BB(P/C) for rear area security

namelessfly wrote:

SWM wrote:Another problem is the volume vs. surface area. If you increase the volume (and mass) by, say, a factor of 4, you only increase the surface area by a factor of 2.5. So scaling up the size by 4 does not mean you can multiply the number of broadside weapons by 4.

You don't have enough surface area to install all the missile tubes you have described.

A valid point.

However; a Nike already has SD class energy armament, PDLCs and CMs. If you do not increase the energy armament ,you have more surface area available for missile tubes.

Also, Nike has a missile armament that is only 25% greater than the SaggyC which is 1/3 the tonnage. Nike missile tubes were not limited by tonnage or surface area but by the emphasis of survivability over firepower.

Not to mention, if memory serves, combat endurance. I believe the Nikes carry significantly more missiles per tube than Sag-Cs, requiring larger magazine spaces and more machinery to move missiles around the magazines to the feed tubes.

namelessfly wrote:Not all missile tubes are created equal. They are not all endowed by their creator with the capability to fire fusion powered MDMs off bore much less Mk-23s or the even bigger,capacitor fed MDMs that the last flight of Gryphon class SD fired. The fact that a 300,000 ton Rolland DD mounts 12 Mk-16 tubes suggest that an 8 million ton SD could mount a shit load of them.

And we already know that this was only possible on the Roland due to accepting a lower overall systems reliability by clustering the launchers, and that said technique will not be used on heavier ships.

Yeah, sure, the capital launchers on the Gryphon are probably larger than the Mk 16 launchers, and some of them were refitted to fire the Mk 23, but I would point out that the Gryphon stats as presented in HoS do not represent that particular variant of the class.

At any rate, finding the broadside space for more than 70 missile launchers, 2 Keyhole platforms, a suitable defensive loadout, and at least a few broadside energy weapons will be difficult, to say the least, even if we were to assume that a Mk 16 launcher assembly is half the size of one of the old capital Launchers.

I am not saying that an SD design that fires Mk 16s from internal tubes is impossible. What I am saying is that Skimpers' idea of such a vessel and its capabilities is idiotic.
In addition, I don't quite see the role such a vessel would have. It's not that good in the Wall, as Podlayers outperform it in the missile platform, and noone's going to deploy SDs like BCs.

I do not agree that Skimpers idea is "idiotic", just improbable and unnesseary.

He has identified a plausible scenario of the RMN deploying a robust space control ship to client systems rather than merely LACs and a dispatch boat to summon the nodal forces who will not arrive until after the system is trashed. This is not a valid, longterm defensive commitment

Nike is great but it does not have the ammo supply or salvo size to take on a squadron of plausibly upgraded, SLN SDs.

I think that a somewhat upsized (3 million ton) Mk-16 armed BC(P) might be the proper system control ship that fills the same tactical niche as Haven's BBs.

The E wrote:

namelessfly wrote:Not all missile tubes are created equal. They are not all endowed by their creator with the capability to fire fusion powered MDMs off bore much less Mk-23s or the even bigger,capacitor fed MDMs that the last flight of Gryphon class SD fired. The fact that a 300,000 ton Rolland DD mounts 12 Mk-16 tubes suggest that an 8 million ton SD could mount a shit load of them.

And we already know that this was only possible on the Roland due to accepting a lower overall systems reliability by clustering the launchers, and that said technique will not be used on heavier ships.

Yeah, sure, the capital launchers on the Gryphon are probably larger than the Mk 16 launchers, and some of them were refitted to fire the Mk 23, but I would point out that the Gryphon stats as presented in HoS do not represent that particular variant of the class.

At any rate, finding the broadside space for more than 70 missile launchers, 2 Keyhole platforms, a suitable defensive loadout, and at least a few broadside energy weapons will be difficult, to say the least, even if we were to assume that a Mk 16 launcher assembly is half the size of one of the old capital Launchers.

