Guardian said:
your looking for logic form military R&D?
But if you think about it the midway we developed to be a stand alone carrier no escorts needed . Why wouldn't the newiest cruiser of that era be a cruiser that could fight somewhat like a carrier as well? think of it as a new cost cutting measure if your crusier can funtion as pocket carriers you need less carriers. the Hades even gives you more versitlity. Once again please remember the Hades class was not a small ship its 777 meters long. Bigger then bengal class carriers and almost as big as Concordia class fleet carriers
No, we're looking for deployable ideas from military R&D, ones that won't get voted down as not being cost-effective by the latest study.
And the Midway was a special case - she was designed to replace a good part of a carrier task force, by centralizing the functions of several Marine transports, two or three wartime-era carriers, and a science vessel in one hull. If you look the Murphy-class Destroyers or Plunkett-class cruisers, you'll see that they've retained their specialist roles. The REASON that the Midway exists was because running a lot of carriers was expensive, yet they didn't want to give up the extra mobile striking power a carrier brought with it... so they compromised by making a really big carrier in the Midway to replace most of the Concordia-class and older carriers, with the idea that one hull and several thousand crew on it was easier and cheaper to plan for logistically than a three smaller ships with similarly large crews and having three hulls to pay upkeep on and the extra crew required to keep all three staffed at optimal levels, amongst other things.
Having more carrier-capable cruisers increases your expenses - it means you either sacrifice capability for a not-so-capable carrier or a very-expensive-and-not-too-capable cruiser. You've either given up armor, weapons, or speed to support the extra mass and crew required to keep a number of fighters active... or else you've got like two to four fighters crammed into the only free space on the ship, which means they're useful to scout ahead... but nothing else.
Note that the Hades-class
Cerberus was fairly large as far as cruisers went, but that most of that space seemed to be devoted to engines and guns, at least to judge by how little space we saw in her hangar bays. The Plunkett-class cruisers are 1200m long, which is longer than a Confederation-class dreadnought... and they're still cruisers, because they're designed to kill capships. Mission defines requirements and equipment, which is something that needs to be figured into the design of a craft.
Being honest? Having fewer fighters spread out across more ships is a liability for logistics and the Fleet, since it means that you either need more escorts for a given task force or else you sacrifice firepower and strike capability... especially seeing that most carriers of the Kilrathi War era couldn't carry the really heavy fighters, and only the Ceberus seemed the exception to that rule. And she didn't have enough fighters or bombers to handle a full-fledged fleet action; remember, she's designed for raiding, not stand-up fleet battles.
.
.