Light bulb Captured Solly fleet

warspite1515 wrote:Speaking of gutting ... I've often wondered how much time/treasure/effort it would take to convert an SD to an SD(P). Depending on the age of the design, if it was possible to gut the after section to give it even a modest pod capacity it could be an important force modifier.

In one of DW's Pearls, he estimated roughly 23 months for a keel-up SD(P); if a conversion took anywhere from 1/2 to 2/3 of that (call it 18-19 months on the outside) it might be a viable alternative. Again, you'd have to factor in how much work would be involved, if the age of the hull made it worth it in the first place, would you want to add in the newer Mantie tech (advanced compensators, sensors, and all the other goodies which drop crew levels by half), etc. If you were looking to give Beowulf some teeth in the immediate short term it might be worth the candle.

Absolutely impossible.

First of all, in a normal SD, the impeller control rooms are inside the ring of impellers. The SD(P) had to enlarge the impeller ring and move the control rooms in order to allow pods to pass through the center of the impeller ring. There isn't enough room in the hammerhead to hold a useful number of pods, plus the pod door mechanism, plus the pod moving and loading equipment.

Second of all, SD's have an inner hull between their missile launchers and their core systems. Fitting in a pod storage bay would require cutting large sections from this inner core, which is just as hard to cut through as the outer hull.

Third of all, there is no point turning it into an SD(P) unless you include Keyhole. Which means massive alterations to both the inner and outer hull.

Fourth of all, there's no room. In an SD(P), all the core systems are squeezed into the forward half of the ship. You would basically have to completely gut the ships, take out every single system, and replace them in a much more compact way using modern Manticoran automation and miniaturization to squeeze it all in.

This is a heck of a lot more work and cost than simply shredding the old ship and building a new one. If you are essentially rebuilding the ship from the keel up, you might as well just build a new ship from the keel up.

As for your estimates of the time for conversions, the much more minor conversions that we have seen before took as long as you are estimating for this complete transformation.

Having posted a couple different ideas on this thread and have them accurately shot down. the only scenario where I think the GA might waste the effort to move the SD's and any more they capture would be as decoy forces as others have tossed out there. Even then I'm not sure it would be worth the minimal crewing required to get the ships across the hyper wall. Under the dubious assertion that they would, and there is some scenario where it might be worth it, (perhaps at Beowulf or Darius)...

The ships could be popped in like the box formations at Solon, covered with limpeted Mark-23 pods and the ability to deploy minimal towed pods, enough Sag-C's or a couple SD(p)s per formation as the "real missile controllers", and all of whatever upgraded PDCL's and CM's in computer driven autonomous mode just to make it look good long enough for one massed set of launches per formation. The minimal crews are then withdrawn blah blah blah and in come the ships under tactical remote control.

Not that any of the Solarian SD's would survive mind you, but let's make it a total of 80 pods per SD including those towed, plus the tactical freakout they'd cause against an attacking or defending force, and a launch timed to insure all pods launched before the op force can counterattack.

I'd at least buy popcorn to watch the simulation back at ATC, followed by the estimation of how long it would take the rest of Eighth fleet to mop up the remnants of whatever was left after a fully controlled Battle of Spindle-ish Apollo launch of say 60-80,000 missiles against non-GA ships, given that an attack force of GA SD(P)s would have at least that many more...

SharkHunter wrote:Having posted a couple different ideas on this thread and have them accurately shot down. the only scenario where I think the GA might waste the effort to move the SD's and any more they capture would be as decoy forces as others have tossed out there. Even then I'm not sure it would be worth the minimal crewing required to get the ships across the hyper wall. Under the dubious assertion that they would, and there is some scenario where it might be worth it, (perhaps at Beowulf or Darius)...

The ships could be popped in like the box formations at Solon, covered with limpeted Mark-23 pods and the ability to deploy minimal towed pods, enough Sag-C's or a couple SD(p)s per formation as the "real missile controllers", and all of whatever upgraded PDCL's and CM's in computer driven autonomous mode just to make it look good long enough for one massed set of launches per formation. The minimal crews are then withdrawn blah blah blah and in come the ships under tactical remote control.

Not that any of the Solarian SD's would survive mind you, but let's make it a total of 80 pods per SD including those towed, plus the tactical freakout they'd cause against an attacking or defending force, and a launch timed to insure all pods launched before the op force can counterattack.

