Re: [FT] Battlecruisers vs. battleships

I'm not the naval historian you gentlemen seem to be, but allow me to
make a 
couple observations, and you can then pick them apart. ;-)

Eric Foley wrote:

>Well, the Hood was like the battlecruisers that went down at Jutland in
the
>only way that really mattered, in the end:  her design traded armor for
>speed,

*SNIP*

>the fact remains that
>the battlecruiser concept wasn't really that wildly popular in any navy
>other than the British,

>From the little I've gleaned from reading/watching about British naval 
design, the reason for the British reliance on speed over armor,
especially 
in the designs fielded at Jutland, primarily lay in the extent of the 
British Empire and the need to project force across the entire globe
rather 
quickly -- let's call it a need for strategic speed, not tactical speed.
 
The German navy in WWI, by contrast, focused mostly on defense of the
German 
coasts and seas around	them.

However, while this MAY have been a justification for such designs 
historically, it doesn't hold up in FT.  That's because FTL is FTL 
regardless of ship size, sacrificing armor for strategic speed is not 
necessary for force projection, and tactical speed is easily reached,
since 
in space combat you only need thrust to increase or decrease speed, not 
maintain it.

3B^2

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