Agreed. I don't think they'd start to care for that absence of flexibility and the way that battle damage would skew capabilities so badly. Degrading gracefully under system failure is a goal; asymmetric broadsides would kick that in the head.Kytheros wrote:A single broadside arrangement has no real benefit, and has several real downsides.
If they do chase armaments only like a Roland, it'll likely be an 8 tube cluster, instead of a 6 tube cluster.
I doubt they'd want the chase armament configuration. They're not happy with how it will suffer damage either, and they are particularly unhappy about serving them with deep magazines, a consideration that they take very seriously for a light cruiser.
Staggered tubes are one way to get the Mk 16 on a ship less wide than a Saganami-C, and if I had to bet on any of these options, I'd go with that. But the ammunition arrangements and internal layout may be tricky, issues that I don't think they'd eagerly accept for a workhorse on long cruises with minimal maintenance and external logistic support.
So my bet is something about the same size as a Saganami-C with a similar weapons arrangement. But as a light cruiser, it can afford fewer tubes and less armor. They may even opt for a single fusion plant, though I'd still put better money on two of them, but definitely not three. The generous volume freed up by fewer tubes and less armor can mean magazines that carry more rounds of fire with the same volume; more provision for stores; excess life support for emergencies, Marine/Army complements, prize crews, more trainees, etc.; and deeper recon drone capacity with identical small craft capacity.
Building it on the same size hull as the heavy cruiser (perhaps the light/heavy distinction could be changed) would mean being able to share the same slips and a lot of overlap in parts, which will be very handy for construction, training, and maintenance. And with fewer weapons, it's likely to be able to do the light cruiser jobs with less money spent to build it and fewer people to crew it. It won't have the speed of a smaller hyper-capable ship, but when a smaller hyper-capable ship is going to have an awkward time with DDM usage or long-range patrol duty (or both), when LAC's are doing the in-system small warship job so well, and when recon drones and MDM's/DDM's are much zippier than any ship and doing their work so far out, that's perfectly acceptable.