RE: Wet Navy in the future was Re: Questions regarding NAC ground units, was SG IF morale

--- Beth.Fulton@csiro.au wrote:

> > Other than that, I doubt it.  There just ain't the
> > same call for blue-water naval supremacy.  You can
> > plink from orbit--there's no terrain to hide in 
> 
> Assuming they overcome the 'cline problems they
> currently have. We still
> have troubles using orbital stuff to identify
> anything between sea bottom
> 10-30m down due to internal waves and the
> thermocline etc. So the same
> things that currently hide subs etc from surface
> ships will probably still
> hide them from satellites (at least based on

Yeah, I could see doing the submarine warfare thing. 
Although as a ground-pounder I've always been partial
to the whole "Overrun their port--they gotta come back
for fresh veggies sometime" theory of sea supremacy. 
Now, if on your planet a significant portion of the
population lives in underwater domes, there are large
auqaculture (is this the right word for kelp farming
and fish ranching??) stations, and your heavy industry
is based around undersea mineral nodules, then things
change signficantly.  You start having to take
underwater cities and that leads to a whole new kettle
of fish.

But surface ships are probably still right out for the
reasons mentioned above.

As a side note, what's the difference between a
starship and a submarine?  Both have to be
water/vacuum proof--what's to stop a streamlined ship
from splashing into an ocean and hiding on the bottom
of the sea for a while, then flying out to launch
hit-and-run strikes on the enemy?

John

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