Battleship
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Battleships
A Battleship is a warship intended to deal massive damage while absorbing massive damage while still remaining operational. It is the largest class of general-purpose combatant ships, and they are typically slow, not maneuverable, and easily detected. Battleships are not intended to operate independently and require escort vessels to protect them from smaller ships, fighters and bombers that would be very difficult for the battleship to effectively fight off by itself.
Large capital ships, given that they are big, slow-moving targets that are easy to hit, are vulnerable to large kinetic weapons (missiles, etc) if they can penetrate the point defense systems of the ship. These can be launched by enemy bombers, corvettes or destroyers sometimes from outside detection range, which makes it extremely difficult for the battleship to counter the threat. A battleship being attacked by waves of ordnance from an unseen enemy will eventually be reduced to a wreck while doing no damage at all to the attackers. Large railgun or coilgun fire from other battleships or cruisers can also produce significant damage, but the battleship is designed to trade fire with these ships as they pummel each other into oblivion.
A battleship is an extremely resource-intensive ship, using many multiples of the raw materials and fuel required for construction and operation of a cruiser. A colony choosing to build and operate these must carefully consider whether the resource requirements for this ship might be more efficiently used in building and operating the multiples of cruisers that are alternatively possible. Usually, the determination to build a battleship depends on the existence of a gravely threatening risk of encountering enemy battleships or other large capital ships that cannot be effectively countered in any other way.
Given these resource requirements, the presence of a battleship should be a rarity, and limited to later in the timeline.
General Design Principles (A lecture on space vs water ships)
In traditional 'wet' navies, armor mass carried a cost in displacement. The outer hull encloses a volume which 'displaces' the water. As long as the total mass of the entire ship is less than the water displaced, the ship will 'float' at the air/water interface. The ship cannot fall deeper into the water because it has a lower mass than the displaced volume of water. The ship cannot rise further into the air because it has a higher mass than the displaced volume of air.
Since steel weighs more than the same volume of water, large masses of steel must be compensated by empty spaces with air. Any damage to the hull which allows water in will increase the weight of the entire ship. If the total weight exceeds the weight of the displaced water, the ship stops floating on the surface. It 'sinks'.
Because of this, armor in traditional 'wet' navy ships is usually limited to what is called a "citadel" in the center of the ship that contains the engineering spaces, the primary weapons systems and magazines, and the command and control spaces. Areas of the ship that are not vital to combat operations, such as fuel tanks, berthing spaces, and stores are usually outside of the citadel and are minimally protected, as the ship can fight even if those spaces are destroyed. However, displacement must be minded; even if all critical spaces are clean, if enough bouyancy spaces fill with water, the ship will sink. This is why traditional wet navies are armed with weapons designed to poke holes in their targets. The object is not to destroy the enemy ship, but merely to let enough water in that it sinks.
The canonical example of this principle is the "unsinkable" passenger liner Titanic which sank in 1912, several hours after being brushed by an iceberg. The ship's hull sustained only minor damage, but the hull was pierced and seawater rushed in to spaces needed for flotation. Due to design flaws in the compartmentation scheme, the entire ship was open to flooding. Further, the dewatering system installed was overloaded by the incoming seawater; water came in faster than the crew could pump it out. Eventually the total mass of ship plus internal water exceeded the ship's displacement and it sank.
In the Swarm Cycle universe, all warships are 'floating' in space. The concept of 'sinking' does not apply. Added mass does not change the ship's ability to float in space.
Instead of worrying about getting too much water in the people-tank, spaceship design engineers worry about letting all the air out of the people-tank. A spaceship carries its crew's environment with it. If a spaceship loses all environmental spaces, the crew will die. The end effect is that ALL spaces are needed for long-term survival.
Added mass reduces maneuverability and acceleration rate, but adds survivability. Further, energy weapons are often powerful enough to destroy large sections of even the largest hulls. Thus, Swarm Cycle armored warships tend to use the 'all or nothing' concept. Their builders will armor the entire outer hull since a crippling hit can come from any direction.
Besides the armored outer hull, the very largest "capital ships", the carriers, battleships, and battlecruisers, will dedicate volume inside the hull for additional armor separating functional modules (weapon system, power plant, etc) thus in effect creating multiple citadels. The Swarm War had several instances of one end of a capital ship becoming completely wrecked after cumulative damage allowed a crippling weapon to penetrate past the armor and hull, while the other end continued the fight. Once the fight is over, the wreck may well be scrapped, but during the fight the weapon systems of the surviving half-ship can continue to fight. Doing so increases the probability of the crippled ship's side winning the battle, which increases the probability of surviving crew rescue.
The primary weapons of a battleship are designed to deal massive damage to a large enemy ship. These systems are usually slow-firing and long-range, and have difficulty hitting small maneuverable targets. Secondary weapons systems are designed to engage smaller ships such as destroyers and corvettes with more rapid-firing but less-powerful and shorter-range weapons. Point-defense weapons are intended to engage incoming fighters, bombers, and missiles.
Confederacy Battleships
One class of Confederacy battleship has been vaguely identified in Ending This Mess:
- Vesuvius class battleship
Sa'arm Battleships
One class of Sa'arm battleship has been identified:
Ersatz Battleships
At the very beginning of the war, a pair of Aurora pod-freighters were enclosed in a cylinder, structural support added to prevent collapse under fire, and then as many weapon systems as possible tacked on in an attempt to build a cheap but effective warship. The resulting monstrosities were named Gorgon and Medusa. They were under-powered, under-armed, and under-armored, but they were instrumental in our victory.
One was lost with all hands in the Battle for Tulakat and the other was damaged badly. The survivor was given voyage repairs to get back to Trumanat where it was scrapped. As one participant of that battle later observed, "We needed heavy warships and we needed them NOW. They were a terrible idea but they were the best we could do at the time. We could not have won without them."
See Also
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