Author Topic: Leviathan III  (Read 66694 times)

Arkansas Warrior

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Re: Leviathan III
« Reply #300 on: 29 November 2015, 21:35:58 »
Except that Super Star Destroyers were mass produced.

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Liam's Ghost

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Re: Leviathan III
« Reply #301 on: 29 November 2015, 21:48:45 »
No more so than Nimitz-class carriers were mass produced by the US.  There were what, a dozen, maybe a couple of dozen SSDs?

The current wookieepedia article on the topic. Basically, their numbers and what defined a super star destroyer expanded at the speed of plot. Even the size of the classic super star destroyer. I still remember a time when an eight kilometer length was considered extreme.

But, bringing it back around, the point is valid. The idea of running into more than one Leviathan serving as the centerpiece of a fleet is a bit unreasonable. Like the super star destroyer, it's an end boss/command ship, not a main line fleet element.

(I kinda want to see the Ravens building upgraded Conquerors personally)
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ColBosch

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Re: Leviathan III
« Reply #302 on: 30 November 2015, 01:57:25 »
Seriously. One person asked an off-hand question about how the Lev III compares to the (non-canon) Star Destroyer. We don't need a damn argument every time.
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marauder648

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Re: Leviathan III
« Reply #303 on: 30 November 2015, 03:40:38 »
In its role the Leviathan III would be a Super Star Destroyer, the nexus and command hub for a larger fleet.  She's both a CVN and BB in one and if the Bears still had a fleet other than the two Levi's and a Carrack you'd expect to see her hiding behind a screen of cruisers, destroyers and dropships at the center of a fleet.  Its because Warships are sadly barely a thing now that the Leviathan II and III are put in a mainline combattant role when in reality they are both a combattant and a fleet command vessel.

Also as a question, what ships can threshold a Leviathan III and more importantly are there any left? I think the Falcon's Aegis could do it but they would have to swarm the Lev III.  Also what book has the naval strength of the Clans in it in the current period?  I could not find anything in the WotR supplimental for the Homeworld clans and is there info on what the IS clans have left somewhere?

Also this damn thing needs a name!
« Last Edit: 30 November 2015, 03:44:53 by marauder648 »
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Phobos

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Re: Leviathan III
« Reply #304 on: 30 November 2015, 06:16:51 »
In its role the Leviathan III would be a Super Star Destroyer, the nexus and command hub for a larger fleet.  She's both a CVN and BB in one and if the Bears still had a fleet other than the two Levi's and a Carrack you'd expect to see her hiding behind a screen of cruisers, destroyers and dropships at the center of a fleet.  Its because Warships are sadly barely a thing now that the Leviathan II and III are put in a mainline combattant role when in reality they are both a combattant and a fleet command vessel.

Also as a question, what ships can threshold a Leviathan III and more importantly are there any left? I think the Falcon's Aegis could do it but they would have to swarm the Lev III.  Also what book has the naval strength of the Clans in it in the current period?  I could not find anything in the WotR supplimental for the Homeworld clans and is there info on what the IS clans have left somewhere?

Also this damn thing needs a name!

It's impossible to threshold 1000 capital armor unless you employ mass drivers that go beyond 100 Capital damage (or you play with additional StratOps rules that require you to determine the new threshold each time the armor in the location in question is reduced).
But generally, everything above 700 armor (or in most cases 600) is safe from being thresholded.

ColBosch

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Re: Leviathan III
« Reply #305 on: 30 November 2015, 08:08:24 »
Also this damn thing needs a name!

SLDS ilKhan Alaric Steiner.

...what? ;)
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marauder648

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Re: Leviathan III
« Reply #306 on: 30 November 2015, 08:15:20 »
SLDS ilKhan Alaric Steiner.

...what? ;)

A++ Double Heresy!