I am not saying that an SD design that fires Mk 16s from internal tubes is impossible. What I am saying is that Skimpers' idea of such a vessel and its capabilities is idiotic.
In addition, I don't quite see the role such a vessel would have. It's not that good in the Wall, as Podlayers outperform it in the missile platform, and noone's going to deploy SDs like BCs.

namelessfly wrote:I do not agree that Skimpers idea is "idiotic", just improbable and unnesseary.

He has identified a plausible scenario of the RMN deploying a robust space control ship to client systems rather than merely LACs and a dispatch boat to summon the nodal forces who will not arrive until after the system is trashed. This is not a valid, longterm defensive commitment

Nike is great but it does not have the ammo supply or salvo size to take on a squadron of plausibly upgraded, SLN SDs.

I think that a somewhat upsized (3 million ton) Mk-16 armed BC(P) might be the proper system control ship that fills the same tactical niche as Haven's BBs.

I don't agree that Skimper's idea is idiotic, either. In this case, it's probably his least idiotic idea I've seen since coming here. I had actually thought about it well before he suggested it, and I came up with some thoughts.

One: Lots of tubes. There's no doubt. The Nike-class BC(L) has fifty tubes that can fire. An uprated SD sized would carry quite a few more, with the extra ammo capacity to actually make it work. With Mark 16's new lasing heads, they are actually powerful enough to take out SDs, at least the League SDs. It wouldn't have anywhere near the number of launchers you think it would, however.

Two: Lots of fire control. If they were to adopt Forakers plan of rotating firing links, they could put out a lot of missiles.

Problems:

One: Why is it needed? The answer is, it really isn't. I cannot think of many scenarios where a Mk 16 armed SD(L) would outperform a pod-based combatant. In fact, the only one I can think of is if somehow a task force surprised a squad of Invictus's before they were able to rotate out pods. This one is pretty unlikely. I would say that MAlign ships would have the best chance of pulling it off.

Two: Time. It takes a long time to build up a ship type, and who knows how far the SLN will be in two to three years. It might be completely gutted, or it might be hanging on and about to push out its own classes. Either way, the one thing that has been stressed is how temporary the advantage is. The Mk 16, which is a great weapons system, is strictly inferior to the Mk 23, especially the Apollo variant.

Three: Apollo. That's really the biggest catcher here. The Grand Alliance need as many Apollo capable platforms as it can get it's hands on, and simply put, this kind of class would hurt production of them, by simply existing. Again, the dominance of Manticore is transitory, and the SLN has already come a good way in offsetting the balance. Cataphract might be myopic, crude and much larger and less powerful than the GA's MDMs, but they also have a hugely increased range compared to old SLN missiles. The GA needs its best technology for its SD's, and that most definitely is not an SD that fires cruiser-weight missiles.

Four: This is pretty much the killer. And that's crew size. If you're going to make a SD(L), it's going to need more crew. Invictus-class are basically just minelayers sans large, with tons of armor and some energy weapons. They have much less need for crew, since they simply have much less weaponry. Your SD(L) would just suck up personnel for little gain (this is becoming a theme!)

Conclusion: It's really not worth it. Despite having more launchers, it's just not worth the time, effort, and crew cost, and I cannot think of many situations where a SD(L) would be preferable to a pod-layer.

Weber has weighed in on the Nike BC(L) vs BC(P) debate to convince me that the RMN is reconsidering it's fixation on pod based combatants. The original intent of pods was to increase salvo sizes. The cost was actually increased mass per missile plus the monetary cost of the pods which are seldom recovered and reused after battle. Oh, do not forget thattheshipsare inherently less survivable. Delayed drive activation and off bore targeting enable conventional style combatants to equal the salvo sizes of pod style ships. Morever; convention style ships armed with limpeted pods can fire the same, stacked megasalvos as pod style ships WITHOUT needing the same time to stack salvos. Perhaps Hemphil and Foraker will collaborate to rediscover the hard point and power socket? If not, the Andermandi might share the technology with them (See HAE).

