Ship Design Philosophy

[Condottiere]

Spacestations: True Size of the Imperial Shipyards [999.M41] 3D Documentary

In this Warhammer 40,000 lore documentary series we will be exploring the True Size of the Imperial Navy of the 41st millennium. In our first episode we looked at the overall naval hierarchy, the ship classes, and a typical ship section. This includes everything from the smallest attack craft to Destroyers, Frigates, Battleships, and even Gloriana class flagships.

Now in this second episode we turn our attention to the means by which the fleet is constructed and put into service. This involves coverage of the typical construction steps for building a warship. We then cover the various tiers of Naval Shipyards which work to churn out the vast fleets of the Imperium.

Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
03:13 Fleet Size
07:09 Construction Steps
11:46 Naval Shipyards
12:49 Small Shipyards
14:13 Medium Shipyards
16:33 Large Shipyards
19:34 Massive Shipyards
21:56 Outro

Presumably, if you're ambitious enough, locate them on gas giant moons.

Cautionary tale from the Royal Navy, don't build warships larger than a substantial number of your dockyards can handle.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Road Trip, Astrogation, and Reaching Your Destination In One Piece

You could divvy it up into specialization.

One variety would be rather specific to regions.

Another, to types of starships, I guess tonnage range.

Or, Einsteinian space navigation.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Atmospheric Reentry and Heat Shields

1. A ship without a functioning gravitic drive that attempts re-entry without heat shielding will burn up.

2. At 3000m/s it's absolutely necessary, unless you plan to capture into a highly eccentric orbit and do many aerobraking passes at high altitude.

3. You don't need a heat shield for entry into an atmosphere if your speed is low enough, generally below Mach 3 or a few hundred meters per second, to prevent significant heat buildup from atmospheric compression.

4. Speeds of orbital reentry, however, are very high (around Mach 25), requiring heat shields to protect against temperatures reaching thousands of degrees Fahrenheit.

5. Dead slow, it is.

6. If Mach/three is dead slow.

7. And, assuming the above is accurate.

8. Heat shielding is a hundred kilostarbux per tonne.

9. Default manoeuvre drive is twenty kilostarbux per tonne per thrust factor.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Atmospheric Reentry and Heat Shields

A. Which would seem to throw a wet towel on assault gliders.

B. You'd want to make them as cheap as possible, which would limit them to fifty tonnes and a single cockpit.

C. Manoeuvre drives at default, are five times more expensive than reactionary rockets.

D. Chances are, it would be a one way trip.

E. Towing could extend from space, to around forty kilometres altitude, before release.

F. It would seem, the passable speed, would be sub Blackbird.

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: The IMPERIAL NAVY - Sword, shield and angry brick of guns protecting mankind | 40K lore

Warhammer 40k has some of the biggest, dumbest and most fantastical creations in all of science fantasy. One of the most immediately recognizable besides space marines is the might cathedrals of doom. The flying churches made of guns. The raw might and will of the emperor made manifest, the Imperial navy. Responsible for protecting mankind from anything and everything out there. The imperial navy is a cornerstone of 40ks silly universe. So settle in and enjoy as we go over how it's organized, what the ships are like, and what the Imperial navy does.

0:00 Intro
4:21 Pointless waffling
8:25 The imperial navy
19:42 Segmentums & sectors
27:42 Number of ships
31:15 subsectors
34:14 Ship classes
49:03 Technology & stuff
58:55 Outro

1. Ramming.

2. Astrogation.

3. Grand cruisers seem a little difficult to categorize; I put them at a hundred kilotonnes plus, since it seems a translation from Grosser Kreuzer, early examples which I would term battle cruiser.

4. Probably evolves into the large cruiser.

5. Super cruiser would be somewhere between that, and heavy cruiser.

6. If brute force isn't working, it's because you're not using enough of it.

7. Powder monkeys.

8. Eject warp core.

9. Or, eject a collapsing fusion reactor magnetic bottle.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Atmospheric Reentry and Heat Shields

G. The point of an assault glider is getting ground forces as close as possible, if not over the top, of opposing forces.

