Re: Merchant Hulls and Amphibious Vessesls

On Sun, 2 Feb 1997 AEsir@aol.com wrote:

> Having served on a U.S. Navy Amphibious Flagship and seeing merchants,
I can
> tell you that they are not the same.	The Rules in MT regarding
amphibious
> ships should be changed.

Amphibious spaceships...? <g>

>  IF you have a merchant ship and convert it to carry
> troops then you save money on the design and carry the burden of lack
of DC
> capability or hull integrity.

Exactly. However, the MT troop transports (at least in the section Mike 
and Jon wrote) seem to be purpose-built troop transports - but without 
the high structural integrity and the many redundant systems of the true

warships; not a hastily converted liner.

Note, however, that most space liners would probably have enough 
auxiliary craft - read 'shuttles' - to let them work as troop
transports, 
at least for infantry, without too large refits. The difference between
a 
landing shuttle and a military assault shuttle is probably quite a bit 
less than that between a wet naval landing craft and a wet naval
life-boat.

With a 'container' type space freighter (which isn't unreasonable, 
and which is implied in the other idea for troop transports in MT), a 
container could be constructed to carry troops and/or shuttles instead
of 
cargo. The containers needn't be loaded inside the ship as on today's 
container carriers; I'd rather imagine them as being carried in external

'hooks' (...look at the large CMD/GZG freighters, or the ships in 
'Moonbase Alpha'...).

>   True Amphibious ships are warships that devote their mass to troops
instead
> of weapons but they still maintain the same level of hull integrity
and
> Damage Control capability.

A space troop transport wouldn't need to close enough to the planet to 
get shot at, if it's shuttles have a long enough range... and thus 
wouldn't necessarily need to have the extra hull integrity.

Regards,

Oerjan Ohlson

"Father, what is wrong?"
"My shoes are too tight. But it does not matter, because
 I have forgotten how to dance."
- Londo Mollari