NEXT GENERATION SDs

Postulating about what if any consideration there would be to a follow-up generation of SD by Manticore, Grayson or Haven.

All are building SD(P), but I was thinking about a 'old school' waller kind of like what was done with the Nike BC.

There are known weaknesses of pod carriers-pod rails, armor of the core, though I know special consideration was given to those with the Invictus class.

Nike was built as a separate branch if you will of BCs, in conjunction with Agamemnon BC(P), and I understand it was built with a different mission in mind.

But what about a SD version?
Nike has what 50 tubes per broadside-off bore firing, how many tubes (not to mention ammunition supply)could a SD built to the same type of specifications carry, and would it be sufficient to make up for not being a pod layer?
And couldn't it carry pods -limpet pods like the Nike to give it a 'surge' fire capability?

There was never any suggestions about that.

There was something David once mentioned about putting the pod exit along the dorsal and ventral surface, which protected them with the wedge. But nothing more than that.

Varangian wrote:Postulating about what if any consideration there would be to a follow-up generation of SD by Manticore, Grayson or Haven.

All are building SD(P), but I was thinking about a 'old school' waller kind of like what was done with the Nike BC.

There are known weaknesses of pod carriers-pod rails, armor of the core, though I know special consideration was given to those with the Invictus class.

Nike was built as a separate branch if you will of BCs, in conjunction with Agamemnon BC(P), and I understand it was built with a different mission in mind.

But what about a SD version?
Nike has what 50 tubes per broadside-off bore firing, how many tubes (not to mention ammunition supply)could a SD built to the same type of specifications carry, and would it be sufficient to make up for not being a pod layer?
And couldn't it carry pods -limpet pods like the Nike to give it a 'surge' fire capability?

First, All SDs can carry ALOT of Limpeted pods - all the SD's in home Fleet during the Battle of Manticore A carried ~500 pods apiece - which covered their firecontrol, CM systems, radar, and offensive tubes. The SD(p)s carried similiar amounts, but they flushed their external pods first to free up firecontrol (and they were designed for external pods, so they did have external firecontrol available for the first salvo.

IIRC, the Nike can carry ~80 pods without effecting it's firecontrol or acceleration - SDs would be able to carry even more without such effects, but what the number is, we don't know. The Nike is not Limited to 80 - but more limits functionality - like 500 pods would on an SD(p)

NEW Tube wallers have been discussed several times on the forum, the end of the discussion usually ends favoring the podlayer - most importantly, with rapidly shifting weapons systems, a tube waller most likely will require costly refits sooner than a Podlayer to stay relevant.

Look at the Medusa class, for example - they were designed with SDM missiles in mind, and got modified late in the design phase to fire the massive MK 41 capacitor drive MDM from their limited # of tubes. Then comes the Mk 23 Fusion missile, which is probably 50-60% the size of the capacitor missile, and requires a different feed tube (an armored one that has a phase that ignites the reactor prior to launch). The Medusa can fire the new Mk 23 equipped pods - but the Tubes are limited to the old Mk41. The cost to update the 61 tubes on the Medusa are most of the cost of a new Invictus.

It should be noted that a handful of Gryphons were modified to launch mk 23s from tubes between wars - and it was more time consuming and expensive than to build a new Invictus SD(p). So modifying a Tube waller (even one that is just 10 years old) is out of the question.

The other point is SD(p)s moved from 4-5 dozen energy weapons in a broadside, to just 1-2 dozen massive ones, combined with removing or limiting the # of missile launchers, this freed up massive amounts of space for the Keyholes, firecontrol, and antimissile systems.

Add back in the 30 Missile tubes on each broadside and something has to give - and this will be firecontrol and antimissile systems. And even the current designs DO NOT have enough - toe to toe, such a design will be swamped by a similiar tech SD(p) and not be able to hit it back. Look at the spcas on the Harrington II and Invictus - they are mostly identical designs, but the Grayson has those tubes I mentioned before for their ECM doctrine. The Harrington II sacrifices 6 Grasers, 20 CM launchers, and an unknown quantity of fire control ability in each broadside to carry their 24 missile tubes - not that an additional 60 missiles (12 more in the bow) every 18 seconds isn't a nice to have - but the loss of 46 CMs overall can make a difference on defense (Invictus 206 - Harrington II 160 - a 22% reduction in CM defenses.)

Personally, the Harrington II design probably plays the best between the 2 worlds, retaining enough Tubes to be nasty without needing the pod bays, and enough pods to smash any opponent - even though it may require a refit sooner to stay relevant.

An SD is large enough to be darned tough despite having a pod core. Far closer to the toughness of a tube SD than a BC(P) is to the toughness of a similar tonnage BC.


I see a few of issues with an notional SD(L).

