In answer to the recent question about how ship types are classified, the
Imperial ship classifications appear to be somewhat arbitrary. Here's a
description of the system I used for the Neubayern Federation Navy:
Battleship-- A ship designed to pulverize any other ship, with heavy bay
armament and a big spinal mount. 100,000+ tons.
Battlecruiser-- A ship midway between a battleship and a cruiser, basically
the smallest ship that could still go up against a battleship and not
necessarily be committing suicide. :-) 50,000-100,000 tons.
Strike Cruiser-- A classification invented because I had a "heavy cruiser"
design with more firepower than the old battlecruiser, and I thought that
sounded odd. Eventually, it actually developed a real meaning--a cruiser
designed more for battles than for other cruiser duties. 40,000-50,000 tons.
Heavy Cruiser-- An all-purpose ship that could serve either as a powerful
battle unit, as a patrol unit, or as anything else I came up with. Many of
them served as remarkably well-armed hospital ships. :-) 30,000-40,000 tons.
Light Cruiser/Raiding Cruiser-- Different names for the same thing, this was
a cruiser that specialized in commerce-raiding and long-range strikes at an
enemy's rear area. The CL/CR bit rose from the fact that the Alliance needed
a "Raiding Cruiser," which I designed, but the NFN officially disapproved of
raiding (despite wanting the means to do it). 20,000-30,000 tons.
Destroyer-- A ship designed for escort and fire support duty. It differed
from a cruiser primarily in the lack of a spinal mount and significant troop
contingent. 10,000-20,000 tons.
Fleet Escort-- A ship that was designed as a TL12 copy of the Imperial _P.F.
Sloan_ class. I was never very impressed with these (despite their adequate
performance), probably because of their somewhat poorly thought-out origin.
5,000-10,000 tons.
Fleet Tender-- A ship designed to carry battle riders. 100,000+ tons.
Fleet Carrier-- A ship designed to carry fighters for offensive action in
special Heavy Carrier Squadrons. 100,000+ tons.
Carrier-- A ship designed to carry fighters for defensive action
accompanying other types of squadrons. Note that despite the intention, there
wasn't a real division of the carrier roles in practice, and the smaller type
got written off as a bad idea. 50,000-100,000 tons.
Heavy Rider-- A battle rider built to carry a spinal mount, with no other
offensive weapons. 20,000 tons.
Light Rider-- A battle rider built to carry offensive bay weapons, and
nothing else. 10,000 tons.
Fast Patrol Boat-- A sort of "super fighter" built around a single 100-ton
bay. It was an experimental design that was supposed to operate just like a
really big, really tough fighter.
Fighter-- All of these were originally meant to engage enemy capital ships,
but it didn't work this way. Only the 90-ton FA-5 Krait was up to fighting
ships with an realistic chance of success. The Krait was also being tested as
a glorified point defence system for engaging incoming missiles.
Kenneth G. Hagler
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