*BLAM*


Well..we'll see eh? :P
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I am Belch II

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Re: Leviathan III
« Reply #307 on: 30 November 2015, 09:49:38 »
The Leviathan III is a flagship and kinda a 1 off. This would be the ship to have during the SL Era. Would of been great going up against the Caspars going after Terra.
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BrokenMnemonic

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Re: Leviathan III
« Reply #308 on: 30 November 2015, 10:23:16 »
It's impossible to threshold 1000 capital armor unless you employ mass drivers that go beyond 100 Capital damage (or you play with additional StratOps rules that require you to determine the new threshold each time the armor in the location in question is reduced).
But generally, everything above 700 armor (or in most cases 600) is safe from being thresholded.
So... the Erinyes, then? Hmm, I wonder where she is...

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solmanian

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Re: Leviathan III
« Reply #309 on: 30 November 2015, 11:46:17 »
The Leviathan III is a flagship and kinda a 1 off. This would be the ship to have during the SL Era. Would of been great going up against the Caspars going after Terra.
Oh, I'm sure 200-600 Warships guided by the strategies of the hegemony's best Admirals ever, would mess it up rather fast.
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snewsom2997

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Re: Leviathan III
« Reply #310 on: 30 November 2015, 12:00:16 »
Oh, I'm sure 200-600 Warships guided by the strategies of the hegemony's best Admirals ever, would mess it up rather fast.

In the SL Era the Lev III would be in a Battle Group or Task Force of dozens if not hundreds of ships.

solmanian

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Re: Leviathan III
« Reply #311 on: 30 November 2015, 13:38:27 »
In the SL Era the Lev III would be in a Battle Group or Task Force of dozens if not hundreds of ships.
The problem is, the if the liberation of Terra is any indication, all those drones would target the Leviathan III...
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Jellico

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Re: Leviathan III
« Reply #312 on: 30 November 2015, 14:29:07 »
SLDS ilKhan Alaric Steiner.

...what? ;)
A++ Double Heresy!

Agreed. It would never be SLDS ilKhan Alaric Steiner. It would be SLS ilKhan Alaric Steiner.



The problem is, the if the liberation of Terra is any indication, all those drones would target the Leviathan III...

If so, mission complete. War ships are made to be lost in combat. It is part of the job description. Every Leviathan ever built was designed to take a beating. The battle of Dieron highlights the result nicely. The rest of the fleet walks away basically unscathed. If the battle didn't have certain RoEs it would have seen all the escorts dead and a badly damaged battleship.
« Last Edit: 30 November 2015, 14:35:06 by Jellico »

snewsom2997

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Re: Leviathan III
« Reply #313 on: 30 November 2015, 14:34:12 »
The problem is, the if the liberation of Terra is any indication, all those drones would target the Leviathan III...

Thus allowing your McKennas, Luxors, Lolas, Aegis, Assaultships, and ASF's to pick them off. Even in Chess sometimes you sacrifice the queen. If a major portion of your drone network goes after one target, they is now a giant hole in their coverage.

To be honest I would use the Lev III in just that way, Skeleton Crew, load it with Nuke missile, have it spam whatever comes after it.

If the Drones bite, the rest of your task force now has an easier go, it it sniffs out the bait, and they go back, you bring in the Lev III at very high Velocity and just weed whack whatever is in the way as you pass them.

ColBosch

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Re: Leviathan III
« Reply #314 on: 30 November 2015, 19:00:36 »
Agreed. It would never be SLDS ilKhan Alaric Steiner. It would be SLS ilKhan Alaric Steiner.

Gratefully conceded for the correction. O0
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Wrangler

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Re: Leviathan III
« Reply #315 on: 30 November 2015, 19:54:12 »
Agreed. It would never be SLDS ilKhan Alaric Steiner. It would be SLS ilKhan Alaric Steiner.

No No No.  His real name would come out, SLDS ilKhan Alaric Steiner-Davion.

