Beating up Frontier Fleet, mercilessly

kzt wrote:A LAC is 72 meters long and 20 meters by 20 meters wide and high and weighs 20,000 tons. This a lot more then a missile pod. I'm not at all sure you can fit that through the engineering spaces.

8 of them end to end would be 576 meters long, which is over 1/2 of the length of a Nike. If you go to a 4 x 2 cell you need a space probably 80 meters x 30 meters x 25 meter per to do maint and reload them, so you need a compartment 120 meters wide by 50 high meters by 80 meters long. Considering the armor system is multiple meters deep, you'd pretty much need to remove the magazines and most of the broadside weapons to fit this.

A CLAC is just over 6 Million tons and a Nike-class BC is 2.5 million tons. The Nike is coming up close to half the size of a CLAC. And as the CLAC can carry 112 LACs I'm finding it hard to accept that just 8 LACs are going to completely gut a Nike-class size BC of its missile tubes and magazines.

StealthSeeker wrote:The BC/LAC that I have in mind would be a cross between a Agamemnon-class pod BC and a Nike-class BC. It would carry it's 8 LACs racked internally which it would launch sequentially out a single hatch in the aft hammerhead just like the Agamemnon would launch missile pods. It would limpet 8 to 12 Mk16 missile pods to the outside of the hull. It would most likely have a reduced missile tube count from the Nike, say only 40 tubes rather than 50. But each tube would be the same double launch off-bore tubes firing Mk16s that the Roland-class destroyers have. If it could launch 4 pods of Mk16s with a full double launch broadside, it would send 136 missiles down range at a time. That would be enough to at least mission kill 2 SLN BC's on each of it's first 3 broadside launches. It could then use just it's internal tubes to send 80 missile broadsides at remaining ships. Defensively it would be an incredibly tough target as it would maintain the armor of the Nike and be able to fire it's broadsides while maintaining a wedge to target aspect just like the Nike-class BC and that would be supported by it's 8 LACs anti-missile capabilities.

A full squadron of 8 of these ships could be sent into just about any situation with confidence it would win. Even half squadrons of 4 of these would be tough. And can you see sending individual ships of this class into commerce raiding? It could take out the embedded cruisers or destroyers and then send off the LACs to intercept the scattering cargo ships. If I captured 6 cargo ships I could offload the crews of 5 ships onto the sixth. Then take the 5 and let the sixth go.

Better to have them bow-launched, with a super-sized LAC "rotary missile launcher" concept to get the LAC's out. Point your Battlecruiser at the enemy from way way beyond engagement ranges, and Mass Driver's are flinging your LAC's at high velocity (damped of course by the BC's compensator field, and LAC grav plates until the LAC wedge flips on) and then turning away to clear what tiny broadside you have left. You could "flush" your LACs in about 30 seconds using the rotary launcher.

But I also don't think you're fitting in 8 Shrike's into even a Nike-hull, and retaining any broadside at all. Shrike's are huge, and an Aggy(p) shoots herself dry in under an hour. Even a Nike-class is going to have difficulty cramming more than 4 comfortably, and able to be servicing those LAC's inside. 4 inside, and possibly limpet 2-4 more externally might work.

Doing it frontally allows you to keep your after-chase weapons, which is useful when trying to run away. Can't always count on having the most advanced technology, and someone is eventually going to have the same firepower & speed.

But a frontal mounted mass driver, flinging any huge mass of metal (like a LAC) is starting to move into Mass Effect/HALO MAC guns. (New super weapon from Hemphill maybe?)

http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Codex/ ... ace_Combat
http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Magnetic_Accelerator_Cannon


The other issue with trying to go for internally stored LACs, with anything other than DN/SD purpose-built, or the potential "LAC module" for freighters which are as large as, or bigger than, SD's.... by the time you can roll out a brand new design, either your tech advantage disappears (SLN equalizes tech imbalance), or you don't need that ship anymore (SLN just imploded, MAlign may be defeated, etc)


A CLAC also carries exactly zero broadside, any weapons CLAC's have are mounted in the hammerhead's, and being they are Superdreadnoughts, their hammerheads also have room to store the 100t, 10m long missiles. The only things on the broadside of a CLAC is PDLC's, which are relatively small (although long). CLAC's also fit the LAC's in head-on, because they're 200m wide (for Minotaur-class DNs). 80m for a LAC length, you can squeeze LAC's into both broadsides for a DN/SD, while a Battlecruiser is much much smaller.

The LACs in a carrier enter via the side. You don't need huge shafts running though the engine rooms and the aft potion of the ship. You also don't have a couple of 5 meter thick armor layers occupying space, or deal with 25 meter long broadside weapons.

Somtaaw wrote:A CLAC also carries exactly zero broadside, any weapons CLAC's have are mounted in the hammerhead's, and being they are Superdreadnoughts, their hammerheads also have room to store the 100t, 10m long missiles. The only things on the broadside of a CLAC is PDLC's, which are relatively small (although long). CLAC's also fit the LAC's in head-on, because they're 200m wide (for Minotaur-class DNs). 80m for a LAC length, you can squeeze LAC's into both broadsides for a DN/SD, while a Battlecruiser is much much smaller.

A CLAC carries CM tubes in its broadsides in addition to PDLCs.

Can I point out once again that RFC has already nixed this idea? http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... ngton/73/1

SWM wrote:Can I point out once again that RFC has already nixed this idea? http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... ngton/73/1

This has gone from the escort CLAC to some sort of mutant hybrid thing - a BC(P) with LAC's for pods, kinda. The notion seems to be figuring out how small a warship you can get and still support a few LAC's for... purposes?

The most important purpose seems to be remote LAC-based missile defense, like the wall of battle may need against MDM's. I think the best answer to that is to adjust your expectations so that BC's do not try to survive and engage in that kind of environment. The defensive compromises that are being considered here, for a unit apparently meant to travel alone (else two specialist units would be used instead!), seem to me to be clearly far too much to consider for the benefit 8 LAC's may provide.

Missile carriage, pod carriage, LAC carriage - they do NOT go well together. Build ships for any one of them. Consider a second - missile carriage - a marginal sideline for something built around one of the other two. If you want several of those capabilities, build two ships. It's okay!

StealthSeeker wrote:It would limpet 8 to 12 Mk16 missile pods to the outside of the hull.

How many times does the point that limpeting pods is a SHORT-TERM OPTION need to be made. RMN pods have built in tractors and limited power to activate them. At best pods can be limpeted for a day or two before they have to be refueled and refurbished.


The half-pods seen on Andermani BCs and the Frigates carried by the Hali Sowle were in racks that physically attached them to the hull. One was an interim solution to provide larger, longer ranged missiles in a hurry (and hasn't been seen since) and the other is a tramp freighter without the sensors and point defense installations on the hull that a warship needs.

Technically, since the ship is in zero G based on the compensator, you could attach the pods with velcro dots.

kzt wrote:Technically, since the ship is in zero G based on the compensator, you could attach the pods with velcro dots.

May be...

How would you go about releasing them when you need to deploy them?

Weird Harold wrote:How would you go about releasing them when you need to deploy them?

Blasting caps.