Best anti Pocket Warship weapons?

[JA Baker]

Looking to put together a new Warship built to counter groups of Pocket-Warships, and I'd like some advice on the best weapons to equip it with.

[Dragon Cat]

My best guess would be ranks of NL55 for long range bracketing (4-6s?) smaller than Auto or Particle cannons and less weight than cap missile magazines with unlimited ammo

That way yours always going to have a chance of knocking them down either on their first salvo or before they can fire

[Jellico]

NAC20s.

Pocket WarShips aren't effective outside 20 hexes. NACs provide enough range and are much lighter per point of damage than NLs.

The post 3090 DropShips are at the practical limit of armour. Even a Castrum will fall to a couple of 60 point hits. More practically 50 points is an OSK for most things.

[Wrangler]

I'm no expert, but from what I've tested is that Pocket Warships need group up on a WarShip to beat it depending on the design.

Using the long range capital weapons on a Pocket usually will overwhelm them if you hit them enough, while their out of range.  Fortunately for the Warship, Pocket's aren't as common as they used to be during the Jihad.  If era is a thing when you design your ship.

[JA Baker]

I'm no expert, but from what I've tested is that Pocket Warships need group up on a WarShip to beat it depending on the design.

Using the long range capital weapons on a Pocket usually will overwhelm them if you hit them enough, while their out of range.  Fortunately for the Warship, Pocket's aren't as common as they used to be during the Jihad.  If era is a thing when you design your ship.

Post-Jihad, Tartarus AU: CapCon are building up a massive fleet of Pocket Warships to make up for their inability to build actual warships. New ship is a Republic of the Sphere counter to act as an escort for their larger capital ships.

Kind of going back to the origin of destroyers, when they were called torpedo-boat destroyers and where there to protect battleships from fast, agile and inexpensive attack craft.

[Weirdo]

Bracketing and heavy damage. Jellico's suggestion works here. Hit them outside of subcap range with big guns. Be sure to have multiple such turrets in your offensive arcs. Plenty of PWSes have armor facings that can tank a big hit, almost none can absorb two to the same spot. If you hit a DropShip with two big capital bays, it's either an expanding cloud of shrapnel and silent screams, or it's withdrawing because half of its armor facings can no longer afford to take any damage whatsoever. Either way, it has ceased to be your problem.

[Daryk]

Depending on how much logistics play in your AU, NL/55s may be worth the extra tonnage you'd pay against NAC/20s.  Plus, they're better for bracketing, and can also be used in AAA mode.

[Dragon Cat]

Split difference?

Double OR trip mounted NAC backed by NL so 6 NAC, 4 NL fore and fore quarters
4 NAC broads backed by 8 NL
Aft mirror front or slightly less depending on your tonnage

Add AMS, Screens, NC3 and some integral fighters small craft

[JA Baker]

Split difference?

Double OR trip mounted NAC backed by NL so 6 NAC, 4 NL fore and fore quarters
4 NAC broads backed by 8 NL
Aft mirror front or slightly less depending on your tonnage

Add AMS, Screens, NC3 and some integral fighters small craft

Probably going to mix them up, but different arrangement  ;)

[Daryk]

Just make sure you use at least 4 NLs per bay for bracketing goodness..

[I am Belch II]

Bracket fire.

[JA Baker]

Just make sure you use at least 4 NLs per bay for bracketing goodness..

Rodger Rodger

[Jellico]

Just remember that damage decreases as bracketing increases.

So at extreme range damage is down to 40%. So 4 NL55s will be doing 88 damage. At long range they will be maximally effective at 60% so 132.

For contrast those 3 NAC30s will be doing 360 damage at long range.

You have to pay a lot of tons for a NL55 bay that does that kind of damage.

[Daryk]

True, but for the OP's purposes, I'd say 360 damage is a bit over what he needs (not that I understand your math).  My main points were than NLs are longer ranged (only the Light Naval Gauss beats 52 hex extreme range), more flexible, and don't require ammunition.

[HobbesHurlbut]

And 'Cudas. Just to force crit rolls in addition to that of other weapon batteries when a PWS can't be OSK.

'Cudas can pull a double duty as a long range anti-aerospace weapon. Dual Purpose for win! (better than NL for accuracy against those targets at least). PWS may have ASFs with them.

[Vition2]

I'll admit I was in the NL55 camp until I actually ran the numbers.  What it comes down to is versatility, 3 triple mounted NAC/20s will always outperform 5 quad mounted NL55s at ranges they can reach.  In the NL's favor, they can reach extreme range, though average damage for an elite crew from a single facing isn't quite enough to put down the typical pocket warship (183.5 standard scale damage on average), it would take a all three sides from a broadside attack to regularly 1 round an opponent.  Also in the NL's favor is that they can double for anti-asf and small craft guns.  In the NAC's favor, they are only using 9 weapon slots for greater average damage (only an elite crew with NLs will outperform a regular crew with NACs) - this gives them 11 slots per side for other armaments or defenses.  Overall, for a warship purpose built to take on pocket-warship/dropships the NACs seem the better option.

