1. Honestly, having your Starter be something that is an "Armed Transport" isn't entirely a bad thing.
It can be handed over to the Army & used exactly as planned.
It's also not a bad "Taskforce" ship in the 3050/60's when most Taskforces are a Warship surrounded by Jump/Dropships.
2. In an ideal world I don't disagree that a "proper" corvette is a must have v/s an "Army Transport".
But at the same time, I'm looking to work w/ what we have in canon or planned for in canon.
The Suns have never had a Corvette & the Durendal is something that was planned for & they have a history as a Destroyer Navy with the Davion-I/II.
Agreed on Destroy, not on the Baron.
As I mentioned above, I'm more thinking a Davion-II/York type vessel, possibly with some Monolith thrown it since the FC seems to have a thing for Docking Collars these days.
I wouldn't be opposed to it being a smaller Destroyer since the Monolith idea originally came to me in a "using 3025 JS yards" post Jihad.
Something the size of a Vincent/Monolith that can be made at a JS sized shipyard isn't a bad idea for resources.
1) I agree-it shows your military has a Doctrine. Having a doctrine is better than not having one and just tossing whatever random thing comes up into the TRO. Unfortunately, after the Fox, the idea of "these should work together and do things" was forgotten in the rush to make them all extinct again.
But let's fantasize a world where the writers weren't trying to make warships go away before the ink was dry, and actually tried to make Faction Naval that made sense.
Let's begin with the Fox, an Armed Transport designed in an era where the last time anyone seriously considered Naval warfare was a few centuries ago.
it begins with the recognition: "We gotta get our officers from somewhere, and this thing is
almost like a really big dropship that can't land.."
It's a good recognition, it's realistic. Admirals don't get a lot of say in the AFFC, it's a 'Mechwarrior's club, so your first thing to get budgeted? Had better service the 'mechwarriors.
And that begins your doctrinal development, because once you HAVE a few, you start discovering the other jobs, because when those jobs get done, life is a lot easier for the 'mechwarriors.
Logically, bigger isn't the direction to go, because you have limited yards that can handle something of or near that size. For a while, then, if your Navy is progressing logically, you begin with the Foxes, and start down-sizing so you can leverage smaller (Jumpship size) yards, engine components, hardware, anything you can grab 'off the shelf' (like, say, those podded engines off the Mammoth.) This, is so your Naval guys who are actually THINKING 'Navy' can get ships built that aren't "Yeah, but it's just a transport".
So your first 'follow-on' would be a lighter fox, which can cruise for longer, but isn't as good for transport-it is, however, good for 'we can build this without as much hassle because it uses less of all these (insert name) strategic materials, shipyard time, etc. and we can CREW it without stripping Transport Command's dropship officers to the bone..."
Because that's actually a thing-your Unions, Overlords, etc. etc. have officers and crew too, and guess who the 'mechwarriors are going to want to keep between an Avalon, and someone competent to fly their ride to the surface?
So, fewer crew per hull? Probably something to be thinking about. Certainly the Generals are going to be thinking about it, and the wannabee Admirals are ALSO thinking about it, because bigger ships means more officers on fewer assets-which isn't great for your Navy's OTHER jobs.
So, start with the Fox, then, you go to a downsized Fox, maybe call it a 'Fennec' or something, 'Kit Fox' maybe, because procurement agencies LOVE themes.
Roll forward about ten years, you've NOW got a cadre of officers who've spent half a decade or more on actual
warships, they know what they can't do, what they CAN do, and what they WANT to do.
Now, you give the base Fox design, a Stretch treatment. Longer, because it's easier than building it bigger around. This is logically your first actual new-build Cruiser, because it
uses enough of the same parts the guy in charge of it knows what it can do. roughly. you apply your 'lessons learned' and maybe make the armament less of a grab-bag, add a couple more collars, fit some point defenses because it's a
Cruiser or Frigate, or expand the carrier wing (or all the above) but your fundamental is it should be using the same basic materials and a multiple of the same basic machinery-only more of it, because the ship's bigger.
But it WORKS because your captain/admiral doesn't have a whole grab-bag colletion of NEW weapons to learn what they can do, and you've tested everything you're installing in Foxes or 'Kit foxes', with field trials and field use.
It's still not 'Glamorous god of the spaceways' but it's a lot closer, and it's also going to be somewhat free of rookie mistakes at that point.
When you're talking Billions of C-bills of Royal/taxpayer property, that's kind of important. (In canon, of course, AFFC didn't bother to use logic, they had Nu Toyz instead.)
Your 'learning Cruiser' design lets your now-experienced admiralty with some clue about what they're doing, actually start thinking about "Well, what should the next one be like?" and testing the gear on your production hulls to figure out what nifty new tecky things
work and should be included in the next refit/design.
Meanwhile, it's actually producible, because most of the working bits are already in the supply chain, you already have contractors who know how to make them, crew are easier to train on the stuff because it's standardized, modificaitons can be tracked and documented for improvements and mistakes can be marked down in the 'don't do this again guys' column.
It also shortens your development time, because your production machinery needs less modification to build it, yard crews less retraining time, which in turn makes the guys at the budget office slightly less unhappy with the adrenaline juiced upper class twits making procurement decisions.
This also allows your navy to grow a more sophisticated, realistic, or intelligent Doctrine, preferably one that tells young Naval officers that Ramming is an offense right up there with 'things that may make good people nauseous and will definitely get you cashiered and maybe executed for treason if the court martial board member's had a bad morning'.
So our hypothetical structure begins with modifying the Fox class-because that way you can reuse lessons learned and correct issues on an existing product (wayyy cheaper than clean sheeting it).
It lowers your maintenance and upkeep costs, improves your training and 'readiness rate', and builds
competency in the service.
Competence also builds
Confidence. this is kinda useful to have, confidence means when your admiralty suggests something, the Generals might actually say "yah, that sounds like it might be a good idea' instead of 'are you sure we can't do that with a dropship?'
Confidence impacts funding, oversight, lack of oversight, priority in resupply, priority of support, access to better recruitment candidates, etc.
It's probably the single biggest potential reason nobody rebuilt their naval forces after the FCCW, forget the Jihad, the FCCW demonstrated that nobody knew what to do, or what they were doing with, these extremely expensive assets.
if anything, the Jihad era
underscored it and thus, why dead shipyards weren't replaced and nobody invested in rebuilding that industry in the canon-why spend the megabillions when it's going to be used for a battering ram by some jackass who doesn't know what he's doing? better to invest in the Dropship arm, where at least, if they're dumb the ground officers can pull the choke chain.
Building up logically and you avoid that outcome...at least, in the longer term.
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