Your Nations Warships, MKII

[The Soodean Imperium]

People stopped building dreadnoughts before WWII for a reason: they came up with much better ideas. Trying to use WWI technology in a modern setting is stupid, unless you want to lose of course. Then it's brilliant.

People never stopped building them, they simply just stopped calling them that. They again are supposed to be a symbol and nothing more, hence why if you want one, make no more than one, unless you really pride in your naval supremacy and you want to do what I did and make one as the flagship for each of the Home Fleets (we have multiple islands under the control of our government, the five biggest ones are the Home Isles and each have about 18% of the Kassaran Combined Fleets under their command leaving a scant 10% as reserve and FIAO Operation Fleets.

Seriously, though. If you want a monumental structure that will symbolize your nation's power, make it something other than a supership. Given that this costs roughly the same amount as this, you could use the money saved by not building three SDNs to fund the construction of a small city. So just build a massive, awe-inspiring, kilometer-long phallus palace in the heart of your Capital. If you're a naval power, then build it by the waterside. But don't lay it sideways in the water and call it a warship.

A vast, slow, inefficient SDN may look impressive - even I'll agree with that. But that impression backfires on anyone who knows modern naval realism, and if you try to use it in battle, other people will backfire all over you before you can say "tactical nuclear cruise missile." If you really want to showcase your naval supremacy to the world, your best option is to invest in an efficient and capable mix of carriers, cruisers/destroyers, submarines, and other platforms that have proven their effectiveness and capability in the modern era - not a continuation of design ideas that were losing popularity in 1944.

[San-Silvacian]

The whole idea of BBs being a dying breed and the superiority of aircraft was started when 20~ or so Swordfishes fucked up the Italian fleet in Taranto in 1940.

[Oaledonia]

People never stopped building them, they simply just stopped calling them that. They again are supposed to be a symbol and nothing more, hence why if you want one, make no more than one, unless you really pride in your naval supremacy and you want to do what I did and make one as the flagship for each of the Home Fleets (we have multiple islands under the control of our government, the five biggest ones are the Home Isles and each have about 18% of the Kassaran Combined Fleets under their command leaving a scant 10% as reserve and FIAO Operation Fleets.

Seriously, though. If you want a monumental structure that will symbolize your nation's power, make it something other than a supership. Given that this costs roughly the same amount as this, you could use the money saved by not building three SDNs to fund the construction of a small city. So just build a massive, awe-inspiring, kilometer-long phallus palace in the heart of your Capital. If you're a naval power, then build it by the waterside. But don't lay it sideways in the water and call it a warship.

A vast, slow, inefficient SDN may look impressive - even I'll agree with that. But that impression backfires on anyone who knows modern naval realism, and if you try to use it in battle, other people will backfire all over you before you can say "tactical nuclear cruise missile." If you really want to showcase your naval supremacy to the world, your best option is to invest in an efficient and capable mix of carriers, cruisers/destroyers, submarines, and other platforms that have proven their effectiveness and capability in the modern era - not a continuation of design ideas that were losing popularity in 1944.

Unless of course you can fit an OTH radar on said mega ship, then by all means go bat shit crazy.

[Pharthan]

Seriously, though. If you want a monumental structure that will symbolize your nation's power, make it something other than a supership. Given that this costs roughly the same amount as this, you could use the money saved by not building three SDNs to fund the construction of a small city. So just build a massive, awe-inspiring, kilometer-long phallus palace in the heart of your Capital. If you're a naval power, then build it by the waterside. But don't lay it sideways in the water and call it a warship.

A vast, slow, inefficient SDN may look impressive - even I'll agree with that. But that impression backfires on anyone who knows modern naval realism, and if you try to use it in battle, other people will backfire all over you before you can say "tactical nuclear cruise missile." If you really want to showcase your naval supremacy to the world, your best option is to invest in an efficient and capable mix of carriers, cruisers/destroyers, submarines, and other platforms that have proven their effectiveness and capability in the modern era - not a continuation of design ideas that were losing popularity in 1944.

