NationStates Jolt Archive

The streets of the capital were constantly living, vehicles moving along them at all hours, blood cells in the veins of a giant beast. The near-incessant rumble of heavy trucks and buses shook the streets beneath the armies of people striding sullenly along the dirty pavements, throwing up clouds of grey and blackish-blue diesel smoke; the clouds hung in the sunlight, refusing to disperse from the city’s mostly windless streets, and caught in people’s throats and noses with the acrid stench of octane and unburnt oil. Along one of the streets, little different from any other British colonial building, sat the Department of Naval Construction, its redbrick exterior facing the strikingly dull offices around it with haughty contempt. Its walls had been party to tens of thousands of meetings, had heard millions of words, seen some of the nation’s most notable naval decisions taken, and today would be the day for yet another such event. Today, deep below the dirty, noisy streets, the largest and most well equipped meeting room in the DNC was being prepared to receive a mere four people, for one of the most important discussions it had seen in the past three decades. Four minutes after the stewards had carefully set out the chairs, the plates of biscuits and snacks, glasses of water, and a small stack of tobacco products, the first of the representatives, the Chief of the Naval Staff, Michael Tracy, who promptly took up a lounging position from which he could watch the room from beneath his shock of close-cropped red hair. Admiral Harwood, now CinC Home Fleet, and the Chief of the DNC, Sir Robert MacAlpine, soon joined him. Last to arrive was Kazakov, the Defence Minister who had spent all of his career overseeing the nation’s military build-up, and who was determined to care for it like his own son, himself an army man.

With a series of discreet but nonetheless succinctly verbose coughs, Kazakov brought the meeting to order. It didn’t need much ordering anyway, but it was his job to order it and he would do so, come hell or high water. As silence descended, he commenced his usual address.

“Gentlemen, please, if we could call this meeting to order.” A pause. “Thank you.” He looked around, making sure he had his colleagues’ attention, and lit a cigar for himself before commencing. The cigar tasted good, and he savoured the smoke in his mouth for a second, proceeding with a reluctant sigh as he expelled the smoke.
“We’re all aware of why we are here. The Defence Ministry has received reports from the NSB of various new, heavy warships entering the service of several foreign nations. While this is nothing particularly new, it seems that this has finally alarmed my colleagues enough for them to ask for the design of a warship to compete, or at least challenge in some way, these foreign vessels.”

“You mean a super-dreadnought,” interjected Tracy with distaste. “The Defence Ministry has finally let common sense be overcome by size, and is going to ask for a useless warship.”

Kazakov gritted his teeth. “Mike, no. I do not, for your information, mean a super-dreadnought. I happen to agree that the super-dreadnought, especially the trimaran one, is possibly the largest and most useless type of combat ship ever conceived by mankind.”

MacAlpine sat up, apparently rather shocked. “You mean you want use to design a monohull warship to compete with the firepower and survivability offered by a triple-hulled warship?”

“I don’t particularly care, Robert, strangely enough,” replied Kazakov, a sigh escaping his lips again. “Heck, I don’t much care whether we have some huge great monster floating about or not, but evidently the rest of the Ministry does, and the Prime Minister does, and what’s more, since that little leak fiasco two months back, so does the public. The way the idiots out on the street talk, you’d think that the very survival of the nation were at stake and the whole fleet laid up and rotting in the Inland Sea!” Kazakov’s hands reached skywards in despair.

Harwood, who had until now busied himself filling his pipe, addressed the others. “It seems to me,” he said, drawling around his pipe, “that we don’t have all that much of a choice. The Navy is resistant to monster battleships as much as the rest of the Defence community, believe me. We too remember the Yamato, you see. Nonetheless, it has to be said that constant evolution in the size of battleships is inevitable. Put it like this: at the end of World War One, the average modern battleship was about twenty-four thousand tons. At the end of World War two, the average modern battleship was around fifty thousand tons, a doubling in size in less than thirty years. If a nation’s population doubled in thirty years, you’d say they’d had a population explosion, and warships are no different. Back when the first Soyuz was launched, she was hailed as a titan, at nearly ninety thousand tons. Then we had the Frunze, and with her the weight came up by an extra fifteen or so thousand tons. To keep the weight gain down, we had to put the third turret in a position from which it couldn’t fire forward, I remind you. Then we got the Hunters into service, and they displaced one hundred and twenty thousand tons, fully laden, before refit. The refitted versions displace more than thirty thousand tons more fully laden. The Blue Dragon class fleet carriers displace more than two hundred thousand tons fully laden.” Harwood sucked on his pipe and sat back, a slightly superior smile playing on his lips. “Face it: if we’re to keep up, we must increase the size of our ships to accommodate new technologies and ideas.”

