What about DN(P)s for the GA?

Relax wrote: If the SD/DN did not, then the DN would not be a capital ship, it would be a BB.

Just a minor nit. A BB is a capital ship. So is (at least according to the RMN) a BC. What they are not are ships of the wall. A BB was designed, originally, as a ship of the wall, but after DNs and later the SDs were developed they became unable to stand up to an enemy wall.

DNs, pod layers or not, are not viable in the military situation that exists now. They are too small and weak against SDs. They aren't cost effective, nor are they capable of standing up in the wall of battle that exists now. If they were viable and such, all of the navies (SEM, Grayson, RH, AE)would be building then. But since they aren't, that's a testament to the unsuitability of DNs in a modern battle. One on one, a DN is very much outclassed by a SD, even if both are pod layers.

Relax wrote:
I'll answer for him and point out the obvious.

10% more control links defensively
10% more offensively.
10% more Keyholes ECM etc
7% more active wallers to be in more than one place.
3% in for refurb.
10% more redundancy.

It takes same number of hits to destroy a DN as an SD. They have the EXACT SAME SIDEWALLS/ARMOR. Only real difference is combat endurance.

*** With 10km wide wedges for a Missile, hull length in regards to number of CM tubes is meaningless as a restriction for the number of tubes. ***

Downside? 10% more crew needed. 10% more maintenance.

You are currently so far out that you´re collecting interdimensional airmileage, you clearly do not have even the faintest clue what you´re comparing.


Let me start off with a very theoretical, but blatant example.
The suggested DN was around 6Mt, a next generation SD should be around 9-10Mt, lets be conservative and say 9.

100 SD, 900Mt, 110 DN, 660Mt. And you really expect those 240Mt extra wont be used for anything good at all?
You should also remember that a lot of things in regards to ECM and sensors etc, take up a specific size based on capability, not a size based on ship size.

Just to make the point, let´s say that for DN and SDs, the size of all those things together is 0.5Mt, this means the DNs have 605Mt left for other equipment, while the SDs have 850Mt left. In one case it makes up 8.33%, in the other 5.5%. Just one of many effects of size in regards to military ships.

Then i might point out that it is a FACT that size+armour=survivability, and this is true everywhere, because no matter how good those sidewalls, shots get through(otherwise no navy would ever be able to destroy another anyway).

There is no perfect calculation to say how much more surviveable a ship 50% larger is, but it´s going to be VERY noticeable.
A ship 50% larger with the exact same level of armouring still means there´s a LOT more armour, and unless someone is an idiot, bulkheads are built based on the size of the ship, not a predetermined number like you suggested.
What it means is that if a 6Mt DN needs a hundred hits to be missionkill, a 9Mt SD might need TWO or even THREE hundred.

The average will always be a bit lower than it could be because there´s always the occasional freaky bad critical hit, but building big is always an advantage against damage.

And your outright stupid "bigger ship gets hit more easily"? Uh duh, like someone mentioned, a 25% larger ship is only around 7% larger in outer size, because there is that annoying little thing about cubeage vs outside size, if you double somethings size in all dimensions, what you get is 8 times the internal volume, not twice.

THEN, we have the fact that ships are getting hit at distances usually counted in thousands of kilometers, at that kind of ranges, the margin of error is so great already that if you make a ship 200m long or 250m is only going to cause a neglectable increase in risk of being hit.

At this point i´m not going to bother with more because your argument doesn´t even exist.

Since no one seems able to read past a maximum of 2 sentences, let me limit this conversation to 2 per.

There is no reason a DN and SD are not the exact same diameter. Arbitrarily equating tonnage to passive armor depth is ludicrous.

Shorten the length. Cut total offensive missile loadout.

My 6Mton, if you could read, seems at least one if not more cannot, was an Invictus without any offensive missile load out. Not a full on new DN design.

Relax was kind enough to properly set me down/snidely quip that I cannot do simple math and showed that an Invicuts without pod ammo loadout is roughly 5Mtons not the 6 that I stated!

Some on this board think a pod is around 1/3 more mass than he stated. I happen to fall more closely into his camp for pod tonnage.

Let me spell it out. That is roughly a 5Mton ship with all Keyholes, defensive systems, CM totals, PDLC's, impellers, passive armor scheme, sidewall generators etc for an Invictus minus PODS LOAD for dingle-berries who cannot read.

Right now, there is no defensive system to combat Apollo. Lorelie doesn't count.

Stealthed FTL RD's effectively destroy Lorelie. It is at best a short time gimmick that only a gullible 12 year old would believe.