The general idea behind anyone with any sense whatsoever is not that it's to be a superbattleship, and anyone with any sort of sense is going to likewise surround it with ABM/Picket destroyers to ward off incoming nukes and submarines for anti-sub duties, nor are they going to expect it to be effective with guns.

That being said, most people who make these things put giant guns on them for the expressed purpose of using guns in naval combat. Which is obviously dumb unless you've got some revolutionary high-speed long-range round that is essentially a missile... at which point, you could just use VLS anyway.

As you've said, using them for battleship-tactics is silly.
As others have said, the only point to make something so big is to do a job a smaller ship can't do. For instance, super-massive OTH radar and, perhaps, some awesome NIKE-like missile that is meant to take down ICBMs in their early-stages. Which, considering there is no true "global hegemony" nation like the US to see everything at once, would make such a ship a decent ICBM-Picket ship if you can't find a way to field an OTH any other way, close enough to your aggressor.

Still not saying it's by any means reasonable, but this is NS so to hell with reason.

[San-Silvacian]

Named after the scrapped and cancelled Joffre class carrier from WW2, it carries 30-40 fixed wing aircraft and a dozen or so helicopters. Has a rather light self-defense armament.



175~ meter ship w/ 3 64 cell VLS stations, Exocet, 3 OTP 76mm and 4OTO 40mm. Carries 2 helicopters for ASW duties. Named in honor of the Suffren Class heavy cruiser Dupleix, which was scuttled in Toulon.



General purpose 140 meter ship w/ 64 cell VLS, exocet, Aster 15/30, OTO 76mm and 40mm. Will be named after small/medium sized blue water combat craft from 1930-1950s. Used as forward scouting vessels.



French LCS for near shore combat support, deep river patrols. Also name is temporary, will be will be named after an older class of small patrol craft from 1930-1950s.

iirc Exocet can be a land attack missile right?

[The Soodean Imperium]

Seriously, though. If you want a monumental structure that will symbolize your nation's power, make it something other than a supership. Given that this costs roughly the same amount as this, you could use the money saved by not building three SDNs to fund the construction of a small city. So just build a massive, awe-inspiring, kilometer-long phallus palace in the heart of your Capital. If you're a naval power, then build it by the waterside. But don't lay it sideways in the water and call it a warship.

A vast, slow, inefficient SDN may look impressive - even I'll agree with that. But that impression backfires on anyone who knows modern naval realism, and if you try to use it in battle, other people will backfire all over you before you can say "tactical nuclear cruise missile." If you really want to showcase your naval supremacy to the world, your best option is to invest in an efficient and capable mix of carriers, cruisers/destroyers, submarines, and other platforms that have proven their effectiveness and capability in the modern era - not a continuation of design ideas that were losing popularity in 1944.

The general idea behind anyone with any sense whatsoever is not that it's to be a superbattleship, and anyone with any sort of sense is going to likewise surround it with ABM/Picket destroyers to ward off incoming nukes and submarines for anti-sub duties, nor are they going to expect it to be effective with guns.

That being said, most people who make these things put giant guns on them for the expressed purpose of using guns in naval combat. Which is obviously dumb unless you've got some revolutionary high-speed long-range round that is essentially a missile... at which point, you could just use VLS anyway.

As you've said, using them for battleship-tactics is silly.
As others have said, the only point to make something so big is to do a job a smaller ship can't do. For instance, super-massive OTH radar and, perhaps, some awesome NIKE-like missile that is meant to take down ICBMs in their early-stages. Which, considering there is no true "global hegemony" nation like the US to see everything at once, would make such a ship a decent ICBM-Picket ship if you can't find a way to field an OTH any other way, close enough to your aggressor.

Still not saying it's by any means reasonable, but this is NS so to hell with reason.

The problem with Kassaran's design specifically is that he claims the doctrinal purpose of his SDN is to serve as a floating symbol of his naval power and an embodiment of his navy's qualities. Which, while a very tempting argument on "rule of cool/big stuff is epic" logic, is self-defeating if people mock the SDN instead of being impressed by it.

