Fall 1924: What will the Admiralty build next

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:I certainly agree. I see focusing only on light combatants as a mistake as equally arrogant as High Ridge's build down. And as you implied, especially against the MAlign. When taking on a stealthy enemy, your ships are probably going to take a lot of hits. Inherently, SD(P)s are eggshells.

So would it behoove the RMN to build regular SDs for their natural survivability?

Anyone care to guestimate how many more hits a regular SD can take compared to a pod layer?

Fewer.

Yes, the SD(P) has a major structural weak point in the form of the pod door. It's also an aspect that is less protected by chase weaponry.

But the RMN building materials are tougher than what used to be used in regular SDs. The SD(P)s are also bigger and more armoured, so they should be able to take more hits.

Could you build an even more armoured ship with fewer weak points than the current crop of SD(P)? Sure. But it would also be a worse combatant, because it's basically a defensive ship. It can't fire as many offensive missiles from its broadsides than a pod-layer can. And if it has to dedicate surface area to anti-ship missile tubes to the same ratio that a regular SD has to, it will also have a worse defence.

Why would you design a ship to take punches but not deliver them? You can't win if you only play defensive.

I only recall "eggshell" being used to describe SD(P)s. I thought the pod bay door was only a weakness, rather than the cause of its eggshell status.

Being thought of as both more survivable because of more armor AND as an eggshell seems contradictory.

At any rate, why not build your weapons for your terrain. Terrain can include a stealthy enemy. An LD can get inside Apollo's longer reach nullifying its advantages.

Why not build a bigger SD with the very same improved materials, and without any structural weaknesses. Against the MA, GA ships may need to survive knife-fighting range. And in a knife-fight you can't allow your opponent to get in the first stab, because it is usually fatal.

If you are taken by surprise at knife-fighting range, you better be survivable.

Why would that design make it just a defensive ship? Apollo is just as deadly on an SD design. The ship would simply be more survivable up close.

I don't think humongous salvos are going to win the war against a stealthy opponent.

drothgery wrote:

munroburton wrote:I'm not sure they'll be building much in the way of ships for the next decade. Their entire existing Navy will be badly in need of maintenance and, after almost three decades of wartime spending plus all the spending commitments required in Talbott(and perhaps Silesia), the naval budget isn't justifable as long as the alliance with Haven holds.

Well, the wartime budgets aren't justifiable, but the new peacetime baseline is going to be ... quite a bit higher ... then the pre-first war baseline, if only because the Star Empire has a heck of a lot more to defend, and it's much more widely dispersed, than the pre-war Star Kingdom did. Beyond that, they still have a non-trivial amount of older warships still in service and they honestly shouldn't keep any pre-ERM light warships, pre-pod wallers, or pre-DDM/pod BCs, and while they may be scaling back their wall of battle, they're probably going to keep even if not expand their fleet below the wall. And if they're not expanding their wall anymore, they probably want to keep building at least a few every year to maintain capabilities.

They'll build some new ships, sure. Just not many of them. They do not actually need as many light hyper-capable warships as they used to prior to the 1900s, because of modernised LACs. During First Manticore, Home Fleet alone deployed ~2400 LACs. Another ~3500 were in Junction Defense Command. Third and Eighth Fleets had almost 2,000 between them. That's over a hundred and fifty million tons of LACs; the combined DD, CL and CA fleet in 1905 massed approximately that much.

As a result, the screening role those lighter units used to carry out were eliminated, leaving them available for the rest of the workhorse duties such ships conduct.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Below that, we've discussed before that the DDs maybe be going the way of the dodo. That is, they are not survivable any more. So I'd expect the CLs to pick up the role of patrols and range from 150 to 250 thousand tonnes. I'd expect F&H R&D to come up with a DDM that will fit this class of ships without the compromises that the Rolands had to make. Hopefully with a retrofit to existing Avalons too.

So this is where I'd put my research on: light cruisers. That's where I think the RMN lacks for peace time. And this is where I'd expect the most unit count to come from. The CLs can be used for long-range patrolling in the Verge and Shell, where the SLN and OFS have pulled away from. They can be used for extended commerce protection, going a long time between friendly ports. And they're not so big that they'd intimidate wavering nations by their presence. They can also be used to deep scouting where the MAlign might be hidden. At a minimum, their widespread presence might disrupt lines of communication.

