>The Manticoran fleet in UF is sizeable, but not outsized ship-for-ship to the
>other forces in UF. Their ships will be technologically advanced compared to
>most other nations of its size, and they will perform credibly. However, the
>tech, maneuvering, weapons load, etc. etc. etc. of Manticore's navy will be
>completely different from its origins, because those origins are just -not-
>compatible with UF.

I'm certainly not arguing for the existence of impeller wedges and weapons grade real lasers (I'm sorry, but something where you can see a MOVING BOLT OF LIGHT is NOT a laser.) and all the other things built into the HH techbase. I'd just like to see their UF doppelgangers operate in a similar style. If I'm arguing a little hard on this, say so and I'll shut up.

>>Sure, one Alpha-load of General Hosement missiles won't do
>>jack against a Star Destroyer, but send several squadrons of
>>them and see what happens. The Alpha is an attack vessel, after all,
>>and a pack animal. It's built to bring down the big game.
>
>Yeah. In the Harrington-verse, the entire strategy of battle is based
>around who can throw enough missiles at who to overwhelm ack-ack and
>other point-defense systems. Mounted energy weapons almost never get
>used, because the ships involved don't survive the missile bombardment
>at ultra-long range.

Well, maybe at the end of the series, yeah. But take, say, Fourth Grayson. Or, better yet, Nightingale. At the first, the Peeps got slaughtered because they were duped into energy range of the Grayson SDs. At Nightingale, White Haven essentially scurries off with his tail between his legs to avoid a similar fate.

Heck, I think it's even said straight out that missiles can cause critical damage to capital ships only in truly absurd numbers. And that didn't become possible until the Medusas showed up.

>That's why I prefer the super-ECM excuse; it's not susceptible to mass
>assaults, and thus allows the close-in fleet actions of space opera.

HH is space opera. Still, point taken. Close range combat looks better, ya? And it'd be unbalancing to have people opening fire at umpty bazillion miles away while the other side has to slog its way through the hurricane to reach range.

But. I haven't really seen anything to preclude building a cap ship around Alpha-style General Hosement.

Blessed be.
Nathan Baxter
(SD ImpStar flies through space, helpfully labeled to prevent confusion with a Charlemagne class.

It's met by a (also SD) hammerheaded log a little under two-thirds its length.

They start blasting away, eventually ending up broadside to broadside, 'cause the log is smaller and a bit more agile.

Log dumps some little brick things out the patootie.

ImpStar tries to shoot them, but too late: they launch an @$$load of, say, capital ship concussion missles.

ImpStar goes "Owie!" and keeps shooting.

Lather, rinse, repeat.)