Re: Battlecruisers

Michael Blair wrote:

> Battlecruisers
> From what I hear of the new ship design rules we should be able to
have

> proper battle cruisers ("The agility of a cruiser and the firepower of
a 
> battleship but don't kick it, your foot might go through the hull").

Yup. Live fast, die young, like :-/ And in the FB design rules a BC with
the same armament as a BB will in all likelyhood be a bit larger - just
as many wet navy BCs were larger than wet navy BBs with similar
armaments
(but heavier armour and weaker engines).

> Strange, I hate the things but I want to be able to model them
properly

> and I am looking forward to the new Chatham book on them.

They didn't seem to work very well in naval practise, either - though
that may be because the admirals tried to use them as battleships rather
than as cruisers...

> In SF I always assumed they were almost exactly the same as a
battleship 
> only without the several metres of foamed steel/ceramic armour, the 
> reduced mass giving better acceleration at the expense of durability.

That depends entirely on what background you're reading. Most military
SF
I've read (notably but certainly not exclusively Weber <g>) use
"battlecruiser" as an intermediate size between "heavy cruiser" and
"battleship" instead of using your (historically correct) definition.

Later,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@nacka.mail.telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
- Hen3ry