Does it bother anyone else that so many sci-fi franchises/settings use 20th century naval terms like "destroyer," "cruiser," and "battleship" to mean "small," "medium," and "large," or am I just a lone autist?
I don't think it's that hard to come up with descriptive names for ship types based on what they actually do - as destroyer, cruiser, and battleship were originally.
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>Destroyer, cruiser, and battleship
>to mean small, medium, or large
>Clearly doesn't know a damn thing about ships
Why create completely new words when it is perfectly viable to just reuse naval terminology?
If we make a gun that shoots different sized bullets, do we have to call it a smallshootbang? If someone creates a drink to get you sober, do we call it a sober instead of a beverage?
I think you're just a lone autist, user.
What's always bothered me is speaking about spaceships and space travel with the same terms for sea vessels. Why is space an ocean? Is it just for ease of use?
Looking at that reminds me of being in the yards when I was in the navy. You tend to forget just how high up a ship is when it's out of the water and also being suspended so the yard birds can work on the hull underneath, it's a bitch of a climb too when you're carrying stuff.
It's an easy analogy to make I assume like said why come up with new words when you can describe it well enough as is
He's talking about how sci-fi settings use them.
It's more like if tanks were called knights and missiles were called arrows.
Whenever you think something like this, remember the word "legacy". Every time something silly or archaic is made, 90% of the time it's because someone in the past did it that way so they just followed. Look at the US, it still uses the imperial system just because it's too much of a cost to convert everything to metric, so it keeps ticking on. Some countries drive on the right and some on the left, and no-one wants to standardise because it would cost far too much. It's much more apparent in software systems. Most larger banking systems still run on 16 bit 1970s COBOL systems, and AAA games don't change because they're just running of the legacy of what came before, as just a couple of examples.
As to your other point, destroyer, cruiser, and battleship mean different things than sizes.
Battleships are largely obsolete, but were designed to take hits with extremely thick armour and give back with big guns.
Cruisers are designed to operate independently of a fleet (even though they do run with fleets). Smaller in both armour and weaponry, but still quite deadly.
Destroyers/Frigates are smaller ships designed to pick off escorts/hunt subs/line defence, especially in the US navy who runs a "carrier command center" that commands the fleet.
Then there's the other designations like minesweepers, aircraft carriers, submarines etc, but you get the idea. The names are for function, not just size.
tl:dr; I'm not bothered, and you shouldn't be either. Although if you did see a particularly different role than that of current maritime, then maybe it should have a different designation.
Because they're still ships, just with the word SPACE in front of them.
Both tanks and mounted knights are armored cavalry.
Arrows are missiles.
Destroyer, Cruiser, Battleship, and so on are obsolete terminology even today's navies.
As someone who just got out of the navy, i can deffinatly tell you that this is false
The only one that is obsolete is the battleship and thats only because big guns are being replaced with long range missiles
Not counting orbital vessels, there will be Only Two classes of combat space ships: Ships of line and Battleships. And that's because it is cheaper to produce one over the other.
All other ship classes will not exist. There's no stealth in space so there will be no space submarines. Since there are no space submarines, there will be no destroyers. In Space, Acceleration is the only thing that matters, so there won't be faster or slower ships (no cruisers).
The only difference between one ship or another will be how much propellant can you carry and how many big guns you have.
There destroyers bigger than cruisers. It is a Zombie terminology that refuses to die.
They've never actually be set in stone, either. These classifications have been so loose historically as to not really have any meaning. Hell, spaceship wargames have a tighter ship classification system than history ever had. Some classifications have been honorary, others arbitrary, and some interchangeable, and this has been the case with not one Navy from which all naval terminology is derived, but it's been the case with damn near every navy with its own tradition.
There's no meaningful difference in size or mission between destroyers and cruisers anymore - navies other than the USN work perfectly fine without the antiquated cruiser designation. And battleships haven't been used for anything other than shore bombardment for 70 years.
There's plenty of other differences that could exist.
Different FTL systems?
Biologically based neural interface, or crewed by AI?
Metal ship, or bioengineered organism?
Designed to bombard planets, or accelerate planets until they crack and fall apart?
Do they need a fleet to provide their network access, or do they have a manual pilot?
How does the ship reproduce?
>in the future there will not be old words, only ships of the line
whatthefuckareyoudoingsempi
It's fiction. I'm sure the US Airforce will think up appropriate classifications if the time comes
I really liked the ship classifications from the Hyperion Cantos series, if you're familiar with it
How about Main Battle Craft vs Deep Space Supremacy Craft?
