NationStates Jolt Archive

Currently the capital class ship is the aircraft carrier but that could change as new technologies are becoming available.

So design a practical capital ship using tech either current or with tech being developed in the next 15 years.

Putting key devices to improving whatever ship you have thought/read about is also good, probably be best for key points.

Well it'll float for one.


And....eh...it'll be made of metal.


Oh, it'll have some kind of engine.

http://www.timegun.org/dreadnought.jpg

Ships like this helped build the worlds largest empire they must do something right :)

plus its coal powered so its like planning ahead from behind

Will it also have some kind of thingy to direct it?

Will it also have some kind of thingy to direct it?

A guy standing at the front.

Well...

Displacement (tons): 184 640 tons
Speed (kts): 32 knots
Dimensions (m): 370 meters (1214') long overall
340 meters (1115'6") long at waterline
90 meters (300') width overall
12 (33'5")meters draft


Propulsion: 6 nuclear reactors, 8 screws
Crew: 1 200 + 900 air arm

Electronics:
Control Systems: Combat Information Center
Aviation Combat Information Center communications suite including satellite communications
3 Palm Frond Navigation
Fly Trap B Aircraft Control

Radar: 1 LR-710 Top Plate 3D Air/Surface Search
2 MR-320 Strut Pair 2D Air/Surface Search
16 TR-909 Roland SA-11 Fire Control
12 MR-360 Cross Sword SA-12 Fire Control
8 LR-440 Hot Flash SA-16 Fire Control

Sonar: 1 LS-24 Bloodhound search and attack sonar [medium and low frequency bands]
2 MS-345 Bronza Yoke hull mounted Sonars

ECM: 2 ECM-556 Cloaker ECM system

Armament:
Missiles: 4x4 SA-11 Archer short range SAM system
3x4 SA-12 Adder medium range SAM system
2x4 SA-16 Ghosthunter long range SAM system
256 SS-N-22 Sunburn VLS cells

Guns: 9x420mm bombardment cannon
10x152mm bombardment cannon
12x40mm AA cannon
12x25mm GAU-25-5 CIWS

Anti-Submarine Warfare: Udav-1 ASW system

Armor:

Belt: 22"
Deck: 14"
Turret Face/Side: 24"/16"
Conning Tower: 22"

Air Wing:

Fighter: 12 F-27A Manta Ray fighter aircraft
24 FV-27C Manta Ray tactical fighter V/STOL aircraft
Attack: 24 A-24D Avenger tactical strike aircraft
ASW: 4 S-24B Avenger ASW aircraft, 4 SH-27(Ka 27) Killer Whale ASW helicopters
Other: 2 E-24C Avenger AEW-C aircraft, 2 E-24D Avenger ECM aircraft
Total Air Wing: 72 Aircraft, 68 fixed wing, 4 rotary wing


Description:

The CISR Armed Forces issued a call for a large vessel capable of replacing the legendary Marx class vessels. This design was to be able to operate both as a battleship and as an aircraft carrier, as it's predecessor was. It was decided to make this vessel a trimaran design, for increased stability as well as increased internal space.

The Borovsky class dreadnought excels in many roles, however it is truely devestating as a marine support vessel in conjunction with smaller amphibious assualt carriers. It can launch heavier aircraft then can Wasp class amphibious assualt carriers, and can provide the type of firepower needed to devestate enemy positions before the marines land.

The Borovsky class dreadnought was designed and produced by Lyulka Shipyards OKB, who previously designed numerous other vessels for the Haaregradian Naval Command, including the Marx Class dreadnought (although it was the first vessel designed for the CISR Naval Command), along with several large tankers, cargo ships and cruiseliners. The total cost of R&D on the vessel is currently classified and the cost per unit for the CISR is also classified.

Ships like this helped build the worlds largest empire they must do something right :)
plus its coal powered so its like planning ahead from behind


Actually the (H.M.S?) Dreadnought helped to cause ww1 (along with a whole myriad of other factors).

It may have helped to keep an empire going but in the end doomed it by forcing Britain to spend huge amounts of money on its fleet (hmm, familiar).

Haaregrad, a Russian carrier? I thought they had those programs on hold (until they can ramp up military exports). Seems nifty (at least it is not from the severnties).

Any changes you would make to the design?

Actually the (H.M.S?) dreadnaught helped to cause ww1 (along with a whole myriad of other factors).

it was however vital in winning WWI due to the penis race with Germany that ended up leaving Harry Hun envious

It may have helped to keep an empire going but in the end doomed it by forcing Britain to spend huge amounts of money on its fleet (hmm, familiar).

During the policy of larger than the next 3 combined the royal navy made up an insanely large amount of the budget

it was however vital in winning WWI due to the penis race with Germany that ended up leaving Harry Hun envious

Just saying it didn't really create the empire, just helped the status quo.

Germany was pretty stupid in that respect, a u-boat expansion program would have helped a lot (since there would have been some to spare for setting up an ambush).


During the policy of larger than the next 3 combined the royal navy made up an insanely large amount of the budget

I thought it was the next 2 (damn you wikipedia!). The money spent on battleships could have been better spent with r&d or perhaps achieving better air superiority and (late in the war/should have been done in the 1920s-30s) tank superiority.

If the U.S doesn't watch itself it will either run its economy into the ground trying to keep up an increased Russian/Chinese military budget. Or they might go the other way and decide not to update their systems, thus becoming obsolete.

Capital ships are obsolete. You dont need them anymore. Air Carriers are the best avaiable ships nowadays, because it can hold a lot of aircraft, missiles and infantry.

You dont need anything else.

The only way capital ships could become as big as in the past is if there was new technologies that hendered missiles useless.

Whatever else you use on it. It will need a nova gun and a gellar device.

Well... *snip*

Someone has waaaaaaay to much free time. :p

TR-909 Roland

isn't that a drum machine?

I would build mine out of mainly aluminium, it being a light-weight materials, and possibly create a tough outer shell, possibly from Iridium, just for the coolness factor of Iridium. I'd make it large enough to contain at least a small city, including farms and such. Any minerals would be gained from local asteroids. Recycling would be obvious and necessary. Oh, and we'd need a UV shield and...

wait, you meant the kind of ship that floats and not a spaceship?

:p

That could be my capitol-spaceship though :o and once we're established in space, expanding in space shouldn't be too difficult. But we need to be established *nods wisely*

I would build mine out of mainly aluminium, it being a light-weight materials, and possibly create a tough outer shell, possibly from Iridium, just for the coolness factor of Iridium. I'd make it large enough to contain at least a small city, including farms and such. Any minerals would be gained from local asteroids. Recycling would be obvious and necessary. Oh, and we'd need a UV shield and...

wait, you meant the kind of ship that floats and not a spaceship?

:p

That could be my capitol-spaceship though :o and once we're established in space, expanding in space shouldn't be too difficult. But we need to be established *nods wisely*

A halfway decent spacekroozer is capebal of floating as well.

A halfway decent spacekroozer is capebal of floating as well.

True.

Still, it'd need the exact opposite that say, a submarine does. A submarine needs to be able to repel pressure. A spaceship needs to be able to repel lack of pressure.

So I don't think it'd float for long, if it was loaded with equipment and people.

True.

Still, it'd need the exact opposite that say, a submarine does. A submarine needs to be able to repel pressure. A spaceship needs to be able to repel lack of pressure.

So I don't think it'd float for long, if it was loaded with equipment and people.
Then you've build one shitty kroozer.:p The Delta Flyer was perfectly capabal of submersion.

a nice Capital Ship

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ae/HMSWarrior.JPG

a nice Capital Ship

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ae/HMSWarrior.JPG
I'd like to see that enter the warp. Ha.

True.

Still, it'd need the exact opposite that say, a submarine does. A submarine needs to be able to repel pressure. A spaceship needs to be able to repel lack of pressure.

So I don't think it'd float for long, if it was loaded with equipment and people.

"How many atmospheres of pressure can the hull withstand?"
"Well it's a spaceship, so somewhere between zero and one."

Capital ships? Did someone call me? =p

What a coincidence, the Wirbelwind is just about receiving its finishing touches. Note. Images link to full sized ones.

http://www.3dshowreel.com/imageup/thumbs/jdv1171025568q.jpg (http://www.3dshowreel.com/imageup/viewer.php?id=jdv1171025568q.jpg)

http://www.3dshowreel.com/imageup/thumbs/cqs1172502533r.jpg (http://www.3dshowreel.com/imageup/viewer.php?id=cqs1172502533r.jpg)

Video fly by for anyone who wants one.

http://www.3dshowreel.com/hostup/dl.php?key=Wirbelwind_Fly_By

Capital ships? Did someone call me? =p

What a coincidence, the Wirbelwind is just about receiving its finishing touches. Note. Images link to full sized ones.

http://www.3dshowreel.com/imageup/thumbs/jdv1171025568q.jpg (http://www.3dshowreel.com/imageup/viewer.php?id=jdv1171025568q.jpg)

http://www.3dshowreel.com/imageup/thumbs/cqs1172502533r.jpg (http://www.3dshowreel.com/imageup/viewer.php?id=cqs1172502533r.jpg)

Video fly by for anyone who wants one.

http://www.3dshowreel.com/hostup/dl.php?key=Wirbelwind_Fly_By

Is that a real ship/class?

*hops up to the drawing board*

Let's see, a capital ship.


...