I'd at least buy popcorn to watch the simulation back at ATC, followed by the estimation of how long it would take the rest of Eighth fleet to mop up the remnants of whatever was left after a fully controlled Battle of Spindle-ish Apollo launch of say 60-80,000 missiles against non-GA ships, given that an attack force of GA SD(P)s would have at least that many more...

Since my original idea met the energy death of the universe (accurately, I might add), has anyone considered the idea of an "alternate" deployment method for pods? Yes, they can be limpeted to the hull, but there's a speed penalty there. What about stripping half to three quarters of the boat bays, add rails, and stuff them with flat-packs? Granted, they'd need to operate in concert with Keyhole/Keyhole 2 equipped SD(P)s, but there should be enough control links to go around. Much less cutting/modification of the hull, and pods are way smaller than pinnacles and their attendant equipment. Thoughts?

warspite1515 wrote:Yes, they can be limpeted to the hull, but there's a speed penalty there.

There is no speed penalty for pods inside the wedge, whether towed inside or limpeted to the hull. It is only pods towed outside the wedge that impose an acceleration penalty.

warspite1515 wrote:and pods are way smaller than pinnacles and their attendant equipment. Thoughts?

The Pods HMAMC Wayfarer carried were almost the size of the series 282 LACs she carried. Much, much larger than pinnaces (NOT Pinacles, no matter what your spell-check/auto-correct might think. :p)

JeffEngel wrote:

George J. Smith wrote:Could Beowulf come up with enough personnel to crew some of the captured wallers and add them to their own wall of battle in readiness for the unwanted attention of BF

I'm sure that transponders could be doctored to show that the vessels were Beowulfan not SLN.

I imagine they may be able to thin out existing crews or call up reservists to fill in a small number of them. But then they'd have other crews hurting for people, personnel getting used to one another and some new equipment throughout the fleet, and whole new crews shaking down aboard those few ships, when they are in for a serious attack in weeks.

So it may not be worth it all in all.

For something for use in between that fight and crewing new-build ships, LAC's, and system defense platforms... I can see the possibility, but that itself may not be a very wide window, and many parts of those ships may be better removed and reused in those ships, LAC's, and system defense platforms. SLN fighting systems are built to an antiquated tactical model, but the general tech base is still great, so I'm sure that, say, the personnel accommodations and alpha nodes are fine stuff for recycling.

How about using Beowulfan crews to move the wallers to Beowulf through the junction to set them up just as a diversion for the SLN to go after. The transit crews would return to their original ships after parking the captured wallers in position.

This would give 2 possibilities;

1 The SLN would think that Beowulf had double the expected wall of battle and that would make them wary of proceeding.

2 The real Beowulf SDF could be in stealth/hyper ready to mousetrap the SLN taskforce after it passed the hyper limit.

Gutting the ship... nice terminology. Now there's an idea that could still fit RFC's statement that the Solarian SDs are useless as weapons platforms.

Gut the SD and cut away most of it's armoring, strap on whatever transport modules you need, and you'd still have a helluva mil-spec missile collier/LAC transport that is still about twice as fast as a freighter. (I think the RMN's are listed as about 4MM tons?)

Upgrade a few of the PCL clusters and CM tubes to keep the thing from being totally defenseless in transit, but you could get alot of SDF pods, etc. to remote locations with a couple of Keyhole/Mycroft platforms all in one shipment. That would be at least as good as the Samothrace which Khumalo used to finish intimidating the Monican system into submission after Terekhov's little adventure, and a starting point for training the system populace to man their own SDF forces. Drop one of these in Mobius, for example, when FF comes back to call.

Later they can gut the thing or convert it to a fleet repair ship locally once anything more modern becomes available.

SharkHunter wrote:Gutting the ship... nice terminology. Now there's an idea that could still fit RFC's statement that the Solarian SDs are useless as weapons platforms.

Gut the SD and cut away most of it's armoring, strap on whatever transport modules you need, and you'd still have a helluva mil-spec missile collier/LAC transport that is still about twice as fast as a freighter. (I think the RMN's are listed as about 4MM tons?)

Upgrade a few of the PCL clusters and CM tubes to keep the thing from being totally defenseless in transit, but you could get alot of SDF pods, etc. to remote locations with a couple of Keyhole/Mycroft platforms all in one shipment. That would be at least as good as the Samothrace which Khumalo used to finish intimidating the Monican system into submission after Terekhov's little adventure, and a starting point for training the system populace to man their own SDF forces. Drop one of these in Mobius, for example, when FF comes back to call.

Later they can gut the thing or convert it to a fleet repair ship locally once anything more modern becomes available.

