Light bulb Captured Solly fleet

And thinking about using SLN as evacuation ships even more... the more you detail as dedicated, hyper-capable escape ships, the less you rely on your true naval ships for extra carryout.

This lets your warships perform their job and not act in double duty. To continue with some of the text evidence in my previous posts... Battle of Grendlesbane.

http://honorverse.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_of_Grendelsbane

Higgins, defending with 7 SD(P)s, 16 SDs, 19 BC & CC, and 4 CLAC's.... also lost all those SD(P)s while running, also carried out a priority list of critical engineers and scientists. He also had to leave behind over 40,000 workers, who were later repatriated during the Grand Alliance formation talks.

A single squadron of Nevada's has a crew capacity of 24,000 alone, but since they wouldn't need to be true warships that's a 1:1 ratio of crew-to-evacuee's. And following the usual evacuation mechanics in the books, we could probably increase that by about 50% without unduly straining the life support for a total of around 36,000. With a bit of strain, and assuming he'd had them, when Admiral Higgins evacuated from Grendlesbane just 1 squadron of SLN Battlecruisers would have let him evacuate 100% of personnel.

Increasing the number of "dedicated" SLN ships, would decrease the need to put evacuee's onto warships, which lets the warships focus entirely on dealing with the threat, without risking a catastrophic loss, and losing everyone you'd hoped to evacuate. Trying to find exactly how many Higgins had aboard his ships, but I'd hazard a guess it was anywhere upto 100,000. 4 squadrons of Nevada's or Indefatigables (32 hulls) would be sufficient to fully carryout that level of population. Half that if one uses the Scientist- or Vegas-class SLN SD's instead.

Somtaaw wrote:Although compensator upgrades should be relatively easy, and any recovery of older (by Manticoran standards anyways) are still newer, and better than stock SLN, which leads to a slight speed increase, which further leads to better escape ability.

Compensators are core systems, inside the core armor. So this requires an SD capable yard. Where exactly are you planning on finding one? What else could this yard be doing instead of modifying obsolete SDs? Who is going to design and test the new compensator design then integrate it into the code in the SDs command system, and what could they be doing instead? Who will be building the compensators for you?

Wouldn't it be easier and cheaper to just use some of the many spare freighters (most of which will soon be repossessed by banks that want to unload them anyhow) and plan on leaving at the first sign of trouble? Freighter can be easily modified by existing yards in Talbott or elsewhere.

Somtaaw,

In addition to the impossibility of modifying the Solarian ships at this time, my problem with your proposal is that the people working at these bases you want to evacuate are not trained to operate a ship--let alone a Solarian ship which is very different from a Manticoran ship.

How do you expect to train these people to operate the Solarian ships, on top of their already heavy workloads? Remember that it takes two years of full-time training groundside before even basic techs are ever put onto a ship!

How about a new rule? If you propose a new use for the SLN SDs, you have to explain why it is better to use them as opposed to mothballed RMN tube wallers, the completed or almost completed RHN Podnaughts, new build Haven equipment, and new build Beowulf equipment.

If the RMN wanted hyper capable lifeboats for stations, they would have purchased or built some transports. As it is, it would still be cheaper and more efficient to do so than trying to man and maintain the SLN SDs.

SWM wrote:Somtaaw,

In addition to the impossibility of modifying the Solarian ships at this time, my problem with your proposal is that the people working at these bases you want to evacuate are not trained to operate a ship--let alone a Solarian ship which is very different from a Manticoran ship.

How do you expect to train these people to operate the Solarian ships, on top of their already heavy workloads? Remember that it takes two years of full-time training groundside before even basic techs are ever put onto a ship!

(sorry, most of this post ended up starting to look like I'm attacking in reply, but I swear I'm not. Trying to address the points, but I'd been chewing on this for a few weeks before posting so I had already thought about many plus-minus)


If the evacuation SLN ships are kept at full fleet bases, this would mean mostly crewed with Yard dogs, so in other words, entire bases filled with engineers. Engineers who graduated from Saganami Island, so they have all the basic training they would need to plot a course that stays away from an attacker.

You don't need to be highly trained, and practiced to do that most basic of operation. Additionally, the trained (and practiced) astrogators aboard the true warships would provide the optimum course, all the engineers would have to do is point the ship in the right direction, and engage the drive.

Oversimplifying, it's like handing an 18 year old the keys to a Formula 1 race-car, and told he just needs to drive the course, not win the race. Unless it's a total idiot who tries to floor the accelerator, he's going to finish it eventually.

Fly in direction X, at acceleration of Y gravities, after reaching hyper limit, engage hyper and follow course to rendevous Z. That's about as basic a plan for a purely evacuation ship needs, and is not very complex at all.

