SPOILER end of the MA

Weird Harold wrote:
An Avalon and Roland are probably pretty evenly matched except for magazine capacity. The Avalon can afford more pen-aids in each salvo and can withstand a single Roland's maximum double salvo until the Roland runs dry.

And what good is the Avalon's greater ammunition if the Roland stays outside of their missile range and if I am not mistaking the Roland has more CM's and PD than the Avalon as well as a better acceleration.

Sigs wrote:And as for designing a new ship? So what call it whatever you want but if it eliminates the shortcomings of the Roland who cares? Wether its a DD Roland Class or the CL X class who cares as long as you have a functioning ship with as few faults as you can manage.

Mostly because if you're going to make a bigger ship for that role, you probably ought to make it big enough for a traditional broadside missile arrangement (without going to a CLAC-style 'fat' design that hampers acceleration at a given mass), and at that point you already have a similar-sized design with somewhere between a traditional destroyer and CL's crew complement and number of marines... it's called a Sag-C.

Sigs wrote:The Avalon outperforms the Roland in everything but war fighting which happens to be the most important job of a warship. Building ships based on perfecting peacetime duties while ignoring their wartime missions is asking for trouble... and a lot of it.

no it isn't.

the roland is a destroyer, it has no business going up against the sort of enemies that require a mk 16.

yes it has done so and done it well but only due to the punch the Mod G gives it. a destroyer like a CL is not expected to be killing CA or above. if facing such an enemy it is expected to run. it is that simple.

you are talking like it is Sag C and expected to be sent into major battle, it isn't. it is a light platform meant for scouting, escort work and taking down light enemy units/drones.

cataphracts won't fit on anything less then a CA, which again is not the target of such a light ship. both DDs and CL are too fragile for that sort of combat. ERMs are as big a missile as a light units needs, and it is a very capable missile with a 4.5 minute runtime at a slightly higher accel then the mk 16s 6 minute runtime. a Mk16 does not outshine the ERM on range as much as you might think, barring of course the ballistic ability.

Hitting power via the Mod G warhead is another matter of course but I return to my earlier point a DD is not designed, even by the manties, to kill battlecruisers. when mk16 first came into service its warhead was of similar strength to the ERM.

is greater range a good thing? of course, but the ability to fit that punch came with a lot of compromises. compromises that were accepted because they were up against it and risks and compromises will be accepted in a war design that will not be accepted in peace design. they had only preliminary results of early tests when war resumed. without the resumption they would have been a lot more reluctant to build them in the numbers they have.

I completely agree that a DDM combatant smaller then Sag C but bigger then the roland will likely appear. I also agree that with some work like removing flag stuff and a broadside laser, a roland could be made to work for peace time roles as well as war.

Avalon's should have a better compenster, top line like the roland but even without that it is faster then anything other then a LAC/roland and has roughly 200g accel advantage over any non GA light unit.

Your ideas are good but an Avalon can do the job now

My point is, as it always has been, given who a light unit like a DD or CL are meant to fight the Avalon does a perfectly capable job with no redesign/rebuild work needed, is cheaper and quicker to build.

In 5-10 years who knows how the smaller ships will look RFC has been very quiet on the topic.

drothgery wrote:

Sigs wrote:And as for designing a new ship? So what call it whatever you want but if it eliminates the shortcomings of the Roland who cares? Wether its a DD Roland Class or the CL X class who cares as long as you have a functioning ship with as few faults as you can manage.

Mostly because if you're going to make a bigger ship for that role, you probably ought to make it big enough for a traditional broadside missile arrangement (without going to a CLAC-style 'fat' design that hampers acceleration at a given mass), and at that point you already have a similar-sized design with somewhere between a traditional destroyer and CL's crew complement and number of marines... it's called a Sag-C.

So the Sag C will take over all of the roles of the ships below it and will take over the missions for the BC/BC(L)/BC(P) and then what? The Sag C will be too much ship for most missions that a Roland will normally do, so instead of having 2 upgraded Roland's doing anti-piracy in two different routes/systems you have only 1 Sag C doing the same job in half the places, to do the job of 200 upgraded Roland's and with total tonnage around 48 million tons you will have to commit a total in excess of 90 million tons of Sag C's to do the same mission.


Committing and operating a Sag-C for a mission that is meant for a Roland means that each and every mission will cost twice as much, each and ever mission will tie down twice the manpower and ties down a unit that the RMN will not have in abundance. There are only so many Sag-C's the RMN can have in service and those ships will be forced to do the missions that used to be assigned to BC,CL and DD as well as all of the CA missions.

