Solomani Confederation (Military)

[Condottiere]

Solomani Navy: Constraints

1. I may have missed some, but couldn't locate any system within the Solomani Confederation that has tech level fifteen, though prototype rules can applied, though going by the tonnage penalty, most likely with electronics.

2. The Solomani Party may be well aware of history, in that regimes have to deliver on the economic front in order to legitimize their rule, so the military probably has to live their own own version of sequestration. Besides, the economy supports military expenditure.

3. The Solomani Confederation has a whole has a limited capacity for manufacturing medium or large bonded superdense/armoured hulls, and possibly spinal mounts, so priority is given to the production of dreadnoughts.

4. Another bottleneck is large reserves of experienced or otherwise naval personnel, and to generate those, you have to find hulls (for actual space-going experience, as opposed to on-planet simulations) for that training and experience. The Navy will want those to man their demothballed battleships, and as replacements for battle casualties.

5. You can convert practically any hull into an escort, or even light carrier, but I'm not too sure if you can start ironcladding large merchantmen with pieces of bonded superdense. Which is why the Solomani Navy wants dreadnoughts in commission, rather than fast-track any war time emergency production, though I suspect that for cruisers, that still would be predominantly lightish with crystaliron hulls.

6. Tech level twelve hull size are constrained by the capability of their shipboard computer to control them, which caps at one hundred thousand tonnes assuming they were cutting edge; one hundred thousand tonne tech level twelve battleships would be third class battleships, or they could be refurbished to a fairly modernized tech level fourteen armoured cruiser, though that term may be anachronistic by this time.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

From what I have read, it seems like internal rebellions are, if not common, at least not uncommon, so are also getting that shipboard/combat experience.

From the Solomani side, there is a BIG BAD enemy just over there; so there should be a concerted effort on the part of the government and Party to ensure they are keeping up with the Imperials in technology, not lagging behind.

To Condottiere: WHY would there be a constraint on the ability to work Bonded Superdense within the Confederation? BSD is available at TL14 and there are a lot of Confederation worlds that have that TL, so should be able to produce it and work with it. Agreed, not as many as the Imperials, but they should have enough for their needs.

 

[Condottiere]

I'm retconning.

At first, it made no sense to me to skip over an entire category of warships.

Than, the more I got used to it, the more it came clear to me that it would differentiate the Solomani Navy from the Imperium Navy, and the rationale had to be at it's base industrial capacity and strategic depth, there being not enough of the former, and practically none of the latter.

The cats aren't dangerous unless they get organized, and aggressive patrolling and reconnaissance should give the Solomanis early warning if they were to happen. Somewhere I read that the Imperium tolerates a proxy war between the Vegans and the Confederation, though since the closest point to the Autonomous Region seems to be through twelve parsecs of Imperium space, that seems unlikely.

The Solomani probably do a great deal of safe navigation cruises and piracy suppression, and the frigates and corvettes should be enough for that.

I don't know what the Solomani think of the Hivers, though again if it's just border clashes, that would be due to aggressive patrolling and reconnaissance.

That leaves the Imperium, and again, I don't think the primary assets of the Solomani Navy would be deployed right at the border, but that they'll continuously patrol and probe the border, though at this point, I suspect SolSec will be sending U2s and Blackbirds over even deeper on clandestine reconnaissance.

Game mechanics wise, allowance would have to have been made for five thousand tonne Aegis destroyers.

Outside the initial phase of a conflict with the Imperium, I don't think the Solomani Navy will send cruisers or battleships on commerce raiding, but rather opt for submarine warfare after the initial phase with occasional surface raiding.

The strengthening of system defences seems to indicate that the strategy is for any large invasion to get delayed reducing individual systems defences, giving the Solomani time to concentrate their dreadnoughts and meet the invaders. a modernish battle line with the carrierborne strikecraft taking over the cruiser roles would be the optimal use of tonnage.