Personally, I'm cautiously toying with the idea of building a few ~250m battlecruisers to serve as fleet flagships and launch platforms for a heavy, fast, long-range ASh(B?)M. But seeing as my existing cruiser has P-1000, and AShBMs can be fired from smaller platforms, I'm not sure it would be filling any gap that's worth the cost. Regardless, my priority now is the aircraft carrier.

I do have more material plans for a "longsword lite," which amounts to a Voronezh-style early warning radar and 1-2 dozen long-range ABMs mounted on a converted cargo ship/supertanker. I may also give it ASAT capabilities (tracking, jamming, and destruction), if I can find a way to credibly fit the necessary electronics on the same hull. It won't be able to spot surface ships over the horizon, but it will be able to detect large incoming missiles at range, and it's a fair bit more practical than anything requiring a kilometer-long hull.

[Kassaran]

The problem with Kassaran's design specifically is that he claims the doctrinal purpose of his SDN is to serve as a floating symbol of his naval power and an embodiment of his navy's qualities. Which, while a very tempting argument on "rule of cool/big stuff is epic" logic, is self-defeating if people mock the SDN instead of being impressed by it.

Personally, I'm cautiously toying with the idea of building a few ~250m battlecruisers to serve as fleet flagships and launch platforms for a heavy, fast, long-range ASh(B?)M. But seeing as my existing cruiser has P-1000, and AShBMs can be fired from smaller platforms, I'm not sure it would be filling any gap that's worth the cost. Regardless, my priority now is the aircraft carrier.

I do have more material plans for a "longsword lite," which amounts to a Voronezh-style early warning radar and 1-2 dozen long-range ABMs mounted on a converted cargo ship/supertanker. I may also give it ASAT capabilities (tracking, jamming, and destruction), if I can find a way to credibly fit the necessary electronics on the same hull. It won't be able to spot surface ships over the horizon, but it will be able to detect large incoming missiles at range, and it's a fair bit more practical than anything requiring a kilometer-long hull.

Think of my SDN's moreover being display only ships, and really we don't give a care about reason, all of our cities are pre-planned and built around a very specific layout, and we spend more than enough money on them as is, so instead of devoting even more money to further renovations, we simply make more expensive and shiny new toys just to prove we can. The SDN's themselves are almost fully automated, they can run off an estimated maintenance skeleton crew of about 200, and for actual operations personnel, perhaps no more than 50. The SDN's are not meant for combat, I get that mocking them may seem like the idea is backfiring, but so long as they think we're stupid enough to field something the size of an Imperial Star Destroyer, the better it is for us to not do so, keep it back as a secondary target they'll think has importance, and instead we'll pour more personnel into actually dangerous vessels like our Zealot and Spirit Class Destroyers and Frigates respectively.

We have ships already built to detect those missiles at BVR and they exist for similar reasons as your "longsword lite" vessels, but are only about 250m at the most (we're beginning to miniaturize the vessels we do use and field quite often) and most of our vessels we are going to begin to having sit at about 150-160m in length.

[San-Silvacian]

Actually pre-planned city design isn't something that wastes money.

In the long run it saves money as it compensates for a number of things that urban sprawl style cities don't. And when things like improvements to infrastructure need to happen, a planned city is much more easier to generally improve than a city just thrown about.

If you look at overhead maps of many major US cities, at first they seem fucking stupid, however as you get farther out, you'll notice a much more refined and smart way and building.

Honestly, just stop posting. You come in here asking for advice and proceed to tell us "Rule of cool" and ignore us.

Really, just quit.

[The Akasha Colony]

Think of my SDN's moreover being display only ships, and really we don't give a care about reason, all of our cities are pre-planned and built around a very specific layout, and we spend more than enough money on them as is, so instead of devoting even more money to further renovations, we simply make more expensive and shiny new toys just to prove we can. The SDN's themselves are almost fully automated, they can run off an estimated maintenance skeleton crew of about 200, and for actual operations personnel, perhaps no more than 50. The SDN's are not meant for combat, I get that mocking them may seem like the idea is backfiring, but so long as they think we're stupid enough to field something the size of an Imperial Star Destroyer, the better it is for us to not do so, keep it back as a secondary target they'll think has importance, and instead we'll pour more personnel into actually dangerous vessels like our Zealot and Spirit Class Destroyers and Frigates respectively.

