Re: (FT) beta variable hull rows

 On the effectiveness of 3-row UN style hulls, I have to
 strongly disagree with Glen for ships up to light cruiser
 size. I fought a series of solo test battles with UN
 light designs against similar NAC and found that the 3
 row hull was no advantage at all. A weak regular hull with
 an equivalent 'row' of armour, or a screen for a heavy
 destroyer, has better resistance at about the same point
 cost. Or the regular hull ship with average design will
 be bigger with more weaponry which cancels out the extra
 couple of hull boxes. (Alien weaponry might be different.)

 On battleship and larger designs, I disagree with Glen but
 with less confidence than above. I've been slowly putting
 together a set of Babylon 5 Shadow designs scaled down to
 GZG-verse size. Initially they had regular hulls but when
 the UN beta rules came out I switched to 3-row hulls. It
 makes them initially harder to threshhold, but boy! are
 those hulls expensive.

 At equal mass, a 3-row hull ship is superior as would be
 expected from the extra points. If you just go to equal
 points and don't increase the masses of the regulars, the
 3-rowers should win, (eg 5 x 600pt 3-row dreadnaughts vs
 6 x 500pt 4-row dreadnaughts) but this is no different
 from the standard FT scaling problem of 1 x 500 pt being
 superior to 2 x 250. If you have equal points and numbers,
 it's even.

 My two cents (Aus) worth.

	cheers,
	Hugh