Then you get effect of having horrible thing floating above your world aka Leviathan III.
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haesslich

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Re: Leviathan III
« Reply #316 on: 01 December 2015, 11:57:21 »
I vote for the name "RDS Ragnar's Claw"

Tai Dai Cultist

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Re: Leviathan III
« Reply #317 on: 01 December 2015, 13:12:39 »
Well, I don't know what for sure TPTB have in mind for the vessel with regards to the upcoming plot, but I am however pretty confident in saying its name should be Deus Ex Machina.

DarthRads

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Re: Leviathan III
« Reply #318 on: 02 December 2015, 01:12:52 »
Suggestion for name:

RDS/CGB Ursa Invictus

The Invincible Bear or Unconquered Bear...

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I am Belch II

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Re: Leviathan III
« Reply #319 on: 02 December 2015, 07:06:47 »
It a good ship with some Anti-fighter firepower. That is something the SL ships lacked. It would of been a  game changer in the SLDF, and the other nations would of built up big ships to compete with it.
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Arkansas Warrior

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Re: Leviathan III
« Reply #320 on: 02 December 2015, 07:18:44 »
IIRC, the superior bracketing of SLDF ships partially compensates for their lack of fighter-scale weapons.  Plus deploying in fleets with overlapping fields of fire, flotillas of assault dropships, etc.
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Jellico

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Re: Leviathan III
« Reply #321 on: 02 December 2015, 07:57:39 »
Bracketing does very little for AA because it doesn't work with small craft at short range.
What does work for the SLDF's AA is lots of big guns. An 11 to-hit isn't so bad when a NAC20 is an instakill.

For example an Aegis and an Avalon have very similar AA capabilities probably favouring the Aegis.
Another example is that the Leviathan II's capital weapons are probably more effective as AA weapons than the nominal AA weapons. Of course they weigh a lot more.

What lets the SLDF down is armour or lack thereof. And that is largely a function of the rules at the time.

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Re: Leviathan III
« Reply #322 on: 02 December 2015, 09:33:49 »
It a good ship with some Anti-fighter firepower. That is something the SL ships lacked. It would of been a  game changer in the SLDF, and the other nations would of built up big ships to compete with it.

I highly doubt that. If the McKenna and Texas couldn't trigger a naval arms race among the Houses, neither would a Leviathan.
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Tai Dai Cultist

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Re: Leviathan III
« Reply #323 on: 02 December 2015, 09:45:46 »
I highly doubt that. If the McKenna and Texas couldn't trigger a naval arms race among the Houses, neither would a Leviathan.

In all fairness, you have to remeber that a McKenna or Texas are not in the same league as a Lev III.  200-300 armor can be dealt with.  1000 armor requires meta rules to not be invincible to everything except a near parity ship.

This is a what-if... the SLDF would have had the navy to escort a death star unit with far more effectiveness than 20 PWSs.

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Re: Leviathan III
« Reply #324 on: 02 December 2015, 10:05:26 »
My point is that if the Houses couldn't match those two BB classes(and most didn't even try), what would they possibly do in the face of a Lev, that is so far beyond them?
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Tai Dai Cultist

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Re: Leviathan III
« Reply #325 on: 02 December 2015, 11:25:40 »
My point is that if the Houses couldn't match those two BB classes(and most didn't even try), what would they possibly do in the face of a Lev, that is so far beyond them?

I think we disagree more about the "why" in the Houses' failure to respond in kind to TH BB's.  I'm more in that they didn't bother as opposed to they COULDN'T.  A ship like the Lev III would have changed the calculus that resulted in the choice to not bother.

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Re: Leviathan III
« Reply #326 on: 02 December 2015, 11:37:52 »
We'll have to agree to disagree, then. It'll take an Act of Dev to convince me that the Houses had the ability to respond to the Texas or McKenna classes, but merely chose to surrender total space supremacy instead.
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Tai Dai Cultist

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Re: Leviathan III
« Reply #327 on: 02 December 2015, 11:48:38 »
We'll have to agree to disagree, then. It'll take an Act of Dev to convince me that the Houses had the ability to respond to the Texas or McKenna classes, but merely chose to surrender total space supremacy instead.

