[Damocles]

[QUOTE]

Originally Posted by Bacho

Democles,
The model may have been the submarine, the function is that of a carrier.

Here beginneth the lesson;

1. The manned vehicle is the platform. The weapons systems are the heat-loading/charge-loading(kinetic, electromagnetic)) mechanisms that operate from the platform.

2. It was and is the nature of the average TV writer to see space warfare as a form of WW II naval combat. The smallness of the screen also forces some constraints as to how such combat is displayed.

3. It will be a reality that the point defense against long range weapons(missiles with contact/impact discharged EMP effects or contact/impact discharged explosive effects) will be AESA scan arrays( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AESA ) that are powerful MASERs instead of just being a form of radar. At delta vees of 1/10th c and up mechanical track in azimuth and bearing(turrrets) is impossible. Turrets can't track fast enough. In fact turrets can't track fast enough, now, against maneuvering cruise missiles. Why do you think that the USN is going for the RAM missile in place of the Phalanx as the close in weapon system defense for its ships?

As for the use of robot drone fighters in place of manned systems? In the next carrier we plan to field; we want to deploy somerthing like this;



Its a robot aircraft.

a. Acceleration forces that will pulp a human, the robot will shrug off.
b. The smaller plane carries a bigger payload, than its human-crewed equivalent.
c. For its size, it will have more range. Remember that the relatively simple computers of the UCAV and the F-18 mass about the same, and are volumetrically the same. The mass and volume of the human(and his support system) aboard the F-18 is the current limiter to that fighter(giving it notoriously short endurance in the air.)

Translate that into a battlestar. You build 100 robot fighters and one shipload of 100 expendable missiles. You silo the fighters in launch/recovery hangers/silos and tube those missiles in distributed magazines across mky rocket. You install an AESA MASER behind a nice thick electric armor nose-plate. You make the rocket as small as you can; and you automate it as much as you can, to minimize its heat print against background space. What humans you park aboard, as crew, are there for the maintenance of the launch platform, and its weapon systems. You can build five of those for the one or so COLUMBIA class Alligators as I see them on screen; and you can build ten of those for the Cylon double-decker sand-dollars as I see it.

You obtain a smaller ship.

Advantages.
1. Less logistics. The robot drones may have Cylon attrition rates but the replacements, you can fly out from a forward depot. Centurions that get shot up need on-hand machine shops. Colonials need air, food and water, and their Alligators need large logistic fleets to sustain them and their Vipers. Your fleet with its lower manning requiremwents will have a leaner, cheaper and simpler tail to tooth ratio.

2. More homogeneity in the fleet. Your rocket launch platform will be standardized as to form and function, and is interchangeable in roles and means. Small enough and cheap enough to be a standalone patrol unit, and yet when massed in numbers it is able to take down the largest enemy fleets. Remember you designed it to carry an armor package to survive a basestar's particle beam fire and a payload to swarm that basestar's defense on a fifth of the Alligator's mass?

3. Deployability. With homogeneity, numbers, common unit tactics and a lean logistics tail you can distribute your units across space in a patrol circuit, quickly concentrate to meet a local threat, and risk offense as opposed to defense. You have far more numbers to risk.

Quantity has a quality all of its own, when you have near technical parity.

However, IMO, I would say a vessel with turreted mounts for the weapons would be fully capable to deal with just about anything. Hardpoints on the upper and lower sides allows for massive forward firing capability as well as broadside ability.

You would need super-imposition of firing arcs? You've got to stack those turrets to keep them from fouling each other;

I still say the Battlestar is the most efficient design of the two. In playing around with varuious 3d designs, and looking at the Anime based vessels, I am at a loss as to the predominate and very obvious CIC structure. While the look is appealing to the eye, the glaring weakness is the fact that the ship would be crippled with the loss of the CIC.

Agreed as to the ISD. You bury your CIC inside the ship and rely on your radars and passive detection gear. You also distribute the CIC threoughout the ship so that one penetrating hit to your rocket doesn't throw you out of control. Auxillary steering was understood as far back as Constantine.

As for design, A sphere? When you consider a drive section, the sphere is out. This is where the wet navy has it over the space craft.

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/Hi...4209/ch3-4.htm

http://www.astronautix.com/craftfam/soyuz.htm

The spacecraft shape that is most efficient for mass distribution, MASS BALANCING, and volume distribution is the sphere.

Why is the sphere out?

Primitive version;





Advanced version;



Notice the waist weapon emplacements? There is 180= degree coverage fore and aft. You can't get that on a cube or a cheese wedge.

As for the borg, maybe.

Can you bring your side and top and bottom beam weapons to bear? No.

With a SPHERE you could.

Shoot the corner weapon emplacements of that cube off, and you create massive exploitable blind spots. The cube is also a horrible sensor platform or a mass distribution for a rocket. You would prefer a sphere, cone, or cylinder to simplify mass distribution, inertia loading, and the placement of any propulsive mechanism you want to use to rotate on your vector.

However, we are talking humans, and as such, we have the tendency to build something that is functional and aesthitically pleasing to look at. I would venture to say that when humans go to the stars, the most likely designs would be along the battlestar or even klingon ships.

It will look more like this.



or like this;

Perhaps a discussion of probable earth based designs would be good to start somewhere?

In the art section perhaps?

Anyway, from all the different series and movies, I prefer the battlestar, nice to look at, protected CIC, and functional.

1. The Alligator is asymmetric and off mass-balanced.(That means the the thrust vector does not coinicide with the center of mass of that rocket Your battlestar pitches off axis on its vector and loops around its center of mass like a crazy ferris wheel.)

2. The out-riggers add to the Alligator's mass inbalance, create massive blind arcs for the port/starboard point defenses and are invitations for missile and particle beam fire by the enemy for all the volatiles that are so exposed inthe outrigger. Any hanger you have, should be either stuck inside the ship behind a wall of armor; or distributed over the exterior waist of the ship in compartmented segments, so that if one section is blown out, you don't have a loss of ship event.

Main gun.

A spinal weapon from the problems involved with heat loading and use(If its a long-ranged particle beam you don't so much as aim that beam as you SLASH with it-like you would with a giant sword to cut across the targets'[more than one target slashed with each rake] predicted intended motion. For that, rolling, pitching, and yawing your ship on its thrust vector conic(remember the sword analogy) is probably what you should expect. The missiles and drones from your ship you can launch from any orientation; but if you are using a beam weapon to engage at a tenth of a light second range; you are going to be pivoting your rocket on it's baseline vector to aim your MASSIVE kilometer long particle beam projector at the enemy fleet.

Your rocket would be built around that spinal weapon.

As always