It'll have to float in mud. Needs three human cannonball cannons.

*sketches* ooh! A roller coaster! Definitely! ...

This is going to be the cooles capital ship ever! *doodles* Can't forget the taco bar.

:)

Is that a real ship/class?

Heavy battlecruiser class. As to whether it's real, check the video I've hosted in that post. You'll have your answer soon enough.

...

It'll have to float in mud. Needs three human cannonball cannons.


You should put your orders through me LG. My designs can be catered to any customer.

http://www.3dshowreel.com/imageup/thumbs/rgh1172600986h.jpg (http://www.3dshowreel.com/imageup/viewer.php?id=rgh1172600986h.jpg)

Mine will be a humungous long, pointy, metal thing with lots of long, pointy metal cannons spewing death. And long, metal funnels spewing smoke. Called HMS Venus.

I can't believe no-one else has resorted to phallic imagery yet...

Heavy battlecruiser class. As to whether it's real, check the video I've hosted in that post. You'll have your answer soon enough.

You sure its a ship? The only Wirbelwind Google found so far for me is a German AA tank from WWII. And the video in your link doesn't work for me either.

http://www.timegun.org/dreadnought.jpg

Ships like this helped build the worlds largest empire they must do something right :)

plus its coal powered so its like planning ahead from behind
Her only success in battle was ramming a U-boat though. Let's face it, in 8 years dreadnoughts had advanced so much that she was obsolete by the summer of 1914 when the shooting started.

This thread reminds me of NS's major Super Dreadnought arms race of 2004. That was one screwed up summer on II. It all began with the Doujin (designed by Freethinkers for Doujin). Then a bunch of people started building their own SDNs. I got involved and it got ugly for all sides.

You sure its a ship? The only Wirbelwind Google found so far for me is a German AA tank from WWII. And the video in your link doesn't work for me either.

It's a ship of my own design. As to the video, you can't stream it, you'll need to download it. You'll also need an avi codec to run it.

This thread reminds me of NS's major Super Dreadnought arms race of 2004. That was one screwed up summer on II. It all began with the Doujin (designed by Freethinkers for Doujin). Then a bunch of people started building their own SDNs. I got involved and it got ugly for all sides.

Maybe, but how many can do more than just give stats?
[/self plug]

It's a ship of my own design. As to the video, you can't stream it, you'll need to download it. You'll also need an avi codec to run it.
Ooooooooooooooooooh..this is like a model building thread.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!*flees in terror*

Current technological trends point towards surface fleets being rendered obsolete. Nothing but big, floating expensive targets.

The capital ship of the future will not be a ship, but a submarine.

The converted Ohio class SSGNs are an excellent example, although I wouldn't be surprised if a submergable aircraft carrier were built.

I don't know Delator. Traditionally, submersible ships have been much more fragile than their surface counterparts.

Current technological trends point towards surface fleets being rendered obsolete. Nothing but big, floating expensive targets.

The capital ship of the future will not be a ship, but a submarine.

The converted Ohio class SSGNs are an excellent example, although I wouldn't be surprised if a submergable aircraft carrier were built.

Pah. The Japanese already came up with those in the '70's.

Behold the might of the Imperial (space)navy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wG-eq7D-Yxk&mode=related&search=)

The capital ship of the future will not be a ship, but a submarine.

...or a massive flying thing like the fighter/sub carrier in Sky Captain and the World of tomorrow. :D

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h182/theloneguardsman/PDVD_009.jpg
http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h182/theloneguardsman/PDVD_023.jpghttp://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h182/theloneguardsman/PDVD_009.jpg
http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h182/theloneguardsman/PDVD_010.jpg

Just saying it didn't really create the empire, just helped the status quo.

Germany was pretty stupid in that respect, a u-boat expansion program would have helped a lot (since there would have been some to spare for setting up an ambush).



I thought it was the next 2 (damn you wikipedia!). The money spent on battleships could have been better spent with r&d or perhaps achieving better air superiority and (late in the war/should have been done in the 1920s-30s) tank superiority.

If the U.S doesn't watch itself it will either run its economy into the ground trying to keep up an increased Russian/Chinese military budget. Or they might go the other way and decide not to update their systems, thus becoming obsolete.

It was indeed the next two combined. As a historian capable of jousting with Gurguvungunit and holding my ground qutie well, I tell you that Wikipedia is correct in this case.
The building of the Dreadnoughts did more to start the war than they did to build the empire, yes, but nevertheless they would maintain the empire too. Throughout the uncertainty of the years following World War I the infamous British policy of Gunboat Diplomacy (that is, keeping a battleship in major harbours to ensure the local populace that the British were still in control) continued and did quite well.

Ilaer

Wet-navy battleship duels are old hat. What we need are flying submarines. Maybe painted a bright yellow.

The kind of capital ship that will ultimately replace the aircraft carrier is the satellite-coordination boat. War will move into orbit with laser satellites, communication satellites, spy satellites, bomb-dropping satellites, missile-intercepting satellites, and (of course) satellite-killing satellites. A boat that can serve as a floating platform for coordinating these activities can sit in the middle Diego Garcia and rain death upon, say, Iran, should it come to that. Of course, the new shape of market forces means that a large-scale, medium-tech war such as the two world wars or the various cold-war conflicts is unlikely to happen anytime soon. The new face of war is small-scale ground wars over dwindling natural resources. So the capital ship is a dying breed. Its spiritual replacement will be the supersoldier.

Currently the capital class ship is the aircraft carrier but that could change as new technologies are becoming available.

So design a practical capital ship using tech either current or with tech being developed in the next 15 years.

Putting key devices to improving whatever ship you have thought/read about is also good, probably be best for key points.


I'd go with a Trireme.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~loxias/trireme/trireme.jpg

Except the inner hull would be Titanium and the rowers and sailors would all be deadly cyborgs.

There will be several requirements for the next type of capital ship.

First, it will need to be fully submersible. This will protect it from orbital Kinetic-Kill weapons while cruising and give it the advantage of strategic surprise - your opponent will not know it's location. This will of course require it to have effective undersea-to-undersea weapons - probably torpoedoes, with blue-green laser clusters for point defense and close-range combat.

Lasers will also provide it with defense while surfaced. A number of large, powerful emitters (say four) will constantly be tasked with firing on any detected K-K munitions homing on the ship - the laser can disrupt the plasma sheath around the incoming munition, causing the "telephone pole" to tumble and break up, no longer a threat to the ship. Smaller emitters dotted all over the ship will automatically engage any aircraft or missile, and will attempt to destroy incoming shells and railgun rounds (good fraggin' luck on the latter, but they could get lucky).

Primary weaponry will be naval railguns, capable of low powered ballistic shots (for over-the-horizon work) or high-powered direct fire for visible targets. I figure eight guns, in four independent turrets.

I seriously doubt that aircraft, missiles (sea-skimmer or standard) and other air assets will remain viable in the mid-21st century combat environment. With fast as light weaponry, ships will use active radar and lidar continuously - they don't need to hide from radar-seekers, and if they're surfaced then anyone with a spy-sat already knows where they are. The Battleship above will be heavily armoured, with super-hard steel fronting backed by steel honeycomb construction to spread impact and improve rigidity (important in a submersible).

Powerplant will be either a high-powered fission reactor, such as those used on modern Aircraft Carriers, or if they can work out the bugs, a fusion reactor. Speed will probably be roughly equivalent to a modern carrier on the surface; significantly less submerged.

Notably, this type of surface-attack Battleship will NOT be stealthy when submerged. Too much in the way of hydrodynamics have been sacrificed to enable immediate deployment of weapons upon surfacing.

Three other types of warships will probably be common. The first is the battle submarine, a beefed up version of today's attack sub. It will be very quiet, and optimized for hunting other subs and submersible warships.

The second is the defense cruiser. This is the Battleship's consort - a cruiser class ship with nothing but laser defense systems. It is also submersible, but carries the same or greater defensive weaponry as the Battleship; it's only offensive weapons, however, are torpedo tubes.

The third is the sub carrier. This is basically a large cargo sub outfitted to deploy and recover fighter submarines - small, supercavitating attack subs. These would likely be the singel greatest threat to the Battleship - but unlike the Battleship, and unlike modern fighter aircraft, would have virtually no land-attack ability. Because of it's size, the Carrier will be less stealthy than an attack sub. And of course, once it's babies light off their supercavitating drives, all attempts at stealth are moot.

Comments, criticisms, questions?

Honestly, I think the Navy is moving away from capital ships. The most recent designs have been replacements for the DDG class destroyers, the new DDX. It's supposed to have moderate stealth capabilities. This seems to be easier on the budget for the government. Cheaper, smaller ships than can react faster to rouble around the world seem to be the trend.

My two cents, based on reading Proceedings, the United States Naval Institute magazine. :D

Floating Fortress. One square kilometre of awesomeness.

Capital ships are obsolete. You dont need them anymore. Air Carriers are the best avaiable ships nowadays, because it can hold a lot of aircraft, missiles and infantry.

Actually aircraft carriers are considered the capital ships of any nation that has them because of almost all of those reasons.

In actual fact many of the newer aircraft carriers in the future will have less people, so that costs are brought down. The best carrier class, the Nimitz (I think that is how it spells out) costs a huge amount to run. The only actual infantry they would have would be some kind of security detail.

