Your Nations Warships, MKII

[Ava Zoul]

Currently working on the armoring section of the ship (haven't added weapons yet), but the Ali Yusha class Stryke Cruisers are the primary heavy patrol cruisers of the Ava Zoul fleets, built for heavy raider, long range recon, and if need be, intermediate flagships duties.

Ali Yusha Strike Cruiser

[Averyverse Osea]

While the current main carrier class of the Osean Maritime Defense Force is the Hubert-class carrier (roughly equivalent to the real-world Nimitz), there are currently plans in the works for a new class of carrier, nominally named the Murphy-class Seabase. While the final design is not yet complete, it will be larger than any carrier currently in operation.

The Weeker-class destroyer, roughly equivalent to the real-world Zumwalt-class, has been deployed with the OMDF starting from 2007. The Osean Littoral Combat Ship entered service in 2009 and has been expanding ever since. The OMDF operates November-class submarines (roughly equivalent to the real-world Los Angeles-class) and Navesink-class (roughly equivalent to Ohio-class) submarines.

The OMDF also uses a variety of smaller boats for ferrying troops and materiel over short distances.

[Awesome Break-Away of 250land]

Does Gun Boat Diplomacy ring a bell?

[Awesome Break-Away of 250land]

The navy of 250land and Vera is an interesting force and bridges two very distinct eras. Many of the vessels containing the bulk of 250land and Vera's navy were conceived and built in a 'soviet style' that was emblematic of how the two countries were run in past decades. On the flip side is a modern build up focusing on small, mobile and technologically advanced warships that will propel 250land and Veras military force forward on the seas of Iriel and beyond.

The most important thing to take away when discussing the navy of any nation is how effective their force projection and ability to command their chosen field is. By looking at some of the vessels typical of 250land and Veras navy we can asses the nations ability to defend itself and its interests.

Warships from the 'Soviet Era'

The military aims of the old Awesome Break-Away of 250land were simple; in order to intimidate Holy Geneva and command and protect the Iriel Sea. To achieve this many warships were purchased and built with force projection paramount to actual utility. We will look at two examples from this era to explore this further.

Kiev-class aircraft carrier

These vessels - of which two were built by 250land, were supported by destroyers, submarines and cruisers in patrolling the Iriel Sea. Mostly on counter piracy missions the Kiev aircraft carriers also harassed Holy Genevan coastal cities and island in non violent but provocative manoeuvres that aimed to antagonize the enemy. Aircraft often flew unarmed sorties over various Holy Genevan islands and there have been unconfirmed rumours that some fishing boats were rammed.

Kashin-class destroyer

Kashin destroyers were built by both Vera and 250land in some numbers in order to cheaply bulk up the navies of the respective countries (before they were united). These native built destroyers often lacked all the prerequisite equipment and even featured dummy turrets and radar domes. The Kashin class boats built by both navies (over 200) are now considered completely obsolete and unusable. The only reported mutiny in 250land occurred on a Kashin when the crew found out the fire extinguishers were fake and refused to sail with the boat in such bad repair the bilge pumps had to constantly operated. They were the first to be replaced by the new rearmament programme.

Warships from the current epoch

Following the disintegration of Holy Geneva, the liberalization of 250lands economy and the integration of Vera and its military into 250land, a new initiative was begun to modernise the military - specifically the Air force and Navy for the new role of protecting the trade routes crossing the Iriel Sea and into the Pacific. Also of high priority was ensuring 250land and Veras joint fleet would be functional in the years to come. To meet this need several private companies have been engaged to create and build this next generation of warships.

Fendai 5 frigate

Based on the Type 054A frigate and modified to fit in with both the old fleet and the anticipated new fleet, the Fendai 5 frigate is a specially designed warship that is capable of taking on the role of advanced patrol vessel and will be built on government order by Fendai Group to deal with all modern threats with up to date technology and weapons. Currently three have been built in the Vera Special Naval Facility and are undergoing sea trials before deployment.

[Axis Nova]

Coastal vessels, destroyers, and missile frigates only. Axis Nova doesn't maintain any extremely large surface combatants.

[Axis Nova]

Your problem here is using a big gun anything. Battleships became obsolete with the invention of the guided missile.

[Axis Nova]

I've always liked the idea of submersible aircraft carriers and it's neat seeing someone taking a serious crack at it.

[Axis Nova]

The vast majority of antitorpedo weapons are of dubious effectiveness and are also going to cause excess drag where they stick out of the hull. The proper antitorpedo weapon is an ASW screen.

[Axis Nova]

Really, when someone busts out a fleet with hundreds of anything, it's time to break out the godrods.

