Roland Peacetime duties

munroburton wrote:The notional DDM CL runs into a couple of issues.

Firstly, the Sag-C is the minimum width required for both broadsides to have DDM launchers. This means a DDM CL needs to be as fat as the Sag-C - and it loses compensator efficiency if its length doesn't match.

Secondly, the Roland packed all its DDM launchers into a very unconventional hammerhead arrangement whereby its launchers are fed by the same magazines and loading mechanisms. This system is indeed very compact, but it's vulnerable to battle damage. One hit potentially kills half this ship's missile firepower.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Sigs wrote:Building a DD that can operate with the manpower of a CA during peacetime but could engage automation and operate with 1/3 of the crew during wartime is different. Have 100 DD's with 180 Crew on board and another 200 DD's in reserve, if war breaks out you engage the automation and within a few weeks or months you could get 300 DD's instead of 100.

Well one issue with that is that automation doesn't uniformly eliminate 2/3rd of the crewing for each position - it disproportionately affects lower position highly duplicated positions (gun mount crews (including marines), junior techs, etc, etc)

So while I'm somewhat in favor of a flex-manning design that can be "overmanned" with marines and prize crew for detached ops you can't gets 2 more ships complete crews just by stripping that one ship back to normal. Not without a significant leavening of command personnel, departments heads, senior noncoms, etc.


I don't think anybody on a destroyer is senior enough to be on the List, so I don't think any of them are elegantly for being beached on half pay. Though I guess there are other forms of naval reserve they could be transferred to to reduce personnel costs. And some of them could be cycled through enlarged or lengthened shoreside training billets to keep them fresh and available for recall should the DD force need to go back on a war footing.

munroburton wrote:

Dauntless wrote:I have to admit that RFCs decsion to have CLs smaller then a DD is odd.

every other combatant class (bar LAC of course) has been revamped to fire at least DDMs, where as the GA's most modern CL is still only SDM capable.

I know the roland was supposed to be something of a test but surely there has been enough use of them by now for at least talk of DDM CL to be floating around the fleet even if due to the loss of the Hepestus etc they have not gotten around to building it.

The notional DDM CL runs into a couple of issues.

Firstly, the Sag-C is the minimum width required for both broadsides to have DDM launchers. This means a DDM CL needs to be as fat as the Sag-C - and it loses compensator efficiency if its length doesn't match.

Secondly, the Roland packed all its DDM launchers into a very unconventional hammerhead arrangement whereby its launchers are fed by the same magazines and loading mechanisms. This system is indeed very compact, but it's vulnerable to battle damage. One hit potentially kills half this ship's missile firepower.

darrell wrote:that is both true and false. using traditional building techniques with missile tubes opposite each other it it true. A top down view would show:
|<----M M---->|

But alternate the missile tubes and you don't have that problem.
|<----M L->|
|<-L M---->|
Your light cruiser option one

or put the starbord and port weapons on different decks, a frontal view:
|<----M . |
| . M---->|

Duckk wrote:Even without an armored core, the core hull of DDs and CLs contains stuff, like fusion plants(s). Some of that stuff may not fit between your staggered weapons. Alternatively, staggering the weapons will displace those core components towards one side of the hull or the other, making them a bit more vulnerable. At the very least, zig-zagging the core components just to fit them into the remaining sliver of internal space would be a nightmare.

As for having multiple weapon decks, that's only doable if the ships is sufficiently tall enough. It took until the Star Knight (300 ktons) to reach that point.

Jonathan_S wrote:

munroburton wrote:The notional DDM CL runs into a couple of issues.

Firstly, the Sag-C is the minimum width required for both broadsides to have DDM launchers. This means a DDM CL needs to be as fat as the Sag-C - and it loses compensator efficiency if its length doesn't match.

Secondly, the Roland packed all its DDM launchers into a very unconventional hammerhead arrangement whereby its launchers are fed by the same magazines and loading mechanisms. This system is indeed very compact, but it's vulnerable to battle damage. One hit potentially kills half this ship's missile firepower.

The other issue is that the number of hammerhead DDM launchers appears to be limited by the inner diameter of the forward impeller rooms - because they stick back into the main hull through the ring they form. And my understanding is that a Roland's 6-pack basically fills the usable diameter.

So even if BuShips were willing to accept the same vulnerable arrangement on a larger CL I don't think the impeller room interior diameter would increase sufficiently to squeeze any more tubes in. So you'd have a CL with exactly the same throw weight as the earlier DD.

OTOH you should have room for slightly bigger magazines, and could enlarge the crew, restoring some marines, plus some more bunkerage and stores. That increased combat and patrol endurance would arguably make an enlarged Roland a cruiser by type, despite having no more offensive power than the original Roland...

MaxxQ wrote:

Duckk wrote:Even without an armored core, the core hull of DDs and CLs contains stuff, like fusion plants(s). Some of that stuff may not fit between your staggered weapons. Alternatively, staggering the weapons will displace those core components towards one side of the hull or the other, making them a bit more vulnerable. At the very least, zig-zagging the core components just to fit them into the remaining sliver of internal space would be a nightmare.

As for having multiple weapon decks, that's only doable if the ships is sufficiently tall enough. It took until the Star Knight (300 ktons) to reach that point.

And part of the reason for that is that the tubes and magazines take up about three decks or more - two decks for energy weapons.

Bill Woods wrote: If a Roland's bow and stern tubes can be closely packed, why can't broadside tubes?

Bill Woods wrote:If a Roland's bow and stern tubes can be closely packed, why can't broadside tubes?