As for bonded superdense, I'm presuming that the facilities for manufacturing hulls twenty thousand tonnes and above are the bottlenecks, and it would be interesting to figure out how much actually new tonnage and ships are produced annually.

If each military district produced a dreadnought each year, and with the long stability of each tech level, the Solomani can easily renew their numbers of tech level fourteen dreadnoughts over a fifty year cycle.

If the resources are constrained, and the choice becomes a trade-off between a cruiser, and a battlecruiser, you'd choose the battlecruiser.

Of course, this is highly speculative, and my take on it would be that each year, private contractors are invited to submit their bids and designs for any cruiser type vessel, which would be used primarily as a test bed to try out new ideas, construction techniques, concepts and doctrines before introducing them to the next class of dreadnoughts and battlecruisers.

So you have two problems, or two opportunities, to try and figure out how to take advantage of that gap between two and a hundred kay, and how to fill it.

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani Navy: Battle Rider distribution

So a military district has about seventeen battle riders, probably organized into three squadrons.

Sector fleet states that a typical distribution is about ten battle riders in two squadrons, and seems to have confirmed that in the composition of the Spinward Marches fleet. It's been stated that previous experience made deployment of battle rider squadrons that close to the frontier doctrinally unsound, as they were caught by the enemy forces, and that when outnumbered or in a tactically weak situation, unable to disengage to re-attach themselves to their tender and make a run for it, leading to their destruction.

It's stated that most were withdrawn to the next sector, which implies that there's a large strategic reserve who's composition isn't spelled out.My assumption is that it's the equivalent of another sector fleet at the domain level, and another sector fleet (in addition) at the Imperial level.

For the Solomani, that could mean the strategic reserve would have another seventeen battle riders just behind Home.

I think they probably have more, because regardless of whatever amazing manoeuvres their taski forces perform in isolating large swathes of Imperium forces in the Solomani Sphere, the Navy knows that they will have to bludgeon their way to Terra, and then through the Vegan Autonomous District to re-establsih their old borders, and then hope to lure the reinforcing Imperium fleets into a decisive battle at a place chosen by the Solomani, where they concentrated their battle rider squadrons and whatever large monitors they manage to requisition from the Home Guard navies, and transport there with additional battle tenders.

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani Navy: Dreadnoughts

The largest and most powerful ship in the Solomani Navy, the Prometheus class Dreadnought caught the Imperial Navy by surprise when it was first deployed in the Solomani Rim War. Its high Jump capability gave the Dreadnought and its Jump-4 escorts strategic parity with Imperial BatRons. Highly agile for its size, the Prometheus class was specifically conceived to give the Solomani the firepower needed to take on the Imperial Navy in devastating fast strikes against strategic targets like Imperial Depots and major supply bases. Although capable of holding its own in the line of battle, the Dreadnought’s light armor means the ship will try to use its high agility to maneuver into superior firing solutions. The Solomani will only rarely slug it out with Imperial BatRons – they will inevitably come off second-best. The Solomani Navy practices concentric warfare, even instilling this doctrine into frontline fleet units. A Solomani FleetRon would rather destroy a BatRon’s logistical tail and starve it of supplies than defeat it in a head to head battle – assuming the FleetRon can get to the logistical tail.

The Prometheus class has not lived up to expectations, and the ships’ massive size means they are slow to come out of Solomani shipyards. Ambitious Solomani plans to re-equip half the FleetRons in the Navy with the Prometheus are viewed with derision by Imperial Naval Analysts. The Confederation simply does not have the economic capacity to undertake such a building program.

And that would be before the Imperium annexed the Rhineland.

I don't think that the then Solomani Navy had battle riders, they were betting on dreadnoughts, and it would appear that Imperium Intelligence had no idea that the Solomani Navy had tech level fourteen dreadnoughts, which I assume the Prometheus was the first class of which that they constructed.

The Solomani are in the same position as the Imperial Japanese Navy, they have to decisively defeat the regional Imperium fleets before reinforcements arrive from the Core.

