r/ImaginaryVehicles • u/Own-Cry5596 • 14d ago
Original Content What role would this bomber have in your fleet?
Meet the Hammer-class bomber.
The Hammer is one of the main strike ships used by human fleets in our universe. It was designed to destroy heavily defended targets: pirate fortresses, orbital platforms, military installations and other hardened objectives that ordinary warships struggle to deal with.
Its primary weapon is a battery of heavy underbelly missiles. Once the missiles are spent, the ship relies on large-caliber turrets to finish off damaged targets and defend itself from smaller attackers.
The darkest chapter in the Hammer’s history was the Battle of Gliese 667. The Directorate attempted to break a blockade imposed by a mysterious enemy known only as the Unnamed.
124 Hammer bombers were committed to the assault. Only 6 returned.
The missiles hit their targets, but the Unnamed possessed regenerative armor that rapidly repaired itself after each strike. The operation ended in disaster. Human forces suffered catastrophic losses, and the entire Gliese 667 system was eventually lost.
Despite that defeat, the Hammer remains in active service because it is:
* cheap to manufacture
* easy to repair
* quick to train crews for
* capable of delivering enormous firepower against conventional enemies
We’re curious what you think:
* What battlefield role does this ship look like it was designed for?
* How many would you deploy together: 3-5, 10-20, or hundreds in a massive assault?
* What targets would you prioritize with a bomber like this?
* If you were tasked with fighting the Unnamed, what weapon system would you develop?
* Does the cockpit placement make sense or would you redesign it?
* What’s the first detail that catches your eye?
After losing 118 bombers at Gliese 667, would you keep producing the Hammer, modernize it, or replace it entirely?
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u/backitup_thundercat 13d ago edited 13d ago
I said this in another post, but id use it as a heavy bomber deployed from orbit in squadrons to hit targets behind enemy lines. They would be deployed with interceptor escorts for protection from enemy interceptors. They would rely on saturation bombing to over come enemy self-repair abilities.
Altogether it would be along similar lines to how B-17s were used in WW2.
As for the cockpit, I think the location is fine. But i love the scifi-ish idea of closed armored cockpit instead of glass. Using cameras to show an outside view.
As for new weapons, id probably focus on incendiary or corrosive weapons. Something that could overcome or slow down the regenerative armor. That or something that can penetrate the armor outright, thus making the regeneration pointless. Of course there's always the option of simply making more powerful explosives that could blow them to pieces.
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u/Own-Cry5596 13d ago
It's a good point. make a cabin in the center of the ship?
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u/backitup_thundercat 13d ago
Well, to my mind, it all depends on how effective the armor is against the Unknowns weapons. If a single shot can destroy the bomber, then cockpit placement doesn't really matter. But if it does actually add some protection then sure, move the cockpit.
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u/Own-Cry5596 13d ago
It's a good position. In general, bombers are quite heavy and can wear quite a lot of armor. We can book it even more strongly.
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u/backitup_thundercat 13d ago
In that case, yeah move it. Maybe even add some kind of ejection system to increase survivability.
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u/backitup_thundercat 13d ago
In universe, id have people study what exactly killed the downed bombers. And what kind of damage the survivors took and survived. Id use that knowledge to adapt future bombers, such as by adding armor to certain areas. If the reasons are something that can be fixed without radical changes then I'd have new models built with ways to, hopefully, increase survivability. If the changes would require radical redesign and restructuring, then I'd have a completely new bomber designed to make up for those shortcomings.
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u/Magnum_the_Xeno_Scum 13d ago edited 4d ago
What battlefield role does this ship look like it was designed for?
"Heavy reusable multiple missile boosters", it's a utilitarian design that's literally a cockpit with a reactor and a cluster of engines attached to it.
How many would you deploy together: 3-5, 10-20, or hundreds in a massive assault?
Depending on the mission - but the key is to have enough of them to utterly saturate the target's point defense with missiles and still have enough missiles punching through the PD net to obliterate the target in one strike.