“Why do we need to keep up in those monsters, Robert?” Tracy’s beard shook with his vigorously moving head. “Why waste vast sums of money on even larger and theoretically more powerful capital ships which will just be giant targets in combat? Think about it: for the cost of one of these big ships, we could build, say, two smaller battleships, or an aircraft carrier, or ten submarines. More flexible, more manoeuvrable, more mutually supportive warships, and more of them.” He gestured to the map of the world at the end of the room. “What happens if we build, say, four of these things and then find that one’s needed somewhere where it isn’t? All right, so say it’s a week’s steaming away. Whatever’s going on, odds are it’ll be too late for us to do anything about it. With a smaller and more mobile fleet, we could have our ships in every ocean, all the time, and when one of these huge foreign dreadnoughts comes out after us, concentrate all our forces and smash them by numbers and manoeuvre. There is, realistically, no need to indulge the megalomaniac dreams of a few civilians and navy personnel at the expense of combat capability,” concluded Tracy, eyes flashing at Harwood. Do you remember the Yamato, I wonder?

Harwood refused to rise to the bait. Even if he had wished to, MacAlpine seized the moment, leaning back in his chair again and puffing contentedly on a cigar.

“Well, even if this thing were to prove more useful than you suggest, Mike, it’d be a hell of a construction job. I mean, just how large are we talking here? I read the report, but it didn’t really give a huge amount of detail.”

“We’re talking a ship mounting guns between twenty-two and twenty-four inches, with a six-inch secondary battery and perhaps two hundred cruise missile cells, maybe more.” Kazakov gestured to a projection he had just brought up on the wall monitor. “Current thinking is that we should have at the very least ten of these weapons, and at most twenty, on a hull using the same protection systems we’ve used on all of our heavies when we refitted them. The overwhelming priority is firepower and protection; speed need not be particularly high, in the opinion of the Naval Section.” Kazakov chuckled. “Of course, that probably won’t be optional, even with Pebblebeds. The ship will be between two and three hundred thousand tons laden, or so we envisage, probably around five hundred metres long and about 70 metres in the beam or so.”

MacAlpine blew out his cheeks. “Why weren’t we told that this would be the specification in the initial report?” he complained.

“We didn’t have any kind of spec drawn up, Bob. This is the first spec the Naval Section has come up with, and so I thought it easiest to present it to you today. Of course, they thought better and sent it to you anyway. It should arrive around about now, actually.” Kazakov shook his head, inviting the others to gasp at the stupidity of bureaucracy.

MacAlpine looked annoyed that his irritation had been so easily dismissed. “Well,” he replied curtly,” fair enough.” He became calmer again. “Well, a ship that size is one hell of a tall order. The required materials for it alone will be immense, and no dockyard in this land can handle a ship of those dimensions except the RSI yards at Star Point, and they’re already building hulls for the Dragons. Even if they work flat-out, they can’t build these things rapidly themselves. Not only that, but a ship that large will suffer from problems with hull bracing and support, not to mention shock damage—“

“And being a bloody great target!” Tracy snapped. “The whole idea is ludicrous. For a fraction of the cost we could build fast cruisers with thirty-inch guns and use swarms of them, with air support, to attack these massive enemy ships. They’d be dead long before they reached us.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” Harwood sucked on his pipe again. “It would be foolish to follow in the path of John Fisher, however. Remember Courageous and Glorious? Or Furious for that matter? What’s the sense in mounting a vast heavy gun system on a cruiser’s armour and sending it against a warship which can take the hit ours can’t? You say that this ship will be little more than an expensive target, and then you blithely assume that these “fast cruisers” of yours will be able to destroy ships that can shrug off their shells for more than long enough to blow them to pieces? Seems an awfully wasteful way to spend our budget, building kamikaze ships. Besides,” pressed on Harwood, cutting off Tracy’s furious reply, “they’d be invaluable for showing the flag, wouldn’t they? Take along a massive battlewagon with all the trimmings to international affairs and watch people think twice about attacking us then. A two in one weapon. Just imagine what one of these could do in tandem with a Dragon and an escort group! They could wreak havoc!”

