starting at earliest in 1920. That's a lot of time to wait until beginning to build your own SD(P)s. It's also risky, because until the Sharks had proven the concept, it would be a throw of the dice to conclude they would replace the SD(P)s as a whole. So building some makes sense.
In fact, I'd go as far as saying that a spider-only fleet is not a good force mix and therefore the MAN should have built and should still be building SD(P)s. However, I don't put my money on any bets here, as I've argued in the "When you're a hammer" thread: the MAlign may be too enamoured of the spider concept that they it see as a solution to everything, to the detriment of a balanced force mix.