Re: [FT\DS2] Fleet and Army sizes for games

Mr. Bell wrote:
> Reconfigurable warships should be more expensive than standard
> because of the increased access points needed in the wiring,cabling,
> ducting,plumbing and structural systems to allow them to be
> configurable.
...
> There is a reason that no wet navy has tried this, even though it is
> nice on paper.

I don't know... depends on what scale you're talking about.  Just about
every
Navy since World War II has flown fighter craft that can carry about
whatever
sorts of armaments you feel like hanging off a pylon.  You could carry
extra
fuel tanks, bombs, missiles, whatever... if the plane's capable of
lugging it
around, you can arm it.  The most obvious example in the U.S. Navy today
would
be the F/A-18 -- stick air-to-air missiles on it and it's an
interceptor;
stick air-to-surface missiles on it and it's a bomber.

I see no reason why fighters or even small ships in FT couldn't advance
that
technology forward to a degree where, such as in the case of my
"submunition
bombs", a ship armed partially or entirely with expendible ordnance
couldn't
be fitted with just about any other similar-sized ordnance in place of
whatever
it used up on the previous sortie.  I don't know if it would be real
believable that a "ship of the wall" could just have all its weapons
torn out
and replaced, no.  However, even "ships of the wall" have some of this
ability
in FT in the form of whether they wish to deploy ER or normal missiles
in their
SML magazines.	Similarly, I see little cause for why, if the technology
is
available, a small craft couldn't simply deploy any sort of ammunition
in its
one-shot arsenal, possibly mounting these on pylons much like
present-day
fighter craft... and maybe mixing those weapons pods with spare drive
pods,
etc.  If all of the pieces were small enough that a navy could
mass-produce
them, I don't see a reason why you couldn't fit a small ship with them
at all.
-- 
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