Re: New ships!

Oerjan Ohlson wrote:

>> Let the OU design philosophy be small, fast, flexible hulls that
carry 
>> adequate to heavy weapons loads.
> 
> 
> Ships which are small, fast *and* heavily armed are by necessity 
> glass-jawed - their small hulls don't have enough Mass left over for 
> hull integrity and defences once they've bought all those engines and 
> weapons.
> 
> That's the exact opposite of the OU's BORON design philosophy: BORON 
> ships are extremely durable for their size, but most of them are only 
> moderately fast (thrust rating 4) and their armaments are short-ranged

> (though quite powerful once they get into range).

Exactly.

They're verging on being "under armed", the only thing that prevents 
this is concentrating on medium-short ranged weaponry. The extra mass 
that others put in weaponry goes in hull on OUDF ships.

At long range, they have minimal firepower, often none.
At medium range, their firepower is, at best, average.
At "effective range" as the OU puts it, they have a small edge in 
weaponry (assuming they have survived without too much damage).

At all ranges though, they're likely to be significantly more durable 
than their opponents. OU tactics are therefore to minimise "long range" 
duels (where the OU is not just at a disadvantage, it's hopeless) and 
get into "medium range" as soon as possible. As soon as this happens, it
is on even terms with any opponent : approximately equal (sometimes 
slightly inferior) weaponry, but definitely superior durability.

At short range... well, just don't get within 12 MU of an OU force, or 
you'll get a nasty surprise. The OU tries very hard to get into short
range.

>> >It'd require that the OUDF is rich enough to afford warships that 
>> large (not to mention capable of >building them), too :-/
>>
>> And what makes you think it's not?
> 
> 
> The dual facts that 1) the OU has a tiny population compared to its 
> rivals and 2) Alan Brain who has written the OUDF background has
stated 
> pretty explicitly that the OUDF is hard pressed to build even a 
> reasonable number of battleships and battlecruisers, with the 
> battleships being the largest units the OU's naval yards are
technically 
> capable of building...

It's somewhat ameliorated by the OUDF having a small army even for its 
size, and a much larger navy (proportionately) than you'd expect for its

population. Much of their army would be considered "special forces" in 
any other nation.
But that advantage is completely removed by the OU having to maintain 
such a vast patrol fleet, to cover its many useless- or semi-useless 
systems.
The OU is really, really good at building patrol ships. But anything the

size of a light cruiser or above requires a moderate sized shipyard. 
Anything larger than mass 100 or so is very difficult for them, and can 
only be built at a a very low rate. Not ships/year, but years/ship for 
each of about 4 major shipyards, rather than the 20+ that Japan has.

Note that the current OU "CVL" is only the physical size of a small 
Battleship or large Battlecruiser. It carries 2 fighter groups, not 4. 
It's more like a small Battledreadnaught than a carrier, and is 
tactically used as such. It's the largest that can be built at normal 
speeds in the cruiser-sized shipyards that the OU has for its regular 
fleet (apart from the 4 'specials' mentioned above).

They also have a problem, in that although the OU "disruptor" is more 
easily manufactured in low-industrial-base facilities than other types 
of beam weapon, it doesn't scale up - there's a definitely limit to 
size. This is why the OU favours Beam-2s.

The OU is high-tech but low-industrial capacity.

-- 
Alan & Carmel Brain
http://aebrain.blogspot.com
mailto:aebrain@webone.com.au