The 200 Avalons and 50 Kamerlings they have should be adequate. The pocket-sized DDM is a sound direction but in order to make it compatible without major retrofits they'll have to go back to capacitor power. Perhaps they can produce a better ERM using Ganymede-inspired nodes. If it's too good, it may render the MK16 units obsolete - unless the MK16 itself gets those incremental upgrades as well, of course.

Ammo improvement is how they can stay on the bleeding edge for a while.

The SLN withdrawal from the verge isn't going to last forever. Kingsford already cracked it open with Gannon's proposal to go ahead and help dismantle the infrastructure supporting genetic slavery, which is a good thing because the Star Empire never wanted to take over the SLN's verge duties.

Problems in the verge/protectorates weren't due to the SLN anyway - they were generated by OFS and its sweetheart deals with various transstellars. The SLN's absence only has to last long enough for Kingsford to firmly stamp out any remaining relationships between SLN officers and the corporations which used to exploit verge worlds.

Jonathan_S wrote:

drothgery wrote:
Well, the wartime budgets aren't justifiable, but the new peacetime baseline is going to be ... quite a bit higher ... then the pre-first war baseline, if only because the Star Empire has a heck of a lot more to defend, and it's much more widely dispersed, than the pre-war Star Kingdom did. Beyond that, they still have a non-trivial amount of older warships still in service and they honestly shouldn't keep any pre-ERM light warships, pre-pod wallers, or pre-DDM/pod BCs, and while they may be scaling back their wall of battle, they're probably going to keep even if not expand their fleet below the wall. And if they're not expanding their wall anymore, they probably want to keep building at least a few every year to maintain capabilities.

The pre-pod wallers are probably already gone. Most of them were, IIRC, with home fleet and so died in the Battle of Manticore. Any survivors should have been quickly retired as soon as the Python Lump came online.

But I'd go a step further and say the RMN shouldn't keep any SD(P)s that lack Keyhole II. (Though any remaining Keyhole I ships might be worth upgrading to II rather than disposing of. But they're not worth keeping w/o said upgrade)

Otherwise I agree with you -- the remaining legacy ships need to go.

The RMN had ~250 Tube SDs and ~20 DNs (most in storage) on March 1st 1920. Only ~27 RMN SDs were destroyed at BoMa, and ~20 other SDs were destroyed elsewhere. (and who knows how many at OB). We know the Hercules (Samothrace class) was still at Spindle in 1923, and indications are 5 DNs were still under Sarnow's command through 1921. Most likely the RMN alone had ~200 SD/DNs survive the war (and ~70 GSN SDs). but many might have been lost to BoMa.

The RMN had exactly 20 first gen, non-Keyhole upgraded Medusa SD(p)s survive the war, all in 10th fleet, and still active at the end of 1923.

In my mind, every tube waller but required Command SDs goes to the breakers, the Medusas either get upgraded or tossed into the reserve. They still can fire Apollo pods - they just can't control them via FTL or have the Defense of Keyhole - if CA keyhole light modules come into existence, upgrade the Medusas to carry them for upgraded defense.

cthia wrote:
I only recall "eggshell" being used to describe SD(P)s. I thought the pod bay door was only a weakness, rather than the cause of its eggshell status.

Being thought of as both more survivable because of more armor AND as an eggshell seems contradictory.

At any rate, why not build your weapons for your terrain. Terrain can include a stealthy enemy. An LD can get inside Apollo's longer reach nullifying its advantages.

Why not build a bigger SD with the very same improved materials, and without any structural weaknesses. Against the MA, GA ships may need to survive knife-fighting range. And in a knife-fight you can't allow your opponent to get in the first stab, because it is usually fatal.

If you are taken by surprise at knife-fighting range, you better be survivable.

Why would that design make it just a defensive ship? Apollo is just as deadly on an SD design. The ship would simply be more survivable up close.

I don't think humongous salvos are going to win the war against a stealthy opponent.

The problem with building a modern tube waller is you only have "x" amount of surface area available for weapons. Tube wallers had to mix sensors, control links, Counter missile launchers, pdlcs, laser/graser emitters, missile launchers, ECM emitters, and sidewall generators all along the broadside of the ships. And every launcher had to have massive armored doors to protect the tube from damage.

By taking the 40-50 laser and graser emitters and shrinking their number to 10ish massive emitters, and reducing the 30+ missile launchers to 6 or none, you free up massive amounts of real estate along the broadsides of the ships.

