The cruiser future in the RMN - another go

Carl wrote:@Relax: I think somehow you completely misunderstood everything i was saying there.

Have you read the book before Cauldron of Ghosts? Shadow of Freedom. Small ship action, talking to the bad guys via FTL... ring a bell? Ding Dong. If that is not recent enough to jog your memory of what a Hermes buoy is and does, let us look at the second time we ever saw a Hermes buoy used. Storm from the Shadows chapter one or was it the prelude when Henke used them to obliterate 4 BC's at Solon.

Hermes buoy's are a large RD. They move by themselves. They have bi directional light speed communications and FTL.

Carl wrote:@JeffEngal: This has been brought up in another thread but Pirates want the smallest crew possible because crew represents a huge expense for them which cuts into profits.

I'm sure they'd like a tiny crew, or at least one that doesn't care to be paid. In the event, they don't have very small crews - they've got enough for the prizes and boarders, and they fill out the rest with individuals of indifferent training levels and generally make do with systems that don't make one person's work go especially far.

So, as some sort of ideal, I suppose they'd like very small crews, but it doesn't much happen.

Also what your suggesting is basically an over glorified coast guard cutter. A ship not actually intended to fight equivalent warships that's still nonetheless armed in a somewhat lesser fashion.

Get real. 20+ missiles at a time, with arbitrarily long range, FTL fire control in at least one direction, with laserheads that can penetrate superdreadnought armor in a pinch and certainly take big whole out of battlecruisers. "Glorified coast guard cutter"? "Not actually intended to fight equivalent warships"? That's going out the far end of hyperbole.

It's not intended to take damage and remain firing quite as well as a hypothetical equivalent ship with precisely the same defenses sustaining the same hits. Granted. Easily. It is absolutely intended, and well able, to dish out damage in amounts sufficient to pulverize a comparable hull, with active defenses better than that of a Saganami-C (given the Keyhole system - at a minimum), likely beefier passive defenses (given the tonnage that can be diverted to armor etc. - particularly in defense of the linkages between central fire control and the weapons, or backups for them), and - particularly, since this seems to evade attention - a mission that does not demand all the fighting expected of a Saganami-C heavy cruiser or a Nike battlecruiser.

One problem with that. The RMN per DW himself does not build such specialised designs. if they build a light combatant it will not be designed such that it becomes a liability the moment an actual war breaks out because it's not designed for the rigours of actual combat vs actual warships.

Please. This is a "specialist" in precisely the way that not everything is a superdreadnought. It's built to be a unit for cruising duties below the wall. This means that it is not meant to be a small superdreadnought, nor a small battlecruiser. Commerce raiding, commerce protection, scouting, counter-scouting, system picket duties, pirate hunting - these are what a cruiser is for.

Something better designed purely, entirely, exclusively for fight-to-the-death combat with the same tonnage would be tougher and more dangerous. It would also be unsuitable for system picket duties (insufficient sensors, insufficient endurance), commerce raiding (same), commerce protection (same), and scouting (same). If it could find pirates, I suppose it could blow them away well enough - and so could something a fraction of that size, cost, or crew complement. Much the same goes for the counter-scouting role.

There may be some use for that warship. It's clearly a specialist, however, with some wartime application and very little in peacetime, with an operating and lifetime cost much higher than a cruiser built for cruising duty.

As an alternative though, you could build a cruiser, meant to perform cruiser functions well, in peacetime and wartime. And if you conserve crew and reduce operating costs - consistent with that whole mission, not simply pure combat capability in a vacuum - you can field more of them, that can be in more places, and do more things.

If that makes it a "glorified coast guard cutter", well, I think coast guard cutters should back in your admiration for them, as they'd therefore be the working backbone of the navy.

SharkHunter wrote:Roland style tubes with additional magazine space in the girth and perhaps some amidships, primarily. I fudged factored the missile count (400) as 250 Roland plus 40% girth plus sneaky fit plus a few percent extra, if that makes sense. If nothing else, adding current flatpack pods would up the DDM count quite heavily.

