Did the Successor States have an unofficial agreement to dial back on warships?

[snewsom2997]

It would seem odd for the Clans to build warships anyway.    One of the overarching reasons for their dueling culture and emphasis on individual combat was to conserve resources.    People forget that the Clan worlds are resource poor.    And warships are a staggering resource investment.

They had lots of ships to recycle.

[chaosticket]

Clan Combat is more about "fair" fights from their perspective. Just having Warships during the Clan Invasion would have given them an overwhelming advantage IF they didnt hold them back. The Clans arent well developed in terms of strategy. Their ranks are determined by personal skill in combat, not leadership. Even a Star Admiral may not actually be a good fleet commander.

In terms of resources while the Pentagon Worlds were poor, as a society the Clans usually didnt care that much in terms of conservation so much as using as few resources as possible to win in the shortest amount of time. For the most part it was just a difference between expensive XL engines and omni-technology or regular fusion engines and non-omni tech. How many of their technologies involved massive swarms of missiles or canons with expensive ammunition?

With the Star League having the highest technology at the point of the Exodus even mothballing their ships they still had a surplus of Warships.

[Charistoph]

It would seem odd for the Clans to build warships anyway.    One of the overarching reasons for their dueling culture and emphasis on individual combat was to conserve resources.    People forget that the Clan worlds are resource poor.    And warships are a staggering resource investment.

It would be odd for Mechwarriors and Elementals to want Warships built.  Star Admirals are a different story.  In those Clans where they were organized by pilots, you tend to see a higher Warship count.  For those where the ground pounders have supremacy, Warship construction and acquisition was minimal.

Trials involving warships followed a different set of rules than the 1v1 setups were.

[Kit deSummersville]

In terms of NEW battleships built DURING world war 2 were in the single digits and most of those already in construction beforehand.

There were 25 commissioned during WW2 and the US alone built 7 during the war.

[JadeHellbringer]

Folks, the discussion here is about Battletech's universe, not the real world's naval construction. I understand using an example here and there, but we're devolving into debates on the topic. Let's get back on track here, please. If you'd like to continue the discussion about real-world naval building (and it's a topic I'm a fan of myself, too!), take it to off-topic please. Don't get warned over something like this, please.  C:-)

[Kidd]

However, because of the destruction of the various warship yards, no power was in a position to build new warships

Doesn't this answer the question?

And yes it can happen. During the fall of the Roman Empire a lot of technologies were lost, including some knowledge of weapon making, such as higher grade steel. If in the real world arms makers like say the casters of artillery guns had kept their knowledge to themselves - or had the Religious Phone Company silenced them - then the world would have fought without guns for longer than it already did.

[marcussmythe]

Doesn't this answer the question?

And yes it can happen. During the fall of the Roman Empire a lot of technologies were lost, including some knowledge of weapon making, such as higher grade steel. If in the real world arms makers like say the casters of artillery guns had kept their knowledge to themselves - or had the Religious Phone Company silenced them - then the world would have fought without guns for longer than it already did.

It Sort-Of Answers the question.  The problem is keeping that question answered once the genie is out of the bottle.  The Helm Core and pressure of Clan Warships brings the Genie back out, and the WoB is brought in to try to stuff it back in.  By the Dark Ages era, we use the collapse of economies and the HPG network, along with massive WoB damage to everything and blowing up all the new yards, all the old yards, and anything that could have been a yard, to keep them gone. 

If the PTB want to keep keeping them gone, they'll have to keep blowing up infrastructure and resource bases and generally devolve the setting back into a 3025 state.  Given the ability of the setting to suddenly, randomly discover sphere-threatening military forces under random plot-rocks, the PTB certainly have the tools to do so.

My advice - do what a lot of math and numbers and logic minded people do, and build an AU that fits your own sense of what makes sense.  Ultimately it may be no more sensical than the primary timeline, but at least its nonsense will make sense -to you-.

[Dayton3]

IIRC to manufacture endo steel you need a zero G mill.   Which of course means an orbital facility so just as you can't really armor shipyards against attack neither can you protect a key part of manufacturing infrastructure for advanced battlemechs.

[Moonsword]

Ladies and gentlemen, the moderation staff has determined that we'd like all discussion on real-life naval warfare to stop in this thread.  It's causing thread-jacking which is not helpful.

If you want to explore modern naval warfare, may I recommend a thread in Off-Topic with a profusion of excellent warship pictures?

