Re: construction times...

Excerpts from FT: 9-Dec-96 Re: construction times... by
M.J.Elliott@uk22p.bull.c 
> While the comparisons with WWII era ships is useful up to a point, I
don't
> think it stands up to the extent that Hal has described. If you
compare our
> present space technology with say the naval technology of the 15th or
16th 
> century then space craft are a _lot_ smaller. The space shuttle only
has a 
> crew of 5, Apollo had only 3. Compared to the ships of Columbus thats 
> pretty small.
>  
> I therefore have no problem in the spaceships in FT being a _lot_
smaller 
> than the equivalent WWII ships.
>  
> Automation takes the place of people and doesn't require life support 
> systems, receation space and so on.

I dunno... I kinda like Niven & Pournelle's discussion on the background
for _The Mote in God's Eye_... but then, the ships had the Langston
Fields (wouldn't that be a fun one? ^_^ ) so they didn't just blow up. 
But then, FT has shields... it's an interesting question.

(The excerpt: 
  The Langston Field is crucial to the Empire, too.  The Navy can
survive partial destruction and keep fighting. [The Fields don't
collapse all at once; you can burn through, so they're probably a lot
like FT's shields --Aaron]  Ships carry black boxes -- plug-in sets of
spare parts -- and large crews who have little to do unless half of them
get killed.  That's much like the navies of fifty years ago.
  A merchant ship might have a crew of forty.  A warship of similar size
carries a crew ten times as large.  Most have little to do for most of
the life of the ship.  It's only in battles that the large number of
self-programming computers become important.  *Then* the outcome of the
battle may depend on having the largest and best-trained crew -- and
there aren't many prizes for second place in battle.
      -- from _N-Space_, p.466 )

Also, if you play with boarding parties, you're going to want some sort
of available force on board to capture and then crew enemy ships; and as
long as they're there, you might as well use them, as Damage Control if
nothing else.  (See, for example, the paratroopers on the Julius Fusik
(sp?) in Tom Clancy's _Red Storm Rising_ -- they were trained to put out
shipboard fires.)

Other examples probably abound; I've been trying to dredge up my
memories of _Voyage of the Star Wolf_, but come up a bit blank --time to
read it again, I guess. ^_^  (I do recall that they were turning out
Liberty Ships at something like one every eleven days or so, from 7 or 9
factories... crew was roughly 100 or so.  I'm sure someone else can fix
those numbers. ^_^ )

All in all, I'd say large military crews are not at all unlikely.

		    Aaron Teske
		    Mithramuse+@cmu.edu