Tracy fumed. “Or they could be blown out of the water by aircraft, submarines and smaller ships long before they got there! Think of the psychological impact if one of those things were sunk!”

“Think of the impact if one hundred of your cruisers were sunk! What then, when my men are coming home dead in their hundreds, draped in the national flag, and the funeral marches playing all day? Do you want to destroy our navy?”

“Do YOU want to waste billions of pounds’ worth of money and God alone knows how much time and effort to build vast white elephants? Explain that to the taxpayer! Who knows, you might even be able to explain it when they get blown to pieces, or their slipways collapse!”

As Harwood inhaled sharply, his fist clenghting around the bowl of his pipe, Kazakov rose to his feet. “Shut up, the pair of you! The fact is, regardless of what you two think is the right bloody idea, we have been ordered to investigate the possibility of designing and building these ships. Mister MacAlpine: if the funding and equipment is provided for their construction, and the design is within the parameters I suggested, can we build them?”

MacAlpine checked the glaring faces of Tracy and Harwood, then looked at the floor. Finally, he heaved a long and weary sigh.

“Yes, yes we can. Assuming that we receive the funding and the requisite modifications and equipment, we can make these ships. But there will be problems.”

“I don’t doubt that there will be problems,” smiled Kazakov dangerously. “It is your job to solve them, not create them, and that goes for you two as well! This meeting was convened to determine the feasibility of these warships for construction and use. We know that they can be built, and we know that they can be used. You are to return to your departments. Tracy and Harwood, you are to draw up lists of what you would expect from a ship of this specification. I want weapons, armour, speed, that sort of thing. When you’re done, send them to the DNC. Bob, I need you to get the specs collated with the MoD’s and then send them back to me. Once the Naval Section approves them, we will send out a contract to the shipyards, gunsmiths and so forth.” Kazakov walked to the door and opened it, as though he was a butler. “You will be notified when you are all required to meet again. Until then, you may leave.”

OOC: Thanks very much to Azazia, for the idea for a dev thread. :)

*Tag*

The Admiralty, the next day
The office of Admiral Henry Harwood, CinC Home Fleet

Harwood’s four colleagues were talking, as they had been pretty well constantly for the past twenty minutes. There was, after all, very little else to do, since he had yet to arrive, and he was the only man who knew why he had called them there. It struck not a few of them men that it was typical of his relaxed attitude to life that he should call an urgent, secret meeting and then be twenty minutes late for it. And on top of that he had forgotten to bring along any drinks. However, just as one of the admirals was about to find out where he had gone, Harwood burst in, pushing a trolley piled dangerously high with food and drink of various types.

”Where’ve you been?” asked Admiral Romanov, who just happened to be his subordinate, leaning over to grab a particularly inviting sandwich.

“Me? Oh, I’ve been getting some food. Some idiot failed to get any.” He shoved the trolley into the centre of the room, motioning towards it. “By all means, people.” He took his seat at the end of the table while the rest of the officers selected their food from the tottering mound. He let them relax, eating for a bit, then rapped the table a few times. Immediately the hum of general chatter quietened, replaced by silence, punctuated with munching noises.

“Gentlemen and ladies. I was, regrettably, unable to tell you why this meeting was called. However, I may now reveal the reason to you.” He paused significantly. “The Navy is embarking upon acquisition of a new class of super-heavy warships, to be capable of taking on and eliminating any comparable type of warship. I have been tasked with obtaining from my colleagues, of whom you are all I feel the most capable, the specifications which the Fleet would consider requisite for such a warship.” He paused again, looking at each of the admirals around the table in no particular order, examining their reactions. Reaching forward for a sandwich, he continued: “well, there’s no point in hanging around, so let’s get on with it.” He sank back to his seat and flipped open a document wallet, handing round the stapled sheets which contained the very rough initial specification suggestions put forward by the Admiralty.

Romanov, unsurprisingly, was the first to comment. “Twenty-two inch guns? Most foreign ships in this class mount the twenty-four inch, don’t they?” He frowned at the paper. “Won’t we be sacrificing destructive power by adopting the twenty-two?”

“Yes, but we can mount more per hull,” replied Admiral Gregory without looking up from the report. “And I should imagine that the advantage of an extra two inches on the shell’s diameter isn’t all that great anyway, at least in terms of range.”