We have ships already built to detect those missiles at BVR and they exist for similar reasons as your "longsword lite" vessels, but are only about 250m at the most (we're beginning to miniaturize the vessels we do use and field quite often) and most of our vessels we are going to begin to having sit at about 150-160m in length.

Putting aside the "Durr hurr NS" argument, it is impossible to have so much money that it can be wasted on useless warships with no purpose without impacting some other area of the economy. Every dollar spent on defense is a dollar not spent elsewhere in the civilian economy, which is why higher military spending impedes a nation's economic strength and growth. You might as well just start installing more of those peeing angel statues because that's what you're doing with the money. Investing money in floating white elephants with no role and an expensive automation system all in the hope that the enemy might throw a few extra missiles at it is a terrible idea.

[Kassaran]

Actually pre-planned city design isn't something that wastes money.

In the long run it saves money as it compensates for a number of things that urban sprawl style cities don't. And when things like improvements to infrastructure need to happen, a planned city is much more easier to generally improve than a city just thrown about.

If you look at overhead maps of many major US cities, at first they seem fucking stupid, however as you get farther out, you'll notice a much more refined and smart way and building.

Honestly, just stop posting. You come in here asking for advice and proceed to tell us "Rule of cool" and ignore us.

Really, just quit.

And you think I was saying that they were expensive? Oh please, go and stuff it elsewhere because I didn't say they were expensive in the least! I simply was stating that with the money I was saving on building such cities, I was blowing it all away on SDN's and destroyer/frigate overhauls. I know the pros of using such cities and have always advocated for them knowing they were more efficient, and given I RP my nation as using hyper-loops and other more green and inexpensive forms of transportation, I know a thing or two about how much money I'm saving. The statement: " all of our cities are pre-planned and built around a very specific layout, and we spend more than enough money on them as is, so instead of devoting even more money to further renovations" basically is stating that of the renovations or upgrades we give our cities, most are purely cosmetic and can be taken care of by the private sector which then again puts money back into the pockets of the federal government. Also, don't give me this crap about me not listening; I have taken much of your advice over the past few months so don't say I ignore you and while I do use Rool of Cule a lot, I use it only when something has finally been brought to the point where I no longer wish to make it more realistic and force it to lose its PMT flavor.

On another note, something else I've realized in the use of RG's actually is that they may be more feasible in Ship-to-Ship combat then what you have all told me, but not when aiming for the ship directly. I was speaking with a friend who pointed out that landing a shell at or just below the water level of a vessel would be equally crippling with not only the initial shockwave of the shell hitting the water, in front of the vessel, but also behind, and that the velocity of RG shells as they leave the barrel can be manipulated to avoid the overheating, however, you don't acquire maximum efficiency when you do this and that is why the USN hasn't said anything on this. On top of it all, most of the footage that we've seen of RG's shows rail fragmentation, yet I know for a fact that they have ideas already to counter such a thing occurring such as the pulse exhaust system proposed by the Army and the aforementioned slowing of the actual speed of the projectile itself by the shortening of the barrel it runs down.

As for wasting the money, yes, indeed it is a waste, but when we don't really have things like national parks in the Confederation, we instead make our own national monuments that pretty ,uch are capable of floating and somewhat defending themselves (though rather pitifully I admit). Also, who declared the automation systems as being what was expensive? Electricity alone on one of these things over the course of a day sucks to pay for, but it brings in tourists (yes, I know, how unthinkable, civilians on a warship, or even more shocking, a flagship) and given how most of the important areas of the vessel are not accessible to the general public and such, these floating white elephants moreover are just that, except they give out peanuts and trips. Also, their usage as such equates to about the same as an aforementioned national landmark.