I'm going to assume that the Solomani have only refined their doctrine since the War of Imperium Aggression, not really changed it, so that half their Fleetrons consist of a quartet of tech level fourteen dreadnoughts, each accompanied by a fleet carrier, and the others are actually anything they have defined as a battlecruiser.

I'll also assume the the follow on classes from the Prometheus are larger with more protection.

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani Navy: Battlecruisers

The newest Battlecruiser in the Solomani Navy, the Zeus class has been specifically designed to be upgraded with TL-14 systems once they become available.

Since they probably have a very good idea how next generation ship systems will look like by keeping an eye on cutting edge Imperium technology, the Solomani can allocate spare tonnage for these upgrades when they become available.

This also supports the idea that the Prometheus class was the first capital ship series that was completely made with tech level fourteen manufacturing processes.

You can speculate that for the first century of it's existence, the Solomani Navy only constructed battlecruisers for capital ships, and even then, they were meant to hit and run. I'm going to guess that, going by game mechanics, their secondary batteries are going to be largely torpedo bays.

Assuming that the Confederation at least achieved parity with the Imperium with battleship equivalents, they'd have about fifty to seventy dreadnoughts and battlecruiers per sector, but no mothballed battlecruisers:

A Solomani design over a century old, the Victory class Battlecruisers have emerged from an extensive refit program in the last decade which saw their old TL-12 weapons, computers and power plants upgraded to TL-13 standard. This has extended their service lives considerably – the oldest Victory class ship has been in service for 117 years, outlasting virtually every crewmember who has served on her.

Tech level eleven hulls would have been limited to fifty thousand tonnes, which means any refurbishment of their heaviest ships would have reclassified them as cruisers.

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani Navy: Genesis

There's a good chance that when they achieved autonomy, Terra was still at tech level twelve, which may also be part of the reason they agitated for it, the Imperium wasn't economically developing the rimward provinces.

Likely, the early navy consisted of tech level ten to twelve ships, which may have reminded them of the height of the Interstellar Wars era. I don't think that the Imperium Navy even had a Naval depot within the Solomani sphere, so that early requirements would likely have been filled by private shipyards.

The assumption of tech level twelve is that the Confederation will trail behind a tech level behind the Imperium in general.

Constraints in production probably does make the spacecraft carrier an attractive proposition, and upgrading smallcraft is easier than medium or large ships.

Early carriers likely were mostly under ten thousand tonnes, and been part of a early push towards role specialization, with the battlecruiser being a specifically optimized offensive blitzkrieg warfare.

One thing about a spread out interstellar civilization, manpower shouldn't be a bottleneck, but for the Solomani Navy, experience and hulls probably would have, so everything that still could be flown was kept in service, so that they could train their personnel and give them practical experience.

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani Navy: Strategic Movement

Solomani warships have a 7.2% jump drive installed, plus 0.8% in drop tank mountings, and can install an additional 20% percent in drop tanks, giving them a capability of jumping five parsecs, and if they had manoeuvre drive six, it now is factor five (plus).

Would be a very nasty surprise for an unaware attacker, as the Solomani reserve squadrons eat up time distance
by 125% faster than calculated for.

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani Navy: Heavy Cruiser

Named after famous battles of ancient Terran history, the Normandy class Heavy Cruiser is a new TL-14 design bearing the brunt of fighting currently raging on the Solomani Confederation’s coreward border. The ship is another sound design from the French Republic Naval Directorate. Normandy class Cruisers are deployed with the best units of the Solomani Navy and reports indicate it has fared well in battle. Units deployed in the Diaspora fleet include the Waterloo, Cassino, Yorktown, Stirling, Bannockburn, Kursk, Suez and the Tau Ceti.
The Normandys were specifically designed to operate with and escort the new Jump-4 Prometheus class Dreadnoughts and has excelled in this role.

Probably the newest cruiser design at the beginning of the War of Imperial Aggression, and the chances are that some surviving units still serve in the Solomani Navy.


