[DSII] Ship Designs

Specifically, riverine patrol craft.  I've been acquiring a collection
of GHQ Vietnam riverine craft over the past few months (still have some
ATCs sitting around to pick up after the con).	Not going to have time
to play with 'em before I go, but it's on the list of 'things to do
someday'.

But I'm running into problems with designing them. 

Take the 'Swift' boats.  Typical mid-size craft.  A twin .50 cal, and a
.50cal/81mm mortar in an over-under configuration.  No problem:
3xAPSW, 1xLight Artillery (direct fire only).  Two of the APSWs are
linked and may only fire at the same target, the other must target a
stand in the burst radius of the 81mm if the 81mm also fires.  

8 capacity points with three rounds for the 81mm counted in free.

Size 2.

Here's the catch--a Swift boat is considerably larger than, say, an M-1
Abrams.  In fact, it's almost exactally twice as long, and the cabin
which takes up about 40% of the length is taller than the Abrams's
turret.  Given a size 3 or 4 Abrams (I use 'em as Size 4 in the Georgian
Orbats, YMMV), and a definitely Size 4 Basil II (I use the mini on the
front cover of Dirtside), the _smallest_ I'd feel comfortable classing a
Swift boat as is Size 5.  Probably no more than armor 1 or 2, but still
size 5.

Let's go to the numbers.
Size 2	10
Armor 1  2
CFE	 2
Boat	 1
2xAPSW	 8
1xLt Art 20
Total	 43 points if I build it as size class two, which fits all the
weapons.

Size 5	25
Armor 1  5
CFE	 5
Boat	2.5
2xAPSW	 8
1xLt Art 20
Total	85.5 if I build it as size class 5, which is where it all fits.

Now, my thought is that if we are going to encourage historically
accurate riverine craft (reason for historical accuracy: on a high-tech
planet, they'll build GEV tanks instead and screw the riverine craft)
we'll want to encourage people to remember that boats are built for
longer-term accomodation than tanks, are built in a more open, less
compact style than tanks, and hence larger.  They are also are also
cheaper--this makes up for the fact that they are easy targets and are
restricted to waterways.  

Some thoughts on costing this point _decrease_.  How about reducing
total price for our Swift boat by 10 points per level bought?  This
gives us 13 point Swift boats if you originally build them as size 2. 
This doesn't sound right.  Too cheap.  Maybe you build them as size 5,
but since you put no more than a size-class 2's worth of weapons on
them, they get that 10 points per size level difference off the pice of
the size 5 boats.  Hence a 55.5 point Swift boat?  You can also only buy
armor as per the level of the size class you're basing the weapon fit
on, not the actual size class.	

This is a real rough bunch of ideas, feel free to shred it to bits with
dazzling calculations of statistics.

John M. Atkinson