Some of the weaknesses of them (aircraft carriers in general) however are:

A) They are heavily reliant on support ships for defence, with only a small amount of aircraft being anti-sub designed.

B) They have no actual immediate firepower (apart from AA, and even that seems to be on the really big carriers) to bear. All the missiles they have are only used with the planes.

C) They are primarily effective only when they either have air superiority in the area around the carrier (allowing most defending ship details to be used to keep enemy battleships/subs away).

D) Whilst the latest ones (U.S.A ones) can launch their fighter/bombers rather rapidly they require the plane to be fueled, fitted and manned. They seem to have the fast launching down well enough but they have large recovery (landing) and preperation (such as re-arming and refuelling). Add that to not being able to deploy (take the aircraft out of the hanger) as fast as they should.

E) There seem to be no carrier fighter/bomber planes design from the bottom up to be used on a carrier. They just get the design for a land air base air craft then change it to be used on a carrier. This, along with the expensive nature of aircraft carriers and aircraft themselves means they do not hold the latest planes (where they would be needed the most) and cannot have a revolutionary design.

Why have capital ships when you can have a giant arsenal of nukes?

*hops up to the drawing board*

It'll have to float in mud. Needs three human cannonball cannons.

How about making it float under mud?



Can't forget the water slide!

[QUOTE=Lunatic Goofballs;12375626
This is going to be the cooles capital ship ever! *doodles* Can't forget the taco bar.

I'd prefer a potato.

:)
.........\
<.........\
...--}....|
<........./
........./

I can't believe no-one else has resorted to phallic imagery yet...

Meh, Halo 3 has that already (Man cannon anyone?).

Anyway, don't/didn't the U.S, Former U.S.S.R, France, Britain, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, South Africa, Israel (well, just poorly veiled hints they do have them) governments do enough of that, especially when you consider how 'potent' their weapons along with how 'long', 'hard' and 'thick' their weapons are/were (gets even worse when thinking about how they talk about how 'fast' and 'they can go the distance').

Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belerus actually just get former soviet weapons and transferred them backto russia so they don't really count.

The US and UK during ww2 planned several HUGE aircraft carriers made out of PyCrete, essentaily ice and saw dust. Somehow the PyCrete never melts and is extremely strong, and you can make the ship huge, really huge, like the size of a large island, and it takes much less resources to build having less raw materials and such. They shoulda went through with the idea, and it should be used today, its great.

The US and UK during ww2 planned several HUGE aircraft carriers made out of PyCrete, essentaily ice and saw dust. Somehow the PyCrete never melts and is extremely strong, and you can make the ship huge, really huge, like the size of a large island, and it takes much less resources to build having less raw materials and such. They shoulda went through with the idea, and it should be used today, its great.

Technically pykrete does melt. It just takes something around over a year to do so. Technically invulnerable to conventional anti-shipping missiles, it still has a number of drawbacks.

For one, incendiary weapons that burn hot enough to split water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen would be deadly against such carriers, although it's effectiveness is debatable given pykrete's high melting point and the presence of firefighting equipment.

For another, an iceberg carrier would be considerably slow due to the large mass required to make it invulnerable.

Still, it has an advantage of being able to repair its armor in short periods of time while at sea.

The US and UK during ww2 planned several HUGE aircraft carriers made out of PyCrete, essentaily ice and saw dust. Somehow the PyCrete never melts and is extremely strong, and you can make the ship huge, really huge, like the size of a large island, and it takes much less resources to build having less raw materials and such. They shoulda went through with the idea, and it should be used today, its great.

It melts more slowly, that is all. You are forgetting that it would not have even been able to go into port, increasing complexity and the exposed nature of it whilst it waits for a fleet of reloading ships.

Carriers need to be more stealthy (such as the submersible carrier) so having a giant platform that would most likely melt within a year (and considering an expiditionary force could be out for several months and carriers are used for decades).

You wouldn't even be able to use VToL aircraft, due to the heat of the engines.

Well the Butch, the Baker and the Candlestick maker seemed to get along fine in that wooden tub they had, so i'd use that as a hull and mount a Watermelon catapult on the front.
Unbeatable.

Honestly, I think the Navy is moving away from capital ships. The most recent designs have been replacements for the DDG class destroyers, the new DDX. It's supposed to have moderate stealth capabilities. This seems to be easier on the budget for the government. Cheaper, smaller ships than can react faster to rouble around the world seem to be the trend.

My two cents, based on reading Proceedings, the United States Naval Institute magazine. :D

Actually DDX is quite large and projected to be VERY expensive. It's primary role will be naval gunfire support and there's questions as to how effective it'll even be at that. As a result there are lots of people saying the Navy should kill the DDX program and use to money to buy more DDG-51 and upgrade the remaining Ticonderoga class cruisers.

The kind of capital ship that will ultimately replace the aircraft carrier is the satellite-coordination boat.

We are talking about capital ships use tech from now to 15 years from now.

Why have capital ships when you can have a giant arsenal of nukes?

Because the MAD principle was in place.

Also if any state uses a nuclear explosive against another state in todays day and age there would be severe reprecussions.

I don't know Delator. Traditionally, submersible ships have been much more fragile than their surface counterparts.

The point is that stealth is better now-a-days. For most carriers (ignoring the really massive ones) all it takes is 2-3 planes with anti-ship missiles/torpedos to down a carrier. In those circumstances a carrier that is cheaper, more stealthy, has less people and could launch planes faster (as well as recover and re-supply/re-arm).

I would build mine out of mainly aluminium, it being a light-weight materials, and possibly create a tough outer shell, possibly from Iridium, just for the coolness factor of Iridium. I'd make it large enough to contain at least a small city, including farms and such. Any minerals would be gained from local asteroids.[\QUOTE]

If you were going to make a permanent habitat vessel/worlship what would the point in saving weight be? You'd be better off with a tough, modular understructure and larger/more engines.

[QUOTE=Tolvan;12377606]Actually DDX is quite large and projected to be VERY expensive. It's primary role will be naval gunfire support and there's questions as to how effective it'll even be at that. As a result there are lots of people saying the Navy should kill the DDX program and use to money to buy more DDG-51 and upgrade the remaining Ticonderoga class cruisers.

There is the argument also that a new type of ship, akin to a drone that could house hundreds of missiles would be more effective as it could destroy a large part of a fleet (especially carriers and troop/supply transports) for a price much less that the fleet.

Her only success in battle was ramming a U-boat though. Let's face it, in 8 years dreadnoughts had advanced so much that she was obsolete by the summer of 1914 when the shooting started.

I think he/she/it(turing machine?) was talking about the class of battleship (named in honour of the first Dreadnought, the H.M.S Dreadnought.

It was indeed the next two combined. As a historian capable of jousting with Gurguvungunit and holding my ground qutie well, I tell you that Wikipedia is correct in this case.
The building of the Dreadnoughts did more to start the war than they did to build the empire, yes, but nevertheless they would maintain the empire too. Throughout the uncertainty of the years following World War I the infamous British policy of Gunboat Diplomacy (that is, keeping a battleship in major harbours to ensure the local populace that the British were still in control) continued and did quite well.

Wikipedia is informative (Wii!), Uncyclopedia really is increadibly niche (Uriin!)

I'll cede you that point (about keeping the empire strong). It seems that they could have used cheaper vessels for their coercion though, considering that the middle east was rather weak at the time. The building of their empire after WWI was more by britain beingthe strongest in europe after the war ended, thus gaining the lions share of the ottoman's territory.

However it should have been obvious that it would quickly get to the point of diminishing returns and that any kind of serious shock to their economy would accentuate the problem and since the battleships/dreadnoughts were placed at such high priority it weakened Britain's capabilities to mount more effective defenses in other areas.

Then again, thats just my take on it.

BTW: Who is Gurguvungunit?

Wet-navy battleship duels are old hat. What we need are flying submarines. Maybe painted a bright yellow.

Well, if it could pump out a LOT of air there might be enough to allow a bubble of air for a sub to 'fly' through.

That or we stick rockets on the sub.

Whatever else you use on it. It will need a nova gun and a gellar device.

You worshipper of the false corpse-emperor.

There is the argument also that a new type of ship, akin to a drone that could house hundreds of missiles would be more effective as it could destroy a large part of a fleet (especially carriers and troop/supply transports) for a price much less that the fleet.

That idea has been around since 1996 as the failed Arsenal Ship (http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/arsenal_ship.htm).

They scrapped the program for a reason. VLS arrays are very vulnerable to damage so it doesn't take much to knock out most of those 500 missiles. Also, removing the crew removes your damage control capability, meaning what would only be minor damage to another ship would likely sink the aresenal ship.

The point is that stealth is better now-a-days. For most carriers (ignoring the really massive ones) all it takes is 2-3 planes with anti-ship missiles/torpedos to down a carrier.

From what I understand of modern ship designs, most warships built now don't even have an armored hull, just a steel skin and maybe a kevlar layer to catch fragments. Carriers are even worse. What they are in effect is giant floating bombs with armor that you could probably spit through.


In those circumstances a carrier that is cheaper, more stealthy, has less people and could launch planes faster (as well as recover and re-supply/re-arm).

Good attributes in a carrier I suppose, although I would prefer ship hunter battlecruiser designs with a strong mix of passive and active defenses.

I don't know Delator. Traditionally, submersible ships have been much more fragile than their surface counterparts.

