RE: [FT] DDs and DHs inspired by WW2 types

On Tue, 29 August 2000, "Jarrard, Jonathan (J.)" wrote:

> The thing that keeps killing me when trying to transfer real-world
20th
> Century designs to FT is firing arcs.  

You have to remember that modern naval ships HAVE to be essentially long
and pointy. It's because they have to push through water. You have to
have a pointy prow, and you have to have as small a surface area on the
front of your ship as possible.

Note that this constraint alone limits the number of main guns firing
out the front of a ship to about 3 or 4 guns in between 1 and three
turrets, stacked behind and above each other. Secondary guns, by
contrast, were usually only good for two fire arcs. The reason: they
were mounted on the sides of the ship, the only area that could hold
them as the rest of the ship was already taken up with the main guns,
superstructure, and machinery. Those main gun turrets, too, are
incredibly expensive in terms of weight. However, naval vessels can't
simply roll along their axis to bring guns on the port side to bear on
the starboard side. They can't move in a direction other than the
direction the ship is facing. Those big hefty turrets are necessary for
giving a ship with minimal manoeuvrability the most options.

In space, you're not pushing through a volume. If you want maximum
surface area for minimum volume, you build a sphere. For that matter, if
you want maximum firepower in your line of motion, you build a
pill-shaped ship with the "front" being the "side" of the pill. You
won't be able to, physically, mount a lot of weapons that cover all fire
arcs, but then you probably don't care. You simply spin to bring all
weapons to bear.

Modern naval ships are NOT the best design for space, and should come
out the worst for wear in Full Thrust.

> Have any of you experimented with restricting the number/kind of
weapons on
> a single arc?

I have, but only because I was creating my own ships and wanted them
long and pointy for a game universe I was using. 

Allan Goodall - agoodall@canada.com
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