"I'm a battleship junkie" Topic

Yes MacrossMartin it sounds like alot of minis but when you consider that i've got 4 main Fleets which are-

Earth Defense Fleet
Gamilon Empire Fleet
Comet Empire Fleet
Dark Nebulan Fleet

And each Fleet has x amount of ships so in some cases 500 plus minis does'nt really seem like that much.

One main reason why i have so many ships is that i wanted to have enough ships for any type of game that could happen,and no one would've to bring any minis with them.

Many of these mini's i aquired thru trades for Battletech minis,which i did'nt need.

Captain Gideon

MacrossMartin and Captain Gideon remind me to take an inventory of my starship minis collection… last time I bothered to count, there were circa 400+ *painted* fighters for Silent Death alone…

The wages of a misspent youth… Mwaaahahahahaahahahaahaa!!!

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

What happened to real battles, where there are a dozen *cruisers*, 4+ battlewagons, and 40+ destroyers?

Ahem. thegobspage.com

--- Howard Shirley, creator of Generic Outlandishly Big Spacefleets!

Aah, Leland, are we playing 'my fleet's bigger than your fleet'? Well, I didn't include the 80-odd BFG ships I have swanning about, nor the 130+ Star Trek vessels, nor (and so on we go…) ;)
While I cannot deny the spectacle of sheer numbers alone, I do like my models to be rather on the bigger side. No, not a question of compensating for a lack of size elsewhere 8^>, more to do with the ol' eyeballs losing their 'I can paint the eyebrows on 6mm figures' ability. I'm constantly tempted by the Musashi minis, but I also have a big nostalgia kick going with the Bandai kits.
Howard, enough with the ads! I'll click the link already! My Life! ;)

CLDISME, tell that to the Graf Spee…

But I agree there is something about Battleships.
Although my ship love is Cruisers, the workhorses of the 20th Century Navy.

Big freaking missiles for the long range slugging, lots of ack-ack for when the enemy cutlery starts arriving 10kps+. Thick armour. Drop tanks. Atomic rocket motors and big radiator wings. Straight out of 50s comic books. Except for the missiles of course.

And the real nice thing about these minis is that all of the ships are in scale with each other,for me that's a BIG plus in my book.

Scale…all to frequently "Lost In Space" (if you will pardon the pun).

Oh, boooys…. look what ah gots he-ah:

link

Proposal just broke 90%….

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

"Aah, Leland, are we playing 'my fleet's bigger than your fleet'? Well, I didn't include the 80-odd BFG ships I have swanning about, nor the 130+ Star Trek vessels, nor (and so on we go…) ;)"

Actually, I didn't mention all those Superior starships from the 70s… or my unshakeable addiction to kitbashing…. or Gods-only-know how many other ship minis from Reviresco, Garrison, Pewtercraft USA….

IMHO there's no such thing as "too many starship minis!"

"While I cannot deny the spectacle of sheer numbers alone, I do like my models to be rather on the bigger side. No, not a question of compensating for a lack of size elsewhere 8^>, more to do with the ol' eyeballs losing their 'I can paint the eyebrows on 6mm figures' ability. I'm constantly tempted by the Musashi minis, but I also have a big nostalgia kick going with the Bandai kits. "

Nostalgia no more (see link above). The Bandai kits are available once again… Mwahahahahaaaa!!

"Howard, enough with the ads! I'll click the link already! My Life! ;)"

Between GOBS and the re-release of the Bandai Kits, this'll be the last we see or hear of MM for quite some time to come, I'll wager…

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

"Aah, Leland, are we playing 'my fleet's bigger than your fleet'? Well, I didn't include the 80-odd BFG ships I have swanning about, nor the 130+ Star Trek vessels, nor (and so on we go…) ;)"

Actually, I didn't mention all those Superior starships from the 70s… or my unshakeable addiction to kitbashing…. or Gods-only-know how many other ship minis from Reviresco, Garrison, Pewtercraft USA….evil grin

All I will say to the two of you is…..

If each of these are a week's work,

picture
picture
picture
picture

and I have been seriously scratchbuilding for about 20 years…. do the math.. :)

"All I will say to the two of you is…..

If each of these are a week's work,

picture
picture
picture
picture

and I have been seriously scratchbuilding for about 20 years…. do the math.. :)"

Yeah, but do the first three fleets have FTL drives?