I also just got out of the navy and I completely disagree with you. Cruiser is an obsolete term because there's nothing about them in terms of role or capability that differentiates them from modern destroyers and foreign navies have frigates sufficiently large that they displace as much as many destroyers have have similar armament.
>Acceleration is the only thing that matters, so there won't be faster or slower ships
hummmmm
For what its worth if you're going to be doing hard scifi space combat, there isn't much point making a bigger gunship because everything is 1 hit kills anyway, so its just as vulnerable and costs more.
But future acronyms are cool so how about Lunar-class Atomic Missile Projection And Defence. LAMPAD, old ancient greek death related spirit, the lunar part because its constructed in orbit around the moooooooon.
Delta-v and acceleration.
So, ships of line aren't meant for battle?
they are meant for broadsiding
Why are Fleshbags so terrible at space combat? Always travelling at 1 g. Can't stand 9 g for more than a couple second. Most of their crews pass at 5 g. Why are you so fragile?
>there will be Only Two classes of combat space ships: Ships of line and Battleships
This is pretty strange when you consider the origin of these terms. Ship of the Line comes from a ship capable of being in the "line of battle," otherwise known as a... battle-ship.
I mean, future terminology isn't required to make sense, but still.
So, what terms would you use for ships that can accelerate more or less quickly than another ship?
You're fucking dumb.
The term battleship is literally derived from "Line of battle ship".
What I meant is a mass-produced ship vs bigger ones.
the size of a ship has no bearing on its classification, role does. Now a days, "destroyer" mostly means ships that can do ASW well, since the role of DDs shifted from destroying torpedo boats and launching torpedo attacks themselves, to countering subs. It's the reason even the JMSDF's Helicopter carriers, while being the dimensions of aircraft carrier and looking very much like them, are classified as DDH instead of CV, since they are for ASW instead of attacking surface vessels.
Cruisers still retain their original role to some extent, during the 70's Nuclear powered ones were made by the USN and the Soviet navy, once again giving cruisers the long range that defined cruisers. While no longer nuclear powered, the Ticonderoga class of Cruisers in the USN have superior command facilities making them Cruisers, despite being based off the Spruance class of destroyers.
And what is the line of battle tactic? Sailing in 2 parallel lines and broadsiding the fuck out of people
Then what kind of battle are the battleships doing that the ships of the line can't do? Maneuvers?
What is what anymore?!
If acceleration is the only thing that matters, wouldn't that mean that bigger ships can go faster than smaller ones (more fuel)?
I am interested in what you are saying, but I do not understand the acronyms. Would you mind translating for those of us that don't get it?
A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed from the 17th through to the mid-19th century to take part in the naval tactic known as the line of battle, in which two columns of opposing warships would manoeuvre to bring the greatest weight of broadside firepower to bear. There is some overlap between the two
Not him, but
DD = Destroyer
HHD = Helicopter Destroyer
ASW = Anti-submarine warfare
CV = Aircraft carrier
JMSDF = Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force (basically the modern Japanese navy)
USN = United States Navy
ASW = Anti Submarine Warfare
DD = Destroyer
JMSDF = Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force
DDH = Helicopter(-carrying) Destroyer
CV = Carrier Vessel, aka Aircraft Carrier
>HHD
er, I mean DDH, typo
You're completely missing the point. The term "Ship of the line" and "Battleship" literally denote the same combat role, the terminology just changed over time.
Say, ship roles.
There were the heavy mighty ones that could dish out dakka and could take it in return, sacrificing speed, and there were the light and nimble ones that were fragile but still packed a punch, those I get.
And I imagine there may be some specialist ships that fullfill other roles, like torpedo ships and what have you?
Ah, so "modern" (not really) battleships are a not-quite evolution of ye olde ship of the line, is that so?
Is there nothing to be said for tradition?
Holy shit you're retarded. What's that like? Do you know that you're stupid, or are you in denial?
pretty much. Guns got bigger, armor got thicker, and tactics shifted.
Again, they're exactly the same thing. The word "ship of the line (of battle)" was shortened to "line-of-battle ship", which was again shortened to "battleship".
Wouldn't make more sense to base their organisation/structure/tactics/ranks on the Airforce rather than the Navy?
Yes, but it should be noted that armour couldn't keep pace with the weapon's destructive potential.
As such, it's better to focus on maneuver, firepower and awareness rather than on resilience.
Is that what the US calls "Destroyer"?
