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Glorious Arstotzka

17 (16%)

Glorious Moskurg

13 (12.3%)

Ingloriously Didn't Play

76 (71.7%)

Total Members Voted: 106

[Sensei]

UFS-DD-43 "Arbalest"

The United Forenian Destroyer 1943 "Arbalest" (commonly referred to as the "Steel Abs" by the sailors who crew her) is an improvement over our first attempt at a Destroyer five years ago.  It borrows heavily from the USA's successful Fletcher-class Destroyers (1942) in design.

The ship features Class-2 "Light" Naval Armor (75-125mm) to render it resilient against anything smaller than an artillery shell, including Cannala's 30 mm cannons.  Propulsion is two screws powered by a four oil-fired turbines.  It features five 130 mm arnored turrets; two on the bow, two on the stern, and one amidships behind the twin smokestacks (possibly to be later swapped out with a planned ASM launcher).  Unlike the Archer, these are electrically operated and make use of our Longshot Pattern B firing control.  Two torpedo launchers of five torpedoes each sit amidships; one between the smokestacks, and one just behind the rear smokestack.  Unlike the wooden torpedo launchers the Archer uses, the Arbalest has powered metal launchers with firing control and trajectory calculators.  Six twin-mounted AC-41 Velociraptors (twelve total) are stationed around the ship for point-defense against both air and light ship attacks, but due to space constraints the Arbalest does not feature Anti-Air Artillery.

Most notable is the inclusion of SONAR, which was first implemented nearly thirty years ago in 1915.  By making use of hydrophones stationed around the hull of the ship and sweeping an acoustic beam through the water, the ship can recreate the effect of our RADAR underwater.  This is intended primarily for early torpedo detection and mine-clearing operations.  The Arbalest also comes with mountings for anti-sea mine nets, allowing it to carefully sweep through mined areas and collect/detonate the free-floating explosives when properly equipped.

The role of this ship is to act as an escort and protect our more vulnerable ships from torpedoes, sea mines, and torpedo ships.

Fair warning: The Sonar itself might be a hard enough design on its own that you'd want to do it as its own thing and mount it to existing ships rather than make a new ship with the new system. Consider this well!

[evictedSaint]

Boooooo

Thirty year old tech, four turns of radar attempts, and five ship designs, and SONAR is still to hard to build with a small-scale ship

Boo, I say. Booo.

[Sensei]

Just saying! The way your rolls have been, you might want to focus on one thing at a time. But hey, you don't have to listen to me.

[NUKE9.13]

Okay, so, scrap the Arbalest, then.

[RAM]

Naaaa, Imma bank on the 6.

[Kashyyk]

A modernised Archer should be an Easy project, so adding Sonar would be Very Hard at most.

[andrea]

From the sound of it, VH seems plausible. Certainly not impossible, but not likely to yield good results on a 2.

[evictedSaint]

I dunno if I could get people to swing the research credit on it, but I really think sonar is the way to go :/

I'll hold out for the RC, but I will fall back on the clickbait if it falls through.

[Kashyyk]

I would support using the RC.

[10ebbor10]

Honestly, is there even a point in having Sonar?

The enemy has surface floating mines (won't be spotted by sonar) and extremely short ranged torpedoes (no need to spot them with sonar, asyoucan see the vessel that launches them). Also, they're powered by compressed air so neat bubble trails. Having sonar will not suddenly make our ships nimble enough to avoid a torpedo fired at point blank range.

So, to me it seems like a completely pointless design.

[10ebbor10]

Wild Ride (w/ research credit) (5): QuakeIV, Zanzetkuken, NAV, Funk, SC
UFN-HA-43 'Frightening' (2): Powder Miner, Madman
UFAF-F-43 "Grey Owl' (1): Lightforge
UFS-DD-43 "Arbalest" (7): RAM, eS, Kashyyk, NUKE9.13, McHuman, Taricus, Happerry
Whalesong 1 : 10ebbor10

Advantages :
Involves underwater accoustics
Blows up enemy ships

[evictedSaint]

Hmmm...well, our best guess for the Wild Ride was Very Hard, right?  Our attempt at period-appropriate light ship with a piece of thirty-year-old technology is also Very Hard.

If we have to pick between two Very Hard designs, then I guess the obvious choice is to pick the Cold War era tech, right?  Besides, there's no guarantee the reverse engineering will work. 

Wild Ride (w/ research credit) (6): QuakeIV, Zanzetkuken, NAV, Funk, SC, eS
UFN-HA-43 'Frightening' (2): Powder Miner, Madman
UFAF-F-43 "Grey Owl' (1): Lightforge
UFS-DD-43 "Arbalest" (6): RAM, Kashyyk, NUKE9.13, McHuman, Taricus, Happerry
Whalesong 1 : 10ebbor10

[Madman198237]

No, ignoring the possibility of gaining experience in missile control systems or missile tracking systems in exchange for "moar benefit NAO" is foolish.

If we don't like their naval mines and torpedo boats, build an ultra-light minesweeper/TBD combination that uses nothing but speed, autocannons, and MAYBE a torpedo net (their mines float on the surface) to deal with them.

Or if you REALLY want the mines and torpedo boats to go away, make a Hedgehog depth-charge mortar/launcher type thing, that sprays the surface of the ocean with hundreds of high explosives (think Sarukh, but shorter-ranged with more explosives). That'll get rid of mines, AND if you make it shoot enough ultra-high-explosives far enough, you can use it to dispose of torpedo boats, too.

[RAM]

We really don't want them doing submarines without sonar destroyers to get in their way. Sonar is also generally good. I very much doubt their mines are surface enough that sonar won't help some. Mostly though we really do need something with enough armour and speed to deal with their torpedo boats, which are numerous. Or we could try some sort of anti-tank aircraft. A Thunderbolt II would probably be able to erase the Cannalan horde of bugs, we could probably get a similar effect from a 40mm autocannon. Something to turn a strafing run against a Buccaneer into a mission-kill instead of a deck-sweeping. But aircraft lack stopping-power, a destroyer like that... It really is designed to clear out things smaller than itself, if it works...

As for missiles. I only want to steal their design for the research progress. Actually using it seems... Well waste-not want-not, but ugh... Though the automated flight systems are the real prize, if we got the design then we ought to be able to cannibalise it for missile expertise to go with out rocket and aurcraft expertise. As it stands, making it now would give us lots of experience that we could steal instead...

[Madman198237]

We won't get the actual design without an espionage credit, but we WILL gain "experience" with, hopefully, flight-control systems and the guidance package.