[Spaceships] Ammo storage vs Weapon size

[Langy]

Uhh, what?

What I was saying was that you can actually fit more missiles into a VLS-type system than you can a launch tube system for the same mass. If you want to figure out how many missiles you can fit in a VLS system, take the mass of the system (0.5 tons for SM+4, 1.5 tons for SM+5, 5 tons for SM+6, etc) and divide it by two. That's how much mass you have available for actual missiles.

Even that is likely overstating the mass requirements. You could probably get away with just using the mass capacity of a Hangar system - a VLS cell doesn't require a number of things that an actual hangar does, but it does need some mechanism for getting the missile out of the ship unless you're willing to fire off the main engine inside the cell.

Since realistically VLS cells should scale linearlly with missile mass and not the scaling given in the book for normal missile tubes (which also should scale linearlly with missile mass, as far as I can tell, and I can't figure out why they don't), you wind up with a lot more missiles of the same size (or bigger!) available in a dedicated VLS system than in a missile tube with reloads system and you can use all of them at once.

For an example of this, look at the difference between the Olivery Hazard Perry-class frigates and the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. The Perry's had a single 40-round missile magazine for a single missile launcher firing 1500-pound missiles. The Burke's have ninety vertical launch system cells, each one firing a single 3000-pound missile, and the Burke's are only twice the displacement of the Perry's. They have more and bigger other weapons, as well.

So, for an SM+7 ship with a single Major Battery of missile tubes with reloads, you've got a single missile tube firing 28cm missiles with 15 reloads. A 28cm missile is 1/2 of a ton. If you instead switch to a VLS system, at worst you can fit 15 VLS cells (15 tons of capacity * 0.5 tons of missiles/tons of capacity * 1/0.5 tons/missile) each with a 28cm missile ready to fire. If you instead assume that you the mass requirements are the same as a Hangar bay instead of taking a full 100% of missile mass for the launch cells, you can fit 20 VLS cells of 28cm missiles in that same Major Battery.