Fleet Maintenance

[BetterThanLife]

Two real live examples of the Navy having it's own shipyards. Norfolk VA and The Brooklyn Naval Yard. Norfolk is where all Carriers since WWII have been produced. (Only place in the world that can build them.) Submarines are produced by civilians at the General Dynamics division of Electirc Boat. The Brooklyn Naval Yard was let out to civilian contract where they now produce Tankers. (During WWII approximately half the capital ships were produced there to include half the Missouri class Battleships.) Aside from Carriers, (which is a fairly recent change), all vessels in the US Navy were required to be capable of passing through the Panama Canal and under the Brooklyn Bridge. (The Brooklyn Navy Yard did produce a number of Essex class carriers.)

I see no reason why the Imperial Navy wouldn't have its own shipyards, especially in the Depot Systems, and contract other construction and repairs. I would think there would be at least one Naval shipyard per sector more likely per subsector. Military types tend to be paranoid especially when it comes to the big toys and prefer to keep tighter control on who and what works on them. (All Carrier construction, upgrades and major repairs happens at Norfolk.)

New classes of capital ships tend to happen in Depot systems, (about one per Domain) You think that they want civilians and/or potential spies around these new classes?

A good example of this paranoia is in David Webber's excellent Honor Harrington series. New type construction is handled not just at a Naval shipyard but away from civilian traffic, and the new ship types aren't allowed to use the Junction but have to take the long way around.

 

[veltyen]

So nice of the USA to lend out the only carrier construction yard in the world to

Brazil
Chile
China
France
India
Italy
Japan
Peru
Russia
Spain
Thailand
United Kingdom

http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/carriers/summary.htm

An Aircraft Carrier is just a really big boat. Anywhere that can produce major shipping can build one. Most of the above are pocket carriers and vtol carriers, and none reach the overwhelming (and overpriced) size of the Nimitz class. Size is not the issue, running costs vs Utility is the issue.


Returning to Traveller I see three layers for the creation of Naval vessels.
- Design Tender
Multiple shipyards design prototypes for a test craft. Each craft is examined for fitness for the role desired. Winning bidder gets a purchase order for X craft. All prototypes are bought by the navy for use, though some may be sold for scrap/junk.
- Standard Design Tender
The navy puts out an open purchase order for X standard craft (scout boats, SDB, Patrol Vessels) the naval design is handed to winning bid shipyard for construction.
- Research Tender
Request to come up with new designs and implementations of naval vessels or equipment. Often only done internally, but can be done with serious non-disclosure clauses and an outside company. Skunkworks for example. Experimental engines, weapon systems, new role thoughts and so on.

 

[Hal]

More thoughts...

What percentage of missile stocks would be utilized by the military during periods of peace? I'm thinking along the lines of training purposes, stocks becoming obsolete, etc?

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[Hal]

Hi Chris,
All I can say is "Day um! Where does he find all those nifty URL's"

Digesting it now...

 

[BetterThanLife]

For awhile Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru had Aircraft Carriers built in either the Brooklyn Navy Yard or Norfolk. They were Essex Class Carriers that were sold to them war surplus after serving in WWII. The Argentine Carrier even saw action in the Falklands War and survived the war. If you actually look into the list the Indian Carriers were built in England and sold by the British Government Surplus to India, the Brazil Carriers were French built and sold to Brazil surplus. The Chinese don't even have a real carrier on that list. The Russians and the French are the only ones with an Active Multi-Role carrier capable of launching conventional aircraft outside of the US. (And both are very limited the Russian ship never really passed trials.) everything else on the list is a Helicopter Carrier or a Harrier Carrier.

You will notice that the Kiev Class (USSR built) is missing from the list as is the Old Essex Class Carriers that were transferred to South America and both of these types were much more capable than most of the ships that made the list. We turned our remaining Essex Class Carriers into Museums but with the upgrades in the 50s you can launch and recover modern carrier aircraft from them. Only the French designed/built Carriers boast that capability (and the Russian one was designed to do it but...

