Point Defence Escort Ship

[Mithras]

I'm designing a small ship universe where the biggest military craft are 2000 tons. Looking for new types of craft I wondered what you thought of this idea. Its a point defence escort, a bit like an air force EW plane (Grumman Avenger, E111 Raven, etc) that provides defence for a couple of dedicated attack ships.

A 400 ton ship could mount 12 beam lasers dedicated to missile defence, plus high end sensors for jamming incoming missiles/enemy locks. In its own defence from lasers it is heavily armoured. In mtu I have 'fast attack squadrons' with ships designed to jump in kill stations or drop torpedoes on planetary installations, then get out. This escort might accompany them, tho according to the rules the point defence lasers can only open fire in the last momements of a missile attack. I expect this escort to be close, very close, with a km of its charges....

Does this have legs, if not, can I give it legs?!

 

[phavoc]

Remember you are talking about space combat. So a ship that's within 10km or so of its charges is "very close". An all-laser ship works well, but depending on the mission you may want to swap out a few laser turrets for PA's to give it some punch, or sand casters to provide additional screening protection.

If you really want to make escorts, think about making battle-rider style escorts. By saving the tonnage on jump drives and jump fuel you should be able to cram in additional armor and engines to give it a lot of speed and survivability.

Of course, if your mothership gets whacked then its gonna be a long flight home... but SDB's do the same thing. In some instances you may have your motherships say 200D away from their targets so they will see anyone coming towards them, and your escorts and attack ships are free to accelerate to 6G's do their attack runs and then get back to the mothership and jump before the defenders can maneuver their heavier ships to intercept.

 

[Fovean]

Does this have legs, if not, can I give it legs?!

It's a cool idea. Does this mean the escorted ship reduces its point defenses and so can maybe punch a bit harder?

You've given me this awesome image of a sleek little ship darting about dropping sand and picking off missiles while the big ship keeps delivering broadsides to the target...

But can Ship A provide point defense for Ship B? Don't really see why not...

 

[Mithras]

My main thought was giving the attackers more punch as you say. Not looked at High Guard today, but I know there are some neat heavy-weight weapons in there. Since my inspiration are the phantoms and other US jets flying to Hanoi and Haiphong in Rolling Thunder, I see these ships as asset strikers, jumping in blind to hit high ports, outposts, spacestations and fixed targets on the surface.

 

[Mithras]

I've created my initial idea here:

http://zozer.weebly.com/uploads/3/4/3/3/3433372/point_defence_design1.doc

Moving to phavoc's idea, I might have a specialist attack carrier that takes 3 x 300 ton attack boats and 1 x point defence boat built on the same 300-ton fuselage into a system, getting there simultaneously and waiting for their high speed return. They can then boast 6G drives... and even more anti-laser reflec-coated armour ...

phavoc's battle-rider escort is slimmer (300 tons):

http://zozer.weebly.com/uploads/3/4/3/3/3433372/point_defence_design2.doc

 

[phavoc]

I've been tossing around ideas for true point-defense systems. Not the beam turrets that are intended for ship-to-ship fighting, but real dedicated systems designed to engage missiles, torpedoes, even small craft, at close ranges. Basically they are short-ranged gatling lasers, and the higher up the tech tree you go, the more targets they can engage successfully.

But everytime I look at them and compare them to missile rules, they just seem too effecient. Obviously being much smaller than anti-starship weaponry a ship should be able to mount more, but again they become too de-stablizing without also changing missile rules.

But there should be point defense escort ships like this. Just like our Aegis system today, you should be able to have fleet defense and escort ships (today's FFG's and DD's) that are able to engage missiles directed at any ship within their protection sphere.

Cool designs by the way. But I hope they don't have to abandon ship! No lifeboats!

 

[Mithras]

Phavoc, perhaps a middleway would be beam lasers dedicated to defence... Giving them some bonus, but unable to be used for ship attacks.
Unfortunately I don't believe in lifepods! So I prefer the emergency cold sleep chamber, since damage on ships is system smashing, with potential to leave hulks drifting in space.

 

[phavoc]

Phavoc, perhaps a middleway would be beam lasers dedicated to defence... Giving them some bonus, but unable to be used for ship attacks.
Unfortunately I don't believe in lifepods! So I prefer the emergency cold sleep chamber, since damage on ships is system smashing, with potential to leave hulks drifting in space.

I know that would help fit within the existing rules, but I've never liked that concept. After reading your note I think I came up with a solution that would work, and kind of match the same thing that we have today on warships.

A frigate or destroyer typically mounts 1 CIWS (Close In Weapons System). I believe carriers and the old battleships mount 4. So I think the way to handle this is to say that a starship may mount 1 point defense battery per 400 Dtons of ship at no tonnage charge. And they may also mount 1 battery per allocated hard point. This would then give you the capability to create true escort ships that mount mostly defensive weaponry without terribly destablizing the combat system. Essentially it then becomes having the ability to overwhelm a defenders defense with a massive missile offense. And if the two sides have roughly equal off/def capabilities, then you have to close to slugging range with energy and kinetic weaponry.

I need to come up with some more rules around that, but I think this would work. Course now it gives me the idea that I need to adjust missile combat rules too to allow for big salvo's, but that's actually much easier to do.

It may not be the massive missile salvo's you see in Honor Harrington, but if I do it right it should mirror naval combat capabilities of today (attacking with stand-off weapons first, then closing in for the kill with guns).