Gah, I lost internet for 2 days and missed out on a lot of interesting discussion, goddamnit. Well, here goes.
That sounds about right for a CA, especially if there's a high degree of automation in the works. What I find interesting, but appreciative of, is the crews working dress uniforms aren't the outlandish pirate gear, but a cargo pants, t-shirt, ship's jacket, ball cap... they give an impression of, while not
quite being a naval vessel, at least a PMC of sorts.
Like I said earlier, given that the
Corback is termed as a
goeikan/escort ship, I'm inclined to think it's a destroyer, since what the JMSDF calls an escort ship (like the
Kongo and
Atago-class escort ships) are what other navies call destroyers (cf US
Arleigh-Burke-class destroyer, of which the
Kongo and
Atago are variant classes of).
Also, while battlecruisers in games and SF tend to be decent at tanking, IRL they weren't so effective in the line of battle, because BCs only have heavy cruiser armor, which can't tank BB shells, and they're bigger than CAs, which means they're easier targets to hit. Since
Bentenmaru is also smaller than
Odette II, I would strongly argue that this ship is classed as a heavy cruiser - fast enough to chase fleeing merchies, fast enough to run from BBs, and powerful enough to kill DDs and other escorts.
That's the beauty of a CA: it can kill what it can't outrun, and it can outrun what it can't kill.
Much of what has been said about this has been said already, so I'll just add that the Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors didn't destroy Kurita's fleet, but drove them off, and in the end despite everything, the tin cans eventually took hits.
It was still balls out badass. Of that, I do not deny.
With regard to the
Corback-class, I'm inclined to think that they're destroyer-class vessels; the JMSDF nomeculture used for them,
goeikan/escort ship, is what other navies call destoryers. Again, USN-style Surface Action Group: 1 BB + 4 DD. DDs cover the BB and act as meat shields if necessary, while the BB concentrates on picking off the targets.
That's if we assume that onboard the pursued ship in Grunhild - and the website notes that she's
illegitimate... Again, so long as the aggressors cover their tracks, all that the Serenity government could see from the wreckage is a destroyed
Corback, killed by unknown enemies.
Classing a warship leans more towards their tonnage and armor, not their guns, which was the whole point of Germany's
Deutschland-class cruisers, which the Royal Navy called pocket battleships: heavy cruisers with battleship guns. Note also the USN's Alaska-class heavy cruiser, which was just
slightly smaller than the
Iowa-class battleships.
Interestingly, the three German pocket battleships - which the Kriegsmarine later classed as heavy cruisers, based on their displacement - were tasked with commerce raiding, sinking and capturing enemy shipping. Now why does that sound familiar....
tl;dr above:
Bentenmaru is equivalent to the Kriegsmarine's pocket battleships: a heavy cruiser class ship with battleship-level guns, combining the agility, speed and endurance of a CA with the firepower of a BB, into a very effective commerce raider - which is
exactly what a space pirate needs.
Also, this may just be me, but it looks like electronic warfare is
awesome but impractical for large-scale engagements when the aggressor is outnumbered, given that so far the hacking EW we've seen involves taking over a single ship. Conventional EW (ECM, ECCM, etc) appears to still be viable, however.