From: kgnome@cs.concordia.ca (MATIS stephane)
Subject: Re: BIG Naval Ships... Why not!?
Summary: Engines not available 
Keywords: engines 
Organization: Computer Science, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec
Distribution: world 
Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1992 03:19:33 GMT

In article <1992Dec26.223630.1425@netcom.com> lunatic@netcom.com (Lunatic Johnathan Bruce E'Sex) writes:
>In article <1992Dec26.142845.7065@gw.wmich.edu> x90vanderkol@gw.wmich.edu writes:
>>In article <Bzuxro.F9u@newsflash.concordia.ca>, kgnome@cs.concordia.ca (MATIS stephane) writes:
>>> Does anyone have any good arguments as to why it is impossible to design
>>> a modern day (or even WWII vintage) naval vessel.  I mean something big
>>> enough to scare the bejebbers out of an Overlord-class dropship.
>>> 16-inch naval guns and all (hmmm.... lots of NACs, Arrow IVs, Naval
>>> Energy Guns, Naval Missiles and all that).
>[Good ideas for converting space naval weapons to ocean naval weapons
> deleted]
>>
>>	With all this talk about Naval ship has peaked my interest, when is
>>BATTLESPACE comming out? Will it also have design rules for dropships and
>>Combat Jumpships? 
> 
>    ___
>     |hese two topics go together well.
>    ___
>     |he reason it's impractical, right now, to design ocean naval
> vessels larger than 300 tons is because engines don't exist to power
> them.  With only a suspension factor of 30, 215 tons is the largest
> ocean naval vessel you can make that moves at a crusing speed of even
> _2_.  Everything from 216-300 tons has a max speed of _1_.  Since this
> isn't open space, these ships can't build up any velocity, like slow
> dropships can, too.
>
>    \/\/here BattleSpace comes in is that it WILL have rules to design
> space naval ships.  This, hopefully, will provide the rules for the
> larger engine sizes needed for large ocean naval vessels.  I haven't
> seen any indication that FASA has thought of this, as well, so there
> probably won't be anything mentioned in BattleSpace about ocean naval
> vessels.  Wouldn't it be funny to see the looks on people's faces,
> though, if when they opened up BattleSpace they found rules for ocean
> naval vessels, as well?  ("I knew this game was about warship combat,
> but I didn't know it included THOSE kinds of warships!" :)
>
>    |\|o shipping date has been announced for BattleSpace, yet.
>
>-- 
>   _______________________________________________________
>  /         -= Lunatic Johnathan Bruce E'Sex     (:      /
> /  lunatic@netcom.com  GEnie: LUNATIC  CI$: 76170,672  /
>/______________________________________________________/

Gene here again.  Ok, Lunatic, you say that a move of 1 is the most that
could be accomplished.  Ok, so explain an Overlord dropship having 3/5
thrust.  Obviously the IS has the capacity to make engines over 400 in
rating.  I think the key thing to remember is that every FASA design
over 100 tons (except the screwy 107.5 ton Grand Titan... I was amused
when Steph showed me that one) has been a rule-of-thumb design (does
that sound about right, guys?  Yup, ok, lets publish it).

Maybe Battlespace will include new rules that could be adapted to
aquatic naval vessels.  I don't think it will be geared that way though.
BattleTech tends to utterly ignore the importance of naval warfare by
claiming that space warfare supercedes it but then they turn around and
say that there are very few spacecraft (lovely logic no?).

I figure that until these new rules are published, the best way to
design naval craft is to grab a listing of the stats of modern ships and
to make a lots of educated guesses.  A NAC40 (I think that's the biggest
naval Acannon - sorry if I don't own 2750) would be comparable to a
16-inch naval gun.  Basically, make a lot of approximations and voila, a
lovely mobile fortress, with attitude.  Of course, submarines would be
preferable since they can submerge to avoid Clan orbital bombardment
(an aircraft carrier isn't something a simple Dropship would want to
tangle with so a warship would be called in).

Anyways, I hope somebody liked my suggestions.


Gene Marcil

Army brat, agnostic, and moody.
And that's just my good side.