H. Most planets worthy of an orbital assault, have an atmosphere.

I. Non gravitationally motored, unheatshielded spacecraft are going to burn up on reentry, considering likely reentry speeds.

J. The solution would appear to be, for such, assisted reentry to default forty klix altitude, and mach/three speed.

K. The approach would appear to be, under the horizon atmospheric reentry, riding piggy back on a gravitationally motored spacecraft, and then released.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

Another one:

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Atmospheric Reentry and Heat Shields

L. Besides the limitations on size to minimize costs, the other aspect would be how many ground troops you're willing to risk in one basket.

M. And, how far you're willing to protect them.

N. Traditionally, gliders tend to be rather small and fragile.

O. And, tend to be unarmed.

P. Though, there are exceptions.

P

 

[Condottiere]

Inspiration: MechWarrior 5 Clans Ghost Bear Flash Storm - All Cinematic Cutscenes

1. Logistics.

2. Merchants of death.

3. Actually, great ship designs, now in animated three dimensions.

4. Involuntary commandeerment.

5. Industrial base.

6. Both senses of the word.

7. You have to wonder how you can employ 'Mechs in the modern, or future, battlefield.

8. Apparently, boarding party, on the hull.

9. And if you figure out to squeeze into it, inside the spacecraft.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Atmospheric Reentry and Heat Shields

Q. You somehow get into the atmosphere, and are gliding onwards on your own.

R. If you have propulsion greater than the local gravity well, you're actually flying.

S. You're going to need a way to break, besides atmospheric friction.

T. Unlike the manoeuvre drive, reactionary rockets don't appear to be able to vector.

U. Given a choice, I'd prefer that sudden stop to be voluntary, not scraping along the ground.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Atmospheric Reentry and Heat Shields

V. One possible option, is to sacrifice a hardpoint, or, more likely, two, and install the drives into turrets.

W. Or, inflated turrets, at six tonnes and budgetted.

X. According to High Guard, a missile barbette has five launchers, and twenty five missiles, at zero power points and four megastarbux.

Y. Yet, an inflated single turret has one and one fifth tonnes, at one one and a half megastarbux, and one power point.

Z. But, how much does a naked barbette cost?

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Atmospheric Reentry and Heat Shields

1. Indications are that for the one tonne turret, you can utilize the totality of their listed volume.

2. Actually, more considering that as long as you have installed a missile launcher, and a sand caster, you can add in another tonne's worth, each, of missiles and canisters.

3. I should actually clear out the three weapon systems, the gunner's workstations, and two tonnes of ordnance, to install a three tonne drive in the one tonne turret.

4. To be fair, I'd say that if you run out of space, what actually happens is that the ready magazine transfers under the turret, and retains it's feature of allowing the ordnance easy access to it's launchers, and/or casters.

5. Which, should make the actual tonnage allocated for the turret and it's weapon systems, in this case, three tonnes.

6. But, only if you have a missile launcher, and a sand caster, installed.

7. For figuring how much spare volume a barbette, there are only two with the same sized launchers and ammunition as their smaller cousin, the one tonne turret.

8. That would be the torpedo and missile barbettes.

9. The others just appear to be upscaled versions of their respective weapon systems.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Dropships - Making planetary invasion fast, easy and fun.

The humble dropship, a staple of science fiction, and the go-to for when you need to get a lot of manpower from space down to whatever world their invading. They're way overworked, constantly being shot at, and have a tendency to explode. But when it comes to invading an enemy world, dropships make it fast, easy, and fun. If not a tad lethal.

1. Landing from orbit, and returning, independently.

2. Drop pod, landing only.

3. Boarding torpedo, lift off only.

4. Dude bucket.

5. Battle taxi, after market add ons.

6. The claw, or carry all.

7. Gunship, dude bucket ground support add on.

8. Armour, firepower, mobility, plus carrying capacity.

9.

A. Expendable.

B. Flexible employment.