The Roland has proven itself in combat and it's shortcomings should be addressed and it would become a well rounded warship that can do a wide range of missions for far less in terms of manpower and tonnage than a Sag-C.

Dauntless wrote:
no it isn't.

the roland is a destroyer, it has no business going up against the sort of enemies that require a mk 16.

You mean like other destroyers? Or being able to attack from significant distance thereby not exposing themselves?

yes it has done so and done it well but only due to the punch the Mod G gives it. a destroyer like a CL is not expected to be killing CA or above. if facing such an enemy it is expected to run. it is that simple.

And I am in not way suggesting that they face off a CA or above. It is only a matter of time before other navies start equalizing the technological field, when they start fielding their Roland equivalent units the Roland will have plenty of enemies to go up against, in the mean time it is plenty of ship to meet most missions that the RMN will be facing.

you are talking like it is Sag C and expected to be sent into major battle, it isn't. it is a light platform meant for scouting, escort work and taking down light enemy units/drones.

So you don't think that it would be a good idea to send a destroyer as an escort that can fight back against a Sag-C equivalent? The destroyer may not be meant to engage CA's but if the destroyer is escorting a convoy and an enemy CA comes in for an attack I would much rather my destroyers have the ability to fight back and give the convoy a fighting chance rather than be spectators to the slaughter.

cataphracts won't fit on anything less then a CA,

Great, what about 10 years from now? 20? Is the technological imbalance going to remain over the next 20 years? For the next 5 to 10 years anything lower than a SD doesn't stand a chance against a Roland, just because that is true as of the end of UH doesn't mean it will be so 20 years down the line and when the SLN and the successor nations start fielding their destroyers with their version of Mk16 the RMN will be outclassed if it has the Avalon's and Wolfhounds and will be forced to send out Sag-C's to fight the equivalent of Roland's...sounds like an exceptional use of resources.

which again is not the target of such a light ship. both DDs and CL are too fragile for that sort of combat. ERMs are as big a missile as a light units needs, and it is a very capable missile with a 4.5 minute runtime at a slightly higher accel then the mk 16s 6 minute runtime. a Mk16 does not outshine the ERM on range as much as you might think, barring of course the ballistic ability.

Mk 16's give them enough of a range advantage that makes it worth their while. If the ERM and Mk16 are so close in capabilities why are they not in the magazines of the Sag-C? Or the BC(L)/BC(P)? If there is no major range advantage why go for a missile that takes up more space?

Hitting power via the Mod G warhead is another matter of course but I return to my earlier point a DD is not designed, even by the manties, to kill battlecruisers. when mk16 first came into service its warhead was of similar strength to the ERM.

So when the Destroyers are escorting a convoy the enemy would be nice enough to only send ships that a destroyer can take? It might not be meant to fight CA's but a Roland can make the Captain of a Sag-C pause and approach with caution is if it present in the escort role.

Avalon's should have a better compenster, top line like the roland but even without that it is faster then anything other then a LAC/roland and has roughly 200g accel advantage over any non GA light unit.

For now...

Your ideas are good but an Avalon can do the job now

And when the RMN finds out it cannot do the job anymore it might be in a situation where it cannot replace them. The whole point of building ships during peacetime is to look at them as being able to function for the next decade or two, its not to build ships that are by RMN standards nearly obsolete and will within a decade be obsolete by everyone else standard as well.

My point is, as it always has been, given who a light unit like a DD or CL are meant to fight the Avalon does a perfectly capable job with no redesign/rebuild work needed, is cheaper and quicker to build.

Who would you want to escort your convoy if it were attacked by a couple of Sag-C's, 5 Roland's or 5 Avalon's? Survival for the escorts would be questionable at least but the Roland's can make the Sag-C's sweat a little and buy the merchant ships time while the Avalon can die gloriously while being fired on from far outside their range. One escort can fire back, one escort cannot...

Sigs wrote:

ywing14 wrote:
What specific short come is that? Ammo is always going to be an issue in smaller ships.

It may always be an issue but adding a little more ammunition will mitigate the biggest part of the problem.

It was the issue with BC(P)s as well.

It's an issue with SD(P)'s as well, no-one has enough ammunition...ever. There is difference between thinking you don't have enough ammunition and being dangerously low for a warship, increasing it even by 25% would go a long way to mitigating the problem.

Adding tonnage and redesigning the Roland. You mind as well design a brand new ship at that point. The short comings of the Roland are manageable and really not all that significant given it's advantages.

