The cruiser future in the RMN - another go

Kizarvexis wrote:The Shadow of Saganami
Cpt Terekhov has just hit Eroica Station and the Sag-C HMS Hexapuma has 1,155 missiles left, so has 96% of the normal loadout left. The oncoming Monican BCs are coming and he has 54 potential salvos before they are in range, but only 33 rounds per tube.

A Rising Thunder
Cpt Ivanov has a short division of Sag-Cs and four Roland DDs. In volley Alpha, he keeps the Rolands out of the demonstration attack to conserve ammo.

Shadow of Freedom
Cpt Zavala considers giving a warning like Cpt Ivanov did in Zunker, but with the limited amount of ammo per tube, goes with Fire Plan Sledgehammer instead of some type of warning.

Kizarvexis wrote:The RMN is also evidently worried about a lot of engagements over a long patrol. Since you don't like my explanation above from the infodumps, lets use some textev then.

The Shadow of Saganami
Cpt Terekhov has just hit Eroica Station and the Sag-C HMS Hexapuma has 1,155 missiles left, so has 96% of the normal loadout left. The oncoming Monican BCs are coming and he has 54 potential salvos before they are in range, but only 33 rounds per tube.

A Rising Thunder
Cpt Ivanov has a short division of Sag-Cs and four Roland DDs. In volley Alpha, he keeps the Rolands out of the demonstration attack to conserve ammo.

Shadow of Freedom
Cpt Zavala considers giving a warning like Cpt Ivanov did in Zunker, but with the limited amount of ammo per tube, goes with Fire Plan Sledgehammer instead of some type of warning.

That's three right off the top of my head, not to mention RFC's infodump that the Nike's 120 rounds per tube were for extended endurance in missile engagements. Like I said earlier, the two biggest complaints on the new ships were low manpower for detachments and not enough ammo for extended ops.

As for the math of various engagments Relax, we know you don't like them. I go with adjustments on the part of the RHN as Adm Theisman is no dummy and will have the navy make adjustments. The RMN does. Same thing on the differences in SLN intercept hits on various battles. It has been mentioned previously that changing the EW in battle can greatly change the outcome, so a decent handwavium for the differences.

kzt wrote:

Kizarvexis wrote:The Shadow of Saganami
Cpt Terekhov has just hit Eroica Station and the Sag-C HMS Hexapuma has 1,155 missiles left, so has 96% of the normal loadout left. The oncoming Monican BCs are coming and he has 54 potential salvos before they are in range, but only 33 rounds per tube.

A Rising Thunder
Cpt Ivanov has a short division of Sag-Cs and four Roland DDs. In volley Alpha, he keeps the Rolands out of the demonstration attack to conserve ammo.

Shadow of Freedom
Cpt Zavala considers giving a warning like Cpt Ivanov did in Zunker, but with the limited amount of ammo per tube, goes with Fire Plan Sledgehammer instead of some type of warning.

Functionally, all your examples are ONE major engagement. The only multiple major engagements without resuppply I can think of is in HoQ, and it really didn't require Fearless to dig too deeply into her magazines to crush the Masada ships.

The other minor possibility you are not considering with some of these cases is that the actual problem the RMN has with ammo isn't the magazine capacity, it is due to the very limited reloads as someone went and blowed up real good all the factories and the main ammo reserves.

A Rishing Thunder Chapter 3 wrote:
At the moment, Hiram Ivanov's ships had literally dozens of missile pods limpeted to their hulls as well, and those missile pods were loaded full capability Mark 23 multidrive missiles, with even more endurance and powered range (and heavier laser heads) than the Mark 16. MDM's were in shorter supply than Mark 16s, though, and Ivanov had no intention of using them up unless he had to. So Volley Alpha used only the cruisers internal tubes, and even the Roland-class destroyers attached to his force were mere spectators at the moment. They had barely a quarter of the cruisers magazine capacity, and Ivanov had no more intention of wasting their limited ammunition than he did of wasting MDMs.

