Fate of the Solarian League

little bit off topic but relates to this... The return of the second favorite shiptype to be blasted... The Battleship!

As discussed in the thread the verge and possibly large portions of the SL are going to be in a state much like Silesia. I see BB's as being as much a political use as military.

All is this is NET ~1940/50.
Assumptions: Military tech/doctrine has evened out much like the pre-war years (although not as stagnant). So we're back to the traditional SD>DN>BB>BC>CA>CL>DD with LACs doing their thing. As discussed most of these systems aren't going to have wallers as they're to expensive for most warlords/pirates to maintain, and even as corrupt as the SLN and its suppliers were a missing SD would get some attention, or they don't have the ability to build or buy them.

While LAC's and system defense pods are great for defense they don't provide much power projection, and while SD's might not make it into warlords hands CLACish ships are easy to jury-rig or even possible buy as the ship itself is not dangerous.

As they saying goes the best defense is a good offense. The "Good Guy" systems will need some kind of power projection to stabilize the area because the GA cant be everywhere and in the end they need to stand up for themselves eventually.

SO TL;DR Give Battleships to the "Good Guys" to allow them to secure their systems and region, without posing a threat to a 1st line navy if they go the way of Iran

--snipping--

Hasek wrote:little bit off topic but relates to this... The return of the second favorite shiptype to be blasted... The Battleship...

As they saying goes the best defense is a good offense. The "Good Guy" systems will need some kind of power projection to stabilize the area because the GA cant be everywhere and in the end they need to stand up for themselves eventually.

SO TL;DR Give Battleships to the "Good Guys" to allow them to secure their systems and region, without posing a threat to a 1st line navy if they go the way of Iran

Too slow to run down pretty much anything, unless you're thinking of using them Q-ship style. If you're not going with a radically new type, "old sizing" BC's a la the Sultans, Warlords, Reliant size hulls, with upgraded inertial compensators and black-boxed sensor suites. Theory being you can't catch what you can't see and you can't kill what you can't catch.

That also depends on how ubiqitous DDMs are in PD1940+, aka would a better supplied pirate have them? If so maybe those "two decade old retired and outdated" Sag-Cs and Rolands are your best bets.

Hasek wrote:little bit off topic but relates to this... The return of the second favorite shiptype to be blasted... The Battleship!

As discussed in the thread the verge and possibly large portions of the SL are going to be in a state much like Silesia. I see BB's as being as much a political use as military.

All is this is NET ~1940/50.
Assumptions: Military tech/doctrine has evened out much like the pre-war years (although not as stagnant). So we're back to the traditional SD>DN>BB>BC>CA>CL>DD with LACs doing their thing. As discussed most of these systems aren't going to have wallers as they're to expensive for most warlords/pirates to maintain, and even as corrupt as the SLN and its suppliers were a missing SD would get some attention, or they don't have the ability to build or buy them.

While LAC's and system defense pods are great for defense they don't provide much power projection, and while SD's might not make it into warlords hands CLACish ships are easy to jury-rig or even possible buy as the ship itself is not dangerous.

As they saying goes the best defense is a good offense. The "Good Guy" systems will need some kind of power projection to stabilize the area because the GA cant be everywhere and in the end they need to stand up for themselves eventually.

SO TL;DR Give Battleships to the "Good Guys" to allow them to secure their systems and region, without posing a threat to a 1st line navy if they go the way of Iran

Sheer smaller numbers of SD's or late DN's would do the same job, for more effect per unit cost to build, buy, and maintain. For that matter, so would larger numbers of BC's. And at this point, there simply aren't many if any old battleships left to sell anyone - they've been blow up or scrapped, well ahead of the DN's but on the same curve for the same reasons - so someone would have to build some of the accursed things fresh to sell to these people to project power badly.

And even then (yes, there's more!), battleships were most recently used not to project power at all, but in PRN service as rear-area defense. You put one or more of them in a system, and raiders would require proper wallers to raid it with confidence, or battlecruisers in gratuitously greater numbers of with exceptionally greater skill or luck. For that, now, you'd do better with system defense missile pods and/or a LAC squadron. Granted, those would "free up" any surviving BB's from that duty, but any surviving BB's would be in awful shape projected against that sort of defense: they'd suffer precisely, again, still, from not having a true waller's defenses or a subwaller's speed and relative expendability.

Short of wallers, you'd be able to project power well enough with effective hypercapable warships and LAC's carried on whatever tolerable CLAC-equivalent you can find/buy/build. The next step up from that would be a proper waller and/or a proper CLAC, or just more of whatever. It's not going to be a battleship as a matter of choice, and they're not likely to be available as a matter of opportunity. (Unlike, say, the SLN Reserve Fleet - which itself has few to no BB's or DN's remaining.)

Hasek wrote:SO TL;DR Give Battleships to the "Good Guys" to allow them to secure their systems and region, without posing a threat to a 1st line navy if they go the way of Iran

Since nobody is building traditional battleships but they are building BCs and BC(L)s why not sell BCs to systems that want a bit of power projection?

