Lord Skimper wrote:Twice the broadside of a Nike, with Mk23 sized tubes, or whatever is used later.
Won't work. A Nike has 25 broadside launchers for the Mk 16. A Gryphon, which is only about 30% longer than a Nike and which does not carry Keyhole or LAC bays, has 37 missile launchers in her broadside, which were sized for missiles that were much smaller than the Mk 23. To fit everything you want in there, you would have to massively cut back on the energy batteries (Not only because of the space taken up by LAC bays, but also all the magazines and engineering spaces needed for the missile launchers and the LACs).
3 LAC in keyhole type docks. Given that a keyhole I or II is a great deal bigger than a LAC this shouldn't be a problem.
Why 3? Are you using asymmetrical broadsides or some other strange idea
Also, 3 LACs aren't that effective as a force multiplier. A squadron of these ships would carry just about 2 squadrons of LACs; you can get equal or better protection by just assigning a DD flotilla as escorts (With the added bonus that DDs are much more flexible weapons)
Better armour than a Nike with space for the armour spacing. Modular designed into layout, so it can be modified. You keep thinking modular means you can't do stuff, which is wrong. Designed to be modular means it can be changed. Hatches are big enough for the dismantled sections to fit through them. It really isn't hard if you plan ahead.
Modular connections of all pipes, corridors, wire guides, wires, cables, vents, etc.... I can just imagine the group of you designing a main battle tank. It has armour it can't possibly be modular. It needs a rolls Royce engine each one built by hand in a factory and needing a month in that factory to replace the engine. Only MBT do have modular engines and are field replaceable in 15 minutes. Unlike a truck, non military, engine that requires a repair shop and days to weeks to replace an engine. The MBT are not the tanks of WWII, they are better, modular and heavily armoured. Tracks, guide wheels, transmissions, coaxil guns, sights, range finders, even main gun barrels. Reactive armour segments are even field replaceable. Most even have field snorkles that let them drive under water.
Come to think about it you would be hard pressed to find a ship built in the last 40 years that has more armour than a modern MBT.
Going by that definition, Honorverse ships already incorporate modularity in their basic designs. But in your previous ideas, you talked about modules that would change the role of a ship completely (from warship to freighter), so please forgive us lesser minds for taking that as the baseline for what you term modularity.
Also, I now kinda want to see how you'd pull off a field replacement on an MBT engine without some support structure. Because that sounds rather impossible to do, given the weight and bulkiness of the items involved.
In your analogy, you are also ignoring something you would have known if you read the books. Honorverse armor plating for capital ships is not mounted in sections (as reactive armor is on MBTs). It's as close as possible to a seamless shell as it can be, and sometimes you have to cut through it or circumvent it in order to get at the internals of a ship (see Short Victorious War for a discussion of this issue).
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