Initial Navy buildup in Travis' time

Looks like there was/is an evolution in ship classes all the time.

A heavy cruiser today is a light cruiser tomorrow.

I wonder how long it takes that the manticorian sizes for their classes are normal and they start call current small destroyes frigates.

But it is a littel different if something new appeared, like the first battleship. Where would you put this one? Okay should be a new class.

Maldorian wrote:Looks like there was/is an evolution in ship classes all the time.

A heavy cruiser today is a light cruiser tomorrow.

I wonder how long it takes that the manticorian sizes for their classes are normal and they start call current small destroyes frigates.

But it is a littel different if something new appeared, like the first battleship. Where would you put this one? Okay should be a new class.

An 1820 Courageous-class CL masses less than an 1900 Culverin-class DD and just a bit more than the preceding Havoc and Chanson-class DDs from the 1860s.

The Casey-class CLs from the 1530s still mass more than a Noblesse-class DD from 1820.

So it'll take time for the low end of the ship list to creep up in size. My guess is that it happens in bursts, caused by external factors, like the laser head in the 1850s killing the FFs and the creation of the battleship type in the early 1500s.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Maldorian wrote:Looks like there was/is an evolution in ship classes all the time.

A heavy cruiser today is a light cruiser tomorrow.

I wonder how long it takes that the manticorian sizes for their classes are normal and they start call current small destroyes frigates.

But it is a littel different if something new appeared, like the first battleship. Where would you put this one? Okay should be a new class.

An 1820 Courageous-class CL masses less than an 1900 Culverin-class DD and just a bit more than the preceding Havoc and Chanson-class DDs from the 1860s.

The Casey-class CLs from the 1530s still mass more than a Noblesse-class DD from 1820.

So it'll take time for the low end of the ship list to creep up in size. My guess is that it happens in bursts, caused by external factors, like the laser head in the 1850s killing the FFs and the creation of the battleship type in the early 1500s.

I've heard before that warfare at it's base will always come down to the lethality of a man and a knife - because in every situation, a man with a knife can be lethal (ie A Man with a knife (properly executed) can stop a tank by cutting it's fuel line).

In the same vein, a 38,000 ton courier with a 3 cm laser duck-taped to the bow will still be a lethal hyper warship - barely - but still lethal in the correct situation. So your bottom rung of warships (independent of the name applied to it) will always stay anchored at this "minimalist" level, even if no reputable navy uses a ship like that.

Theemile wrote:I've heard before that warfare at it's base will always come down to the lethality of a man and a knife - because in every situation, a man with a knife can be lethal (ie A Man with a knife (properly executed) can stop a tank by cutting it's fuel line).

"The enemy cannot push a button if you disable his hand!"

In the same vein, a 38,000 ton courier with a 3 cm laser duck-taped to the bow will still be a lethal hyper warship - barely - but still lethal in the correct situation. So your bottom rung of warships (independent of the name applied to it) will always stay anchored at this "minimalist" level, even if no reputable navy uses a ship like that.

Even an unarmed ship could be used to ram. A crappy 150g merchantman could destroy a collection of parked warships using only its impeller wedge, if that Navy had crappy - or distracted - security measures.

Wedge-on-wedge collisions are fatal to the weaker impeller field and fatal to both when equivalent. I'm not sure how that works out when a 8MT civilian impeller collides with, for example, a 1MT BC or smaller.

Granted, it's almost impossible for the civilian freighter to force a collision intercept with a powered warship, but there are places it could happen - such as wormhole transit queues.