Rolands actually have plenty of room for Marines

tlb wrote:

tlb wrote:Isn't the expectation that the Light Cruiser will go away, with its functions being rolled into the Destroyer? This is part of the weight inflation in every class, with the result that certain classes will disappear.

Relax wrote:On the contrary, it is the Destroyer which has lost it major roles due to LAC's/RD's and commerce protection role to CL's. Before the Roland design, Destroyers were disappearing. The Ship RMN loves is the CL.

I do not remember where the discussion was, but with destroyers getting into the Light Cruiser size; the demarcation was going to be on what jobs need to be performed. If there still are destroyer jobs then there will still be a destroyer class; so the light cruiser might go away and there becomes one dominant cruiser class, that performs whatever cruiser jobs there are.

Getting back to the Roland, a crew of 62 works out to a Captain and an Exec and three shifts of 20 working 8 hours on and 16 off. If you need to construct a prize crew then you have messed up one shift and some people are working 12 hours on and 12 off. Can it be that pirate hunting and so on will be a cruiser job going forward?

What David and crew finally flushed out was Frigates and DDs originally were the same mass range - Frigates had small weapons suites, but had legs, and destroyers had decent weapons suites, but little range. CLs - they had range, slightly better weapons suites, and deep enough ammo mags to endure multiple engagements (barely). As warfare changed, the DD needed to get larger and larger - and range crept in as designs got bigger than old CLs (and CLs got commencertly larger as well). The FF fell out of the equation when they couldn't expect to survive combat due to their small magazines, and the Larger DDs could perform the mission.

Now, the minimum package to do the DD/CL mission with MDMs is believed to be ~300Kt, collapsing the DD and CL together into that one class, whatever it will be named.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

tlb wrote:Getting back to the Roland, a crew of 62 works out to a Captain and an Exec and three shifts of 20 working 8 hours on and 16 off. If you need to construct a prize crew then you have messed up one shift and some people are working 12 hours on and 12 off. Can it be that pirate hunting and so on will be a cruiser job going forward?

Not necessarily. It will just not be a Roland-class job, and likely not a Wolfhound-class either because those only have 87 people embarked.

But I think you're right. Pirate hunting using destroyers was possible in Silesia due to the tight clustering of systems to patrol and given the proximity of the Basilisk and Gregor termini of the Junction. The destroyers could fall back easily to resupply if needed. Now that Silesia are actual parts of the Manticore and Andermani empires, we expect piracy inside it to have massively reduced, if nothing else because the IAN and RMN will deploy LACs to keep any wannabe pirate from having a good day in their systems.

Anti-piracy activity will therefore be outside of Silesia, in the systems that didn't opt to join Manticore, those that were outside of the Confederation in the first place, or further out in the regions between the empires and Haven and Grayson. That means ships engaging in anti-piracy will need endurance ("legs") and that is what sets a light-cruiser apart from a destroyer.

I think of the old anti-piracy role like an old beat cop. no one was "Scared" of the beat cop. He didn't carry a gun, all he carried was a Bobby stick and a whistle. What criminals were afraid was that he could have called other cops with that whistle. And if someone got to him before he blew his whistle, More, mad cops would flood the area searching for who accosted him. That's what the FF was - the Beat Cop. and if you hurt an FF, the Manties would fall on you with squadrons of CAs and BCs, so you respected what the FF represented, you laid low, and let him (and what he was protecting) pass.

What probably happened in the late 1880 is pirates and privateers suddenly had enough firepower to cleanly take out 1-3 Frigates, and did so repeatedly. It's not stated, but with the rapidity with which the RMN got rid of the class, something had to prove their lack of survivability without a shadow of a doubt - and losing a few dozen ships in a year or so might have been it.

In OTL, the Bobbies were armed as Criminals showed up with Tommy guns and misc. pistols and shot guns, and killed cops in their way - necessitating that patrolmen could protect themselves and be able to continue to serve as a deterrent to crime by carrying firearms. Thus the better armed DD and CL replaced the FF. And as the criminal/enemy gets better tools, a bigger/badder patrolman is needed.

tlb wrote:Isn't the expectation that the Light Cruiser will go away, with its functions being rolled into the Destroyer? This is part of the weight inflation in every class, with the result that certain classes will disappear.

Relax wrote:On the contrary, it is the Destroyer which has lost it major roles due to LAC's/RD's and commerce protection role to CL's. Before the Roland design, Destroyers were disappearing. The Ship RMN loves is the CL.

tlb wrote:I do not remember where the discussion was, but with destroyers getting into the Light Cruiser size; the demarcation was going to be on what jobs need to be performed. If there still are destroyer jobs then there will still be a destroyer class; so the light cruiser might go away and there becomes one dominant cruiser class, that performs whatever cruiser jobs there are.

