2014 STGOD OOC Commentary Thread 1

[Skywalker_T-65]

Arcadia doesn't have much choice but to send ships. While I haven't finalized the OrBat, I do know we don't have much in the way of heavy airlift capacity. While we could send engineers in (might do a post), we can't get really heavy equipment there other than by ship, or hiring transport.

And considering this isn't 'Arcadia' so much as 'Glacia', hiring air transport might raise some flags when the ships themselves are being covered as a 'routine patrol'. Otherwise every island would be scrambling to send people, and it would get even more complicated.

That being said, as has been pointed out...it will take a looooonnnngg time for my ships to get there, especially since the only nuclear ship in that group is the carrier. Even the Captain-Princess' BB is an old oil-fueled one. It's quite possible the ships may get turned around halfway there if things get too crowded with the people who will arrive first.

[madd0ct0r]

bloody hell.

we should keep a tally of who's blown up what.

[Eternal_Freedom]

No good bastard eco-hippies, if you ask King Alexander....

[Simon_Jester]

Well, that's a gigajoule or two of heat drawn off, at any rate.

Lead elements of the 83rd arrive at the reactor site on the evening of the 2nd. Madd0ct0r, I know you're a bit swamped, but I'd rather not go further on that story until I get some IC sense of how your people on the ground are reacting to mine. I can wait for that.

Could we do a Googledoc for collaboration?

[Thanas]

Given that a huge portion of Rheinland's strategic airlift is predisposed towards ferrying troops as quickly as possible to Ostrheinland in case of war I'd imagine airlifting a bataillon of engineers is just SOP.

The question though is what they will do when they get there. Start bulldozing airstrips so additional supplies can be flown in? Building anti-radiation shelters? General infrastructure? Or the good old "pour mass of concrete on reactor and pray" strategy? My problem is similar to that regard with Simon.

[Gill]

This is why Cascadia is looking to go for all nuclear-propulsion carrier groups.

The United States has only ever built five nuclear powered escorts: The California (CGN-36) and South Carolina (CGN-37) of the California class, the Long Beach (CGN-9), the Bainbridge (CGN-25) and Truxtun (CGN-35). With the exception of the 15,500 or so tons of the hideous Long Beach (which deserves special mention as being the ugliest surface vessel ever made by human hands), most were in the size range of a modern Arleigh Burke class destroyer.

You could make nuclear powered escorts, but it would be enormously expensive to do so (as mentioned prior) and the very long refueling and overhaul times would in turn cut down on the number of ships that could be on duty at once. It's also not like with they can fit much in the way of 'surplus' fuel the same way as a carrier, so refueling and overhauls will also be more frequent in small vessels then they would be with capital ships.

If you're still worried about running out of fossil fuels, hydrogen fuel cells could still theoretically work at a considerable cost in R&D and new infrastructure. Likewise, you could also use more plentiful natural gas or just synthesize methane fuel via the Sabatier process. Of course, that also comes with its storage problems. There are yet several LNG-powered ships being build at this moment in time, and the natural gas powered cargo ship (the 2,000 ton Høydal) launched in August of 2012 with a top speed of 14 knots. I'm unsure if getting high speeds on methane would be problematic.

[TimothyC]

This is why Cascadia is looking to go for all nuclear-propulsion carrier groups.

The United States has only ever built five nuclear powered escorts: The California (CGN-36) and South Carolina (CGN-37) of the California class, the Long Beach (CGN-9), the Bainbridge (CGN-25) and Truxtun (CGN-35).

Nine.

You're forgetting about the Virginias. You're also forgetting about the plans for the CSGNs and CGN-42s (AEGIS Virginias).

Nuclear surface escort on smaller hulls is possible, it just requires some advanced work arounds. I'd place the minimum least-compromised nuclear escort at around 6k tons while you could do a compromised design (no additional margin for safety over a conventional plant) on just over 1500 tons (I've seen the academic paper about that design - it was a nuclear Niels Juel class frigate).