“She has a point,” conceded Rear-Admiral Saxe, whose family had once been von Saxe-Coburg and who still spoke German with as much ease as English. “The manufacturing advantage would be greater, as well, since re-tooling our arms plants to manufacture twenty-two inch shells would be easier than for twenty-fours.” He tilted his glasses forward in a schoolmasterish manner. “Of course, that said, consider the difference between the ten and the twelve inch gun.”

“Romanov smiled courteously. “Precisely, comrade. Why sacrifice range for weight of fire, when to do so may doom these ships to be pounded to pieces from long range? Worse, why make that even more likely, by designing them with a maximum speed of a mere thirty knots?”

“The difference between the two guns is no more than a few kilometres in either direction,” persisted Gregory, flicking through the report but simultaneously staring serenely at Romanov; “and, given that we’re using guns which can fire to about one hundred and thirty kilometres, does that really matter? Besides, by the time the ships are within range to fire accurately, it would be unimportant that they had the advantage of range over us.” She finished her coffee, rose and headed to the dispensing machine. “Anyone want some?” she asked sweetly, to a chorus of “me!”

Saxe considered her statement. “Furthermore, would we not then possess the advantage in weight and rapidity of fire? I mean, twenty-two inch guns can fire more rapidly than twenty-four inch, with the appropriate loading mechanisms.” He paused as Gregory passed him a steaming mug of tea. “Besides, what of missiles? At least two hundred missile cells are planned on this behemoth, which is enough to disable or at least impede any ship I know of.”

Romanov still looked displeased. “That assumes, comrade, that the missiles manage to get through the enemy’s air defences—“

“Why, pray, are you all talking as if these ships are going to be devoid of their own missile-armed escorts?” enquired a bored voice from down the table, belonging to the person of Admiral Yoshikuni Taiki. “A battleship on its own is not going to stand around waiting for the enemy to sink her, is she?” Immediately, uproar ensued, with both Romanov and Saxe launching into speeches on the unpredictable nature of warfare, and Taiki arguing that it was their job to make it as predictable as possible. Harwood sat back and watched, and finally coughed with undue amplitude as it degenerated into shouting.

“Gentlemen and ladies, kindly sit down and shut up.” He sighed. “The question over the guns is really quite immaterial, since I doubt that any company of ours can machine large guns like a twenty-four inch in anything less than a year. Besides, on the proposed dimensions, we would be able to fit about eight guns onto this ship, ten if we were lucky.”

“Nonetheless, sir, I think we must consider whether it is worth equipping this ship with more of an inferior weapon, when we could have a ship able to destroy the enemy at greater range, without needing to resort to volume of fire.” Romanov gazed at the plans, as though to will the massive guns he yearned for into existence by the will of his mind alone. “Furthermore, we could probably reduce the topweight of the ship by doing so, and get a speed better than the proposed thirty knots from her, allowing us greater speed and flexibility of operation.”

Saxe shook his head. “But, Admiral, you are overlooking the obvious fact that at long range, greater volume of fire is necessary to compensate for the relative inaccuracy of heavy guns at such ranges.” He blinked several times and shook his head again. “I think we should go with the twenty-two inch.”

“And condemn our ships to be battered out of existence at a range at which they cannot reply?” retorted Romanov scornfully, banging his hand on the table; “what happens if their missiles are shot down and they’re unable to fight the enemy off, because the enemy is shooting at them ten kilometres further away than our guns can reach? What then, Admiral?”

“Then I shall wonder if we are hit at all. At the range at which such a small range difference matters, we have generally found that one shell in sixty actually hits the target.” Saxe looked at his tunic buttons thoughtfully. “Of course, that’s with a stationary target. With a moving target it becomes one shell in every ninety-eight, and with a manoeuvring target one in every one hundred and twenty-one.” He smiled the thinnest of thin smiles. “I do not think a long-range gunnery duel will have all that much in the way of accuracy.” Romanov glared in reply, but could find nothing to say.

Harwood’s voice echoed slightly in the silent room. “Look, we can go on arguing all day, but we won’t get anywhere. As far as I can see, the primary arguments for the twenty-two inch can be summarised thus: ease of manufacture in gun and ammunition, ease of shell handling, greater rate of fire, more guns per ship; while the advantages of the twenty-four inch seem to be confined to having greater range and striking power.”

“We’ve already established, I think, that that greater range will be largely irrelevant,” added Gregory smugly.