First the Keyhole II already puts a squeeze on the available broadside space.
-- For comparison note that the 2.5 mton Nike carries a broadside of just 25 M, 12 G, 32 CM, 30 PDLC; while the ~0.5 mton Sag-C carries (on average, 70% of that same broadside) [20 M, 8 G, 20 CM, 24 PDLC]. That's not completely fair because the Sag-C's grasers would be lighter, as would its PDLCs -- but it carries exactly the same missile and CMs.
A Keyhole II is a lot bigger than a Keyhole; though proportional to the SD's broadside surface area it's not as bad. (And giving up KH II would be insane -- and it'd be only slightly less insane to transport it into battle on some separate support ship so the SD didn't need to have docking space for it)

Second finding space for broadside missile tubes involves giving up other things on the broadside, like defenses.
-- For comparison I looked at the same spot Theemile did -- Invictus vs Harrington II.
Both carry Keyhole II, both are effectively the same size; but to squeeze in the 24 missiles and 6 extra grasers per broadside the GSN design had to give up 20 CM tubes! Going to a pure tube design would presumably need significantly more tubes than a Nike (not 1 less), which implies an even deeper cut into its point defense -- not a trade-off I'd want to make!

Third AFAIK nobody had built a missile tube capable of firing the oversized Mk23E Apollo Control missiles. That shouldn't be a technical impossibility, but is an R&D item that would have to be addressed. Also, the larger cross section will slightly cut into how many other things you can cram onto the broadside. You could minimize that impact by building a mix of Mk23 and larger Mk23E tubes; but then you risk that unlucky broadside damage that knocks out one of these larger tubes would disproportionately reduce your missiles' effectiveness due to leaving 8 Mk23s per salvo without Apollo control. Or you could presumably go the other way and design a larger tube capable of firing either; but then you can fit fewer of them into your broadside and all the missile feed tubes within the hull also need to be oversized.


None of that flat out precludes building an SD(L); along the lines of a scaled up Nike. But it all tends to say that the balance point probably favors podlayers on something in the 7+ mton range in a way that isn't so clear cut in the sub 3 mton range.

Overall I think Invictus is the general future. They stay true to the original point of a podlayer design, and that is carrying the maximum possible number of pods, which can then be divvied out to your entire fleet.

As mentioned by others, the Invictus also brings more point-defense to the party than the H-Deuce, at the minor expense of internal launchers which are compensated by having the larger total pod storage capacity, and your escorts internals.


But I also stop and consider what might happen if Sonja & Shannon brainstorm ways to steal and improve the Husky pod concept, with their internal wedge and ability to forward deploy. But the most immediate counter to that, is just how much that would increase flatpack pod size, and what it would do to overall missile capacity.


If it wouldn't hurt the overall missile capacity by much, then the Harrington II could stay beyond the hyperlimit and provide close-protection to any CLACs, while 100% of the LACs or escorts can penetrate the hyperlimit. You'd only actually deploy pods and send them Husky Express if something is discovered to require them. Otherwise you aren't deploying pods at all, even limpeting to the hull and covering your sensors up, which increases how long you can be in the field, as your pods only start running reactors when they're actually needed, not when you 'think' they might be needed.

Another random thought -- how many tubes you'd need to equal the steady throw weight of an SD(P)


All the SD(P)s to date have a 12 second cycle time and 6 pod launchers. At 9 missiles per pod they can keep up 270 missiles per minute until they've shot themselves dry.

The internal launchers we've seen for microfusion powered missiles have a cycle time of 30 seconds [edit: 18 seconds]; and so you'd need 135 [edit: 81] such tubes to achieve a 270 missile per minute throw rate.
The highest number we've seen on any SD was the 8.5 mton Benjamin the Great-class with 94 (38 on each broadside and 9 in each hammerhead) -- and they didn't have to make room for a Keyhole or Keyhole II.


Even disregarding the point defense issues, how big a ship would you need for its tubes to come close to matching the Apollo firepower the pod laying gives you?

Jonathan_S wrote:Another random thought -- how many tubes you'd need to equal the steady throw weight of an SD(P)


All the SD(P)s to date have a 12 second cycle time and 6 pod launchers. At 9 missiles per pod they can keep up 270 missiles per minute until they've shot themselves dry.

The internal launchers we've seen for microfusion powered missiles have a cycle time of 30 seconds; and so you'd need 135 such tubes to achieve a 270 missile per minute throw rate.
The highest number we've seen on any SD was the 8.5 mton Benjamin the Great-class with 94 (38 on each broadside and 9 in each hammerhead) -- and they didn't have to make room for a Keyhole or Keyhole II.


Even disregarding the point defense issues, how big a ship would you need for its tubes to come close to matching the Apollo firepower the pod laying gives you?

