Fall 1924 – RMN/GSN Tactical changes

The “What Should be Built Next” question leans into 3 additional questions: how should we change the existing production to suit evolving tactics and resolve capability shortfalls observed, what roles are added/gained by each class and how should new designs reflect those changes, and how should tactics evolve in the post Galton era.

We discuss items like the extension cord, and lack of Marines in small ships as changing points in post war designs, or the notional minimum sized light combatant - but what other ideas are out there? One idea I would try to install in all tube designs, is “Sockets” for pods. What I’ve envisioning is a semi-recessed location where a pod can be physically locked in place and powered long term from the ship, perhaps on the tapers. I would try to find a way to fit 4 on a DD/CL, 8 on a CA, and 12-16 on a BC. This would allow a Patrolling ship to have a powerful first punch, without concern of blocking sensors, lowering accel, or having a limited patrol ability, and still allow more to be limpeted on in special circumstances. What other little design changes will/should we see Post War?

We know the DD and CL roles are changing – LACs have replaced them in Anti-missile screen, and drones in the tactical scouting role. What else has changed and how should a new design reflect those changes? What about CAs and BCs? Have their roles changed and what needs to change in future builds so they better suite those roles?

As for tactics, Relax mentioned a good one – making sure all ships are upgraded to fire the newest CMs and carrying vipers in some of the CM tubes. It would allow extra hitting power in single drive missile range, or allow a podlaying ship the ability to deal with targets without using a full pod. Assuming the target was in range, An Avalon would be able to surge 40 shipkillers in it’s first salvo, before switching to CMs. One tactic I’ve always wondered, why are SDM CAs and BCs not carrying a couple salvos of LERMs? It would allow the first couple of salvos (with lighter warheads) to be fired outside of the normal hitting range of the old Star Knights and Reliants until they can be retired. What other Tactical changes should/can/will occur in the post-Galton reality?

Theemile wrote:One tactic I’ve always wondered, why are SDM CAs and BCs not carrying a couple salvos of LERMs? It would allow the first couple of salvos (with lighter warheads) to be fired outside of the normal hitting range of the old Star Knights and Reliants until they can be retired. What other Tactical changes should/can/will occur in the post-Galton reality?

We know the CA/BC weight Mk14 ERM is to large to fit in anything short of a late flight Sag-A or Sag-B's tubes; but I suspect that even the Mk36 LERM wouldn't fit in the tubes of Star Knights or Reliants.

Having Cataphracts somewhat backwards compatible was (as far as we know) a unique feature and one that nobody else seems to have thought to try.

Though while now that hey have the idea the RMN could probably build a skinny ERM that was sized to fit those old tube; but OTOH they've also captured plans for Cataphracts from Ganymede. So if they're setting up production of a new missile they'd presumably prefer to build some Cataphract-A variant to put into the tubes of those legacy CAs and BCs. That'd give them a much longer ranged, if lighter, opening punch. (Still, given those ship's relative lack of defenses compared to newer designs those legacy units should still be retired as soon as practical -- the new designs are more survivable and have lower total lifetime costs of ownership.

Quick post to OP before addressing his main Q:

TLDR: Too many classes of ships.

There is a reason the number of classes of ships keeps decreasing compared to age of sail. We have learned more over the centuries about economics. I would argue there are still too many ship types in the main navies today, though many are kept due to a certain navy having WAAAYYYY too much money akin to the SLN and has not had to apply Darwin's logic recently which will bite said navy HARD on its ass sometime in the near future.

War is about economics. The Majority of economies centers about economics of scale incorporating procurement efficiency, production efficiency, maintenance efficiency, logistics efficiency, and lastly of course, personnel efficiency. Of course this is run by a government bureaucracy where no one can be FIRED and no direct competition + corruption and politics so...

War is about having enough hulls first and foremost BEFORE one talks capabilities of the hulls in question. I have argued before, DD/CL/CA/BC/BCP/Logistics supply ships of various forms needs a trim of at least 2-->3 classes. But, said efficiency does not give extra leg room for a certain author to write interesting novels and will never happen.

PS: The concept of the LCS at its heart was correct, its implementation on the other hand...

PPS: Talking about classes later. Got WORK I have to do.

Ok, fine I'll drop my modern LAC idea:
Katana: Haul a CM pod with long range CM's in it. So, forward deploy ~3Mkm-->5Mkm and then with long range CM's in a pod, you can still defend the TF, if fired from different vector. This allows one to disrupt/circumvent incoming ECM problems such as dazzlers etc without going with monstorous new giant LRCM's.

