Re: [GZG] Monster ships

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http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOhhhh  my
freind, I think that explains difference in the scales,  Man portible
to Vehical (Smaller than 20 meters) to Ship (100 tons and bigger). 

--- On Thu, 1/14/10, Zoe Brain <aebrain@webone.com.au> wrote:

From: Zoe Brain <aebrain@webone.com.au>
Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Date: Thursday, January 14, 2010, 7:36 AM

On 14/01/2010 10:41 AM, Charles Lee wrote: 

I wish I could meet you in person. I'ld shake your hand. A calm and
logical debater. We may not agree but I think both are lookin at the
others evidence and thinkin.
In a naval context... Sunburns still give me the willies. 

They come in so quickly, you can usually distract/seduce them, they just
don't have time to sort out the wheat from the chaff (so to speak). But
shooting them down is tricky. Too many chances to get it wrong, too many
chances for a bad sea state, or someone being 3 seconds slow on the
uptake, or..

Hypervelocity kinetic missiles ditto. No point in filling the air full
of shrapnel in front of them if you do so at a range of 3cm, because it
takes you 0.5secs to slew and fire.

Victory often goes to the side that gives the other side more
opportunities to make mistakes. Many of the more successful military
tactics, doctrines or weapons do just exactly that - give the enemy lots
of opportunities to screw up. Things that are easily dealt with in
theory may work rather better in practice.Or vice-versa - kit that looks
formidable on paper may be ineffective.

The "pop-up" Emerson turret that allowed a TOW missile to be fired from
turret-down locations was a really good idea... but with some 40+
hydraulic lines in a real birdsnest, maintaining it was a nightmare, and
its serviceability was as close to zero as makes no difference. Move
1-2km cross-country and the crew would be certain to get a bath of
hydraulic fluid from one hose or another. Taking hours to fix. 

Getting back on topic....

One system I would like to see - an advanced anti-missile fire control.
Its effects are simple - instead of allocating dice to missile/fighter
targets then rolling to hit, you roll to hit and then allocate.

As regards time of turns etc - 15 mins works well. You assume that about
every 15 mins you'll get a fleeting targeting solution in the background
ECM environment. Weapons are thus designed not for continuous fire, but
bursts at high output. After the ether has been filled with incoming and
outgoing salvoes, all solutions are lost, and it takes about 15 mins to
find them again. Hence the "turns", where you have to pre-plan your
movement rather than continuously updating every few seconds in
accordance with enemy moves, and the phenomenon of "overshoot" where
you're out of range at one firing opportunity, and behind the enemy at
the next. Weapons would be designed to have about a 10 min recycle time.

It's PSB to justify the game mechanics, but it's plausible.

Zoe (sometime Spaceflight Avionics Designer and Naval Combat System
Architect) 

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