Git your pencils out and design me a ship!

Lord Skimper wrote:What is not remotely possible here?

The question you just asked cannot be answered, as it would take more time than the universe has been in existence to list all of it. However, the inverse question 'what *is* remotely possible?' can be. Here is a full list:




.

Ok, here's my boring design for a next gen light cruiser (provisionally termed CL-X). I based it around DDM and a defensive only keyhole (which I'm provisionally terming Keyhole-D). Basically take a keyhole 1, strip out all the offensive fire control so all you have is maybe 1-2 PDLCs and enough CM control links to provide full control for the CMs a hull this size can launch.
Also I assume that the missile per tube will be reduced somewhat from a Sag-C, which will free up a bit of internal volume to support Marines - though probably as a surge capability rather than an integrated permanent part of the ship company.

I started with the basic specs of the Sag-C heavy cruiser, but gave it a shallower Draught (as CLs seem to be thinner than CAs) then downsized the weapons fit based on the lower broadsides and the room you'd need for the Keyhole-D bays.

Now this does force a tactical dilema on the captain, as he can roll wedge and fight defensively with better control than even a Sag-C (though fewer weapons), but that basically cuts his control links to his DDMs. So he has to decide if the incoming fire is bad enough to cut links and turtle up, or if he should brave the fire to deliver the best offensive blow. However at this hull size things are definitely a compromise; so this makes some sense to me - and hopefully will at least trigger some interesting discussions.

Anyway here's the numbers I ballparked for my CL-X design.
Mass 480,000 tons
Length 610 m
Beam 74 m
Draught 57 m
Acceleration 771.3 G
Missiles (broadside) 12 DDM
Missiles (chase)
Missiles (total) 24
Lasers (broadside)
Lasers (chase) 0
Lasers (total) 0
Grasers (broadside) 4
Grasers (chase) 2
Grasers (total) 12
CM tubes (broadside) 20
CM tubes (chase)
CM tubes (total) 40
PDLC (broadside) 14
PDLC (chase) 7
PDLC (total) 42
Keyhole-D 2

The mass in nearly that of a Sag-C, just shaved off a bit for the shallower draught. And minor tonnage savings doesn't give much accel advantage (for the same compensator - but I gave this the best we've seen to date; which is a solid 6% better than the original Sag-C design had).

Obviously this is designed for the classic light cruiser missions in the era where you might get smacked by a pod based defense and need superior defenses - while being able to reply with DDM range.


I'd like thoughts. Is it too big; did I not give up enough to squeeze in defensive keyholes; is the mission obsolete?

Jonathan_S wrote:
Anyway here's the numbers I ballparked for my CL-X design.
Mass 480,000 tons
Length 610 m
Beam 74 m
Draught 57 m
Acceleration 771.3 G
Missiles (broadside) 12 DDM
Missiles (chase)
Missiles (total) 24
Grasers (broadside) 4
Grasers (chase) 2
Grasers (total) 12
CM tubes (broadside) 20
CM tubes (chase)
CM tubes (total) 40
PDLC (broadside) 14
PDLC (chase) 7
PDLC (total) 42
Keyhole-D 2

I'd like thoughts. Is it too big; did I not give up enough to squeeze in defensive keyholes; is the mission obsolete?

The concept of building in possibility for Marines, without them being specifically attached is nice and useful for when you know you're being assigned to somewhere having the extra Marines would be useful without necessarily "over staffing" the ship, after all the trouble the RMN took to push the automation through BuShips.

For feedback, I think it needs a big more tonnage shaving, you're giving up 50% of the Sag-C's grasers and almost 50% of the missiles, for the Keyhole but I'm not certain that'd be the equal of the Keyhole's tonnage. Keyhole's are pretty big, but I don't think even a slightly downsized "defense only" would be the equal of 8 tubes and 4 grasers. You didn't specify how much of a missile storage reduction compared to the Sag C's 1200 (which is considered on the high end), but this sort of a ship would be almost a CL Fearless and you could get quite a bit of tonnage back since you're reducing the missile launchers.

I want to say this notional CL would be closer to say a Star Knight rather than a Sag-C, just upteched so I'd say almost split the difference of 90k off the Sag-C. So your notional light cruiser would become close to 400 ktons, perhaps as much as 420.


Defensively, I think she might also be slightly too strong. I thought the Sag-C didnt have any chase PDLC's, and relied purely on broadside efforts with the chase beams backing up. With the Sag-C having 20 CM and 24 PDLCs, perhaps a reduction down to 15 CM tubes and giving up your chase PDLC's would be appropiate (assuming the Sag C does not have chaser PDLCs either).

Somtaaw wrote:The concept of building in possibility for Marines, without them being specifically attached is nice and useful for when you know you're being assigned to somewhere having the extra Marines would be useful without necessarily "over staffing" the ship, after all the trouble the RMN took to push the automation through BuShips.

