Ronald class CL

Letteredwolf wrote:

Positroll wrote:snip
I'd guess that were basically the reasons why the Avalon CL was built for LERM despite the Mk16 being close to production. But given that even a lowly DD now has Mk16s, and given the range advantage and the heavier missile head it carries, it just doesn't make sense anymore to build new CLs without that capability.

Although just a lowly destroyer the Roland is larger than the Avalon. According to House of Steel it is 188,750 tons to the Avalon's 146,750. Manticore classifies on role not on size. The CLs for the Manties are designed for longer cruises out of internal stores.

The Avalon has a broadside of 10 missile tubes. Given that we know the DDM is a size hog and Bu Ships could only squeeze 6 into the hammer head of the Roland by taking out the normally stand alone support equipment for each tube and putting it centrally in the hammer head and arranging the sextet of launchers around it. This reduces redundancy and makes them much more vulnerable to a single hit wiping out half of a Roland's Mk16 launchers.

Presumably the Avalon has the LERMs since it is expected as a cruiser to be on its own longer and be less vulnerable than a DD. Whereas although larger than its CL cousin the Roland will shoot itself dry fast meaning it need to be somewhere close to supply, such as tied to the fleet or station. It is also much more a vulnerable design to battle damage.

Thank you very much for starting this tread. I have been thing very much about light cruisers of late and what a DDM armed CL as a smaller brother to the Sag-C CA might look like.

You wouldn't need to elongate the hull very much to fit such launchers. The Avalon is 15m longer than the Roland and has 10 LERM launchers per side. However you would still need to find room for magazines and bunkerage.

That said there are some reasons I think this is the wrong way for designing a CL. We have never seen a ship which mounts two different types of missiles for internal tubes that I remember seeing. While this doesn't rule it out, there are very good reasons we haven't. This will make a logistical nightmare. The vessel will need to have access to both types of ammo from a station or ammo ship or it has the potential to be empty on one of its main weapons, which limits where it can be deployed. Also this prevents magazines from being able to feed other launchers should a magazine be destroyed in combat. We have seen cruisers with this ability and for long term combat patrol it is a good one. Which in itself is another problem, if this ship takes a hit in either its fore or aft hammer head magazine then it will be down a full half of its Mk16 missiles.

Finally I can’t see a cruiser using the Roland model for launchers. The unorthodox and vulnerable set up for the Roland was the trade off for being able to wrap a hull around DDM launchers. That trade off can be considered usable in a DD but a cruiser by its very missions need to be able to be further off of supply and not so much of an eggshell with a sledgehammer as the Roland is.

That said these are only my opinions and thank you for putting your idea out there.

Wolf

Theemile wrote:You are not the first to call the Roland a Frigate. More precisely, it will be the definition of an MDM age Frigate in about 10 or so years, when every major navy can field DDMs in light units.

Lord Skimper wrote:You could do three things with the missiles:

1. LERM, which everyone knows I like. They are also Cheap and can be made with minimal adjustment right across Haven.

2. LERM DDM, basically a Cataphract idea of putting a second slow CM stage on the LERM. No special fusion launchers and it increases the range of the LERM fully powered to 22 M-km more with a Ballistic Phase. Tubes would need be adjusted but it makes everything more versatile. More range than a Cataphract too.

Lord Skimper (cont) wrote:3. Your making it longer, just put broadside Mk16 tubes in and use the extra space for the extra munitions.

Jonathan_S wrote:Which means, because of drive node physics, it'd also be roughly as long as a Sag-C (so a Sag-C sized ship).

Jonathan_S wrote:

Lord Skimper wrote:You could do three things with the missiles:

1. LERM, which everyone knows I like. They are also Cheap and can be made with minimal adjustment right across Haven.

2. LERM DDM, basically a Cataphract idea of putting a second slow CM stage on the LERM. No special fusion launchers and it increases the range of the LERM fully powered to 22 M-km more with a Ballistic Phase. Tubes would need be adjusted but it makes everything more versatile. More range than a Cataphract too.

Without a micofusion plant this would be larger than a Mk16 because by the time you go to a second stage the capacitors needed to power both stages are larger than the microfusion power plant and fuel.

And that's assuming that Manticore designs it like a Mk16, not like a Cataphract. The Cataphract design, with appears to have a detachable CM stage grafted onto the nose of the missile (not just an extra drive ring), is much longer than a normal DDM. Plus the CM stage sharply reduces the size of the warhead you can carry.

Lord Skimper (cont) wrote:3. Your making it longer, just put broadside Mk16 tubes in and use the extra space for the extra munitions.

The problem with fitting Mk16 broadside launchers is the ship's limited width, not it's length. Stretching a Roland lenght-wise doesn't let you fit in broadside Mk16 tubes. You'd have to make it fatter, basically as 'fat' as a Sag-C.

Which means, because of drive node physics, it'd also be roughly as long as a Sag-C (so a Sag-C sized ship). You can build longer than normal ships, (like a stretched Roland) because the nodes don't care if you don't build out to the full width. But you can't really have fatter than normal, the nodes' distance from the center point is dictated by the ship max width.