What ship?

Dauntless wrote:the only problem with that type of ship is that it can only be used as a fleet/sqaudron escort.

most navies including the fictional ones like a ship that can be used for more then one purpose. The RMN has tried to stay away from designs that are so specialised, as they needed as many ships as they could build.

plus up against current threats (SLN) there is just no call for such a ship and that that is what the keyhole systems are for on the larger combatants.

For that matter, a ship meant to work exclusively near the fleet as a part of its immediate defensive envelope will need to be about as tough as the rest of the wall and won't need to be any faster. So that specialist missile defense unit ought to be built on a SD hull anyway, if it is to be built at all.

SD(P)'s with Keyhole 2 are mightily tough propositions. Making them tougher in a wall now is accomplished with an anti-missile LAC screen, but even those LAC's aren't strictly specialized for that purpose.

I suppose there may be a niche for a SD - non-podlayer - with an exceptionally beefy set of anti-missile defenses, a deep boat bay with more drones of various types even than a standard waller, a modest number of Mk 23 tubes (and perhaps some 23-E tubes), and a slew of Lorelei decoys to cover not only itself in the wall, but also other wallers and to give itself even more protection operating alone. The idea would be that it's a kind of dual specialist unit: an escort with the wall and a BC on steroids operating alone (or with a passel of DD's/CL's for a screen).

I suspect that's still too much of a specialist, and that the two roles are too disjoint for regular deployment. It's just less of an impossible sell.

JeffEngel wrote:

Dauntless wrote:the only problem with that type of ship is that it can only be used as a fleet/sqaudron escort.

most navies including the fictional ones like a ship that can be used for more then one purpose. The RMN has tried to stay away from designs that are so specialised, as they needed as many ships as they could build.

plus up against current threats (SLN) there is just no call for such a ship and that that is what the keyhole systems are for on the larger combatants.

For that matter, a ship meant to work exclusively near the fleet as a part of its immediate defensive envelope will need to be about as tough as the rest of the wall and won't need to be any faster. So that specialist missile defense unit ought to be built on a SD hull anyway, if it is to be built at all.

SD(P)'s with Keyhole 2 are mightily tough propositions. Making them tougher in a wall now is accomplished with an anti-missile LAC screen, but even those LAC's aren't strictly specialized for that purpose.

I suppose there may be a niche for a SD - non-podlayer - with an exceptionally beefy set of anti-missile defenses, a deep boat bay with more drones of various types even than a standard waller, a modest number of Mk 23 tubes (and perhaps some 23-E tubes), and a slew of Lorelei decoys to cover not only itself in the wall, but also other wallers and to give itself even more protection operating alone. The idea would be that it's a kind of dual specialist unit: an escort with the wall and a BC on steroids operating alone (or with a passel of DD's/CL's for a screen).

I suspect that's still too much of a specialist, and that the two roles are too disjoint for regular deployment. It's just less of an impossible sell.

Part of the problem with specialised units are maintenance cycles. The in-universe example are the Prince Consort and Crusader classes of cruisers, which were built in a 7:1 ratio. As up to 25% of ships were down for maintenance at any given time, that led to a problematic lack of active flagships.

As for a SD(E) concept(used in Starfire), the issue I see that is it would basically have the same hull surface area as a SD(P), plus usage of the rear hammerhead sections occupied by pod deployment hatches. The Invictus class has omitted nearly all offensive broadside capacity, mounting a mere ten grasers(the Gryphon had 22, plus 19 lasers, 37 missiles and 8 ET launchers) in order to cram in a whopping 84 CMs and 62 PDs(the G had 28 and 30 respectively).

Comparing the bow and stern of the Invictus, the six pod hatches seems to cost 10 CM launchers and 2 PD clusters. That's not worth exchanging 1000 missile pods for, particularly as there hasn't been textev of any ships larger than LACs managing to empty their countermissile magazines in an engagement.

The LAC anti-missile screen really is the best option for pumping up a fleet's missile defense capacity and will probably remain so until/unless something similar to the concept of Starfire's AFHAWK is introduced.

So the SD(E) actually winds up being a CLAC. Unfortunately, LAC hatches consume a large amount of hull surface area - judging by the lineart in HoS, the CM and PDs are all pushed up and down to the edges of the broadsides.

Hmm. Why rectangular hatches for the LACs? Wouldn't a honeycomb arrangement be more efficient in some ways?

munroburton wrote:
Hmm. Why rectangular hatches for the LACs? Wouldn't a honeycomb arrangement be more efficient in some ways?

Depends on how much support infrastructure you need around the LAC bays, and how much clearance you need between them when doing a 'scramble' LAC launch.

ashinma wrote:

Dauntless wrote:You are a Capitan of the List in the RMN and because you are owed a favour by the fifth space lord you can have your pick of a ship. What ship would you choose? (i'm talking general class, not specific model, though you can specify that as well if you like)

I would probably choose a heavy Cruiser. CA's are often the ship of choice for interdependent commands. They are big enough to fight anything smaller then a BC (assuming its a modern BC) if i end up in a fight but small enough to move quickly if needed.

They (to me) just sound more fun.