Fuel cells might be a bit easier, but practical systems don't use fuels that can be regenerated on ship. Hydrogen could be... but it's far too bulky to be practical. Also, power density still sucks. Diesel electric subs use fuel cells for AIP... but they use units measured in kWs. You'd end up with a speed below 10 kts. Submariners especially love to call such ships "Targets". Also, such a ship could never keep up with a carrier conducting flight operations.

There have been designs for nuclear submarine motherships to use electrolysis to make fuel for fuel cell powered USVs (again, I've read an academic paper outlining a design).

[Eternal_Freedom]

I was thinking that it shouldn't be too difficult to build small(ish) nuclear escorts in the 6-7k tons range since we built plenty of nuclear subs in that size range.

[Thanas]

And those are also hellishly expensive compared to diesel subs. For the price of one nuclear sub you can buy 8-9 of the worlds most advanced diesels.

[TimothyC]

I was thinking that it shouldn't be too difficult to build small(ish) nuclear escorts in the 6-7k tons range since we built plenty of nuclear subs in that size range.

The problems are those of power density (the issue doomed the 1950s DE(N) designs). The Los Angeles Class has less power installed than a Perry (26 vs 31 MW) and yet can hit the same speeds submerged that a Perry can hit on the surface while having a displacement about 50% greater

And those are also hellishly expensive compared to diesel subs. For the price of one nuclear sub you can buy 8-9 of the worlds most advanced diesels.

No. One thing I did do for my OrBat is that I did run it past someone in the know who noted that the price difference between an SSN & an SSK is $700 million or about a 50-100% price premium. Therefore the ratio of SSNs to SSKs is between 1:2 and 2:3 presuming all else is equal. This is why the Hawai'ians are running export nuclear Soryus.

[Eternal_Freedom]

True, although i was commenting on feasibility rather than value for money.

Of course, if that one SSN can remain at sea, quiet and submerged for longer than the diesels, suddenly it looks a lot less silly of an investment, as RONS Conqueror found when she put a volley of torpedoes into Cascadia's carrier in the 60's.

[Thanas]

No. One thing I did do for my OrBat is that I did run it past someone in the know who noted that the price difference between an SSN & an SSK is $700 million or about a 50-100% price premium. Therefore the ratio of SSNs to SSKs is between 1:2 and 2:3 presuming all else is equal. This is why the Hawai'ians are running export nuclear Soryus.

What classes in existence are you basing this on?

Price for two Virginia class subs: 5414 million
Price for one 212a sub: 371 (wikipedia)-400 million (german source)

Note that I said existing ships, not fantasy ships that were never build.

[Gill]

You're forgetting about the Virginias. You're also forgetting about the plans for the CSGNs and CGN-42s (AEGIS Virginias).

That's still just nine nuclear escorts which were retired in the mid to late 90's out of a hundred or so conventional escorts in service around the same time period, and the CGN-42 would have had to been considerably heavier than the previous Virginia class vessels. I shudder to think how much money would be required to build enough to provide at least the same coverage as conventionally powered escorts!

Though the CSGN project would have a been a strike cruiser as opposed to an escort and much larger to boot.

[Eternal_Freedom]

No. One thing I did do for my OrBat is that I did run it past someone in the know who noted that the price difference between an SSN & an SSK is $700 million or about a 50-100% price premium. Therefore the ratio of SSNs to SSKs is between 1:2 and 2:3 presuming all else is equal. This is why the Hawai'ians are running export nuclear Soryus.

What classes in existence are you basing this on?

Price for two Virginia class subs: 5414 million
Price for one 212a sub: 371 (wikipedia)-400 million (german source)

Note that I said existing ships, not fantasy ships that were never build.

Whilst there is clearly a massive price disparity, would there not be economies of scale involved if you are building a class of, say, 20 nuclear destroyers as opposed to 3 as examples?

