Wargaming is presently streaming Canadian Vice Admiral Angus Topshee playing World of Warships from aboard HMCS Vancouver.
They are presently asking his professional opinion of "naval" warfare in science fiction franchises.
Christopher Weuve, an acquaintance of mine, often speaks on the same topic.
I bow to his superior knowledge, since actually works for the US Department of Defense as a Naval Analyst
Christopher Weuve has a "must read" list for anyone who wants to understand strategy and tactics as applied to science fiction.
There are five books:
https://projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewartactic.php#id--Tactics--Basic_Tactics
@nyrath @cerebrate @Dandelion I think whether carriers are favored over dreadnoughts depends on how miniaturized antiship weapons are. If only a big ship can carry enough firepower to destroy another big ship, you have battleships. If gunboats or fighters carry weapons that can mission kill a capitol ship, you disperse those in swarms launched from a base carrier.
@60sRefugee @nyrath @cerebrate @Dandelion
when I imagine future sci-fi spacegoing warships I sometimes like to limit myself to minimizing assumptions & hypotheticals, while still punting on harder "which A-vs-B paths do we go down" Qs a bit longer
when I apply that strategy I sometimes like to assume that in 2030 to 2130 era:
* we WILL have space warships (cuz history: bring war everywhere)
* oldest ones based on SpaceX Starship
* role-tailored variants
* missile cruisers & drone carriers
@synlogic @60sRefugee @cerebrate @Dandelion
If anybody is interested, I have a web page with quite a few people's theories on combat spacecraft design...
https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewarship.php
Probably it will be something like this and not WW2-style combats like those seen in space opera films.
@cerebrate @Dandelion
The Christopher Weuve transcript I have handy is here:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/09/28/aircraft-carriers-in-space/