Re: more fleet actions...

> From: [email removed] (Steve Higginbotham)
> Subject: (3631) more fleet actions...
>
> Actually, I suspect that the top-end composites do have that strength.
> And I suspect that if you investigate the design differences between
> Naval vessels and merchants (Real World), you will find very little
> difference structurally, other than the presence of armour on some Navy
> ships.

  Yes, but real world ships don't have to pull 6G. There were some talk
about the inertial compensators removing the inertia that would tear the
ship up during 6G manuevers, but that sounds like a TL11 version of lifting
oneself in ones hair.

> The primary difference between Navy ships and Civilian ships is
> *Damage Control*  Navy ships have large crews of highly trained young
> men ready to fix these little problems as they come up.  Civilian ships
> don't.

  Aha! Increased crew costs for military (but not civilian) ships!

> I can agree with the idea that a stronger ship should have some internal
> volume expended, as well as mass.  Notice that old High Guard did so.
> Notice that MT hull armour has infinite density (NO VOLUME).

  Only when used on starships and vehicles: Mount it on a normal ship and
watch it swell to its normal proportions (Wet Navy rules).

> I can accept the addition of interior components for structural
> strength.  I doubt it will have much effect on MT warships:  Notice that
> not one of the battleships in "shattered ships" pulls more than 3Gs.

  They are kludges and shouldn't be taken as valid designs.

> And when I was in the Navy, I ran into milspec SCRs that cost $75, when
> the civilian version cost $1.90 in Radio Shack.  So?

  Is there a difference between MTBF for civilian and military ships?
If the military ship needs to have a significantly longer MTBF under
more severe conditions, the military circuits will become more expensive:
More expensive ships.

> MT (and Traveller before it) assume that weapon mass/volume are trivial,
> and that the main effect of a weapon on a ship was increased cost.  This
> is not how the universe works (so far, at least).

  So perhaps we should change MT to be more real in this matter.

> Which expensive bays are those?

  Those that got edited out of the discussion some time back. Originally,
in my reply to Hans letter I talked about forcing military ships to use
bays *and then increase the cost of bays*.

> >  Not if armour (and combat-proof hull) is so expensive that their
> >profits disappear.
>
> If a pirate gets them, their profits disappear too.  It's cheaper to
> make a ship that can survive an attack than not, if attacks are at all
> common.

  The profits disappear both if they armour themselves to withstand the
pirates or if they don't and loose the ship. We have just solved the
mystery of why interstellar commerce disappeared during Hard Times.

:)
  Why isn't squad-cars armoured to withstand tank guns? I could just as
easily say that 'but what if the criminals get tanks?' If you answer
'they won't get tanks' I'll answer 'then the pirates won't get bays either'.
:)

> The condition you describe would NOT reduce the number of warships.  It
> would raise the demand for protection of merchant traffic, and teh Navy
> would get a bigger budget to build MORE ships, which would be even more
> obtrusive than before.

  The navy could protect the merchants using *fewer* ships because each
ship could kick around several pirates.

> If you want to cut the number of warships, try eliminating piracy as a
> consideration.

  I'd like to cut the number of warships to make piracy easier.

> >> In any case it will have little effect on Naval vessels.
> >> If bays cost too much, they'll use a cheaper alternative,
> >
> >  Not if that cheaper alternative is ineffective against their likely
> >opponents. I find it highly doubtful that the Imperium, the Consulate
> >and the Confederation could agree to that no ship can be armored and
> >just cheap weapons can be used:)
> >  It is quite likely that they reduce the number of ships to make each
> >ship more efficient.
>
> A nuclear missile is pretty effective against anyone, even if fired from
> a turret.

  Not in the current system. It could be made less effective against military
ships in a new system by assuming that they have better anti-missile defences
(like sandcaster bays) that cause it to trigger further from the ship.

> >  But you can use that argument against *all* capers to increase the
> >cost of naval ships! If we don't agree that more expensive military
> >vessels will lead to smaller fleets, what are we discussing? :)
>
> I hope we are discussing ways of removing those nuisance warships from
> the scene.

  Yes, and I see no other ways than to either increase the cost of them so that
the Imperium can't afford them or increase the crew so that the Imperium can't
crew them.

  Or perhaps like in SpaceWard Ho!: All metal in the known universe is used
to make warships from, so no more can be built.

> Notice that the size of the US Navy has not changed significantly in 40
> years.  The ships keep getting more expensive, but we keep on building
> new ones to replace the old ones.

  Interesting that you should compare today to 40 years back and not today
to 50 years back:)

> DO NOT INCLUDE PRICE!  GOVERNMENTS HAVE AN
> UNLIMITED BUDGET, if they so desire.

  100% of GNP in taxes is the maximum they will get, and even long before
that their return will begin to decrease with increased taxes.

> [email removed]

- -bertil-
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