I agree that a System Control Ship will not be an SD armed with Mk-16 tubes. However; a BC sized ship armed with even more conventional Mk-16 tubes than a Nike that employs recon drones to provide not only FTL sensor data but also FTL fire control (see the Battle of Saltash in SoF) might provide a tactical effectiveness very near that of an Apollo SD(P) at much lower cost.

Uroboros wrote:

namelessfly wrote:I do not agree that Skimpers idea is "idiotic", just improbable and unnesseary.

He has identified a plausible scenario of the RMN deploying a robust space control ship to client systems rather than merely LACs and a dispatch boat to summon the nodal forces who will not arrive until after the system is trashed. This is not a valid, longterm defensive commitment

Nike is great but it does not have the ammo supply or salvo size to take on a squadron of plausibly upgraded, SLN SDs.

I think that a somewhat upsized (3 million ton) Mk-16 armed BC(P) might be the proper system control ship that fills the same tactical niche as Haven's BBs.

I don't agree that Skimper's idea is idiotic, either. In this case, it's probably his least idiotic idea I've seen since coming here. I had actually thought about it well before he suggested it, and I came up with some thoughts.

One: Lots of tubes. There's no doubt. The Nike-class BC(L) has fifty tubes that can fire. An uprated SD sized would carry quite a few more, with the extra ammo capacity to actually make it work. With Mark 16's new lasing heads, they are actually powerful enough to take out SDs, at least the League SDs. It wouldn't have anywhere near the number of launchers you think it would, however.

Two: Lots of fire control. If they were to adopt Forakers plan of rotating firing links, they could put out a lot of missiles.

Problems:

One: Why is it needed? The answer is, it really isn't. I cannot think of many scenarios where a Mk 16 armed SD(L) would outperform a pod-based combatant. In fact, the only one I can think of is if somehow a task force surprised a squad of Invictus's before they were able to rotate out pods. This one is pretty unlikely. I would say that MAlign ships would have the best chance of pulling it off.

Two: Time. It takes a long time to build up a ship type, and who knows how far the SLN will be in two to three years. It might be completely gutted, or it might be hanging on and about to push out its own classes. Either way, the one thing that has been stressed is how temporary the advantage is. The Mk 16, which is a great weapons system, is strictly inferior to the Mk 23, especially the Apollo variant.

Three: Apollo. That's really the biggest catcher here. The Grand Alliance need as many Apollo capable platforms as it can get it's hands on, and simply put, this kind of class would hurt production of them, by simply existing. Again, the dominance of Manticore is transitory, and the SLN has already come a good way in offsetting the balance. Cataphract might be myopic, crude and much larger and less powerful than the GA's MDMs, but they also have a hugely increased range compared to old SLN missiles. The GA needs its best technology for its SD's, and that most definitely is not an SD that fires cruiser-weight missiles.

Four: This is pretty much the killer. And that's crew size. If you're going to make a SD(L), it's going to need more crew. Invictus-class are basically just minelayers sans large, with tons of armor and some energy weapons. They have much less need for crew, since they simply have much less weaponry. Your SD(L) would just suck up personnel for little gain (this is becoming a theme!)

Conclusion: It's really not worth it. Despite having more launchers, it's just not worth the time, effort, and crew cost, and I cannot think of many situations where a SD(L) would be preferable to a pod-layer.

Why would you want to build an SD with a primary missile capasity with the Mk-16?

You are in much better shape of you build multiple BCs and make them large enough to have signifiactly deeper magazines for Mk-16. Untill SL (and others like the Alignment) catch up in tech, that gives you a much greater engagement range beyond the range of any SL opponent AND the ability to stratigicly withdraw (run away with style) while both staying out of their engagement envelope while keeping them in yours. Other than being quite outnumbered by other BCs and/or other classes of lighter ships, the only thing you can't stand agasint (with your now much deeper magazines) is SD's and you really are not going to deliberately going go into an SD's engagement envelope unless you physicaly can't avoid it.

So you tractor a bunch of pods with Mk-23s if you are expecting trouble and beat the snot out of the opponent SD(s) from a distance with them combined with stacked double broadsides of the Mk-16, and then stay the hell out of range.

