Mk-16G DDM's and the future of light warships

JeffEngel wrote:

SWM wrote:I believe your conclusions are interesting, but are based on incomplete evidence. David has explained previously in this forum that Manticore planners are indeed looking toward a time when all light combatants are equipped with DDMS. That is why they expect the sizes of light combatants to grow significantly. Their current prediction is a 300,000 kt destroyer or light cruiser will become the smallest viable light warship--one which is equipped with a smaller version of Keyhole, tube-fired DDMs, and FTL control.

The Wolfhound and Avalon exist because they are not ready to produce this notional 300,000 kt ship. It will require quite a bit more R&D before they can reduce the size of Keyhole and FTL missile control. Wolfhound and Avalon are designed as an interim measure, to deal with the current threat environment until the R&D catches up to the need that they see. DDMs will not fit on current destroyer broadsides, and Roland was seen as an experiment, so equipping Wolfhound and Avalon with DDMs was impossible.

I guess the question here is that the timing of the Wolfhound and Avalon suggest that the Mk 16, whether currently available or in the pipeline, ought to have had a greater influence on their design, especially with how many of them have been built, unless some odd factor was at work. All of these - including the Mk-16-using Sag-C, Roland, and Nike - are designs to use well ahead of whatever is going to be able to use a Keyhole variant on a 300-400k hull. I'm pegging that light combatant with a KH-II variant as a little bit ahead of the near-future designs I have in mind. (Granted, the assumption that that miniaturization is bit further off is just a hunch.)

Do you suppose that the notional 300-400k light combatant is likely to require a sufficiently different design that they're figuring that all the ships they build before then will be fodder for scrapping rather than refitting to similar specs? I could buy that, and it would explain building so many ships that they expect to see go obsolete while still relatively young. It's a departure from traditional practice, but lately, building ships has gotten much cheaper and refitting new capabilities into them has grown so much harder. That could justify abandoning that tradition of long expected service lives.

This is a couple of days old, but I have been away for awhile.

I was re-reading stuff I missed, and there are several excellent posts. My thought sort of focused on the timing, as opposed to the tech or the costs.

Please recall that the Gauntlet was one of the newest heavy cruisers of its time, with the then-most-up-to-date weapons fit--in 1917. Design acceptance for the new ships was difficult, because High Ridge & Co. didn't see any threat at all --from anyone. So while it may very well have been possible to have gotten ships of this capability in service by the end of 1915, they didn't commission the first one (Saganami-B) until 1917, while the lighter ships didn't make it out of the yards until 1919. In 1919 the Janacek Admiralty began emergency construction --but the Saganami-C and Roland were still "experimental" and "unproven", and the improvements in RHN wallers didn't see corresponding light ship improvements yet. He was building the ships he had stockpiled the parts for, that he already had munitions for; the first Sag-C and Nike class didn't deploy until 1921, istr.

I think the numbers of the Saganami-B and Reliant-III/IV reflect the efforts of the shipyards to clear out ships already under construction, to clear the ways, as well as getting the greatest number of ships built (production cycle had already been worked out).

YMMV, of course.

Rob

Theemile wrote:"JeffEngel"]"SWM"]I believe your conclusions are interesting, but are based on incomplete evidence. David has explained previously in this forum that Manticore planners are indeed looking toward a time when all light combatants are equipped with DDMS. That is why they expect the sizes of light combatants to grow significantly. Their current prediction is a 300,000 kt destroyer or light cruiser will become the smallest viable light warship--one which is equipped with a smaller version of Keyhole, tube-fired DDMs, and FTL control.

The Wolfhound and Avalon exist because they are not ready to produce this notional 300,000 kt ship. It will require quite a bit more R&D before they can reduce the size of Keyhole and FTL missile control. Wolfhound and Avalon are designed as an interim measure, to deal with the current threat environment until the R&D catches up to the need that they see. DDMs will not fit on current destroyer broadsides, and Roland was seen as an experiment, so equipping Wolfhound and Avalon with DDMs was impossible.

I guess the question here is that the timing of the Wolfhound and Avalon suggest that the Mk 16, whether currently available or in the pipeline, ought to have had a greater influence on their design, especially with how many of them have been built, unless some odd factor was at work. All of these - including the Mk-16-using Sag-C, Roland, and Nike - are designs to use well ahead of whatever is going to be able to use a Keyhole variant on a 300-400k hull. I'm pegging that light combatant with a KH-II variant as a little bit ahead of the near-future designs I have in mind. (Granted, the assumption that that miniaturization is bit further off is just a hunch.)

