Shipbucket

While I'm engaged in this bit of redoing to the setup, I'm going to go ahead and scrap that carrier. It's the worst the design I've submitted to the board, and while the nation could, at least in theory afford it, the manpower, maintaince, and airwing jacks up the expense beyond that of just the programme itself. I have instead decided on an SSN fleet the first vessels arriving the mid 1990s. I have those already finished, but want to hear what people have to say about this design first.

That is the danger of not starting at the beginning, is occasionally you run into something like this, which throws your whole fleet balance out the window. I had expected the Gearings to stay front line longer, say until the early 1970s, when they were replaced by the Brooke mods, which would then give way to the Didos, then the Medusas as cheap ASW escorts. This has sort of scrambled my plans, with the Brooke mods not getting built, though I can see the Didos growing to be CGs, specifically because someone decided that they had to be more capable than the Ariadne Klasse, going one better, which produces a CG, as the previous class were already DLGs.

The problem here is that now ASW helicopters are either going to have to wait until the 1980s when the Didos and Medusas arrive, or some Knox class will have to be procured to bridge the gap.

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We can't stop here--this is Bat country!

If it's close enough to cast a shadow, I think the flying house wins initiative.

Bronies are like the Forsworn. Everyone agrees that they are a problem but nobody wants to expend the energy rooting them out.

"That is a very graphic analogy which aids understanding wonderfully while being, strictly speaking, wrong in every possible way."

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As promised, here are the SSNs, which replace my previous carrier. The first three were launched in the mid 1990s, with the second 3 Improved Ondines in the mid 2000s, the original Ondine Klasse were eventually upgraded to this standard. I figured 1st gen nuke boats were going to be rather plain and basic, so I used an older design as the basis, namely the Sturgeon Class.

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We can't stop here--this is Bat country!

If it's close enough to cast a shadow, I think the flying house wins initiative.

Bronies are like the Forsworn. Everyone agrees that they are a problem but nobody wants to expend the energy rooting them out.

"That is a very graphic analogy which aids understanding wonderfully while being, strictly speaking, wrong in every possible way."

What type of missiles do the improved Ondine have? and why not convert one of the SSNs all the way to an SSGN?

Harpoon and Tomahawk missiles. As for a SSGN, that's something of a specialty boat, and with only six SSNs, a luxury that can't be afforded, as that number translates to only 2 units at sea at any given time.

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We can't stop here--this is Bat country!

If it's close enough to cast a shadow, I think the flying house wins initiative.

Bronies are like the Forsworn. Everyone agrees that they are a problem but nobody wants to expend the energy rooting them out.

"That is a very graphic analogy which aids understanding wonderfully while being, strictly speaking, wrong in every possible way."

No, no, NO. You can't simply add a VLS to an existing design! There's no ROOM!

The Virginia has it's VLS in the forward ballast tank, which is why the old tubes could easily be replaced with the newer design. But you can't simply plonk a VLS in the middle of your pressure hull! You've got stuff in there! And a sub is so cramped that that stuff can't go anywhere else. Your only solution is to lengthen the hull and either add a plug for the VLS and subsystems inside the pressure hull (preferrably your design is modular so the ability to add a plug is standard) or you add a smaller plug for the VLS subsystems inside the pressure hull, and add lenght to your bow, shifting your sonar and ballast tanks around to make room for the VLS. A full plug would be easyer, IF your design was modular from the start. Otherwise you might as well design a new boat...

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Would you please not eat my gun...

Just got to wonder if there's enough difference in capability between SM-1 and Sea Phoenix to make carrying both systems worthwhile.

Also, perhaps one of the others could clarify this but I'd think the Mk 26 GMLS you've installed aft would have at least similar space requirements as the Mk 13 you've got installed on the 'as built' version of the class. If so there may no be the necessary volume to mount it at main deck level, so you may have to move it up a deck to a similar height to where the Mk 13 was placed.

It's feasible that the electronics on the SM-1s get swapped out for those from SeaPhoenix, if he replaces the SPG-51s with the (S)WG-9s then he can track 72 targets simultaneously and engage 36 of them. Easy way to shoot yourself dry.
Looking at it I don't think the Mk-26 would fit there. The Mk-13 is downright compact, while the Mk-26 is not.

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𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐍𝐄𝐓- 𝑻𝒐 𝑪𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝑺𝒐𝒍𝒗𝒆

You are right about the original Ondine Klasse. The idea was to get *Any* SSN to sea, and are strictly first gen boats, and I don't see the design being modular in light of that, though they would, I suppose have the ability to fire TLAM through the normal tubes, just as Sturgeon did. The Improved Ondines are an evolved design that while keeping much the same external lines as the originals, are modular and built from the beginning for Tomahawk, are are some 10 years in advance of the originals. They should be longer, perhaps, but I'm restricting their size to reflect the evolutionary aspects of the design, as it is still basically derivative of the original boats, albeit with better tech. They are sorta 1.5 gen boats. I'd say besides being smaller and generally less capable, they are the rough equivalent of early 688s. The next class will hopefully fall somewhere between I-688 and Seawolf in that regard, and be a good deal longer.

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We can't stop here--this is Bat country!

If it's close enough to cast a shadow, I think the flying house wins initiative.

Bronies are like the Forsworn. Everyone agrees that they are a problem but nobody wants to expend the energy rooting them out.

"That is a very graphic analogy which aids understanding wonderfully while being, strictly speaking, wrong in every possible way."

The class was intended to have a twin arm laucher aft from the beginning, but delays both in it becoming available, and further delays with it being cleared for export resulted in a Mk 13 instead of the Mk 26 being procured, with intention of the vessels being later refitted when the system was ready and procurable. (Was the Mk 26 ever actually exported?) That is a most intriguing idea. It would create something like SM-6 decades before it arrived on the scene. It would be a very nice alternative to Aegis, and allow for smaller navies to cope with saturation attacks. I wonder how such a system afloat in a foreign navy would affect the Aegis programme? I will work on a version of this ship.

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We can't stop here--this is Bat country!

If it's close enough to cast a shadow, I think the flying house wins initiative.

Bronies are like the Forsworn. Everyone agrees that they are a problem but nobody wants to expend the energy rooting them out.

"That is a very graphic analogy which aids understanding wonderfully while being, strictly speaking, wrong in every possible way."

In this case I'd put a plug in aft of the sail and stick the VLS tubes there*. You'll interrupt the boat's interior less, and you'll actually have room to stick VLS tubes.

*This is how the built U.S.S George Washington (SSBN-598). They took the ship programed to be the U.S.S. Scorpion (SSN-589), cut her in half, and put in the 130 foot plug that housed the SLBMs.
Erik_T and I have talked about this before and we think if anyone does this it's going to end up on a US destroyer as well, and might delay the introduction of AEGIS into the US fleet (if deployed early), then again AEGIS was delayed mostly by the time it took to get a hull designed for it in service so it might not delay it's introduction.

While the system I outlined gives you a bump up from the prior system, and comes into it's own in the 1980s, it's still has capabilities far far less than the AEGIS Combat System.

As for the numbers I got for missiles under guidance, the AWG-9 in the F-14 could control up to 6 missiles at a time, but the computer was limited for size and weight by the fact that it had to fit in a Tomcat. Remove those limits and you can upgrade the electronics significantly.

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𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐍𝐄𝐓- 𝑻𝒐 𝑪𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝑺𝒐𝒍𝒗𝒆