[Axis Nova]

To put it more bluntly, a destroyer is not a jet-ski. Stop pretending that you can make it one.

The closest you can ever come are hydrofoil coastal corvettes. And I do mean coastal. You cannot build ocean going hydrofoils.

[Axis Nova]

Most people who play FT don't play hard FT. Fighters may not be practical from a purely aspergers viewpoint where only lasers and missiles are acceptable weapons in a space battle, but they are cool. Ergo they're likely to remain in use.

[Axis Nova]

I'd also swap any gatling-based systems for AA lasers. If you're PMT that stuff should be easy to do.

[Axis Nova]

Lasers are spacey-nifty, but I'll still take a good gatling system such as Goalkeeper or Phalanx over them anytime. Gatlings combined with an equal number of RAM launchers make for a good shield against incoming threats.

The Goalkeeper and Phalanx are something I'm more familiar with and sounds a lot cheaper than lasers. I'll consider having them but only after I do some research to see if it would be worth having them.

Well, look at it another way: what's cheaper, a few solid state lasers, or an entire ship? A laser is going to be more reliable and effective than any ordinary gun, every time, because of it's accuracy. Lasers plus missiles are the way to go in PMT, especially when you consider that PMT antiship missiles are going to get faster, smarter, and stealthier than MT ones.

[Axis Nova]

Well, look at it another way: what's cheaper, a few solid state lasers, or an entire ship? A laser is going to be more reliable and effective than any ordinary gun, every time, because of it's accuracy. Lasers plus missiles are the way to go in PMT, especially when you consider that PMT antiship missiles are going to get faster, smarter, and stealthier than MT ones.

Not as long as there's even a hint of realism involved. Countermeasures to lasers are dirt cheap. Accuracy means nothing if the weapon's tracking system is either jammed or can't do appreciable damage before impact.

Actually, they arn't. Mirrors are useless, so is armoring your missiles, and having a missile trail any kind of antilaser fog or whatever is so obviously problematic that I'm not going to bother seriously addressing it.

Read this. AA lasers are going to be a thing in real life soon.

[Axis Nova]

Reality check: you're advocating using obsolete gun-based systems against PMT missiles here. There's a reason they're mostly being phased out IRL, and that's because they are crap.

[Axis Nova]

You would need a watt figure to determine the length of time this power is supplied. 50,000 joules over 500 seconds is only 100 watts, the strength of a lightbulb. 50,000 joules in 0.1 seconds is the equivalent of 500,000 watts.

So what would be reasonable? But other wise I would say 50,000 joules over 0.01 seconds.

Lasers are generally measured in kw (or, preferably in PMT, MW). A laser around 1 MW would probably be sufficient for most needs. Mabye more if you also want it to double as an ABM system or something.

Obviously anything using multiple lasers had better have one heck of a powerplant. Nuclear (or possibly fusion in PMT) is preferred.

[Axis Nova]

I'd venture that a turret firing what equates to a gliding, rocket assisted round might be able to make a sizable range, particularly if it uses some additional firing assistance to reach an apoapsis then "glide" toward it's target.

And as previously mentioned, RAM is perfectly plausible.

However, as mentioned, Dragomere:
1) Far too thick of armor. I'd recommend a thicker armor for your battleships, but still under a foot thick. Kevlar and steel would be a good mix.
2) Vague: You don't mention an aircraft count for your carriers (keep in mind the Nimitz does 70-85).
What is a "Nuclear ship?" Many ships larger than cruisers these days are nuclear powered. It'd feasible to have frigates and larger be nuclear powered.
"Nuclear launcher?" ICBM launcher, you mean? It's only practical to have SSBNs be capable of SLBMs, and I could see a battleship simply because the only modern use of a battleship is intimidation rather than actual use. (Intimidation to stop a war is better (and cheaper) than actually fighting one).
3) Like said, speed. Particularly with that thick armor, you're not going to get such speeds. 50 knots is possible for a destroyer, but not recommended to be sustained.

To add to this:

1.) in general armor is now frowned upon mainly because it doesn't do much to stop modern (or PMT) antiship missiles. Ridiculous thicknesses like Dragomere wants are practically meaningless because unless you armor every surface of the ship like that (which brings another host of problems) the missile can bypass it and still hit something important.

However, it would make sense to have armour on key spaces. If he really absolutely must have armor, put it on the machinery, ammo magazines and C&C - at the very least your ship won't (easily) go up like a volcano or be headless or be (easily) immobilized. Dont bother with belts or decks except for splinter protection, instead have bulkheads and compartmentalization so the damn thing can stay afloat easily, and a good firefighting system.