Theemile wrote:What David and crew finally flushed out was Frigates and DDs originally were the same mass range - Frigates had small weapons suites, but had legs, and destroyers had decent weapons suites, but little range. CLs - they had range, slightly better weapons suites, and deep enough ammo mags to endure multiple engagements (barely). As warfare changed, the DD needed to get larger and larger - and range crept in as designs got bigger than old CLs (and CLs got commencertly larger as well). The FF fell out of the equation when they couldn't expect to survive combat due to their small magazines, and the Larger DDs could perform the mission.

Now, the minimum package to do the DD/CL mission with MDMs is believed to be ~300Kt, collapsing the DD and CL together into that one class, whatever it will be named.

Here is the author's thoughts on whether the destroyer will disappear (note that he references the Roland-class):
Is the destroyer obsolete?

Theemile wrote:
What probably happened in the late 1880 is pirates and privateers suddenly had enough firepower to cleanly take out 1-3 Frigates, and did so repeatedly. It's not stated, but with the rapidity with which the RMN got rid of the class, something had to prove their lack of survivability without a shadow of a doubt - and losing a few dozen ships in a year or so might have been it. \

David Weber tells us WHY frigates vanished in House of Steel in the description of the Light Cruiser Class.

"It took the looming war with Haven to knock the frigate out of favor due ot its inability to face any regular warship, regaredless of tonnage, and one of King Roger's major initiaitaves"

tlb wrote:Here is the author's thoughts on whether the destroyer will disappear (note that he references the Roland-class):
Is the destroyer obsolete?

The 300kt destroyer/cruiser AKA CHEAPEST $$$$$$$$ possible, most numerous ship build going forward post was a different post and effectively said the 2 classes, DD/CL would merge and more than likely Merge with the CA as well. It has disappeared, though we should be able to find it in RFC's posts here, but it used to be tabulated over thefifthimperium.com which has died. Links still exist but all the text associated with those links have vanished.

The quote you gave is relevant, but very old. It appears it went under some severe modifications/explanations/simplification in the Description of the DD in House of Steel which is much more up to date on DW's thinking. Essentially all Fleet jobs of the DD have vanished. Leaving only the hyper band scouting role in terms of fleet operations. Anti piracy jobs still exist requiring short legs. Though why a ship of 188ktons would ever have short legs... Then again, Nations like France/Italy made huge Destroyers with short legs compared to their contemporaries so its possible, though why ANYONE would build a destroyer with short legs seems puzzling unless they have completely missed basic military history lesson 101, short legs on warships ii= logistical death crippling a fleet regardless of all the other jobs needed to be done by a DD/CL class.

Always useful to refer to OTL, considering that RFC is an historian and an academic of naval evolution. Destroyers started out at about 1,500 ton, now over 9,600 ton. Assuming technological progress, a 2024 destroyer could possibly be more effective than a ship of the line 1915.

Relax wrote:DD's in missile heavy environment should NEVER get to Graser/Laser range and if they do they should use their MUCH heavier CHASE armament with much HEAVIER bow/sternwall + Buckler where << Drum roll >> Roland has its Heavy Graser's and only has Lasers on its Broadside.

Why? DD's have NO ARMOR and actually most often mission kill is damage to its impeller ring. DD's with ZERO armor, but with buckler and Bow wall has only true way to protect its impellers --> use its hammer heads. And Light Cruisers, if they have any armor would put it on its hammerheads minimizing area required for armor compared to its broadside

PS: Remember MAIN armor is sidewalls, not PHYSICAL armor. In this case with addition of VERY strong Bowwalls and addition of a buckler, this makes the MOST protected aspect of a ship also its SMALLEST aspect of the ship = bow/stern.

counter-argument, literally EVERY pirate interception occurs using energy weapons, NOT missiles.

Whether captain Bachfish in Silesia (both during Honor's snotty cruise, and when she went back as Admiral Harrington during AAC), Honor's pirate captures, Terekhov capturing the Havenite 'pirates'. Everybody seems to troll pirates into energy range, so whether a DD has no armor or not, if they are ever going to hunt pirates, at least some beams is mandatory and not optional.

But thanks to Silesia's weak naval command, and Frontier Fleet with their case Buccaneer, you could see upto battlecruiser-sized "pirates". Which means you need energy weapons strong enough to bash through their sidewalls, preferably while THEIR guns cant bash through your.