There is also the fact that whilst you may be able to have 8-9 diesels for one SSN, that also means you need 7-8 extra crews which is bound to add to the expense over their lifetimes and put a greater strain on your training programs, and also having to have additional tenders at sea if you want to keep them out for long periods, adding further to the cost.

[Thanas]

The Virginia class is supposed to be a class of several dozen ships. And the 212a sub is actually the one you would rate as examples here as only 4 are built for the German Navy. The crew might be a larger one, but a Virginia class costs ~50 mil to operate a year. So I doubt a SSK like the 212a even approaches that number. Crews on the 212a are also smaller than on the Virginia class.

[Eternal_Freedom]

True. Still, I think Orion's navy will stick with quality over quantity on the sun front, at least until better battery technology and/or fuel cells become viable for submarines.

[Force Lord]

Guys, I'm sorry that I haven't made any updates recently, but the thing is, that my mom had for months followed a policy of hiding our DSL modem in her room, preventing us from using the Internet, because she thinks we use it too much, only letting it out when we really need to do something with the Internet. Therefore, my posting schedule is going to be VERY irregular from now on, at least until university starts up again and I can use the Internet service there. I'm very sorry for any difficulties this might cause. I propose that in-game Granadia should start out as hunkering down due to an economic crisis and thus unable to make major international interactions unless utterly necessary, which should reflect the times I am able to post here.

[TimothyC]

What classes in existence are you basing this on?

Well, yeah if you try and use boat like a 212a against a Virginia. Here is a hint Thanas, you need to compare boats with similar mission capabilities. The first option is Scorpène and the nuclear Scorpène for the Brazilians: Direct comparison (and the basis of the numbers in the consult I had). When you compare fleet boats to fleet boats with Astute (~$1300 mil) vs. Sōryū (~$650 mil) the numbers hold up.

It was pointed out in the consult that the crew numbers are higher, but because fleet availability is also higher (the number give was that a single SSN could do about twice what an SSK can do) the costs average out.

That's still just nine nuclear escorts which were retired in the mid to late 90's out of a hundred or so conventional escorts in service around the same time period,

Well, yeah. Few people are going to spend the money on FFGNs and DDGNs, although here Steve has laid out the money for it. Steve also isn't setting himself up to protect convoys and the associated demands for large numbers of hulls.

and the CGN-42 would have had to been considerably heavier than the previous Virginia class vessels.

Yeah, Right. What's your source? St. Norman notes that the CGN-42 would have seen a displacement increase of 1700 tons and a speed drop of about one knot relative to the Virginias (which had a light ship displacement of 10500 tons).

I shudder to think how much money would be required to build enough to provide at least the same coverage as conventionally powered escorts!

Well, with the increased capability* of each nuclear ship vs. a conventional ship, it is possible if you decide that you are going down that path.

*Mostly this comes from ship availability and higher transit speeds/lack of refueling stops.


Edit:

Also Gill, Just to be clear, there are quite a few ocean liners both large and small with Honolulu registry.

[Gill]

Er, an increase in size of around ten percent isn't significant?

Though your listing of 1,700 tons is greater than what Global Security listed on their own, brief page for the CGN-42 AEGIS Modified Virginia, and Ronald O'Rourke's Navy Nuclear-Powered Ships: Background, Issues and Options for Congress from 2010 gives a slightly smaller figure in its table on historic nuclear powered surface vessels.

The latter text is particularly relevant, since it discusses a since canceled Navy proposal to develop a nuclear powered series of CG(X) cruisers to replace the remaining stock of Ticonderoga vessels. According to the report, a lot of the economic benefits on nuclear energy depended on whether or not the said vessels are, "medium-sized surface combatants" with "displacement between 21,000 and 26,100 tons". That's much heavier than the hideous Long Beach in size and in about the same range as the Kirov class battlecruisers!

Though it is true that nuclear reactors provide greater flexibility, that also comes at a tremendously higher procurement cost at the hundreds of millions of dollars. I don't think it's much a matter of quality over quantity as it is the needs of the state. We can also make the must stronger case that paying the high cost for an all-nuclear navy approved would meet with considerable opposition within and without just as the U.S. Navy did with similar plans in the 70's. Some people might want the money spent for something else, and this includes competing military projects.

