It could be that you could have your definitions wrong.
One of the major factors when designing a ship is acceleration. It has been stated by DW that commentator efficiency is MUCH more dependent on volume than mass. There for, isn't volume a more important descriptor of a ship than the physical mass?
could it be that the mass measurements are something like displacement, describing more the size of the ship than what went into its construction?
Or it could be common practice to define a war ship by its physical mass and a merchant hull by it mass it can haul, and an AMC, being built on a merchant hull, gets labeled with what the basic hull was designed for.
These two are just off the top of my head, I am sure that I could come up with one or two more if I sat down and thought it out.
I am always trying to think about what I know, and how it might be wrong. You might want to try it.
Lord Skimper wrote:The trojan AMC has a volume to mass ratio that 99.9889% of the volume to weight ratio of the Grayson Harrington II-class podsuperdreadnaught.
Now if we have to take what is published in the books as doctrine then the only reason the volume to mass ratio on the AMC which doesn't carry any cargo. Has less weapons, less pods and less missiles but does carry 12 282 LAC which make up only 0.0289% of its mass, and we don't know if the mass listed is dry mass or fully loaded. Of course one could assume the extra 804 missile pods would add mass to the SD-P.
While the AMC might carry more people / crew, maybe. People don't mass much.
So if it doesn't carry any armour why does the trojan mass so high?
Can't be the compensator or wedge as the AMC only has a civilian version.
Weapon load internal is not very big, although it does have 10 inner launch tubes, but then there are all those 804 extra pods to consider too.
The Harrington II-class pod super dreadnought has 60 tube launched missiles to the Trojan-class armed merchant cruiser's 20. 60 Grazers to 16. 150 counter missile tubes to 26. And 172 point defense vs 34.
Of course the 282's carried additional weapons too. 96 additional but as noted smaller point defense. 144 missile cells, 12 counter missile launchers and 24 lasers.
My guess would be that after the prototype AMC, subsequent ship where improved and armoured. It notes that the prototype had design flaws that where fixed in later generations. And went on to serve very well. One would think no armour would be a design flaw.
Although the Caravan freighter was a "Logistics Command for rear area supply."
House of steel page 399
Trojan-class armed merchant cruiser.
Mass: 7,352,000 tons
Dimensions: 1199 x 200 x 185 m
Page 504
Harrington II-class Pod superdreadnought
Mass: 8,779,250 tons
Dimensions: 1395 x 202 x 188 m
Add it up yourself. Not making it up.
Page 399 line 14 from bottom of page to line 11 from bottom of page "BuShips decided to eliminate all cargo storage from the Trojan and use all of the volume freed up for a number of weapon systems, some more experimental than others."