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SPOILER SEASON IS OVER FOR TEiF!!!

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Re: SPOILER SEASON IS OVER FOR TEiF!!!
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Mon Nov 29, 2021 1:05 pm

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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.
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Re: SPOILER SEASON IS OVER FOR TEiF!!!
Post by Jonathan_S   » Mon Nov 29, 2021 1:27 pm

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cthia wrote:But, Galton is like radio-free Europe. They are force-fed crap. Galton does not know how Oyster Bay was carried out. Although, it can be argued that they may not even be aware of Oyster Bay. At any rate, they could have been lied to about a need for warships for fake purposes. Like Oyster Bay. I got the feeling that all of the senior leadership at Galton were of the Darius persuasion. Need to know. Missions of the utmost concern.

Yes Galton was wrong about how they thought Oyster Bay was carried out. Big celebration that it was, but they thought it was done using the stuff they'd built and knew about; but it wasn't.

OTOH that's a lot easier to deceive them about than it would be about the origin of dozens of SDs.
Or rather, it might be quite easy to lie to Galton about where they came from; but that lie would be trivially exposed the moment anybody from outside got a look at those records. So So I agree with ThinksMarkedly that it'd be a nearly unmistakable sign that Galton wasn't the head of the MAlign snake and that there was a "Bolthole" yard that even Galton didn't know about.

And since they wanted Galton, in the worst case, to be sacrificed to convince attackers that it was the top (and the attacker's job was done) leaving such a huge clue around would be idiotic. Just have Galton use its yards and the vast mineral wealth of its belts to build its navy itself. Then there's no giant flashing clue that it's got hidden outside support.
Last edited by Jonathan_S on Mon Nov 29, 2021 2:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: SPOILER SEASON IS OVER FOR TEiF!!!
Post by Theemile   » Mon Nov 29, 2021 1:44 pm

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:
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.


A spider only fleet is a horrible idea, as many of us have been saying. Like Submarines, the spider drive has strengths... and weaknesses over other ships. Cruiser submarines were cast aside after a couple iterations, as countries learned that traditional ships could do those roles, cheaper and better than the sub variant, which could never hope to stand up to a 1:1 dual with a surface ship of the same tonnage. (and as a sub, they could do little better than a standard design 1/2 the size).

It reminds me of the all in one wet navy "Battlecarrier" that 12 years old are enthralled with and designers revisit every few years. But they always get something larger than either, with less then half whatever capability they were looking for in a traditional vessel.

We don't know how they are going to be used, but in most senarios we've seen, Wedge ships would be required as beaters or pawns for Spider set traps.

But do they see that?

So possibly?
******
RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
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Re: SPOILER SEASON IS OVER FOR TEiF!!!
Post by cthia   » Mon Nov 29, 2021 3:20 pm

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:
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.


Theemile wrote:A spider only fleet is a horrible idea, as many of us have been saying. Like Submarines, the spider drive has strengths... and weaknesses over other ships. Cruiser submarines were cast aside after a couple iterations, as countries learned that traditional ships could do those roles, cheaper and better than the sub variant, which could never hope to stand up to a 1:1 dual with a surface ship of the same tonnage. (and as a sub, they could do little better than a standard design 1/2 the size).

It reminds me of the all in one wet navy "Battlecarrier" that 12 years old are enthralled with and designers revisit every few years. But they always get something larger than either, with less then half whatever capability they were looking for in a traditional vessel.

We don't know how they are going to be used, but in most senarios we've seen, Wedge ships would be required as beaters or pawns for Spider set traps.

But do they see that?

So possibly?

I suggested that they would use a combination of traditional warships with their stealth ships when they attacked, in a one-two punch tactic. I always envisioned the RF being their "wingman." As a more pointed distraction.

Which is what you are saying, so I totally agree.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: SPOILER SEASON IS OVER FOR TEiF!!!
Post by cthia   » Mon Nov 29, 2021 3:28 pm

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If the RMN develops CM pods of their own, would they go back to towing pods of counter-missiles? A full load out of CM pods would seriously take a bite of the enemy's first launch. It is usually a moot point after that.

At any rate, how would the RMN deploy them? Internally? Or towed?

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: SPOILER SEASON IS OVER FOR TEiF!!!
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Mon Nov 29, 2021 5:08 pm

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cthia wrote:If the RMN develops CM pods of their own, would they go back to towing pods of counter-missiles? A full load out of CM pods would seriously take a bite of the enemy's first launch. It is usually a moot point after that.

At any rate, how would the RMN deploy them? Internally? Or towed?


The problem of a CM pod is that it's not an anti-ship pod.

So if you've deployed CM pods in anticipation of an alpha strike, then you haven't deployed an anti-shipping alpha strike of your own. Maybe you do that after firing your alpha strike, but that limits the number of pods you could have deployed to the time it took from the enemy's launch to its arrival on your ships.

You're also right to question where they'd be carried. If they're carried inside the SD(P)s and BC(P)s, that means they're taking volume from anti-shipping pods. It may also mean you must deploy some of one kind before deploying the other kind, because that's how they got stacked when loading.
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Re: SPOILER SEASON IS OVER FOR TEiF!!!
Post by Jonathan_S   » Mon Nov 29, 2021 5:26 pm

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cthia wrote:If the RMN develops CM pods of their own, would they go back to towing pods of counter-missiles? A full load out of CM pods would seriously take a bite of the enemy's first launch. It is usually a moot point after that.