This gives you larger (in tonnage) BCs but these are your primer long range/long endurance crusing ships. Show the flag, crush pirates, go look-and then do the job and come back type ships. Fast, tough DANGEROUS ships, did I mention fast? You don't send SD types out doing this job.

SWM wrote:Skimper, why on Earth would you think that your SD-sized BC(L) would have fewer crew than an SD? If you are scaling up the number of weapons, you have to scale up the number of people manning those weapons and maintaining those weapons. You have to scale up the power supply going to those weapons, and thus the engineering crew to support the generators. You have to scale up the impellers and thrusters, and the people working on those systems. You have to scale up the life-support, and the crews working that. You have to scale up the damage control systems and crew, because they have to cover a lot more area, systems, and crew. You have to scale up the medical support. You have to scale up the officers overseeing all those crew. Essentially, you have to scale up the crew by the same amount you scale up everything else. In the end, you get a larger crew size for your so-called SDL than for a modern SD.

For the same reason that a Roland has less crew than an old school DD. Automation. New tech, etc... 18 grasers in place of 20+ lasers and 20+ grasers will reduce crew. The idea is to increase based on the Nike design, not use SD designs. Double the crew of a Nike while making available space 3.4 times larger. Yet making some of the extra space about 50% of the 340% improvements in the armour. The empty armour spacing can be filled with extra crew living space. 60 broadside Mk16 tubes, 15 per chase Mk16 tubes, 2 KH1 per broadside, it all fits. If upgraded to Mk23 Apollo and KH2 it wouldn't fit.

This way you get a super ship that totally dominates the current battlefield / battle space zone... Can operate for long duration without resupply, could operate its own wall of battle but won't be a compromised option. Will be back water or defensive or even able to hold captured targets even if a counter attacked after the front line units leave. This would offer 3 times the missile strength of a Nike 3 times the defenses, 3 times plus the marines and heavy equipment more crew space and better command facilities, and twice plus the munition levels. Able to launch and control 3 times the number of missiles in the same amount of time.

A Nike can triple stack a 150 missiles in 40-60 seconds, the SDL could double stack 300 in 20-40 seconds. Or in 100-120 seconds a Nike could launch 300 missiles the SDL 900 in the same time, each ship. All in full control.

The SDL offering for twice the crew levels 3 times the capability.

The Nike would be faster as would benefit a Battle cruiser. The SDL would be the non front line ship everyone would want to have. Made in sufficient numbers the Nike could replace the Roland and Saganami C without having a crew much larger than an old school Tin can. The SDL the backwater ship that in small numbers can secure any system from anything. Except perhaps a fleet of all up SD(P), but would likely give them a good fight while retreating.

Important systems will have full system defenses, LAC bases, System Pods fortes etc... It doesn't matter what ship you have there a Roland / Saganami C would do or a Nike. In otherwise unprotected systems a Nike is the best you can hope for, a SDL is literally 3 times better. In a system securing role the SDL is also better.

The SD(P) CLAC fleet is the mobile system pod LAC forte force. But over kill for backwater deployments and a waste of resources securing captured systems. The SDL secures the captured worlds / systems. Keeps it secure until a forte LAC base can be built and system pods deployed and keeps iffy places secure without giving away the latest and best tech.

A squadron of SDL is = to a fleet of Roland, Saganami C and Nike with Kammerling. Not as fast, but if it isn't going to run away it doesn't have to be.

Say Filareta's fleet was guarding a world. They get attacked by a front line fleet, and the 131 SD escape only to regroup and counterattack. The rest destroyed or captured... After the front line fleet moves onto the next target this fleet counterattacks, before system defenses can be brought in if they ever would. Expecting a backwater unit, group they jump in and detect an 8 SDL squadron. What will they do? Run away or attack. They have tube only cataphract the 8 ships are close to the world unloading ground troops. It could be 4 kammerling plus a pair of Roland and a Saganami C and a Nike. Or 2 kammerling2 Nike and 4 Roland. Or 8 Nike. In all these cases they would likely reload their troops and run for it, if possible. A Squadron of SDL would out gun the 130+ SD. A single 2 minute salvo of 7200 Mk16 they might risk a couple salvos they would give up and flee from 4, 5, 6...