The standard Heavy Cruiser in service with the Solomani Navy, the Minsk class is a highly agile design produced in large numbers for the Confederation fleet. Production has been continuing for quarter of a century and shows no sign of slowing. Over 100 have been built and many have been engaged in battle against the Imperial Navy since 990. The design features a powerful meson spinal mount capable of crippling a capital ship with one shot, backed up by 20 particle accelerator bays and 20 beam laser batteries. The class has had notable successes against Imperial capital ships, further bolstering the call by elements in the Solomani High Command to abandon expensive battlecruiser and dreadnought construction in favor of a cruiser/fighter navy more suited to concentric warfare operations.

Halfway right, the Solomani Navy drops the heavy cruiser in favour of producing battlecruisers and greater emphasise of smallcraft strikecraft.


Designed to operate in association with, and escort the Normandy class Heavy Cruiser, the Madrid class Light Cruiser is a design first tested in the opening moves of the Solomani Rim War. Capable of Jump-4 to enable it to keep up with the Normandy and Prometheus classes, the ship is too small to mount a spinal mount so two Meson Gun bays were fitted instead. Secondary armament consists of 2 missile bays with extensive reloads available and 6 beam laser batteries as well as sandcasters. The ship has reasonable shielding with a nuclear damper and meson screen as well as reasonable armor. Initial reports from the frontline indicate the class has acquitted itself well in battle.

At ten thousand tonnes, that's stretching the definition of cruiser (though not as much as patrol cruiser), though I get the impression that it's real asset is jump four, that other tech level thirteen warships seem mostly limited to jump three.


It may really be that the Solomani Navy felt that for the same commitment of resources, they could have individually more powerful units if they just built battlecruisers, and small ships served the same purpose of light cruisers and destroyers, and that carrierborne strikecraft can support the battleline adequately, leaving small ships to the roles of reconnaissance and patrolling, when attached to the fleet squadrons.

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani Navy: Capital Ship distribution

Another theory could be, that every year, there's a more or less competitive process for a single cruiser contract that emphasizes some engineering, construction or doctrinal aspect that Naval Staff want to study, or that the Solomani politicians want them to study.

In the meantime, they construct three dreadnoughts and a fleet carrier each year.

Battlecruisers is vaguely defined by Naval Staff, but none have been built since the War of Imperial Aggression, just large old hulls that are occasionally refurbished and modernized, and usually similarly performing ones are paired together into Fleet Squadrons.

This allows the maximization of hulls in service, keeps private shipyard owners happy, since the contracts for modernization and maintenance goes to them, thereby keeping regional politicians happy.

Assault carriers are capital ships, but come out of the Army budget.

Cruisers are major combatants, but not capital ships; no heavy cruisers have been built for the past century.

This allows the Solomani Navy to keep only two types of Spinal Mounts in production, really large ones and the smallest possible calibre for tech level fourteen, simplifying logistics and training. Non-standard models are kept running through existing inventory or scrounging for parts. That's why you have three dee printing.

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani Navy: Organization

Military District - The Confederation is split into three military districts about one and two thirds sectors large, each with an area of responsibility. This is my invention, but seems logical.

Task Force - The Solomani equivalent of an Imperium fleet; it allows a more flexible organization of naval assets and obscures exactly where they may be deployed.

Task Group - Fielded organizational unit; usually escorts and support ships built around a major combatant or squadron.

Squadron - Administrative organizational unit; can be split up.

Fleet Squadron - Two to four capital ships, either dreadnoughts or battlecruisers; full strength fleet squadrons are four modern dreadnoughts, reinforced with a battle rider squadron and a fleet carrier attached. Otherwise, four dreadnoughts and a fleet carrier. While the squadron could exceptionally be three dreadnoughts or battlecruisers, in most cases they'd only be pairs with similar performance and armament, and where possible, with an escort carrier attached.