For feedback, I think it needs a big more tonnage shaving, you're giving up 50% of the Sag-C's grasers and almost 50% of the missiles, for the Keyhole but I'm not certain that'd be the equal of the Keyhole's tonnage. Keyhole's are pretty big, but I don't think even a slightly downsized "defense only" would be the equal of 8 tubes and 4 grasers. You didn't specify how much of a missile storage reduction compared to the Sag C's 1200 (which is considered on the high end), but this sort of a ship would be almost a CL Fearless and you could get quite a bit of tonnage back since you're reducing the missile launchers.

I want to say this notional CL would be closer to say a Star Knight rather than a Sag-C, just upteched so I'd say almost split the difference of 90k off the Sag-C. So your notional light cruiser would become close to 400 ktons, perhaps as much as 420.


Defensively, I think she might also be slightly too strong. I thought the Sag-C didnt have any chase PDLC's, and relied purely on broadside efforts with the chase beams backing up. With the Sag-C having 20 CM and 24 PDLCs, perhaps a reduction down to 15 CM tubes and giving up your chase PDLC's would be appropiate (assuming the Sag C does not have chaser PDLCs either).

The thing that was driving the tonnage (which I agree is quite high for a CL) is sticking with the Sag-C's length and beam; but we're told we need that 74 meter beam to carry Mk16s.

And I may well be giving up too many missile tubes to fit the Keyhole-D. I didn't try to figure out exactly how big a stripped down version would be; but assumed it was still quite hefty. My rough starting point was to trim away about 8% of the broadsides (due to the reduced draught) then figure the keyhole bay sucked up nearly 1/3rd of what was left.
But that's all a WAG.
On the other hand fitting in a keyhole 1 meant that the Nike-class, despite having having 5x the tonnage, and having roughly 70% more broadside area than the Sag-C fit in only a mere 10 extra tubes (25 vs 20 Mk16 tubes per broadside) - so Keyhole clearly isn't an insignificant add.


My thinking was basically that while it's kind of a light throw weight for it's size, it's still respectable for a CL. The Avalon carried only 10 tubes per broadsize; and those for the smaller Mk 14 ERM. So going up to 12 Mk16s isn't insignificant.

But I can see this might be an overly defensive design (especially considering the tonnage and point defense given up to carry the defense only Keyhole derivative). I don't know if the RMN might plausibly to so hard on the defense, even with concerns about stumbling into a pod backed ambush.


Maybe even defensive-only keyhole is too much of a compromise at this time for smaller units.

Jonathan_S wrote:The thing that was driving the tonnage (which I agree is quite high for a CL) is sticking with the Sag-C's length and beam; but we're told we need that 74 meter beam to carry Mk16s.

And I may well be giving up too many missile tubes to fit the Keyhole-D. I didn't try to figure out exactly how big a stripped down version would be; but assumed it was still quite hefty. My rough starting point was to trim away about 8% of the broadsides (due to the reduced draught) then figure the keyhole bay sucked up nearly 1/3rd of what was left.
But that's all a WAG.
On the other hand fitting in a keyhole 1 meant that the Nike-class, despite having having 5x the tonnage, and having roughly 70% more broadside area than the Sag-C fit in only a mere 10 extra tubes (25 vs 20 Mk16 tubes per broadside) - so Keyhole clearly isn't an insignificant add.


My thinking was basically that while it's kind of a light throw weight for it's size, it's still respectable for a CL. The Avalon carried only 10 tubes per broadsize; and those for the smaller Mk 14 ERM. So going up to 12 Mk16s isn't insignificant.

But I can see this might be an overly defensive design (especially considering the tonnage and point defense given up to carry the defense only Keyhole derivative). I don't know if the RMN might plausibly to so hard on the defense, even with concerns about stumbling into a pod backed ambush.


Maybe even defensive-only keyhole is too much of a compromise at this time for smaller units.

Well the defensive Keyhole has defenses on its own, so this light cruiser is now pushing 70% of the fleet anti-missile defense as a Nike battlecruiser (total of 60 CM and 60 PDLCs) and you've got 40 of each on the cruiser hull and then a few more on each Keyhole-D.

So a touch of additional tonnage reduction, maybe as low as I proposed of 400 to 420 ktons, scale back the active missile defenses by between 30 and 50%, and maybe we can tweak the offensive layout a little bit better. I think even Sag-C's can engage while rolled on their sides without Keyhole, they're just not as efficient as a Nike (or larger) using Keyholes. So this notional cruiser should also be able to engage by looking through her own wedge, rolled on the side and engaging with both broadsides at once for that total of 24 missiles at once.

That's almost on the high end for a light cruiser, but that was by the standard of pre-pods, so I'm not exactly sure whether this would be over- or under-armed by modern standards.