) Even the French Carrier can't carry or handle as many aircraft as the Essex was capable of.

BTW the sight is a little out of date. CVN77 has been laid down (The George HW Bush) The Ronald Regan is complete. For more information on the US Navy you can always go to the source.

http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/ships/

Originally posted by veltyen:
So nice of the USA to lend out the only carrier construction yard in the world to

Brazil
Chile
China
France
India
Italy
Japan
Peru
Russia
Spain
Thailand
United Kingdom

http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/carriers/summary.htm

<Snip!>

 

[Jame]

Interesting thread, so I'm kicking it back into circulation while I spin in circles and actually try to work...

 

[Hal]

Hi Jame,
Whatcha working on that you spin in circles? You don't work as a Carousal (sp?) repair tech do you?

Hal

 

[Butch Clor]

Military Service and Support.

Folks,

In my universe there are uses for those old TL-13 and 14 Battle and Jump Tenders floating around out there. Aside from those scrapped or transfered to Subsector or Planetary navies these ships are too valuable to scrap until they are worn out. As these ships were designed to carry from 4-8 riders of 30-50Ktons. It is not unreasonable for the ships to have 1 or 2 modules or more, or fuel modules; the size of it's previous riders attached as workshops.The workshops could be the equavailant of a class B port.The ships still maintain their weaponry and if attached, their fighter elements.These ships would be work-horses.
One of these ships could be integral to an adventure. Perhaps you are carrying despatches for a deployment, Commanding a Firey Escort attached. Or you could be a merchant ship contracted to carry parts or mail to a deployed ship.

Butch

 

[BlackBat242]

For awhile Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru had Aircraft Carriers built in either the Brooklyn Navy Yard or Norfolk. They were Essex Class Carriers that were sold to them war surplus after serving in WWII. The Argentine Carrier even saw action in the Falklands War and survived the war. If you actually look into the list the Indian Carriers were built in England and sold by the British Government Surplus to India, the Brazil Carriers were French built and sold to Brazil surplus. The Chinese don't even have a real carrier on that list. The Russians and the French are the only ones with an Active Multi-Role carrier capable of launching conventional aircraft outside of the US. (And both are very limited the Russian ship never really passed trials.) everything else on the list is a Helicopter Carrier or a Harrier Carrier.

You will notice that the Kiev Class (USSR built) is missing from the list as is the Old Essex Class Carriers that were transferred to South America and both of these types were much more capable than most of the ships that made the list. We turned our remaining Essex Class Carriers into Museums but with the upgrades in the 50s you can launch and recover modern carrier aircraft from them. Only the French designed/built Carriers boast that capability (and the Russian one was designed to do it but...

) Even the French Carrier can't carry or handle as many aircraft as the Essex was capable of.
http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/ships/

Where did you get your misinformation from?

The US has never sold any Essex class carriers to anyone! They did offer one to Canada, and 3 to Britain in the 1960s, but the offers were not accepted.

The only carriers the US sold or gave to anyone were some small escort carriers and 3 Independence class light carriers... one to Spain and two to France.

You can find the history of virtually every carrier ever built by any nation here: http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/carriers/


The 2 Argentinian carriers were both ex-Brit Colossus class carriers, the Brazilians had one ex-Brit Colossus class carrier and now has one ex-French one, the Netherlands had one ex-Brit Colossus class carrier (and sold it to Argentina), andFrance had ex-Brit Colossus class carrier, butChile and Peru never had an aircraft carrier at all!


I think you are confusing them with the ex-US Brooklyn/St. Louis class Light Cruisers that were sold to Argentina, Brazil, and Chile in the early 1950s (2 to each country).
See here: http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/cruisers/ca-cl1.htm

Peru bought 2 Colony class Light Cruisers from Britain (and replaced them with 2 newer ones from the Netherlands), and Chile bought one from Sweden in the early 1970s.