Pod launchers, in turn used this real estate to increase the # of PDLCs, CM tubes, and the size of sensors and # of control links - and add the Keyholes.

If you return to the Tube SD layout, you still have the savings from the modern Graser layout, but you have to integrate back in the missile tubes and hatches.

So the comment about reverting to a defensive design, is because if you take a modern design and "delete" the pod bay, all is left is the light offense and gobs of defense - there isn't room for anything else on the flanks of the ship. To add the tubes back, you would need to start removing the defensive mounts, ecm emitters, sidewall generators, and the control links to make space for the tubes.

I agree, the result would be a better outcome than a Gryphon, but far more vulnerable than an Invictus. In the modern environment, depth of active defenses is most important - it is better to stop a hit, than to be able to absorb a hit.

cthia wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:they see major war with the MAlign as imminent they'll probably continue to prioritize SD(P)s and CLACs over lighter ships. (And possibly come out with a 3rd gen SD(P) design based on lessons learned with the Invictus-class compared to the Harrington IIs). But if they see this as an indefinite but probably multi-year pause while they continue to search for clue leading towards the remaining MAlign then they'll probably focus on light combatants for a while.

I certainly agree. I see focusing only on light combatants as a mistake as equally arrogant as High Ridge's build down. And as you implied, especially against the MAlign. When taking on a stealthy enemy, your ships are probably going to take a lot of hits. Inherently, SD(P)s are eggshells.

So would it behoove the RMN to build regular SDs for their natural survivability?

Anyone care to guestimate how many more hits a regular SD can take compared to a pod layer?

Sure you wouldn't want to focus exclusively on light combatant.

But at a wild guess if, right now, you had the RMN rank how close they felt they were to their goals for each ship type I'd think it'd break down something like.
SD(P) - 80-85%
CLAC - 75%
BC - 60%
CA - 50%
CL - 40%
DD - 25%

The heavier units, understandably, got more focus during active combat because they're what you need to win fleet battles. The lighter units had to take lower priority - so there seem to be more obsolete types still in service; plus they've found that their modern light units were over-focused on fleet escort and war-fighting and can't easily handle the many other duties they need covered outside of active combat.

For the moment they're using their less survivable, but higher manpower, obsolete light units to cover those. But we saw at, for example, Monica, how badly that can go if those old units run into modern firepower.


So while I definitely don't advocate holding their SD(P) force entirely static (not even in the short term); I think in that short term they'll focus more heavily on the lighter units as those are further from where they want them.


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Rational. Invictus-class are devastatingly effective, extremely well protected, and they now have a lot of them. But they still have some pre-Keyhole, or Keyhole I ships in service and those need to be replaced or upgraded. And they should continue design studies on a 3rd gen design looking to incorporate lessons learned by all members of the GA from their use of SD(P)s. Still, SD(P)s are is very good shape.

CLACs - the RMN may want to rethink their rational for all DN sized CLACs; but the biggest lack is they have not yet finalized and started building their 'assault' CLAC the more survivable model that stays with the wall of battle to provide resupply for all the screening LACs.

BCs - Aggies and Nikes are great; and they've been built in fairly significant numbers but they still seem to have a fair number of older designs that should be replaced.

CA - again hard to argue against a Sag-C. Sure a defensive keyhole-light would be an awesome addition; but for now its still a world class CA. Problem is there are a lot of older CA in service which just can't hack the modern combat environment -- they need replacement.

CLs - I get the impression that even the Avalon overly shortchanged the crew and marines for its peacetime duties; and there are too many legacy CLs still serving. They probably need a new flight of 'stretched' Avalons equipped for (but not always with) a somewhat larger crew and marine force.

DDs - Rolands are great warfighters, but they and Wolfhounds are both poor at many non-warfighting duties and either new DD designs are needed, or a decision to change DD doctrine to keep only fleet escort DDs (Rolands) and shove all the patrol and presence duties onto the (more expensive) CLs.

I think one of our problems is that the Avalon's have had no "Screen Time". They are all in Silesia and no book since WoH has spent any time there. We get the impression from background that annexation has been mostly straightforward but zero actual concrete details. no CL has had combat screen time since Terekhov's flash back to the loss of his Defiant, we don't even have a guaranteed class for it. I'd guess a Valiant class with that name. certainly we don't have any of the day to day scenes we have from Hexapuma and Tristum, or Artermis.