The TH had a stranglehold on certain spacebuilding capacity, in a less-extreme sense as did ComStar in the 31st century.

I'll agree that it's true that the Houses were too reliant on the Hegemony to build competing battleships.  I suppose we can agree to disagree as to whether the Houses COULD have duplicated the infrastructure they relied upon for imports from the Hegemony.  I say they didn't bother because the CBA just wasn't there.  Sure, they can't compete 1:1 with McKennas and Texases, but if push came to shove those ships could be defeated or interdicted without needing to have comparable ships.

The Lev III is such a different animal that the CBA would have worked out differently.  It would have been in the Houses' interest to go ahead and pay for building the infrastructure necessary to build a ship that can counter it.  I think that's it's pretty plainly obvious that there's no reason that infrastructure couldn't be constructed.... assuming the decision to invest was ever actually made.  If the yards producing the Lev III could be built in the 31st-32nd century without any reliance on imports from Terra, those same yards could have been built in the same system(s) in the 26th-27th.
« Last Edit: 02 December 2015, 11:50:15 by Tai Dai Cultist »

Jellico

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Re: Leviathan III
« Reply #328 on: 02 December 2015, 16:37:58 »
My point is that if the Houses couldn't match those two BB classes(and most didn't even try), what would they possibly do in the face of a Lev, that is so far beyond them?

I am pretty sure that there is a table somewhere saying what tonnage the Houses could build when. Maybe IO.

In all fairness, you have to remeber that a McKenna or Texas are not in the same league as a Lev III.  200-300 armor can be dealt with.  1000 armor requires meta rules to not be invincible to everything except a near parity ship.

This is a what-if... the SLDF would have had the navy to escort a death star unit with far more effectiveness than 20 PWSs.
1000 points of armour is a failure or abuse of the rules by the original author. But that bridge had been already crossed by the authors of the Mjolnir and Avalon. It was pretty clear 300 armour was a lot in the existing ships. These ships took that convention and threw it out of the window. Arguably for the worse.

1000 armour does not require meta rules to defeat. This hue and cry did not follow the introduction of the Leviathan II, it was merely a challenge to overcome.  The Leviathan III is not significantly different from the Leviathan II as a tactical unit. Armour is the same. Firepower is basically the same. It is harder to put a missile into. It is a little more accurate at long range, but you need to find a way to hold an enemy there. AA has received a boost. Armour is now Lamellor, to match the Odysseys and Hunters built at Alshain. The major change is those docking collars. But that is an extension of Star League doctrine and a lack/obsolescence of destroyers. 

Now you might say that in 3070 the Houses had the ships to kill Leviathan IIs. Maybe. WoB and the FWL did. But no one else did and it didn't end the world. The Dominion and Combine fought a hot war and the big battleship was basically an irrelevance. WarShips are too easily avoided to keep the 'Mech dominant.

Now as for if the Star League built one? Well Potemkins exist don't they? Practically, if you don't want to use ASF or something, 3 modern Aegis will get the kill, probably mutually. So teams of Tharkads or Atreus could do the job, likewise New Systis can take the ASF approach. The big issue is not the inability to kill a single battleship. It is that the Hegemony could build 200 of them, and this is no different to a McKenna.   

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Re: Leviathan III
« Reply #329 on: 02 December 2015, 17:01:49 »
How can you easily avoid a warship? If you fight an offensive campaign and want to take that one really important planet: How exactly do you avoid it if said warship is in orbit?
If you fight a defensive campaign and have those couple of really important planets to hold, whoops, a bunch of warships just popped out of the blue and rain hellfire on your troops. Tough luck.
If you play a bait and chase game, sure, things might look different. But when it comes to holding and attacking planets, warships change the whole equation, sometimes even a single one will do the trick.

 

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