[Vition2]

Vition - thank you for compiling that.  Thats... really an amazing accomplishment by the Clans, given their population, resource base, (often) marginally habitable worlds, second exodus, etc. etc. etc.

I should note that three of the designs we don't know the exact size of.  The Peregrine has been stated as being less than 200,000 tons, so my overall calculation used 190,000, it could actually be 200,000 (due to rounding 195kt up as is the norm) or less than 190kt.  The Molniya and Corone we have even less information on at the moment (potentially in TRO Golden Century we'll get stats, but *shrugs*), I didn't include their tonnage but I would guess that they'd either be more corvettes or destroyers - though I'll note here that the clans are currently missing home-grown frigates, cruisers, and battlecruiser classes (the York fills the destroyer position fairly well, and is so different from its originating design, the Riga, that it's basically a completely new design).

Re: Alsadius and your NPPC fortress idea
Unfortunately this has some very serious downsides, the primary thing being that suddenly you've forced the idea of surface bombardment on the incoming warship(s).  This means that everywhere you've located a battery becomes a target for bombardment, if one is located in or near a populated area, it is your fault if casualties occur.  Lastly, in a (known) fortress world vs. warship fight, the warship always wins - the warship can remain outside the range of whatever weapons are located on planet and bombard them to smithereens at its leisure all it takes is a bit more exact math than normal space combat.

[Alsadius]

Re: Alsadius and your NPPC fortress idea
Unfortunately this has some very serious downsides, the primary thing being that suddenly you've forced the idea of surface bombardment on the incoming warship(s).  This means that everywhere you've located a battery becomes a target for bombardment, if one is located in or near a populated area, it is your fault if casualties occur.  Lastly, in a (known) fortress world vs. warship fight, the warship always wins - the warship can remain outside the range of whatever weapons are located on planet and bombard them to smithereens at its leisure all it takes is a bit more exact math than normal space combat.

If fortress locations are known, perhaps. They can't dodge. But what if you mount them on ocean-going warships, or simply keep some locations hidden? That negates the dodging advantage. After that, the ships would only win if they had the range advantage, but I'm not sure why they would. Usually making a weapon system portable reduces its efficacy, because you have to pack it in a smaller space with less mass available. Fixed emplacements can have some elbow room, so they can usually mount better versions of the same guns. (The obvious counter-argument here is gravity wells, but those aren't issues for energy weapons like PPCs, which is why I picked those as my go-to)

[marcussmythe]

Given the power of the battletech fusion torch drive, and the weakness of BT sensors, I imagine the gravity gauge is of less value than in a lower accelerstion setting.

And some weapons worry less about ranges - I wonder how many single-launch cap missile silos a planet can build - but again, this run into the problem that anhthing that can force a McKenna to stand off will make dropships vanish.

[monbvol]

Given the power of the battletech fusion torch drive, and the weakness of BT sensors, I imagine the gravity gauge is of less value than in a lower accelerstion setting.

And some weapons worry less about ranges - I wonder how many single-launch cap missile silos a planet can build - but again, this run into the problem that anhthing that can force a McKenna to stand off will make dropships vanish.

Pretty much this except the Warship still has an advantage using bearings only capital missiles in that it can sit outside the range of any sensor net and be patient.

And yes people worry so much about the Warship's ability to perform orbital bombardment that it is rarity for me to see people think about the Warship problem in both directions in that anything with enough range and ability to track a Warship under thrust and engage it will have no trouble destroying Dropships before they can even orbitally insert forces.

Which also brings up the fact that as long as the ability to lift tens of thousands of tons off a gravity well exists there will be other ways to end a world's ability to meaningfully militarily engage an invader without having a chance to respond.

[marcussmythe]

Well, dont blame me.  :)  I always figured that the easy fix was to keep Orbital Bombardment in the same Ares Convention box as nukes.  The universe manifestly has nuclear weapons in whatever numbers they wish to build, but man portable nukes havent ended the battlemech.

[monbvol]

*nod*

Warships make sense in that any power worth being called a Great House will move heaven and earth to have a tactically, strategically mobile ship dedicated to engaging other such ships and transports.

So I'm not sure the problem they represent can be solved while maintaining an interplanetary, let alone interstellar, setting.

[Daemion]

Hence, we get back to the initial proposition: An unwritten agreement not to use them.  It's a social norm after a couple hundred years of practice.