Second choice would be Battlecruiser, most of the same benefits as the CA but less likely to be sent off alone, so odds are i'll have someone looking over my shoulder. still a BC is likely to get more interesting (in the Chinese sense of the word) missions assuming i'm not tied up escorting an SD

How about a new class based on either a heavy cruiser or battle cruiser hull. With the large throw weight of missiles being used, Have these ships outfitted with pure anti-missle defense then tie them into a squaden's defense

It has been suggested in the past, and David responded. Unfortunately, it looks like it didn't make it into the Pearls, but it is probably in the archives of the forum here. I don't have time to go looking for it just now, but the upshot is that Manticore would not consider building such a ship because they avoid single-use ships in principle. As I recall, he did not directly address whether anyone else would ever build such a ship. Some have argued here in the past that a sufficiently desperate star nation might build a ship like that if they didn't have a better immediate solution to the problem of massive missile strike. Others have pointed out that, once an enemy realized you were using such ships, they could specifically target those ships with the intent of taking out most of your missile defense in one stroke.

In other words, it may be useful in some circumstances in the short term, but it is a very specialized ship which limits your flexibility.

munroburton wrote:As for a SD(E) concept(used in Starfire), the issue I see that is it would basically have the same hull surface area as a SD(P), plus usage of the rear hammerhead sections occupied by pod deployment hatches. The Invictus class has omitted nearly all offensive broadside capacity, mounting a mere ten grasers(the Gryphon had 22, plus 19 lasers, 37 missiles and 8 ET launchers) in order to cram in a whopping 84 CMs and 62 PDs(the G had 28 and 30 respectively).

Comparing the bow and stern of the Invictus, the six pod hatches seems to cost 10 CM launchers and 2 PD clusters. That's not worth exchanging 1000 missile pods for, particularly as there hasn't been textev of any ships larger than LACs managing to empty their countermissile magazines in an engagement.

The LAC anti-missile screen really is the best option for pumping up a fleet's missile defense capacity and will probably remain so until/unless something similar to the concept of Starfire's AFHAWK is introduced.

So the SD(E) actually winds up being a CLAC. Unfortunately, LAC hatches consume a large amount of hull surface area - judging by the lineart in HoS, the CM and PDs are all pushed up and down to the edges of the broadsides.

Hmm. Why rectangular hatches for the LACs? Wouldn't a honeycomb arrangement be more efficient in some ways?

I tend to agree with your reasoning, and RFC has made it pretty clear that the RMN is uninterested in special purpose warship classes unless there's a vastly compelling advantage that outweighs their single-purpose nature and lack of flexibility.

That said, I wonder how much of the limits on CM tubes is actual spacing / wedge clearance issues and how much is fire control link issues.

Deleting the pods and offensive missiles doesn't just get you back square footage on the aft hammerhead; it also would let you delete all the (larger) MDM fire control links. Doing that frees broadside and hammerhead space that could definitely be used for more CM control links and probably for even more CM tubes as well.

Hull mounted control links are less used for SDs now, with the advent of Keyhole, but presumably you could also design a defense only Keyhole; swapping MDM links at better than 1-to-1 for CM links.


It's probably still not compelling enough to justify an SD(e), but you might be able to scale up the CM fire significantly more than your initial estimate had it.

munroburton wrote:Hmm. Why rectangular hatches for the LACs? Wouldn't a honeycomb arrangement be more efficient in some ways?

There's no point in a honeycomb arrangement when the LACs are roughly rectangular in cross-section. Remember that LACs sit in their bays parallel to the length of the ship. There isn't enough room for them to lie perpendicular to the broadside.

SWM wrote:

munroburton wrote:Hmm. Why rectangular hatches for the LACs? Wouldn't a honeycomb arrangement be more efficient in some ways?

There's no point in a honeycomb arrangement when the LACs are roughly rectangular in cross-section. Remember that LACs sit in their bays parallel to the length of the ship. There isn't enough room for them to lie perpendicular to the broadside.

I thought they docked nose first. Yes, if they dock parallel-wise, then a honeycomb arrangement won't do anything.

munroburton wrote:

SWM wrote:There's no point in a honeycomb arrangement when the LACs are roughly rectangular in cross-section. Remember that LACs sit in their bays parallel to the length of the ship. There isn't enough room for them to lie perpendicular to the broadside.

I thought they docked nose first. Yes, if they dock parallel-wise, then a honeycomb arrangement won't do anything.

I'm also pretty sure they dock nose first. The hatches are drawn roughly square, aren't aren't large enough to allow the LAC to dock parallel to the ship.


But SWM is correct that even on DN sized CLACs there doesn't seem enough room between the LAC bays for much of anything; the LACs almost meet nose to nose in the center of the ship.

Ia Hydra class there's only 44m total to cover the hull hatches, and clearance around the LACs, docking buffers, passages or rooms down the ship centerline, etc, etc. Its 188m wide and a pair of Shrikes combine to 144m long

I'm pretty sure MaxxQ has said they dock lengthwise.

The spacing problem is even worse if one accepts a length-wise docking proposition - the lineart in HoS suggests that there's a maximum of 18 LAC bays on the Minotaur. 18 * 72m length of Shrike/Ferret adds up to 1296. With no spacing between them.

The Minotaur's total hull length is 1131m.

In the Minotaur lineart, there's also a LAC possibly shown for scale. If so, it's at least twice as long as the hatches are.