The difference between classifications of naval ship is size, but role. A cruiser can be larger than a dreadnought and a destroyer can be smaller than a frigate, it's just that conventional design would have them fall into roughly those categories of small, medium and large
I see the navigational computer has developed sentience. Again.
Restoring to factory default in three...
I just want to laugh at how silly the term "ship of the line" is for space combat. "The line?" You can't hold "the line," they'll just go around you.
destroyers started as a torpedo boat destroyer and evolved into anti-sub, anti-missile and anti-air and is mainly an escort warship
Nah, naval tradition is much richer.
>posting porn
This is a blue board, user. NSFW content isn't allowed.
broadsiding is the most efficient to put MOAR DAKKA on target
>using guns
>in space
Real men use laser axes.
Real men ram the enemy space ship.
>not being a rogue cruiser and throwing laser daggers from behind
Service in spacecraft would probably be more like serving in a modern submarine than surface ships....
>Not being a heavily armored battleship and ramming your enemy with the front.
Fucking Newbie get on my level.
Who said you need to shoot munitions?
A boarding axe is fine, too.
>Is that what the US calls "Destroyer"?
no
"Destroyer" comes from "Torpedo Boat Destroyer".
The idea was that battleships despite their thick armour were still still vulnerable to torpedoes, since they have pretty big warheads. Also, torpedoes can be carried by small, fast and maneuverable boats. At the time, slow reloading guns, primitive targeting methods, and slow turret turning speeds meant that BBs (battleships) could not defend themselves very well from these. Destroyers were faster and had smaller, but faste3r turning guns that could still take out Torpedo boats, and soon began to carry torpedoes themselves, as being bigger, they were more capable for longer range missions. During WW1 as Germany used U boats on a large scale navies realized that ASW was a new necessity for modern naval warfare. DDs were optimal since they were fast, maneuverable and smaller than capital ships, making them less likely to get hit by submarine launched torpedoes. As torpedo boats stopped being a real threat, and with newer ships being faster and more maneuverable, as well as Airplanes establishing themselves as the dominant force in naval combat, both the torpedo boat destroying and torpedo attack roles of destroyers became less relevant. ASW was all that was left and so modern day destroyers beat little resemblance to their old counterparts,
the terms have come to refer to the capital ship of their own time periods. not many will think of the steel armoured dreadnoughts when you say "ship of the line". I've only ever heard the French navy to have referred to their dreadnoughts as "Ship of the line", and even then, they also called them "cuirassé", Armor since the defining characteristic of BBs is their armor.
>Ah, so "modern" (not really) battleships are a not-quite evolution of ye olde ship of the line, is that so?
The evolution of ships of the line into modern battleships happened in a quite strange way, very, very quickly over the course of about 30 years between 1860 and 1890.
There were lots of weird intermediate stages, like screw and sail powered, but unarmored Le Napoleon, the armored ships of the line like Glorie and HMS Warrior which were commonly referred to as ships of the line at the time.
What else would you call the "small, nimble ship optimized for escort duty," the "all purpose mid-sized ship that balances speed/armor/firepower," and the "large ship that sacrifices maneuverability for firepower and armor?"
The context of this conversation is reviving the term "ship of the line" along side "battleship" to mean different thing.
I (and apparently some other user) think this is dumb because the terms were used to refer to ships that filled the exact same role in their given era, which is simply that of a large combatant capable of being one of the main components of a surface action.
If you're going to have two different terms you may as well make them actually describe the role of the ship. Three letter acronyms are great for that.
Frigate, Cruiser, Battleship in that order
A red herring since there's no reason why the spacecraft with the biggest guns and thickest armor can't also have the highest acceleration
Didn't frigates used to be main-line combat ships?
>not sure if bait....
Fuck it.
Bigger mass is bigger inertia is more delta v required.
Acceleration and manouvering is the domain of lighter, smaller ships.
Unless space magic.
But hey if space magic theres no point even arguing is there?
>What is inertia?
Just because there isn't gravity in space doesn't mean that mass is irrelevant to maneuverability.
>What is thrust to wait ratio
>what is delta-V
straight from wikipedia In modern navies, frigates are used to protect other warships and merchant-marine ships, especially as anti-submarine warfare (ASW) combatants for amphibious expeditionary forces, underway replenishment groups, and merchant convoys. Ship classes dubbed "frigates" have also more closely resembled corvettes, destroyers, cruisers, and even battleships.
>no faster or slower
>acceleration as a concept still matters but that has no bearing somehow
Is this a joke?
>"small, nimble ship optimized for escort duty,"
Escort? Picket ship?