Not at the MaxxQ level (hope I got his moniker right), but I can picture a couple of configurations in my head that would still be somewhat modular. Might be that the hull configuration would look something like \\\\\ mission & crew ///// with an added layer of missile capability <=======> magazine space amidships with the \\\ being the angled tubes, and the equals signs being stowed missiles that can get to the tubes.

Roland-style tubes are not a good idea for your cruiser of the future. They did it on the Roland, but that was because it was the only way to get DDMs onto the Roland. David has told us that it is a poor design. Losing a single tube means you lose several, because they share missile-handling equipment. It was a compromise they were willing to accept on what they knew was a transitional design, but they aren't going to do it for the cruiser of the future.

My Concept for a future cruiser:

12 DDMs per broadside (no chase missile launchers)
Strong Graser chase armament (for size)
30 CM tubes per broadside (or as many as practicable) - Viper Capable
30 PD clusters per broadside, 4-5 PD clusters per chase
2 Platoons of Marines
Drones that emulate the missile telemetry and sensor roles of Keyhole that can be deployed during battle
2 Fusion Plants
Flag Deck
A large boat bay to handle recon drones etc.
Anchor points or tow capacity for Pods
Bow and Stern sidewalls
Strong stealth/ECM capability
Limited MDM control capability

Mission Profile:
Scouting/Anti-Scouting
Convoy Escort
Fleet Picket (messenger pigeon)
Anti-Piracy
Hyper-capable Presence Vessel
System Patrol outside the Hyper Limit

NOT in the Mission Profile:
Fleet Screen
Wormhole Assault
Wormhole Defence
Mine-laying
Construction
Transporting Munitions
Transporting Fuel
Transporting Bulk Goods



There should be another role for a dispatch boat to serve as fleet messengers so Admirals don't have to peel off CA's or BC's just to make a status update. The DB may have basic self defence capability such as CM tubes (viper capable) or sidewalls.

Hey Bob, nice post:

Very quick thoughts: In HoS the "only" major difference between a DD and a CL was traditionally, the Cl has 1 or 2 more missiles per broadside and 1 or 2 more CM's/PDLC's per broadside. So, a Roland is 6 DDM fore/Aft 10CM and 9 PDLC per broadside.

Off hand I would say 8DDM/broadside is the maximum along with no more than double that for CM/PDLC.

Will ruminate on the rest. Gotta go right now.

Of course we have the Avalon class with 20 tubes and only 16CM's/PDLC when every other modern ship design has just as many if not more CM/PDLC's than missile tubes. I have to wonder that BuShips justification/reasoning on this one.

Relax wrote:Hey Bob, nice post:

Very quick thoughts: In HoS the "only" major difference between a DD and a CL was traditionally, the Cl has 1 or 2 more missiles per broadside and 1 or 2 more CM's/PDLC's per broadside. So, a Roland is 6 DDM fore/Aft 10CM and 9 PDLC per broadside.

Off hand I would say 8DDM/broadside is the maximum along with no more than double that for CM/PDLC.

Will ruminate on the rest. Gotta go right now.

Well - in theory, the destroyer is meant for short-range and fleet-related work with an emphasis on combat, and the light cruiser for long-range and independent work with an emphasis on endurance. Between wartime and the run of technological development, that got jumbled some.

I'm not disputing how they tend to fall out in terms of weapon fit though.

Of course we have the Avalon class with 20 tubes and only 16CM's/PDLC when every other modern ship design has just as many if not more CM/PDLC's than missile tubes. I have to wonder that BuShips justification/reasoning on this one.

Yeah, me too. You'd think, if it was going to have an unusual proportion that way, it'd go in the other direction. It's not got a need for a whole lot of firepower for its mission, but being able to survive close encounters with larger, more powerful things - or LAC forces - would be essential. It's even more pronounced when that off-bore fire capability means it can throw powerful broadsides, but the single drive range of those missiles means it may have to suffer a lot of time under fire before it reaches its own range against a genuine peer or somewhat-better-than-peer opponent. (Granted, that last assumes that the Janacek Admiralty - or BuShips wearing the face it showed the First Lord - would have figured on anyone else ever getting DDM's or MDM's.)

