Yep. An since you rarely send ships of any significant size anywhere along you can get most of the advantage, but without the hybrids disadvantages, by simply making up 'hybrid' batrons of 3-4 SD(P)s and 2-3 CLACs.munroburton wrote:The hybrid CLAC and pod-layer has already been done. One such ship was Honor Harrington's last starship command.
A CLAC has a heavily armoured core and broadsides dotted with hangar bays. A SD(P) has heavy armour wrapped around a hollow core.
If you want both capabilities, you need to give up most of the armouring and end up with half a LAC wing and half a SD(P)'s pod load.
On paper, that's not such a bad idea. If all the LACs are Katanas, the hybrid would have less combat sustainability for greatly improved missile defense.
One of the problems comes back to the reduced armour. This is going to be a fragile vessel, even comparing with the CLAC. A SD(P) takes about 250 missile hits to be mission-killed. The hybrid would probably be closer to 150, maybe 100 and chances of a golden BB would be higher, not to mention the LAC bays are the first things to be damaged.
No need to design the hybrid, and if you need only LACs or only SDs it's easier to reshuffle your units than to use a hybrid in a role that the pure design would be better suited for.