I am intrigued by a warship detailed in High Passage 2: the Inkaalur-class "dreadnought," a 100,000 dt TL 14 ship that was "the mainstay of the line of battle in the rimward Imperial fleets." Later text suggests the ship was used in the Solomani Rim War.
The CT Supplement 9 definition of battleships: "jump-capable vessels which are, due to their armament and protection, capable of standing in the line of battle. While battleships (or, as they are often called, dreadnaughts [sic]) generally have little better in the way of primary armament than cruisers, their extensive secondary batteries render them virtually immune to missile and small craft attack while their bulk provides a tremendous ability to absorb damage and keep fighting."
So 100,000 dt is sometimes cited as the upper limit of what constitutes a cruiser. I can't find a canonical example of a battleship that small, but let's say that 100,000 is about the lower limit -- at this point the distinction between a "battlecruiser," and a "light battleship" is probably fairly slight. Against a TL 13 foe, a TL 14 100,000 dt ship might well seem a dreadnought; against a TL 15 the same ship might seem a cruiser.
In the context of the Solomani Rim War, where the Confederation Navy was somewhere between TL 13 and TL 14, could the Inkaalur-class conceivably stand in the line of battle?
The CT Supplement 9 definition of battleships: "jump-capable vessels which are, due to their armament and protection, capable of standing in the line of battle. While battleships (or, as they are often called, dreadnaughts [sic]) generally have little better in the way of primary armament than cruisers, their extensive secondary batteries render them virtually immune to missile and small craft attack while their bulk provides a tremendous ability to absorb damage and keep fighting."
So 100,000 dt is sometimes cited as the upper limit of what constitutes a cruiser. I can't find a canonical example of a battleship that small, but let's say that 100,000 is about the lower limit -- at this point the distinction between a "battlecruiser," and a "light battleship" is probably fairly slight. Against a TL 13 foe, a TL 14 100,000 dt ship might well seem a dreadnought; against a TL 15 the same ship might seem a cruiser.
In the context of the Solomani Rim War, where the Confederation Navy was somewhere between TL 13 and TL 14, could the Inkaalur-class conceivably stand in the line of battle?
