Re: Honor Harrington: Ideas for conversion?

Sorry about that partial message yesterday.  I was working on a terminal
at the school's computer center when a bunch of garbage from the central
server came on the screen.  Following the wonderful advice of the
oh-so-skilled experts staffing the place, the letter was sent as is
instead of just clearing the garbage off the screen.  I suppose that I
have to give them half credit--the garbage was cleared out of the
letter.
I didn't even realize the message had been sent until it came back to
me a little while later, and by then I had to go.  Oh well.
Needless to say, I hate the school's system, but unlimited internet
access for $20 a semester is hard to beat.  :>

Anyway......

Suggestion for the Impeller wedges and sidewalls for the Honor
Harrington universe:

We are fighting in a 2D environment, so IMHO a ship is either flying
with it's wedges or sidewalls engagable by the enemy.  Each ship is
declared to be either flying "normally" with the wedges up and down
relative to the playing surface;  the ship can fire and be fired at
through the sidewalls, which are along the plane of the playing
surface.  The sidewalls would be the shields as we know them.

OR...

The ship is "rolled up" with its impeller wedges interposed on
the plane of the playing surface and can therefore not fire.  It 
also can not be damaged except down the throat or up the kilt.

Every ship is simply declared to be in one position or the other,
and it can change between the two during the movement phase.

Problem:  are impeller wedges truly impervious?  It has been a
little while since I read these.  If they are, with a 2D system
like FT, interposing the wedges would seem to allow for "suicide
missions" like some destroyer running up on a superdreadnought
and being safe from damage at long range.  This may not be a 
problem because I seem to recall that damage is possible through
the wedges, it's just not easy.

Question on the sidewalls:  these are like the shields that we are
familiar with, but would they be like the ones in FT or are they
more like the ablative ones that have popped up here occasionally?

That's my $0.01. (Hey, I'm a poor starving actor.  I can't afford
		  as much as the rest of you.  :)  )

Out here.

	-monty