NS Military Realism Consultancy Thread Mk X Purps Safe Space

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

Unfortunately, for all the bragging about your imagination and how over-the-top it is, you're thinking a bit too small. Typhoon already had a greater displacement than Kirov. It did not have enough space for any of these things except the missile tubes, although it did have a sauna.

So I need to go larger... Alright? How about NS aircraft carrier sized?

Cease.

[The Akasha Colony]

So, I'm allowing the lolship in but will place the obvious drawbacks on it. I fail to see how anti-missile and CIWS will stop an ICBM. Maybe that's where the armour comes in.

Anti-ballistic missile systems exist. A nation that can build a wank-battleship, especially fourteen wank-battleships in complete secrecy, can almost certainly afford a basic ABM system to protect them. If not a global constellation of laser satellites capable of stopping even a massive ICBM launch. Armor wouldn't protect it from an ICBM strike anyway, and ballistic missiles are not particularly good weapons against ships in general since they have a rather lengthy kill chain.

This is why everyone was talking about submarines.

However, the story at present is that the fourteen ships of the class were built underground in complete secrecy (over 40 years) and were only just revealed to enter service. How long, realistically, would sea trials take and can the ships enter any form of operational service before they are complete?

Modern sea trials for major warships generally take at least a year, and generally longer for the first ship of a given class as it needs more intensive trials to validate the basic design, including shock trials. For comparison, USS Gerald R. Ford began sea trials in April 2017 and isn't expected to be deployment-ready until 2020. And even this schedule might slip.

There's nothing stopping a ship from entering service before trials are complete aside from the fact that there may be construction and design flaws onboard that have not been discovered and fixed, and operational deployments are generally not the preferred time to discover these faults. This is particularly true for class leaders as they need to validate not just the construction of a particular ship but the fundamental design itself, so that corrections can be made to subsequent ships.

Also, what about standard (WWII) sized battleships? Regional RP has validated the two hostile nations which have them as possessing them for the purpose of countering the other. If the US Iowa battleships were brought back into service to counter the Kirovs, does this make sense? How well would these battleships validate their existence against other battleships or otherwise?

No. It doesn't make sense.

It follows the common NS assumption that battleships disappeared simply because their guns went obsolete and that if railguns became a thing, they'd magically come back because their only problem would be solved. This simply isn't true, and never has been. The flexibility offered by an aircraft carrier and a missile cruiser far exceed anything that could be had by simply installing better guns on a battleship. Aircraft can conduct reconnaissance, they can carry cargo and deliver supplies, they can battle for air superiority, and they can bomb ground targets and sea targets from unpredictable vectors with a wide variety of ammunition. A battleship can't do any of these things no matter how good its guns are.

The introduction of the aircraft carrier and the submarine basically simplified naval ship classes into just three types: submarines, aircraft carriers, and escorts (everything else). The Iowas were returned to service because they happened to already exist, the US had an actual use for shore bombardment capabilities in places like Korea, Vietnam, and later the Persian Gulf, and because at the time they carried more Harpoon and Tomahawk missiles than any other surface combatant in the US Navy. But as VLS-armed missile cruisers and destroyers became the norm, this advantage disappeared and unsurprisingly, so did the battleships.

[Purpelia]

So I need to go larger... Alright? How about NS aircraft carrier sized?

Cease.

9

[The Corparation]

The sub is about the size of a missile cruiser, the big ones. Not the dainty things used by the american navy but the real proper big ones. The kind that looks at your standards, laughs and points you to its S-400's. Pointing from its bow is a turret with a pair of big guns. Really big. Like taken strait from a battlecruiser of the day big. And like since this is apparently the future it's railguns firing atomic bombs or something. In the middle we have launch tubes, because cool. And nothing says cool like being able to nuke your enemies in port from beneath the polar ice caps. And speaking of cool something else that kids like is fighter jets. So naturally there is a hangar in the back for those as well.

Full spectrum submarine.