Do you suppose that the notional 300-400k light combatant is likely to require a sufficiently different design that they're figuring that all the ships they build before then will be fodder for scrapping rather than refitting to similar specs? I could buy that, and it would explain building so many ships that they expect to see go obsolete while still relatively young. It's a departure from traditional practice, but lately, building ships has gotten much cheaper and refitting new capabilities into them has grown so much harder. That could justify abandoning that tradition of long expected service lives.[/quote]


Jeff, you're missing the cost factor - Janacheck was leading a peace time navy and was ordered to reduce costs was much as possible across the board.

In the real world, the Spruance Destroyer design was originally supposed to be a multi-mission destroyer - in reality, politics and cost cuts gelded it's multi-mission capabilities, and we ended up with a 8K ton destroyer that specialized in killing subs, with barely enough anti-aircraft and anti-shipping capabilities to defend itself. The Kidd classs of ships, ordered for Iran before the fall of the Shah, is what the Spruances SHOULD have looked like, if they were made in their originally speced condition.

A peacetime government isn't going to throw money around, it's going to want the most for the least that meets the needs - and the wolfhound was definitely that[/quote]


--------------

Dittos and echos --
The "between wars" Janacek admiralty is essentially in the same position the USN was in during the 1970's -- post-VietNam with a BUNCH of obsolete DD's, some built post WWII and Korea (there were still a few FRAM II DD's when I went active duty in 1978) that were no longer viable for upgrades, the hulls were worn out. The US answer was the Spru-Can and the Hazard Perry's.
The CG-47 Ticonderoga's were originally set to be the Anti-Air DDG but size growth re-designated them as CG's since we could not afford a replacement for Chicago (rebuilt as CG-11) or a fleet of Long Beaches (CGN-9)

At this point, most of the Sru-cans and Perry's are transferred to allies or converted into Nissans and Toyotas as they are replaced by Burke-Class DDG's

As noted in other threads, the Wolfhounds and Avalons will serve well in Silesia and other regions where a longer range reach is currently not needed. They, like the Spru-cans and Perry's (and the Sag-A/B's) will eventually transfer to allies as their replacements are developed.

-- Stewart

stewart wrote:

Theemile wrote:"JeffEngel"]"SWM"]I believe your conclusions are interesting, but are based on incomplete evidence. David has explained previously in this forum that Manticore planners are indeed looking toward a time when all light combatants are equipped with DDMS. That is why they expect the sizes of light combatants to grow significantly. Their current prediction is a 300,000 kt destroyer or light cruiser will become the smallest viable light warship--one which is equipped with a smaller version of Keyhole, tube-fired DDMs, and FTL control.

The Wolfhound and Avalon exist because they are not ready to produce this notional 300,000 kt ship. It will require quite a bit more R&D before they can reduce the size of Keyhole and FTL missile control. Wolfhound and Avalon are designed as an interim measure, to deal with the current threat environment until the R&D catches up to the need that they see. DDMs will not fit on current destroyer broadsides, and Roland was seen as an experiment, so equipping Wolfhound and Avalon with DDMs was impossible.

I guess the question here is that the timing of the Wolfhound and Avalon suggest that the Mk 16, whether currently available or in the pipeline, ought to have had a greater influence on their design, especially with how many of them have been built, unless some odd factor was at work. All of these - including the Mk-16-using Sag-C, Roland, and Nike - are designs to use well ahead of whatever is going to be able to use a Keyhole variant on a 300-400k hull. I'm pegging that light combatant with a KH-II variant as a little bit ahead of the near-future designs I have in mind. (Granted, the assumption that that miniaturization is bit further off is just a hunch.)

Do you suppose that the notional 300-400k light combatant is likely to require a sufficiently different design that they're figuring that all the ships they build before then will be fodder for scrapping rather than refitting to similar specs? I could buy that, and it would explain building so many ships that they expect to see go obsolete while still relatively young. It's a departure from traditional practice, but lately, building ships has gotten much cheaper and refitting new capabilities into them has grown so much harder. That could justify abandoning that tradition of long expected service lives.

Jeff, you're missing the cost factor - Janacheck was leading a peace time navy and was ordered to reduce costs was much as possible across the board.

In the real world, the Spruance Destroyer design was originally supposed to be a multi-mission destroyer - in reality, politics and cost cuts gelded it's multi-mission capabilities, and we ended up with a 8K ton destroyer that specialized in killing subs, with barely enough anti-aircraft and anti-shipping capabilities to defend itself. The Kidd classs of ships, ordered for Iran before the fall of the Shah, is what the Spruances SHOULD have looked like, if they were made in their originally speced condition.