Katana: Make one PDLC out of the 3 able to be hot swapped(as if) in exchange for more fire control so when one hauls a CM pod around can fire off those CM's into the alpha swarms without wastage. Or ability to attach said fire control unit to outside shell of LAC(more likely).

Or Shoehorn extra fire control onto a CM pod itself and all the LAC has to do is whisker laser communicate to said pod.

Enjoy, now I really do have to work

Jonathan_S wrote:Though while now that hey have the idea the RMN could probably build a skinny ERM that was sized to fit those old tube; but OTOH they've also captured plans for Cataphracts from Ganymede. So if they're setting up production of a new missile they'd presumably prefer to build some Cataphract-A variant to put into the tubes of those legacy CAs and BCs. That'd give them a much longer ranged, if lighter, opening punch. (Still, given those ship's relative lack of defenses compared to newer designs those legacy units should still be retired as soon as practical -- the new designs are more survivable and have lower total lifetime costs of ownership.

This is probably a reason NOT to keep the Star Knights and Reliants in service: cost of upgrading them. I agree that ships without ERM don't have a place in the modern roster and if refitting those ships is too costly, they should simply be scrapped or held in long-term mothballs until they are replaced by new construction.

I'll post more in the other thread, about building.

Adding the ability (all the ability from powering them, communicating with them with something like Keyhole or direct FTL) of carrying the equivalent of 5 pods to an Avalon or any other ship does give you a certain advantage. You can beat the hell out of most anything up to BC range for the ships of many of the existing naval forces......until right after you have flushed your volley.

Ok, you don't need Keyhole, you just need sufficient FTL command channels and you can push 40 odd MDMs as something that is becoming a problem. It's the Flat Pack revisited. How to put this nicely---if you can't kill it with 40 MDM in one volley you should already be running away at you maximum (possibly unsafe) speed. On the other hand, having that capacity may let you walk (if not run) away because you can at least seriously annoy and possibly discourage something unfriendly with 5 or 10 missile volleys and chew them up a bit while you Get-Out-Of-Dodge.

Or you can blow the crap out of anything of SLN current tech in the CA range while staying out of their engagement envelope and if you are inside it you can punch missiles into them and -perhaps- only have to deal with incoming rounds that have already lost their control channels and are ready to be distracted.

Think of this a Box Launchers on steroids. It gives you time and can, for a short while, lengthen the usable life of some of your not-so-old units.

Brigade XO wrote:Adding the ability (all the ability from powering them, communicating with them with something like Keyhole or direct FTL) of carrying the equivalent of 5 pods to an Avalon or any other ship does give you a certain advantage. You can beat the hell out of most anything up to BC range for the ships of many of the existing naval forces......until right after you have flushed your volley.

Ok, you don't need Keyhole, you just need sufficient FTL command channels and you can push 40 odd MDMs as something that is becoming a problem.

Though we've never seen any FTL control channel anywhere other than a Keyhole II or Mycroft. While ships are able to talk FTL to other ships, hermes buoys, and recon drones from hull mounted transceivers I'd speculate that it's possible that, for whatever reason, to get the range and bandwidth desired for missile fire control you need the transmitter well separated from the grav 'noise' of your own wedge.

RFC has certainly been dismissive of firing ACMs from ships that lack Keyhole II -- though a squadron of BC(L)s would have a hell of an onboard sniper capability if each carried 1 or 2 oversized ACM tubes in their hammerheads and could control them via FTL link.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Though while now that hey have the idea the RMN could probably build a skinny ERM that was sized to fit those old tube; but OTOH they've also captured plans for Cataphracts from Ganymede. So if they're setting up production of a new missile they'd presumably prefer to build some Cataphract-A variant to put into the tubes of those legacy CAs and BCs. That'd give them a much longer ranged, if lighter, opening punch. (Still, given those ship's relative lack of defenses compared to newer designs those legacy units should still be retired as soon as practical -- the new designs are more survivable and have lower total lifetime costs of ownership.

This is probably a reason NOT to keep the Star Knights and Reliants in service: cost of upgrading them. I agree that ships without ERM don't have a place in the modern roster and if refitting those ships is too costly, they should simply be scrapped or held in long-term mothballs until they are replaced by new construction.

I'll post more in the other thread, about building.

I was thinking more of "keep the last SDM CA/BC classes as viable as possible until you replace can them" not "a reason to keep them around". No matter what you do, their defenses are woefully subpar against a peer opponent. We already know that a Star Knight will get it's a$$ handed to it by a Wolfhound, which is the wimpiest of the last generation of combatants.