Strike Squadron - Theoretically, upto four cruisers; in practice, two cruisers with similar performance and armament. Strike squadrons aren't defined in order to obscure their capabilities and possible missions.

Assault Squadron - Subsector level organizational unit of any assault carriers, Mobile Launching Platforms and other Solomani Navy and Solomani Army troop transporters.

Patrol Squadron - Everything else that shoots? Divided into flights for patrols or escorts groups for important ships or major combatants.

Logistics Squadron - Fuel and supplies, since you don't want to give the game away if it suddenly disappears in the direction of the border.

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani Bureaucracy: Starports

Asking the Navy to run them would be really asking them to do too much, but the Confederation likes the idea of extraterritoriality in which they can securely keep tabs on their member worlds and have a general idea of the traffic going through Confederation space. The Starports would be run by a civilian bureau in the Ministry of the Economy.

SolSec maintains an office there, and the Solomani Navy leases a section for their transiting warships and auxiliaries, guarded by their security branch and Marines, while general security is provided by a dedicated starport security force and the Solomani Army.

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani Navy: Organization

Patrol Squadron - I dislike the term, especially since it seems to include every warship under two thousand tonnes, that do more than just patrol or escort ships, like reconnaissance, exploration, and some can be used for communications, though I think that would be mostly ad hoc. Considering the greater emphasis on small ships, plus the fact that the Solomani Navy also has to deal with scouting duties, if you keep them as subsector coordinating units, they'll be much larger than a dozen ships.

The flights could have a descriptive adjective, but I suspect the bland nature of the term patrol is meant to cover up a lot of the other activities the squadron would be coordinating.

Speaking of coordination, the squadron commander would also find himself coordinating most activities with subsector member world Home Guard navies as regards patrolling, piracy suppression, etcetera.

Unless the rules change on distributed arrays, I'd include five thousand tonne Aegis destroyers.Anything larger could be assigned to a Strike Squadron.

Carrier Squadron - Fleet carriers get individually attached to fleet squadrons, but the squadron commanders can also have surviving pocket carriers and escort carriers under their control, plus coordinating with Fleet Aerospace Arm the distribution of fighter, shuttles and strikecraft squadrons to carriers, dreadnoughts, battlecruisers, cruisers, tenders and any other jump capable vessel.

Battlerider tenders, and any ship under Navy command that can transport a large starship is included.

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani Navy: Cruiser distribution

I'm going to say that the Solomani have a flexible interpretation of cruiser between seven thousand five hundred and one tonnes and one hundred thousand tonnes, that allows them to pair them off in Strike Squadrons.

Patrol cruiser may be an obsolete term and implies too much of a policing force, which while it does form part of the Navy's duties, isn't what Naval Staff want to be the first impression any observer has.

A proposal to reterm some ships as Peace Cruisers was seriously considered, until the CNO realized it meant ironically, and despite approval from SolSec and the Secretariat, firmly squashed it.

For similar reasons, no vessel is defined as a Colonial Cruiser, an economically outfitted vessel sent to the frontiers, with sufficient capability to protect the trade routes and impress the locals, though a century old largish ship would qualify.

One reason that the Navy complies with the two thousand tonne limitation, is that it's easier and cheaper to supply and repair small ships deployed along the frontiers through local contractors, and if the Navy has to repair a big vessel, it doesn't make that much difference if it was a heavy cruiser or a battlecruiser.

Another underlying reason that the Solomani Navy tolerates, or even encourages the SolSec programme to have a clandestine fleet to infiltrate Imperium space, is that the Imperials will destroy ship and repair yards as they are forced to retreat, and if the Confederation can capture them more or less in tact, they'll have advance bases to maintain and repair their heavy ships, rather than requiring them to be transported back to Solomani space, which is worth far more than missing cruisers in their fleet.

