Solomani Confederation (Military)

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Slow Dreadnought

1. There are only five classes of starwarships of the line designed for the Confederation Navy, to date.

2. The first was the Victory class battle cruiser, a compromise allowing cruiser performance, with line of battle armament.

3. The second was the Zeus class battlecruiser, that emphasized armament and mobility, over hull armour.

4. The third was the Prometheus class fast dreadnought, considered by many to be the pinnacle of technological level fourteen starwarship design.

5. By itself, if could outfight any technological level fourteen Imperium Navy battleship of it's era.

6. In actuality, it was designed to match anticipated technological level fifteen battleships, by being twenty five percent larger.

7. While Imperium Naval Intelligence considered it to be too expensive for it to be widely deployed, Confederation Naval Staff expected economies of scale to kick in, which would lower operating costs, since it would be the only class of it's category being manufactured.

8. Unfortunately for the Confederation, they went to war before they had the planned large numbers of Promethii.

9. And to cover their lack of starwarships of the line, the slow dreadnought type was introduced.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Slow Dreadnought

A. The slow dreadnought type was conceived to utilize modular construction, that allowed separate hull modules to be welded together, in a dispersed structure configuration.

B. Since the principal needs were speed and cost, a lot of shortcuts would be employed.

C. The two primary hulls would be a hundred kilotonne weapons primitive hull, and an engineering default hull(s).

D. Having a primitive hull as any part of the hull configuration, limits maximum acceleration to factor/three.

E. The engineering hull is welded to the rear of the weapons hull.

F. Five fuel hulls are welded to the circumference of the engineering hull.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Slow Dreadnought

G. The disadvantages of a primitive hull, outside of halved hull points, and maximum acceleration factor/three, is no gravity tiles, no manoeuvre drive, and no jump drive.

H. However, you can still pack in any number of weapon systems.

I. Including, spinal mounts.

J. Basically, like the fifteen inch monitor class, we want to use the excess spinal mounts manufactured for the Prometheus class, and install them on a cheaper weapon platform.

K. One difference between this and a battlerider, would be that the jump drive and fuel tanks are welded on.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Slow Dreadnought

L. While the Confederation Navy, itself, prefers meson spinal mounts, that it manufactures through it's commercial subsidiaries, it can and does acquire other spinal mounts.

M. These could be from member planet military industrial complexes, client states, and, far more likely, salvaged from captured enemy starwarships.

N. Since the manufacture of meson weapon systems is usually a monopoly of the Confederation Navy, it allows the arms control of that by the Confederation, with rather strict end user certification.

O. With a couple of exceptions, every other spinal mount model, meson based or not, is non standard, but considered useful.

P. So they drilled a hole through a planetoid pole, and carried on a battle tender.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Slow Dreadnought

Q. You'd need access to excess spinal mounts.

R. And, they'd need to be large enough to make a hundred kilotonne weapons hull worth it.

S. Otherwise, you'd need to install them in smaller hulls.

T. It's a sort of a balance between how long the hulls are mission capable, against resource allocation.

U. Also, being in the middle of the war, how fast they could be commissioned.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Slow Dreadnought

V. What is the opposite of dreadnought?

W. I think it's fearsome.

X. In theory, aweful.

Y. Her design had two revolutionary features: an "all-big-gun" armament scheme, with an unprecedented number of heavy-calibre guns, and steam turbine propulsion.[a]

Z. This design would be using excess, retired, or scrapped weapons systems, in a hull with capped acceleration.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Slow Dreadnought

1. The opposite of a dreadnought would be a slow line of battle ship, with low numbers of a primary weapon system.

2. Rather, like a single spinal mount.

3. Anyway, acceleration is a factor that becomes relevant.

4. Technological level fifteen Plankwell class is listed at acceleration factor/five.

5. So, I would think fleet speed would be factor/five, even now.

6. Though, that's legacy, considering that previously, acceleration was capped at factor/six, with seventeen percent of volume, compared with six currently.

7. At technological level fourteen, a highly technologized manoeuvre drive would be maximum factor/five, and probably some attempt to squeeze operating costs.

8. Factor/three was introduced at technological level ten, and arguably, still included in the line of battle at technological level twelve.

9. The equivalent would likely be that of the ironclads, at sixteen knots.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Slow Dreadnought

A. The cheaper hull works well with percentaged costs.

B. Since it's additive and deductive, rather than multiplicative, adjustments are separate.

C. Having both light and military options, at twenty five percent each, they cancel each other out.

D. Sadly, hull armour is a fixed cost.

E. I guess we'll have to use a sphere, which adds ten percent.

F. On the other hand, minus ten percent hull armour volume.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Slow Dreadnought

G. The side with the faster ships can dictate the range.

H. That seems unlikely with factor/three.

I. You'd have to force the either side to close to spinal mount range.

J. The two primary ways to do that is to have other weapon systems that can target at a distance.

K. Or, dog in the manger at the other side's objective.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Slow Dreadnought

L. The basis for the design has to come from somewhere.

M. Besides me digging through the design rules, and leveraging discoveries.

N. Canon says that the Vilani were having trouble keeping their two hundred kilotonne freighters occupied, let alone megatonne ones, if they existed.

