SD.Net World Redux Comment Thread IX

[CmdrWilkens]

General heads up, as mentioned in the Senate thread (not that anybody actual reads those) I'm going to be slowing my overall board activity in anticipation of Megan giving birth to our firstborn later this month. In turn this means my already slowed involvement will likely take a hit so to prevent some points of confusion:

MSA funding is sufficient for the 4x per quarter launch cycle in the Theseus program which means accelerated construction on both the MSA's ISS equivalent and our replacement space station planned for the late 2020s. The Mars mission, meanwhile, is currently validating the system architecture before the first test launch in Q2 of 2020. Moon missions are wrapping up this quarter with Daedalus 16 which involves the second launch of a Canissian "Eagle" craft for trans-lunar movement.

Both of the "Eagle" craft will be left on station and eventually used to transfer the ISS equivalent down to Selene segment by segment to construct a permanent base there which will operate in conjunction with the 2nd generation station in orbit. The Eagles will then serve as shuttle craft between the two bases. IOC for all of this isn't until about 2028-2030 timeframe right around when the first Icarus mission will be touching down on Mars.

STAR vessel launch cycle continues apace which means that the surplus AEGIS market has a flood of available vessels.

[RogueIce]

Shut up, RogueIce.

Why must you be so mean to me?

STAR vessel launch cycle continues apace which means that the surplus AEGIS market has a flood of available vessels.

No shit. I might as well offer to give them away.

[CmdrWilkens]

STAR vessel launch cycle continues apace which means that the surplus AEGIS market has a flood of available vessels.

No shit. I might as well offer to give them away.

Well technically its only a small fleet worth that I have handy: 9 Ticos and 13 Burkes. The problem, of course, is that I'm adding 3/year to each of those categories for the next several years until I will have 27 Ticos and 32 Burkes sitting in mothball yards.

[RogueIce]

Well technically its only a small fleet worth that I have handy: 9 Ticos and 13 Burkes. The problem, of course, is that I'm adding 3/year to each of those categories for the next several years until I will have 27 Ticos and 32 Burkes sitting in mothball yards.

I've got 20 Ticos (plus 2 CGN Tico versions) sitting around, and 15 Burkes. I would have more Burkes but some of them will be repurposed as DGHs, or something close to that. It's one of Beo's designs. You should look into that, BTW. Increasing ASW capability = win.

But yeah, between us we have essentially 31 Ticos (2 nuclear powered) and 28 Burkes awaiting their fates. And I'll have in the end 45 Burkes to decom (that was my total count from the start), and 10 more Tico CGNs on the way.

So the market is a wee bit flooded by just the two of us. To say nothing of anything Beo and Lonestar are replacing. And of course we have Serenity (Yenchin) and Coyote who are both inactive but would be, in theory, probably fielding STAR to some degree at least, thus retiring old hulls.

And of course I'm looking to get rid of some frigates too. Barely used! It's a buyer's market out there in naval hardware.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Never mind that CATO Is also replacing lots of its older ships, although apparently Shroom opted for a long and tedious process of refitting existing hulls with S-500F.

I'm going to get rid of my older frigates slowly. My new "frigates " (which are really, Arleigh Burke sized destroyers) will be my main work horse vessel.

[Shroom Man 777]

Hey! I've also got new hulls designed totally for S-500F! I am replacing older ships!

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Hey! I've also got new hulls designed totally for S-500F! I am replacing older ships!

I am confused now.

I thought you went ahead with some refits. But as for your new ships, I'm not sure how and what you are building *hints to Shroom to fix OOB*

[Ryan Thunder]

How hard would it be to refit a couple of those ships to escort my Millenium assault carrier?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

How hard would it be to refit a couple of those ships to escort my Millenium assault carrier?

Well, it will be quite a lot of work to refit a ship with a whole new weapon system, if that is what you mean.

[Ryan Thunder]

How hard would it be to refit a couple of those ships to escort my Millenium assault carrier?

Well, it will be quite a lot of work to refit a ship with a whole new weapon system, if that is what you mean.

Yeah I guess. What I should've asked is "is it worth getting brand new fleet escorts or should I recycle these old ones?"

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Yeah I guess. What I should've asked is "is it worth getting brand new fleet escorts or should I recycle these old ones?"

Well, question one would be how old your ships are, and if they aren't too old, they might still be worth using while you work out a plan to replace them in a few years from now.

If they are old, and it's time to replace them, then you should go shop around.

[Ryan Thunder]

Yeah I guess. What I should've asked is "is it worth getting brand new fleet escorts or should I recycle these old ones?"

Well, question one would be how old your ships are, and if they aren't too old, they might still be worth using while you work out a plan to replace them in a few years from now.

If they are old, and it's time to replace them, then you should go shop around.

Well the issue is that I don't really have any, aside from a couple submarines and some SWATHE-hulled missile corvettes that are purely for coastal defense and harassing Tian Jiao (should the Huang Di attempt anything stupid.) The corvettes are not suited for blue-water operations; they've been designed for operating in the river.

Then there's the Millenium, which is presently unescorted. So, yeah, I don't have any at all.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Well the issue is that I don't really have any, aside from a couple submarines and some SWATHE-hulled missile corvettes that are purely for coastal defense and harassing Tian Jiao (should the Huang Di attempt anything stupid.) The corvettes are not suited for blue-water operations; they've been designed for operating in the river.

Then there's the Millenium, which is presently unescorted. So, yeah, I don't have any at all.

You could actually combine the Millenium with the NFT navy... incidentally....

But to be honest, given your land locked position, you should perhaps consider area of denial operations. The Millenium is good for ASW work probably. Just grab some frigates to escort it and you should be fine. There is the S-500F-F/C which is designed for frigate and corvette use. Shameless plug, but I do sell 2000 tonne and 4000 tonne frigates with S-500F-F/C which I believe I sold some to Langley.

