In general, in my experience, the development of major fleet combatants with multiple roles (which, of necessity, reduce their ability to perform either task as well as a single purpose vessel) is inevitably a result of budget cuts and peacetime (not the show's premise, but my observation in the real world). It is usually the desire to do more with less that leads to this (and in the case of the Canadian support vessel, it leads to nigh impossible demands and a lot of really questionable design thinking). Oddly, sometimes there isn't a huge economy because the lowered effectiveness and the increased design complexity eat away at imagined construction savings. About the only savings, and it can matter, is in crewing (you need less crew, but you work the ones you do have harder to manage multiple mission profiles).

In most wartime constructions after the first while, you will see purpose built vessels optimized to be as good as they can be at their particular role. The efficacy is a major concern in wartime. In peace-time, where the ship might not face actual threats, the efficacy is more notional.

A purpose built carrier without heavy armour, ordinance, and an ability to slug it out with line of battle vessels will: a) have more fighters, b) tend to stay clear of main combatants, and c) in gaming terms, is often referred to as 'the glass hammer'. A purpose built line combatant would in fact have less vulnerability (no launch and recovery bays) and could devote all of its mass/size limits to armour, electronics, ordinance, and bulkheading, etc.

I think the reasons for cool 'aircraft carriers that can fight in space' is 'Hey, Cool!' and 'Budget won't let us build additional fleet elements as the SFX budget won't help.'

I've referred to this elsewhere, but there is a gamey aspect to many shows and games in the respect that there is a desire to differentiate vessels and factions to play / be seen differently *without the doctrinal reasoning that sometimes leads to a bit of this in real life*. The doctrines in real life ensue from the particulars of need and often not 'need to make the best ship' but rather those of budget allocations, making do with less to to more, or for some issues of grandiose egos, or poorly run procurements which also often have a lot to do with institutional silo-ing and more grandiose egos. Sometimes they also include real factors like 'we don't have a need for X because our territory does not include geographic region Y where this would be necessary'.

Aussies and Canucks tend to build multi-role vessels while the USN tends to build more focused classes largely due to available GDP to be spent on military expenditures (plus I'll throw in a very effective lobby from the well-heeled military-industrial complex in the USA). This also happens in their air forces and even in the training of some of their armed forces (more focused, less general).

Tom B

On Mon, Jun 8, 2020 at 12:09 PM <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

The complement if fighters on a battlestar is more than 20, but the design aesthic, as muddled as it is, seems similar.

"So say we all!"

TmB

On Mon, Jun 8, 2020, 10:10 Alex Goodwin, <xxxxxx@multitel.com.au> wrote:

Described in pp 217-8 of GT: Interstellar Wars, we get a description of
a vessel capable of standing in the main line of battle with big bang
bangs (spinal meson cannon, repulsor arrays, 2x bay fusion guns, 5x
heavy turrets with 2 fusion guns apiece) and toting a "double-strength
squadron" of 20 laser-armed fighters.

Going over to TVTropes entry "The Battlestar"
(https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheBattlestar):

"Instead, the flagship of the future becomes something that encompasses
both artillery and piloting tropes: a hybrid carrier/battleship. It has
the heavy armor and big guns of a battleship, along with the fighters
and point defense weapons of a carrier."

Have I overcooked things or are the _Indomitable_-class ships actually
battlestars under the TVTropes definition?

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