They'd save a lot of space internally for the missile reserves, because the hundreds of flatpack pods, each with its own micro-fusion plant takes up far more space than just the missiles they contain would. So overall, an SD(L) would ton for ton have more missiles aboard than a comparatively sized SD(P) could, but you'd almost certainly have to adopt the same weaker internal armor, so they'd be comparatively easier to kill than pre-podlayer designs.


But you need some big-assed launchers to handle launching an Apollo internally, AND maintain enough physical separation between launchers to avoid wedge fratricide. If Benjie was an 8.5 Mton with a total of 94, any notional SD(L) would have to be a minimum of 9.5 Mtons, even accounting that now you can off-bore launch from both broadsides and at least one hammerhead. Although I'm not so certain even an 11 mton SD would be physically large enough for 135+ total Apollo capable tubes.

On the bright side, if you do build that big, you're already ton for ton carrying more ammo than a podlayer, so worst case you can switch from Hammer+Anvil missile tactics, to constant stream. If the Invictus has a salvo coming in every ~30 seconds, even if it's only the size of a single pattern of pods, it's going to have trouble returning fire properly, because of the constant threat of proximity softkills on it's rolled pods. And if you can batter down an Invictus from launching offensively, you might actually have a chance at killing her, like how Mercedes Brigham described what BC(P)'s could do to SD's, you shut them down offensively then close in to finish the job with beams.

Jonathan_S wrote:The internal launchers we've seen for microfusion powered missiles have a cycle time of 30 seconds; and so you'd need 135 such tubes to achieve a 270 missile per minute throw rate.
The highest number we've seen on any SD was the 8.5 mton Benjamin the Great-class with 94 (38 on each broadside and 9 in each hammerhead) -- and they didn't have to make room for a Keyhole or Keyhole II.

It's not just the average throughput of missiles that counts. A non-pod design also loses the ability to mass a salvo over the course of many minutes to attempt to overwhelm the defences of the other side. We don't know how long a missile can loiter before its wedges are activated, but the best we've seen is two sequential cycles (the double double broadside). I don't see any reason you couldn't a bit wait longer, except if the host ship is still accelerating, in which case the missiles start falling behind (or falling forward).

But it's not going to be long. I doubt the missiles can loiter for several minutes as the salvo builds up. Meanwhile, deployed pods can continue to be powered from the host ship and keep the missiles in pre-launch ready state.

For this reason, your Alpha launch size is also reduced, since you're limited by definition to the number of pods carried externally, as those are the only ones you have.

Somtaaw wrote:If Benjie was an 8.5 Mton with a total of 94, any notional SD(L) would have to be a minimum of 9.5 Mtons, even accounting that now you can off-bore launch from both broadsides and at least one hammerhead. Although I'm not so certain even an 11 mton SD would be physically large enough for 135+ total Apollo capable tubes.

Let's nix the designation "SD(L)" in the bud. The BC(L) got that designation because they are nearly battleship-sized, at 42% bigger than the Agamemnon and over 2.5x the size of anyone else's battlecruisers. That's a huge step up in size.

A minimum of one third size gain to get the designation of "large superdreadnought" or "heavy superdreadnought" would put a Gryphon or Benjy at over 11 million tonnes and that's not physically possible today with the limitations of compensators. A new technological breakthrough in that area would be required... which would lead to larger SD(P)s, of course.

9 million tonnes, which is the practical limit today, is only 5.8% bigger than the Benjy. The designation for a 9 million tonne non-pod-laying superdreadnought is "superdreadnought."

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:If Benjie was an 8.5 Mton with a total of 94, any notional SD(L) would have to be a minimum of 9.5 Mtons, even accounting that now you can off-bore launch from both broadsides and at least one hammerhead. Although I'm not so certain even an 11 mton SD would be physically large enough for 135+ total Apollo capable tubes.

Let's nix the designation "SD(L)" in the bud. The BC(L) got that designation because they are nearly battleship-sized, at 42% bigger than the Agamemnon and over 2.5x the size of anyone else's battlecruisers. That's a huge step up in size.

A minimum of one third size gain to get the designation of "large superdreadnought" or "heavy superdreadnought" would put a Gryphon or Benjy at over 11 million tonnes and that's not physically possible today with the limitations of compensators. A new technological breakthrough in that area would be required... which would lead to larger SD(P)s, of course.

9 million tonnes, which is the practical limit today, is only 5.8% bigger than the Benjy. The designation for a 9 million tonne non-pod-laying superdreadnought is "superdreadnought."

I suggested in another thread a more inherently survivable SD design may be needed when attacking Darius. If the MA manages to get within the boxer's longer reach, that boxer better be able to take a hit. And another. And another. And another...

Let's call this new design, beaters. They will need to be able to tread deeply into the system in search of Spiders.