new light cruiser needed

just been rereading the ships of he line part of house of steel again and just don't understand why the Avalon class uses single drive missiles.

every other new build hyper capable combatant in manticore and grayson ship lists is able to use at least a Mk 16, so if only to simply logistics (they are going to be replacing/using as homeguard (militia/training) ships) a lot of the older ships in talbot/silesa once the building slips are replaced)

I would expect there to be a new LC

i'm thinking it'd be about the size of a star knight, maybe a bit more so say roughly 325K tons and basically be a small saganami C. Maybe 10 tubes, 4 grasers, 500 misiles stooage (double a roland but half a hexapuma) and enough life support for a good amount of marines.

a company or so like the hexapuma as it'd be mainly anti pirate/raider. Rolands are good but the lack of marines does hamper them when it comes to anti piracy

Dauntless wrote:just been rereading the ships of he line part of house of steel again and just don't understand why the Avalon class uses single drive missiles.

every other new build hyper capable combatant in manticore and grayson ship lists is able to use at least a Mk 16, so if only to simply logistics (they are going to be replacing/using as homeguard (militia/training) ships) a lot of the older ships in talbot/silesa once the building slips are replaced)

I would expect there to be a new LC

i'm thinking it'd be about the size of a star knight, maybe a bit more so say roughly 325K tons and basically be a small saganami C. Maybe 10 tubes, 4 grasers, 500 misiles stooage (double a roland but half a hexapuma) and enough life support for a good amount of marines.

a company or so like the hexapuma as it'd be mainly anti pirate/raider. Rolands are good but the lack of marines does hamper them when it comes to anti piracy

The Avalon doesn't have mk 16s for one reason - their size. The much larger Roland trades the abilities those mk-16s give it for all the other roles a Destroyer/lt cruiser normally does.

MWW has said that the next "notional" Lt cruiser being designed before Oyster Bay was a ~300,000 ton design with Mk 16s, and it will take a hull about this size to fit in the crew of an avalon, mk 16s and sufficient magazines for a proper lt cruiser. So your Crystal Ball is correct.

The Avalon is the budget conscious replacment for the legacy fleet light units, launched under the penny pinching Janacheck administration in 1919. It excells at every job in the DD/CL role and has sufficient firepower to outgun any peer contender in 1920. The Roland, is the warfighter, easily able to punch 2 weight classes above itself and risk the fewest troops. In doing so, it's small crew limits what roles it can to - the Avalon is the better design for anti-piracy, picket, showing the Flag, and presence missions, simply because of the more traditional crew size.

The 300,000 future combatant is to be the jack of all trades light unit design with few corners cut, but as you noted, it requires a ship the size of a Star Knight to pull it off.

Oh, and one wrinkle with the Mk-16 - the Sag-
C is the narrowest hull you can mount double broadsides on due tot he length of the launchers. So the 300,000 unit can't have normal broadsides.

Uh, no.

Avalon does not have MK-16, because the MK-16 was not designed when the Avalon class was laid down. Well, was not deployed at least. Probably was designed, but was in testing. Avalon based on SAG-B design.

Avalon 1919
Rol/SAG-c 1920

Wolfhound/Avalon were built/designed together.

Relax wrote:Uh, no.

Avalon does not have MK-16, because the MK-16 was not designed when the Avalon class was laid down.

I'd go with designed or approved, instead of laid down - the 1st Avalon was launched in 1919 - the Sag-Cs were launched in early 1920. The latest the 1st Avalon could have been laid down was mid 1918, and the Mk 16s were clearly getting close to reality at that poin. Bu-ships had to be starting designs of the Sag-C in mid 1918 for a lay-down of the first 6 in mid 1919, and knowing what we do about the Mk16's launchers, the ship had to be designed around them, so the Launcher details had to be known in Mid-1918 enough to start designing the ship.

But Relax is correct in that the Mk 16 is a newer missile, which only became mature shortly before Thunderbolt, while the Avalon was the end of an earlier design generation, more on par with the Sag-B.

Theemile wrote:

Relax wrote:Uh, no.

Avalon does not have MK-16, because the MK-16 was not designed when the Avalon class was laid down.