 

[mbrinkhues]

Military shipyards did exist IRL quite often. Starting with the "Arsenal" in Venice (a seperate, walled harbor off-limits to civilians) and ending in the Wilhelmshaven Fleet Yards of Kaiser Willhelm. And as long as those exist, maintenance away from them had been a problem.

Read up on the Russian Navie and it's voyage to the far east (and death at the hand of the Japanese Navy near Tsushima in the Korea Street) They had a number of tenders and repair ships with them, got some coaling support from the Germans and still they where banged up, low on fuel and with more than a few maintenance problems when the battle was joined.

The actions of the german WWII warships raiding through the Atlantic where often dictated by fuel and maintenance. I.e when the two light BB's came into Brest they had severe loss of turbine power and needed a major overhaul. Again, there had been maintenance ships out there that they met with and a large crew with good repair/damage control skills on board.

That's why the British had all those ports build around the world, places where they could do maintenance after a long distance force-relocation, replentish and repair. No need to pull back the ships all the way to Liverpool.

=========================

IMTU there is a combination of naval repair stations scattered througout a sector and various support ships ranging from 2000dton tenders for a squadron of patrol vessels all the way to specially equiped battle-tenders that can do emergency repairs or even haul back a damaged Tigress class BB, similar to Butch Clor's ideas. This fits nicely with my "small fighting navy", consuming wast amounts of hulls and crew for support. Quite a few tenders will be gutted and re-fitted older ships of the matching class (A TL-13 cruiser serving as a tender of TL14 cruisers i.e) Coupled WITH long travel times to/from station to reduce availabel hulls from the official numbers to effectively 1/3 with the rest in training, transit or repair.

The small Tenders can fight on their own and might even do double duty as a light carrier lugging around a few fighters. This is simply a necessity since the escort/patrol units can't spare "bodyguards". The bigger a tender gets, the more likely he is to get a few "bodyguards" assigned and the less likely he is to have weapons beyond point defence/anti missile work. Again, that sips off escorts and light units from the general fleet, giving an overall weaker fleet(1) since 2-6 ships in the 400-3000dton class are a solid escort for a large tender (depending on tender size), less in peace and more in war.

IMTU most critical maintenance (J-Drives, M-Drives, Electronics) can be done from the inside of a ship only needing special equipment and maybe some technical experts. Pulling a turret requires some workpods and replacement parts but can also be done drifting in empty space. Only major hull-repairs (NOT patching! - full repairs) and similar large scale work requires scaffolding and other yard gear. And a military ship may skip a maintenance intervall if necessary, going into drydock for extended work after two years instead of one.






IMHO the common escorts are included in the MT ship numbers/fleet sizes and in war augmented by the Jump-Capabel units from reserve(colonial)fleets

 

[flykiller]

Read up on the Russian Navie and it's voyage to the far east ... They had a number of tenders and repair ships with them, got some coaling support from the Germans and still they where banged up, low on fuel and with more than a few maintenance problems when the battle was joined.

a primitive ocean-going wet navy manned mostly by peasants is not readily comparible to an advanced space-going navy manned by heavily trained people. a space-going navy won't have corrosion problems. with gravitic compensation it will have few mechanical stress loads. it will be designed to have as few moving/wearing parts as possible, with those that must move/wear being minimized and having replacements readily available. it will be designed to be easily maintainable mostly with replacement parts with less reliance on repair skills, and if repair skills are needed then those people will be available. and in zero G, if major physical repairs are necessary then cranes and other heavy moving equipment won't be required, only a few competent and patient people.

with proper cargo and specialty support a space-going navy is likely to be readily maintainable on-station.

 

[mbrinkhues]

If we where talking about a competent navy, say the equivalent to WWII German Navy / Royal Navy I would agree.

But we are talking about the Imperial Space Navy here. That's closer to the early-war Havenites from the Honorverse IMHO/IMTU.