If it were me, I'd honestly prefer a national landmark with big guns not meant to shoot at any other time of the year except for the National Union Day (Essentially our Independence Day) and the New Years Gala and shiny hallways to show off how good we can make something look. Also, since most of our vessels are commissioned from independent shipyards in different Home Island Districts (though they are forced to sign NDA's to keep all technology we give them to install on their vessels top secret), the SDN's are a means for each of the top shipbuilders to show their skill and aesthetic finesse. Quite literally, these SDN's are showboats and we only include them because they bear the insignia of the Kassaran Naval Corps. For most of the larger vessels though such as the Warcruisers and Metacarriers, they are fully serious and meant to become massive vessels of terrifying proportions with the ability of containing the power of a fleet in one vessel. They are to become massive future warships, but they have a ways to go and will remain in development for several years IC.

[Pharthan]

-snip-

If you want a status symbol, go with a big fleet. The massive SDN as a status symbol, without any real use, lasts about as long as it takes people to realize you can't do a thing with it. It becomes a friendship-boat you float around for half the year making friends with your allies, with the other half the year it sitting in port getting repairs.

You want a real status symbol? Large navy. Lots of submarines and fast-attack carriers and landing ships. The fear of "I can reach you anywhere, any time" is far more intimidating than "I gotza big ship.'

[Kassaran]

-snip-

If you want a status symbol, go with a big fleet. The massive SDN as a status symbol, without any real use, lasts about as long as it takes people to realize you can't do a thing with it. It becomes a friendship-boat you float around for half the year making friends with your allies, with the other half the year it sitting in port getting repairs.

You want a real status symbol? Large navy. Lots of submarines and fast-attack carriers and landing ships. The fear of "I can reach you anywhere, any time" is far more intimidating than "I gotza big ship.'

Yeah, that'd be nice and all if I needed my waters absolutely swarming with naval defense vessels. However, we sit quite literally 10-20 km from the nearest "big" nations in our region, so once again it comes down to we're working on not only expanding the capabilities of current vessels, but also on not appearing to be a massive threat to said nations. We don't want them to think that we suddenly built up massive numbers overnight for those reasons. You all keep forgetting that I never said we stopped building newer vessels, simply that we made five SDN's for showboat purposes. Most everything else is now being thrown into said ship production.

[San-Silvacian]

10-20km eh?

Thats fucking great, that means I can shower your SDNs with fucking dozens of ground-based AShMs and swarm it with missile craft.

"Look at their nationalistic pride! Its sinking! Just like their chance of winning this war! LOLZ"

[Kassaran]

10-20km eh?

Thats fucking great, that means I can shower your SDNs with fucking dozens of ground-based AShMs and swarm it with missile craft.

"Look at their nationalistic pride! Its sinking! Just like their chance of winning this war! LOLZ"

whoops, that was supposed to be thousands... 10-20k km...

[Macedonian Grand Empire]

Myself I have done the mistake of fielding large giant warships as I began my NS carrier so to say. Now that I think about it not that smart. I overhauled the entire navy and despite my supercapitals remaining in service my fleets will revolve around power projection en masse. The supercapitals will stay in the navy as fleet flagships but they will not really take part in major offensive actions and operations. They will only protect the imperial mainland.
And yes when you start like I did you would be impressed by the Longsword and I am impressed yet but still once I think about it, maybe it was not that smart. Also I would probably need to rethink my ship classification as in it a destroyer is a ship over 200 meters long and bellow 300 meters.

[The Soodean Imperium]

-snip-

This is an argument that comes up a lot on NS: that of "I'm a rich country, so I can spend money on things that RL countries can't afford." And while it's an attractive argument at first glance, it doesn't hold together well under close inspection.

First of all, you need to think of what economists call "opportunity costs." If I have $6 billion, I can buy 4 destroyers or 1 cruiser (ship name debates aside for now). If I have $60 billion, I can buy 40 destroyers, 10 cruisers, or 4 carriers. And if I have $600 billion, I can buy 400 destroyers, 100 cruisers, 40 carriers, or 1 SDN. Even if you've saved six trillion dollars (the entire GDP of Japan) by using planned cities, it's still more efficient to spend that money on the most efficient option you can find.

