After reading some of the Harrington series (I say some, but I've read nearly all of it by now, except some of the later books), I am contemplating using the so-called pod-superdreadnought idea in the books. With some adaptation of course.
The idea is to have a carrier with a tractor beam. Inside the carrier is 1 ship that is nothing but box launchers and 1 MFC.
Operational doctrine:
Carrier meets enemy, Scout fires up active sensor
Carrier launches Missile Pod, Carrier uses tractor beam on 'Pod.
Missile Pod dumps it's missiles into space.
Missiles hit.
Carrier recovers 'Pod. 'Pod reloads.
Stick in 1 engineering space and forget about maintenance since the clocks don't go up in a hangar. You gain the ability to use box launchers, 15% size vs 25% reduced size, netting 10% savings while losing 5% to hangars.
Well, you do slow down when you deploy the pod and even hangar reload is pretty long. Well, I won't turn up my nose at the ability for a 16 kton ship to throw 145 missiles... although the insanely long reload is giving me the shivers.
GhoulB class Light Carrier 16,000 tons 868 Crew 2713.5 BP TCS 320 TH 2500 EM 0
7812 km/s Armour 3-56 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 11 PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 186% IFR: 2.6% Maint Capacity 1166 MSP Max Repair 100 MSP Est Time: 3.07 Years
Hangar Deck Capacity 6000 tons Magazine 960 Tractor Beam
Magnetic Confinement Fusion Drive E7.5 (16) Power 156.25 Fuel Use 75% Signature 156.25 Armour 0 Exp 20%
Fuel Capacity 575,000 Litres Range 86.2 billion km (127 days at full power)
'Perceval' Size 5 Anti-ship Missile (192) Speed: 69,400 km/s End: 14.4m Range: 60.1m km WH: 6 Size: 5 TH: 277 / 166 / 83
Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Pod class Missile Boat 6,000 tons 46 Crew 597 BP TCS 120 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s Armour 1-29 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 108.75
Annual Failure Rate: 576% IFR: 8% Maint Capacity 31 MSP Max Repair 63 MSP Est Time: 0.09 Years
Magazine 725
Size 5 Box Launcher (145) Missile Size 5 Hangar Reload 37.5 minutes MF Reload 6.2 hours
Missile Fire Control FC83-R16 (1) Range 83.2m km Resolution 16
'Perceval' Size 5 Anti-ship Missile (145) Speed: 69,400 km/s End: 14.4m Range: 60.1m km WH: 6 Size: 5 TH: 277 / 166 / 83
ECCM-4 (1) Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes