The cruiser future in the RMN - another go

double post edit

BobfromSydney wrote:I think you missed Sharkhunter's point that if the LACs take pods in tow it will negatively affect both their acceleration and their stealth.

If I correctly recall LACs are too small to tow pods inside their wedges like full up starships.

Next time, before replying why not actually read my post before posting?

Relax wrote:LAC's: 1 or 2 pods with degradation of acceleration and stealth. Massive degradation in case of 2 pods

MaxxQ wrote:

SharkHunter wrote: I'd bet that at max the LAC ship killers have < 1 million KM range.

You'd lose that bet. Maxxed out drives for both LAC shipkillers I have entries on are between 1.2 and 1.35 million km. Stepped down drives give them ranges of 5.5 to 6.2 million km. (all figures rounded because I'm lazy)

And yes, in extended mode, the drives for each last 180 seconds.

Only information I have for RHN LAC missiles is dimensions on *one* of them. The other, I only have a designation/name, but nothing else. I suspect that will change at some point when I get an updated spreadsheet, but for now, that's all I got.

Thanks! That said, though I missed on my range estimate, I think you verified my assertion that the DDM has at least a 15:1 useful "standard" range ratio vs. LAC missiles.

Seems like "stepped down" missiles vs. a cruiser's Vipers and PDLC's are an even more difficult scoring proposition given that the LACs still have to close the range while under attack themselves.

The other "I stand willing to be corrected" aspect to this is that as far as I know a Katana is the only LAC that can launch Vipers, and it can't launch shipkillers. Let me know, but isn't it true that the Shrikes and Ferrets have shorter legged CM's which would greatly reduce their 100% hit required success rate against a Mark 16 pod launch per LAC?

Barring a golden BB, my assertion is that this would be an "attritional victory" for either side. Either the cruiser progressively attrits the attacking LAC wave before taking too much critical damage, or enough LACs survive to attrit the cruiser's offensive and defensive missile supplies AFTER "closing the box" and reaching their own attack range. Then the "swarm of bees" wins.

--big snip-- about the IJN only

Jonathan_S wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:.. Give me a Tomahawk missile launching cruiser [and equivalent detection capability] against the entire IJN from World War II, including the Japanese carriers. Any ship getting close enough to the missile cruiser gets the treatment, right? And that's about a 500:1 weight of metal at least..

I don't think that would go the way you think, not without an unlimited number of Tomahawks; well maybe if you allow yourself the nuclear tipped land stack variant and get the target fleet to squeeze together into a nice tight target to nuke.
Otherwise a Ticonderoga can carry at most 122 tomahawks if every VLS cell carried one.

Let's amend my argument with your numbers and add that I'm not asserting the cruiser could fight the whole WWII battle and sink the entire IJN by itself, just that I'd take long odds and expect to survive an open water engagement. You are correct that I was not limiting the Tomahawks to standard munitions, by the way.

Here's my logic, based on Wikipedia:

IJN size, other than destroyers and subs:
Battleships 12
Fleet carriers 15
Light carriers 5
Escort carriers 5
Heavy cruisers 18
Light cruisers 25

Remember, the Ticonderoga also has a HUGE radar and electronic detection advantage over the IJN ships and way-better close in defenses. Only the carrier's planes can range on the cruiser initially, so barring early discovery, the cruiser's going to drop a minimal count of nuke tipped -Hawks on the carriers. Then I'd drop a few more on the IJN fueling ships.

Once those are gone, I'd assume that the USN ship is going to haul butt away from and and only use it's remaining missiles to break any attempt to complete an encirclement by the remaining surface combatants. The INJ likely runs out of fuel or the will to fight "just one ship" pretty dang quickly. Yes/no?

Jonathan_S wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:.. Give me a Tomahawk missile launching cruiser [and equivalent detection capability] against the entire IJN from World War II, including the Japanese carriers. Any ship getting close enough to the missile cruiser gets the treatment, right? And that's about a 500:1 weight of metal at least..