A peacetime government isn't going to throw money around, it's going to want the most for the least that meets the needs - and the wolfhound was definitely that[/quote]


--------------

Dittos and echos --
The "between wars" Janacek admiralty is essentially in the same position the USN was in during the 1970's -- post-VietNam with a BUNCH of obsolete DD's, some built post WWII and Korea (there were still a few FRAM II DD's when I went active duty in 1978) that were no longer viable for upgrades, the hulls were worn out. The US answer was the Spru-Can and the Hazard Perry's.
The CG-47 Ticonderoga's were originally set to be the Anti-Air DDG but size growth re-designated them as CG's since we could not afford a replacement for Chicago (rebuilt as CG-11) or a fleet of Long Beaches (CGN-9)

At this point, most of the Sru-cans and Perry's are transferred to allies or converted into Nissans and Toyotas as they are replaced by Burke-Class DDG's

As noted in other threads, the Wolfhounds and Avalons will serve well in Silesia and other regions where a longer range reach is currently not needed. They, like the Spru-cans and Perry's (and the Sag-A/B's) will eventually transfer to allies as their replacements are developed.

-- Stewart[/quote]


Stewart none of the Spruance class destroyers were transferred to other nations, all were either scraped or sunk as targets. In fact there is only one left USS Paul F Foster (DD-964). FYI the Foster was one of the ships I served on in my time in the USN.

saber964 wrote:"stewart"]"Theemile"]"JeffEngel"]"SWM"]I believe your conclusions are interesting, but are based on incomplete evidence. David has explained previously in this forum that Manticore planners are indeed looking toward a time when all light combatants are equipped with DDMS. That is why they expect the sizes of light combatants to grow significantly. Their current prediction is a 300,000 kt destroyer or light cruiser will become the smallest viable light warship--one which is equipped with a smaller version of Keyhole, tube-fired DDMs, and FTL control.

The Wolfhound and Avalon exist because they are not ready to produce this notional 300,000 kt ship. It will require quite a bit more R&D before they can reduce the size of Keyhole and FTL missile control. Wolfhound and Avalon are designed as an interim measure, to deal with the current threat environment until the R&D catches up to the need that they see. DDMs will not fit on current destroyer broadsides, and Roland was seen as an experiment, so equipping Wolfhound and Avalon with DDMs was impossible.

I guess the question here is that the timing of the Wolfhound and Avalon suggest that the Mk 16, whether currently available or in the pipeline, ought to have had a greater influence on their design, especially with how many of them have been built, unless some odd factor was at work. All of these - including the Mk-16-using Sag-C, Roland, and Nike - are designs to use well ahead of whatever is going to be able to use a Keyhole variant on a 300-400k hull. I'm pegging that light combatant with a KH-II variant as a little bit ahead of the near-future designs I have in mind. (Granted, the assumption that that miniaturization is bit further off is just a hunch.)

Do you suppose that the notional 300-400k light combatant is likely to require a sufficiently different design that they're figuring that all the ships they build before then will be fodder for scrapping rather than refitting to similar specs? I could buy that, and it would explain building so many ships that they expect to see go obsolete while still relatively young. It's a departure from traditional practice, but lately, building ships has gotten much cheaper and refitting new capabilities into them has grown so much harder. That could justify abandoning that tradition of long expected service lives.[/quote]


Jeff, you're missing the cost factor - Janacheck was leading a peace time navy and was ordered to reduce costs was much as possible across the board.

In the real world, the Spruance Destroyer design was originally supposed to be a multi-mission destroyer - in reality, politics and cost cuts gelded it's multi-mission capabilities, and we ended up with a 8K ton destroyer that specialized in killing subs, with barely enough anti-aircraft and anti-shipping capabilities to defend itself. The Kidd classs of ships, ordered for Iran before the fall of the Shah, is what the Spruances SHOULD have looked like, if they were made in their originally speced condition.