Any dumb ass human, and computers are not dumb asses, can do simple acceleration plots in their head and figure out that squadron-x cannot get to said Lorelie position and therefore is nothing but a joke of a ghost in 10s. 10s just happens to be about max distance for Apollo currently for 2 way FTL communications.

Of course we also have to assume said missiles decide to take a nap for 5s as well on final approach... But for S&G's lets assume they do.

At least the above is slightly plausible. Of course said Apollo control missile is ALSO checking the mail of new information from the FTL RD's as they approach each other so, plausibility vanishes into hopeless laughter.

We know ships cannot accelerate off longitudinal axis very much. Lets assume for half a second they could with no time taken to rotate to new heading etc.

Neither assumption is true, but here goes:
500g@10s achieves a distance of: 250km.

What is an SD's wedge again? 300km + 150km separation minimum or 450km.

Lorelie is a sad bad joke even with RD's/missiles who take 10 or 5s power naps. Sounds really cute until one adds Stealthed FTL RD's + a tinny amount of brain power.

Having 1500 pods in a ship is a complete waste of valuable resources that all get blown up after the first couple waves of alpha strike missiles. Due to tractored pods allowing ships to effectively SHOOT OFF THEIR ENTIRE POD LOAD before firing a single CM it is beyond pointless!

There is no viable Super Dreadnaught design currently. Nor, even as Relax coined, a Super Duper Dreadnaught design.

Either a capital ship can withstand capital grade laser hits or it cannot. If it cannot, it is not a capital ship.

Either a capital ship can withstand alpha strike from 10's of thousands of capital missiles or it cannot. Currently they cannot.

Currently there is no viable capital ship design as it can only withstand half of its offensive capability. Its missile laser head power half of the equation while failing miserably at the alpha strike part.

When a capital ship squadron can withstand an alpha strike, then and only then will anyone in BuShips bother to contemplate super long drawn out combat. ALA, SD designs leading up to and contemporary of the 1st Havenite war.

Next wave of capital ships will be DN's. Once they create a defensive system able to withstand alpha strike, a super dreadnaught design will appear once again.

Simple L/D ratio showing DN's can easily get Fatter

LAC 3.5
CA and Below ~8.24 or greater
BCL ~7.84
CLAC(minnotaur) 5.98
DN Gladiator 6.9
DN Bellerephon 6.9
SD King William 6.9
SD Vicotyr 6.91
SD Sphinx 6.89
SDP Invictus 6.9
AMC 6.00

Why its almost as if someone made an arbitrary "RULE" in an EXCEL spreadsheet when calculating dimensions for House of Steel. Shocking, you mean the numbers in HoS were done with an eye for ease of creation!

All DN/SD MUST be a ratio of 6.9 irregardless it makes any rational engineering sense at all, it would appear. While a stupid AMC civilian hull has a ratio of 6, giving it greater depth per length than an SD!

If anything the ratio should be reversed as the DN/SD need the depth/length for survivability reasons while the CLAC/AMC do not. Humorous that the AMC/CLAC provide a smaller target than supposedly dreadnaughts who are supposed to have the greatest depth for defensive purposes.

If anything the CLAC/AMC want to have a L/D ratio closer to that of a Destroyer allowing greater ingress egress of LAC's and CARGO!

There is no viable reason that a DN in any rational universe would not have the exact same passive armor depth as SD's. If you want the dims, read HoS and note that the AMC depth is the exact same as the much larger SD.

Of course a LAC is toodling along with a Length to depth ratio of 3.5, completely destroying the 6.9,6, or 8.25 numbers above.

Bottom line? DN's should be same diameter, with the exact same passive armor/sidewalls, as that of SD's. There is no design limitation for why they are not other than some arbitrary EXCEL spreadsheet done to create easily published numbers in House of Steel.

crewdude48 wrote:

Relax wrote: If the SD/DN did not, then the DN would not be a capital ship, it would be a BB.

Just a minor nit. A BB is a capital ship. So is (at least according to the RMN) a BC. What they are not are ships of the wall. A BB was designed, originally, as a ship of the wall, but after DNs and later the SDs were developed they became unable to stand up to an enemy wall.

True, the difference is that BC/BB ROLES are different than DN/SD.

DN/SD roles on the other hand are identical.

wastedfly wrote:When a capital ship squadron can withstand an alpha strike, then and only then will anyone in BuShips bother to contemplate super long drawn out combat. ALA, SD designs leading up to and contemporary of the 1st Havenite war.