Since we know bow walls and bucklers are actually SD-grade in strength, that means you need a minimum of BC-grade grasers on your ship. But that's just standard cruiser-sized grasers, which were mounted in increasing quantity depending on whether you were building a heavy cruiser, battlecruiser, or for those who still built them (Haven) battleships mounted even more of the same sized weapons as battlecruisers did.


Even Rolands still carry a few grasers still, it's still practically a requirement. They have 2 big grasers on bow and stern, probably BC-sized, and 5 more small lasers on their broadside which are probably used heavily as extra missile defense rather than actually engaging other ships with. So a Grand Alliance Light Cruiser that's superior to both Rolands and Avalons, able to properly pirate hunt while still having a good-sized Marine contingent absolutely must still have energy mounts.

Whether it uses the same sizes as Rolands and Avalons just in more quantity, or uses fewer but larger mounts is a toss up. But if it's intended primarily for fleet defense, with a secondary purpose of pirate hunting, using more but smaller energy mounts is probably preferable. If they had 6-10 cruiser-sized energy broadside mounts and a trio of SD grasers for chaser, they'd be absolute demons to pirates while still providing ridiculous missile defense via the numerous broadside mounts


But there's absolutely no question that everybody packs in some energy mounts, whether it's intended to be missile primary or not. Even if the only time you're likely to use them, is when you're pulling a Byng and shooting at other ships in a parking orbit with you. If you don't have any beams at all, then the only thing you're going to do is die.

Somtaaw wrote:

Relax wrote:DD's in missile heavy environment should NEVER get to Graser/Laser range

counter-argument, literally EVERY pirate interception occurs using energy weapons, NOT missiles.

Yes, books describe that, but, is is nearly always a Q ship role, or someone reminiscing that letting yourself get that close is tantamount to being a bad captain.... Was looking for a quote... ??? Flag in Exile? or In Enemy Hands where Honor is looking at the Grayson's new build Star Knight equivalent which ditched ALL Lasers and went with Grasers as she was reminiscing that nearly ALL small cruiser combat is decided LONG before Laser/Graser range, so why bother with Lasers, go with fewer longer ranged(slightly) Grasers.... hrmm now that I think about it, was this her reminiscing back in Honor of the Queen? Where she was surprised they Laser Graser range was ever entered into to begin with? I can't find the quote. Sorry.

As for Roland's Laser broadside, could be as you stated regarding using them as LARGE PDLC, but I think they also decided that one still must fight broadsides sometimes at Laser Range even if extremely rare in a DDM era.

Daryl wrote:Always useful to refer to OTL, considering that RFC is an historian and an academic of naval evolution. Destroyers started out at about 1,500 ton, now over 9,600 ton. Assuming technological progress, a 2024 destroyer could possibly be more effective than a ship of the line 1915.

OTL =???

Yes, but Big distinction: Wet Navy DD's went from gun range of 10 km(on a good day, yea yea technically farther, but it was like pissing into the wind), + depth charges/torpedos, no RADAR, Very crude ASDIC, speed of ~15 knots(cruise), range 3500nm Not defending the fleet, to having RADAR, SONAR, MISSILES for offense AND defense, range of hundreds of km, torpedos, and BIG ol' Helo's and a flight deck as well at a cruise speed of ~20 knots, range of 5000nm and its main purpose is defending the fleet from missile attack. Oh yea, and superior armor(lined in Kevlar) which DD's started with ZERO armor, making Today's cruisers closer to CL's than DD's. In fact the placement of Armor on modern "destroyers" is one of the main differences between them and Frigates. Somewhere along the way... Frigates today are closer to DD's of old and CL's of old are today DD's. If we change this definition Switch, then the tonnage creep is about ~2.5X if you start around WWI timeframe. Obviously by WWII CL's had ballooned over 10,000t, so the comparison falls down yet again compared to Honorverse, but hey we can but try.

In Honorverse they are going from missiles to 33% bigger missiles. PDLC's to more numerous and bigger PDLC's(not sure we know exactly the difference as we do for the SAGC/BCL. Small RD's to bigger long endurance RD's. From defendindg the fleeting and being a scout/anti pirate roll to No defense of the fleet retaining scout/anti pirate roll.

tlb wrote:Here is the author's thoughts on whether the destroyer will disappear (note that he references the Roland-class):
Is the destroyer obsolete?

Relax wrote:The quote you gave is relevant, but very old. It appears it went under some severe modifications/explanations/simplification in the Description of the DD in House of Steel which is much more up to date on DW's thinking. Essentially all Fleet jobs of the DD have vanished. Leaving only the hyper band scouting role in terms of fleet operations.

Can someone elucidate? It is still my understanding that if destroyer jobs exist, then a destroyer class will exist. What does HoS say differently?

Why would any job REQUIRE "short legs"?