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

OK, so that's about 10 ship-o-the-line per week, times 52 weeks per year, times 20 years. 10400 ships of the line, but 3/4s of those were not starships. Fine, that does still come to about 2600 capital starships, split between how many different fleets? I saw 3 different Trek fleets in there alone!

@Parzival: my problem is finding background settings for those big battles. I think the only storylines with major (ie, Jutland-scale) capital-ship engagements that I've seen are Crest/Banner of the Stars and the Honorverse.

Yeah, but do the first three fleets have FTL drives?evil grin

It takes but a whack of the knife and a stroke of the file, and not only do they have FTL, but I have a whole new VSF gaming system.

OK, so that's about 10 ship-o-the-line per week, times 52 weeks per year, times 20 years. 10400 ships of the line, but 3/4s of those were not starships. Fine, that does still come to about 2600 capital starships, split between how many different fleets? I saw 3 different Trek fleets in there alone!

Actually, between the four pictures there were 31 wet water ships and 60 starships (with FTL), so 2/3 were starships. So… one week to produce 60 starships and 3 weeks to produce 31 wet water ships…

Another nod for the battlewagon. Can't get enough.

"It takes but a whack of the knife and a stroke of the file, and not only do they have FTL, but I have a whole new VSF gaming system."

Really? Good. I like VSF.

Get busy.

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Lion:

Check out David Weber/Steve White's Insurrection series. More of WW2 in space than WW1. . . but it has the big fleet engagements.

But really. . . the ULTIMATE in fleet starship combat these days is The Lost Fleet. These books are amazing:

link

Put down the ever more improbable Honorverse soap operas, and read some sci-fi fleet battles the way they were meant to be! ;)

I admit ,i love pre -dreadnaught battleships.Multiple funnels in strange configurations ,excesseive ventilation tubes ,sporting several types of turret armaments,tumble homes and casement broadsides guns,all swathed in a thick black coal smoke.Probably the sexiest of these are French and Russian builds.A friend always regards this look as being a great manufactuary ,on fire!.Closest manifestation in sci- fi is the imperial fleet in Battle Fleeet Gothic.
Of course one cannot forget the glorious C-8/9 and the magnificent B-10 of the Klingon Deep Space fleet.

I'm gonna need a bigger fleet.

the ULTIMATE in fleet starship combat these days is The Lost Fleet.

TheDreadnought beat me to it! The battles in this series are terrific. I only wish there were an effective, simple way to simulate the time delay aspect of fighting battles at distances measured in lighthours. Awesomely well-thought starship combat.

Another good series for battles is Walter J. WIlliams's Dread Empire's Fall trilogy. Big battles between warships, fought at relativistic speeds, mostly with missiles, and not a fighter in sight (though one-man "pinnaces" serve as "missile shepherds"… and generally don't survive the fight). The first book is The Praxis. (Thanks to Michael Weaver for recommending these.) Caveat: There are a handful of "intimate" scenes in the books, though nothing is particularly graphic.

And there's always "Doc" Smith!!! 8-D.

Interesting about the Lost Fleet series. Thanks for the word on these, folks…

Leland could be quite right – I've just finished re-painted and detailing a Borodino class from the Bandai kits – I originally painted (and I use that term loosely) the poor thing at age 13! Quietly amazed its lasted this long. I'm working on some other EDF ships now – I'll post up some nice pics on my blog in a few days, and, of course, steer my fellow TMPers to them when I do…

…But I think they will keep me busy!

Having said that – My gyrating brain keeps circumnavigating its way back to FASA's Leviathan… but, no miniatures are there to be found. I wonder how well a series of 'fleet scale' models based somewhat on the Leviathan designs would sell? Battlewagons no more than (say) 2 – 2.5" long, with a handful of outrageously hyper-powerful Super-Dreads at 3 or 4", tops.
Show of hands, space battleship fans?

"Having said that – My gyrating brain keeps circumnavigating its way back to FASA's Leviathan… but, no miniatures are there to be found. I wonder how well a series of 'fleet scale' models based somewhat on the Leviathan designs would sell? Battlewagons no more than (say) 2 or 3" long, with a handful of outrageously hyper-powerful Super-Dreads at 4 or 5", tops.
Show of hands, space battleship fans?"