Just as well, thorium fueled reactors were also mentioned briefly in Rourke's report at times.

[Simon_Jester]

Given that a huge portion of Rheinland's strategic airlift is predisposed towards ferrying troops as quickly as possible to Ostrheinland in case of war I'd imagine airlifting a bataillon of engineers is just SOP.

No surprise there. But it's different for the Umerians- or at least, not airlifting outside their own territory where they can count on certain types of equipment being there. Umeria has no transport aircraft capable of handling a cargo of more than about 30 tons. The "needle-nosed, high-winged" turboprop planes are modeled on the Shaanxi Y-8, and there's another jet transport in the same general performance class as the C-141. So they can't move heavy engineering vehicles by air.

The question though is what they will do when they get there. Start bulldozing airstrips so additional supplies can be flown in? Building anti-radiation shelters? General infrastructure? Or the good old "pour mass of concrete on reactor and pray" strategy? My problem is similar to that regard with Simon.

Well, Colonel Stone is a veteran of Umeria's own little equivalent of Chernobyl- he was an officer in the fire brigade at the Orange Terrace power plant in 1992. So he's got his own firm ideas about how to handle such a thing, and has experience in radiation safety under both normal conditions and "do or die, try not to take a certainly-lethal dose please" conditions.

The 83rd Guards Engineering Regiment, and its sister formations the 42nd and 119th, exist specifically so that if there's ever another disastrous reactor accident on Umerian soil, they can drop a huge mass of manpower who are fully trained in radiation safety, the theory and practice of containing radiation accidents, and who can serve as a nucleus for other army (or conscripted civilian) workers doing "liquidator" duty. They aren't ordinary combat engineers- though officially they're also responsible for wartime precautions in case an enemy starts dirty-bombing Umerian soil or troops.

Setting up anti-radiation shelters for workers is very much their métier, as is monitoring radiation levels in the countryside. Also going into the reactor building to do work alongside the actual reactor crew*; quite a few of them are trained in reactor operations and familiarized with reactor designs which are broadly similar to the ones Champa operates.

Meanwhile, Colonel Stone and several of the regiment's other officers are themselves experts on reactor safety and disaster response, because part of their job description is keeping up on the international literature on the subject.

So they're... basically the Umerian answer to a NEST team, but with a different perspective because to the Umerians defense against natural and unnatural disaster is a legitimate military function, just like defense against angry guys with guns.

*Probably for longer than would be considered safe by civilians; they're a Guards formation for a reason and if you don't have something of a do-or-die mentality you aren't likely to end up in the Guards.

[TimothyC]

Er, an increase in size of around ten percent isn't significant?

It's a bit over 15% but there is a saying: "Steel is cheep and air is free". Costs are driven by systems, not size.

The latter text is particularly relevant, since it discusses a since canceled Navy proposal to develop a nuclear powered series of CG(X) cruisers to replace the remaining stock of Ticonderoga vessels. According to the report, a lot of the economic benefits on nuclear energy depended on whether or not the said vessels are, "medium-sized surface combatants" with "displacement between 21,000 and 26,100 tons". That's much heavier than the hideous Long Beach in size and in about the same range as the Kirov class battlecruisers!

Look at the mission set that they are going for, and look at the radar size*. Then remember that displacement is a shitty metric for relative ship costs in the modern era. Also, look at CGBL as a baseline for the minimum size that the Ticos should have been.

Though it is true that nuclear reactors provide greater flexibility, that also comes at a tremendously higher procurement cost at the hundreds of millions of dollars. I don't think it's much a matter of quality over quantity as it is the needs of the state. We can also make the must stronger case that paying the high cost for an all-nuclear navy approved would meet with considerable opposition within and without just as the U.S. Navy did with similar plans in the 70's. Some people might want the money spent for something else, and this includes competing military projects.

