NationStates Jolt Archive

Contract requirements-Phase One: Design concept submissions
While we are able to field a small number of Icebreakers in our Coast guard, we have begun to realize the need for more potent Naval presence, particularly in light of our increased foreign contact.


Conditions: the Rogue Nation of Cadillac-Gage is seeking design concepts and submissions for the construction of a blue-water capable Naval force.

Restrictions:

Terrain
The Rogue Nation of Cadillac-Gage lacks any warm-water (that is, unfrozen year-round) Deepwater ports, due to our coastline being some 70 degrees north of the equator (above the arctic circle), making conventional ships somewhat useless for slightly more than half the year.

Technology
Cadillac-Gage maintains roughly 1995-equivalent technology, with slightly higher tech in Nuclear Power, ballistic, and materials sciences. We have sufficient heavy-industry to construct a shipyard, but no viable designs to build once it is constructed. (ooc: No Futuretech! Modern to close-post-modern is fine.)

Cost
Cost is a major factor with our nation, as it is nearly impossible to pass a tax-increase levy without proving the money will be handled carefully (Read: Frugally). The major concerns are long-term maintenance costs once the ships are specced out and constructed. Operating Cost is considered more important that initial purchase cost. (i.e. we're fine with a small navy, if we can maintain it without going into debt.)

Flexibility
Another concern, along with Cost, is Flexibility. We are particularly interested in a "Full-Service" Naval structure, one that is not overspecialized in any single area, but effective in most if not all missions that would reasonably be expected of a Naval force.

Logistical Support
Design submissions should include designs for Logistical support-type vessels (Oilers, Tenders, Underway Replenishment), in fact, an Emphasis on these roles (given terrain of the ports and the need to be able to service the fleet at sea year 'round) is considered a very high priority, and special consideration will be given to submissions that emphasize these needs.

Endurance
High Endurance designs (that can remain away from home for six months or longer without resupply in peacetime) will be given priority consideration.

Rewards for successful bids

The Successful Bidder will recieve 15 Billion Marks of Credit raised in a recent Lottery for that purpose-this is only for the base specification in the first-round bidding. Additional Prize-monies will be awarded in the full-design phase, and prototype testing phase, before the final contracts are let.
Potentially, this can be very lucrative for the winning bidder or bidders.

Thank you for your time.

-Director Suse Randall, Department of External Contacts and Relations,
Rogue Nation of Cadillac-Gage.

Admiral Sanga of BuShips frowned interestedly at the report he was holding. A potential client. With an interesting problem. His imidiate solution was to go to war and capture a warm water port, but he dismissed it almost as quickly. It didn't work for the Russians.

He hit a button on his desk and, over a period of fifteen minutes, his staff sauntered in. An ensign brought tea and biscuits some hours later.

Preliminary Contract Application

We at the Verdant Archipelago Unified Navy have a history of taking a mercantile, some would say mercenary approach to warfare. It is a sad truth that military equipment is a lucrative industry, and to subsidize our forces, we find it nessisary to export weapon systems.

That being the case, it is refreshing to see a case like yours, which is at least different from nations who want 2000 tanks delivered to their porch once the 'money is wired'.

While we have no designs completed as yet, we would like to present our concepts for your approval.

Airships:
In the wake of the Hindenburg disaster and the development of effective long range transport aircraft, the airship has been overlooked. We feel this is a serious mistake and have developed a line of extremely successful airships for domestic and foreign use. Despite their limited payload compared with ships, the range of terrain they can range over is more in line with a helecopter, and they have far greater endurance and payload. While they may not be effective combat vehicles, they do make excelent limited transports, patrol craft, and mobile SAM sites, and are not discomoded by ice at all. Currently, we have a transport airship available for sale, an engineering airship that could be modified for limited icebreaking duities, a naval patrol airship, and an AEW airship.

Submersables:
While surface ships are unable to operate effectively in ice, it is no more than a irritant to submersables, which can simply travel under it. Given this, we feel that the development of large sub pens and a fleet of SSNs and SSGNs would be extremely appropriate for your case. Another possibility is are limited submersables, or surface ships with the ability to submerge. While fairly specialized designs, they are quite applicable to fast attack craft and arsenal ships.

Every Ship an Icebreaker:
Given the extreme likelyhood of ships being unable to wait for an icebreaker to become available, we suggest developing a line of icebreaker-escorts, or indeed basing your entire fleet off of icebreaker hullforms. While extremely inefficient and not particularly fast, these points are less important in defencive actions where the ice will likely be, or in escorts that will be tied down defending slow transports anyway. We would suggest the escort system, using 10000 ton destroyer escorts with specially reinforced hulls that shouild prove remarkably resistant to torpedo attacks as well, but should you chose to make a large portion of your fleet icebreaking capable, we should be able to assist you. as well.

Other Ports
In adition to the technical solutions we have suggested, we have been authorized to make tentative overtures of the lease of one of our smaller islands for use as a naval base, pending closer relations between our nations. Our waters have their own, signifigant dangers, but the advantages of a warm-water base are not to be scoffed at.

Why choose the Verdant Archipelago Trading Consortium?
The Verdant Archipelago shares with you dangerous waters, for different reasons, and so out designers are always prepared to think outside the box. We have a strong naval tradition and, as a member of the OMP and TAPRES, have access to large stores of knowledge that will make developing a coharent naval system much easier.

Regards,
Admiral Anuj Sanga

"Bump"

Verdant Archipelago- airships are a definite no-go. They have all the vulnerabilities of standard aircraft, plus low-speed and high-vulnerability as targets. (besides, with our dreadful weather, they would be nearly impossible to deploy effectively in a defensive situation.)

the Icebreaking Escorts looks like a good idea-as does the idea of using stronger hull-layouts with icebreaking capability on the larger vessels.
Likewise, an emphasis on submersibles for the strike role looks interesting.

OOC: Not true at all about the airships. In RL tests, an airship had 600 rounds of amunition emptied into it, and two hours later was still in good enough condition to make it home. Find an airplane with a 150 ton cargo capacity that can boast that... also ours our quite robust, and are rated to survive winds in excess of 200 knots, and have a sprint speed of over 80 knots... which means they can keep station in hurricanes, if nessisary. Won't be fun at all, and you'll burn a lot of fuel, but they have the engine power and the structural integraty. And I'm not suggesting using them in an actual combat role, beyond subhunting. How many subhunting helecopters can boast the robustness of an airship that can take direct hits from small AAMs and keep flying, or direct penetrating hits from long range SAMs and still get the crew down to safety? Our airships can.

THe roles we were thinking about, for airships, were SAR, patrol/coastguard activities (including pathfinding through ice), AWACs, AEW, and long range transport for bases that are inaccessable by land or sea, and have no airstrip.

The main problem with icebreakers is they're painfully slow, and dreadfully uncomfortable. I'd be lying if I thought we could get any more than 22 knots out of a nuclear powered icebreaking escort in clear water... Reinforcing the hulls of other ships to be ice clearing would, however, be possible without signifigant decreases in performance. Rather than designing them to ride up onto the ice and smash it, we could shape and strengthen the hull so it could deal with smaller peices of broken ice.