And, that would work very well for why Raids also make it to surface, too. It's socially expected.

[monbvol]

I do maintain warfare became very ritualized in the Inner Sphere after the Age of War.

[Nicoli]

The problem with building up huge warship fleets is that in order to be effective as both the attacker or the defender you pretty much have to commit them to a win or die fight as seen in the First Succession Wars, because in BT you can't just make a jump anywhere. So if you can't guarantee a way to  deal a knock out blow to your opponents fleet forces while at the same time preventing your own from having any real damage your warships don't have any longevity in a campaign. You jump in with 20, they have 18 and you end with 2, maybe 3, and them none isn't a really effective method of winning a war.

So they end up in a similar situation as modern nukes with MAD. Go ahead and build a massive naval fleet and I will too. Then we'll meet somewhere blow each other right back to where we were before we started building up and start all over again. Or we can both keep/build a few, enough to protect the key worlds and be used in a major offensive if needed but not enough that they are guaranteed to see opposing fleets all the time... okay, once.

Hence, we get back to the initial proposition: An unwritten agreement not to use them.  It's a social norm after a couple hundred years of practice.

And, that would work very well for why Raids also make it to surface, too. It's socially expected.

So yeah its kinda of a realization that warships didn't really scale well with effectiveness.

[glitterboy2098]

The problem with building up huge warship fleets is that in order to be effective as both the attacker or the defender you pretty much have to commit them to a win or die fight as seen in the First Succession Wars, because in BT you can't just make a jump anywhere. So if you can't guarantee a way to  deal a knock out blow to your opponents fleet forces while at the same time preventing your own from having any real damage your warships don't have any longevity in a campaign. You jump in with 20, they have 18 and you end with 2, maybe 3, and them none isn't a really effective method of winning a war.

So they end up in a similar situation as modern nukes with MAD. Go ahead and build a massive naval fleet and I will too. Then we'll meet somewhere blow each other right back to where we were before we started building up and start all over again. Or we can both keep/build a few, enough to protect the key worlds and be used in a major offensive if needed but not enough that they are guaranteed to see opposing fleets all the time...

and what is worse, you can assemble enough assault dropships and fighter squadrons to kill a warship (at least the canon ones short of a leviathan) at a cost of resources far lower than that of a warship. and this is before you start factoring in things like nukes.

[marcussmythe]

and what is worse, you can assemble enough assault dropships and fighter squadrons to kill a warship (at least the canon ones short of a leviathan) at a cost of resources far lower than that of a warship. and this is before you start factoring in things like nukes.

Oddly enough not actually the case as to Combat Droppers, assuming both are custom work, or 'well engineered cannon' work.  And this is before we get into the cost of the collars and jumpship (or warship!) to deliver the combat droppers.

Fighters are a better argument.. Id be hard pressed to envision a warship that can handle its cost in Fighters, but stranger things have happened.  But to do all the same jobs the warship can do, the fighters still themselves need carriage.. on a warship, or a dropship+jumpship... because fighters without such are at best a ferryable local defense tool.  Useful, but not at all the same sort of thing as a LF Warship. 

[Korzon77]

Hence, we get back to the initial proposition: An unwritten agreement not to use them.  It's a social norm after a couple hundred years of practice.

And, that would work very well for why Raids also make it to surface, too. It's socially expected.

YEah. I mean, the inner sphere, for all that it isn't as formalized as the Clans, has a lot of practices that can be pretty much summed up as: don't kill too many civilians, don't blow up too much stuff, and remember you can take the planet later. In fact, most of the interior worlds haven't really seen much conflict between the end of the second succession war and the beginnig of the 4th war.

[Nicoli]

Oddly enough not actually the case as to Combat Droppers, assuming both are custom work, or 'well engineered cannon' work.  And this is before we get into the cost of the collars and jumpship (or warship!) to deliver the combat droppers.

Fighters are a better argument.. Id be hard pressed to envision a warship that can handle its cost in Fighters, but stranger things have happened.  But to do all the same jobs the warship can do, the fighters still themselves need carriage.. on a warship, or a dropship+jumpship... because fighters without such are at best a ferryable local defense tool.  Useful, but not at all the same sort of thing as a LF Warship.

That is part of my other point earlier. The more Warships you have suddenly keeping and maintaining other defensive options starts becoming more and more reasonable to do. They just scale miserably. So I really do think it was a collective realization that they are only great tools in small quantities.