Unfortunately, for all the bragging about your imagination and how over-the-top it is, you're thinking a bit too small. Typhoon already had a greater displacement than Kirov. It did not have enough space for any of these things except the missile tubes, although it did have a sauna.

Any more reading on this?

[The Akasha Colony]

Any more reading on this?

Norman Polmar mentioned it in Cold War Submarines.

It was not actually exclusive to the Typhoons, either. The Delta IVs had them too. Both the Typhoons and the Deltas also had aviaries and solariums (along with boring standard stuff like small gyms and exercise spaces).

[Purpelia]

There is almost nothing lacking from that thing. Now if it were Purpelia...

[Austrasien]

So, I'm allowing the lolship in but will place the obvious drawbacks on it. I fail to see how anti-missile and CIWS will stop an ICBM. Maybe that's where the armour comes in.

However, the story at present is that the fourteen ships of the class were built underground in complete secrecy (over 40 years) and were only just revealed to enter service. How long, realistically, would sea trials take and can the ships enter any form of operational service before they are complete?

Also, what about standard (WWII) sized battleships? Regional RP has validated the two hostile nations which have them as possessing them for the purpose of countering the other. If the US Iowa battleships were brought back into service to counter the Kirovs, does this make sense? How well would these battleships validate their existence against other battleships or otherwise?

The Iowas contributed more or less nothing to fighting Kirov's. The connexion between them was a political gesture to show the USN could and would match anything the Soviets built. A big part of the reason they were re-activated is because the cost of building whole new ships just to make an elaborate gesture would have been unacceptable and re-activation of the the Iowa's could just manage to be sold to Congress as fulfilling NSFS needs.

So it could be done if you really have money to burn and just don't care that you don't need them.

But it would take a very long time. The last armoured big gun warships were built a lifetime ago even in reality and your scenario is even farther into the future. Anyone who had practical experience building ships like that will be long buried, the learning curve will be a learning cliff. The design phase would be complex because technology has changed enough many aspects of classic battleship design would no longer be logical to apply and the construction phase would be complex because much of the infrastructure for building large armored ships would need to be recreated and the skills re-learned. If the construction of a battleship was ordered now, in 2017, it would be a minor miracle if it reached the fleet by 2038. So I hope you planned ahead.

[Taihei Tengoku]

Warhammer 2017

[The Green Union]

No. It doesn't make sense.

It follows the common NS assumption that battleships disappeared simply because their guns went obsolete and that if railguns became a thing, they'd magically come back because their only problem would be solved. This simply isn't true, and never has been. The flexibility offered by an aircraft carrier and a missile cruiser far exceed anything that could be had by simply installing better guns on a battleship. Aircraft can conduct reconnaissance, they can carry cargo and deliver supplies, they can battle for air superiority, and they can bomb ground targets and sea targets from unpredictable vectors with a wide variety of ammunition. A battleship can't do any of these things no matter how good its guns are.

The introduction of the aircraft carrier and the submarine basically simplified naval ship classes into just three types: submarines, aircraft carriers, and escorts (everything else). The Iowas were returned to service because they happened to already exist, the US had an actual use for shore bombardment capabilities in places like Korea, Vietnam, and later the Persian Gulf, and because at the time they carried more Harpoon and Tomahawk missiles than any other surface combatant in the US Navy. But as VLS-armed missile cruisers and destroyers became the norm, this advantage disappeared and unsurprisingly, so did the battleships.

So a "battleship" in the form of an armoured missile platform / command station / shore bombardment position would not be obsolete? If the guns were lightened or some removed altogether to make room for missile silos or helicopter/UAV facilities could the class fulfill its purpose (fighting other large surface vessels) any better?

I ask because the it seems, on the surface at least, legitimate to develop large surface vessels in counter to the large surface vessels of an enemy. And this is the RP situation between these two nations since the WWII timeframe, so it has been assumed that the knowledge of battleship-esque production and operation has not been lost.

