Floating Fortress

[Deltannia]

So I recently read 1984 and have been reading up on arcologies (for something else, long story), but I was thinking of having some kind of roleplay where the reborn isolationist Deltannia begins (or if we want, finishes), the construction of some sort of large naval... thing. A floating fortress is really a collection of ships, but what if there was some massive naval construct, like a real fortress that was floating. Deltannia has some great naval technologies, and maybe puts the first one of these together. Of course it wouldn't be impenetrable by any means, in fact I'd rather that it end up being destroyed. But, if could put a new base of operations anywhere in the region hypothetically, where one didn't exist before......

 

Any takers?

[Vocenae]

Adaptus already did this in the Black Dawn thread.

[Tagmatium Rules]

Yep, although that was apparently a converted iceberg. The British during WWII contemplated something similar, although made out of Pykrete, a composite material of woodpulp and water, which, when frozen was stronger than concrete and lighter than water. It melted at a higher temperature than water and would have been relatively cheap to make. They wanted to make an aircraft carrier that displaced 2,000,000 tonnes, which was significantly more than any vessel at the time, and damn near ten times what some of these modern nuclear aircraft carriers that the US Navy has.

 

However, the idea fell through because it was too different from anything at the time, and the fact that, whilst the Pykrete would have been cheap, the rest of the ship wouldn't have been. A lot of insulation would have been needed to protect the crew from the freezing temperatures of the vessel and the vessel from the warmth of the crew. There were so many technical problems laid out that it would have been virtually impossible to make it. Pykrete did go onto have applications as roofs of air defence huts in Canada, which needed replacing every three years but were very good protection.

 

I'd be unsure as to whether it might be a good move politically and economically. Building such a floating fortress will undoubtedly be seen as a threat by a lot of other nations, and it would be difficult to justify the construction of such a thing during a period of peace.

[Suverina]

Some sort of floating island with massive amounts of artillery, two airpstrips, massive amount of ammunition, sveral repair workshops, docks for ships and pretty much everything else needed to maintain a smaller navy and at the same time be working as an airbase would be totally cool.

[Adaptus]

I did create something along those lines, however it was basically a static island with an airstrip and makeshift port. Perhaps something like a Metal Gear Arsenal from MGS 2. Something which harboured aircraft and a large invasion force, with nuclear capabilities might work, to a better standard.

[Tagmatium Rules]

I'd personally be happier if this sort of thing was steered away from. It tends to be rather ridiculous, to be honest. It'd be cheaper just to use an island as a naval base or something, rather than invest what would amount to trillions (dollars, pounds, euros) in something that could end up of little strategic value. Artillery would be pointless, as missiles have a hell of a longer range than them.

 

It'd be of much more strategic sense just to invest that money on expanding and modernising a conventional fleet, rather than chucking it away on that kind of ambitious and risky project. We'd be creepy towards things that only appear in the more bizarre sci-fi stories, really.

 

This less that can be said about MGS 2 the better.

 

Awful, awful game.

[Suverina]

Well yes, useless way to spend money, cool - yes, could be done - yes.

 

One would call it the ultimate tool for handling power projection doctrine. Being able to project that much force all arpund the world is truly mighty. Although Suverina's naval thinkers are to intelligent to invest in such a project.

 

But the whole thing is a project made by politicians who wants to meddle in the business of the navy.

 

But an enourmous aircraft carrier? Why not.. Might be the next step in Suverina's plan to control the seas.

 

Here's another picture:

 

 

 

Edit2: Oh, and rockets are a form of artillery.

[Adaptus]

Or you could create a sort of Skybase like in Captain Scarlet

[Tagmatium Rules]

The c*nt would take a nuke like everything else - badly.

[Haruspex]

That ship image isnt to bad of an idea Suv, just it would be expensive, and if you lost it, that could be a major loss of manpower, and equipment not to mention monetary concerns.

