Stealth Ship Design

Design Forum
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Stealth Ship
Stealth Ship794×632 17 KB

Torpedo
Torpedo711×252 6.42 KB

In response to the recent discovery of a belligerent alien race in the Kangto system 4 jumps away from Sol, the naval design bureau has seen fit to draft up plans for a future stealth ship.

The technology to construct such a ship is not there yet (I SM’d different requisite techs) to construct such a vessel, but theoretical plans can still be drafted.

In order of importance, this design seeks to maximize these criteria: Stealth (Low thermal signatures, low sensor cross section),sensor strength (needs to be able to spot and acquire targets for weapons to be effective), firepower (carry enough of a payload to destroy or disable an enemy ship), and range (able to penetrate deep into enemy lines).

Speed would be nice to have, but it is a complete afterthought. So long as it can get to where it needs to be in a reasonable timeframe, any speed is enough.

Defensive capabilities beyond stealth and range are extraneous and completely unnecessary. If the ship is spotted, acquired, and fired upon it is dead anyways. Similarly it is unnecessary to have the capability to fight an extended battle as it would not contribute to the mission.

Additionally there are requirements for the vessel’s torpedoes to have enough range to make the mission viable, enough firepower to make the mission worthwhile, and enough speed and decoys to make a hit feasible.

These vessels are designed to operate in packs of at least three. One vessel will activate its active sensors (thereby potentially exposing itself) to provide targeting data to the entire pack, at which point they will launch their payloads, mark their kills, and hopefully disappear into the void before any would-be pursuer finds them.

The bureau believes the stealth corvette will be a game changer in naval doctrine, allowing for precision strikes with near impunity to retaliation by near-peer adversaries such as the ones found in Kangto.

Unfortunately it may be a decade before these plans see fruition, and by then the war might very well be over.

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I am not used to comment on designs as I do believe perfect designs are boring and you should go where you are led by your campaign in terms of design.

I do have several issues when looking at your design. Totally my problem, of course!

I just cannot see any warship with 1 layer of armor, it is really something that makes me feel “unsafe”.

Your MSP won’t cover the 2100 of the max repair in case the expensier component breaks, which I’d assume is your AS, leaving your ship feeling even more “unsafe” in case of a bad roll.

1 Engine, again in case of a lucky hit, you may be dead in the water, but then again with a small armor protection that could negligible, also there is no damage control and I understand the whole idea is to be stealth and attack from far, and I really would like to entertain that idea following your doctrine indications. So…

You could have 1 pack leader which only function could be: jump the rest of the pack and also provide sensor strenght. Now, this may allow for more payloads on the pack increasing your biting and perhaps allow for a few layers of protection “just in case”. As a backup, the pack could have minimal AS included as well so if the leader is lost they can still function, even if not able to jump back until backup arrives.

If I was going to push it further, you may keep your leader on the 6k ton and have the pack on the 4k, perhaps with just less payload. 2k less of mass keeping the same engine, may fix your “speed” concerns.

Just a thought.

Love the idea though, and I may use it in my campaign at some point.

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The idea is that all ships have sensors (I may or may not have forgotten I need a ship to jump them in, that’s just a variant design), but only one of them activates their sensors at any one time (the “leader”). In theory any one of them can launch a strike on their own, but having multiple of them increases the odds of success through volume of fire and the ability to have only 1/3 (or less) of the force reveal itself and potentially suffer losses rather than 100%.

I had literally just read Passage At Arms by Glen Cook (which itself is very much inspired by submarine operations of the first half of the 20th century) and thought “I’ve never done stealth in this game. I want to try it”

Speed isn’t a concern, it’s just nice to have. It really just needs to go from point A to B (B is ideally quite deep into enemy space) without me pulling my hair out. Increasing speed by decreasing size and payload would have an adverse impact on the mission of the ship, which is a non-starter.

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What was your decision process against sensor jammers?

Based on your description, they would fit right in.

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Your passive sensors have a much shorter range of the active one. So, to see something at large distance, you have to turn on the active one, revealing yourself.
I would install passive ones of comparable (or larger) range than the active one. In this way, you can turn on the active only when to fire.