At any rate, how would the RMN deploy them? Internally? Or towed?
Well there's not much point to the pods unless they also develop the vastly oversized 2 stage CMs. However the RMN already has CMs whose range exceeds effective fire control - Mk31 CMs reaching about 3 million km from rest but effective CM fire control being more like 2.4 million km -- and their SD(P)s can already launch more CMs salvos than they can control.

Even longer ranged CMs will have crap hit percentages; requires expending vast numbers of them in fire and forget mode to get a useful effect. (As we saw at Galton)

If they used them for fleet defense (as opposed to orbital pods to defend forts; which is how Galton used them) they'd probably still want them carried internally. If it was known that they were only deployed as towed pods then it'd be pretty easy to adjust tactics to launch a smaller initial strike forcing the RMN to use or lose all their longer range CMs; then launch your real strike once those longest range defensive teeth have been pulled.

Maybe take your BC(P)s and fill half their 4 pod rails with these CM pods. That way you're not weakening your own Mk23 alpha strike, and you can roll CMs only as needed in case the enemies first launch isn't their massive one (or isn't their only massive one).

Still; without a CM fire control breakthrough I doubt the RMN is going to be investing in dual drive/stage CMs for fleet defense - you just need to devote too much of your fleet carrying capacity to bring a useful number of them. (However I wouldn't be much surprised to see them adopt them to further improve the survivability of their stations and fixed defenses)
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Re: SPOILER SEASON IS OVER FOR TEiF!!!
Post by Brigade XO   » Mon Nov 29, 2021 7:49 pm

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My guess is that Galton did NOT build the Streak Drive ships. They may have had input on initial research but -given the paranoia and the intention to sacrifice Galton as a bait & switch for the Alignment brains location- everything would have been swept up and removed.

So far nobody has working plans or a sample of a Streak vessel and the Alignment wants to keep it that way. Makes no sense to build them at Galton and risk loosing control.

That Streak ships were used between Hole-In-The-Wall and probably Darius given the round trip times the have been calculated only means that they used them on time sensitive runs to smooth the flow of information etc. It has been said that it's not likely anybody will identify a Steak ship just on visuals and since they are only going to use that function in hyper they should be safe. Of course it is also probable that any streak ship in danger of being boarded or captured is going to go BOOM.
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Re: SPOILER SEASON IS OVER FOR TEiF!!!
Post by cthia   » Mon Nov 29, 2021 8:31 pm

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Jonathan_S wrote:
cthia wrote:If the RMN develops CM pods of their own, would they go back to towing pods of counter-missiles? A full load out of CM pods would seriously take a bite of the enemy's first launch. It is usually a moot point after that.

At any rate, how would the RMN deploy them? Internally? Or towed?
Well there's not much point to the pods unless they also develop the vastly oversized 2 stage CMs. However the RMN already has CMs whose range exceeds effective fire control - Mk31 CMs reaching about 3 million km from rest but effective CM fire control being more like 2.4 million km -- and their SD(P)s can already launch more CMs salvos than they can control.

Even longer ranged CMs will have crap hit percentages; requires expending vast numbers of them in fire and forget mode to get a useful effect. (As we saw at Galton)

If they used them for fleet defense (as opposed to orbital pods to defend forts; which is how Galton used them) they'd probably still want them carried internally. If it was known that they were only deployed as towed pods then it'd be pretty easy to adjust tactics to launch a smaller initial strike forcing the RMN to use or lose all their longer range CMs; then launch your real strike once those longest range defensive teeth have been pulled.

Maybe take your BC(P)s and fill half their 4 pod rails with these CM pods. That way you're not weakening your own Mk23 alpha strike, and you can roll CMs only as needed in case the enemies first launch isn't their massive one (or isn't their only massive one).

Still; without a CM fire control breakthrough I doubt the RMN is going to be investing in dual drive/stage CMs for fleet defense - you just need to devote too much of your fleet carrying capacity to bring a useful number of them. (However I wouldn't be much surprised to see them adopt them to further improve the survivability of their stations and fixed defenses)

Thanks, very informative. What about CM pods for LACs? And LACs shouldn't even have to tow these bigger CMs. Simply use pods of normal CMs to increase a LAC's survivability. Do LACs even have a towing capacity? I don't ever recall hearing about a LAC towing anything inside its wedge.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: SPOILER SEASON IS OVER FOR TEiF!!!
Post by cthia   » Mon Nov 29, 2021 8:40 pm

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Brigade XO wrote:My guess is that Galton did NOT build the Streak Drive ships. They may have had input on initial research but -given the paranoia and the intention to sacrifice Galton as a bait & switch for the Alignment brains location- everything would have been swept up and removed.

So far nobody has working plans or a sample of a Streak vessel and the Alignment wants to keep it that way. Makes no sense to build them at Galton and risk loosing control.

That Streak ships were used between Hole-In-The-Wall and probably Darius given the round trip times the have been calculated only means that they used them on time sensitive runs to smooth the flow of information etc. It has been said that it's not likely anybody will identify a Steak ship just on visuals and since they are only going to use that function in hyper they should be safe. Of course it is also probable that any streak ship in danger of being boarded or captured is going to go BOOM.

I don't recall which, but as far as certain tech - the Streak Drive, the Spider drive or both -- breakthroughs were taken to Darius for more research. Which yielded certain results. It could be that simply the research that led to the Streak Drive was done at Galton, and Galton didn't get any farther with it. They might even have been steered away from "pointless research." At any rate, none of their research could afford to be lost to Manty raids.

Question. Do forgive me because I know this has already been covered. But does the Streak drive imply that Darius is ahead in compensator efficiency?

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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