Surface ship hulls aren't really armored anymore, at least not enough to stop even one anti-ship missile. That, and as stated, any nation with a satellite knows right where you are...and right where to direct their air-force and missiles.

In a sub, your own skill ensures your survival. If you have the tech and the training, you can evade detection for months, and even your own forces may have no clue where you are.

And while ASW aircraft can still get you, their armarments are limited. A single torpedo is a far cry from seeing hundreds of anti-ship missiles bearing down on your task-force.

While Dododecapod was dead on with his assessment regarding satellite weaponry, I disagree with his assessment that aircraft and missiles will be rendered obsolete by FTL weaponry, especially in regards to naval combat.

Using enough missiles will overwhelm any intereception based defense system and batter any armor into ineffectiveness. To avoid missile swarming techniques and satellite weaponry, one must be under the sea, not on it.

It took Taranto, Pearl Harbor, the sinking of the Repulse and Prince of Wales, and Midway to prove the battleship era was over.

The carrier era will likely end with a single sunken vessel. Surface ships are far too costly to continue to be useful in the future if they are nothing but fancy bullseyes for enemy missiles.

Surface ship hulls aren't really armored anymore, at least not enough to stop even one anti-ship missile.

Well, I thought this was a design your own capital ship thread, not a commentary on current designs. =p

Besides, I know modern surface ships suck armor wise.


That, and as stated, any nation with a satellite knows right where you are...and right where to direct their air-force and missiles.

Not too sure on this. Any nation advanced enough to field a modern navy sufficiently powerful to start a full on fight at that level is bound to have satellite kill vehicles and ECM geared for that. Let's say 50/50 chance.


And while ASW aircraft can still get you, their armarments are limited. A single torpedo is a far cry from seeing hundreds of anti-ship missiles bearing down on your task-force.

That may be true, but I'm not sure if there's been any instance of a sub surviving a torpedo hit. You're still quite fragile.


The carrier era will likely end with a single sunken vessel. Surface ships are far too costly to continue to be useful in the future if they are nothing but fancy bullseyes for enemy missiles.

I'm of mixed opinions regarding this, but that put aside, could we agree on a submersible rapid strike battleship?

That may be true, but I'm not sure if there's been any instance of a sub surviving a torpedo hit. You're still quite fragile.

Countermeasures and the skill of the skipper make all the difference.

I'm of mixed opinions regarding this, but that put aside, could we agree on a submersible rapid strike battleship?

I don't see it as feasible...

1. Cost of development
2. Ease of destruction while surfaced
3. Lack of specialization

...but it would be fun. :D

That may be true, but I'm not sure if there's been any instance of a sub surviving a torpedo hit. You're still quite fragile.


The Soviet Typhoon SSBN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_class_submarine) had multiple titanium pressure hulls to increase survivability.
From the link:
Typhoon class submarines feature multiple pressure hulls that simplify internal design while making the vessel much wider than a normal submarine. In the main body of the sub, two Delta class titanium pressure hulls lie parallel with a third, smaller pressure hull above them (which protrudes just below the sail), and two other pressure hulls for torpedoes and steering gear. This also greatly increases their survivability - even if one pressure hull is breached, the crew members in the other are safe and there is less potential for flooding.

Not sure what kinda shape she'd be in after a couple torpedo strikes though

Countermeasures and the skill of the skipper make all the difference.

Some, but not all I imagine.


I don't see it as feasible...

1. Cost of development
2. Ease of destruction while surfaced
3. Lack of specialization

...but it would be fun. :D

Heck, you were the one talking about submersible carriers, why not go all the way with sub battleships? As to specialization, why, ship hunting and surface bombardment of course.

And ease of destruction only matters if you don't armor it.

But yes, it would be fun. I'll start drawing up the plans =p

The Soviet Typhoon SSBN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_class_submarine) had multiple titanium pressure hulls to increase survivability.
From the link:


Not sure what kinda shape she'd be in after a couple torpedo strikes though

You could probably buy a Typhoon and hire on its old crew for pretty cheap. The Russian economy is desperate for cash and they've been selling off all their old stuff. That gives me an idea... for a novelty cruise line. Sailing out of scenic Arkangels'k and circling the pole on a nuclear submarine, steeping in the (carbon-scrubbed) atmosphere of the height of the Cold War, basking in the Iron Curtain ambiance as the live band plays "Internationale" and the buffet serves up canned beets and copious vodka every night. I could make a fortune... :D

I think Media will be the capital ship of the future, if it isn't already.

Apart from that, maybe a combination of space-based weapons, nuclear deterrant, and super-cavitating submarines (the last already exist in torpedo form).

Current technological trends point towards surface fleets being rendered obsolete. Nothing but big, floating expensive targets.

The capital ship of the future will not be a ship, but a submarine.

The converted Ohio class SSGNs are an excellent example, although I wouldn't be surprised if a submergable aircraft carrier were built.

Too noisy. Would be pointless to spend so much money on something like that when at the moment the primary requirement of a submarine is an ability to hide, which that particular submarine isn't going to do with all those extra parts rattling around and at such a large size. Launching UAVs and cruise missiles is one thing, but a submarine aircraft carrier is silly (if, admittedly, a cool concept)

Capital ship? I'd go for some variants of the 941 Akula sub (aka Typhoon).

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/slbm/pl941ak3.jpg
(from www.fas.org)

Variant 1: Aircraft Carrier sub
Upgrade lenght to 220 m. Upgrade power output from 380 MW to 500 MW.
Add low-noise hydrojet propulsion system.
Replace ballistic missile silos with hangar and one lift.
Replace the 533mm torpedo tubes and go for 2+2 650mm tubes with autoloaders, for torpedoes and UW rockets (like the VA-111 Shkval).
Add 1 front and 1 rear launcher for 6+6 3m54 Klub (SS-N-27) sea-skimming missiles.
Add an area SAM launcher like the S-400 (SA-20 Triumf) with 20 missiles.
Add 2 navalised Pancyr AA complexes (57e6 SAMs and 2 2a72 30mm guns), plus 4 Arena-like antimissile systems.
Add a 3d radar and a phased-array.
Flight compartment: 10 Yak-141, 2 Ka-25, 2 Mi-24, plus 4 recon drones.

Variant 2: Battle Cruiser sub
Upgrade lenght to 220 m. Upgrade power output from 380 MW to 500 MW.
Add low-noise hydrojet propulsion system.
Reduce to 4 MIRV ballistic missiles "only" (you never know, it's 40 nuke warheads anyway!)
Replace the 533mm torpedo tubes and go for 6+4 650mm tubes with autoloaders, for torpedoes and UW rockets (like the VA-111 Shkval).
Add 2 front and 1 rear launcher for 20+10 3m54 Klub (SS-N-27) sea-skimming missiles.
Add an area SAM launcher like the S-400 (SA-20 Triumf) with 20 missiles.
Add 4 navalised Pancyr AA complexes (57e6 SAMs and 2 2a72 30mm guns), plus 4 Arena-like antimissile systems.
Add 2 cannon turrets (152mm rapid-fire gun).
Add a 3d radar and a phased-array.
Flight compartment: 4 recon drones.

Who needs stealth when you can go UW?

Also, capital surface ships are just supersonic missile fodder.

I think Media will be the capital ship of the future, if it isn't already.

It is already. You win the thread.

super-cavitating submarines (the last already exist in torpedo form).

Supercavitation sucks too much energy and also makes more noise than death metal. No point in a supercavitating sub. Standard nuclear subs are already fast enough: the soviet Lira-class (aka Alpha) went about 1 km deep and ran at more than 40 knots.

Technically pykrete does melt. It just takes something around over a year to do so. Technically invulnerable to conventional anti-shipping missiles, it still has a number of drawbacks.

For one, incendiary weapons that burn hot enough to split water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen would be deadly against such carriers, although it's effectiveness is debatable given pykrete's high melting point and the presence of firefighting equipment.



Who needs to sink a ship when you can kill all the crew with a well-placed fuel-air warhead?
Sorry for the Habbakuk, that was a good idea in WW2 maybe, but today it's nothing more than a floating coffin...

Who needs to sink a ship when you can kill all the crew with a well-placed fuel-air warhead?
Sorry for the Habbakuk, that was a good idea in WW2 maybe, but today it's nothing more than a floating coffin...

I'm not sure if a fuel air explosive would work well in tight confines that are already limited by watertight bulkheads that would be sealed in combat situations.

You can forget Daisy Cutters and MOABs. Those are too large and too slow not to be intercepted in the air. That leaves missile carried FAEs, and then it's chances of killing all the crew are somewhat iffy.

isn't that a drum machine?

Yes, Roland used to make a TR909 drum machine, and I still want one. :(

Someone has waaaaaaay to much free time. :p

I used to RP on here. :D

There will be several requirements for the next type of capital ship.

First, it will need to be fully submersible. This will protect it from orbital Kinetic-Kill weapons while cruising and give it the advantage of strategic surprise - your opponent will not know it's location. This will of course require it to have effective undersea-to-undersea weapons - probably torpoedoes, with blue-green laser clusters for point defense and close-range combat.

Lasers will also provide it with defense while surfaced. A number of large, powerful emitters (say four) will constantly be tasked with firing on any detected K-K munitions homing on the ship - the laser can disrupt the plasma sheath around the incoming munition, causing the "telephone pole" to tumble and break up, no longer a threat to the ship. Smaller emitters dotted all over the ship will automatically engage any aircraft or missile, and will attempt to destroy incoming shells and railgun rounds (good fraggin' luck on the latter, but they could get lucky).