A peacetime government isn't going to throw money around, it's going to want the most for the least that meets the needs - and the wolfhound was definitely that[/quote]


--------------

Dittos and echos --
The "between wars" Janacek admiralty is essentially in the same position the USN was in during the 1970's -- post-VietNam with a BUNCH of obsolete DD's, some built post WWII and Korea (there were still a few FRAM II DD's when I went active duty in 1978) that were no longer viable for upgrades, the hulls were worn out. The US answer was the Spru-Can and the Hazard Perry's.
The CG-47 Ticonderoga's were originally set to be the Anti-Air DDG but size growth re-designated them as CG's since we could not afford a replacement for Chicago (rebuilt as CG-11) or a fleet of Long Beaches (CGN-9)

At this point, most of the Sru-cans and Perry's are transferred to allies or converted into Nissans and Toyotas as they are replaced by Burke-Class DDG's

As noted in other threads, the Wolfhounds and Avalons will serve well in Silesia and other regions where a longer range reach is currently not needed. They, like the Spru-cans and Perry's (and the Sag-A/B's) will eventually transfer to allies as their replacements are developed.

-- Stewart[/quote]


Stewart none of the Spruance class destroyers were transferred to other nations, all were either scraped or sunk as targets. In fact there is only one left USS Paul F Foster (DD-964). FYI the Foster was one of the ships I served on in my time in the USN.[/quote]


---------------

Yes, but all 4 Kidd class are currently with the ROC (Taiwan) Navy, and many of the Perry cans are in foreign fleets now.

-- Stewart

I know it's been touched on allready by others but as pointed out allready Nike per text has much, much stronger sidewalls than any previous battlecruiser and per text on the LAC's this is doubtless due to the integration of beta squared tech which means even for her size her sidewalls are much, much stronger. We don;t have an explicit statement but i suspect her sidewalls are at least as tough as old SD sidewalls. Given the ever increasing compensator efficiency and what that demands in terms of increased wedge power and what that means in terms of sidewall strength i suspect that in practise light units are seeing a sufficiently large increase in sidewall strength to compensate for the punch of the Mk 16.

Also per ASVW the Manticorians had just introduced a new super strong alloy just before the start of the first war, given the age of the sollie fleet and how the new armour apparently has to be built right into the structure of the ship i doubt most of the Sollie fleet has that. For that matter i doubt the manticoran navy hasn't improved that armour in the last 20 years.

In practise the passive defences of a Nike might well stand upto Mk 16's better than a sollie SD.

stewart wrote:

saber964""dstewart wrote:"Theemile"]"JeffEngel"]"SWM"]I believe your conclusions are interesting, but are based on incomplete evidence. David has explained previously in this forum that Manticore planners are indeed looking toward a time when all light combatants are equipped with DDMS. That is why they expect the sizes of light combatants to grow significantly. Their current prediction is a 300,000 kt destroyer or light cruiser will become the smallest viable light warship--one which is equipped with a smaller version of Keyhole, tube-fired DDMs, and FTL control.

The Wolfhound and Avalon exist because they are not ready to produce this notional 300,000 kt ship. It will require quite a bit more R&D before they can reduce the size of Keyhole and FTL missile control. Wolfhound and Avalon are designed as an interim measure, to deal with the current threat environment until the R&D catches up to the need that they see. DDMs will not fit on current destroyer broadsides, and Roland was seen as an experiment, so equipping Wolfhound and Avalon with DDMs was impossible.

I guess the question here is that the timing of the Wolfhound and Avalon suggest that the Mk 16, whether currently available or in the pipeline, ought to have had a greater influence on their design, especially with how many of them have been built, unless some odd factor was at work. All of these - including the Mk-16-using Sag-C, Roland, and Nike - are designs to use well ahead of whatever is going to be able to use a Keyhole variant on a 300-400k hull. I'm pegging that light combatant with a KH-II variant as a little bit ahead of the near-future designs I have in mind. (Granted, the assumption that that miniaturization is bit further off is just a hunch.)

Do you suppose that the notional 300-400k light combatant is likely to require a sufficiently different design that they're figuring that all the ships they build before then will be fodder for scrapping rather than refitting to similar specs? I could buy that, and it would explain building so many ships that they expect to see go obsolete while still relatively young. It's a departure from traditional practice, but lately, building ships has gotten much cheaper and refitting new capabilities into them has grown so much harder. That could justify abandoning that tradition of long expected service lives.

Jeff, you're missing the cost factor - Janacheck was leading a peace time navy and was ordered to reduce costs was much as possible across the board.

In the real world, the Spruance Destroyer design was originally supposed to be a multi-mission destroyer - in reality, politics and cost cuts gelded it's multi-mission capabilities, and we ended up with a 8K ton destroyer that specialized in killing subs, with barely enough anti-aircraft and anti-shipping capabilities to defend itself. The Kidd classs of ships, ordered for Iran before the fall of the Shah, is what the Spruances SHOULD have looked like, if they were made in their originally speced condition.