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani Navy: Logistics, Legacies, Boneyard, Refurbishment, Modernization and Commonality

When I first really understood the Solomani cruiser gap and lack of an adequate replacement programme, I thought that let's have fun with this, and have them make each cruiser as unique as possible, meaning that players could come up with any design, and still have it perceived as valid, since the Solomani cruiser designs and philosophy will be all over the place, pursing differing political and military agendas, trying out differing construction techniques and doctrines, and acting as a testbed for the construction of improved dreadnoughts.

Then, when I really studied Sector Fleet, I wondered how that applied to a Solomani Navy that had to build itself up from almost nothing for about a century, probably got almost wiped out in an existential war, though it's been stated that the Imperials accepted the ceasefire because Wolfe pursued the fleet in being doctrine after miscalculating Imperium capacity to recover and reorganize that smashed the Grand Fleet, plus was about to get reinforced from Siberia (though after twelve years, that seems bad staff planning).

While Fighting Ships isn't Jane's, giving only the primary examples of the ships in each niche, presumably, it could well be that once the Solomani Navy decided on a basic design for each tech level, they kept using the same class design.

That has implications to current times, and actually can help to hide the fact that the Solomani has a cruiser gap, at least from the general public, since it would appear the numbers are kept up.

Part of this would be keeping the legacy cruisers in service, and unless their ship systems have decayed to the point it's no longer economic to maintain them, they aren't retired to the reserve. Maintenance could be kept economic by cannibalizing parts from the wrecked hulls from the War of Imperial Aggression, and vessels that have been deemed uneconomic to maintain and/or repair, which is where commonality and probably standard design comes in. When there aren't available parts, this is where the inventive genius of the technical and engineering departments come in, creating new parts or finding runarounds.

Upgrading the electronics, tertiary and secondary armaments, and defensive systems isn't a problem. Engineering and the spinal mount would be, both in terms of space and cost.

The Solomani did make provision for a general upgrade to the next tech level, when those components become available; they might have consulted a psychic as to how much provision they should make if they upgraded them upto two tech levels.

Engines can shrink, though sadly, between tech levels twelve and fourteen, power plants won't, and after twelve, not grav drives either, and a ten percent shrink of factor three jump drives isn't worth it. Nor really trying to squeeze in a factor four capability.

The spinal mount deflates and improves with each tech level, but juggling around the various combinations between tech level twelve to fourteen is complex (because I can't figure out the meson formula), but I'll give it a try.

The leftover lower tech spinal mounts would be installed as planetary defence.

A similar case could and should be made for the Solomani battlecruisers, the Navy switched over to dreadnoughts, specifically termed fast dreadnoughts, much like in real life fast battleships took over from battlecruisers.

In any scenario short of a large scale conflict, a cruiser, even a lower tech one, should daunt most other craft it comes across.

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani Navy: Battlecruisers and Upgrading the Engines

While it would make strategic sense, it involves compromising performance and finding space for the additional ten percent of fuel. While not ideal, some of that extra tankerage could be sited in the unused space of a smaller spinal mount.

One problem is that jump engine parts, when it came to repair and maintenance, would have to be sourced from tech level fourteen factories, if they are shrunk.

Another consideration are the escorts. If you keep them tech level twelve and thirteen basic, which would legacies from the War of Imperial Aggression, and Home Guard assets that couldn't keep up with the current jump four standard.

This makes the Solomani Navy a two speed Navy; not to say this isn't a situation that faces other interstellar fleets, but the Solomanis have no strategic depth, and need to react quickly to any developing situation at their frontiers, which means that you have to base the jump three major combatants forward, and redeploying them has to take the twenty five percent range reduction into account. It could also mean that the jump three battlecruisers have to commit to action, they don't have the range to make a strategic withdrawal, since the enemy could get behind them and destroy rear area facilities and lay an ambush.

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani Navy: Battlecruisers and Upgrading the Engines

Another option is to go with the spinal mount gun deflation, and use the extra space for additional fuel, and then borrow the either tech level thirteen five or six thousand tonne jump drives built for the Zeus class battlecruisers, that succeeded the hundred thousand tonne Victory class.

