Re: 3 arc cost

[snip]
 
>It's possible to build a 2 arc (really 3 arc) weapon in a turret system
>and still get it to cover all of the various positions.  To get a
>system that can cover 5 arcs, then you must mount the gun/laser
>battery on a special location (i.e. the very tip/nose of the ship) or
>actually move the gun from one location to another on the ship.
 
That's only necessary if you consider each "beam system" (such as a
single C-battery) to be a single barrel (or equivalent). If it's a
coordinated system of barrels, it does not have to have a 6-degree
turret; it could, instead, have a set of 3-degree (or some-such)
turrets, each covering one arc of the system coverage. The local
fire-control system is only capable of tracking and firing in one
arc at a time. This would correspond to wet-navy parlance, where a
"battery" may be a *set* or *system* of guns.
   With this conception, the FCS (or multiple FCSs) of the ship
ship handles target identification and designation, and the local FCS
of the weapon system handles fine targetting and firing. If the
ship's primary FCS system is knocked out, the local FCS no longer
receives target designations, and can only engage close targets,
if appropriate for the type of weapon (e.g., a C-battery in PDAF role).
 
[snip]
 
- Sam

________________________________________
 Samuel Reynolds, The Registry
 reynol@primenet.com
 <http://www.primenet.com/~reynol>