More importantly, though, this is space, and small size need not necessarily correlate with speed. Presumably you'd just need to scale up the engines as the mass of the ship increased. It's not like a ship in water which has to deal with heavy water and wind resistance.
>"all purpose mid-sized ship that balances speed/armor/firepower,"
I'm not sure there's a name for this in the present. I suppose it depends on what "all purpose" means exactly.
>"large ship that sacrifices maneuverability for firepower and armor?"
Again, space isn't water, and I don't know if the size/maneuverability trade-off is really relevant here.
Part of the problem with all this is that we don't really know what roles spaceships designed for war would have. It depends a lot on how the war is conducted. Naval terms are more common and maybe more reasonable in soft space operas, but as the sci-fi becomes "harder" the analogy makes less and less sense.
A 100 ton ship with one rocket engine and 80 tons of propellant is just a mobile as a 1000 ton ship with ten rocket engines and 800 tons of propellant.
>If you're going to have two different terms you may as well make them actually describe the role of the ship
in most other languages Battleships are called Armors. French "cuirassé", Spanish "Acorazado", Italian "corazzata".
>Implying anything other than English naval parlance is relevant
but couldnt the small ship destroy the bigger ship or at least deal enough damage to remove the larger ship from the fight? In that case, the ideal would be to deploy 10 small ships with maximum firepower and fuck all for armor, as you scale up the ship making an expendable gun platform becomes less and less useful. Sure it can shoot at ten other guys, but cost 10 times as much as still got fragged.
Alternatively, if you start piling on armor to make it more resilient against the small ships, the weapon to mass ratio start falling making it a big target that cant deal much damage, but can take a lot of hits.
Yes. But I admit I use the term 'Monitor' and 'Cruiser' for my space universe. Cruisers are like torchships, they can run around a system. Monitors are like the old Monitors: they can run circles around a planet, but can't go to the next planet over in any real order other than transfering and are used for defense or local control/augmentation of cruiser forces.
>discussing what the best use of naval terminology is
> a perfectly logical term appears
>no
ok then
What if in the future people speak Chinese, Arabic, or Spanish?
They should still use English nautical terms.
English is the language of the sea.
>Not naming your mass-produced ships Cheapfasts
>Not naming your bigger ones Hulkcosts
Fancy that, ya daft-typer, poo-poofter.
bigger means more mass though.Which means that it will accelerate slower provided that the same motor is used. I'm not a rocket scientist but the way I understand it, making the motors bigger does noy mean a linear increase in the propulsion. There is a sort of sweet spot for different modes of propulsion where anything more than that provides deminishing returns. Also bigger motors need more fuel. More fuel means bigger containers etc etc.
No, they're DDHs for the same reason that Russian carriers are technically "aviation cruisers" - politics. Japanese constitutional caselaw prohibits "offensive weapons" which carriers are considered to be.
Square cube law limits your ability to strap more and more thrusters to a larger spacecraft.
>being in space
>not designing your ships to be spheres for maximum internal volume
It's [current year]+[future], get with the times
>All this >implying that there will be huge armored warships in space
Skiff, cutter, and sloop are what you call your spaceships.
What is Delta-V? I know what acceleration is. I don't get Delta-V and why is it so important in space.
Change in velocity. It means acceleration.
No, look at their specs and you'll see why you are wrong
>Hyuga
>only 16 VLS cells
>equipped with ASROCS (Anti Submarine Rockets) and Sea Sparrows.
>Can only carry Helicopters unfit for surface warfare as any surface ship can easily shoot them down
>Izumo Class
Doesn't even have VLS
>just ASW and mine counter measures helis
Russia's "Heavy Aviation Cruisers" carry aircraft actually capable of surface warfare, the Sukhoi Su-33 and a ton of Anti ship cruise missiles.
They are not comparable at all.
This is never what those terms are used for in sci-fi settings. Each of those ship types do seperate things and serve seperate roles on the battlefield. Nowhere are they used to mean small, medium, or large.
Everything you need to know about rockets in order to Make Stuff Up:
projectrho.com
And now you know why battleships are obsolete in a tactical sense.
This. Saying "Delta V" is a way to imply that you're measuring in units your ability to accelerate.
>This is never what those terms are used for in sci-fi settings. Each of those ship types do seperate things and serve seperate roles on the battlefield. Nowhere are they used to mean small, medium, or large.
Your next line will be, D&D has never been about exploring dungeons, it's not about finding treasure, it has nothing to do with dragons.
You should namefag yourself "he who says the opposite of what is true" since that's all you seem to do.