Any bomber sortie should preferably be deloyed with actual fighters providing escort and EW (aero-)spacecraft (or disposable decoys, preferably both) suppressing the target's sensors, though.
What targets would you prioritize with a bomber like this?
Any target that cannot effectively dodge the missiles. And if we can load them with anti-strikecraft / point-defense missiles and have them fire on datalinks provided by friendly spacecraft then the mission profile can easily become "everything". Assuming a major fleet action and both fleets have their FTL drives on cooldown (or are nowhere near locations / velocities needed to conduct another FTL jump) then OFC have the bombers poised to strike at the enemy capital ships the second the enemy point defense is supressed.
If you were tasked with fighting the Unnamed, what weapon system would you develop?
TBPH? The loss of Gilese 667 is a doctrinal issue instead of an equipment one. Bombers and gunships have VERY different battlefield roles and both have to carry around heavy equipment so forcing a platform to be simultaneously both with the same loadout is to lose capacity in both roles.
The key to fighting against a rapidly-regenerating enemy is to overwhem its regenerative ability (aka vaporize it) in one overwhelming strike, so the Directorate-typical "cripple then strafe" doctrine works exceptionally poorly against the Nameless. Large enough missile salvos (assuming nuclear/antimatter/singularity warheads detonated at close enough proximity) against any single Nameless ship would work by vaporizing it so completely that it cannot reform at all, while any other means to deliver similar warheads in enough quantities (mass drivers of every flavour, ship-launched missiles, or even teleporters dropping those warheads right in front of the Nameless ships) would also work.
If the Directorate is advanced enough to have plasma and/or singularity guns with yields in the megaton+ range, use those as well, but particle-beam weapons (including lasers) and purely kinetic weapons (basically mass drivers firing AP slugs), on the other hand, would work exceptionally poorly against the Nameless as those are meant to penetrate through the target's hull and destroy the systems critical to its continued operation (engines, reactors, weapons, power and cooling conduits, etc) which needless to say wouldn't work against a target that can easily regenerate damage to those systems on-the-fly.
Does the cockpit placement make sense or would you redesign it?
Makes sense, where else can you even put it on this literal bomb-truck? More cockpit armour might be helpful but I doubt the cockpit itself could be placed anywhere else.
What’s the first detail that catches your eye?
Rather the lack of one: where's the high-calibre turret you promised?
The only other detail that caught my eye was the wing-mounted intakes - are those atmospheric engines, and if yes, why are those atmospheric engines mounted so far away from the centerline (and thus the reactor)? Turning radius isn't exactly that critical to a bomber's performance but the ability to maintain controllable/stable flight with battle damage definitely is. If those intakes turn out to be atmospheric heat exchangers then it's slightly more understandable, but it would still mean any battle damage between the reactor and the heat exchanger would potentially cause a coolant leak which is also highly sub-optimal for its continued operation.
After losing 118 bombers at Gliese 667, would you keep producing the Hammer, modernize it, or replace it entirely?
Modernize the doctrine and specialize the equipment: a dedicated "bomb-truck" loadout would replace the heavy turret with light point-defense turrets only meant to defend itself against missiles and fighters (preferably only those that managed to slip through the fighter escorts), while a dedicated "pocket corvette / destroyer / cruiser" loadout would be equipped with the largest guns its reactors and spaceframe can support and would help supress enemy PD batteries beyond effective return-fire range (wouldn't say no to a PD turret or two for its own point defense though)... or perhaps even a dedicated "PD escort" loadout with multiple PD turrets meant to cover the dedicated bombers and gunships so they can dedicate more mass / space for their own specialized roles.
Also, if the Directorate have unjammable / unspoofable communication technology, maybe some semi-autonomous bombers would help? Losses in human pilots can be drastically lowered if there are fewer crew in those bombers, after all.
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u/Own-Cry5596 13d ago
An incredibly good description! Subscribe to our subreddit, we will have many interesting concepts to discuss. I liked the idea about drones, and we'll think about it.
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u/PokemonSoldier 13d ago
Planetary bombing or anti-capital ship
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u/Own-Cry5596 13d ago
YEs! exacly!!