And since most of the current attacks boil down to "you can't just refit an SD like candy", I will point out yet again, this is a loose plan that makes use of Superdreadnoughts -OR- the battlecruisers. And battlecruisers, being Manticore's "ship of choice" means a BC-capable yard is a dime a dozen. Just about every fleet base Manticore has ever built can handle battlecruiser refits. And refits require considerably less space than building entire new ships from scratch.

From what I remember, there was only three places Manticore actually "built" ships. Blackbird yards, Grendlesbane Station, and Manticore system (Hephaestus, Vulcan, and whatever the third orbital station, plus numerous Grayson-style standalones)

Now if you count places that can only handle maintenance (which also includes refits), name any Fleet base ever from either Havenite or Manticoran Alliance. TextEvidence for classing refits as maintenance, go as early as Short Victorious War. BC 413 Nike, Reliant-class battlecruiser, arrives at Hancock Station with a broken Fusion reactor. Captain Paul Tankersley had a tincan already in one of the repair slips with her whole after hammerhead opened up, but took less than 3 weeks to cut through the armor and decks to start replacement. SLN ships using their older armors, likely NOT using formed in place, means they have armor bolted on, makes for even faster access.

Somtaaw wrote:If the evacuation SLN ships are kept at full fleet bases, this would mean mostly crewed with Yard dogs, so in other words, entire bases filled with engineers. Engineers who graduated from Saganami Island, so they have all the basic training they would need to plot a course that stays away from an attacker.

Explain how Solarian SDs are better in the role of evac ships than (just pulling an example out of a hat here) Atlas-class passenger liners. Or whatever a milspec equivalent of those looks like.

You don't need to be highly trained, and practiced to do that most basic of operation. Additionally, the trained (and practiced) astrogators aboard the true warships would provide the optimum course, all the engineers would have to do is point the ship in the right direction, and engage the drive.

If it was that easy to pilot an honorverse starship, you'd think they'd be able to train crews faster than they do.

Oversimplifying, it's like handing an 18 year old the keys to a Formula 1 race-car, and told he just needs to drive the course, not win the race. Unless it's a total idiot who tries to floor the accelerator, he's going to finish it eventually.

Have you actually looked at what happens when someone not used to F1 cars gets handed the keys? These are very difficult machines to operate, there's a reason why drivers generally go through several lower-class racers before they get to compete in F1.

Fly in direction X, at acceleration of Y gravities, after reaching hyper limit, engage hyper and follow course to rendevous Z. That's about as basic a plan for a purely evacuation ship needs, and is not very complex at all.

And again, why SDs? I should think that an Atlas-class liner, which weighs in at a mere million tons with a manticoran compensator already fitted and ready to go and a passenger capacity in excess of 5000 people would be much better than an SD in the evac role.

And since most of the current attacks boil down to "you can't just refit an SD like candy", I will point out yet again, this is a loose plan that makes use of Superdreadnoughts -OR- the battlecruisers. And battlecruisers, being Manticore's "ship of choice" means a BC-capable yard is a dime a dozen. Just about every fleet base Manticore has ever built can handle battlecruiser refits. And refits require considerably less space than building entire new ships from scratch.

From what I remember, there was only three places Manticore actually "built" ships. Blackbird yards, Grendlesbane Station, and Manticore system (Hephaestus, Vulcan, and whatever the third orbital station, plus numerous Grayson-style standalones)

Now if you count places that can only handle maintenance (which also includes refits), name any Fleet base ever from either Havenite or Manticoran Alliance. TextEvidence for classing refits as maintenance, go as early as Short Victorious War. BC 413 Nike, Reliant-class battlecruiser, arrives at Hancock Station with a broken Fusion reactor. Captain Paul Tankersley had a tincan already in one of the repair slips with her whole after hammerhead opened up, but took less than 3 weeks to cut through the armor and decks to start replacement. SLN ships using their older armors, likely NOT using formed in place, means they have armor bolted on, makes for even faster access.

They can handle manticoran Battlecruisers, or Grayson ones. Not solarian ones. Yes, Tankersley only needed three weeks to patch up Nike. A ship he had the full blueprints for, of a class that had been in service for some time, and with a crew that has serviced similar equipment for ages.

Secondly, remember that while Solarian SDs may be obsolete pieces of crap, ships below the wall in the SLN are more likely to be more advanced, given that these classes actually do work when wearing Frontier Fleet colours.