Somtaaw wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:The thing that was driving the tonnage (which I agree is quite high for a CL) is sticking with the Sag-C's length and beam; but we're told we need that 74 meter beam to carry Mk16s.

And I may well be giving up too many missile tubes to fit the Keyhole-D. I didn't try to figure out exactly how big a stripped down version would be; but assumed it was still quite hefty. My rough starting point was to trim away about 8% of the broadsides (due to the reduced draught) then figure the keyhole bay sucked up nearly 1/3rd of what was left.
But that's all a WAG.
On the other hand fitting in a keyhole 1 meant that the Nike-class, despite having having 5x the tonnage, and having roughly 70% more broadside area than the Sag-C fit in only a mere 10 extra tubes (25 vs 20 Mk16 tubes per broadside) - so Keyhole clearly isn't an insignificant add.


My thinking was basically that while it's kind of a light throw weight for it's size, it's still respectable for a CL. The Avalon carried only 10 tubes per broadsize; and those for the smaller Mk 14 ERM. So going up to 12 Mk16s isn't insignificant.

But I can see this might be an overly defensive design (especially considering the tonnage and point defense given up to carry the defense only Keyhole derivative). I don't know if the RMN might plausibly to so hard on the defense, even with concerns about stumbling into a pod backed ambush.


Maybe even defensive-only keyhole is too much of a compromise at this time for smaller units.

Well the defensive Keyhole has defenses on its own, so this light cruiser is now pushing 70% of the fleet anti-missile defense as a Nike battlecruiser (total of 60 CM and 60 PDLCs) and you've got 40 of each on the cruiser hull and then a few more on each Keyhole-D.

So a touch of additional tonnage reduction, maybe as low as I proposed of 400 to 420 ktons, scale back the active missile defenses by between 30 and 50%, and maybe we can tweak the offensive layout a little bit better. I think even Sag-C's can engage while rolled on their sides without Keyhole, they're just not as efficient as a Nike (or larger) using Keyholes. So this notional cruiser should also be able to engage by looking through her own wedge, rolled on the side and engaging with both broadsides at once for that total of 24 missiles at once.

That's almost on the high end for a light cruiser, but that was by the standard of pre-pods, so I'm not exactly sure whether this would be over- or under-armed by modern standards.

A Saganami-C cannot engage while rolled on their sides (roof or floor of impeller wedge pointed at the enemy). It takes a Keyhole (either Keyhole I or II) to provide that capability.

What a Saganmi-C can do is engage with both broadsides, so long as one if its flanks (sidewall, not wedge) is pointed at the enemy target.

Vince wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:I think even Sag-C's can engage while rolled on their sides without Keyhole, they're just not as efficient as a Nike (or larger) using Keyholes. So this notional cruiser should also be able to engage by looking through her own wedge, rolled on the side and engaging with both broadsides at once for that total of 24 missiles at once.

A Saganami-C cannot engage while rolled on their sides (roof or floor of impeller wedge pointed at the enemy). It takes a Keyhole (either Keyhole I or II) to provide that capability.

What a Saganmi-C can do is engage with both broadsides, so long as one if its flanks (sidewall, not wedge) is pointed at the enemy target.

Really? I know warships can still track targets through their wedge while rolled belly to the target, and if you're willing to sacrifice sending your missiles any updates with control links, that would mean you can indeed fire off-bore missiles on a target while on your side, wouldn't it? Obviously your missiles wouldn't be anywhere near peak performance, unless you're shooting at something much smaller than you (or an SLN unit ) but that doesn't mean it's impossible to fire that way.

My understand of the Keyhole platform, is that it permits you to still roll belly to your target, but because the Keyhole's are stationed out much farther than even tractored decoys (and chock full of fire control links), you can still send the updates to your missiles. But it's merely a refinement of something Manticore was capable of doing the moment they managed to design missiles than can be fired off-bore. Capable of, being the key.

Somtaaw wrote:Really? I know warships can still track targets through their wedge while rolled belly to the target, and if you're willing to sacrifice sending your missiles any updates with control links, that would mean you can indeed fire off-bore missiles on a target while on your side, wouldn't it? Obviously your missiles wouldn't be anywhere near peak performance, unless you're shooting at something much smaller than you (or an SLN unit ) but that doesn't mean it's impossible to fire that way.

My understand of the Keyhole platform, is that it permits you to still roll belly to your target, but because the Keyhole's are stationed out much farther than even tractored decoys (and chock full of fire control links), you can still send the updates to your missiles. But it's merely a refinement of something Manticore was capable of doing the moment they managed to design missiles than can be fired off-bore. Capable of, being the key.

Poorly. Fire control links do not appear to be 'aimed' through the top or bottom of the wedge.

From HoS, Saganami-B:
Chase: 2M, 3G, 6CM, 8PD
"The second generation missile launchers are capable of limited off-bore fire into adjacent arcs, though the chase telemetry arrays limit them to realtime control of less than half the total salvo they could launch."