Sag-c and Roland and even the Nikes and Aggies to some extent we have some feel for how they are doing from the Shadow books. we have walked their decks, we have a rough idea of what the spacers grumble over.

Those who have said that the RMN should not build ONLY light units are correct but I have to agree with the others who say light units should be the focus, especially while the yards are new and shipwrights still inexperienced.

Buships can be planning the next DD/CL/CA while the yard dogs get to grip with designs that already have the bugs removed.A screw up building a DD/CL is costly in time and money but nowhere near the cost of messing up a Nike let alone a SD(P).

Do we have any idea how many super dreadnoughts are in the pipeline from Bolthole, by way of Beowulf? Is it possible that any new ships will also be joint design and build? What does that leave to the other shipyards?

Dauntless wrote:I think one of our problems is that the Avalon's have had no "Screen Time". They are all in Silesia and no book since WoH has spent any time there. We get the impression from background that annexation has been mostly straightforward but zero actual concrete details. no CL has had combat screen time since Terekhov's flash back to the loss of his Defiant, we don't even have a guaranteed class for it. I'd guess a Valiant class with that name. certainly we don't have any of the day to day scenes we have from Hexapuma and Tristum, or Artermis.

Sag-c and Roland and even the Nikes and Aggies to some extent we have some feel for how they are doing from the Shadow books. we have walked their decks, we have a rough idea of what the spacers grumble over.

Those who have said that the RMN should not build ONLY light units are correct but I have to agree with the others who say light units should be the focus, especially while the yards are new and shipwrights still inexperienced.

Buships can be planning the next DD/CL/CA while the yard dogs get to grip with designs that already have the bugs removed.A screw up building a DD/CL is costly in time and money but nowhere near the cost of messing up a Nike let alone a SD(P).

We saw the Aegis, An Avalon class, at Monica. It had the 2nd best defense suite at Monica (better than the 2 Star Knights), and is the only ship to come through the encounter untouched. They really just needed the ammo ship to get back in business. 20 LERMS is going to be able to go toe to toe with any Cataphract armed CA in 1924 and come out a winner.

tlb wrote:Do we have any idea how many super dreadnoughts are in the pipeline from Bolthole, by way of Beowulf? Is it possible that any new ships will also be joint design and build? What does that leave to the other shipyards?

Our last update on any # is from May 2021, and that's only GSN and RMN builds. David has been (Deliberately, I may say) obtuse in mentioning any hard numbers outside of what was onscreen.

Heck, we don't even have a total list of what was destroyed during OB, let alone what construction from the intervening ~8 months survived. And anything we have on Haven or Beowulf is speculative. Supposedly, there were >600 SDs coming online in the next 6 months to a year after BoMa, from all of Haven's production facilities, with at least 300 more following soon behind.

(If that is correct, the number of SD(p)s built by Haven in 1918-1922 was insane - 332 were used for BoMa (plus 16 CLACs), with 80 or so SD(p)s left behind, and the RMN & GSN had already chewed up 60-70 during the war plus a handful of CLACS. From that, we know Haven built well over 500 SD(p)s and SD sized CLACs prior to BoMa, plus 900 SD(p)s plus an unknown # of CLACS - close to 1500 Ships in a little over 5 years.)

What the exact time chops are, I don't know. And I don't know how many were early enough in their construction that could be easily altered and sent to Beowulf for completion. I do know that sufficient were capable of conversion that no one lamented about needing to start a new build order to literally replace the ships just built, or the Haven production lines had gotten back to the places where they were turning out a continuous stream of SD(p)s

munroburton wrote:
They'll build some new ships, sure. Just not many of them. They do not actually need as many light hyper-capable warships as they used to prior to the 1900s, because of modernised LACs. During First Manticore, Home Fleet alone deployed ~2400 LACs. Another ~3500 were in Junction Defense Command. Third and Eighth Fleets had almost 2,000 between them. That's over a hundred and fifty million tons of LACs; the combined DD, CL and CA fleet in 1905 massed approximately that much.

As a result, the screening role those lighter units used to carry out were eliminated, leaving.

Well, no. The RMN has taken on the responsibility to patrol the entire verge when the kicked the SLN out of it. So they need a hypercapable fleet the size of the SLN’s FF to do it, as this is a very large space and much of it is months travel away from any RMN base.

So the peace dividend is ‘we need to double the budget of the RMN over what it was at the peak of the war, plus another 30 trillion each year for the next 5 years as we build the fleet.’