You may also be underestimating the cost of an SDN. Unit costs for RL naval vessels are hard to calculate precisely, as they vary with inflation during construction, inefficiency in contracts, different manufacturers, etc. But the latest Arleigh Burke class destroyers are somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.5 billion each. A ship which is ten times as long, ten times as wide, ten times as tall, and filled with so many automated systems that it can be run with one tenth the crew, will cost an obscenely large amount of money. Possibly as much money as the combined value of all the goods and services produced by a mid-size European country in a single year. That kind of expense is not justified if the only reason is "we wanted to impress everyone with a big ship."

And as Pharthan noted, an SDN won't really impress or intimidate most players anyway; people who know their naval history may actually interpret it as a sign of noobishness. Think of it this way: if you have to spend multiple pages on this thread explaining why you think an SDN is valuable, how do you think a new potential ally who's looking at it for the first time will react?

Finally, I want to underline the point I made earlier on this page. As I said higher up, an advanced, modern destroyer is somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.5 billion. The Burj Khalifa (formerly Burj Dubai or Burj Al-Arab) also cost $1.5 billion. If you want to impress diplomats with a cool meeting place, then build a big, fancy palace on the outskirts of your city (it'll be easy to find a large enough lot since the cities are planned). Or, if you insist on a floating monument, build a vast cruise ship that serves as a palace at sea. But modern military equipment tends to be exceedingly expensive due to the level of automation involved, so a kilometer-long ship that's packed with the latest in FT targeting systems, radars, missiles, reactors, and all the other bells-and-whistles that will never see use is a very poor way to spend your money.

If you don't want to retcon the SDNs, that's fine; you can keep them as canon if you want. But at the very least, start phasing them out of service. Maybe send them to the scrapyards, or sell them on the NS black market (you'd be surprised how many noobs would want to buy them). If you're too attached to them for that, then at least convert them into museum ships. But there really isn't a convincing reason to keep them around.

[Helvagon]

We have a very small amount of war ships. Considering that the closest civilization to ours is thousands of light years away, you probably wouldn't blame us.

[Connori Pilgrims]

iirc Exocet can be a land attack missile right?

As of MM40 Block 3, yes. since it can now use GPS

[Distruzio]

OOC: Bare in mind that this is a FanT/PMT aeronautical force of air- and skyships. If that's too fantastical for you... tough. Hopefully, there are some of you keen enough to note the realism I put into making these ships viable and you will appreciate my efforts when I post IC. All my descriptions are based off real world technology and slightly exaggerated to render Distruzio military excursions more interesting and memorable.

I wouldn't really call it "realism" since aside from using a few terms, there's nothing that really makes it "realistic" even putting aside the normal expected handwaving. There's still no explanation as to why in the face of widespread missile use, with even a missile battleship class in service, there's such a focus on big-gun warfare, which died out when the missile came into play. Armor was not enough to save the surface battleship from the rise of the missile and air power, why would this be any different?

It's also a bit unusual that your battlecruiser is slower than your battleship, even accounting for the age gap. Or that it is both better armed and more thickly armored.

Most of the rest are claimed advantages that simply wouldn't exist, and that's again leaving aside the question of basic handwaving.

Consider this explanation in one of my first RP's.

Also, consider the current intended use for railgun technology where, instead of utilizing nuclear power to propel none explosive shells, Distruzio utilizes height to maximize both range and speed of descending shells. As such, she sacrifices defensive measures (by and large) against missle threats using primarily radar and close range defensive countermeasures.

Its a big weakness built into the overall idea. Limited number of ships and designs, weakness to modern tactics and weaponry, and difficulty in ascent descent to offset the "handwaving" you point out.

[Rhinocera]

Distruzio, I looked over your RP link and saw a potential weakness. If my math is correct, which it may not be, wouldn't your airships be vulnerable to larger naval artillery firing at 45 degree elevation. If read correctly, your vessels stayed 12 miles up. At 45 degrees, that distance would double. That's 24 miles. If you account for drop you have to move further back, say 32 miles. Now, gravity would prevent unassisted rounds from reaching your vessels, but assisted ammunition should pose a threat. If I triple the distance, we reach 96 miles (153.6 kilometers). Larger assisted artillery should be able to strike your airships and even when the payload is reduced to account for the assister, turning a 16 inch into an 11 inch equivalent, it would likely bring an airship down.

