Re: size of ships...

At 01:04 AM 12/17/96 -0500, you wrote:
>
>Which brings up a point... am I the only one here who thinks long,
slender
>spaceships don't make sense?

A friend of mine (Chris, one of the Nipponese) and I had a discussion
about
this in University. The conclusion that we came to was that "it
depends." :-)

A long, slender ship (essentially needle shaped, with all comparisons
made
to a spherical "Death Star") will be harder to turn around; with so much
of
it's mass out on the ends, it has a lot of rotational inertia. However,
it
should be fairly easy to spin the ship on its axis. In that case, damage
to
one side of the ship would be easier to overcome as the ship could
rotate
that part of the hull out of the way. 

A long, slender ship presents a much larger broadside, meaning that a
broadside volley would have a greater percentage of its guns brought to
bear. If you have weapons that require reloading/recharging, a long,
slender
ship with a fast rotation (to get the guns on the other sides of the
hull to
bear) could keep a nasty rate of fire going. It also presents a smaller
frontal area, making it harder to hit as it advances. A frontal shot
would
have to go through a lot of mass in order to hit the critical command
centre
(in the middle of the ship) or the engines. Of course, hits to the side
would not have to penetrate far in order to hit the ship's vitals. The
ship
may be able to advance easily, but it won't be able to turn around
easily.
Definitely a ship design for "jousting."

The other thing to remember is that a perfectly spherical ship would
have a
lot of wasted space, if you assume human occupants. Unless the ship is
very
big, a lot of the volume near the hull will be curved and not easily
used by
humans.

What we decided was that neither a long needle nor a sphere were the
best
ship designs in all cases. We decided that the best "overall" design was
probably a fat ellipsoid, a shape that's essentially a compromise
between
the two. 

>In fact, you could argue that ships should be wider than they are long,
>rather than the other way around. This allows you to concentrate more
>firepower/ defences/ sensors/ whatever forward. If you stick a couple
engines
>on either side of this mass, the elongated moment-arm makes it easier
to turn
>faster -- while the crew, near the center, is hit with less G-force.

The problem with mounting all of the weapons forward (and it's actually
not
a bad idea) is that you are vulnerable to flanking attacks. When we
discussed ship shapes, we came to the conclusion that the ships would be
designed not for stand alone fighting but as fleet ships. You might have
a
majority of short, squat ships like you described in the front of the
fleet,
with a few long, slender ships defending the flanks (left, right, upper,
and
lower). Inside the fleet, you would have your ECM ships, and some nasty
close defense ships (as well as the reserve). You would then end up with
interlocking arcs of fire. Your fleet would look less like the British
fleet
at Jutland and more like a "box" of B17s. 

Has anyone tried this kind of design system in FT? One where it's almost
impossible to get "inside" the enemy fleet and if the enemy does, it
comes
under withering interlocking fire arcs. It might make an interesting
tactic.

Allan Goodall:	agoodall@sympatico.ca 
"You'll want to hear about my new obsession.
 I'm riding high upon a deep depression. 
 I'm only happy when it rains."    - Garbage