“Indeed it would appear so,” nodded Harwood. “Admiral Taiki, do you have anything to add?”

Taiki was munching on a biscuit; he waved his hand at Harwood momentarily, then spoke around his food. “I fink,” he began, spraying out crumbs, “vat we haf reached vhe righ’ conclusion on vif” – he paused and swallowed – “issue. The twenty-two inch will allow us to mount more guns per ship, giving greater redundancy and greater weight of fire, at a price we can easily afford. After all, even if our ships are hit at extreme range, their protection should surely be sufficient to withstand it.” Nods of agreement, even from the reluctant Romanov and the taciturn Saxe, accompanied this pronouncement.

Harwood raised his eyebrows theatrically. “Let us vote.” The twenty-two inch gun was carried by five to one. After further discussion, the standard triple six-inch gun was accepted as the secondary armament.

Everyone voted in favour of allowing the cruise missile cells to carry the formidable P-190 missiles, for they were the heaviest and most capable in the fleet, and would be vital against enemy capital ships. They would also, it was decided, by able to accommodate the smaller Emerald missile, albeit with some dockyard modification to replace the cell walls. With the decision to carry the standard SS-N-29 ASROC and an eventual 4:2 decision to mount the little-used Sacrifice anti-torpedo system, the battleship’s armament took shape. Before his dismissed them, Harwood gave his colleagues notice that they would meet again in five days do discuss protection for the ship. “No sense in wasting time,” he remarked cheerfully as the last of them left the room.

Romanov laughed, quietly and coldly. No sense in wasting time. After all, why waste time, when you can waste lives?

They met again, at the prescribed date. The roads were surprisingly clear and the whole city quiet, for this was one of the nation's few major holidays; the entire population appeared to have vacated the cities and made for the countryside, eager to grasp at a few days of relaxation from the muggy fumes and endless buildings. Not these servants of the Fleet.

Today, the subject for discussion was protection, both passive and active. The previous meeting’s members were again assembled round the (today particularly dull-looking) table, enjoying the various available refreshments; the meeting had the character of a gathering of friends for a game of cards, rather than a matter of the greatest national interest. In fact, several of them were playing cards, enjoying a quick last game of poker prior to the meeting beginning. As Harwood took his seat, the game wound up (with the ever-taciturn Saxe having removed from the others sufficient funds to buy a three-course meal at the Dorchester), and the losers giving disgruntled looks to Saxe, who simply smiled pleasantly and watch Harwood. The latter smiled and stood, resting his fingertips on the smooth wood. Nodding to the small group, he began.

“First of all, thank you for coming so promptly, yet again; I’m sorry I couldn’t oblige you by starting earlier.” He looked down at a sheaf of papers that he had laid out on the polished oak. “Er…ah. Yes…first of all, matters arising since the last meeting; I have been informed that the specification has been changed not inconsiderably from its original form, but that our armament criteria have been accepted nonetheless by the Naval Staff.” Romanov snorted quietly, attracting a scowl from beneath Gregory’s unusually unruly hair.

Harwood ignored it: “As you know, we’re here today to discuss protection, active and passive, for our proposed…behemoth.” Leafing through the papers, he continued in a businesslike fashion: “Obviously, nothing but the best will do for this project.” He clapped his hands together. “So. Any initial ideas? I thought it preferable for the hull to be protected using the same system as we’ve used on our previous classes.”

“The armour system of the previous classes is tough, I admit, Admiral; but it has never been tested in combat,” pointed out Gregory cautiously. “I think we ought perhaps to consider this in the design process.”

“None of our armour has ever been used in combat, Admiral,” responded Saxe, with equal caution. “It would, possibly, be wise to consider that, although untried by actual combat the protection systems we have in existence presently were tested to the highest possible standards, as we’re all well aware.” The note of diffidence in the final words was not surprising; Saxe had been chairman of the group which had tested the existing protective schemes.

Taiki, who had been frowning for some time, added, “the existing scheme is too heavy, in my view. This ship is already intended to have dimensions far more prodigious than our largest existing ships. If construct it with an enormously heavy protection system like Type 14, the hull will be placed under tremendous stress even in peacetime manoeuvres, let alone in combat. In my opinion, we should move towards a lighter and more easily-repaired configuration, retaining the protective value of the existing system.”

“And how do you propose to build a protective system of sufficiently low weight to eliminate this difficulty, yet retain the existing system’s protective ability?” Saxe challenged.