A tech level thirteen five thousand tonne jump drive would allow a hundred thousand tonne hull to transition four parsecs, while a six thousand tonne drive would allow that hundred thousand tonne hull plus twenty thousand tonne drop tanks to jump four parsecs.

This would allow the Solomani Navy o use existing drives and/or production facilities to make their originally tech level Victory class battlecruisers strategically more significant.

Though if they go with the spinal mount deflation, they would have to reclassify them as cruisers, probably armoured variant. On the plus side, it would reduce the cruiser gap.

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani Navy: Zeus Class Battlecruisers

The Zeus class were the tech level thirteen successors to the tech level twelve Victory class battlecruisers.

It would seem that they were just a one and a half enlarged size Victory class, built rather ambitiously around the fifteen thousand four hundred tonne DRF/13.

The general idea is to gain the initiative, shoot off their weapons for a round, and then run. I'm inclined to think that half their tertiary weapons would be torpedo barbettes, since they're (and I think it's implied Solomani vessels in general) have minimal active defences. And armour.

Against the fifty and hundred tonne torpedo bays, with their internal magazines, and fifty percent and triple increased rate of fire, superior to the barbette variants, which would need to be reloaded separately, but might be worth it in an all out assault that lasts only a round.

The six thousand tonne jump drive could be used to upgrade the Victory class performance to jump four, but that couldn't be done with using the Prometheus jump drive, unless you wanted a jump five capability, and that wouldn't be worth it.

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani Navy: Engineering and Largish Jump Drives

Building different sized jump drives would be wasting resources and cluttering up the logistics chain.

At tech level twelve, the largest starship they could build would be one hundred thousand tonnes at maximum jump three, so a four thousand tonne engine, that could be used (or re-used) in a jump three hundred thousand tonne assault carrier.

The tech level thirteen six thousand tonne Zeus class jump three drive would indicate that the Midway class fleet carrier would more likely be a hundred and fifty thousand tonnes. A more modern carrier might sacrifice volume for greater range, in this case one hundred and twenty thousand tonnes for jump factor four.

Not sure what the Prometheus jump drive would also be used for, unless the Solomani decided to build super carriers. The larger modern dreadnought jump drives could also be used in a battle tender as a transport for a squadron of battle riders.

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani Navy: Smallcraft

Fighting ships has an interesting craft they term the Viper, though ironically it looks more like a Cylon Raider.

Basically a fly saucer, it seems to have two basic variants, assault shuttle and fighter and/or bomber. It's also thirty tonnes.

The reason I enthused on thirty tonnes was mostly due to the one-tonne docking clamp, which aforementioned weight was the maximum capacity. The downside was you only had two weapon slots at forty tonnes.

You pretty much come to the conclusion that you have to customize the equipment to utilize it at it's optimum.

The Solomani two-tonne docking clamp is larger, but can easily grapple any smallcraft between ten to sixty tonnes, which means that you can have a forty tonne hull with double the fire power of anything smaller.

Now it's true that you could just install a launching tube to deal with this, but the Midway class is a dispersed structure with facilities for fifteen hundred thirty-tonne fighters and bombers, and going by the Mongoose game mechanics, it's unlikely that the Solomani Naval Staff would use this.

Th other type of docking clamp I invented was the half-tonne, that could clamp anything fifteen tonnes and below. The Half-tonner and the two-tonner between them could clamp light fighters, medium fighters, heavy fighters, shuttles and assault shuttles sixty tonnes and below.

That would mean the Solomani could construct light fighters (ten tonnes and below), medium fighters (fifteen tonnes), heavy fighters (forty tonnes), light shuttles (fifteen tonnes), shuttles (forty tonnes) and heavy shuttles (fifty nine tonnes).

The flattened sphere configuration could be used primarily for Army craft, much like the wedge configuration would be used primarily for Navy craft, since the Army tend to be interested in atmospheric manoeuvrings and planetary landings more than the Navy.