Author Topic: WarShip Write-Up: The McKenna Battleship  (Read 33289 times)

marauder648

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Re: WarShip Write-Up: The McKenna Battleship
« Reply #90 on: 16 October 2018, 05:05:00 »
Indeed, but the drivers for the development were there.  Stuff don't get developed in a vacume.  the first tank that German made in the 30's wasn't a Tiger II, this came about because of years of Battlefield experience and changing doctrine.

The Leviathan came about for two reasons that acted as drivers of their own (note this is personal opinion).

1 - The Bear's and their love of bigger = better.  If the Bear's need a 55-ton Mech they'll turn it into a 65-tonner, its just a thing they seem to do and like slapping size on.  And lacking a McKenna of their own, the Bears wanted to build the biggest and best which leads to..

2 - Whilst its munchy as all hell, the Levi takes full advantage of things like bracket firing and the like.  It's also seemingly designed with a bit of brains.  The Clan's don't have the fleet strength to deploy their ships like the SLDF intended for the most part. IE in mutually supporting groups of similar if not identical ships, massing fire to blat fighters with NL's and the like. And the Reunification War and Amaris War and no doubt fighting in the Homeworlds helped show that a lone WarShip is vulnerable to fighter attacks and the like. So they made them self escorting. 300 fighters = a LOT of crew, which means space and tonnage, then you've got all those Mech scale weapons, great for ripping apart hostile fighters and the like. So she can protect herself, this all adds weight and bulk and so the size goes up. 

Obviously we have no canon explanation but the Leviathan might have started out first as little bigger than a McKenna. But in typical Bear fashion suffered from design and size bloat which made her swell up, because 'lets add this to fix that, but we need more tonnage now so lets slap on a thousand tons.  Oh..we now need more armour..so we've got to lengthen it..that means more weight right?" and so on and so forth.
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Jellico

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Re: WarShip Write-Up: The McKenna Battleship
« Reply #91 on: 16 October 2018, 23:28:10 »

2 - Whilst its munchy as all hell, the Levi takes full advantage of things like bracket firing and the like.  It's also seemingly designed with a bit of brains. 

Not exactly.

The Leviathan was designed with Battlespace in mind. Thus it looks a lot like the new ships in TRO3057, FM:DC, and FWL. So it has a big reliance on conventional weapons and random usage of capital weapons. Armor is moderate and they were happy to use 2/3 thrust.

The Leviathan II was designed for RS:AT2. So it uses the AT2 rule set and gains the monolithic armor and tiny cargo bays of the FM:LC, FS, and CC ships. The NL55s and MNPPs aren't about bracketing because that came years later with Strat Ops. Instead it is about getting as close as possible to that magic 70 points of damage per bay at extreme range. Actual bay choices are about expanding on themes started with the Leviathan I. As for the 300 fighters? It is what the cool kids were doing after the Thera. Also note the lack of Small Craft as the ships of the time had a tendency to be min maxed.

The Leviathan III tries to make use of the modern post Strat Ops rule set while carrying the baggage of 20 years of history. A clean sheet design would make some very different choices.


Some of the rule choices in Strat Ops were made with making the TRO2750 ships viable. The McKenna was a big winner. For example, because the Leviathan II mounts a couple of paired NGRs and NAC30s the McKenna actually out guns it at long range.

That sort of puts the hodgepodge that is the Leviathan into perspective. It was less thought out but rather benefited from the luck of the draw when the rules changed. It could easily have suffered like the Nightlord.

Arguably the McKenna was more thoughtfully designed even without construction rules. The Small Craft Bays and cargo space shows the designer in world and out was remembered that WarShips spend most their time hanging around and patrolling, not fighting. The AT2 and TRO3057 ships tend to ignore this and are purely designed to fight on a table top.

For this reason I have a lot of time for older ships like the McKenna. Its biggest weakness in the modern era is lack of armor, not AA.

UnLimiTeD

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Re: WarShip Write-Up: The McKenna Battleship
« Reply #92 on: 17 October 2018, 03:05:01 »
Quite the interesting insight.
Is there a comprehensive list of the most relevant changes in rules in the last years?
As someone who wasn't around then, I'm sometimes curious why some ships were designed the way they were.
Pity there's not many around anymore.
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Kit deSummersville

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Re: WarShip Write-Up: The McKenna Battleship
« Reply #93 on: 17 October 2018, 09:32:18 »
And yet, when the Clans did start to build new Warships, they went "MOAR BIG!!!"

cheers,

Gabe

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Colt Ward

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Re: WarShip Write-Up: The McKenna Battleship
« Reply #94 on: 17 October 2018, 09:34:34 »
Yeah, Yorks & Fredasas comprise the majority of new build Clan warships.
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gyedid

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Re: WarShip Write-Up: The McKenna Battleship
« Reply #95 on: 17 October 2018, 11:58:07 »
Yeah, Yorks & Fredasas comprise the majority of new build Clan warships.

The York is basically a re-dress of a previous SLDF design.  Although, unlike the Avatar/Liberator and Kimagure/Conqueror, it's the only one where they actually built new hulls.  But yes, I stand corrected.  And those classes do fit the typical Clan ground force fighting style better than the McKenna and Leviathan.

cheers,

Gabe
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Minemech

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Re: WarShip Write-Up: The McKenna Battleship
« Reply #96 on: 17 October 2018, 19:46:29 »
 Some use nuanced signaling, the Clans learned their form of diplomatic signaling from the Hegemony; if you see a McKenna entering your system, it signals a coming enslavement.

 

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