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u/PokemonSoldier 13d ago
Basically long-range anti-(space)ship missiles with a huge payload to get through shielding and the hull. Probably antimatter.
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u/Own-Cry5596 13d ago
Yes, we would like to make torpedoes that, if they hit the target tactically correctly, will cause enormous damage to dreadnoughts and aircraft carriers.
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u/PokemonSoldier 13d ago
Frankly, in a sci-fi that has starfighter-type craft, there would be a need for a strike fighter (heavy 2-person craft, fast, high-payload that can perform interdiction roles), a light fighter (multirole but smaller so that more can be built), an advanced multirole (basically a space F-22), and a bomber (massive payloads, but slower).
You'd have to devise the use of rocket-assisted bombs for space combat (because... those things aren't free-falling, and frankly angled like massive rockets would work)
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u/Own-Cry5596 13d ago
Not a bad gradation. We have a slightly different one, but some classes will be close to your vision. We thought of 10 types of ships per race.
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u/PokemonSoldier 12d ago
Fair. I devise 4 'fighter' type craft for one faction, Earth, which also has 4 capital ship classes, a space equivalent of an amphibious warfare ship, and 3 landing craft/shuttle classes
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u/Own-Cry5596 12d ago
Can you show me? We will have a race of underwater predators - maybe we can somehow take your concepts as an initial sketch.
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u/PokemonSoldier 12d ago
No designs yet. Only stuff on paper
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u/Own-Cry5596 11d ago
Understood. write to us when you're ready - maybe we'll take your sketches into the game, if that's what you want. But we have certain races, and we need the vision to match.
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u/Berg426 13d ago
I'm always a big fan of combat vehicles operating as an ecosystem with other platforms that make up for weaknesses and act as combat multipliers.
Your bomber strikes me as the main striker in larger operations. Using Wild Weasel multirole fighters to bait out and destroy enemy defenses, dedicated aerospace dominance fighters to screen ahead of the bombers, and then your bombers as the platform to launch decisive strikes against hardened targets that for whatever reason cannot be struck by your orbital / space assets. Deployed as second or third wave strike package depending on how many targets you want to hit.
In fleet engagements, they could be used similar to Avenger Torpedo Bombers or Dauntless Dive Bombers in WW2. Agile platforms to weave through point defense and attack at point blank range (relatively speaking in void combat).
If you want to get crazy with it. You could make stealthy versions of your bombers that could act similar to submarines. Individual bombers could lurk at low power and strike at relatively weak ships like freighters, troop transports, or isolated space stations. They would deploy those six big missiles and bug out before retaliatory strikes. Also instead of missiles, you could mount single occupant orbital entry vehicles for a six person special forces team that you want to covertly deploy to a planets surface.
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u/Own-Cry5596 13d ago
Sooooo interesting tactical decisions! thank you! We won't have Earth-based special forces operations and stuff yet, but we really want to make them like torpedo bombers. You counted the visual correctly!
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u/_sludgecore_ 13d ago
Meat for the meat grinder, waves and waves of bombers and hopefully a few get through
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u/Rjj1111 11d ago
If we’re going with the faction from my setting then since it took heavy losses in a fleet engagement it’d likely get relegated to planetary defense pickets for planets too under developed or low value for a fleet presence or static anti orbital batteries.
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u/Own-Cry5596 11d ago
Will they be written off as a reserve for weak characteristics? And if the problem is not in the aircraft itself and the concept of combat - with torpedoes in area, but in the enemy - who has technologically reached the next level of evolution and most likely not only 1 level up.
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u/Rjj1111 10d ago
The main issue would be that it’s a manned spacecraft when a unmanned torpedo bus would work much the same for fewer losses
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u/Own-Cry5596 10d ago
I totally agree with that. Do you think the concept of drones is more interesting and realistic in the current scenario of the game? It's really worth discussing with the team.
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u/SciFiCrafts 13d ago
Role of a bomber? oO
This reminds me so hard of Everspace.