 

[flykiller]

If we where talking about a competent navy ... But we are talking about the Imperial Space Navy here.

well ....

it's hard to imagine a space-going fleet that isn't competent. surely a tech-15-capable society is competent? and surely a sector like the spinward marches that has 100 billion citizens (22 billion of whom live on tech 15 worlds) has 10 million citizens and 1 million industries that are competent at building and running a space-going navy? and surely a ruling class that can collect the taxes of 100 billion people and offer to pay for the best possible navy can collect that talent and get results? and surely that navy, which has fought five wars with the zhodani, has an institutional memory for what works and what doesn't?

 

[mbrinkhues]

Oh, I always base my SciFi on the real world. Coupled with what happened in canon MT and TNE and how fast it all unravelled I have long come to the decision that like many IRL nations the 3I has been living on past glory and achivements for a LOOOOONG time and was already running short on it by 1105.

Add in that I have always prefereed the "dying old man" view similar to the late Domenik Flandry novels of the CoDo and "Sauron War/WarWorld2 views of Poul Anderson and Jerry Pournelle and it's all crumbling down with a few "heros" (Fandry, Falkenberg, Norris) and idealists (The Spartan Monarchs, Streppi) trying to stave of darkness despite being surrounded by enemies (Mersia, Zhos) and incompetent or power-greedy lackeys (Martin, Bronson, Dulinor). The 3I once WAS great and capabel but now it goes through the motions without fully understanding WHY and without the ability to adapt. Roman Legions against the Frankish Mounted Warriors.

 

[aramis]

Corrosion WILL be a MAJOR issue... not hull corrosion, but that of interior systems. Far more an issue than hulls even in many modern vessels. After all, we seem to thrive on two of the more universally corrosive substances known: Oyxgen and Dihydrogen Monoxide. And then we push these two corrosive agents around thrugh the ship.

Moisture is the enemy of electronics. And it will have some exposure: connectors.

Oh, Dihydrogen monoxide is well known to the the enemy of rotation points, too.

 

[flykiller]

Oh, I always base my SciFi on the real world.

always a good practice. but one must be careful not simply to transplant a real world setting into a sci-fi setting in disregard of circumstances. the third imperium is not a single planet.

The 3I once WAS great and capabel but now it goes through the motions without fully understanding WHY and without the ability to adapt.

easy to envision in a limited setting, such as the roman empire, where political power, education, and money were limited. but the third imperium is huge, and consists of dozens of major worlds with their own course of history, and hundreds of billions of people with vast wealth and education. it's hard to envision all of it becoming senescent all at the same time.

Moisture is the enemy of electronics. And it will have some exposure: connectors.

well, in the six years when I was at sea as an electrician and down in engineering where all that hot moist sea air was pumped in 24/7 and where the bilges were frequently awash in sea water, we had lots and lots of electronics, and very little of it was ever outright replaced. lots of little work, but nothing I couldn't work on or carry all by myself, 'cept those rotten vent fans and the bearing changes for some of the motors (and in 0G I imagine I could have done even those by myself). replacing thermistors, soldering connections, swapping printed circuit cards, cleaning contacts, that sort of thing. I imagine a spaceship with its climate-controlled environment would be substantially more friendly to electronics.

 

[PFVA63]

I'm not sure I fully agree with some of the stuff ...

Hi,

I'm not sure I fully agree with some of the stuff that's been posted here. Specifically;

Corrosion problems - I while ago I posted some info I found in a book on current day spacecraft/satellite interactions in outer space. One of the things it mentioned was how the impact of the impinging atmospheric molecules can degrade the chemical and structural composition of the spacecrafts structure (including erosion), how the exposure of the ship to the near vacuum of space can lead to the release of absorbed gases in the materials that make up the hull, how there is also the potential for photon radiation (including ultra violet radiation) to degrade the properties of many materials used in spacecraft surfaces, and finally how there is also a danger from micro meteoroids and other stuff in space.

In addition, as Aramis alludes to above, there is also the potential for corrosion from the inside from either water vapor or oxygen, as well as possible impurities in the fuel which can effect the surfaces of the fuel tanks.