[Purpelia]

So a "battleship" in the form of an armoured missile platform / command station / shore bombardment position would not be obsolete? If the guns were lightened or some removed altogether to make room for missile silos or helicopter/UAV facilities could the class fulfill its purpose (fighting other large surface vessels) any better?

I ask because the it seems, on the surface at least, legitimate to develop large surface vessels in counter to the large surface vessels of an enemy. And this is the RP situation between these two nations since the WWII timeframe, so it has been assumed that the knowledge of battleship-esque production and operation has not been lost.

The armored part is obsolete as well. You can't armor against anti ship missiles, modern torpedoes and other modern threats.

[The Green Union]

The armored part is obsolete as well. You can't armor against anti ship missiles, modern torpedoes and other modern threats.

If there's a nuclear reactor boiling away in your ship's belly, does it deserve some steel around it?

[The Akasha Colony]

So a "battleship" in the form of an armoured missile platform / command station / shore bombardment position would not be obsolete? If the guns were lightened or some removed altogether to make room for missile silos or helicopter/UAV facilities could the class fulfill its purpose (fighting other large surface vessels) any better?

There is no particular reason why it needs to be armored. There is no practical way to armor it against the sorts of warheads that can be deployed via missile anyway. The armor of old battleships was designed to stop incoming AP rounds that were limited by the size of the gun they were fired from and even this was not a very efficient solution because bigger guns were constantly entering service, rendering the entire previous generation of battleships obsolete. With missiles and modern anti-armor warhead designs, penetration is no constrained by gun size and a warhead can be made that will penetrate any amount of armor.

And this is before nuclear weapons are considered. They might not be allowed in RPs, but their mere existence is something that an in-universe ship designer would have to take into account.

The biggest issue really is that "armor" in the conventional sense is obsolete. There are ways to make ships durable enough to withstand enormous amounts of punishment and modern warships are built this way. It is in fact much more difficult to sink a modern unarmored warship than it is to sink an armored warship of WWII, because the modern warship is better built and more survivable with better compartmentalization, better firefighting technologies, and such.

I ask because the it seems, on the surface at least, legitimate to develop large surface vessels in counter to the large surface vessels of an enemy. And this is the RP situation between these two nations since the WWII timeframe, so it has been assumed that the knowledge of battleship-esque production and operation has not been lost.

No, because an aircraft carrier and a submarine are both infinitely better at attacking and destroying surface vessels than other surface ships are.

If there's a nuclear reactor boiling away in your ship's belly, does it deserve some steel around it?

It deserves some basic protection but this isn't a few inches of steel. It needs some splinter protection and if there is space, then some spacing and baffles to create a layered protection system rather than pretending it's still WWI and making thicker steel plates is the pinnacle of armor design.

It is basically the same as modern tank armor, which is composed of an array of spaced plates rather than a single really thick layer of steel.

[Spirit of Hope]

No. It doesn't make sense.

It follows the common NS assumption that battleships disappeared simply because their guns went obsolete and that if railguns became a thing, they'd magically come back because their only problem would be solved. This simply isn't true, and never has been. The flexibility offered by an aircraft carrier and a missile cruiser far exceed anything that could be had by simply installing better guns on a battleship. Aircraft can conduct reconnaissance, they can carry cargo and deliver supplies, they can battle for air superiority, and they can bomb ground targets and sea targets from unpredictable vectors with a wide variety of ammunition. A battleship can't do any of these things no matter how good its guns are.

The introduction of the aircraft carrier and the submarine basically simplified naval ship classes into just three types: submarines, aircraft carriers, and escorts (everything else). The Iowas were returned to service because they happened to already exist, the US had an actual use for shore bombardment capabilities in places like Korea, Vietnam, and later the Persian Gulf, and because at the time they carried more Harpoon and Tomahawk missiles than any other surface combatant in the US Navy. But as VLS-armed missile cruisers and destroyers became the norm, this advantage disappeared and unsurprisingly, so did the battleships.