[Kassaran]

-snip-

Finally, I want to underline the point I made earlier on this page. As I said higher up, an advanced, modern destroyer is somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.5 billion. The Burj Khalifa (formerly Burj Dubai or Burj Al-Arab) also cost $1.5 billion. If you want to impress diplomats with a cool meeting place, then build a big, fancy palace on the outskirts of your city (it'll be easy to find a large enough lot since the cities are planned). Or, if you insist on a floating monument, build a vast cruise ship that serves as a palace at sea. But modern military equipment tends to be exceedingly expensive due to the level of automation involved, so a kilometer-long ship that's packed with the latest in FT targeting systems, radars, missiles, reactors, and all the other bells-and-whistles that will never see use is a very poor way to spend your money.

If you don't want to retcon the SDNs, that's fine; you can keep them as canon if you want. But at the very least, start phasing them out of service. Maybe send them to the scrapyards, or sell them on the NS black market (you'd be surprised how many noobs would want to buy them). If you're too attached to them for that, then at least convert them into museum ships. But there really isn't a convincing reason to keep them around.

Lemme respond to that last part with something I said earlier:

Quite literally, these SDN's are showboats and we only include them because they bear the insignia of the Kassaran Naval Corps. For most of the larger vessels though such as the Warcruisers and Metacarriers, they are fully serious and meant to become massive vessels of terrifying proportions with the ability of containing the power of a fleet in one vessel. They are to become massive future warships, but they have a ways to go and will remain in development for several years IC.

The Metas and Supers are designed to be moving naval bases with varying weapons and electronics capabilities. Essentially a weaponized man-made island fortress. The SDN's are also in the course of being phased out, this has already been stated here:

I get that I need the smaller fleets, and I am angling towards that, the SDN's are built indeed for display and take precious resources and time indeed, but many are being phased out and scrapped to allow for newer vessels to be built and yes, I understand how frivolous it is too build such things, but right now, we aren't under the threat of immediate homeland attack. As for the larger vessels, yes I get they aren't efficient and that's why many of the SDN's and larger and older vessels are being phased out of service, but right now they are completing their tours

[Rhinocera]

I've got a question. Would an 11 inch gun be able to swivel/elevate fast enough to perform anti helo/subsonic plane duties, in a capacity similar to that of a 155mm, using modern turret technology?

[Mitheldalond]

Distruzio, I looked over your RP link and saw a potential weakness. If my math is correct, which it may not be, wouldn't your airships be vulnerable to larger naval artillery firing at 45 degree elevation. If read correctly, your vessels stayed 12 miles up. At 45 degrees, that distance would double. That's 24 miles. If you account for drop you have to move further back, say 32 miles. Now, gravity would prevent unassisted rounds from reaching your vessels, but assisted ammunition should pose a threat. If I triple the distance, we reach 96 miles (153.6 kilometers). Larger assisted artillery should be able to strike your airships and even when the payload is reduced to account for the assister, turning a 16 inch into an 11 inch equivalent, it would likely bring an airship down.

Guns are irrelevant. Ship launched surface-to-air missiles will have a field day with those airships from a hundred miles away (give or take); and they're incapable of missing something that large. Heck, anti-ship missiles could hit it even farther away.

Congratulations, you've turned Tomahawks and Brahmos' into SAMs.

[San-Silvacian]

SM-3s become anti-shipping missiles and Exocet into a SAM.

mfw

[Antarticaria]

I've got a question. Would an 11 inch gun be able to swivel/elevate fast enough to perform anti helo/subsonic plane duties, in a capacity similar to that of a 155mm, using modern turret technology?

I think it COULD be possible, but why when you can put a almost litteral wall of lead with a smaller weapon? or find the flyers and peg em with a nice SAM?