O. But, they were optimized to trade with backwater systems.

P. I guess someone finally did get the LASHing they felt they deserved.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Slow Dreadnought

Q. Once the Imperium decided to grant autonomy to the Solomani Sphere, they took everything with them that wasn't nailed down.

R. The Confederation knew that they had to maintain lines of communications between the various member polities.

S. Thinking big, they decided to build large starships to promote trade and open up passages between the major worlds.

T. This would be accomplished by building large, cheap, starliners to maintain them.

U. The hull would be a minimum hundred kilotonnes, leveraging economies of scale.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Slow Dreadnought

V. A passenger liner converted into a warship is termed a merchant cruiser.

W. In theory, you can't retrofit a spinal mount into an existing hull.

X. However, if the spinal mount already is installed in an existing hull.

Y. And that section of the hull where the spinal mount is installed is hacksawed off.

Z. And then that hacksawed off hull section is welded onto another spacecraft hull.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Slow Dreadnought

1. Using the logic of High Guard design rules and Third Imperium setting, you might not want to allow dispersed hull structure to have a spinal mount.

2. Since, there can only be one because of recoil.

3. And therefore, needs extensive bracing to handle it.

4. However, since this has never been the case, I'll guess I'll continue installing spinal mounts in dispersed hull structures.

5. Might be tempted to call the class Invincible.

6. Since, in peacetime deployment, it's likely untouchable.

7. Wartime, it's more a case of causing quite a lot of damage to the enemy before it's mission killed.

8. Since a meson gun shoots through solid objects, I was thinking of attaching a shield in front of it.

9. You could then call it, the Steve Rogers class.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Slow Dreadnought

A. If placing an external shield in front, you'd need to place targetting sensors there, as well.

B. To directly hit the primary hull with an energy weapon system, except for meson ones, you'd have to flank the shielded starwarship.

C. Exception, guided ordnance.

D. Not sure if called shot would be a requirement.

E. The primary hull's secondary weapon systems would need to be guided ordnance, as well, to bypass the front shield.

F. Though, if the enemy doesn't have a direct line of sight on the primary hull, it could be the same as planetary bombardment, to take out underground facilities.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Slow Dreadnought

G. I suppose, if you want to make it more organic, you could define the shield as a pod.

H. A shield need not be placed only in the front, but also along the sides.

I. If you can off set the drive nozzles, you could probably have one on the rear.

J. Unless you have meson bays, broadsides won't be possible.

K. You could install point defence on the shields.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Slow Dreadnought

L. Attached shields would only provide protection from a specific direction.

M. Actual armour factor would be problematic.

N. Despite previous hull configuration, the new one would be dispersed structurer.

O. That would half the given armour factor for a given volume percentage.

P. And, you can use more advanced armour for an older manufactured hull.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Slow Dreadnought

Q. You could angle the shield.

R. This would give you sloped armour, and increase the thickness required to penetrate from a direct shot.

S. Also, since the shield is held some way from the primary hull, spaced armour.

T. Kind of reminds me of the British cheating by using water tanks as an extra armour layer.

U. Which, in theory, you could also do, by placing the jump fuel tanks in front.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Slow Dreadnought

V. You could, in theory, place several shields in the front.

W. That would be the equivalent of composite armour.

X. It's pretty obvious that if this works out, the enemy would try to get in a flank shot.

Y. The enemy could also have meson weapon systems, which would bypass these shields.

Z. It would be somewhat like indirect fire, unless they can get sensor data from a spacecraft that can see the primary hull.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Slow Dreadnought

1. So, we have the concept of the slow dreadnought.

2. All the components of an equivalent sized battleship, possibly battlecruiser, but in a cheaper, borked, hull.

3. Said borked hull having structural integrity issues, caps potential acceleration.

4. Where it should shine, would be percentage related hull costs.

5. And being, relatively, cheap, makes it easier to decide to scrap the hull, and just extract the components.

6. Rather than paying for major repairs, or refits.

7. In fact, junkerification gives the option to just to cut out an offending part, and weld back a new one.

8. And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

9. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Slow Dreadnought

A. Instead of slow dreadnought, we could term them Man O' War.

B. A single one would be Solomani O' War.

C. Harkens back to the heyday of the Age of Sail.

D. Also, implies a lack of acceleration.

E. And modernity, with a primitive hull.

F. Frigate would actually fit, being the primitive hulled counterpart to destroyers.