So a "battleship" in the form of an armoured missile platform / command station / shore bombardment position would not be obsolete? If the guns were lightened or some removed altogether to make room for missile silos or helicopter/UAV facilities could the class fulfill its purpose (fighting other large surface vessels) any better?

I ask because the it seems, on the surface at least, legitimate to develop large surface vessels in counter to the large surface vessels of an enemy. And this is the RP situation between these two nations since the WWII timeframe, so it has been assumed that the knowledge of battleship-esque production and operation has not been lost.

It is still going to be obsolete. First the missions you listed are semi contradictory. A shore bombardment platform and a missile/command platform are going to want very different things in life. One is going to want to get close in to shore so it can shoot it, while the other wants to stay far away so as not to get shot.

Secondly armor doesn't have much use in the modern day, especially not in the same sense as it did during the hay day of battleships. Such armor was designed to keep the ship unpenetrated, and floating, above all else. It can't protect radar and communications systems, without which your missile/command ship is almost useless. If you can't talk to anyone, and can't target your missiles your mission dead.

Third large warships don't preform well in an anti ship roll as compared to either submarines or aircraft carriers. The former gets protection from stealth while the later gains protection and striking power from it's aircraft which can outrange any stand alone missile platform.

If you want/need a large surface combatant to take on other large surface combatants it is probably going to be the minimum size that you can wrap around a small handful of big ship killer missiles or an almost stripped platform carrying a lot of missiles controlled by another warship.

A nuclear reactor is better protected by just sticking it in the middle of the ship, with some light armor around it to keep out any shrapnel. If a solid enough hit manages to penetrate to the reactor you are almost certainly dealing with a situation that has already mission killed the warship in other ways.

[Allanea]

Unfortunately, for all the bragging about your imagination and how over-the-top it is, you're thinking a bit too small. Typhoon already had a greater displacement than Kirov. It did not have enough space for any of these things except the missile tubes, although it did have a sauna.

Any more reading on this?

What, the Typhoon sauna/swimming pool?

I have seen images of these.

They are tiny and essentially mainly exist so Soviet propagandists coulds state they exist.

[Allanea]

'Swimming pool' on one of the Typhoon-class subs
Sauna on Typhoon-class sub.

[North Arkana]

'Swimming pool' on one of the Typhoon-class subs
Sauna on Typhoon-class sub.

The sauna actually looks kinda normal sized.

E: For like a nordic backyard type thing.

[The Akasha Colony]

What, the Typhoon sauna/swimming pool?

I have seen images of these.

They are tiny and essentially mainly exist so Soviet propagandists coulds state they exist.

The combined leisure space available in a Typhoon is certainly much greater than the amount of space allocated to such use on an American submarine.

[Allanea]

They put submarine sim games... on a submarine...

[Dostanuot Loj]

you forgot to make it supercavitating

Mhm... we're up at what? 300 decibels of self-noise? This thing would announce its presence just by being in the same Ocean as the enemy.

Active noise cancellation, duh.

[Allanea]

While we are at it.

At what range can passive sonar hear things like carrier engines?

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

While we are at it.

At what range can passive sonar hear things like carrier engines?

Firing solution at 100 kyards in really favourable circumstances. More often it'll be 40-50 kyards.

[Allanea]

What about things like cargo ships?

At what range can a modern submarine detect something like a Suezmax freighter and fire an anti-ship missile at it?

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

What about things like cargo ships?

At what range can a modern submarine detect something like a Suezmax freighter and fire an anti-ship missile at it?

Allanea just go buy Cold Waters. :3

[Allanea]

What about things like cargo ships?

At what range can a modern submarine detect something like a Suezmax freighter and fire an anti-ship missile at it?

Allanea just go buy Cold Waters. :3

That would imply I derive any kind of pleasure from submarines. I hate the damn things.

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

What about things like cargo ships?

At what range can a modern submarine detect something like a Suezmax freighter and fire an anti-ship missile at it?

Background noise? How loud is the freighter? What is your own sonar performance? What is the general environment like? How far away are you physically? A lot of variables Allanea. :3