Subject: Re: "Can this univers be saved?"
Hans Rancke-Madsen writes:
>Then "Azhanti High Lightning" and later "Fighting Ships" told us
>about the juggernauts of the Imperial fleet: 60.000 T ships by
>the gross, 100 and 200.000 T ships by (at least) the dozen. Why,
>then, don't they buy one less dreadnaught and enough Kinunirs
>to put a couple in each starsystem, thus ending piracy forever?
>It's those high-population worlds that does it. Look at Mora, a
>world with 10 billion people. According to "Trillion..." each
>contributes Cr 500 per year to the naval budget. That's Cr
>5.000.000.000.000 (five *trillions*). Naval investments are
>equal to 10 times the yearly budget; so Mora alone can finance
>*fifty* squadrons. Of course, some of that will have to be used
>on local planetary defenses. Anybody want to calculate the
>number of meson cannons you can buy for a third of fifty
>trillion credit?
Without the rules and a calculator, I'm not sure if the money you're talking
is several orders of magnitude higher than it "should be." If it isn't, don't
forget that the tax money has to pay for:
Salaries
Maintenance
Command facilities and employees
Spare parts
Fuel
Military pensions
Military hospitals
Research
Recruitment
"ROTC" programs
(lots of other things)
and not just for equipment. That 10x annual figure in equipment value seems
excessive.
Throw in some graft, political lobbying costs, advertising, losses to
pirates, and the like, and hopefully you can justify significantly lower
values of ships actually in service.
-Andrew Bell
[email removed]