Relax wrote:Kiz: DD/CL have less than 20 salvos/tube for offensive considerations traditionally. Roland has 20: SAG-C has 30.

Now you are proposing a CL that has 20 tubes and 2400 missiles? Or 120 reloads! 6X more than any previous DD/CL design?

Really?

EDIT: Lets cut half the missile load and see what we get: 1200x100tons is a tidy 120,000 tons or approx a pair of real Keyholes... What is more important 1200 missiles you will never use in a CL or a Keyhole making your ship vastly superior defensively?

Kizarvexis wrote: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.

Relax wrote:EDIT: Remember, DD/CL do not have armor outside of its fusion rooms for CA class laser heads.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Kizarvexis wrote:The RMN is also evidently worried about a lot of engagements over a long patrol. Since you don't like my explanation above from the infodumps, lets use some textev then.

The Shadow of Saganami
Cpt Terekhov has just hit Eroica Station and the Sag-C HMS Hexapuma has 1,155 missiles left, so has 96% of the normal loadout left. The oncoming Monican BCs are coming and he has 54 potential salvos before they are in range, but only 33 rounds per tube.

A Rising Thunder
Cpt Ivanov has a short division of Sag-Cs and four Roland DDs. In volley Alpha, he keeps the Rolands out of the demonstration attack to conserve ammo.

Shadow of Freedom
Cpt Zavala considers giving a warning like Cpt Ivanov did in Zunker, but with the limited amount of ammo per tube, goes with Fire Plan Sledgehammer instead of some type of warning.

That's three right off the top of my head, not to mention RFC's infodump that the Nike's 120 rounds per tube were for extended endurance in missile engagements. Like I said earlier, the two biggest complaints on the new ships were low manpower for detachments and not enough ammo for extended ops.

As for the math of various engagments Relax, we know you don't like them. I go with adjustments on the part of the RHN as Adm Theisman is no dummy and will have the navy make adjustments. The RMN does. Same thing on the differences in SLN intercept hits on various battles. It has been mentioned previously that changing the EW in battle can greatly change the outcome, so a decent handwavium for the differences.

Ok, but each of those situations is ships punching way, way out of their weight class.

SoS was a CA taking on BCs while on the wrong end of 3-1 odds.

ART was 3 CAs + 4 DDs scaring off 6 BCs. The fact that Ivanov didn't throw in extra missiles in his demo shows prudence, but not that the Rolands are critically short on rounds in the DDM environment (though I don't doubt that their captains would prefer more rounds; all else being equal)

And SoF was 5 DDs taking on 4 BCs; so 3 weight classes their superior.

It's kind of crazy to make long term design plans based around the missile loadouts needed to fight 6 times your weight of metal. That's a temporary tech imbalance aberration; something to take advantage of while it lasts but you build ships based on the idea that sooner or later they have to come up against an equal opponent. You consider missile usage in a number of commerce protection/anti-piracy encounters, or based on expected combat effectivens against a near-peer of similar power. But being pounded to scrap with 50% full magazines means you should have spend your tonnage budget on other things -- and putting that many missiles in just because you hope to continue killing obsoleted BCs with DDs doesn't lead to a long term balanced design. You're overgunning it just because you don't need appear to need more defenses at the moment against obsolete ships.

Kizarvexis wrote: he was also concerned with the Rolands lack of endurance of their magazines.

Kizarvexis wrote:

Relax wrote:EDIT: Remember, DD/CL do not have armor outside of its fusion rooms for CA class laser heads.

Um, the reason we are proposing such large ships is to seriously upgrade the defenses on said ships in the more dangerous threat environment. The RMN likes to have reasonalble survivability and the lighter ships need more mass for that survivability.

Relax wrote:

Kizarvexis wrote: he was also concerned with the Rolands lack of endurance of their magazines.

NIT: He was not worried about their endurance. He was worried about their capacity.