[Daryk]

If raw damage is all you're looking at, no question.  It's not clear that's all the OP is looking at, though...

[Vition2]

If raw damage is all you're looking at, no question.  It's not clear that's all the OP is looking at, though...

Actually that wasn't all I was looking at, 11 additional weapon slots per side can fill a lot of holes - in my opinion, quite a  bit more than NLs fill by being able to use AAA mode, sure it takes more mass, but cutting out a single triplet is the equivalent of cutting out ~1.5 quartets from the NLs (technically the mass of the 5 quad NL bays is equal to 2.92 triplet NAC bays, assuming full heat sink coverage and 30 rounds per NAC).  These slots could easily be filled with Barracuda/AR-10 bays, SCL bays, AMS bays, screens, standard sized weapons, etc.

[Daryk]

30 rounds per NAC is a very short logistical leash, if logistics are a factor.

[Vition2]

On the other hand we don't hear about many naval engagements being active for more than 30 minutes without having enough time in between to reload the magazines from stocks.  Regardless it is a very minor difference, even increasing the total to 120 (2 hours of direct combat) only increases the total mass of the NACs by 324 tons - and I actually miscalculated the mass of the ammo in the original calculation, using 2.5 tons per round rather than the .4 tons per round it actually is.  The new calculation is that 5 quad NL55 bays is equal to 2.95 triplet NAC/20 bays (up from 2.92; and this new number is with 120 rounds along with everything else).  Is this a shorter leash than lasers? Yes, but not significantly so, depending on the amount of stores or if there is a fleet train backing up the combat ships - which it honestly sounds like there is as the Republic is purposely putting resources towards anti-pocket warship units.

In pretty much every case, the exception being capital missiles, ammunition is a minimal investment into capital weapons, we have to get to more than 317 rounds per NAC to finally reach the tonnage of a single NL55 - and this is more than 5 hours worth of active combat.  If logistics are a factor, NAC or NGauss ammunition is such a minor investment as to not being worth using as a limiting factor - warships aren't like BattleMechs, where ammo is a serious concern due to the much more limited space issues.

[Daryk]

Then I suppose it only comes down to range (52 hexes for NL, 42 for NAC/20).

[Jellico]

Well then you have to run the math of getting hits at 43 hexes. Remember that the PWS has no reason not to evade and lay chaff until its own weapons are in range.

[Vition2]

Well then you have to run the math of getting hits at 43 hexes. Remember that the PWS has no reason not to evade and lay chaff until its own weapons are in range.

When I ran the math I did just that, and ran the number for regular, veteran and elite skilled crew.  I don't have the exact results anymore but the results were around 45 standard scale damage for regular crew, around 75 standard scale for veteran, and up to about 135 standard scale damage for elite crew.  These numbers were with 5 quad bays.  And I used the following modifiers: skill (2-4), extreme range (+6), target is nose on (+1), target is evading (+2), weapon is firing using quad level of bracketing fire mode (-3 to hit, 40% damage).

[Giovanni Blasini]

Santa Anas. All the Santa Anas.

[JA Baker]

Santa Anas. All the Santa Anas.

While this is a scenario where the Republic has begrudgingly accepted the need to build up a fleet, "nuke 'um till they glow, then shoot 'em in the dark!" is just a little too OOC even for me to consider.

[Vition2]

I was thinking about saying something about the Republic stealing the Capellan's strategy.  >:D

[monbvol]

Well any capital weapon is a reasonable choice for one simple reason, PWS are still standard scale units and thus any capital weapon that hits will generate a critical roll.

Capital Missiles with their extra critical roll could be interesting too but I tend to agree the best ones have already been mentioned(Naval Lasers and the small NACs).

[HobbesHurlbut]

Well any capital weapon is a reasonable choice for one simple reason, PWS are still standard scale units and thus any capital weapon that hits will generate a critical roll.

Capital Missiles with their extra critical roll could be interesting too but I tend to agree the best ones have already been mentioned(Naval Lasers and the small NACs).

'Cudas.  Because they're capital missiles, they don't get a penalty to hit against small crafts on top of their to hit bonus. Hence my endorsement of them as a dual purpose weapon to supplement your main weapons. PWS would have some ASFs one way or another with them.

[Weirdo]

I'd avoid missiles, as the vast majority of modern PWS have pretty solid point-defense capabilities.

Feel free to keep them as secondaries for shooting at fighters or the older DropShips those PWSes are likely escorting, though.

[HobbesHurlbut]

I'd avoid missiles, as the vast majority of modern PWS have pretty solid point-defense capabilities.

Feel free to keep them as secondaries for shooting at fighters or the older DropShips those PWSes are likely escorting, though.

To be fair, if you stop bringing capital missiles to a fight against large crafts they'll start dropping or decreasing their point defense loadout to use weight and gunners for other things.