Re: OT[DS2]TD Design

> 
> I agree that the costs to build turreted vehicle must be expensive and
> that a colony, specially primarly farming or mining, would not have
the
> factories to build the needed vehicles where as the SP guns would be
far
> easier and cheaper.  David

Seriously, I'd have doubts about a colony world being able to produce
and armoured _anything_ larger than a basic APC (and then I'd be
doubtful)

Working from the point of view of _current_ technology :

Problems include : 

Simply making the castings for, say the turret or parts of the hull,
rolling the armour plate (in the American civil war, neither side had
the capacity to roll more than one inch thicknesses of armour, and 4 one
inch plates does _not_ equal one four inch plate)  This requires
specialised heavy industry that a colony simply wouldn't have

The tank transmission and engine are like nothing else on earth.  It has
to be incredibly conpact and able to generate and transmit very high
power levels.  This is a specialised art.

The tank's main gun is not just an oversized rifle.  The sighting
system, elevation gear, gyrostabiliser, etc are all very specialised
too.  Think about at least a thermal imager and laser sensor.  Then when
you get into DS level tech you have to add ECM etc.

The suspension needs to be able to carry a 40 to 60 ton vehicle smoothly
over rough ground.  

Basically they wouldnt' have the skills or the industrial capacity.

Overall, I would doubt the capacity of anything short of an
industrialised world to produce anything larger than a size 2 APC armed
with machine guns.

They would have to be imported.

-- 
Barry Cadwgan ( BCADWGAN@FL.NET.AU )
http://www.users.fl.net.au/~bcadwgan/homepage.htm
"The end does not justify the means.  
 The end is the sum of the means,
 as the road travelled determines the destination." 
Valijon Starbringer (Hellflower Trilogy, Eluki bes Shahar)