BC(L)s are pushing the size range of traditional Battleships anyway, so there's not much difference other than designed mission; the last surviving BBs were used for internal security rather than force projection.

Weird Harold wrote:

Hasek wrote:SO TL;DR Give Battleships to the "Good Guys" to allow them to secure their systems and region, without posing a threat to a 1st line navy if they go the way of Iran

Since nobody is building traditional battleships but they are building BCs and BC(L)s why not sell BCs to systems that want a bit of power projection?

Because the "Bad Guys" will have them too

BC(L)s are pushing the size range of traditional Battleships anyway, so there's not much difference other than designed mission; the last surviving BBs were used for internal security rather than force projection.

The future threat environment im envisioning is more like 1900 then 1920, everyone has about equal capabilities, everyone will have access to hardware equal to 1921 Front line Alliance hardware and the bad guys will be actual nations with equal hardware to the good guys. I think they're going to be a bunch of Andermani wanabes.

Most of these nations are going to be relatively poor, the only reason Manticore was able to build what it did prewar was the Junction. Even a small percentage reduction in operating costs is going to be a significant real value. These BB's im thinking about are Foreign Aid given or discounted significantly while also keeping in mind the risk that they might be "lost" or a government falling to a less then friendly management. Giving/Selling BB's vs SD's is as much about keeping real wallers from falling into the wrong hands as it is giving allies a big stick

A Modern Battleship designed for the FTL MDM environment is going to be better then a contemporary BC. Taking the system is the goal whether the lighter ships flee or get engaged and destroyed is immaterial. They aren't designed/meant to face 1st tier fleets they're built to beat up on other 2nd and 3rd tier fleets

Hasek wrote:A Modern Battleship designed for the FTL MDM environment ...

That's the point; nobody is designing or building BBs. It would take years to design and build, while BC(L)s are just rolling off the assembly lines.

The difference in capability between a Manticore Lite BC(L) and a MDM capable BB is going to be negligible and "Manticore Lite" is going to be the "gold standard" for foreign aid.

Weird Harold wrote:That's the point; nobody is designing or building BBs. It would take years to design and build, while BC(L)s are just rolling off the assembly lines.

Whose assembly lines are you referring too? Last I knew, nobody is building Nikes.

kzt wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:That's the point; nobody is designing or building BBs. It would take years to design and build, while BC(L)s are just rolling off the assembly lines.

Whose assembly lines are you referring too? Last I knew, nobody is building Nikes.

I suppose what we are referring to here is a portion of the production coming out of Havenite yards, at least at first. Some of Haven's current BC designs are probably suitable for foreign aid.

Then before too long, we will start seeing composite designs which will be Havenite hulls enhanced by some of Manticore's goodies such as better inertial compensators, the abilitiy to handle missiles with microfusion plants, ftl, etc.

Finally, Manticore's assembly lines will be restored in the midrange future, probably about 5 years. I understand that from your perspective, that would not be realistic in our universe. But in the honorverse, that is what the textev seems to indicate, for what it is worth.

Then too, bear in mind that when we are speaking of foreign aid, the time factor is going to play out there too. To start with, older Many and Havenite designs such as Star Knights and Warlords will probably be the first hardware provided as things get under way. It will only be later that more modern stuff comes into play.

To conclude, I think it would be a bad idea, wasteful even, to expend precious resourses designing and building battleships. They have had their day like the older design frigates. Now let them rest in peace.

Don

kzt wrote:Whose assembly lines are you referring too? Last I knew, nobody is building Nikes.

Manticore's, Haven's, and the rest of the GA in 1930-40 PD -- the time frame suggested for foreign aid BBs to be distributed.

Weird Harold wrote:

Hasek wrote:A Modern Battleship designed for the FTL MDM environment ...

That's the point; nobody is designing or building BBs. It would take years to design and build, while BC(L)s are just rolling off the assembly lines.

The difference in capability between a Manticore Lite BC(L) and a MDM capable BB is going to be negligible and "Manticore Lite" is going to be the "gold standard" for foreign aid.

If it's never intended to lay in the wall, and if it's not built to be a podlayer, but it is intended to be about as tough and dangerous as you can get short of being a proper waller or a podlayer - it's essentially a Nike. As far as size goes, there's little to differentiate between a Nike and very old battleships. The differences are a matter of what the unit does with the size and what it is meant to. Battleships were built as the smallest of capital ships (initially, because they were about as large as they could be built); Nikes, as the largest of (battle)cruisers.

The hypothetical role of largest power projection, system security second-tier small navy heavy unit - something that definitely isn't a possible component of an effective wall, but definitely IS large enough to threaten anything else - straddles the BB and BC(L) roles pretty well. I think you may be asking for misunderstanding calling it a "battleship" (rather like battlecruisers suffered for being placed in capital ships lines of battle in WWI), and I'm skeptical that anyone is going to be building a class like that simply for export to the people in the sticks. For that, building them export versions of one's own BC(L)'s (whatever they may be called then) would get you essentially the same result with essentially the same technical specifications.