Re: OUDF - Railguns??

In message <004701c0a206$6433e540$c3fc0e3f@pavilion>
	  "Laserlight" <laserlight@quixnet.net> wrote:

> > Wandering slighly off topic, when the UNSC ships came out, a lot of
> > people looked at them and said 'spinal mount' - however, IIRC, the
> > Islamic Federation Battleship looks like most of the front end of
> the
> > ship is 4 (or more) huge cannon - but AFAIK no-one has suggested
> that it
> > also mounts a spinal mount weapon - I wonder why?
> >
> > Charles
> 
> Number one, that thing on the bow is in the way of the "cannon".
> Number two, I have been the noisiest advocate of the Islamic Fed, and
> I didn't design one.
> Number three, the general perception is, I believe, that the IF is
> lower tech than the four Major Powers, and spinal guns ought to be
> better, not worse.
> 
As to point 3, the following scenario comes to mind - they by an
obsolite SDN from a major power, strip out the large (in facter larger
than modern) beam cannon - and build ships arround them.
As a general comment, IMHO, a 'spinal' mount is a weapon rigidly built
into the ships hull (possibly so far as to have the weapon comprising
some of the hulls structural integrity) - to me, this does not appear to
be 'high tech' - ok, many weapons advocated as spinal mounts _are_ high
tech - like my own Spacial Discontinuity Cannon :-)

Charles