Is "BattleCruiser" a relative size? -- discussion

[Erax]

Sure. Every hull size has its own cost, which in standard SEIV is directly proportional to its size. You can tweak this to be proportional to the size squared or some such progression to make big ships reaaaaallllly expensive.

You can also tweak maintenance costs for specific hull sizes if you wish.

But remember, 'wet' navies are not a perfect analogy. Spacegoing vessels (especially the SEIV kind that never land on a planet) do not have to worry about drag and gravity as much as seagoing vessels.

[Suicide Junkie]

I like the idea of having the construction costs go up exponentially (size squared?), while firepower goes up linearly, and maintenance costs rise much slower (square root of size, perhaps)

This means you can pump out lots of firepower in a short amount of time by building tiny ships, but the maximum strength of your military will be limited.

In peacetime, you can spend lots of time and initial resources to build large hulls. With the lower maintenance percentages, you can get much more military strength built up before maintenance starts to crunch your economy.

Medium sized ships would be for those unsure about the political climate, with intermediate strength per maintenance dollar, and intermediate build times.

I think this would make for a very interesting game, with a variety of ship sizes being fielded.

[Thermodyne]

The descriptive terms used with cruisers do not refer directly to the size of the ship. The size reference is the size of the main armament, which was mirrored by the hull displacement in most but not all ships. Cruisers in general are long ranging self-sufficient ships. The original intent was to project the might of the British fleet into the far-flung reaches of the Empire. To do this, the ship needed to be able to operate for long periods without the company of a fuel reefer. And it needed to be gunned so as to be able to deal with the locals. They also tended to have good communications gear and many had luxury accommodations. Many U.S. flagships were cruisers. Light cruisers carried 4” or 5” main guns. Mediums were equipped with 6” guns for the most part and heavies carried 8” guns. Battle Cruisers were built with 10 to 15 inch guns just like battle ships but without the armor. The first battle cruisers were cost saving designs, the idea being that speed would negate the need for armor. Jutland disproved this, in large part because the cruisers were required to keep formation with the slower battlewagons. After WW I, the Washington Navy treaty killed off most of the BC’s then under construction. The US converted their unfinished hulls into carriers, which turned into a rather large stroke of blind luck. During WW II, cruisers tended to be built around secondary requirements. Some light cruisers displaced as much weight as large medium cruisers, the added mass being made up of cargo storage. Today, US cruisers are classified without the descriptive size. They displace the weight of an old medium cruiser, but have little armor and no large guns. This makes them appear to be very large. Today’s cruisers can reach out and hit very hard, but would be quickly disabled if they got into a gun only fight. It would be interesting to see a match up between an Aegis and an old battlewagon. Harpoons would be hard pressed against 10+ inch navel armor, but one 16-inch shell could break the back of an Aegis. The SLCM’s would probably be another story, they would probably be able to end the fight before the big guns came into range.

[Erax]

Interesting ideas SJ. I suggest we call it the 'battle cruiser' mod idea, after this thread's initial topic.

Edit : and make it Neo Standard ++ so we can have more intermediate ship sizes.

[ June 18, 2003, 19:58: Message edited by: Chief Engineer Erax ]

[PvK]

See Proportions mod for larger ships that get more and more expensive, with various other reasons to have some smaller ships, and to mothball expensive ones during peace time.

PvK

[Atrocities]

I to have to agree with SJ. The cost should go up dramatically for larger ship hulls.

I also feel that Carriers are under used, under valued, and under powered. In a real NAVY a carrier is the key to the fleet, not the Dreadnought.

SEIV currently does not use Carries in the way that they should be used. You encounter fleets of carriers and a baseships and it should be one or two carriers to a fleet of Battle Cruisers.

[Wanderer]

In 1805, battleships were still called 'ships of the line' and displaced roughly 2,000 tons. In 1916 the average displacement was roughly 25,000 tons and by 1945 there were battleships displacing almost 80,000 tons. To an SE4 race that's only discovered 200kT ships, 200kT probably looks like a battleship, not a frigate.

There's no reason to say "600kt = battlecruiser".

On the other hand, the ascending size scale isn't really accurate either - the terms sloop, frigate, destroyer, cruiser, battleship etc. indicate a role not a size. The size of the ship tended to reflect it's designed role. If you want to mod the game, feel free to give your hull sizes completely different names or even call them by their size and the let the players work it out. I admit "1000kT hull" is a bit bland and uninspiring.

On a third hand (since we're dealing with alien races), does it really matter?

Personally I'm a fan of giving a wide range of hull sizes, and some form of quasi-Newtonian propulsion system - let the players decide how they want to approach ship design!

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SJ/Erax/Big Cat. Like that idea. A lot .

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Some notes/additions to Thermodyne's post. Gets back on-topic in places!

The light cruiser/heavy cruiser distinction based on armament was prevalent during WWII. Generally 6" guns and smaller meant light, 8" guns meant heavy.

During WWI, the classes were light cruiser (fast, no armour, used for scouting) and armoured cruiser (bigger, much slower, larger weapons and... armoured). In some naval listings, you'll see light cruiser given the letters CL and heavy cruiser CA for this reason.

Note that the original design aim of the battleship-cruiser (a.k.a. battlecruiser) was to build a ship with the speed and weaponry to dispose of cruisers whilst staying away from battleships. From the British point of view it did make sense to have ships capable of hunting and killing commerce raiders. Generally, they were comparable in size with contemporary battleships - despite having much thinner armour they needed the space for engines.

As an aside, Lord Fisher was demanding ever stranger designs, to the point whereby the ships didn't even have the armour to keep out the shells from cruisers (i.e. any justification of their construction by saying they were designed to hunt commerce raiders was rendered void). The Furious was built with two 18" guns which were rarely fired as they buckled her weakened hull. Fortunately, she didn't see combat before being converted into an aircraft carrier.

The Germans took the battlecruiser concept and immediately reduced the armament and speed to fit more armour. Their designs were more balanced, and fit more neatly into the 'marginally smaller, faster, lightly-armed battleship' concept we see in SE4.

One point I think Thermo got wrong:
The two sets of battlecruisers were both used as 'heavy scouts' (both sides had light crusiers scouting ahead) during Jutland. They fought a running battle, each trying to draw the other onto the guns of their own battleships.

Other than later German designs, most battlecruisers proposed after WWI were larger and faster than the battleships of the time and nearly as well armoured. Very few were actually built, due to the various naval treaties and cost-cutting.

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Mmmmmm. I'll stop there as I'm hungry.