Old School Destroyer / Light Cruiser role, in the MDM era.

Is there a ship in the Current era of Manty ships that can fulfill this role better than the Nike? It seems that the Nike has the correct crew to old destroyer level. It also seems that the Nike is super overkill in every way. Perhaps even that the oversizing and massive crew reduction levels in the latest move was for a military role only. Roland seems unable to fit a Destroyer or Light cruiser role. Even the Saganami C seems to lack the crew to fit the roles of a cruiser in On Basilisk Station. The Nike seems to fit the main roles yet could just pound the Q ship into dust. Maybe that creates a problem. A Roland would turn the Masadan / Grayson set of books into a different result, except no marines would have rescued anyone. What Marines? A Nike again that is just overkill. A Saganami C could have cut the naval engagements down to a few lines in a paragraph. One might suppose the Salamander might be called something else. No massive crew losses. Maybe the Mamba or Cobra?

Umm, the Nike is a Battlecruiser, not a Destroyer. A 2.5 million ton BC would make a silly DD and a wolfhound would make a terrible SD(p).

I've been looking at the Gryphon SD after its refit, and assuming a Star Empire with Silesian Crews and each star system and each planet therein with a new Station with dispersed yards a la Grayson. With 200-225 Sphinx Gryphon Devenski Ben the Great SD spread over 34 systems 5 to 7 per system, undergoing massive refit, for that better learning phase and to produce a set of secure ships in peacetime. Teaching ships, and ability to bring a successor to the Nike and even Pod layer SD.

Silesian SD. Mk23 MDM tube launched. Keyhole II, SD grasers improved, SD Armour eliminates pirates and raiders in the MDM era, Reduced crew levels, but still lots of crew spaces to jump start the systems. 10-20 years from now each Silesian system could field everything Grayson currently fields. Yet could do it in a better way.

Silesian Class SD.

8.3 mega ton with Invictus Wedge.
Keyhole II.

Broadside: 48 Mk23 tubes, 36 Grasers, 72 CM, 62 PD.
Fore and Aft: 4 Apollo tubes, 5 Grasers, 24 CM, 24 PD.

1000 - 1500 Crew.

With stacked missile fire the Silesian SD can fire the same ~ missile salvo of an Invictus, in full Apollo control. Such missile salvos are around 200 missiles not 200 Apollo missiles plus 8-12 Mk23's per ship. The Silesian with a double stacked missile salvo can fire 192 Mk23's with 16 Apollo missiles. This maxes current Apollo to their max 12 missiles. 8 was put into the pods to keep their dimension. As for the argument that putting the Apollo in the Hammerheads is bad as an aft attack could knock out half the Apollo tubes. Such an attack would kill all pod laying in a SD(P). Besides with one hammerhead knocked out, the front Hammerhead could quad stack Apollo missiles and maintain it's Salvo density.

As Apollo tubes and Mk23 tubes are able to fire smaller Fusion missiles in peace time one could also fire Mk16's. Keeping a few Mk23's in reserve if need be.

With 100 missiles per tube. A Silesian SD is capable of firing more Salvo's than an Invictus. The Pod layer SD is great. But is something of a specialist ship. Nothing that you would use in Peacetime. The Silesian SD could be a one ship for all purpose design. The Star Empire doesn't have the crew restrictions of the Star Kingdom. Silesia has 34 Star systems, with 1-3 planets per system. Each system will eventually have a full LAC and System defense Pod layout. Each system will have a large number of transports and needs and a large number of crew. Excessive numbers for the modern era ships.

Manticore already has a huge civilian fleet. With 500-1000 SD(P) parked awaiting the next threat, parked next to 200-400 CLAC. With 250 Roland Escort Destroyers, 500 Saganami C Cruisers, and 125 Nike with a few 50 Agamemnon Escort CLAC. One might argue for 500 Roland and 500 Nike with 125 Escort Carriers.

The Silesian SD lets you have an overkill Super Cruiser. One ship for all roles. The Silesian SD can use the massive crew numbers and in the MDM era can field 50 Silesian SD each system. 1700 ships. 50,000-75,000 active crew and half that number of beached crew per system. Alternating two years on one year off each. Silesian SD will be able to project Manticoran power continuously. It is capable of fighting and winning against anything one on one. Over power anything outside of a full pod layer load of missiles fired without guidance. Then again what can survive that? Even a Nike is outclassed.

The Talbot Cluster could do a similar thing. A Sister ship the Talbot SD or SC. (Super Cruiser).

Perhaps this is the kind of ship that could replace the SD(P) and Nike as well. Maybe the Saganami C D & E whatever they are. Maybe not.

kzt wrote:Umm, the Nike is a Battlecruiser, not a Destroyer. A 2.5 million ton BC would make a silly DD and a wolfhound would make a terrible SD(p).

You are going to love my next suggestion then.

You're sort of right in that the new designs don't have the crew capacity to pull off the kinds of things older ships could.

Frankly, that's part of why I suspect that Manticore may well consider employing less fully-integrated Marine components on their ships in the future.

For that matter, I fully expect that the next-generation light combatant built by Manticore is going to be bigger than a Sag-C, and it's basically going to do everything that you don't want to use a battlecruiser for.
I expect a significant slimming down in ship types, at least for a time - a "light combatant" (basically a Sag-C plus defensive Keyhole), possibly with a variant with significantly enhanced Marine capacity and room for a significant amount of extra crew, the BC(L) (Nikes, or their successors), SD(P)s, CLACs, and the various LACs (likely mostly Ferret and Katana successors, not Shrikes)

Kytheros wrote:You're sort of right in that the new designs don't have the crew capacity to pull off the kinds of things older ships could.

Frankly, that's part of why I suspect that Manticore may well consider employing less fully-integrated Marine components on their ships in the future.

For that matter, I fully expect that the next-generation light combatant built by Manticore is going to be bigger than a Sag-C, and it's basically going to do everything that you don't want to use a battlecruiser for.
I expect a significant slimming down in ship types, at least for a time - a "light combatant" (basically a Sag-C plus defensive Keyhole), possibly with a variant with significantly enhanced Marine capacity and room for a significant amount of extra crew, the BC(L) (Nikes, or their successors), SD(P)s, CLACs, and the various LACs (likely mostly Ferret and Katana successors, not Shrikes)

What would I design? Roland B, would be about 10% bigger, (210k Tons) has a squad of marines which would partially fix what is IMO the rolands most glaring problem.

From wikipedia:
Roland (Frankish: Hruodland) (died 15 August 778) was a Frankish military leader under Charlemagne


The Charlemagne light cruiser. 6 DDM tubes and a single shrike graser each fore and aft. Twice the missile storage of the roland. a full platoon of marines. would be about 250K tons.

IMO the kitty is a good CA.