Any build program should currently have a plan to replace all the SDM light and medium combatants, then focus on the retirement of the EDM CAs and BCs, followed by considering a replacement of the LERM designs.

I would like to posit a question as related to main original post from TheEmile: The CA/BC(L)/BC(P) debate.

Baseline: BC(L)/BC'P were both designed without the threat of FTL Apollo or equivalent missile threats with their main distinction ability to carry Keyhole.

Without ability to control FTL missiles, and in light of everyone having MDM Pods for system defense, How can one justify building BC class ships when they cost nearly what an SD'P costs without ability to either control or truly defend against them?

*** 1) Even Lower tier ships without Keyhole can now turn sideways to incoming fire yet maintain some CM fire control using RD's and this should be happening yesterday to anyone at BuShips in R&D. This allows lower tier ships to obtain the main #1 defensive benefit of Keyhole, yet not carry Keyhole using existing procurement, logistics chain.

*** 2) With ability to haul Pods around of a common shape/size, the modern BC class of ships offensive capabilities compared to lower class ships is insignificant. All one has to do is swap pods MFP(Micro Fusion Plant), a job they already do on every RD for indefinite operations.

*** 3) Lower tier ships can have just as tough of sidewalls as BC, but no one sees the $$$ reason to put larger sidewall generators in them as traditionally lower throughput laser heads were used with lower classes. MK-16 DDM on Roland clearly upsets this apple cart if the fact of hauling pods around by even the Andies back in 1920, let alone everyone else in 1924+ did not do so already. Thus, the #2 Passive defense is clearly available to ALL classes of Ships and they ALL NEED this upgrade ASAP!

*** 4) In terms of ACTIVE defensive systems in total, lower class ships have MORE than the BC classes.

*** 5) BC class ships are just as vulnerable to shots to the impellers as lower class ships and if any star is in a grav wave, they are hosed just the same.

Conclusion: #1-->#5 Leaves the modern BC as dead man walking. With several major caveats of course. Most star nations are so woefully behind the tech curve of the Grand Alliance that they are a viable platform for the next couple decades, but in terms of building MORE of them going forward? Where the ONLY advantages of the modern BC class ships of having more passive armor, compartmentalization, but the ability for longer sustained operations both offensively and defensively. But, without ability to truly blunt FTL alpha strike, or even alpha strike itself as they do not have enough CM fire over that of even a CA, what is the point when one considers the cost/build time of these ships nearly at that of an SD'P and requires a building slip better used to build an SD'P.

Further Conclusion: If you are a VERY big navy, then one can partially justify the class as there will be enough low tier systems to dominate them if you just show up. But, why not just send 2 modern updated CA's? Same number of personnel and you have 2 hulls instead of 1 with more offensive/defensive systems. Those systems will be just as thoroughly intimidated by your CA's as your BC's. Yea Yea, I know, RFC has a hankering for the BC, and visually, just like their wet navy counterparts, they make the sexiest looking ships(no lie they do). but frankly they have the Alaska Class/Iowa/Des Moines USN problem. For a fraction more $$$ you could easily have an SD'P(Iowa) or a couple CA's(Brooklyn/Des Moines).

A nation like Grayson? Has ZERO need for a BC class of any type. Can't afford it.

I would put forth that the CA as a class type needs a MAJOR upgrade to fulfill both CA/BC traditional HV roles with superior SD'P class sidewalls, RD's, Pod attachment points, and PDLC changed to that of the Katana/SD'P.

The BC(L)? Died with advent of FTL controlled missiles.

Another way to answer TheEmiles OP:

The Kammerling class, Taylor class, Logistics supply ships; combine them all into a single class.

All 3 types have identical number of naval officers.

All 3 types are meant to be support with minimal defensive capabilities.

Kamerling's "cargo" carries marines for system enforcement operations

Logistic supply ships of the 4Mton --> 8M ton region carry bulk cargo(missile resuppply), Bunker carriers(hydrogen, oxygen, maybe nitrogen(air)), Repair ships machine shops and techs with spares, and of course food, uniforms, spare shuttles, etc.

Taylor class seems to do some of all of the above which might have ALREADY been a replacement for the Kamerling AND Logistics supply ship. If that is the case, why only 3.5Mton? Should it not have matched existing 4M ton civilian designs to also be able to operate in a pinch as a Q ship? Or an 8M ton version?