It seems the missile has no sensor on board, and no retargeting capability.
Being launched from great distance, almost surely their target will move, and they will lose it almost surely. That sensor can allow them to re-acquire a target, or target another ship, if the first one is destroyed by some of the missiles.

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This is critical for the philosophy of the design. Suffering an unrepairable damage while you are inside the enemy territory, you become a sitting duck.

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Sensor jammers aren’t going to help him when he turns on his active sensor so that he can shoot at a target (and keep target lock until the missiles arrive). The enemy will see the massive GPS signature and will send a fleet towards it. I’m assuming that the mission plan is for the missiles to arrive on target before the enemy can get close enough to target his 600t cross section. A sensor jammer could potentially give him a bit more time before an enemy fleet is close enough to fire on him, but I think it is unlikely to make that difference.

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Passive sensors don’t have a set range. They detect stronger signatures at longer distances.

His passives will detect a signature of ~4500 at the same range that his active detects a 1kt or larger ship.

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One ship (all ships are equally capable of serving this role) takes on the role of turning on their active sensor. They separate themselves from the fleet and provide targeting data for everyone else.

They do not leave until the torpedoes hit. They alone will watch until the end. The other vessels in the pack will skulk off somewhere far away and sit in radio silence until either a hit is transmitted, or their passives detect the unfortunate demise of their designated spotter.

When the torpedoes hit, the spotter can turn off their sensors and run back to the rest of the ships.

This job isn’t glamorous. It isn’t honorable. And it certainly is not safe. The crews and officers who sign up to run these death traps know what they’re doing. They know help won’t be coming for them, yet the crazy bastards will keep flinging munitions at the enemy from an unseen location until they die.

Ideally everyone lives, but sacrificing a single 6000 ton vessel to take down one or multiple vessels several times its size is good enough calculus.

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As long as their weapons and engines don’t break down, it’s fine.

If those break down, they’re dead anyways.

Creature comforts and safety are not a priority. The men (and women) sleep on top of their torpedoes and in between the machinery running the whole ship.

If I were able, I would deny them lifepods entirely to make room for even one more torpedo.

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I can understand your objectives.
I did some stealth ships too, for observation and ELINT.
But survival of the crew and savings of the resources were top priorities for me.

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The crews’ safety lies in their cloaking and stealth.

The survival of the ship is not a problem if their stealth works. And if their stealth doesn’t work, no amount of armor or engineering is going to save them, so there is literally no point in detracting from the mission of the vessel to provide them any more than is strictly necessary for the 3 months they will be deployed.

I’ve managed to get the design to a 6,000 ton vessel with 25 torpedoes, each with 25 damage. They can operate in squadrons of up to 8 (for squadron jump capabilities by a jump variant with only 19 torpedoes), meaning they can fire off a volley of 194 torpedoes (4850 points of damage if they all hit) for vessels that cost less than half my smallest proper warship.

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I periodically design stealth ships with time on target two-stage missiles, intending to fire off their magazines from beyond a range at which the enemy can target them. The problem is, that kind of strike can probably take out the big capital ships, but it can’t take out everything, especially if the targets scatter so the excess missiles to requirements can’t retarget. You can get overkills, but it is difficult and often inefficient to incorporate them with a more standard fleet.

And stealth is expensive in terms of hull space. The simplest option is to just be an alpha strike to weaken or disrupt an enemy force that just withdraws afterward, and doesn’t have any real defenses other than stealth and speed. It can be good against the AI, but a human opponent would just build small fast scouts with good passives, and home in on the big honking active sensor you would have to have to make a long ranged missile strike work.

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What about removing 1 or more of your size 25 torpedoes and replacing it with smaller active sensor buoy missiles? That way you can get a location from your passives and then send the buoy in to get the lock for the torpedoes without giving away any of your ships locations via their active sensors.

You could also seed a system or area of a system with the active sensor buoys ahead of the 3 month hunting mission/season, so that the hunters dont need to drop their damage torpedo count any lower.