BobfromSydney wrote:My Concept for a future cruiser:

12 DDMs per broadside (no chase missile launchers)
Strong Graser chase armament (for size)
30 CM tubes per broadside (or as many as practicable) - Viper Capable
30 PD clusters per broadside, 4-5 PD clusters per chase
2 Platoons of Marines
Drones that emulate the missile telemetry and sensor roles of Keyhole that can be deployed during battle
2 Fusion Plants
Flag Deck
A large boat bay to handle recon drones etc.
Anchor points or tow capacity for Pods
Bow and Stern sidewalls
Strong stealth/ECM capability
Limited MDM control capability

Mission Profile:
Scouting/Anti-Scouting
Convoy Escort
Fleet Picket (messenger pigeon)
Anti-Piracy
Hyper-capable Presence Vessel
System Patrol outside the Hyper Limit

NOT in the Mission Profile:
Fleet Screen
Wormhole Assault
Wormhole Defence
Mine-laying
Construction
Transporting Munitions
Transporting Fuel
Transporting Bulk Goods



There should be another role for a dispatch boat to serve as fleet messengers so Admirals don't have to peel off CA's or BC's just to make a status update. The DB may have basic self defence capability such as CM tubes (viper capable) or sidewalls.

There's probably some room to define terms around "fleet screen", "fleet picket", and "scouting/anti-scouting". Certainly the future cruiser isn't likely to be doing the missile defense job DD's and CL's used to do from the sides or LAC's do now up front, but they may still be doing the recon-with-teeth duty in front and on the flanks of a fleet in hyper, entering a system, entering hyper, or around a system periphery. I'm content to define 'fleet screen' as that missile defense and counter-dangerous-smallfry role and leave the n-space job of that to LAC's, at least for any force large enough to include a CLAC. Smaller than that, and you either use the smaller ships, do it yourself, or go without.

It's probably best to figure that the three roles will shade into one another around the fringes.

For the RMN at least, I don't think there's an interest in trying to have dispatch boats defend themselves. It'd run too much into the grumpiness RFC has about frigates, and how DDM's put a large empty space between LAC's and the Roland, Saganami-C, or their hypothetical future love-child without practical warships in between. Better to optimize for natural points - on the one hand, optimal speed and minimal expense and crew investment, and on the other, the smallest, least expensive thing that remains a solidly capable warship, just large enough to carry the minimal gear to make it definitely worthwhile to arm a hypercapable platform.

There may still be some call for military dispatch boats to keep sensors and/or stealth systems to avoid trouble, insofar as they can, if the resulting expenses (as usual, in procurement, maintenance, and personnel) aren't excessive. My guess is that those are likely to do enough of a job to be worth it better than direct defenses are - if the guess is wrong, I'd abandon the conclusion.

I agree with JeffEngel on the direction of the new cruiser. Having less crew for a lower operating cost of a Nike as the Nike is too expensive for most patrol duties. His plan of reducing on-weapon mount crews is the kind of trade off light ships have to make. Having 40% of the combat power of a Nike BC(L) sounds about right for a cruiser for commerce protection/raiding, scouting, showing the flag and the like. Although I would have Light Cruisers and Heavy Cruisers below the BC(L).

So, I would have the CL be a modification of a Sag-c with the following.

Broadside (each)
10 Mk-16 launchers
6 CA Grasers
30 PD clusters
30 Viper CM tubes

Chase (each)
2 BC Grasers
2 BC Lasers
5 Viper CM tubes
5 PD clusters

A company of Marines for detachments, Keyhole-I, stern wall, two-phase bow wall and upgraded passive defenses to make it more survivable than a Sag-C. By giving up space for the Keyhole, improved passive defenses and having less weapons, that should lower the crew size meaning a lower operating cost. The off bore capability means 20 missiles fired at a time and I would go with 132 control links of the Sag-C for large stacked salvos, viper control and for firing pods limpted to the side of the ship (the same 40 if I could).