For reference, not long ago I was reading some info on some aluminum ocean going patrol boats which had actually begun to experience structural problems where condensation inside the hull was contributing to their problems. Because of moisture in the air people exhale, its not hard to imagine that condensation of these vapors could lead to problems on a space craft as well, not to mention possible water vapor from showers, the galley, and the sanitation system.

Technological Capabilities of the Navy - just last year I attended a presentation by a US Navy Admiral who was responsible for Technical Authority in the USN. Basically, if I understand correctly he was the guy in charge of determining whether a ship is technically fit to deploy to sea. One of the things he noted is that only a few months earlier a US Navy FFG had its rudder fall completely off the ship while it was underway. This lead to a review of all other vessels in the class and at least one other was immediately taken out of service for emergency repairs. The reason I bring this up is to illustrate that even in a modern, professionally manned, well-funded navy like the USN sometimes maintenance gets deferred as money is needed for other purposes, and as such maintenance problems can still be a real issue.

Mechinal Stress Loads - I would suspect that, seeing that some vessels can attain up to 6G's of maneuver, even with gravitic compensation there may still be the potential for significant maneuvering stresses within a hull. In addition to this skimming fuel from gas giants, and/or landing on planets with an atmosphere would seem likely to also impose stresses on the hull, not only from air friction, but also from the ship undergoing the effects of changing from the near vacuum of space to an environment where the ambient outside pressure may be 1 atmoshpere or more.

Additionally, there are other issues for space craft that can land on a planets surface, as when on the ground all the vessel's weight would have to be supported by its landing gear, which would seem to have the potential for high concentrated loads in the structure.

Electronics - I believe that the book I noted above (or another one I have on Space Station Design) also noted that there is a potential for build up of electrical charges and other issues related to being exposed to electric fields, etc when in orbit around Earth (which, if I am understanding correctly, one of the books suggests may be even more severe at higher orbits) and I wouldn't be surprised if other planets were to have similar issues. Additionally, this book notes that particle radiation would also be an issue not just for the potential from direct radiation damage but also for something identified as "deep dielectric charging" both of which apparently can mess up onboard electronics as well. The slow accumulation of long term "total ionizing dose" radiation was noted in one of the books to lead to power loss in solar cells and cause the degradation and/or failure of micro electronics, etc. I would not at all be surprised if issues like this were to continue to be a problem for space craft in orbit around other planets in a setting like Traveller as well.

As such, my felings are that I wouldn't be surprised if maintenance would continue to be a major issue for space ships far into the future in a Traveller like setting.

Anyway, those are just my thoughts.

Regards

PF

 

[flykiller]

In addition, as Aramis alludes to above, there is also the potential for corrosion from the inside from either water vapor or oxygen ....

been there, done that, got the rust stains on my tools to prove it. on a climate controlled starship it won't be much of a problem unless someone decides it's going to be a problem.

the vilani had starships when dugout canoes were high-tech on terra, and the imperium has been stargoing longer than we've had iron ships. any space-going maintenance problems will have been well-solved.

 

[aramis]

WRONG, Flykiller, way wrong.

Maintenance issues are seldom solved.

Often well understood, and made routine, made less frequent, but seldom solved.

We still have to maintain canoes...

 

[flykiller]

WRONG, Flykiller, way wrong.

Maintenance issues are seldom solved.

Often well understood, and made routine, made less frequent, but seldom solved.

We still have to maintain canoes...

I didn't say "eliminated".

perhaps "REsolved" would be more acceptable? how about "minimized"?

and besides, some maintenance issues do in fact get solved. the design of the engineering plant on the uss enterprise is loaded with many flaws - pipes that collect radiological contamination, installed equipment that is impossible to replace without a hull cut, etc. as these problems were noted and recorded, follow-on ships were designed to eliminate or ameliorate these difficulties. we learned, and the experience was institutionalized in naval engineering practices. one may expect similar processes to have occured in the thousands of years of vilani and imperial space-faring history, and that starship maintenance would be well-minimized.

if one wishes, one may impose severe maintenance requirements on third imperium space-going ships. but it doesn't flow naturally from the game assumptions.