[Tagmatium Rules]

What I meant by my other post was that a carrier of that size, if it were to take a big hit - nuclear, thermobaric or a hell of a conventional bomb - it would annihilate a large proportion of one's navy. It would be better to spread about such a large cost across other sorts of shipping - surface or submarine - than pay such a large whack. A nation could make a fair few surface carriers, aircraft to go on them and attendant ships as opposed to a singular ship of that scale. Hell, one could do a lot of research into submarine aircraft carriers and aircraft which are able take off from under the surface of the sea - all of which are very possible once one is playing with that amount of money.

 

One gets stuff like submarine carriers - either large submarines which surface and disgorge their aircraft (like the British HMS M2) or very specialised but theoretically possible aircraft which actually can launch from underwater - or insanely big surface ships like that have been suggested. Such things (big surface carriers) would make massive targets. And I mean massive. Current (that is, current technology) could take this sort of ship out easily, purely because of the size - it would be impossible to hide it. Yes, it could take a fair few more hits than modern carriers (especially the insanely big Yank carriers) but it would be that much more of a target. It couldn't go in a lot of shipping lanes purely because of the size.

 

I'd argue against this sort of thing for the above reason - it smacks too much of putting all one's eggs in one basket. It'd be better to get a handful of nuke carriers and attendant ships than one big ship. The survivabilty would be much, much bigger.

 

Similarly to the fact that modern military is too interested in giving damn near every soldier computer gear - at some point, the soldier will end up (unless one is going to lengthen the training and therefore cost - Adpt especially won't like that ) sacrificing training in the field for understanding how computer gubbins works. I know it's theoretically good and it might work well, but if and when this sort of thing f*cks up (and it will - there's no two ways about it), the soldier will then be in bad position.

 

Which is why I'd refuse to give a Tagmatine soldier as much crazy computer sh*te as the FIST or Advance Warfighter Programmes insist on giving the modern soldier - EMP and wear and tear in the field will screw up this sort of thing very, very quickly. Better to have a soldier which has this sort of thing as an addition rather than a staple.

Edited June 11, 2008 by Tagmatium Rules (see edit history)

[Adaptus]

As much as I hate to say it. Tag is right

 

although the concept is good, it's just not feasible, in reality. The only thing I can think of is if you created some sort of new weapons system or platform, for example, a platform that could launch artillery or nuclear warhead without giving away it's position once the object is fired. Or something along those lines. But then again, I'm not sure it's feasible.

[Haruspex]

submarine aircraft carrier would be interesting. Or even, I doubt current technology could do it, that airborne aircraft carrier in Sky Captain.

[Deltannia]

Tagmatium, you're right, same happened with the Yamato in Japan. Still, wouldn't mind doing that, what's the point of having a crazy government if you can't do stupid things. Like I said, I expected this to get blown. But anyway, good call on Black Dawn, Vocenae.

 

In that case, since I've already got a fairly large fleet, perhaps making the other version of the floating fortress. Essentially a large fleet. If you take the one around Tarragat Island and throw in, say, biological warfare, I'm sure you get something interesting.

[Adaptus]

Well it would work for us to get involved. A large Deltannian Fleet would pose a threat to our Phalkland Islands. We'd be slightly ticked, so perhaps a naval arms race could be in order. I mean due to the nature of our islands we have a rather large navy compared to the rest of our armed forces, so something could happen there.

 

At current only a small naval force exists on the Phalkland Islands, as it's mainly guarded by the air force, so it gives us the opportunity to be hostile by place large amounts of ships at the islands. It wouldn't have been the first time our navies had clashed.

[Social Democratic Confederation]

Aww... I'd love it if Suv would biuld a supercarrier like that, just to have someone else sink it. But oh well. I'd have to agree with Tag, as well, on the floating fortress thing.

 

If you really do want a floating fortress, you might could use one in a future thread when warfare and technology are completely without of our grasp.