Fall 1924: What will the Admiralty build next

Fox2! wrote:

Relax wrote:Suggest Kammerling class.

IIRC. aren't the Kammerlings based on a CL hull? Even with the Marine Country converted into workshops, rec areas, additional stowage for crew consumables, etc., they would be too small for the mission.

As RMN Marines are used for damage control, etc., is there a problem? You could reduce the number of weapons, etc., and have on board more maintenance experts.

phillies wrote:

Relax wrote:Suggest Kammerling class.

As RMN Marines are used for damage control, etc., is there a problem? You could reduce the number of weapons, etc., and have on board more maintenance experts.

Damage control... Search and rescue is a better description. No one can decipher the exact problem/solution in an hour let alone decide on a solution and implement it. Battles last mere minutes. Marines as helpful at anything regarding damage control is a joke in reality, but there for action scenes in the books. Anything other than flipping a switch to change between redundant systems cannot be done in the heat of a battle. IMO all marines should be removed from SD'P. All they do is increase the body count... something DW loves increasing in all of his books.

Relax wrote:
Damage control... Search and rescue is a better description. No one can decipher the exact problem/solution in an hour let alone decide on a solution and implement it. Battles last mere minutes. Marines as helpful at anything regarding damage control is a joke in reality, but there for action scenes in the books. Anything other than flipping a switch to change between redundant systems cannot be done in the heat of a battle. IMO all marines should be removed from SD'P. All they do is increase the body count... something DW loves increasing in all of his books.

Yeah, Battalions of Marines on SDs never made sense to me. BCs and CAs, yes - those are patrol/flag waving ships that might incidentally be required to provide ground pounders in surprise situations, as part of raids, or part of boarding situations. SDs are only deployed to attack a target and reduce it, defend a friend, or send a dire message. Any any situation where an SD and Marines are needed, it is usually known in advance, and Marine Carriers can be sent in the fleet train of the SDs.

SDs don't patrol, don't raid, and don't go anywhere on their own - so why carry marines like they do? SD's should be Lean Mean Death and Destruction machines and little else.

In the other thread, I also posted the marines should 100% be removed from SD'P. I think they could be added to CLAC's.
Where SD'P go, CLAC's go and a CLAC has room to expand. But even this is highly dubious as if you are taking over a star system you are going to need a HELL of a LOT more marines than 1000 and they can chill across the alpha wall until needed. An SDP should have no more personnel on it than a DD ROLAND(+ flag bridge). Remove that ~1000 extra or 2000 extra personnel and that is several more PDLC or CM installations you can put on your ship. Or carry more Lorelie ECM platforms, or gives you the ability to launch pods out more directions than just the golden BB poop shoot of the SD'P so you actually CAN have redundant offensive capability which currently DOES NOT EXIST. This alone is worth FAR more than all the "damage control" marines supposedly could ever contemplate doing in a battle.

Theemile wrote:

Relax wrote:
Damage control... Search and rescue is a better description. No one can decipher the exact problem/solution in an hour let alone decide on a solution and implement it. Battles last mere minutes. Marines as helpful at anything regarding damage control is a joke in reality, but there for action scenes in the books. Anything other than flipping a switch to change between redundant systems cannot be done in the heat of a battle. IMO all marines should be removed from SD'P. All they do is increase the body count... something DW loves increasing in all of his books.

Yeah, Battalions of Marines on SDs never made sense to me. BCs and CAs, yes - those are patrol/flag waving ships that might incidentally be required to provide ground pounders in surprise situations, as part of raids, or part of boarding situations. SDs are only deployed to attack a target and reduce it, defend a friend, or send a dire message. Any any situation where an SD and Marines are needed, it is usually known in advance, and Marine Carriers can be sent in the fleet train of the SDs.

SDs don't patrol, don't raid, and don't go anywhere on their own - so why carry marines like they do? SD's should be Lean Mean Death and Destruction machines and little else.