2.) The key rationale of SLBMs on SSBNs is their inherent stealth - which avoids them getting destroyed easily and allows you a second-strike capability for your strategic forces. ICBMs on a surface ship only make that ship a priority target without the stealth of an SSBN, which means it'll go bye-bye soon enough.

3.) The fastest destroyers ever were the 3400t French La Fantastique-Class which ran at 45kts - note that this was before WWII. Post refits reduced them to 37kts due to add-ons. After them you have the 3300t Japanese Shimakaze which made 40.9kts thanks to an experimental high-pressure powerplant.

Giant ships (as in anything battleship or carrier sized) will need progressively more power for every kt past 30kts excluding outliers such as the Iowas and the supercarriers due to their nuke power. Even if you installed fusion or AM reactors on them, then you'd have the limits of your shafts/screws/propellers/PMMs, which will fail if you push them too hard. Realistically, 30-35kts is the max anyone can hope for for giant surface ships.

At one point I came up with an exotic system using a thermnuclear water ramjet, but even if you got it to work it would probably shake everything on the ship into uselessness as soon it was turned on.

That is, assuming the ramjet didn't just tear free of it's mountings and go sailing off into the distance.

[Axis Nova]

At one point I came up with an exotic system using a thermnuclear water ramjet, but even if you got it to work it would probably shake everything on the ship into uselessness as soon it was turned on.

That is, assuming the ramjet didn't just tear free of it's mountings and go sailing off into the distance.

I can't imagine such a thing would work too efficiently, certainly not anything like a ramjet, and you'd likely be contaminating a great deal of water. Any nuclear ship could track you just by sticking a radiac over the side, which they'd have on board. You'd have to work with what would be considered extraordinarily low-temperature fuel, which means you're losing a great deal of efficiency.

Ramjet is a misnomer but I couldn't think of a better way to describe it since it sucks in water, superheats it, and blasts it out the back as exhaust. Also, obviously it would be closed cycle-- Project Pluto is old hat.

[Axis Nova]

Hello, fusion reactor? Don't need to recoat fuel for that.

In any case, as I said, the concept has a lot of problems and would require a ship to basically be built around it.

It's better to concentrate on improving a ship's electronics than it is the raw speed anyways; no matter how fast your ship goes it can never outrun a missile.

[Axis Nova]

General consensus i read so far about this kind of "hybrid" is that this kind of ship will going to be too small to provide adequate numbers of aircraft and its supplies and might be unable to carry enough firepower as spaces for instaling missiles and other systems are "eaten" by the flightdeck and its associated hangars.

For limited role however such as anti submarine warfare or perhaps as a fleet or landing support..say carrying VTOL's attack planes or as a long range anti ship missile firing platform (like what Kiev did) It might be viable.

Okay... how about some sort of 'drone carrier + battlecruiser' (think it as an expansion of a stealth Kiev-Class w/drones)?

If it's going to be a carrier then just make a dedicated carrier. The same goes for missile cruisers.

A ship that tries to do both is going to either be good at neither, or be significantly larger and more expensive than a specialized ship.

[Axis Nova]

The way to intercept torpedoes is to have a good ASW screen and keep the sub from getting into position in the first place.

[Axis Nova]

Dump the depth charges and the torpedo tubes. That's what ASROCs and antiship missiles are for.

[Axis Nova]

Cuz obviously totes FREEDOM puny missile never into BIG GUN AWESOMEZ

Everyone knows the range gap between guns and missiles is unimportant if you go really fast and close the distance.

Just like the range gap between guns and swords is unimportant if you go really fast and close the distance.

This is why the BEST MODERN NAVY consists of SPECIAL FORCES SOLDIERS who will land on the enemy ship in STEALTH HELICOPTERS after setting off an ELECTRO MAGNETIC PULSE and then kill the entire cowardly crew with their BALLISTIC KNIFE BAYONETS so that they can STEAL SECRET PLANS and then heal with their medical packs or t-bag the dead sailors or write words with bullet holes while the next mission loads.

...that is how modern naval warfare works, right?

Back when the popularity of SDs was at it's peak, there was at least one idiot who actually kept cavalry (as in actual HORSES) aboard some of his in order to charge down the deck and repel boarders.

[Axis Nova]

Fusion power now MT by the standards of II, oil drillers worldwide seen leaping to their deaths

(seriously, this is a lot closer to seeing use than ETC guns ever were)

[Axis Nova]

What about Hypersonic Stealth Cruise missiles, I mean mid-2060s PMT is my level of technologies.

Pick one of these two things. Both on the same missile ain't happening.