[RogueIce]

Yeah I guess. What I should've asked is "is it worth getting brand new fleet escorts or should I recycle these old ones?"

What are you planning on using your Millenium(s) (?) for? Power projection? ASW, as Fin suggested? And where do you intend for it/them to be going? That would determine your escort mix, I think.

As you mentioned lack of blue water capability, I would assume you're aiming for that. In which case, you can go with some new build frigates or use the old destroyers and cruisers. Since the new DDGNs are essentially cruisers with nuke plants that we choose to call destroyers, and the CGNs larger still, I doubt you'll be able to afford very many of those. Although I guess it depends on how many LHAs and such you intend to field.

You might be better off with retired DDGs and CGs. Aegis/whatever the CATO equivalent was is still pretty decent I imagine. And they'll have new build frigates beat in terms of missile capacity. And as an added bonus, since everybody and their grandmother who is a Tsardom and above is getting rid of them en masse, you can get these ships pretty damn cheap.

Of course, as I said before, what are you looking to accomplish with your LHAs?

[Shroom Man 777]

Hey! I've also got new hulls designed totally for S-500F! I am replacing older ships!

I am confused now.

I thought you went ahead with some refits. But as for your new ships, I'm not sure how and what you are building *hints to Shroom to fix OOB*

Coalition-class stealth destroyer (4x)

Constitution-class nuclear destroyer (2x)

FUTURE CONTINENTAL STEALTH DESTROYER
Coalition-class destroyer


FUTURE SHROOMANIAN NUCLEAR DESTROYER
Constitution-class destroyer
(Nuclear powered, S-500F+ armed, plus next-generation cruise missiles)

Admittedly the numbers are out of date. There will be more than just 4x or 2x of either ships now.

[Ryan Thunder]

Yeah I guess. What I should've asked is "is it worth getting brand new fleet escorts or should I recycle these old ones?"

What are you planning on using your Millenium(s) (?) for? Power projection? ASW, as Fin suggested? And where do you intend for it/them to be going? That would determine your escort mix, I think.

A bit of both. The primary demand was for lingering close air support wherever we need it, and the Millenium was seen as a replacement for the old system of using flat-decked cargo ships as improvised staging platforms.

I guess it could do ASW in a pinch, but that's not its primary role.

It can also facilitate an amphibious assault, if I remember correctly.

As you mentioned lack of blue water capability, I would assume you're aiming for that. In which case, you can go with some new build frigates or use the old destroyers and cruisers. Since the new DDGNs are essentially cruisers with nuke plants that we choose to call destroyers, and the CGNs larger still, I doubt you'll be able to afford very many of those. Although I guess it depends on how many LHAs and such you intend to field.

Just the one, at this point. My focus isn't really on naval forces; the Millenium is really more of a supporting element for everything else.

It'd be hideously expensive to have more than one at this point anyway.

You might be better off with retired DDGs and CGs. Aegis/whatever the CATO equivalent was is still pretty decent I imagine. And they'll have new build frigates beat in terms of missile capacity. And as an added bonus, since everybody and their grandmother who is a Tsardom and above is getting rid of them en masse, you can get these ships pretty damn cheap.

Hmm...

What would their armament be like?

You could actually combine the Millenium with the NFT navy... incidentally....

It was a joint project. The NFT built it for us, and we helped them design it.

But to be honest, given your land locked position, you should perhaps consider area of denial operations. The Millenium is good for ASW work probably. Just grab some frigates to escort it and you should be fine. There is the S-500F-F/C which is designed for frigate and corvette use. Shameless plug, but I do sell 2000 tonne and 4000 tonne frigates with S-500F-F/C which I believe I sold some to Langley.

Sounds good to me. I'll get a couple of those frigates, provided they aren't rustbuckets, but I'd like to keep local manufacturing jobs in place; what would it take to get Mirakarm a license to produce a localized variant of those missiles? I'd also like to bolster my air defenses with more modern equipment, so if I could set them up to just do a swap with the old systems that'd really cut down on infrastructure costs.

[Lonestar]

So the market is a wee bit flooded by just the two of us. To say nothing of anything Beo and Lonestar are replacing. And of course we have Serenity (Yenchin) and Coyote who are both inactive but would be, in theory, probably fielding STAR to some degree at least, thus retiring old hulls.

And of course I'm looking to get rid of some frigates too. Barely used! It's a buyer's market out there in naval hardware.

I won't be replacing my existing AEGIS stuff for another 10 years. I've reduced them in numbers(DDGs and CGs), but bought 4 FFGs from you, you may recall. 2 of those FFGs ended up as parts hulks and the CG and DDGs I've removed are parts hulks. I may try to pick a few up from you as parts hulks for my stuff.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

But to be honest, given your land locked position, you should perhaps consider area of denial operations. The Millenium is good for ASW work probably. Just grab some frigates to escort it and you should be fine. There is the S-500F-F/C which is designed for frigate and corvette use. Shameless plug, but I do sell 2000 tonne and 4000 tonne frigates with S-500F-F/C which I believe I sold some to Langley.

Sounds good to me. I'll get a couple of those frigates, provided they aren't rustbuckets, but I'd like to keep local manufacturing jobs in place; what would it take to get Mirakarm a license to produce a localized variant of those missiles? I'd also like to bolster my air defenses with more modern equipment, so if I could set them up to just do a swap with the old systems that'd really cut down on infrastructure costs.

How about new ones? Probably could just license the design to Blue Brothers and we split the construction between Constantinople Shipyards and Blue Brothers. The missiles.. I guess yes.

But we can discuss the fine details over at the necessary usergroup.

[Mr Bean]

Going to thread X, meant to lock it at 1125