I'd go with designed or approved, instead of laid down - the 1st Avalon was launched in 1919 - the Sag-Cs were launched in early 1920. The latest the 1st Avalon could have been laid down was mid 1918, and the Mk 16s were clearly getting close to reality at that poin. Bu-ships had to be starting designs of the Sag-C in mid 1918 for a lay-down of the first 6 in mid 1919, and knowing what we do about the Mk16's launchers, the ship had to be designed around them, so the Launcher details had to be known in Mid-1918 enough to start designing the ship.

But Relax is correct in that the Mk 16 is a newer missile, which only became mature shortly before Thunderbolt, while the Avalon was the end of an earlier design generation, more on par with the Sag-B.

And however the design history and details played out, the Mk 16 took either a revolutionary approach to firing it (the Roland) or a much larger ship than they were prepared to treat as a light cruiser (the Saganami-C). So when no one else has DDM's, and they needed so many ships to replace older, crew-intensive ones, the Avalon was meant and is kept to cover that need, for now.

Now, I'm sure, they'd really, really like to be able to build Sag-C's for the same price and crew commitment as an Avalon or Roland. That's probably not going to happen, so the notional future light cruiser is going to be some sort of compromise among such criteria.

JeffEngel wrote:Now, I'm sure, they'd really, really like to be able to build Sag-C's for the same price and crew commitment as an Avalon or Roland.

Hey! This is FICTION!

Why "MY" BC's cost what your DD's cost...

Theemile wrote:The Avalon is the budget conscious replacment for the legacy fleet light units, launched under the penny pinching Janacheck administration in 1919. It excells at every job in the DD/CL role and has sufficient firepower to outgun any peer contender in 1920.

IIRC, the Avalons were still being built and deployed to Silesia because they were well-suited to the needs of deployment in Silesia. Not every ship in the Navy needs the equivalent of 10" or 16" guns. For piracy suppression and spaceways policing, the 5" gun equivalent of the LERM is more than sufficient -- especially if the "Mod-G warhead" grav-lens technology can be ported from the Mk-16 to the LERM.

Weird Harold wrote:

Theemile wrote:The Avalon is the budget conscious replacment for the legacy fleet light units, launched under the penny pinching Janacheck administration in 1919. It excells at every job in the DD/CL role and has sufficient firepower to outgun any peer contender in 1920.

IIRC, the Avalons were still being built and deployed to Silesia because they were well-suited to the needs of deployment in Silesia. Not every ship in the Navy needs the equivalent of 10" or 16" guns. For piracy suppression and spaceways policing, the 5" gun equivalent of the LERM is more than sufficient -- especially if the "Mod-G warhead" grav-lens technology can be ported from the Mk-16 to the LERM.

Hmm, I was under the impression the LERM/MK-16 had the exact same laser head. Obviously without fusion power, its ECM will be less but otherwise the laser heads are the same. So, yes, LERM mod-G should already be done.

JeffEngel wrote:Now, I'm sure, they'd really, really like to be able to build Sag-C's for the same price and crew commitment as an Avalon or Roland. That's probably not going to happen, so the notional future light cruiser is going to be some sort of compromise among such criteria.

Eh, a Sag-C has a smaller crew complement than many pre-1st war destroyers and almost all light cruisers. Price is another matter, but since whenever you can count on staying in-system or anchored to a fleet you can use a LAC instead of a cruiser, I think in the end I'd be okay with just rebranding a Sag-C with some minor tweaks as a CL if I were running BuShips.

Relax wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:For piracy suppression and spaceways policing, the 5" gun equivalent of the LERM is more than sufficient -- especially if the "Mod-G warhead" grav-lens technology can be ported from the Mk-16 to the LERM.

Hmm, I was under the impression the LERM/MK-16 had the exact same laser head. Obviously without fusion power, its ECM will be less but otherwise the laser heads are the same. So, yes, LERM mod-G should already be done.

I'm not conversant with all of the various missiles' statistics. If the LERM does have the same warhead as the Mk-16, then the Avalons are armed with better, more powerful, longer ranged missiles than FF, and comparable to SLN SDs.

For the near future, the Avalons outclass any potential opponent -- save the remote possibility of hostilities with the Andermani or Havenites resuming unexpectedly.