SharkHunter wrote:--big snip-- about the IJN only


I don't think that would go the way you think, not without an unlimited number of Tomahawks; well maybe if you allow yourself the nuclear tipped land stack variant and get the target fleet to squeeze together into a nice tight target to nuke.
Otherwise a Ticonderoga can carry at most 122 tomahawks if every VLS cell carried one.

Let's amend my argument with your numbers and add that I'm not asserting the cruiser could fight the whole WWII battle and sink the entire IJN by itself, just that I'd take long odds and expect to survive an open water engagement. You are correct that I was not limiting the Tomahawks to standard munitions, by the way.

Here's my logic, based on Wikipedia:

IJN size, other than destroyers and subs:
Battleships 12
Fleet carriers 15
Light carriers 5
Escort carriers 5
Heavy cruisers 18
Light cruisers 25

Remember, the Ticonderoga also has a HUGE radar and electronic detection advantage over the IJN ships and way-better close in defenses. Only the carrier's planes can range on the cruiser initially, so barring early discovery, the cruiser's going to drop a minimal count of nuke tipped -Hawks on the carriers. Then I'd drop a few more on the IJN fueling ships.

Once those are gone, I'd assume that the USN ship is going to haul butt away from and and only use it's remaining missiles to break any attempt to complete an encirclement by the remaining surface combatants. The INJ likely runs out of fuel or the will to fight "just one ship" pretty dang quickly. Yes/no?

Ok, first I'd like to apologize. I somehow read IJN as USN. The IJN being smaller is slightly more practical for a single modern cruiser to attack.

And if you intended to use nukes the Tico should be able to sink or cripple even more of them before running out of ammo.


Though afaik the anti-ship version of the Tomahawk never mounted a nuke warhead. Air bust nukes can cripple ships, especially smaller ones but it's surprisingly poor at actually sinking big ones. You need underwater detonation to do that. People made torpedoes with nuclear warheads, and depth charges, but I'm unaware of any U.S. missile than would submerge its nuclear payload before detonating.


But quibbling aside I never disputed that a modern cruiser armed with. Over the horizon anti ship missiles would tear up a WWII fleet, while the modern missiles lasted.

SharkHunter wrote:
The other "I stand willing to be corrected" aspect to this is that as far as I know a Katana is the only LAC that can launch Vipers, and it can't launch shipkillers. Let me know, but isn't it true that the Shrikes and Ferrets have shorter legged CM's which would greatly reduce their 100% hit required success rate against a Mark 16 pod launch per LAC?

The only issue with Ferrets... they're basically just larger, more sluggish Katana's, that might have slightly more missile storage, at the expense of said sluggishness. When it really comes down to it, the only place a Ferret beats Katana's is shooting at something bigger than a LAC. But Shrikes beat them all at that, so Ferret's are pretty well obsolete.

And found a nugget, regarding Katana squadron size and firerate.

Each Katana fired twenty-five Vipers. The six Dagger squadrons between them put eighteen hundred of them into space over a thirty-second window, and they scorched through the shell of Havenite counter-missiles like white-hot awls.

Shrikes and Ferrets are organized in 8 ship squadrons (thats from the Battle of Hancock, with the Minotaur), while Katana's are in 12 ship squadrons and can fire 25 Vipers per LAC, in 30 seconds.

Still hunting down the exact quote for Ferrets launching Vipers, I found it while I was hunting for the new construction launching Vipers.

Edit: okay, I may have been mistaken. There were occasional references to Ferrets and Katana's in the same sentence along with "firing Vipers", so I may have misread that to be Ferrets launching Vipers too. Other quotes in other chapters would bounce between Ferrets launching standard CMs, and the possibly confused Katana Vipers.