Primary weaponry will be naval railguns, capable of low powered ballistic shots (for over-the-horizon work) or high-powered direct fire for visible targets. I figure eight guns, in four independent turrets.

I seriously doubt that aircraft, missiles (sea-skimmer or standard) and other air assets will remain viable in the mid-21st century combat environment. With fast as light weaponry, ships will use active radar and lidar continuously - they don't need to hide from radar-seekers, and if they're surfaced then anyone with a spy-sat already knows where they are. The Battleship above will be heavily armoured, with super-hard steel fronting backed by steel honeycomb construction to spread impact and improve rigidity (important in a submersible).

Powerplant will be either a high-powered fission reactor, such as those used on modern Aircraft Carriers, or if they can work out the bugs, a fusion reactor. Speed will probably be roughly equivalent to a modern carrier on the surface; significantly less submerged.

Notably, this type of surface-attack Battleship will NOT be stealthy when submerged. Too much in the way of hydrodynamics have been sacrificed to enable immediate deployment of weapons upon surfacing.

Three other types of warships will probably be common. The first is the battle submarine, a beefed up version of today's attack sub. It will be very quiet, and optimized for hunting other subs and submersible warships.

The second is the defense cruiser. This is the Battleship's consort - a cruiser class ship with nothing but laser defense systems. It is also submersible, but carries the same or greater defensive weaponry as the Battleship; it's only offensive weapons, however, are torpedo tubes.

The third is the sub carrier. This is basically a large cargo sub outfitted to deploy and recover fighter submarines - small, supercavitating attack subs. These would likely be the singel greatest threat to the Battleship - but unlike the Battleship, and unlike modern fighter aircraft, would have virtually no land-attack ability. Because of it's size, the Carrier will be less stealthy than an attack sub. And of course, once it's babies light off their supercavitating drives, all attempts at stealth are moot.

Comments, criticisms, questions?
Other than a minor disagreement about the usefulness of missiles, as any missile will still be at least somewhat useful, and a query as to whether the laser technology mentioned here is even possible, I like this.

What's a supercavitating drive, though?

What's a supercavitating drive, though?

Probably a drive system capable of enabling its craft to travel via supercavitation. Normally, that means rocket motors.

In a nutshell, when something moves quickly underwater, like propeller blades the pressure differences form vapor bubbles. For subs deep under, the bubbles implode under the pressure, causing noise known as cavitation, and for the most part, is avoided as a submariner's worst problem.

Supercavitation on the other hand, is pretty much the same, except that instead of just small bubbles, the idea is to create a massive vacuum bubble enveloping the entire vehicle. Since air friction is practically non-existent when compared to water friction, the craft can travel much faster in that vacuum bubble.

The skhval torpedo uses that principle to have speeds in excess of some 300kph underwater.

Probably a drive system capable of enabling its craft to travel via supercavitation. Normally, that means rocket motors.

In a nutshell, when something moves quickly underwater, like propeller blades the pressure differences form vapor bubbles. For subs deep under, the bubbles implode under the pressure, causing noise known as cavitation, and for the most part, is avoided as a submariner's worst problem.

Supercavitation on the other hand, is pretty much the same, except that instead of just small bubbles, the idea is to create a massive vacuum bubble enveloping the entire vehicle. Since air friction is practically non-existent when compared to water friction, the craft can travel much faster in that vacuum bubble.

The skhval torpedo uses that principle to have speeds in excess of some 300kph underwater.
Neat! Sounds like a very useful method of propulsion.

I'm not sure if a fuel air explosive would work well in tight confines that are already limited by watertight bulkheads that would be sealed in combat situations.

You can forget Daisy Cutters and MOABs. Those are too large and too slow not to be intercepted in the air. That leaves missile carried FAEs, and then it's chances of killing all the crew are somewhat iffy.

Uuhh... a missile with a penetrating FAE warhead... explosion in a vary tight space... I think it would blast a lot of people into smithereens.

Ok, maybe a single missile isn't enough, but about ten would slaughter the crew and cripple the operational capability.

Good attributes in a carrier I suppose, although I would prefer ship hunter battlecruiser designs with a strong mix of passive and active defenses.


I'm of mixed opinions regarding this, but that put aside, could we agree on a submersible rapid strike battleship?

During the WW1 era (I forget the exact dates involved) Great Britian had a sub that carried twin 12-inch (305mm) battleship guns. At the time, torpedoes were not very reliable, and most sub commanders prefered to use thier deck guns for attacking mechant shipping.

Yes, Roland used to make a TR909 drum machine, and I still want one. :(

well, you could always download ReBirth (http://www.rebirthmuseum.com/) it also has the TB303 and TR808. i think it's free (but it could be that you need reason :-S)

One that can dive as well as float on the water.

something that might hover too

During the WW1 era (I forget the exact dates involved) Great Britian had a sub that carried twin 12-inch (305mm) battleship guns. At the time, torpedoes were not very reliable, and most sub commanders prefered to use thier deck guns for attacking mechant shipping.

IIRC it was lost with all hands after (it is believed) it was hit by another ship, which dislodged the battleship turret. the uneven weight distribution of the dislodged cannons caused the sub to list and sink to the bottom. I was watching a documentory on it a few months ago.

something that might hover too

i agree, hovercrafts are cooler than regular ships, catamarans too.

and my capital ship would have a large room to party, then we would invite the enemy and get them drunk. when they are drunk enough we would take pictures of them and blackmail them. fun + blackmail = win

well, you could always download ReBirth (http://www.rebirthmuseum.com/) it also has the TB303 and TR808. i think it's free (but it could be that you need reason :-S)

FruityLoops has a pack that includes 2xTB303, TR909 and a TR808. ;)

Other than a minor disagreement about the usefulness of missiles, as any missile will still be at least somewhat useful, and a query as to whether the laser technology mentioned here is even possible, I like this.

What's a supercavitating drive, though?

The way I see it a missile is only useful if it has a reasonable chance of striking it's target; in a laser-dominated environment, I don't see that as being the case. In which case, while cheap rockets will still have a place, expensive guided missiles aren't worth what you pay for them.

As far as Lasers go, I'm really only extrapolating from what we've already got. The US has set up a factory to produce battlefield-level solid state lasers, and both the US and Britain have experimented with blue-green lasers for underwater work. The anti-Thor lasers are a bit way out, but the theory behind their function is sound.

Lasers are now roughly doubling in power throughput every two years, and I've been simply assuming that rate will continue. I freely admit it may not, we might well hit some sort of wall, but there don't seem to be any on the horizon.

The way I see it a missile is only useful if it has a reasonable chance of striking it's target; in a laser-dominated environment, I don't see that as being the case. In which case, while cheap rockets will still have a place, expensive guided missiles aren't worth what you pay for them.


The real problem with laser-interception of missiles is maintaining a lock on them for enough time, that is, at least 10 seconds.
A supersonic sea-skimmer doesn't give enough time for a solid lock, so I guess missiles have still a bright future in front of them.

Uuhh... a missile with a penetrating FAE warhead... explosion in a vary tight space... I think it would blast a lot of people into smithereens.

Ok, maybe a single missile isn't enough, but about ten would slaughter the crew and cripple the operational capability.

Not really. FAE's work by spreading out to a maximum size area before detonating, thus creating maximum overpressure. Your theory would work in tight confines, like say, sneaking one in a sub.

However, a missile by it's very nature has created a lovely exhaust hole from where the overpressure effect can escape, thus reducing the overall effect it can exert on the ship itself. Much of the slurry would escape out of the ship, and the remaining mix inside the hull would vent outside when detonating.

You'd be better off with conventional explosives.

But against a habbakuk type vessel, there's no real guarantee you could punch through the armor ice and into the crew spaces. If so, your missile is ineffective.


IIRC it was lost with all hands after (it is believed) it was hit by another ship, which dislodged the battleship turret. the uneven weight distribution of the dislodged cannons caused the sub to list and sink to the bottom. I was watching a documentory on it a few months ago.

The design I'm thinking off would have to have the whole thing capable of being retracted into the hull with the elevated area further sealed by a sliding hatch mechanism. It would also be fairly large, much larger than existing designs.

Damage to the turret would be critical, but not necessarily fatal.

The real problem with laser-interception of missiles is maintaining a lock on them for enough time, that is, at least 10 seconds.
A supersonic sea-skimmer doesn't give enough time for a solid lock, so I guess missiles have still a bright future in front of them.

It really depends. If a sufficiently powerful laser is developed for interception purposes, a brief brushing of the laser could be enough to fuse or dislodge its guide fins, causing the missile to crash in the sea.

Not really. FAE's work by spreading out to a maximum size area before detonating, thus creating maximum overpressure. Your theory would work in tight confines, like say, sneaking one in a sub.

However, a missile by it's very nature has created a lovely exhaust hole from where the overpressure effect can escape, thus reducing the overall effect it can exert on the ship itself. Much of the slurry would escape out of the ship, and the remaining mix inside the hull would vent outside when detonating.

You'd be better off with conventional explosives.

But against a habbakuk type vessel, there's no real guarantee you could punch through the armor ice and into the crew spaces. If so, your missile is ineffective.


Mmhhh.. I'll think about it... but iirc the Russians used FAE penetrators against Chechen bunkers and they worked fine.

