Hi Robert Thompson,
Oh I noticed, but I tend to take the actual series textev whenever there's a typo of some kind.
The Bu9 HoS sections were obviously written by different people without a single editor to catch such textev errors, because there are simply too many internal conflicts.
You're quite right about ship losses and decommissionings not being listed, personally I thought having more data about HH's middy cruise CA War Maiden class might have been of pertinent interest to fans.
Consider: If all the new bells and whistles of the Edward Saganami had been available in 1908, bow walls, off-bore missiles, improved ECM, Ghost-rider, RD's etc, before the Shrike that all that was based on and prototyped by, there should have been some considerable buzz about all the new weapons, like her AMC's, before HH and Hamish had that little talk in her Library 3 years later.
For myself, the AMC's in HAE acted as the bridge between the old and new weapons that were highlighted beginning in IEH.
They are obviously dated and HoS states there retirement in 1920, but the tactical advantages to the peeps, and to the IAN in seizing systems or termini etc by surprise, are too great for some to ignore, so some nasty SDF's may well have some Q-ships we have yet to see.
Who knows?
For example, when Mike showed up in Mesa, perhaps a IAN Q-ship waiting for von Rabenstrange and the IAN, proceeded to block any warning to Visigoth while eliminating the Visigoth termini defenses with Mistletoe's and heavy pods, as another in Mesa orbit destroyed the orbital defenses, so Mesa had no choice but to yield so quickly.
Regarding the tSVW 1904 chart numbers; yes, the PRHN numbers total of 1944 is less than the actual 2106 listed in the ship classes, an overlooked needed correction that the MWW mentioned in passing when an uncouth newbie [me] brought it up; which doesn't detract from all the references to the respective ship and waller tonnage cited often in the early books.
It held up very well, and while later size creep has pushed things, ie db's having to be 40Kt when frigates evidently could be smaller, the figures for class sizes cited in UHH in MTH worked for many years.
Regarding the core world attitude to Manticore, it's somewhat surprising given its closer than ~99% of the SL to Sol time wise, so who's really the neo-barb, someone 5 days away or up to more than the 22+ days that might define the 'civilized core' before getting into whether the shells might be almost neo-barbs, near neo-barbs, ex-neo-barbs, former neo-barbs, or no longer neo-barbs
![Wink ;)](./images/smilies/icon_e_wink.gif)
despite still being exploited by the mandarins on behalf of the core, when the old league really doesn't need such subsidies.
Or do they?
L
[quote="Armed Neo-Bob"][quote="lyonheart"]Hi Armed Neo-Bob,
Very clever, or do you prefer Robert Thompson?
Welcome to the forums, enjoy your favorite cg beverage on the cg house.
Just because the Caravan transports mass 7.35 MT's each, doesn't mean it took 7.35 MT's of the same stuff needed to build over a thousand Culverin DD's or 257 Sag-A's.
The Edward Saganami CA wasn't in service until 1913-14, with Mike in command, so it wasn't available to patrol Silesia.
If you don't remember, I got into trouble at the bar by suggesting the production of the lesser classes at the SKM's space stations, using the smaller building slips was much much higher than some had figured, including the MWW, while the whole point of the AMC's was that they were an economy measure, in both military resources and the total number of crewmen out of the several million committed to the war; if you wish to argue with the premises of HAE, take it up with RFC elsewhere.
Rots o' ruck.
The point of my post you quoted was to play down any expectations of seeing Q-ships, how did you miss that?
Now the IAN might have up-to-date AMC's, which might be useful at Visigoth etc, but I'm not expecting them without more foreshadowing, though what they might do to the defenses of a SL termini, using missile pods, Mistletoe's etc, before they were recognised might pay despite losing the ship when a fleet came through.
Again, I don't think we're going to see the smaller members of the Manticoran Alliance active in the GA at this time, but given their experience and capabilities, if the SL's data is as out of date as it was for Manticore etc, I expect those systems to easily demonstrate the SL will need something bigger than BC's to harass them successfully.
L
[/quote]
Hi, Lyonheart.
I just had my reply eaten, so this is a second attempt.
I am not particular about what people call me; most of my peers in my units said Bob, while my family says Rob; everyone else has less polite names.
The Core worlds don't pay any attention to the "barbs" out on the Verge; like others, they fear the unknown. History was written by the "civilized" groups who invented writing. You know--the ones who crucified people for millencia BEFORE the Roman empire. Or the guys who came up with the term "decimate"--which means lining everyone up, disregarding age, gender or any other consideration--and killing every tenth one on the spot. It helped the empire of the day (whichever one you pick) avoid pesky local revolts, so you can reduce your garrisons. So I am content to be a neo-barb, with bad pun.
Tonnage as a measure of total shipping is used in all sorts of comparisons, including the pre-war assessment of the capabilities of the RMN vis-a-vis Haven. I either missed the pinata or I wasn't clear--I didn't mean to imply either that the materials used for the Trojans were the same as other, only that the same tonnage of other ship classes would have been preferable, and much less expensive.
The AMC's were NOT an economy measure; they were a desperate attempt to fill a need for escorts when an insufficient number of building slips were being used for new construction, and the Front was swallowing up all the escorts available.
For that matter, I suspect it was partly the fact that the Trojans were a Sonja project --likely funded by the R&D budget, not BuShips, initially, and only as a means of building full sized test bed pod-layers without having to take the time for building a "proper" ship of the wall--that got them funded at all.
Regarding the Saganami A, I used that in the comparison only because the lead ship commissioned in 1908 according to HOS. There still aren't enough of the class to patrol Silesia. I think you didn't like the book much, so maybe you didn't notice? I will also say that they ought to have built a FEW more of them in the time given before Buttercup.
Lack of lighter ships is my biggest peeve with HOS, and the RMN in general. I have a big rant for that, maybe someday I'll post it. It was very long, though.
As far as missing your point--that you meant to indicate that Q-ships were unlikely-- I will retreat into my fundamental blondeness in great confusion. I thought you were proposing them as viable.
On a different subject, in regard to House of Steel--and without pulling up quotes-- it is not possible with the data provided to do OB analysis from the combination of HOS and the tables of fleet strengths at different times. House of Steel gives build numbers--but no LOSSES. Also, while it gives stats and descriptions of ships in commission in 1900--it does NOT give them for the vessels De-commisioned from 1800-1900. Thus, there is no data on the ca. 2Mton Battleships, or the Archenor CA mentioned in the text. Another reason is that the oldest chart is WRONG--just in looking at the numbers of ships and how they don't total correctly shows that. The premise is valid, but the numbers are off. And as far as the fleet strength 1920 chart goes, I don't think RFC considered how many ships he routinely kills off in the offscreen events; it has too many destroyers and cruisers given the retirement of the Prince Consorts and the Falcons. It is like there were no losses. . . . but there were.
Part of this is the age of the oldest material; part of this is the change in direction after Flint invented Cachat and pulled the rudder off course. But my last MOS was all-source analyst, and you just can't do order of battle analysis without any battle damage assessment. Which we can't do.
Thanks, I'll just have coffee.
Regards,
Robert Thompson[/quote]