A peacetime government isn't going to throw money around, it's going to want the most for the least that meets the needs - and the wolfhound was definitely that[/quote]


--------------

Dittos and echos --
The "between wars" Janacek admiralty is essentially in the same position the USN was in during the 1970's -- post-VietNam with a BUNCH of obsolete DD's, some built post WWII and Korea (there were still a few FRAM II DD's when I went active duty in 1978) that were no longer viable for upgrades, the hulls were worn out. The US answer was the Spru-Can and the Hazard Perry's.
The CG-47 Ticonderoga's were originally set to be the Anti-Air DDG but size growth re-designated them as CG's since we could not afford a replacement for Chicago (rebuilt as CG-11) or a fleet of Long Beaches (CGN-9)

At this point, most of the Sru-cans and Perry's are transferred to allies or converted into Nissans and Toyotas as they are replaced by Burke-Class DDG's

As noted in other threads, the Wolfhounds and Avalons will serve well in Silesia and other regions where a longer range reach is currently not needed. They, like the Spru-cans and Perry's (and the Sag-A/B's) will eventually transfer to allies as their replacements are developed.

-- Stewart[/quote]


Stewart none of the Spruance class destroyers were transferred to other nations, all were either scraped or sunk as targets. In fact there is only one left USS Paul F Foster (DD-964). FYI the Foster was one of the ships I served on in my time in the USN.[/quote]




---------------

Yes, but all 4 Kidd class are currently with the ROC (Taiwan) Navy, and many of the Perry cans are in foreign fleets now.

-- Stewart[/quote]



Stew, the Kidd class was a sub class of the Spruance class but is almost always listed as a separate class of the ships. The Kidd class were listed as DDG's with Mk26 missile launcher's while the Spruance class was a DD with very limited AA capabilities that were mostly for self defense. During the late 80's and early 90's the improved Spruance with a Mk41 VLS was added but this launcher could not fire AA missiles also some of the DD's had ABL's installed.

Carl wrote:I know it's been touched on allready by others but as pointed out allready Nike per text has much, much stronger sidewalls than any previous battlecruiser and per text on the LAC's this is doubtless due to the integration of beta squared tech which means even for her size her sidewalls are much, much stronger. We don;t have an explicit statement but i suspect her sidewalls are at least as tough as old SD sidewalls. Given the ever increasing compensator efficiency and what that demands in terms of increased wedge power and what that means in terms of sidewall strength i suspect that in practise light units are seeing a sufficiently large increase in sidewall strength to compensate for the punch of the Mk 16.

Actually: Sidewall strength is a direct result of how much tonnage you place in your sidewall generators. Beta-squared nodes help REDUCE sidewall generator tonnage required achieving higher tonnage efficiency. In LAC's beta squared is a big deal as the other major factor determining your sidewall strength in terms of tonnage efficiency is how strong is the wedge itself.

GAH, just spent 1.5 hours reading "pearls" trying to find the backup for my uh, statements above and I am specifically looking for RFC's follow up post regarding the notional 300,000 DD http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/entry/Harrington/286/1 where he specifically went into the parameters of what created a sidewalls total strength and why a LOT of the tonnage of said notional new 300,000ton DD was nothing but defense systems. Specifically, sidewall generators to deal with the MK-16 laser head and equivalent from modernizing navies.

So basically what i said with the unstated but assumed known caveat that extra sidewall generators boost it .


Interesting reading that pearl but shows a fairly major blind spot on Mr Weber's part. A peacetime navy will still have to carry out steady upgrades and especially replace ships as hulls wear out. As such construction costs really do matter

I've also never really understood why the BC (P), (for it's tonnage anyway), is considered so poor in comparison to the BC(L).

Sure the pods add a small percentage to the ammo volume but volume for volume the storage for ammo should still be 80% as big as that of a same size BC(L) and the fire efficiency of the larger salvo sizes against most things will more than make up for that, (a BC(L) can match the salvo sizes in theory but once the Mk 16 apollo form comes in it could never dump it's fire control limit out fast enough to be useful, a BC(P) can).

And sure i suspect just because of cofferdam interleaving that the combination of pods and space around pods is not as good at buffering hits to the core hull behind as the magazines of normal launchers would be, but it's not a night and day level difference. Or it shouldn't be anyway.

Carl wrote:So basically what i said with the unstated but assumed known caveat that extra sidewall generators boost it .