“A system based around light ceramics, based upon lattices of lighter metals or alloys, such as vanadium- and beryllium-based alloys, would retain the present system’s excellent protective ability while reducing weight sufficiently to remove the difficulty of hull stress, would it not?”

“But, Comrade, such alloys are expensive and time-consuming to manufacture, and have certain disadvantages of their own, do they not?” Romanov’s shark-like smile beamed across the table. “The existing armouring system used on our hulls is sound, proven, and can be readily modified. Moreover, it does not require anything we do not already have, nor does it require the production of large volumes of expensive alloys and other products.” He shot a significant look at Taiki: “the existing system is also at least somewhat proof again ionising radiation, which cannot be said of your proposed system.”

Harwood shook his head. “Another factor militates against the use of such a system. Aside from anything else, the final dimensions of the hull have been laid down, and the materials for its protection are already being allocated.” The wry look he gave them said it all: don’t ask me why, I just work here. “Any major alteration to the basic design of the hull’s protective system could set production back months, maybe years, and our political masters would not countenance that readily. Another problem with your suggestion, Taiki: it’s a good enough idea, but bear in mind the huge topweight of this ship as it stands. A heavier hull would increase the ship’s stability significantly.”

“And reduce performance badly,” Romanov muttered, though it was heard by everyone.

“Yes, it will reduce performance. However, I think we need not concern ourselves overly with that. One cannot outrun a cruise missile, after all.”

“As you say, comrade, you cannot outrun a missile,” Romanov conceded smoothly; Harwood was backing his argument, and it wouldn’t do to argue further.

Taiki, for his part, bowed to weight of opinion. “Very well, but I must contend that we would be better off with a light hull.”

“Duly noted,” replied Harwood breezily. “But, unless I am much mistaken, the decision stands: we’ll go with Type 14, the latest version.” Nods of agreement were the welcome response, even from a reluctant Taiki.

Gregory looked up. “Why not improve it a little?”

“How?”

“We could give the class a double-hull design, like on our submarines. It would have to enhance the design’s resistance to underwater penetration. Moreover, we could work in synthetic lead-based materials, give it some resistance to radiation. Again, this would improve its survival prospects overall.”

“And its cost,” cautioned Taiki, “which would appear to me a major issue.”

“Cost is always a major issue, Admiral; otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation now. We’d have been having it five years ago, in fact,” Saxe remarked. “And the advantages of a double hull are worthy of the extra spending, in my opinion.”

Harwood noted the recommendation for a double-hull design, and moved them on to the superstructure. “As you know, the upperworks of the ship will have to be as light and yet damage resistant as possible, which is another argument in favour of using the existing protective scheme on the hull; to simply double the manufacturing cost of the vessel would not go down well, and the superstructure will have to be expensive as it is. The superstructure is the area which traditionally receives the most damage in surface combat,” he continued, “and thus we must protect it as much as possible while minimising the weight of the ship.”

They all knew he was right; surface warfare, especially gunnery duels, tended to wreck the ship’s superstructure but spare the hull, as had happened the Bismarck; the last thing anyone wanted was a warship which, at the end of a battle, was still seaworthy but unable to fight. Taiki saw his moment to push the case for lightweight, advanced composites once more.

“Then light composite materials would be an ideal solution. We already have the industry for their production in place; the construction of large quantities of these materials would stimulate that industry, and would give this class a high degree of resistance to penetration by all forms of shell and missile fire.”

“What sort of composites would you suggest?” Harwood enquired, speaking for the rest of the group.

Taiki leaned back in his seat, shrugging, expert: “lightweight materials such as aluminium, beryllium and vanadium oxides; bismuth- and germanium-based compounds for EMP hardening; chromium-based alloys, perhaps hafnium-based materials for resistance to acidic corrosion or similar munitions, for which Rhenium and its oxides might also be an option.” His smug smile was designed to put them all in their place; I am the expert here, ignore me at your peril.. “Not to put too fine a point on it, the possibilities are practically unlimited, if one is prepared to spend the required monies to use them.”

“And what would be the cost of using these advanced composite materials?” came the inevitable and pointed question from Romanov.

“Surely, comrade admiral,” Saxe commented, “we are not here to be economists, but to design the best possible vessel for our navy? In any case, I see little choice in the matter; topweight must be kept down, even if that means expensive materials in the upper structure of the ship. Incidentally, Admiral Taiki, what did you have in mind for the upper protective scheme?”

