Warpath (Rise of the Empire Book 4) by Ivan Kal Page B

fleet to fight, the Mark Two’s are too slow. We need a class of ship that can move fast and force the enemy to fight, to keep them occupied until our dreadnoughts arrive.” He waved a hand in a Nel placating gesture and cut off Laura before she even had a chance to interrupt.
    “Yes, I know that is the job of our battleships, and they are fully capable of fulfilling that role against enemies that are on the technological level of the Sowir or Nelus. But do you believe that they could do the same against a Ra’a’zani fleet? And I am talking about the ships of the same class as the one that almost destroyed the second fleet, not a fleet that included their bigger ships, and we know that they have much larger ships.” Ritsarni looked at Laura determinedly.
    “Our battleships are great at short engagements, or fighting within systems where they could easily be resupplied. And yes, I understand that fleets have supply ships, but they won’t be able to resupply battleships while they are actively engaging the enemy. That is why we need the Kraken class, it is a hybrid class, a cross between a dreadnought and a battleship. Faster than both, sturdy, and capable of prolonged engagements. The loss of firepower compared to the Mark Two is intentional, we don’t need them to fulfill the role of the Mark Two’s, we just need them to keep the enemy fleets occupied long enough for the rest of the fleet to arrive. That is why it has so much more ammo space compared to a battleship and less weapons than the Mark Two and an extra two power cores, it is supposed to last in a battle longer than the Mark Two. We need to introduce more versatility into our fleets.” Ritsarni said, he seemed to prepare to say something else, but Laura brought a hand up to stop him.
    She started thinking about what he said, and immediately realized that he was right. The events in the Solar system had scared them, and the Empire’s response was to build bigger and much more armored ships. That was one of their strengths, their ability to work with metals, and the Empire had focused on it. Their response to the Ra’a’zani weaponry and technology was to make even larger, more massive metal monsters than what they had sent to Earth.
    The only reason they even managed to defeat the much more technologically advanced Ra’a’zani warship was because they had far thicker hulls, greater mass, and pure destructive power of their ballistic weapons. Humans had learned that their weapons were considered obsolete and primitive, which in a way Laura agreed with, but only partly. The reason why most races eventually abandoned ballistic weapons in favor of energy weapons was that at the distances that energy and light speed weapons could effectively engage were impossible for ballistic weapons, and they were also much more cost effective and could be fired as long as you had the energy. Any ship that saw ballistic weapons fired at it could easily move out of the way. That doesn’t in any way negate their effectiveness, if such weapon hit it would inflict damage.
    The materials that technologically advanced races used for their hulls were geared towards defending from energy and laser weapons, and deflecting small grains of debris in space. Not to stop a 200 kilogram slab of metal. But in order for it to hit you either needed to trick the enemy or close the range. And that was what the human ships were built to do. Withstand the enemy fire until you closed the range, and then pound them into oblivion. But that was also a problem, fighting in space was very different. It was almost impossible to engage a moving opponent if he didn’t want to fight, unless he was much slower than you.
    Ritsarni was right, they needed ships fast enough to close the distance and keep the opponent fixed in place while their slower ships arrive. Laura brought the schematics of the Kraken class back on the display and studied it more closely, now keeping in mind what its role would be