The large threat at this time is size. Manticore is small, recent gains notwithstanding.Lower taxes to support more private investment is key. Deep interstellar exploration is key. More warships against no known threat is a waste of money, which will discredit the Admiralty and cause it to be disbelieved when the threat is a small cloud no larger than a man's fist.

Pretty sure with HH being based on the Age of Sail, and the Royal Navy thereof, the Marines will be both able to assist in crewing weapons as well as the less technically-intense portions of Damage Control.

Not only that, but I believe they are also a key component of the ships internal security force.

So you could get rid of them...but you'd have to replace most of them with more ratings anyway so you don't end up any better off for the number of bodies.

Worse, the ratings won't be as useful should a ground or boarding force be needed - as we saw when Abigail Hearns was detached for the role when she was TACO aboard the Roland-class.

P.S. No way are you reducing an SD(P) crew anywhere near that of a Roland. Pretty sure an SD(P) has at least 3 - more likely 4 or 5 - fusion reactors compared to the Roland's singleton. Then there's the fact that the SD(P) has a couple of hundred pods that need maintenance, all the missiles inside those pods need maintenance... as do the small craft on board, the Keyhole platforms, the CMs and launchers, the PDLCs etc., etc..

Indeed, I think we need a reminder that the single, biggest criticism of the Roland is that there aren't enough crew for all the little jobs that they need to do - boarding parties, prize crews or even supporting allies against insurrection.

WLBjork wrote:P.S. No way are you reducing an SD(P) crew anywhere near that of a Roland. Pretty sure an SD(P) has at least 3 - more likely 4 or 5 - fusion reactors compared to the Roland's singleton. Then there's the fact that the SD(P) has a couple of hundred pods that need maintenance, all the missiles inside those pods need maintenance... as do the small craft on board, the Keyhole platforms, the CMs and launchers, the PDLCs etc., etc..

Indeed, I think we need a reminder that the single, biggest criticism of the Roland is that there aren't enough crew for all the little jobs that they need to do - boarding parties, prize crews or even supporting allies against insurrection.

I agree that you can't get a crew that low - as you point out maintenance requirements alone require more crew than a Roland.

But to be fair an SD(P) generally isn't in situations where it's providing boarding parties, doing customs inspection, sending out prize crews, etc. So it's less likely to need away teams than a DD - CA is. About the only time you're might be raiding an SD's crew for away teams is to board the disabled and surrendered units of a defeated fleet. But it's very unusual to be able to trap an enemy fleet and prevent many survivors from escaping. So, between the fled and the destroyed, you might well have enough away crews among your fleet's cruiser escorts to handle the minority of enemy that actual remain to be boarded.

And in that case you're expecting the enemy to, by and large, behave properly as prisoners -- so you're not performing a hostile boarding and engaging in a room by room fight through the ship. You still need armed personnel to keep an eye on the prisoners; but not necessarily many marines or other trained ground troops.

WLBjork wrote:
P.S. No way are you reducing an SD(P) crew anywhere near that of a Roland. Pretty sure an SD(P) has at least 3 - more likely 4 or 5 - fusion reactors compared to the Roland's singleton. Then there's the fact that the SD(P) has a couple of hundred pods that need maintenance, all the missiles inside those pods need maintenance... as do the small craft on board, the Keyhole platforms, the CMs and launchers, the PDLCs etc., etc..

Indeed, I think we need a reminder that the single, biggest criticism of the Roland is that there aren't enough crew for all the little jobs that they need to do - boarding parties, prize crews or even supporting allies against insurrection.

Numbers will be very similar other than for some beyond uncomprehensible reason RFC has a human hitting a button to shut down a reactor Something that literally has NEVER been done except on an R&D plant. As for maintenance etc requiring very few numbers SD sit in orbit doing nothing until training maneuvers or attacking/defending. All the maintenance can be done by repair yards/repair ships before setting out or inbetween operations. It is the ultimate redundant ship. Of all ship classes it needs the least amount of maintenance of all of them by onboard personnel.

Maintenance on pods, Cm's? Uh, no. No more than there is maintenance done underway on missiles onboard naval ships today.

PS: DD's/CL's have 2 fusion plants OBS is a great reference.

PPS: LCS had enough crew, but regulations imposed by the builders to make $$$$$ for themselves stopped them from repairing minor stuff themselves. If it wasn't for their MORONIC cost cutting lack of galvanization system, the ships would be just fine if not waaayy too large frigates.

WLBjork wrote:Pretty sure with HH being based on the Age of Sail, and the Royal Navy thereof, the Marines will be both able to assist in crewing weapons as well as the less technically-intense portions of Damage Control.

Not only that, but I believe they are also a key component of the ships internal security force.

So you could get rid of them...but you'd have to replace most of them with more ratings anyway so you don't end up any better off for the number of bodies.

Worse, the ratings won't be as useful should a ground or boarding force be needed - as we saw when Abigail Hearns was detached for the role when she was TACO aboard the Roland-class.

P.S. No way are you reducing an SD(P) crew anywhere near that of a Roland. Pretty sure an SD(P) has at least 3 - more likely 4 or 5 - fusion reactors compared to the Roland's singleton. Then there's the fact that the SD(P) has a couple of hundred pods that need maintenance, all the missiles inside those pods need maintenance... as do the small craft on board, the Keyhole platforms, the CMs and launchers, the PDLCs etc., etc..

Indeed, I think we need a reminder that the single, biggest criticism of the Roland is that there aren't enough crew for all the little jobs that they need to do - boarding parties, prize crews or even supporting allies against insurrection.

One of the biggest needs for warships was for the extra crew to man weapons- but that changed with Modern ships, An SD went from having 100 lasers and grasers to 25 massive grasers, 80-100 Tubes to 12 or none. Yes, CMs and PDLCs went up, but these require integrated master computer control to do everything but hit the reset button - which if properly designed can be done remotely for 95% of issues that havn't cut the weapon off from the master control computers. Besides modern combat has taken the Graser dual from the Main Show to a rarely seen, avoid at all cost sideshow. So why plan massive crews for something they are never going to use - plan instead on redundant control systems and larger roaming repair teams.

Personally, I don't think the crew of an SD will fall to anywhere near Roland levels, and Roland levels are too few anyway. But 650 marines with power armor and pinnances on Every SD is an extravagence the RMN never took advantage of properly, and no longer needs to man the weapons - it was probably patterned after the SLN who built 800 lb gorillia scare machines.

SDs don't go anywhere without a fleet train - they should offload all non combat functions as much as possible to their fleet train, and build more specialized ships for the Fleet train to support the Warfighters.

Jonathan_S wrote:I agree that you can't get a crew that low - as you point out maintenance requirements alone require more crew than a Roland.

But to be fair an SD(P) generally isn't in situations where it's providing boarding parties, doing customs inspection, sending out prize crews, etc. So it's less likely to need away teams than a DD - CA is. About the only time you're might be raiding an SD's crew for away teams is to board the disabled and surrendered units of a defeated fleet. But it's very unusual to be able to trap an enemy fleet and prevent many survivors from escaping. So, between the fled and the destroyed, you might well have enough away crews among your fleet's cruiser escorts to handle the minority of enemy that actual remain to be boarded.

And in that case you're expecting the enemy to, by and large, behave properly as prisoners -- so you're not performing a hostile boarding and engaging in a room by room fight through the ship. You still need armed personnel to keep an eye on the prisoners; but not necessarily many marines or other trained ground troops.

Hmm. That hasn't been so unusual, though. Filareta, Crandall and Tourville's fleets are the big three, but the RMN's record stretches back all the way to First Hancock and Third Yeltsin. HoS indicates they captured a further 21 wallers in good enough condition to reuse during those early days.

They might not carry as many marines as they did during those pre-pod days but they're not going to pull a Roland and throw them all away.