Thirdly, you still haven't come around to explaining:
-How these ships are going to get to their refit berths
-Who's going to do the installation
-Why ressources should be wasted planning a refit for these ships, which will almost certainly involve a great deal of engineering surveys
-Who's going to ferry these ships to their destination

And, most crucially,
why these ships are better than existing passenger liners or mothballed RMN equipment.

The E wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:If the evacuation SLN ships are kept at full fleet bases, this would mean mostly crewed with Yard dogs, so in other words, entire bases filled with engineers. Engineers who graduated from Saganami Island, so they have all the basic training they would need to plot a course that stays away from an attacker.

Explain how Solarian SDs are better in the role of evac ships than (just pulling an example out of a hat here) Atlas-class passenger liners. Or whatever a milspec equivalent of those looks like.

You don't need to be highly trained, and practiced to do that most basic of operation. Additionally, the trained (and practiced) astrogators aboard the true warships would provide the optimum course, all the engineers would have to do is point the ship in the right direction, and engage the drive.

If it was that easy to pilot an honorverse starship, you'd think they'd be able to train crews faster than they do.

Oversimplifying, it's like handing an 18 year old the keys to a Formula 1 race-car, and told he just needs to drive the course, not win the race. Unless it's a total idiot who tries to floor the accelerator, he's going to finish it eventually.

Have you actually looked at what happens when someone not used to F1 cars gets handed the keys? These are very difficult machines to operate, there's a reason why drivers generally go through several lower-class racers before they get to compete in F1.

Fly in direction X, at acceleration of Y gravities, after reaching hyper limit, engage hyper and follow course to rendevous Z. That's about as basic a plan for a purely evacuation ship needs, and is not very complex at all.

And again, why SDs? I should think that an Atlas-class liner, which weighs in at a mere million tons with a manticoran compensator already fitted and ready to go and a passenger capacity in excess of 5000 people would be much better than an SD in the evac role.

And since most of the current attacks boil down to "you can't just refit an SD like candy", I will point out yet again, this is a loose plan that makes use of Superdreadnoughts -OR- the battlecruisers. And battlecruisers, being Manticore's "ship of choice" means a BC-capable yard is a dime a dozen. Just about every fleet base Manticore has ever built can handle battlecruiser refits. And refits require considerably less space than building entire new ships from scratch.

From what I remember, there was only three places Manticore actually "built" ships. Blackbird yards, Grendlesbane Station, and Manticore system (Hephaestus, Vulcan, and whatever the third orbital station, plus numerous Grayson-style standalones)

Now if you count places that can only handle maintenance (which also includes refits), name any Fleet base ever from either Havenite or Manticoran Alliance. TextEvidence for classing refits as maintenance, go as early as Short Victorious War. BC 413 Nike, Reliant-class battlecruiser, arrives at Hancock Station with a broken Fusion reactor. Captain Paul Tankersley had a tincan already in one of the repair slips with her whole after hammerhead opened up, but took less than 3 weeks to cut through the armor and decks to start replacement. SLN ships using their older armors, likely NOT using formed in place, means they have armor bolted on, makes for even faster access.

They can handle manticoran Battlecruisers, or Grayson ones. Not solarian ones. Yes, Tankersley only needed three weeks to patch up Nike. A ship he had the full blueprints for, of a class that had been in service for some time, and with a crew that has serviced similar equipment for ages.

Secondly, remember that while Solarian SDs may be obsolete pieces of crap, ships below the wall in the SLN are more likely to be more advanced, given that these classes actually do work when wearing Frontier Fleet colours.

Thirdly, you still haven't come around to explaining:
-How these ships are going to get to their refit berths
-Who's going to do the installation
-Why ressources should be wasted planning a refit for these ships, which will almost certainly involve a great deal of engineering surveys
-Who's going to ferry these ships to their destination

And, most crucially,
why these ships are better than existing passenger liners or mothballed RMN equipment.

You left out one more important point that supports your position:

If these ships are to be available to act as hyper-capable evacuation ships, they have to be up and running. Probably with hot nodes.

So who is performing the maintenance to keep them up and running? Who has the time and training?

Not the RMN/GSN/RHN/Other Manticoran Alliance SDF/Beowulf SDF engineers, because they are too busy working on RMN/GSN/RHN/Other Manticoran Alliance SDF/Beowulf SDF ships. And working on the stations the engineers are assigned to on top of the ships they are working on.

Somtaaw,

Others have already pointed out that training for working a shipyard or station does not mean you can operate a warship.

I will add that it is going to take 1000 people working full-time just to keep a Solarian superdreadnought warm. If you just park the ship there and leave it, expecting to use it later for an evacuation, your poor evacuees will belatedly discover that:
a) the ship generators are offline and will take many hours to boot up
b) the ship has no heat, no air circulation, no water flowing, no electricity except what come through the conduits from the station.
c) the computers are offline
d) the impellers can't even start their hours-long powerup until the generators are online and the computers boot up
e) you get the idea.