It really depends. If a sufficiently powerful laser is developed for interception purposes, a brief brushing of the laser could be enough to fuse or dislodge its guide fins, causing the missile to crash in the sea.

Targeting a guiding fin could be quite difficult in 10 seconds. Unless you do it from a ship that's not the intended target of the missile, that is, looking at the missile from the broad side.

But against a habbakuk type vessel, there's no real guarantee you could punch through the armor ice and into the crew spaces. If so, your missile is ineffective.


If a simple, small anti-tank missile can punch into 1000 mm equivalent of steel...

Mmhhh.. I'll think about it... but iirc the Russians used FAE penetrators against Chechen bunkers and they worked fine.

If I'm not mistaken, the primary purpose of the FAE penetrators were to kill the humans inside them, which it would accomplish easily enough since the bunkers were essentially large heavily armored rooms.

A ship under combat situations would have bulkhead doors sealed which would prevent the effective spread of an FAE slurry throughout it's crew spaces.

Targeting a guiding fin could be quite difficult in 10 seconds. Unless you do it from a ship that's not the intended target of the missile, that is, looking at the missile from the broad side.

Not really. From what I've seen of modern energy based interception systems, the beam is actually wider than the circumference of the missile itself. Upon illumination, most of the missile would be bathed in the energy. Even if it is for microsecond, if the laser is powerful enough, control surfaces would fuse, causing the missile to lose guidance ability.

If a simple, small anti-tank missile can punch into 1000 mm equivalent of steel...

Pykrete was shown to be slightly stronger than steel if I'm not mistaken. Furthermore, the armor wall was supposed to be some 3 to 4 meters thick. Also, the biggest draw to the Habbakuk was it's ability to repair itself with just seawater and sawdust.

That idea has been around since 1996 as the failed Arsenal Ship (http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/arsenal_ship.htm).

They scrapped the program for a reason. VLS arrays are very vulnerable to damage so it doesn't take much to knock out most of those 500 missiles. Also, removing the crew removes your damage control capability, meaning what would only be minor damage to another ship would likely sink the aresenal ship.

As far as it seemss the only reason that the Arsenal ship failed was because it only got $35 million (USD) dollars budget. The projected cost of the program (excluding actual ship) was priced at $150 million (USD) and the price of each ship would be about $450 million. Also the fact is that if the ship was scalable and loaded with anti ship weapons then it would be far cheaper to send off a semi-expendable ship to destroy 4-5 times the amount you spent.

Once those missiles are in the air you would be hard put to stop them.

*Snippity out comments of cheap russian military sales*

Russia has quickly stepped up the arms sales and quite a lot of their sales are from their surplus just-under-modern equipment and increasingly modern equipment.

i agree, hovercrafts are cooler than regular ships, catamarans too.

Whilst they move hovercrafts are more efficient with their fuel-distance ratio compared to boats. Catamarans beat them all though in total efficieny.

and my capital ship would have a large room to party, then we would invite the enemy and get them drunk. when they are drunk enough we would take pictures of them and blackmail them. fun + blackmail = win

Yeah, but they would have stolen all of your stuff so you'd be at a deadlock!

Probably a drive system capable of enabling its craft to travel via supercavitation. Normally, that means rocket motors.[\QUOTE]

What about water jet torpedos? Could work as an underwater booster for submerged carriers.

[QUOTE=Kanabia;12377768]Too noisy. Would be pointless to spend so much money on something like that when at the moment the primary requirement of a submarine is an ability to hide, which that particular submarine isn't going to do with all those extra parts rattling around and at such a large size. Launching UAVs and cruise missiles is one thing, but a submarine aircraft carrier is silly (if, admittedly, a cool concept)

Actuall cruise missiles would be even noiser if they used supercavication as their initial boost. ASAIK they are launched by usingawater boost then the motor fires just as it leaves the water. Still noisy but not as bad.

I think Media will be the capital ship of the future, if it isn't already.
Apart from that, maybe a combination of space-based weapons, nuclear deterrant, and super-cavitating submarines (the last already exist in torpedo form).

If we ever get to produce anti-matter in large quantities (say 2kg a year) then you can be sure that there will be space based weapons such a a long, thin pole with anti-matter held inside hurtling to the ground and half the speed of light.

Surface ship hulls aren't really armored anymore, at least not enough to stop even one anti-ship missile. That, and as stated, any nation with a satellite knows right where you are...and right where to direct their air-force and missiles.

hence the need for anti-satalite tech or moderate submersibles.

In a sub, your own skill ensures your survival. If you have the tech and the training, you can evade detection for months, and even your own forces may have no clue where you are.

Especially with some of the german and swedish (though it might be finnish) stealth subs.

And while ASW aircraft can still get you, their armarments are limited. A single torpedo is a far cry from seeing hundreds of anti-ship missiles bearing down on your task-force.

If you did have a multi missile launching boat you could could shoot off some missiles to perform anti sub duties (missile torpedos).

Using enough missiles will overwhelm any intereception based defense system and batter any armor into ineffectiveness. To avoid missile swarming techniques and satellite weaponry, one must be under the sea, not on it.

You would have to be far under the sea to escape attack by depth charges, torpedos or supercavicating missiles.

The russians had a gun that used that tech and there has been some thought about using a gun on those principles to shoot torpedos.

The way I see it a missile is only useful if it has a reasonable chance of striking it's target; in a laser-dominated environment, I don't see that as being the case. In which case, while cheap rockets will still have a place, expensive guided missiles aren't worth what you pay for them.

As far as Lasers go, I'm really only extrapolating from what we've already got. The US has set up a factory to produce battlefield-level solid state lasers, and both the US and Britain have experimented with blue-green lasers for underwater work. The anti-Thor lasers are a bit way out, but the theory behind their function is sound.

Lasers are now roughly doubling in power throughput every two years, and I've been simply assuming that rate will continue. I freely admit it may not, we might well hit some sort of wall, but there don't seem to be any on the horizon.

There are several defences to lasers.

1) The missile exhudes a cloud of gas that absorbs light energy well. Would take a while to figure out what substance does it, and make the missile still aerodynamic but it would be possible.

2) Make the missile a two stage system, as soon as one part fails a smaller warhead would launch.

3) Put all moving parts for guidance systems inside the missile. Have a larger exhaust over a smaller nozzle for directing the exhaust flow (no need for moving fins) or have side mounted gas bursts (like on the the nasa space vehicles).

4) Create a subtance with an ability to refract or (even better) diffract. Tis would stop or reduce the damage done to the missiles.

5) Wrap the warhead with high density, high heat resistance ceramics or composites.

6) Most of the time the laser would be used agains the largest part of the missile, the warhead/fuel area. Making it just a fast moving no explosive projectile to use against ammunition stores would also be useful.

Not that a laser would be able to funtionally be used against undersea lasers (at least not for about 30 years).


*Stuff about the Habbakuk gone*

The main problem with a ship of that type.

1) Not enough speed to manuever. Would have done well as a WW2 carrier that was safely behind lines but that would be about it.

2) It would have been even more brittle than steel and that would have made it easy prey for subs. Especially when you consider that even a light hit would probably halt a lot of operations whilst it is repair (a torpedo hit would have been much more serious than that).

3) It would be too expensive to maintain, both as a structure and to keep it fully staffed.

4) It does not lend itself well to upgrading if most of it would be melted within 2-3 year and considering it probably would take as long to build as a normal carrier.

5) No matter if it could resist a simple anti-armour missile hit, there are plenty of rocket, missiles and shells than could penetrate the ship's hull.

Unless you have constant air patrols it would be rather easy for a strike on it.

6) As a carrier its use would be extremely limited for vtol aircraft and a fire (easily peformed by an incindenary rocket)would cause the runway to be slick, even a catapult wouldn't help you there

7) Not fitting in harbour would be dangerous as it would be a lot less protected from attack when it has only a skeleton crew on board.

I reckon if it were cost-effective to build a capital ship, someone would have done it.

As it is, the only really big ships that seem to be worth the effort are carriers.

What about water jet torpedos? Could work as an underwater booster for submerged carriers.

Water jet systems suffer from one big problem for supercavitation purposes. Most of the ship won't actually be touching water. Except for a bit of the nose which will be the leading edge needed to form the bubble, it'll be flying.


Actuall cruise missiles would be even noiser if they used supercavication as their initial boost. ASAIK they are launched by usingawater boost then the motor fires just as it leaves the water. Still noisy but not as bad.

Supercavitation for an initial boost for cruise missile launches are daft. Current configurations use gas packages to accelerate them out of the sub and the rocket motor takes over until it clears the water which is then ejected as the jet engine takes over. What you propose would need a gas package and an even higher capacity rocket motor for no real appreciable increase in range or speed since it'll end up in the air anyway.


If we ever get to produce anti-matter in large quantities (say 2kg a year) then you can be sure that there will be space based weapons such a a long, thin pole with anti-matter held inside hurtling to the ground and half the speed of light.

As far as I know, a fistful of anti-matter would produce enough energy to turn Earth into a debris field. You do NOT want anti-matter weaponry used on the same planet you're on.


1) The missile exhudes a cloud of gas that absorbs light energy well. Would take a while to figure out what substance does it, and make the missile still aerodynamic but it would be possible.

Not really feasible. The missile would be leaving a gas cloud trail, but it wouldn't be shielded by it.


