The starfleets of 2300

[Whipsnade]

Murph wrote:

"Been re-reading "DREADNAUGHT" by Massey, and the question is: Build one or two battleships for national prestige, or build many more "cruisers"?


Mr. Murph,

Given the nature of 2300AD ship combat, more cruisers definitely. The more platforms you have toting stutterwarp propelled det-laser missiles the better.

BTW, pick up Massey's latest - Castles of Steel. Got it in my Xmas stocking and its a keeper.


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[Murph]

Thanks, I had been eyeing it, but wanted to hear something about it before jumping into purchasing it.

On cruisers, true, but remember all the powers pre-WWI building or ordering battleships because of national prestige to have a dreadnaught warship in the fleet.

Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:
Murph wrote:

"Been re-reading "DREADNAUGHT" by Massey, and the question is: Build one or two battleships for national prestige, or build many more "cruisers"?


Mr. Murph,

Given the nature of 2300AD ship combat, more cruisers definitely. The more platforms you have toting stutterwarp propelled det-laser missiles the better.

BTW, pick up Massey's latest - Castles of Steel. Got it in my Xmas stocking and its a keeper.


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[ElHombre]

Murph,

My, you've been busy today. Good. I haven't seen the 2300AD board lit up like this in a while.

I always went with smaller navies for the lesser, 3rd tier powers. No BBs, not many CRs, if any. Mainly they showed as a DD and FF force. I always felt this kept things a little more in balance. Kinda a less is more approach.

 

[Murph]

Yeah. I have a bigger military, for example in my Texas campaign, Texas has 1 BB (82,000 tons), 2 CB (48,650 tons), 5 CA (22,000 tons), 12 DD (Novik class- Thanks to Mike Jazinski), and 8 FF.

Mexico has a similar fleet, but with no CBs, 2x BB, and twice the cruisers.

UK has almost 10 times more ships.

But Texas has six colonies rather than 3, and is more encouraging of immigration, and colonization. All colonies are part of Texas.

Originally posted by ElHombre:
Murph,

My, you've been busy today. Good. I haven't seen the 2300AD board lit up like this in a while.

I always went with smaller navies for the lesser, 3rd tier powers. No BBs, not many CRs, if any. Mainly they showed as a DD and FF force. I always felt this kept things a little more in balance. Kinda a less is more approach.

 

[ElHombre]

One thing that I always noticed was the under-representation of 'foreign colonists.' I remember reading *somewhere* in the books that many of the larger colonies would have a small proportion of colonists from other nations, especially those who did not have access to tantalum supplies. Thus, you could have a French colony with an Italian or Greek section. Kind of like the Czech and German towns you find in Central Texas today. Or the German towns you find in South American countries.

 

[BMonnery]

It's important to not that the 2300 Cruiser is the real prestige "Dreadnought" type ship.

Battleships in 2300 are really just large super-cruisers (in fact, the Richelieu is described as just that), and are not that much more powerful than the cruisers.

Destroyers fit cruiser/ 2nd rate battleships in traditional navies better. They are significantly cheaper.

See:

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~dheb/2300/Equipment/SG/Soldat/Soldat.htm

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~dheb/2300/Equipment/SG/CESAD/CESAD.htm

and

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~dheb/2300/Europe/France/FREG/bmparis.htm

all of which are "destroyers"

and compare to the BB and CG's

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~dheb/2300/Equipment/SG/Richelieu/RichBB.htm

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~dheb/2300/Equipment/SG/Bismarck/Bismarck.htm

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~dheb/2300/Equipment/SG/Nelson/Nelson.htm

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~dheb/2300/Equipment/SG/Gloire/Gloire.htm

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~dheb/2300/Equipment/SG/JFK/JFK.htm

Bryn

 

[rfmcdpei]

ElHombre:

That's how I've written up Freihafen Freihafen and Neubayern. Even if you go for generous estimates of Bavaria's Terran population, there's simply no way that Bavaria alone could have populated an empire with a peak population in excess of 300 million people. I had Austrovenia, Czechoslovakia, the other German states, Poland, and Hungary as the major sending nations.

 

[Murph]

Does anyone have any other sites other than the exceptional Etranger. Highly reccommended.

 

[Murph]

Well looking at the CESAD on Bryn's wonderful site, I have decided to use those as the main Texas cruiser in my game. Also a Gloire or two as backups.

 

[jwcarroll60]

The CESAD is nice, but did you check out it's bigger brother the CESAC? One of those would be a good fleet flagship for Texas.

 

[Murph]

Oooops my bad. I meant CESAC, the CESAD block 3 is the main destroyer for Texas.

 

[jwcarroll60]

Good choice of 'pre-owned' warships in both roles.

 

[BMonnery]

There is (non-canonical) mention of the TSN fleet in the literature.

They have 5 Fort class Destroyers (essentially Kievs/ CESADs), some Bunker Hills and some X-2296s

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~dheb/2300/NorthAmerica/US/BMUSSF/ussf/USSF.htm

 

[Murph]

Yeah, my Texas Space Navy is much larger than Canon, but then again are most of my other nations space fleets. I estimate my ship counts are probably 2x or 3x the Canon number. I like a populated space. Lots of bulk/free/corporate traders out there also.

 

[Murph]

IM2300U, the Texas CESAC ships have had the fission rectors pulled and a fusion reactor put in its place and a new military stutterwarp installed. And they use the US standard SIM-14 missile.