Bruships 27: Science Fiction Books

Fleets need true cruisers and dedicated presence ships, capabilities judged scarce in modern navies.

Joshua Dalzelle's Warship illustrates a powerful vessel doing the diplomatic, disciplinary, and independent work associated with cruisers.

Yes, cruiser can describe a mission, while a sustained presence east of Suez also makes a case for larger cruiser-sized ships.

A personal command preference favours the Venator's carrier role and adaptable air group over the Imperial Star Destroyer's battleship approach.

Concealment and fighter attacks are the proposed answer to an Imperial Star Destroyer trying to ram the carrier.

Christopher Nuttall's Ark Royal gives an old carrier maintenance problems, an embarrassing institutional status, and a commander damaged by alcoholism.

Chief O'Brien's engineering problems make Star Trek more believable, while Discovery's reliable experimental technology invites criticism.

Voyager's replacement torpedoes raise questions about hazardous manufacture, assembly location, and the crew needed to replenish ammunition.

Destiny's stellar recharging supports its energy weapons, while its apparent growing space leaves questions about feeding a crew.

Nick Webb's Constitution pits a captain's warning about renewed war against orders to decommission his aging ship during military cuts.

The familiar story of an old ship surviving a technological crisis works because readers recognize the unreliability of new systems and the value of proven machinery.

Andromeda's ships-outrun-signals arrangement seems more likely.

A secondhand comparison links thin Type 23 hulls with repeated structural work and reports thicker construction in newer designs.

Some ships removed in Fisher's cuts could have remained useful on constabulary duties, freeing other ships for war.

A conquered Earth's shortage of freighters gives an anti-slavery mission an economic purpose.

A disguised frigate defeats a station's defenses, varies its fire against escaping ships, and takes the surviving freighters home with freed captives.

Its practical range depends on whether it can deliver damaging energy quickly enough, with dissipation also affecting effectiveness.

Britain's fictional space navy grows through early investment, a colonial resource monopoly and repeated shipyard expansion.

A mining route through Chinese territory puts a small escort force close to a larger fleet, with sensor information arriving tens of minutes late.

Empire Rising addresses these problems through its imagined future science; the appeal lies in recognizing and explaining the constraints.

A damaged ship that cannot survive the next missile wave still has time to launch a final attack.

No. Aviation would be widely distributed, but dedicated carrier-assault ships would remain useful while most of the fleet would consist of general-purpose cruiser-like warships.

Unused Venator hangar capacity could support additional shields, power generation, and guns in a proposed refit.

Yes. The Glorious Heritage class fits the carrier-battleship hybrid envisioned for a space battlecruiser.

Richard Fox's Albion Lost introduces an unknown fleet through a pirate crew's discovery of a silent settlement and warships far beyond the scale familiar in Wild Space.

The Daedalus class's reputation can communicate power even when its silhouette does little to impress an unfamiliar observer.

Greater internal volume does not settle the comparison when fighter quality and weapons against missiles and small craft differ.

Marines and automated war walkers give Andromeda an expeditionary role that the story uses surprisingly rarely.

Keeping a few dozen original senior officers and non-commissioned officers aboard would have given Hunt more support.

Destiny prompts a proposal to make plants and a biodome part of a spacecraft's life-support system.

Tilly's appointment raises questions about rank, Burnham's continuing role, and whether the story is preparing a larger role for either character.

Royal Navy examples of loyalty to a captain complicate a viewer's argument that an abandon-ship order should settle Andromeda's crew departure.

A chemical oxygen cycle is accepted as possible under a viewer's abundant-energy assumption, while plants remain a preference for air quality.

Sean Williams's Star Wars: The Old Republic novel follows a privateer's attempted boarding, an internal mutiny, and a target that destroys itself to deny capture.

One interpretation of Tilly's appointment gives Saru formal control while preserving Burnham's informal role and freedom of action.

They could help at very close range, but their space cost was hard to justify on ships intended to fight effectively with heavy guns at much longer distances.

The gap is underexplained because surviving advanced states, repeated wars, and defensive needs should have driven some rebuilding and innovation.

Heavy guns, slow turret movement, and long-range fire favor a predictable battleship course while screening ships keep clear of its firing problem.

A conference recollection leads to an argument that naval and military history should welcome everyone interested in studying them.

Raven's Peace follows a commander haunted by an attack whose genocidal consequences were not fully understood aboard his ship at the time.

The label Dark Ages does not mean European weapons froze at Roman levels, as later axes, swords, spears, and archery continued to develop.

It would probably do reasonably well, with its large troop strength an important advantage.

Austria-Hungary's collapse offers an analogy for lost warship-building capacity, challenged by the resources of surviving powers in Andromeda.

A Western European Dark Ages label can obscure Byzantium, the Arabic world, China, and large Anglo-Saxon programs of fortified urban construction.

No. Several powers retained large-warship capacity but redirected it toward carriers, modernization, or very large cruisers.

Not by themselves. Mongol armies could contain and starve a fortress while mobile forces operated across the surrounding countryside.

The compact ship is preferable for fighting, but a long-range mission may require the larger hull's endurance and stores.

The United States, Britain, France, Russia or the Soviet Union, and China form the short list for post-1970 full-size carrier construction.

The preferred explanation is succession politics: returning for a new khan's election is judged more important than resistance from European knights.

Cavour does, and Príncipe de Asturias probably does as well.

The corvus brings opposing ships together so Roman infantry can fight Carthaginian crews at close quarters.

A viewer counters the earlier succession argument with examples of Hungarian resistance to Mongol invasion.

An isolated reconnaissance ship faces an enemy destroyer while faster-than-light messages and reinforcements still take hours or days.

Anthony James stages a small warship's escape around a hostile planet through sensors, missiles, decoys, point defence, and heat limits.

Discovery's uncrewed ships and Deep Space Nine's fighter wings add variety to Starfleet's recurring phaser-and-torpedo weapons mix.

A wounded executive officer takes command of Victoria Regina after the captain and combat information center are destroyed.

A damaged battleship uses its remaining weapons, a roll and a sudden diving attack to surprise a cruiser expecting conventional maneuvers.

The battle's aftermath follows a surviving officer through recurring nightmares, repeated ship losses and the death of a trusted captain.

Odyssey One supplies a fictional example of teleporting nuclear weapons directly inside opposing ships.

Fleets with sophisticated droid intelligence make poor use of it when their weapons lack comparable guidance and their guns fire through fixed hull openings.

A journalist's difficulty obtaining on-record answers about the F-35 explains the value placed on speaking with an engineer involved in the project.

The Manticore in Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock illustrates the cost of restricting a space warship's most useful guns to narrow firing arcs.

The surrounding subjects need fuller treatment, and filling gaps in naval history takes priority over writing immediately about a favorite ship type.

Discovery's repair drones suggest a possible defensive use, compared with Farscape's maintenance robots.

A favorable assessment of the F-35 emphasizes its connected strike role and compares that role with the Sea Harrier.

Possibly. A new study could examine Q-ship strategy and employment alongside material that has emerged since the existing specialist history.

A proposed Manticore redesign combines four turrets with forward missile launchers and point-defence lasers around the hull.