Next wave of capital ships will be DN's. Once they create a defensive system able to withstand alpha strike, a super dreadnaught design will appear once again.

So far though you haven't given any reason why they would build DNs other than you think because SDs cannot survive the missile storm the Apollo equipped SDs can launch, that DNs are somehow more valuable because they what? Cost less in money and time to build and are more cost effective if lost? None of what you're claiming is making sense. So far -nothing- can survive said missile storm. SDs, DNs, BCs, nothing, but SDs are what is needed and being built because they can carry the volume of missiles its felt is needed. Eventually someone will come up with a defense against the Apollo system, then all of those DNs you want built will be so much trash because they cannot hold the missiles needed or survive a wall of battle against the SDs they would be facing. Better to build SDs which have a better survivability and volume than DNs which are definitely inferior.

Can capital ships easily update/strip/refit? Not really. Effectively; no.

Any new tech, say much larger CM's for extended range, drone shield etc, would effectively require an entire new design/class anyways.

To combat Alpha storm what is needed above all else with the current tech paradigm?

Counter missiles are still valid. CM's interception rates at extended range dropped against Apollo; they are still valid.

PDLC's are still valid. ECM is still valid. Keyholes are still valid.

How do get more CM's? How do you get more PDLC's? How do you get more ECM?

More hulls. Need a larger total hulls superiority than previously.

War is not some knights in HV armor in a F'ing 1-on-1 joust for a lady's favor. It is bring the mostest the fastest the hardest soonest for the biggest one sided ass whoopin' you can manage. Leaving your ships damaged but viable, while leaving the other guys ships as drifting dust bunnies.

With apollo+ tractored pods, the mostests, fastest, hardest, soonest total hulls required for a proper defense is increased.

Need hulls, not endurance. Lots more hulls.

You don't give a damn if after the war, or even during the war, a new defensive tech emerges where one can build capital ships with far deeper magazines again. You remained alive with a viable fighting force to give you time to develop said new defensive tech.

You remained alive by building the mostest hulls instead of building fewer large hulls that carry LOTS of pods that may, or more likely, may not be able to be refitted. Those fewer large hulls all got blown up into dust bunnies while still retaining all those pods in their holds because they cannot be in as many places as more numerous fleet can, and when they do arrive will have fewer CM's/PDLC/Keyhole/ECM.

The German Panther/Tiger tanks in WWII were the most technologically advanced tanks, but because of its complexity and time manpower hours consuming construction relegated it to at best the 2nd best tanks of the war if not 3rd best behind the inferior T-34 and Sherman.

War is not about the biggest and badest except in bad novels and PR pamphlets to get gullible 18 year olds to enlist. Its about mostest usually. The exceptions throughout history are very rare. Thermopylae, Canae, etc.

When there is only two-three months difference and a little more money between building a SD and a DN, it makes sense to build SDs. You don't save that much by building DNs and as has been stated, the numbers of hulls the SEM needs isn't an issue right now. What's needed is missiles. And if they build a lot of ships, it's more likely it will be BCs and such that are built in greater numbers than anything else (convoy duty and such against commerce raiders)

Zakharra wrote:When there is only two-three months difference and a little more money between building a SD and a DN, it makes sense to build SDs. You don't save that much by building DNs and as has been stated, the numbers of hulls the SEM needs isn't an issue right now. What's needed is missiles. And if they build a lot of ships, it's more likely it will be BCs and such that are built in greater numbers than anything else (convoy duty and such against commerce raiders)

At this point relax and wasted fly are looking at the bigger picture.

1) If a DN and SD of the same technology can throw the same overwhelming salvo, which is truely more economical?

2) If fights only last 10-20 minutes of sustained combat is it necessary to add anouther 2 hours of ammo, "just in case?"

3) if 500 million tons of DN(p)s and 500 tons of SD(p)s of the same technology spare off - who is the winner?

All of these presuppose that the DN has relatively the same # of control links AND relatively the same defenses as the SD.

Since there is less surface area on the DN, one would suppose that it's active defenses would be fewer, and have fewer control links - but a Keyhole 2 drone will alleviate most of that on the offensive side and some on the defensive side.

And, just before Apollo, combat had stagnated again, with both sides fighting each other to the point of emptying magazines. Post-apollo - will this happen again?

I don't completely agree with them - I do not believe a DN has the same depth of defenses as an SD, and between passive and active defenses they cannot defend against as many missiles per platfrom as SDs. But they do bring valid arguments, which overall must be considered.