One more time: it takes at least 1000 people, full-time, just to keep a Solarian superdreadnought in station-keeping mode. It would take days, maybe weeks, to get a ship moving from a complete cold start if you had it shut down.

The E wrote:And, most crucially,
why these ships are better than existing passenger liners or mothballed RMN equipment.

Big E, I have considered and suggested a use for either SD's or BC's, please stop making the general assumption I am *only* arguing a usage for the big boys. Personally I'm more in favour of finding a use for the Battlecruisers, not only because they are faster (if it's an escape ship, speed is important) but also because they've been captured in higher numbers than SD's. Additionally, I have proposed both an IMMEDIATE usage, and a more long-term usage.

Short-term, they go directly to stations and stay there. Do not go to dry-dock, do not receive upgrades, go and power-down to minimum.

Long-term, they receive light upgrades that may consist of compensator upgrades. Why? Because it's still cheaper to do small upgrades like compensators to an existing hull, than it would be to build new. By using the SLN crap, even in this limited a role, Grand Alliance can still build exactly as many warships as they could without making use of the SLN ships.


To actually address your points, since they do have *some* bearing on the BC's I have also looked at.
1) BC's still beat out passenger liners, because passenger liners use:
a) 1 impeller wedge and
b) have civilian compensators and shielding so they are even slower than SLN naval ships (this also excludes what happens if these evacuation ships actually enter hyper, the ratio gets in more in favor of using the SLN ships then)
c) yes an Atlas might be ideal but they were specifically built for the Silesian Run. Obviously a purpose-built liner is going to outperform something that has to be a "general purpose" warship design.

-How these ships are going to get to their refit berths

If we go with the SLN Battlecruisers, Indefatigable-class are 850 k-tons, and their successor Nevada-class (910 ktons). This is almost exactly the same size as Reliants (880 ktons), so repair slips are going to be everywhere. Name any base, you're going to have repair slips out the wazoo.

Hancock, Basilisk, Sidemore, Trevor's Star, the Sea Ford 9 (Havenite but it's flipped hands repeatedly). I'm specifically excluding bases & stations that are more about production, otherwise we'd be including Grendlesbane, Blackbird, Bolthole, Manticore.

-Who's going to do the installation

Well *IF* compensators are actually installed, any Yard Dogs that don't have anything else better to do can pull an SLN BC into place and work on it at a casual level instead of sitting on their hands, waiting to work on a Grand Alliance ship.

-Why ressources should be wasted planning a refit for these ships, which will almost certainly involve a great deal of engineering surveys


The ability to be able to evacuate 100% of your personnel, especially in a time where Yard Dogs were wiped out due to Oystur Bay is going to play a pretty hefty role influencing light-refits.

-Who's going to ferry these ships to their destination?

Again, at a simplistic level it doesn't take much. You could even use the ferrying job for Midshipmen with a very small core of experienced enlisted.

-- to address everyone hopping on the bandwagon of shooting down the evac design, please enlighten me as to how YOU have a better idea, instead of just jumping the bandwagon of bashing on a n00b too stupid to touch this obviously well beaten horse.

At least this n00b took the time to think both short-term, and long-term utilization, and took economic plans into mind. Yes, there's a bit of handwavium involved, but please enlighten me as to how there's never been any handwavium ever in Honor-verse at any time.

I have no issues with taking constructive criticism, but this is bashing the idiot (me) simply for the sake of bashing the idiot. Especially since everyone is all "Somtaaw u such an idiot thinking SLN SD are useful" when my suggestion at best looked at the SDs, admitted they have a higher maximum carry, and then proceeds to plan out the battlecruisers for better cost efficiency.

stewart" quote="fallsfromtrees wrote:

kzt wrote:The minor detail that those LACs have an 18 month reactor life with 36 months to a new reactor, plus no replacement nodes or any other spare part is a kind of a big problem that David is handwaving away.

I don't know where you got the 18 month reactor life. From Echoes of Honor, chapter three

Our present estimate is that a Shrike's original power core should be good for about eighteen T-years, which means the only practical limitation on the class's endurance will be her life support."

That's years, not months.

---------------------

18 years is realistic as well (no-handwavium involved)
Enterprise (CVN-65) had 20yr cores in her 132MW Pressurized Water Reactors.

-- Stewart[/quote]

More than that IIRC the early Nimitz class carriers reactors cores had a life span of 25 years and the last ones 30-35 years and the Ford class having a projected lifespan of up to 50 years.