But now that the GA has some breathing space why not redding and upgrade the Roland? Its one thing being in the middle of a shooting war and not having the time or resources to redesign and upgrade a ship class, but when you have the time to redesign the ships why not take advantage? The GA will likely not be producing a Roland for a few months to a year, take that time to negate the shortcomings.

And as for designing a new ship? So what call it whatever you want but if it eliminates the shortcomings of the Roland who cares? Wether its a DD Roland Class or the CL X class who cares as long as you have a functioning ship with as few faults as you can manage.



I can get on board with removing the flag bridge and either turning it into missile storage or marine space for a squad or 2. But adding tonnage doesn't make sense to me. throw in another 100-150 and make a light cruiser.

If we are going down the road might as well add 250k and make it a Sag C...[/quote]

Exactly my point, if we go down your road we are not building a destroyer. The Saganami-C is silly designation to me. The only reason it was done was to get around Janeck and his build down. I agree ammo will always be an issue but I like the Roland as it stands man power issues aside. Scrap most of the flag bridges and use that space but don't add more size. Since it's already as big as most light cruisers.

Sigs wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:
An Avalon and Roland are probably pretty evenly matched except for magazine capacity. The Avalon can afford more pen-aids in each salvo and can withstand a single Roland's maximum double salvo until the Roland runs dry.

And what good is the Avalon's greater ammunition if the Roland stays outside of their missile range and if I am not mistaking the Roland has more CM's and PD than the Avalon as well as a better acceleration.

Sigs is right, the Avalon is actually smaller the a Roland. 144000 tons to 188000 respectively.

Sigs wrote:So the Sag C will take over all of the roles of the ships below it and will take over the missions for the BC/BC(L)/BC(P) and then what?

Who said that?

LACs will take over almost all of the duties of DDs and CLs anchored to a fixed location or a fleet.

Sag-Cs (or something similar-sized) will only take the DD & CL roles that need an independent, hyper-capable ship, because IMO they're the smallest viable hyper-capable warship once something resembling current RMN tech is widely available. The Rolands were explicitly designed to take advantage of a transitory tech imbalance, and no one in-universe expects them to viable long-term. And another 50Ktons is not enough to change that.

Nikes will take BC roles (though unless they build a Mark-16 Kammerling variant, they'll be stuck doing most jobs that take a traditional CA's complement of marines, too).

sigs you make good points which I completely agree with and and have said as much before but you seem to be missing the most important thing.

making the changes you suggest make a DD into a CL and RFC himself has said when others have brought up the idea about DDM CL, that the RMN feels there is no need for a DDM equipped light cruiser.

now that may just be RFC trying to keep details under his hat, we don't know but it is his universe and we must live with it.

[shrug]

we can discuss this until the sun goes nova but until RFC gets around to commenting we are just going to keep rehashing the same arguments.

ywing14 wrote:
Exactly my point, if we go down your road we are not building a destroyer. The Saganami-C is silly designation to me. The only reason it was done was to get around Janeck and his build down. I agree ammo will always be an issue but I like the Roland as it stands man power issues aside. Scrap most of the flag bridges and use that space but don't add more size. Since it's already as big as most light cruisers.

In your opinion is the Sag-C a CA, BC, BB or SD then? Just because it doesn't bear too much resemblance to its Sag-A/B predecessors doesn't mean it is not a heavy cruiser. A Name of a class is just a name, the Frigate class CL of the People's navy didn't magically change it into a frigate, so wether you call the Sag-C a Sag-C or a Super Dreadnaught Class Heavy cruiser doesn't change the ships actual classification and/or capabilities.

What I am suggesting is to use the same resources you would use on one Sag-C to build two modern, capable and well rounded destroyers that can meet the needs of the RMN's expending responsibilities for years to come and if push comes to shove can fight back. They can be doing two different mission at the same time, they can be patrolling two different routes, escorting two different convoys, showing the flag in two different systems etc etc etc... Saying that taking a ship of 190k tons and adding 50k tons to eliminate it's shortcomings is the same as adding 300k tons seems a little ridiculous. Adding 50k tons to a Roland, still means that the RMN can field two of them for the price of one Sag-C.

If you have a hundred missions for the Roland you send 100 Roland's but if the Sag-C is the smallest capable warship you have to send the equivalent of 200 Roland's to do the job of 100 ships or you have to maintain a fleet of 100 subpar ships that can't meet all of the needs the RMN places on a destroyer.