Somtaaw wrote:The only issue with Ferrets... they're basically just larger, more sluggish Katana's, that might have slightly more missile storage, at the expense of said sluggishness. When it really comes down to it, the only place a Ferret beats Katana's is shooting at something bigger than a LAC. But Shrikes beat them all at that, so Ferret's are pretty well obsolete.

I wouldn't say the Ferret is obsolete, just that its intended role has reduced in importance - though that judgement was made when the principal opponent was Haven, not the SLN or MAN. The Ferret was created to give the LAC wing more long-range firepower and to increase its ability to deploy EW platforms, at the expense of the close-in punch of the Shrike's graser. In essence, it's a support unit for the Shrike. The Katana can't perform that role because it doesn't have the full-sized missile tubes of a Ferret or Shrike, only CM tubes for Vipers and Mark-31s.

As an anti-LAC craft, the Katana is king, but the SLN has no LACs worthy of the name (we don't know about the MAN as yet), so the only current role where the Katana has an edge is anti-missile defence, and given how much stronger GA missile defences have become in the podlayer/MDM era, that role isn't as essential as it was when the GA navies were shooting at each other. The Viper's laserhead may well be effective against light units (destroyers and light cruisers, maybe even heavy cruisers), but there's still only one laserhead per missile so a Katana has much lower effective missile firepower than even a Shrike, much less a Ferret. In an anti-ship attack formation, the Katanas would be even more in a support role than the Ferrets, using their Vipers and CMs to cover the Shrikes as they close to graser range.

Somtaaw wrote:The only issue with Ferrets... they're basically just larger, more sluggish Katana's, that might have slightly more missile storage, at the expense of said sluggishness. When it really comes down to it, the only place a Ferret beats Katana's is shooting at something bigger than a LAC. But Shrikes beat them all at that, so Ferret's are pretty well obsolete.

Ferrets lack any energy weapon so they can fit more missiles and more ECM. IIRC, their primary purpose when first introduced was ECM coverage to protect Shrike squadron attacks.

Weird Harold wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:The only issue with Ferrets... they're basically just larger, more sluggish Katana's, that might have slightly more missile storage, at the expense of said sluggishness. When it really comes down to it, the only place a Ferret beats Katana's is shooting at something bigger than a LAC. But Shrikes beat them all at that, so Ferret's are pretty well obsolete.

Ferrets lack any energy weapon so they can fit more missiles and more ECM. IIRC, their primary purpose when first introduced was ECM coverage to protect Shrike squadron attacks.

Yes, but Katana's were designed with basically everything the Ferret does, but better. With the sole exceptions being smaller size, and outside of Vipers no true offensive missile.

The real way to look at it, are that Katana's are basically Ferret 2.0's, the new and improved model. Just like a Sag-C is 'technically' just a different model of the original Saganami, but in reality it's a whole new breed. With the LACs, it's the opposite, they are officially different, but really it's just a direct upgrade.

--big snip--

Jonathan_S wrote:...Though afaik the anti-ship version of the Tomahawk never mounted a nuke warhead. Air bust nukes can cripple ships, especially smaller ones but it's surprisingly poor at actually sinking big ones. You need underwater detonation to do that. People made torpedoes with nuclear warheads, and depth charges, but I'm unaware of any U.S. missile than would submerge its nuclear payload before detonating.

But quibbling aside I never disputed that a modern cruiser armed with. Over the horizon anti ship missiles would tear up a WWII fleet, while the modern missiles lasted.

Great info on the Tomahawk -- I think you are absolutely correct btw.

Back to the Honorverse though, that's the analog to my assertion about a latest gen- RMN cruiser vs. equivalent weight of LACs: I don't think the LACs would be able to close effectively.

Based on discussion I think I'd amend that and say against a "non-optimized mix" of LACs. For example, putting that cruiser up against a mix that included Katanas, Ferrets, and Shrikes would be magnitudinally more difficult than a "single type" LAC setup. T'would be a set of fun sims, no?