Interesting reading that pearl but shows a fairly major blind spot on Mr Weber's part. A peacetime navy will still have to carry out steady upgrades and especially replace ships as hulls wear out. As such construction costs really do matter

The idea hasn't been that construction costs don't matter - it's that you have to figure, for total costs, construction costs plus service lifetime upkeep and operating costs. With longer service lifetimes, the construction costs represent a shrinking portion of that total.

Honorverse hulls don't wear out rapidly. The SLN Reserve Fleet hulls are in fine shape centuries later, and the RMN has had capital ships at least serve for close to 200 years. You end up replacing hulls not because they are worn out, but because they are too outdated to make keeping them in service worth the ongoing costs of all types, and refitting them is no longer sufficiently cost-effective for the returns. Historically, that's been a slow process - see those 200 year old RMN capital ships, for instance. Lately, it's been much, much faster - warships built 10, 20 years ago are at least mothballed or often scrapped, because they can't be refitted practically for MDM's or DDM's and it's not worth the crew usage to operate them with single drive missiles and large crews anymore.

The RMN is looking forward to another technological plateau, or at least a period in which technological advance is something practical refits and software updates can deliver to existing ships. I'm not positive that's realistic on their part, but that's the thinking from the looks of it. In that case, those notional near-future combatants should be designed for cost reduction more on the upkeep end than the buying one.

I've also never really understood why the BC (P), (for it's tonnage anyway), is considered so poor in comparison to the BC(L).

Sure the pods add a small percentage to the ammo volume but volume for volume the storage for ammo should still be 80% as big as that of a same size BC(L) and the fire efficiency of the larger salvo sizes against most things will more than make up for that, (a BC(L) can match the salvo sizes in theory but once the Mk 16 apollo form comes in it could never dump it's fire control limit out fast enough to be useful, a BC(P) can).

And sure i suspect just because of cofferdam interleaving that the combination of pods and space around pods is not as good at buffering hits to the core hull behind as the magazines of normal launchers would be, but it's not a night and day level difference. Or it shouldn't be anyway.

I think it's because the people evaluating it serve on those ships or adopt that perspective, and there's a higher priority placed on a gut level on defending yourself rather than eliminating the enemy. BC(P)'s aren't ever going to be as tough as BC(L)'s or wallers, due to construction arrangement in the first case and size in the second. Why not build BC(P)'s on the BC(L) scale, I don't know - it sounds like an obvious idea to me too. Even then though, it will be more delicate and the consolation of being far more able to eliminate enemies quickly will be insufficient for a lot of admirals' and captains' comfort. (And yet they go for that with happy abandon for the wall of battle. Maybe it's a scale thing; maybe they're not thinking it through; maybe it's a matter of the romance of BC's again and a podlayer doesn't have the rakish, saucy independence they drool over in the class.)

Carl wrote:I've also never really understood why the BC (P), (for it's tonnage anyway), is considered so poor in comparison to the BC(L).

Sure the pods add a small percentage to the ammo volume but volume for volume the storage for ammo should still be 80% as big as that of a same size BC(L) and the fire efficiency of the larger salvo sizes against most things will more than make up for that, (a BC(L) can match the salvo sizes in theory but once the Mk 16 apollo form comes in it could never dump it's fire control limit out fast enough to be useful, a BC(P) can).

And sure i suspect just because of cofferdam interleaving that the combination of pods and space around pods is not as good at buffering hits to the core hull behind as the magazines of normal launchers would be, but it's not a night and day level difference. Or it shouldn't be anyway.

Maxxq had some insight in that when he was doing the 3d models of the BC(P).

The real problem (IMHO) is that they don't have enough beam or depth in the hull. So critical components are either displaced radically hullward or all squeezed into the forward 1/3 to 1/2 of the ship. This decreases separation, puts less armor around critical components, making the ship far more fragile than a normal BC. And to add insult to injury, the missile pods can't be well isolated from each other, so a penetrating hit in the rear half of the hull has a good chance of reaching the pod core and causing a cascade failure that knocks out the entire missile armament.
(Then add the keyhole's which have the side effect of further reducing the armor depth to the fusion plants (because there's literally no other place you can squeeze their semi-recessed docking points into the hull)

All that makes the BC(P) a bit of a low combat endurance glass-cannon. Which is a somewhat viable ship design strategy; if the cannon is nasty enough. But that's totally at odds with how the RMN has historically used BCs, and so not what they want out of their modern BCs.
(Of course if you scaled the BC(P) up to the tonnage of a Nike-class BC(L) it would be less vulnerable than the Aggies; but still more vulnerable than the Nikes)