Admiral Taiki leapt in again. “The primary structure of vital areas – turrets, conning areas and missile cell areas, would be a geodetic structure, a quadrilateral lattice. This would be layered over with mixed layers of whatever materials we use to construct the superstructure, preferably arrayed in such a manner as to alternately be at their most effective against different forms of energy. Backing this, we would assemble light, high-tensile steel and PAZ lining material, with an inlay of germanium or some similar material. The upperworks’ weight would be somewhat reduced from the more normal standard if one used only steel, and such a structure would be tremendously strong, highly able to withstand kinetic energy projectiles and chemical energy impacts nearby.”

Gregory coughed unnecessarily: “what about carbon nanotubes?” Taiki immediately shook his head.

“Too expensive, too complex to manufacture, and only available in a fibrous form. What we need here is large, durable sheet materials backed onto a latticework frame to bear their weight and shocks from impacts. Oh yes, of course we will be using fibres; we normally coat the more vital framings of the ship with a spun plastic called vectran, for example. But in this case, the utility of such materials is strictly limited.”

“I see,” said Gregory, making it quite clear that she didn’t.” One other thing: I’d just like to come back to the hull for a moment, because I think we need to further consider underwater damage to it.” She looked at a sheet of notepaper before her. “I think we ought to make use of a system of design known as the Isherwood method, in combination with a displaced keel, to ensure the greatest possible strength within the hull and thereby its resistance to underwater damage.” She chuckled. “I take it from the blank looks you’re not familiar with the Isherwood system?”

“Vaguely,” said Harwood, nodding in a vague manner. “Explain it nonetheless.”

“All right: basically, in a normal ship, you first lay the keel, which forms the bottom of the ship, and then build the vertical frames from it, so it has the appearance of a spine with ribs coming off it. In the Isherwood system, while still having the ordinary vertical frames, you brace them with horizontal frames. It increases hull mass somewhat, but the ship becomes tremendously strong. As you may recall, the collier Storstad was built using the Isherwood system, and was thus able to survive ramming the Empress of Ireland with little damage to her hull, despite the latter’s rather…impressive mass.”

“And that would mean that a torpedo exploding beneath the keel wouldn’t have quite so catastrophic an effect on the ship’s hull strength as would otherwise be the case,” concluded Harwood smoothly.

“Precisely. Combined with a displaced keel, which we sort of used on the Hunter class, it would massively increase the strength of the ship. It would also mean that the ship was much stronger in any case, and her frames would thus be much better able to accept the huge mass of the ship without distorting, something which unfortunately happened to the Invincible class battlecruisers, as you no doubt recall.” The remark was delivered as a challenge: if you don’t recall, why the hell not?

“Sounds sound to me,” interjected Harwood proprietarily. “Any objections?” There were none. “Good. Well, we’re about done then, given that the ECM and other countermeasure systems have already been prepared. One other matter: close-in weapons systems. I’ve been informed that Drysdale-Kuzuki have developed a new CIWS for use aboard this class, sporting twin thirty-millimetre cannon and a pair of SA-N-20 SAM launcher boxes, which are reloadable, it seems. You should have received this information some days ago.” Nods met the enquiry. “Good. Any objections to its use?”

“Sir, while the system is perfectly sound as it is, what of the laser CIWS programme?” Saxe asked.

“The laser CIWS programme has achieved some successes, but is still considered too unreliable to be used on board operational warships. At present, it is approximately 75% accurate against its primary target, ballistic missiles and other objects. Unless an accuracy increase of between fifteen and twenty percent is experienced before construction begins, this class will not ship the system.”

“I see. What about sea-skimming missiles and shells?”

“Accuracy ratings of eighty and sixty percent, against a ten-inch shell, respectively. It’s not too shabby, I think you’ll agree, and the improvements being made are striking, but it’s by no means fully operational at this stage. The admiralty has therefore ruled out its use for the present.” Harwood yawned expansively. “Any further comments from anyone?”

“What about torpedo countermeasures?”

“Standard system there too, the latest version of course,” replied Harwood deftly. He grinned. “They’ve thought of everything these days. Any other matters?” Nobody said anything; their faces were now locked into expressions of contentment, already composing the pleasantries to be used as they departed the building. “Very well; I declare the meeting adjourned. I’ll submit our specifications to the admiralty and we’ll see what the yards come back with.”