Saganami-C:
Chase: 3L, 2G, 8PD
"The 3rd generation launchers and missile allow them to fire off-bore up to 180 degrees, launching a 40-missile salvo into any firing arc, and telemetry arrays have also been upgraded, allowing full control of up to three “stacked broadsides” in any aspect not blocked by the wedge."

This would indicate that in order to be fully off-bore capable, they need lots and lots of fire control telemetry arrays on all sides of the ship. The Sag-C and Nike probably have no bow/stern missile or countermissile launchers in order to squeeze sufficient fire control to control both broadsides into the hammerheads for chase engagements.

The magic of Keyhole is deceptively simple - its job is to maintain a line of sight to both its mothership and the enemy target or incoming missiles. It's essentially one of those fancy curved cameras special forces use to peek around corners without exposing themselves to direct fire. All the keyhole has to do is point its bow or stern at the mothership and then it can roll to keep its broadside arrays focused upon the target. The mothership's tractors will keep it in formation, though obviously the Keyhole is capable of independent maneuvering to some extent.

Keyhole classification is a mess. As far as I can make out, Keyhole-I was only for anti-missile defense(possibly only fitted on SD(P)s), then Keyhole-II added telemetry relays for missiles.

There are at least two Keyhole-II platforms, a smaller version used for Nike(with six telemetry arrays) and a larger version on the Invictus(with eight arrays). The larger one is Apollo capable, the smaller is not.

Therefore, I'd say making the CL-X's keyholes defensive only is a retrograde step. Perhaps sacrifice the second platform for full capabilities on the first, tucked into the dorsal or ventral side?

Keyhole I has always provided offensive control links. KH2 simply upgrades those to FTL. Also, KH1 has been fitted to Agamemnons and Nikes, not just SD(P)s.

You might do better to change tactics here. As a pure defensive ship with reduced offensive capability you might want to look at another option.

One your building small, too small, for Keyhole.

Your crew is too small for your mission.

You are trying to protect a ship that is going to be fighting massive salvo's of missiles. Any first strike is going to involve pods and will try to overwhelm the enemy defenses, turtling up is not something you are going to do when you have fired your pods as well.

Reduced Keyhole, you want 2. why 2? you can barely carry one. Nothing says in modern naval tech of the honorverse you must be symmetrical when you can fire and control both broadsides bringing that fire power to bear on any enemy.

You might want to consider a much smaller offensive only Keyhole 1. You can still use the wedge of the Keyhole-D to turtle up. And you can still shoot while doing so.

Saganami C is too small for a number of Marines.

In combat you don't sacrifice weapons for Marines you may never use. Instead you get rid of the Keyhole keep the weapons load, and reduce the ammo levels to fit extra marines. move from 60 missiles per tube to 50 and you gain room for 100 marines.

Or you move up to a bigger ship.

Ships now are fit into role not size. Crew helps determine role. A Nike or Agamemnon sized ship might be what you are looking for. Keyhole I. x 2. 25 DDM or MDM tubes. Instead of trying to kill offensive capability you limit extra ammo you are never going to use. The Nike carries 4 times the missiles per tube of the Saganami C. Give it twice the missiles and you have all the space you will ever need. Remove the broadside Keyhole 1's and you can have a Rear mounted internally carried Keyhole 1 or 2. Just the 1. or for missions where Keyhole isn't needed, LAC. 1-3.

I pick lasers and many small because I want to add range to missile defense PDLC. And maintain offensive punch. Grasers are a useless weapon system that is not going to be anymore. Grasers just take up space 99% of the time. And on that 1% 99% of that time many smaller lasers will just be as good.

Given that crew levels were, but are not anymore, the problem with the number of ships. The Nike becomes the new everything cruiser. The only ship small enough for every role yet large enough to operate in MDM environments. Give it MDM and you are golden.

Add in that you're not even going for a Saganami C sized ship. But a CL. The only time a CL sized ship is good is when it doesn't fire a shot. Think of any of Honors missions after 3-5 engagements her ship was back in dry dock for a major refit half the crew were dead and the ship was shot to hell. Give her a Nike and the books would have been Honor shows up shoots everyone to hell and comes home for a weapons reload. Makes for boring books but it is what every naval commander wants.

Honors CL crew size was hard pressed on Basilisk Station. You want to do the same thing with less crew. On Basilisk Station bigger guns make no difference. You need more crew to fulfill the mission. In current times that is a bigger ship.

1.5-2.5Mtons. Think bigger, then see what you can do. Remember DDM missiles are a stop gap. They are here now but in 20 years they are your Achilles heel. MDM upgrade or full option now is your answer.

CL have no place in the MDM future. Much like Grasers, useless tech that will never be used.

Also look up box fire it solves your defensive fire control problems.