Martin,

aeons ago back in CA, I attended a convention where some pre-production resin models of Leviathan BBs/SDNs were showcased by FASA. They were in fact IIRC circa 12 inches long, and were quite well detailed. Sadly, that is the last I ever saw or heard of them…

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Holy Hotzva, 12 inches?!? Somebody WAS compensating for a lack of size elsewhere!!! I'd hazard a guess those were intended as display models, or perhaps '4 ups' for plastic production. Rotten shame they never went into production.

Note edit to my last comment – I've been working in metrics too much lately, obviously – 2" for battleships , say, 1.25" for cruisers, .75 to 1" for DD and FF types. I'd probably only use the Leviathan 'look' as a basis, rather than slavishly copy the actual designs – some of the Leviathan ships leave me cold, to tell the truth, although the overall shape 'dictated' by the Renegade Legion universe's FTL physics – long, pointy hull, big radiator fins, top and bottom – is a style I think has merit.

No, MM, they were *not* merely display models, nor 4-ups. They were the intended real deal…

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

TBH, I haven't read anything out of the Honorverse since the introduction of LACs and missile pods. While those two developments make sense for the technology level of the storyline, they completely killed the feel of the series. Battles are purely a matter of 'I have pods and you don't, so you lose.'

I've seen the 'Lost Fleet' series in passing, but it never jumped off the shelf at me. Battle-distances measured in light-*hours*? Yowza! Even with significantly cee-fractional weapons, that's shooting based on where someone's going to be in a couple *days*… I think I could handle distances with missile flight-times measured in hours, but even an X-ray laser is about done at that distance.

I've seen the 'Lost Fleet' series in passing, but it never jumped off the shelf at me. Battle-distances measured in light-*hours*? Yowza! Even with significantly cee-fractional weapons, that's shooting based on where someone's going to be in a couple *days*… I think I could handle distances with missile flight-times measured in hours, but even an X-ray laser is about done at that distance.

The actual shooting takes place at closer range- light minutes apart at most. There is a lot of pre-battle maneuvering, though where the light-speed lag time does make a big difference. Great series, I highly suggest you check it out.

-Will

Lion is completely right about Harrington. That, and the endless chapters of scheming politicians sitting in big rooms, plotting to do… something…

However, for those who'd like a nibble of Honor at her best, I'd recommend "A Short Victorious War" which has a few brilliant actions. It was my introduction to the series, and remains my favorite.

Honor Harrington, zzzzzzzzz… the engagements were fun but the rest of it, retch… perhaps I'm biased because I've never read the earlier books.

As for engagements at light-minutes… seriously, if there are no cee+ weapons, that's just implausible. Even with 1/10gee side thrusters, a huge battleship will be able to dodge every single shot at 10 light seconds plus.

As for engagements at light-minutes… seriously, if there are no cee+ weapons, that's just implausible. Even with 1/10gee side thrusters, a huge battleship will be able to dodge every single shot at 10 light seconds plus.

I did say 'at most'. ;)

And at that range they use seeking weapons, not direct fire. They use direct fire weapons at shorter distances. Trust me, the combat paradigm is very well thought out, even if we aren't explaining it well.

-Will

As a Navy veteran, I have to say that there is something comforting about the presence of a battleship. There is nothing that you can substitute that has the same kind of presence. That said, I have watched one of our guided missile cruisers empty its forward and aft verticle launch batteries in 90 seconds and that too is an awesome sight. I still prefer the battleships and miss them greatly.

Respectfully,
Norman of Torn

I did say 'at most'. ;)

And at that range they use seeking weapons, not direct fire. They use direct fire weapons at shorter distances. Trust me, the combat paradigm is very well thought out, even if we aren't explaining it well.

-Will

Ah, I see. The sample Amazon let me read seemed compelling enough. I may give it a bash.

HH Dreads are big, big empty hulls, covered with a few dozen metres of armour, and filled to brimming with long-range missiles. The key to victory in the novels is, essentially, be the fleet that sees the other guys first. There are no 'inertia dampners' or other P.S.B.S, so if your ship is doing a few hundred-thousand kph, there's no way you are going to be able to turn out of an incoming missile's engagement envelope if it was fired by someone who saw you first. (As in hours before). It can take hours – even days – to transit from the 'safe' jump point for a star system, to said systems inhabitable world/s. Also, the sheer NUMBER of missiles is a terror to behold!