Except we're not talking about the real world here Gill, we're talking about SDNW6's Tellus.

*Alas, St. Norman hasn't produced an updated copy of US Cruisers with some of these studies, but that is to be expected because the studies were just that - studies, and any CG(X) is likely to come out of a destroyer line, not a cruiser line.


That said, I'm dropping this line of discussion because continuing it would add nothing to the thread.

[TimothyC]

Price for two Virginia class subs: 5414 million
Price for one 212a sub: 371 (wikipedia)

Wait.

Anyone else care to guess where Thanas has gone really wrong here?

[Gill]

Where did I imply that size was determining costs aside from noting that nuclear reactors were more economical for larger vessels than smaller ones? Unless you are tacking on all the fancy technological capabilities ala AEGIS Virginia, it probably follows that it'd little sense to invest in nuclear power for something that won't be in a position to take serious advantage of it.

Though I'm not really disagreeing with you on any of the fundamental points you made, but nothing should stop us from pointing out that one could still make at least a few justifications for not using them despite their force projection capabilities. While we're not really bound by real world decisions, we can still start from them and their own issues. With the disaster in Champa, environmentalist groups (especially a certain terrorist organization operating out of Midgar) might force defense spending towards building non-nuclear surface combatants as a result.

Though if I weren't constraining myself to deal with a small nation as Belkan, I probably would be for nuclear strike cruisers or whole nuclear carrier groups. Alas, I'm finding it more comfortable to start small.

[Simon_Jester]

TJ, as to mistakes analyzing ships, I do not know.

...Also, who is Saint Norman?

Anyway. It is probably an economic decision of questionable wisdom to build nuclear escorts for the conditions the US navy faces... but the US navy has a number of strategic conditions that don't apply in SDNW6. For one, it's the only navy its size in the world, so it can accept:

1) That nobody can really stop it from buying fossil fuels somewhere to fuel conventional-powered ships.

2) That it never really has to confront an enemy with all the same basic capabilities as itself, and thus might need an 'edge' over the cheapest possible way to build a ship capable of fulfilling a given mission.

In SDNW6, a peer competitor navy could cut you off from supplies unless you have lots and lots of your own oil, so having ships that can run for years without running out of gas is appealing. Sure, in theory you could synthesize it, but that requires you to maintain a dedicated industrial infrastructure for synthesizing oil that is at best unprofitable during peacetime. Even the Umerians would flinch at that, and they're the ones with the autarky fetish.

And because you may have to fight enemy carrier groups and highly competent national navies all over the place, having an 'edge' over an enemy fleet in some key performance parameter of your ships is valuable. Such as, say, being able to keep sailing at top speed for several thousand kilometers without needing to refuel, while an enemy's ships have long since run out of diesel and had to stop and render themselves vulnerable with a rendezvous with a fleet oiler.
___________________________________

Also, Gill, would your nation perchance be interested in buying aircraft that are substantially more capable than those turboprop COIN planes, yet nevertheless rugged and easy to maintain? We have large numbers of a type you might like kicking around the boneyard in the strategic aircraft reserve.

Machined from solid slabs of cast aluminum, far less finicky and elaborate than those fancy-pants 'fourth' and 'fifth' generation aircraft, and maintainable by the technical infrastructure of a 1960s-era Third World Country! Vast swarms of decommissioned sister-planes to cannibalize for spare parts at LOW LOW prices! Ideal for steely-nerved strike pilots who wonder who needs stealth when you can go screaming in at treetop level under enemy radar at Mach 0.9, and give exactly zero fucks about all the greenery lodged in their plane's undercarriage...

Laser targeting pods for guided munitions included! Fully compatible with many of the antiship missile types produced by your friendly neighbor to the north!

[Gill]

Hrm . . . Throw in some participation into a join quasi-modernization to 80's era tech and you just might have a deal for the Minister of Finance to work out!

Also: Can we trade aluminum for cardboard on certain parts?