Takes too much time for too little value. Remember that in two months, there isn't going to be a need to consider any of this - Mycroft will be active. Moving them through the junction and parking them somewhere on the projected line of approach, abandoned to be used as missile sumps, may be the best use of them in the meantime. Cheap, quick, and you don't lose anything of value.

--snipping--

fallsfromtrees wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:Gutting the ship... nice terminology. Now there's an idea that could still fit RFC's statement that the Solarian SDs are useless as weapons platforms.

Gut the SD and cut away most of it's armoring, strap on whatever transport modules you need, and you'd still have a helluva mil-spec missile collier/LAC transport that is still about twice as fast as a freighter. (I think the RMN's are listed as about 4MM tons?)
...
Drop one of these in Mobius, for example, when FF comes back to call...

Takes too much time for too little value. Remember that in two months, there isn't going to be a need to consider any of this - Mycroft will be active. Moving them through the junction and parking them somewhere on the projected line of approach, abandoned to be used as missile sumps, may be the best use of them in the meantime. Cheap, quick, and you don't lose anything of value.

Perfectly appropriate response on the "defend Beowulf" thread.

This thread is simply a "what to do with those "otherwise useless great big hulls" parked around Spindle, etc. other than blowing them to bits, and as stated, would apply to other Verge systems, etc. not a mainline SLN target in the near term. Let's say you had a conversion project for every captured SD. So we're a year or so out, Beowulf defended, etc.

The GA could dispatch them out to captured SL systems one at a time at military speeds to get them there quickly, with freighters stuffed with more useful SDF tech to follow, so that the attack fleet "in sector X" isn't pinned to defending a given star system in the mean time.

Would they? perhaps not. This is the could be thread.

SharkHunter wrote:Gutting the ship... nice terminology. Now there's an idea that could still fit RFC's statement that the Solarian SDs are useless as weapons platforms.

Gut the SD and cut away most of it's armoring, strap on whatever transport modules you need, and you'd still have a helluva mil-spec missile collier/LAC transport that is still about twice as fast as a freighter. (I think the RMN's are listed as about 4MM tons?)

Upgrade a few of the PCL clusters and CM tubes to keep the thing from being totally defenseless in transit, but you could get alot of SDF pods, etc. to remote locations with a couple of Keyhole/Mycroft platforms all in one shipment. That would be at least as good as the Samothrace which Khumalo used to finish intimidating the Monican system into submission after Terekhov's little adventure, and a starting point for training the system populace to man their own SDF forces. Drop one of these in Mobius, for example, when FF comes back to call.

Later they can gut the thing or convert it to a fleet repair ship locally once anything more modern becomes available.

If you "strap on" transport modules, you are covering up those PDLC clusters and CM tubes--and sensors and missile control units.

Also, you can't just strap on transport modules to gain any useful volume of cargo space. You are still constrained by the physics of the impeller wedge and the inertial compensator. The entire ship, including attached modules, has to fit within a specified shape and volume. Otherwise you have to modify either the compensator or the wedge to encompass the volume, at a significant loss in efficiency. You can strap on a certain amount--such as some LACs or pods--and still stay within the necessary volume, but you won't get enough cargo volume that way to be worthwhile.

Besides, Solarian SDs are significantly slower than existing RMN colliers and transports.

As for eventually gutting the ship or converting it to a fleet repair ship, I already pointed out that there is absolutely no point in that. It would be cheaper and faster to just build a new ship rather than convert an old SD.

warspite1515 wrote:Since my original idea met the energy death of the universe (accurately, I might add), has anyone considered the idea of an "alternate" deployment method for pods? Yes, they can be limpeted to the hull, but there's a speed penalty there. What about stripping half to three quarters of the boat bays, add rails, and stuff them with flat-packs?

I haven't crunched the numbers, but my off the cuff estimate is that the entire volume of an SD's boat bays might be equal to about 8-12 pods.

Pinnaces just aren't that big when you start comparing them to capital ship MDMs.
A pinnace is roughly 30m long, while a bare Mk23 looks to be over 16m[1]; before you add in any extra length from the pod)

Even if I'm wrong and it's double that you're talking about 2 or so double stacked pod salvos. You can easily tractor (or bolt on Andie style) more pods that than without seriously screwing up sensors or firing arcs)

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[1] pixel counting off the non-square missile family picture MaxxQ rendered. So these Mk23 numbers could be off a fair bit. The Pinnace numbers were taken from Jayne's: The Royal Manticoran Navy.