Jonathan_S wrote:Brigade XO wrote:I was thinking more along the lines of your typical ship-breaker/scrap dealer use of them
take them to pieces and use the materials for blending with other materials for other uses. It appears that the armor is "grown" in place using nannies. Don't know what you would use to chop the armor up into chunks or billets small enough to be reprocessed. Also don't know if there is a workable process to use armor- particularly Solly armor- in combination with other materials to make something usefull.
Wasn't that grown in place armor described as a fairly new technique for the RMN when HMS Nike (BC-413) was getting repaired at Hancock station? (New enough that Paul though they should adjust their SOP for pulling a reactor based on his new approach?)
It's quite possible that the older SLN SDs might not have that kind of grown armor. In which case it might be a bit easier to remove the main armor belts (though not all the interior cofferdaming)
OTOH I guess it's possible the technology originally came out of the League - say as a way of running up the armor cost giving cost-plus contractors more profits.
Oh, and giving the ships better survivability; but that's just a minor fringe benefit. In which case the SLN SDs might have gotten it before Manticore adopted a version of the same approach for their ships.
I don't think either the SLN ships or older RMN ships had armor grown in place. The text specifically states that armor that was not grown in place was in sections that could be pulled to gain access, which was why the Book specified coming in from the side instead of the top or bottom of a ship when replacing a component that couldn't be removed through hatches. The introduction of grown armor caused a change in how yard dogs gained access in order to replace to outsize, deeply buried components in ships.
Remember that the SLN is the most conservative navy in existence, with an inherent distrust of anything newfangled, as well as the Not Invented Here syndrome. I think that the RMN was probably the first navy to use armor that was grown in place.
The Short Victorious War, Chapter 10 wrote:"Neither do I," Honor said darkly. She finished drying her hair, draped the towel around her neck, and changed the subject. "How are we coming on Fusion Three? I just got back from the Admiral's latest exercise, and I haven't really checked in with Mike yet."
"We're doing better than I thought we would, actually," he told her with a satisfied air. "Commander Ravicz's suggestion that we come up from below is going to chop at least a couple of weeks off my estimate. We have to cut through more decks, and repairing all the circuit and service runs we're breaking is going to be a nightmare, but avoiding the armor's really speeding things up." He shook his head. "I know The Book insists on coming in from the side to avoid the control runs, but that part was written before the new alloys came in. I imagine we'll see some quiet procedure changes once BuShips digests our reports, because this is not only faster, but it's going to let us put things back together more quickly, even with the need to rewire."
Honor nodded in agreement. The R&D types' latest armor—a complex ceramic and metal alloy unbelievably light for its volume and toughness—was formed in place as part of the basic hull matrix, not added on later. That gave it vastly improved integrity against damage but meant there were no convenient sections to pull in the event of repairs. On the other hand, armor, however light, still used mass. No warship had that to waste, and since a warship's impeller wedge protected it against fire from above or below, BuShips' designers armored the inner areas of its top and bottom lightly or not at all in order to maximize protection elsewhere.
Nike was no wall of battle ship, but leaving her top and bottom unarmored let her flanks carry twelve centimeters of side armor over more critical areas and as much as a meter over her vitals—like her fusion rooms. That much battle steel could stand up to a near-miss from a megaton-range nuke . . . and sneered at the best efforts of a standard laser cutter. Indeed, getting through it was a nightmare job even with chem-catalyst gear.
All of which explained why she'd been delighted by Ravicz's suggestion, and she was equally, if quietly, pleased by Tankersley's reaction to it. Yard dogs weren't noted for responsiveness to recommendations from shipboard officers. As a rule, they were too concerned with keeping interfering busybodies out from underfoot while they got on with their jobs to consider whether or not a suggestion had merit, but Tankersley had embraced the idea enthusiastically. He'd praised Ravicz generously in his reports, too, and that couldn't hurt the engineer's chance for promotion down the line.
Italics are the author's, boldface is my emphasis.