2) Make the missile a two stage system, as soon as one part fails a smaller warhead would launch.

MIRV types of this sort have been bandied about for a while, but generally, they're not worth it since the overall explosive ordnance you could load on them would be smaller, thus reducing chances of a kill strike even if successful.


3) Put all moving parts for guidance systems inside the missile. Have a larger exhaust over a smaller nozzle for directing the exhaust flow (no need for moving fins) or have side mounted gas bursts (like on the the nasa space vehicles).

Not that effective for cruise missiles which require wings to produce lift and achieve their standard range. Normal anti-shipping missiles would suffer from agility issues and possible uncontrolled spins.


4) Create a subtance with an ability to refract or (even better) diffract. Tis would stop or reduce the damage done to the missiles.

Highly reflective surfaces was talked about once, but generally dropped. I think it was proven not to work.


5) Wrap the warhead with high density, high heat resistance ceramics or composites.

The Topol-M type ballistic missile is purported to be able to survive DEW strikes although whether that is true remains to be seen.


6) Most of the time the laser would be used against the largest part of the missile, the warhead/fuel area. Making it just a fast moving no explosive projectile to use against ammunition stores would also be useful.

From what I've seen of the THEL, the laser is large enough to illuminate the entire missile on an incoming vector. And why use duds when a cluster of armed missiles would do the same job and promise a chance of a kill strike?


The main problem with a ship of that type.

1) Not enough speed to manuever. Would have done well as a WW2 carrier that was safely behind lines but that would be about it.

Speed was an issue yes, but the designers figured it would be practically invincible, not to mention nearly instantly repairable, something the Titanic didn't have.


2) It would have been even more brittle than steel and that would have made it easy prey for subs. Especially when you consider that even a light hit would probably halt a lot of operations whilst it is repair (a torpedo hit would have been much more serious than that).

Not really. Since some 90% of the ship would be underwater, being an iceberg after all, a torpedo hit would knock away a big chunk of easily replaceable ice.


3) It would be too expensive to maintain, both as a structure and to keep it fully staffed.

Given it's size, I imagine it would be considered a mobile airbase rather than aircraft carrier.


4) It does not lend itself well to upgrading if most of it would be melted within 2-3 year and considering it probably would take as long to build as a normal carrier.

Why do you people keep forgetting that it's supposed to have been built with refrigeration units?


5) No matter if it could resist a simple anti-armour missile hit, there are plenty of rocket, missiles and shells than could penetrate the ship's hull.


Penetration is determined by the following factors. Angle of impact, velocity of projectile, density of projectile, additional explosive propellant (2 stage punch to drive in the warhead through armor), density of armor material and thickness of armor material.

4-5 meter thick Pykrete with a honeycomb steel frame could theoretically withstand anything short of a tactical nuke.


Unless you have constant air patrols it would be rather easy for a strike on it.


Any carrier that doesn't have constant air patrols is a carrier begging to be sunk, be it made of steel, paper or pykrete.


6) As a carrier its use would be extremely limited for vtol aircraft and a fire (easily peformed by an incindenary rocket)would cause the runway to be slick, even a catapult wouldn't help you there

The design I'm thinking of had a steel deck bolted onto the ice.


7) Not fitting in harbour would be dangerous as it would be a lot less protected from attack when it has only a skeleton crew on board.

From what I've seen of naval history, sitting in harbor is actually the most dangerous place to be when under attack.

If I'm not mistaken, the primary purpose of the FAE penetrators were to kill the humans inside them, which it would accomplish easily enough since the bunkers were essentially large heavily armored rooms.

A ship under combat situations would have bulkhead doors sealed which would prevent the effective spread of an FAE slurry throughout it's crew spaces.

I doubt about the effectiveness of a bulkhead door in confining such an explosion.


Not really. From what I've seen of modern energy based interception systems, the beam is actually wider than the circumference of the missile itself. Upon illumination, most of the missile would be bathed in the energy. Even if it is for microsecond, if the laser is powerful enough, control surfaces would fuse, causing the missile to lose guidance ability.

Ok... that would suck a stupendous amount of energy just to "paint" the whole missile - the power has to be spread on the whole cross-section of the beam.
Also, a microsecond pulse has enough energy only if you use a free-electron laser, which isn't exactly famous for portability since it needs a particle accelerator. Quite futuristic if you ask me. An Arena-like works a lot better.


Pykrete was shown to be slightly stronger than steel if I'm not mistaken. Furthermore, the armor wall was supposed to be some 3 to 4 meters thick. Also, the biggest draw to the Habbakuk was it's ability to repair itself with just seawater and sawdust.
Anyway, I don't think it would stop a monster missile like the Raduga Kh-15S (AS-16 Kickback). It dives on the target at a speed of Mach 5.

The easy-repair feature is quite cool, though.

The design I'm thinking of had a steel deck bolted onto the ice.



An asphalt deck would be easier to repair, and also cheaper I think.

There are several defences to lasers.

1) The missile exhudes a cloud of gas that absorbs light energy well. Would take a while to figure out what substance does it, and make the missile still aerodynamic but it would be possible.

2) Make the missile a two stage system, as soon as one part fails a smaller warhead would launch.

3) Put all moving parts for guidance systems inside the missile. Have a larger exhaust over a smaller nozzle for directing the exhaust flow (no need for moving fins) or have side mounted gas bursts (like on the the nasa space vehicles).

4) Create a subtance with an ability to refract or (even better) diffract. Tis would stop or reduce the damage done to the missiles.

5) Wrap the warhead with high density, high heat resistance ceramics or composites.

6) Most of the time the laser would be used agains the largest part of the missile, the warhead/fuel area. Making it just a fast moving no explosive projectile to use against ammunition stores would also be useful.

Not that a laser would be able to funtionally be used against undersea lasers (at least not for about 30 years).


All of that would reduce the effect of a beam laser quite a bit (and to be fair, beam lasers are all we can produce right now). However, pulsed lasers avoid much of that problem. The beam does not, in that case, need to be played across the target; instead, it superheats the material of the target, causing an effect not dissimilar to a physical impact. In fact, cladding the missile in refractory material, such as ceramic, would make this approach MORE, not less, effective.

At any rate, the ultimate effect would probably still be the end of the long ranged, high-accuracy missile. Simply put, if the chance of such a weapon actually doing it's job drops below a certain threshold, that weapon ceases to be cost effective. No one will pay $500 000 US for a missile that only has a 30% chance of actually destroying what it's fired at. They'll buy a 105mm Howitzer and a dozen shells instead, for about the same cost.

Er, I'm not quite sure what you were saying with your last sentence.

I doubt about the effectiveness of a bulkhead door in confining such an explosion.

It doesn't have to contain the explosion. The overpressure would probably blast the door down yes, but that, and the room next to it, would be the only ones damaged severely.


Ok... that would suck a stupendous amount of energy just to "paint" the whole missile - the power has to be spread on the whole cross-section of the beam.

Don't look at me. I didn't design the THEL.


Also, a microsecond pulse has enough energy only if you use a free-electron laser, which isn't exactly famous for portability since it needs a particle accelerator. Quite futuristic if you ask me. An Arena-like works a lot better.


Huh, the Arena system eh? Why not the Shiva Star?


Anyway, I don't think it would stop a monster missile like the Raduga Kh-15S (AS-16 Kickback). It dives on the target at a speed of Mach 5.


Nukes are cheating.


The easy-repair feature is quite cool, though.

I imagine that was it's biggest selling point. People are always sold on the near invincible deal.

Why not the Shiva Star?
Because I don't know about it. I'll look it up.


Nukes are cheating.

The Kh-15S isn't necessarily nuclear.

I googled the Shiva Star. Looks like still very experimental and expensive. The Arena already works and costs nothing compared with the Shiva. And firing plasma bolts near your own radar isn't such an "hot" (ha!ha!) idea.

Supercavitation for an initial boost for cruise missile launches are daft. Current configurations use gas packages to accelerate them out of the sub and the rocket motor takes over until it clears the water which is then ejected as the jet engine takes over. What you propose would need a gas package and an even higher capacity rocket motor for no real appreciable increase in range or speed since it'll end up in the air anyway.

I wasn't talking about supercaviccation launches - http://www.isrjournal.com/story.php?F=2307424 (about 3/4 the way down)

(I need to find a better bit than that I know).

Germany's new launch for torpedos. Not inconceivable to be used to launch a capsule containing a plane. Currently the U.S does use gas packages.

As far as I know, a fistful of anti-matter would produce enough energy to turn Earth into a debris field. You do NOT want anti-matter weaponry used on the same planet you're on.

Actually it is not as bad as that (hence the reason that the U.S has a minor research project on it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti_Matter.

According to those calculations 1kg is equivalent to 43Mt TNT (largest nuclear bomb ever used, the Tsar bomba was 50Mt), yet half of the energy is taken away as non interacting particles (neutrinos). So that only comes to 23Mt. Even better most of the radioactive particles it would create only last a few days. The Chicxulub Crater would have needed about 100 teratonnes of TNT to make.

Not really feasible. The missile would be leaving a gas cloud trail, but it wouldn't be shielded by it.

Actually I meant it would be projected in front (the tip shooting out the stuff) and so the missile could fly through it.

MIRV types of this sort have been bandied about for a while, but generally, they're not worth it since the overall explosive ordnance you could load on them would be smaller, thus reducing chances of a kill strike even if successful.

