It does what a Roland does better than a Roland and does what a Roland can't do. It is even better than A Squadron of Rolands. Better than Half a squadron of Saganami C's. It also solves the problem of never having enough ship, or the more recent problem of not having enough crew.
Still it is a bit weird in its Roland design.
One could have it with upgradeable tubes for both Mk16's and or Mk23's even Apollo. With ammunition feeds that can accommodate current and future missiles or combinations of them.
Unlike other pod designs one could lose a rear hammerhead and still maintain full albeit stacked firepower, (Even have feeds that pass missiles from each chase to the other) add in the dual Keyhole 1's or single Keyhole 2 or combination one of each per broadside. Might even fit dual Keyhole 2's. This allows a ship that can do everything a current Podlayer can plus act as a smaller ship with less crew too. A Peacetime Cruiser a War time Waller, a singular design to fill all the roles. Instead of a ship with but a single role. Good at what it does but like a Roland bad at everything else.
A Nike is similar but even that is limited. Way too limited number of tubes. It seems that all Manty some might say Honorverse ships are limited to a single role. really good at one role and really bad at anything else. Even the Hemphill goofball ships are really bad at everything and really good at one thing, or sometimes two.
Broadsides have a problem, this is addressed at both ends of the spectrum, the LAC which has no broadside and the Roland which is energy and CM only, to the SD(P) which has the same thing. No Broadside missile tubes outside of CM's. Keyhole 1, 2 or both. Broadsides seem to do too much. They work great for limited energy mounts, CM and PD plus Keyhole. Everytime you mount anything else in the broadside you have a compromised designed ship. Wolfhound has the Mk36 terrible missile, As does the CL. Kammerling has a specific role and does it but does nothing else well. Even the Saganami C as good as it is, lacks the crew and marines it needs. Great fighting lesser ships but take away its missile advantage and it is a pokey little ship. Not enough crew and terrible defenses. Against another Saganami C your lucky if you survive more lucky if you both don't die. The Nike can survive but only because it lacks the missile tubes to kill itself or anything else like it or anything greater than it. CLAC has a broadside weakness. Any ship that hits it kills it. Old school SD and DR had heavy armour and broadsides but they were too limited on missiles that fired like guns or ported cannon greatships. But that was the design inspiration and the ships evolved away from that.
Chase Missiles, Broadside Guns and defenses, Keyhole with indestructible wedge defense. Although if how MWW described on these forums the missile salvo design of Pod layers, keyhole really won't matter. Fastest salvo size without stacking for density is best.
Add in more than one role or any role for a ship and you have your solution. Honor showed with her capture too little of a ship is always bad. Ships with glaring weaknesses are bad. Surprise is great but only works once. You need a ship that can do every aspect of the job and that is a Dreadnaught sized ship, with chase tubes and Laser rich broadside. And if you need more you need LAC mounted Pods with larger Salvo sizes and stealth. And for transports you need not a civilian run cut costs at all other costs and accept pirate losses mentality bit to introduce a ship that can haul everything get it there intact and if it cost more too bad, we value our crews and ships more than you value your cheap shipping.