You could even save space removing active sensor from the standard 6k ships for smaller ships or more torpedoes/buoys. Leaving the jump version with the only active sensor for the fleet as the emergency backup

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Apparently every sufficiently engineered stealth ship eventually turns into space submarine :laughing:

This reminded my when I tried same idea during VB6 Aurora. My sub had gargantuan passive sensors, basically 70% of ships’ volume. Their cost was horrifying. And it carried huge three-stage multi-warhead inter-planetary ICBMs that could snipe targets from the opposite edge of solar system. Can’t recall exact numbers, but 20AU range at least. The idea was to hit enemies before they even realize they are being shot at.

Though it turned out there weren’t that many good targets for it as I initially thought. Mostly stationary one. Cause by the time 1’st stage of the torpedo arrived, which to remain undetected had to be relatively slow(considering distances involved), most of moving targets packed up and left. But those subs were still surprisingly effective at sabotaging hostile assets when they could sneak deep behind enemy lines.

Have you considered giving you sub a small hangar, and tiny/fast/long range scout to serve as a spotter for it’s parent sub/wolfpack?

  • This way you don’t have to risk exposing your primary ship during every engagement.
  • Scout has much better chances to outrun bad guys when it is detected.
  • In a pinch it can serve as escape pod for the crew.
  • And it can be used for literal scouting ahead of main ship, for example when you don’t know whats waiting on other side of JP.

And as sub-sim enjoyer I can tell that submarines tend to get into places where it is difficult to get them out of. So its usually a good idea to keep a larger reserve of fuel/deployment time than you may initially expect.

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Literally just an SSBN in space :smiley:

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Actually not a bad idea. I already have an AWACS fighter design that I could repurpose. I’d just have to give it a bit of thermal signature reduction

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Why don’t you try using Active Sensors not on ships, but on your missiles?

  • Since a very long-range attack is only effective against stationary targets, you don’t need a large sensor on the missile. The minimum size is sufficient.
  • You can also fire missiles at Waypoint, so you can shoot further than MFC can.
  • So your ships can detect the enemy using passive sensors, launch missiles in his direction and immediately leave, and the enemy will not know about your presence until the missiles hit.
  • You can use sensor buoys to check for enemy presence in planetary orbit. If several large ships there, just launch missiles and return.

You can also use laser warheads. They are better against armor and can ignore beam PD if you have enough range - you’ll not need so many decoys on your missiles.

And I have some questions about the combination of “Stealth, Range” and “120% engine boost”… Just… okay? Using < 100% boost engines would significantly reduce their cost, so it would be easier for you to maintain them. I’m using 60% boost on my warships…

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My warships tend to average around 160%-200% boost, because I like being faster than whatever is shooting at me. Being able to pick my engagements is nice.

120% boost for my stealth ships is fine. They’re at the efficiency of my carriers and it helps get them from point A to point B in a timeframe that I can accept. This is the most efficient engine for the design specs I had in mind. Most of the cost is coming from reducing the engine’s thermal signature anyways. It also helps keep the deployment time down for the same amount of distance, so I don’t have to spend on crew comfort and longer maintenance life.

I don’t want to put sensors on my missiles because I don’t want to use up the extra space on them. If I can stick more boom on it while still keeping capabilities that I’m happy with, I’d rather just do that. (also, I personally just don’t like sticking sensors on missiles)

These things are meant to be operated by the clinically insane. If they wanted to live they’d get on a ship designed by someone sane.

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Stealth ships as parasite craft is a plausible way of dealing with the mass issue. You sacrifice crew endurance and independent strategic range and defenses for a ship that can make an alpha strike.

There are of course all the problems of simply finding a target from a long enough distance that you can safely launch from carriers that stay out of range, and then launch an effective strike from outside of any retaliation strike.

These are not insoluble problems, but you get a fleet element that… plays poorly with others. To do long ranged alpha strikes that get a significant percentages of their missiles through defenses, you have to have a pretty significant force of these. And running the kinds of strikes that have enough overkill to reliably kill enemy ships will use up a lot of missiles. And you can’t really go for mission kills because the time between strikes is so long that a damaged ship could likely effect significant repairs before a second strike came in.

So you need massive stockpiles of missiles to employ these, which often means you overproduce, and have lots of obsolete missiles that you then have to scrap.

Does anybody else get bothered by the waste of having to scrap massive numbers of obsolete missiles, or do you just get into wars that allow you to use up your older generation missiles to avoid that?