As for why one would want to use Mk16 is that without adding Apollo missiles the Mk23 is not much better. To make up for this one can increase the missile numbers and thus allow for smaller hit percentage while being able to maintain capabilities. The Mk16 offers the same range as the Mk23, can be used with the KH1 and using 4 will allow for larger missile salvos, using KH2 one would be limited to just the pair.

Additionally future improvements will make the Mk16 better.

So you're going to build a solid core superdreadnought with worse weapons to defend your rear areas? That's completely, 100% nonsensical. If you're investing the industrial capacity in building large quantities of wallers for rear area defense at all (in itself an incredibly questionable strategic idea), you would never build anything other than your most capable ships, i.e. SD(P)s. The SD(P) is unambiguously the better choice in every way. There is literally zero justification that would make sense. Every one of those SD(L)s you want to build is a SD(P) you're not building, an SD(P) which would be useful everywhere. Bifurcating your force structure like that is (putting it the nicest way I can) silly, and reeks of armchair admiraling.

Your not an arm chair admiral? I most certainly am. I would be surprised if anyone here was a real admiral.

The problem with rolling pods is that if you have to flee you need to blow your pods or leave them behind. An SDL doesn't need do either. The SD(P) also doesn't carry enough missiles. Nor enough troops. On top of which every single one of them will be used else where.

Future tech can be considered to allow the 'weak' Mk16 to be improved. As it is the SDL does what the SD(P) doesn't, in many ways: duration, ammunition, salvo size without lots of ships, an SD(P) would never operate on its own.

An SD(P) has one place, wall of battle.

An SDL belongs anywhere else that any other ship can't secure by itself or in number where any non wall of battle fleet belongs. With a crew of a 1000-1500 plus 2500-3000 marines a brigade level force. This one ship does everything in times of combat that lighter ships would

The SDL is able to oppose anything other than a modern wall of battle. If it does faces modern wall of battle, it either needs to wait for its own wall of battle or leave. Anything would have one choice, leave. You could of course put a wall of battle in every system that isn't protected by fortes and system pods. But your going to need more than 1 squadron.

Lord Skimper wrote:

SWM wrote:Skimper, why on Earth would you think that your SD-sized BC(L) would have fewer crew than an SD? [snip - the details]

For the same reason that a Roland has less crew than an old school DD. Automation. New tech, etc... 18 grasers in place of 20+ lasers and 20+ grasers will reduce crew. The idea is to increase based on the Nike design, not use SD designs.

Sure, it'll have less crew than an old SD, but new build SD(P)s already include all that automation. So SWM's points about why an SDL with more weapons mounts than an SD(P) will also have more crew than that SD(P) seems sound.

Lord Skimper (cont) wrote:The SD(P) CLAC fleet is the mobile system pod LAC forte force. But over kill for backwater deployments and a waste of resources securing captured systems. The SDL secures the captured worlds / systems. Keeps it secure until a forte LAC base can be built and system pods deployed and keeps iffy places secure without giving away the latest and best tech.

Yes, an SD(P) is better used elsewhere. But what you seem to persistently be missing is that your 'wonder' ships can't be summoned out of thin air. Each one of your SDLs that gets built is instead of an SD(P) being built.

Whether you waste an SD(P) directly securing some second rate system, or indirectly by building one of your SDLs to do that same job doesn't really matter. You've still got one less SD(P) available than you should, out doing the critical work for which its needed.

Better to build the SD(P) and, if strictly necessary, waste it temporarily defending the construction of the perminant defenses. At least that way you'll have fully capable waller available when it's done; not over-sized over-cost BC(XXL)s.)


I'm having a hard time envisioning some system that so critical to hold that even a single Nike and it's roughly 6,600 Mk16s (enough for 40 minutes at maximum rate of fire) isn't sufficient defense, but so secondary that a BC squadron or a division of real SD(P)s isn't justified.