[chaosticket]

And the cycle repeats.

If possible Im know the Great Houses can and will make as many military expenditures as possible. Only the Free Worlds League has any kind of major parliamentary body that can and does oppose the executive leader. the rest are there to support their respective leaders as an advisory council.

The Star League was more peaceful so each of the nations could build up their militarizes with thousands of Warships. There hasnt been any period like that since. Only the end of the Jihad-Republic Era was nearly as peaceful and that was after a major galactic First Succession-style War.

Its not impossible to make Warships after the Clan Invasion, but it is impractical. Battletech as a game is about conservation of units to make them more importantly individually. Each Warship might as well be a Kaiju.

[elf25s]

dont get me wrong but i always saw warships as nothing more than a big bulls eye that is meant to draw as much fighting force away from the target as possible. the reason they were not used often is because they are expensive and commanders are taught from the begining to not to sacrifice too much money and resources in battle no matter what so as a result because they are so expensive they are very rarely used in practice.

[Sir Chaos]

Are any of you familiar with the term "fleet-in-being"? That is, a fleet that is an effective asset in war not because it sorties and blows stuff up, but because it *might* sortie and thus forces the other side keep a fleet of its own around, powerful enough to face the fleet-in-being - or even several such fleets, depending how hard it is to cover all the place the fleet-in-being might sortie to.

If for example the FSN has one or more warships stationed at Robinson, the DCA needs enough warships to destroy or at least fight off those warships if the DCMS wants to ever attack Federated Suns worlds within a jump or two of Robinson - unless of course they want to risk their attack force being blown to bits before making planetfall, or marooned on the planet because the warships show up while the force is on the ground. Most likely they will try to have two such groups of warships, one to escort ground forces and one to protect Combine worlds in case the FSN decides to instead use the opportunity for a counterattack while the DCA warships are elsewhere. Maybe even three such groups, if there are two very valuable targets in the DC too far apart for one group to cover both.

[Alsadius]

Also, it's a long border. If you know the whole DC fleet is at Robinson, you know there's a big stretch where they can't get for months, which might be enough time to snag a planet or two. The usual Mahanian rules of fleet concentration get messy in a war like that, so you need to keep multiple fleets just to cover the huge distances involved.

[marcussmythe]

And it turns into trap and counter-trap, trying to achieve local superiority (Lanchester’s Equations are heartless) and pin people in ways that force engagement (though it is very hard to force engagement,  barring a single point that -must- be defended.  Local system conditions, jump-point locations compared to high value property, etc. could become very important)

[victor_shaw]

Are any of you familiar with the term "fleet-in-being"? That is, a fleet that is an effective asset in war not because it sorties and blows stuff up, but because it *might* sortie and thus forces the other side keep a fleet of its own around, powerful enough to face the fleet-in-being - or even several such fleets, depending how hard it is to cover all the place the fleet-in-being might sortie to.

So in layman's terms "mutually insured destruction."
You don't need more warships then everyone else, you just need the same or more then the next biggest threatening fleet.
This comes into play with the CC, as their fleet matchs the FS fleet and the FWL is a mess.
Add to this that the FS fleet has to deal with the warships of the DCN.
If this is the case why is the DC fleet so small? While it is larger then the LA and FS fleets combined, the Raven Alliance fleet dwarfs it.
And you have the GBN to worry about also.
So while this works without the Clans, it falls apart with their inclusion.

[Kit deSummersville]

So in layman's terms "mutually insured destruction."

That's when Allstate unleashed Mayhem on you.

[marcussmythe]

So in layman's terms "mutually insured destruction."
You don't need more warships then everyone else, you just need the same or more then the next biggest threatening fleet.
This comes into play with the CC, as their fleet matchs the FS fleet and the FWL is a mess.
Add to this that the FS fleet has to deal with the warships of the DCN.
If this is the case why is the DC fleet so small? While it is larger then the LA and FS fleets combined, the Raven Alliance fleet dwarfs it.
And you have the GBN to worry about also.
So while this works without the Clans, it falls apart with their inclusion.

I'm not entirely sure why the PTB, for all their need to wipe the skies clean of IS warships, remained sanguine to vast Clan fleets.  My anticipation is that the Clan Warship Supremacy is intended for some future plot role.  What is the name of the next major setting book?