Relax wrote:Without ability to control FTL missiles, and in light of everyone having MDM Pods for system defense, How can one justify building BC class ships when they cost nearly what an SD'P costs without ability to either control or truly defend against them?
Where did you get the idea that a BC costs nearly as much as an SD? You're skipping two tiers of ships in there, including the dreadnoughts, which only existed in the RMN and PN wall of battle because they were cheaper to build. So there definitely is a cost factor.
A Nike is about 1/4th the tonnage / volume of an Invictus. That should mean it costs 1/4th as much to build, needs 1/4th as many people inside to operate, but also carries 1/4th as much ammunition. If you're actually firing those weapons, the ammunition is going to be your biggest expense. In peace time, that's not so much a running cost, but fixed, and personnel is going to be your largest cost over time.
So why would you build a BC? So you have a ship that can take on anything below the wall. BCs are made to fight other BCs and everything smaller. HMS Fearless barely survived going against MNS Thunder of God and that was only because the Masadans did not know how to operate their ship.
You're right that one BC can't go against a system-defence MDM swarm. No ship can, not a LAC and not an SD alone. But squadrons might: a BatCruRon with escorts, like HMS Nike (BC-413) was part of in SVW, for example, stands a good chance. Task Group 110 was assigned to Hypatia and it was one Nike-class BC, three CAs, one DD and one CLAC. If the CAs had been Sag-C and the CLAC had been there, I doubt the SLN missile fire would have penetrated (Kotouč wouldn't have forced the SLN to fire everything at once).
*** 1) Even Lower tier ships without Keyhole can now turn sideways to incoming fire yet maintain some CM fire control using RD's and this should be happening yesterday to anyone at BuShips in R&D. This allows lower tier ships to obtain the main #1 defensive benefit of Keyhole, yet not carry Keyhole using existing procurement, logistics chain.
That's not what we're told. Yes, that's what R&D should do: turn the Ghost Rider drones into control link relays for missiles. But it hasn't happened yet.
The Keyholes are currently massive, even before the FTL component. No ship smaller than a BC can carry one. Hopefully F&H can shrink them considerably to the point where a 600k tonne CA can carry one, but that won't happen before the 1M tonne BC iteration.
And remember that carrying a Keyhole means dedicating hull space for them, which reduces your tubes for CM or anti-ship missiles and for PDLCs. So the ship had better have enough already.
*** 2) With ability to haul Pods around of a common shape/size, the modern BC class of ships offensive capabilities compared to lower class ships is insignificant. All one has to do is swap pods MFP(Micro Fusion Plant), a job they already do on every RD for indefinite operations.
Bigger ships can carry more. And I'm not completely convinced that carrying them all externally is going to work out that well.
I'm curious to see though. Maybe for peace time, where ships aren't going to be expected to face sustained battles, that will suffice. Putting out a couple of heavy salvos should be more than enough for every conceivable peace-time use. So it might work out, if designed properly, on that 600k-tonne CA.
But the ships need to carry stuff internally too. And if their internal tubes can't fire the same type of missiles, it puts a crimp on the tactics. There's a reason why the Nike does not use pods.
*** 3) Lower tier ships can have just as tough of sidewalls as BC, but no one sees the $$$ reason to put larger sidewall generators in them as traditionally lower throughput laser heads were used with lower classes. MK-16 DDM on Roland clearly upsets this apple cart if the fact of hauling pods around by even the Andies back in 1920, let alone everyone else in 1924+ did not do so already. Thus, the #2 Passive defense is clearly available to ALL classes of Ships and they ALL NEED this upgrade ASAP!
I don't think you can put as tough a sidewall on a smaller ship as a BC can. It's likely the sidewall toughness is a product of the wedge intensity as well as power generation. So you might need a BC-grade impeller ring and dedicate a lot of internal volume for the sidewall generators. That would cut the available volume for missiles in a CA.
In other words, like the FG/DD/CL triad, you can have the legs or the offensive armament, but if you want to have both you end up with the bigger ship.
*** 4) In terms of ACTIVE defensive systems in total, lower class ships have MORE than the BC classes.
Huh?
That is also ignoring the fact that the BC has more armour. Take the list of CM per tonne above: the bigger ships can afford to have fewer defensive emplacements per tonne because a) the square-cube law, meaning that the surface area they need to defend is smaller and b) most of the extra tonnage is actually in the form of armour, so the ship can take some hits.
*** 5) BC class ships are just as vulnerable to shots to the impellers as lower class ships and if any star is in a grav wave, they are hosed just the same.
I don't agree either. Any single impeller node is probably as vulnerable, but a BC has a bigger ring so probably has a bigger redundancy factor and therefore can survive better. Elsewhere than the ring, the armour in the BC will also improve survivability in case a hit does happen. Especially if the missile in question is not a capital-ship or anti-BC missile.
Conclusion: #1-->#5 Leaves the modern BC as dead man walking. With several major caveats of course. Most star nations are so woefully behind the tech curve of the Grand Alliance that they are a viable platform for the next couple decades, but in terms of building MORE of them going forward?
I disagree with the initial conclusion, but I end up agreeing that they don't need many more BCs than they have right now, especially not Nike-sized ones. They need a unit that is going to win against anyone else's BCs and smaller ships, and big enough to be certain to fire DDMs and carry a Keyhole. How big that is, I don't know.
Further Conclusion: If you are a VERY big navy, then one can partially justify the class as there will be enough low tier systems to dominate them if you just show up. But, why not just send 2 modern updated CA's? Same number of personnel and you have 2 hulls instead of 1 with more offensive/defensive systems.
I expect that 4 CAs cost as much as a BC.
The question to be answered is whether 2 CAs can outfight one BC of the same tech level.
Also, if you replace 2 CAs with 1 BC in a squadron like Task Group 110, how much better is it?