I'm justing bandying about suggestions

Not that effective for cruise missiles which require wings to produce lift and achieve their standard range. Normal anti-shipping missiles would suffer from agility issues and possible uncontrolled spins.



Highly reflective surfaces was talked about once, but generally dropped. I think it was proven not to work.

Not yet. Lasers were proven not to work (due to power constraints) but that well could change when power requirements are met

From what I've seen of the THEL, the laser is large enough to illuminate the entire missile on an incoming vector. And why use duds when a cluster of armed missiles would do the same job and promise a chance of a kill strike?

I meant a dud could be used to prevent the laser being used to detonate the warhead.

Speed was an issue yes, but the designers figured it would be practically invincible, not to mention nearly instantly repairable, something the Titanic didn't have.

But if it has low speed then the rest of the convoy will be slowed, causing them to be put in danger and making any form of fast and/or stealthy attack improbable

Not really. Since some 90% of the ship would be underwater, being an iceberg after all, a torpedo hit would knock away a big chunk of easily replaceable ice.

You would still have to wait until in dock to make any meaningfull repairs

Given it's size, I imagine it would be considered a mobile airbase rather than aircraft carrier.

But thats what an aircraft carrier is.

Why do you people keep forgetting that it's supposed to have been built with refrigeration units?[/QUOTE]

Would they cover the outside of the ship? What about under water parts (which would melt quite quickly when compared to air exposed surfaces)

Penetration is determined by the following factors. Angle of impact, velocity of projectile, density of projectile, additional explosive propellant (2 stage punch to drive in the warhead through armor), density of armor material and thickness of armor material.

4-5 meter thick Pykrete with a honeycomb steel frame could theoretically withstand anything short of a tactical nuke..

But how elastic is it? If the aswer is not very then it would be very susceptable to torpedo strikes.

Any carrier that doesn't have constant air patrols is a carrier begging to be sunk, be it made of steel, paper or pykrete.

Thats the main problem, it seems that most expeditionary carriers either don't have patrol up most of the time or theyhave an inadequete amount (hence a sumberged carrier would be much safer than a surface carrier).

From what I've seen of naval history, sitting in harbor is actually the most dangerous place to be when under attack.

Do you mean Pearl Habour? Being out of habour (but next to it), yet still having to wait for resupplying would be much harder to defend.

An asphalt deck would be easier to repair, and also cheaper I think.

You would need a steel surface to have 24/7 stability to put the tarmac on.

I reckon if it were cost-effective to build a capital ship, someone would have done it.

As it is, the only really big ships that seem to be worth the effort are carriers.

Actually capital ships are currently carriers to the navies that have them.

*Shnippy* [\QUOTE]

Non Aligned States, you mistook my talk on supercavication. I was not supporting it, far from it, it is VERY loud.


What I meant in my last sentance is that it will be not very feasible to use lasers in the water for any great length for the forseable 30 years (by which point the portable power required to power such a behemoth laser would be available.

[QUOTE=Non Aligned States;12381338]It doesn't have to contain the explosion. The overpressure would probably blast the door down yes, but that, and the room next to it, would be the only ones damaged severely.

Unless it is a high powered incendinary.

Don't look at me. I didn't design the THEL.

I admit it will be useful once the necessary power needs are met, targeting systems worked out. That won't happen for another 20 years and it is quite possible that something could be developed to stop or reduce the impact it would have.

Huh, the Arena system eh? Why not the Shiva Star?

What is either of those?

Nukes are cheating.

That is if the warhead is a nuclear one. Cruise missiles mostly used conventional warheads. Most future missiles will be of the ramjet or scramjet variety, which not only would easily reach mach 5 (that would be slightly above average ramjet speed I think) so you have to factor that in for targeting.

I imagine that was it's biggest selling point. People are always sold on the near invincible deal.

Its a four wheel drive?

Actually it is not as bad as that (hence the reason that the U.S has a minor research project on it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti_Matter.

According to those calculations 1kg is equivalent to 43Mt TNT (largest nuclear bomb ever used, the Tsar bomba was 50Mt), yet half of the energy is taken away as non interacting particles (neutrinos). So that only comes to 23Mt. Even better most of the radioactive particles it would create only last a few days. The Chicxulub Crater would have needed about 100 teratonnes of TNT to make.

I don't know. I get the feeling that the numbers are scaled down. Either way, that's a end of the world class package you'd be sending down. MAD anyone?


Actually I meant it would be projected in front (the tip shooting out the stuff) and so the missile could fly through it.

Gas needs time to dissipate to its maximum effective size. The missile wouldn't stay in the forming cloud long enough to do much good. Too little dispersion.


Not yet. Lasers were proven not to work (due to power constraints) but that well could change when power requirements are met


Actually, lasers have been proven to work. Currently, chemical lasers are ideal due to the fact that you don't need a huge ass generator to produce the power. The downside is limited charges.


I meant a dud could be used to prevent the laser being used to detonate the warhead.

A dud missile right? Same principle. Why use a dud when you can launch two real missiles? The cost of HE will be negligible compared to a similar performance missile anyways.


But if it has low speed then the rest of the convoy will be slowed, causing them to be put in danger and making any form of fast and/or stealthy attack improbable

No, the biggest sell for the Habbakuk was that it couldn't be sunk short of a nuke that had yet to be made. Guns wouldn't knock enough out of it before it could be repaired, torpedoes would just knock some chunks out. Bombs would be the same story.


You would still have to wait until in dock to make any meaningfull repairs


Only if an attack hit the superstructure or managed to pierce the armor hull. Otherwise, a hose and pykrete mix will do just fine.


But thats what an aircraft carrier is.


Not really. An aircraft carrier is a floating airfield. Habbakuk was supposed to be a massive airbase capable of even storing large bombers.


Would they cover the outside of the ship? What about under water parts (which would melt quite quickly when compared to air exposed surfaces)


Probably the inside. As for melting quickly, I think the test model only started melting a year after it was built. And that was without any refrigeration or shelter.


But how elastic is it? If the aswer is not very then it would be very susceptable to torpedo strikes.

I'm not sure. How susceptible is a super tough iceberg to a torpedo?


Thats the main problem, it seems that most expeditionary carriers either don't have patrol up most of the time or theyhave an inadequete amount (hence a sumberged carrier would be much safer than a surface carrier).

Only if it wasn't hit by anything. A submerged carrier would be more vulnerable due to risk of pressure hull rupture.


Do you mean Pearl Habour? Being out of habour (but next to it), yet still having to wait for resupplying would be much harder to defend.


Pearl Harbor is just one example. Mined harbors are just as nasty.


You would need a steel surface to have 24/7 stability to put the tarmac on.


That's why I said a steel deck bolted on.


Unless it is a high powered incendinary.


Not really. A slurry like that relies on primarily the ability to expand to its maximum potential size before igniting, suddenly forcing all that displaced superheated air away, crushing anything by sheer overpressure. In a surface ship with an already large hole caused by an FAE, chances are, most of the slurry would disperse outside. You'd fry everything in the room and the room next door yes, but not much more beyond that. Gas always escapes to the place of least resistance.

Besides, if it punches into the crew spaces, chances are, the slurry will ignite before it even reaches full release, losing out on the overpressure effect. Electrical fire and all that.


I admit it will be useful once the necessary power needs are met, targeting systems worked out. That won't happen for another 20 years and it is quite possible that something could be developed to stop or reduce the impact it would have.

Power needs are already met (THEL chemical laser), as is targeting software (PHALANX).


What is either of those?


Experimental plasma weapons designed for air defense.


That is if the warhead is a nuclear one. Cruise missiles mostly used conventional warheads. Most future missiles will be of the ramjet or scramjet variety, which not only would easily reach mach 5 (that would be slightly above average ramjet speed I think) so you have to factor that in for targeting.

Only the incoming vector if you're using laser based interception. Which makes things easier for the targeting software.


Its a four wheel drive?

Yes, the Habakkuk weighs in at 2,000,000 tons and can also egress onto land, supported by 4 independently powered wheels. Fear the land iceberg!!

:p

It'd be like this :

A really big boat, with an outer shell of steel. This may sound normal, but it'd basically just run into an aircraft carrier because under the steel jacket would be contained a layer of potassium, which would set on fire and blow up a bit, sorting the enemy ship out.

Also its cannons would fire mutilated sheep at enemy ships, so as to really, really horrify the opposing crew and make them sad enough to shoot themselves even in crashing into it didn't work.

The capitol ship of the future isn't even going to be a ship, it's going to be an island.


I had a buddy who worked for the ACOE, who worked on the development of a type of air-entrained concrete with a specific gravity less than one. Yes, friends, concrete that floats. The purpose of this stuff, in theory, was that you'd go to a hotspot like the Persian Gulf, with a fleet of construction boats, and you'd build an entire air force base in international waters. Floating. Nobody can stop you because there's no treaties against that stuff, and you'd anchor it to the bottom and leave it there. No land required. No propulsion system necessary. Land C130s on it without any problems, and it's not like you have to worry about armoring it much, because it floats.

No propulsion system necessary. Land C130s on it without any problems, and it's not like you have to worry about armoring it much, because it floats.

There are some flaws with the idea. For one, if you're already at war, good luck building said airbase. As for no armoring, pah, a bunch of paveway anti-runway bombs will sort it out soon enough.