Which leads me to the relation to the thread's topic – are HH Dreads and Super-Dreads actually 'Battleships??' I mean, where are the big guns? The turreted shock cannons? And no spinal-mounted Nova Cannon? For shame! ;)

Nothing short of a nuke, says fire power, like nine 16"
delivered on target! It is a sad truth, that small fast
craft armed with cheep missiles make the Battleship too
vulnerable a target. Never again will we see four iowa
class steaming in line, like we did in the first gulf war!

For those who like big battleships duking it out, I refer you to the computer game Gratuitous Space Battles. While you need a nice fleet for proper balance of tactics, the big Cruiser class vessels are usually what win the battle.

I hate going against the Rebels – One of their Fenris class cuiser builds is a missile wagon, they batter your shields down nastily.

Robin I don't know. I used a huge amount of heavy missile and light missile armed frigates and they mop any opposition. The volume of fire is ridiculous and you can get a lot of em.

Y'gotta admit. The battleships that were scrapped turned out to be the finest razorblades ever made!

"Nothing short of a nuke, says fire power, like nine 16"
delivered on target!"

Now imagine those 16-inch shells being fired from a *mass driver cannon* at some obscene velocity (circa 30% of C or so) and happen to be nuke-tipped and equipped with integral onboard fire control/course correction hardware ad software *and* interface with the firing battlewagon's onboard fire control center allowing the salvoes to alter course slightly to place themselves if not dead on target then close enough for a nuke detonation to potentially ruin the target's whole day.

Welcome to the Pax Imperialis. Die screaming, barbarian trash.

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Ah, Leland, hammerin' along at .3C will need a LOT more than hardware and software to alter course, even by fractions of degrees- some mass is going to have to be thrown out of the projectile to achieve a change in angle of approach. On the upside, you can dispense with the nuke warhead – its destructive potential pales into insignifigance beside the kenetic energy released by even a 1kg mass travelling at .3C. You just have to physically HIT the guy you don't like, across (potentially) thousands of Kilometres. I've read an example of the potential of using relativistic planetary bombardment weapons (can't miss a planet!) – the energy released is terrifying.

Well, Martin, in that case, we just slow the round down until the burst effect becomes viable, and we're golden…

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

KT: Yeah, but the Rebels ALSO have a lot of fighter-bombers, and THEY target frigates.. I've had my frigates reduced to monoatomic vapor within seconds by those damn things.

Still, I've found great joy in the 'sacrificial lamb' tatic: A stripped down ship, with a swarm of fighters keyed to defending it. The bombers take the bait, blow it to bits, my fighters engage. Hilarity ensues.

Of course, on those same missions, *I* do the same thing, but to their cruisers. Nothing like 40+ bombers executing (in every sense) a bombing run, taking down a mighty dreadnought cruiser in a hail of piddly missiles. I can usually get down half of their fleet before the defending dogfighters take out the bombers.

I had a great grandfather that served at Jutland. Sadly my mother wasn't interested in his stories, and so had none to pass on to me about his experience :(

HMS Belfast on the Thames (in the UK) is worth a visit, however I found it was dwarfed in every respect when I was lucky enough (whilst on a jaunt in the States with work) to visit the USS North Carolina in Wilmington. link

What a totally awesome ship, and all credit to the USA for having the foresight to hold onto ships such as these for future generations to view.

Regards to all

Vulture

(My Blog link )

Oh, and BWP: If you can get a 16" shell whipped up to .3c, you don't *NEED* nukes. It would be like taping a *picture* of a bayonet onto a Paris Gun. Energy output at relativistic velocities is pants-wettingly scary.

Mind, if youve the energy output to get something up to that kind of speed using 'conventional' physics you would have much more efficient methods of destruction at your disposal.

Well actually Vulture, like many US warships that are now monuments, USS North Carolina was saved from being scrapped by people who wanted to preserve the ship -- school children raised the money to buy the ship! Otherwise she would be girders in a building somewhere.

Robin,

like I told Martin, slow the velocity down until you get a viable reason to use a mass driver cannon to propel a 16" sized nuke at another ship, and I'm happy.

Dammit man! I'm a Military Historian, not a physicist!

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

One of these days I will get to Japan, and stand on the deck of the battleship Mikasa…

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Standing on the deck of the Battleship Mikasa would be good for me as well,but it's a question of money and until i win the lottery or something this'll never happen.

Captain Gideon