I would also like to have a long term pod capablilty as well. So taking a page from the Masquerade class arsenal ships, put in 4 cargo pods in the ship. The Masquerade class is 2 million tons and has 96 cargo pods carrying 4-6 pods a piece (4 MDM or 6 SDM). So figuring each cargo pod is about 20,000 tons in size (2M tons/96 pods), you put 4 of them on the CL for 16 pods in total (80k tons). Since they would be inside the ship, you would have them protected and available for easy maintenance as well as the ability for them to be combat ready over a months long patrol. If you load with Mk-16 pods, then you have 224 missiles or two salvos of 132 missiles with 8 pods and a full broadside. If you load with Mk-23 missiles, you have 160 capital missiles for really long range work or when you have to fight more/bigger ships (CA/BC) than expected. If you have Apollo Pods for some crazy reason, you can light speed control 128 capital missiles for 16 control links, but this would be an abnormal load out. If you have a mission where more troops are needed, put in cargo pods with bunk space. Or some other mission pkg you need in the cargo pod space. This puts the CL at around 560,000 tons if the lower weapon loadout is offset by the keyhole and upgraded defense pkg. So roughly comparable to an Avalon but with upgrade defenses and longer ranged missiles. This also puts the marine detachment back to the traditional company for a CL as multiple RMN officers have mentioned that one of the big short comings of the Sag-C and Rolands was the small crew for detachments. So lower the naval crew, but go back to the traditional marine detachment for a CL. Since the Sag-C also carries a company of troops, you still lower the overall crew size.

So the heavy cruiser would between the above CL and the Nike BC(L). The operating cost may be close enough to a Nike that it might not be built, but I would have something between the above CL and a BC(L). I would go with the following weapons loadout.

Broadside (each)
20 Mk-16 launchers
10 BC Grasers
50 PD clusters
50 Viper CM tubes

Chase (each)
5 BC Grasers
8 Viper CM tubes
8 PD clusters

A short battalion of Marines for detachments, Keyhole-I, stern wall, two-phase bow wall and of course upgraded passive defenses for more survivablity. I would try to fit 8 cargo pods like above for long term pod viability and modular mission capability. You would want around 240 fire control links for stacked salvos, pods and vipers. By going back to the traditional size of a marine detachment, your CA is more able to carry out the traditional detachment missions of CAs in the past. Still would have a lower navy crew, but more than a Sag-C has now for the traditional CA patrol duties.

Edit: Forgot to mention that I would try to get as close as to 120 missiles per broadside launcher as I could to meet the Nike long endurance missile loadout. That would mean 2400 missiles for the CL and 4800 for the CA.

Kizarvexis wrote:<snip>

Edit: Forgot to mention that I would try to get as close as to 120 missiles per broadside launcher as I could to meet the Nike long endurance missile loadout. That would mean 2400 missiles for the CL and 4800 for the CA.

Those missile numbers, while desirable, may be a little high to be realistic. The Sag-C only carried ~1200 shipkillers. Boosting it's capability to hold 4800 missiles total will add ~340,000 tons in missiles alone. Scaling up the hull and propulsion systems, adding the missiles, magazines and handling equipment may drive the Mass of a SAG-C to close to 1,000,000 tons without changing it's other specs or adding combat capabilities. The above mentioned "CL" would mass better than 1/2 a million tons with 2400 Shipkillers and handling hardware taking up ~1/2 that mass.

Theemile wrote:

Kizarvexis wrote:<snip>

Edit: Forgot to mention that I would try to get as close as to 120 missiles per broadside launcher as I could to meet the Nike long endurance missile loadout. That would mean 2400 missiles for the CL and 4800 for the CA.

Those missile numbers, while desirable, may be a little high to be realistic. The Sag-C only carried ~1200 shipkillers. Boosting it's capability to hold 4800 missiles total will add ~340,000 tons in missiles alone.

Agreed, looking at Jaynes via a previous thread covering this ground, it seems like the RMN was comfortable with its DDs holding roughly 10 to 16 full salvos for its offensive missiles. Roland ships 20 full salvos.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4732&start=60#p113390

The RMN historically has been comfortable with 15 to 25 salvos of offensive missiles for its light cruisers.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4732&start=80#p113474
The Sag-c ships between 30 and 33 full salvos.

So a light cruiser would, in my mind probably have a magazine that is deep enough for 20 to 25 full salvos of whatever missile it is shipping. 20 offensive tubes implies maybe 500 missiles in the magazine, and then another 1,000 to 1,500 counter missiles.