RE: [semi-OT] Aircraft Vs Dreadnoughts

Interesting, I wonder if the USN is trying to get the funding for this.
As a layman, I would guess they could easily reduce crew requirements by
half as well as designing the defences for the greatest protection in
modern
air combat.   

Neath Southern Skies -http://home.pacific.net.au/~southernskies/
[MKW2] Admiral Peter Rollins - Task Force Zulu-Beta
[Firestorm] Battletech PBeM GM

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alan and Carmel Brain [SMTP:aebrain@dynamite.com.au]
> Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2001 2:02 PM
> 
> Personally, I'd like to see the manufacture of new BBs. It'd only cost
> as much as 5 Nimitz's to get the infrastructure in place,  then less
> than a Nimitz each.
> 
> For 4 BBs this would still be cheaper after 5 years than keeping the
> current ones in service. The huge crew size required, the training in
> 1930s
> and 1940s technology needed, the upkeep of "we haven't made those
parts
> for over 50 years" equipment etc are all very very costly items.
> 
> All of the above are my own back-of-the-envelope estimates, based on
> various
> reports to the US Congress and articles in the USNI Proceedings. So
take
> em with a grain of salt. It might be 4 Nimitz's, or 6. It might be 3
> years,
> or 10.
> The "5 Nimitz" figure assumes construction techniques borrowed from
the
> Nimitz class BTW, more of a monocoque construction than the 5-keel-