Johannes replied to me: > > Depending on the stardrive assumptions, you get battleships or > > fighters. A destroyer navy could be tricky. > > > > A space police might use destroyers. They need a ship that is mightier > then a frighter comandeered by criminals, with propably some impovised > weapons attached. They need to carry enough space marines, to secure a > freighter. Anything larger is overkill for their mission.
Hello Johannes, I believe we're getting a situation like the 1870s or 1880s. The warships had heavy armor, and sails for safety and range reasons. Commercial ships optimized for the shorter routes could outrun them. For a steamer, furled sails would cost 1.5 knots or so. 1869: The Cutty Sark is launched. She could get 17.15 knots with a favorable wind. 1872: The White Star liner Adriatic crosses the Atlantic at an average 14.53 knots. 1875: HMS Shannon is launched. She has 12.25 knots top speed. That is listed as the top speed, not the sustained speed ... My TL15 4,000,000-ton cruiser can do 5 pc/day and 25 G. My TL15 30,000-ton freighter, running light, can make 12 pc/day and 4 G. She consists of a big stardrive and power plant, contragrav and a relatively small sublight drive, and thin armor. A destroyer to catch such a ship would be so lightly armed that it becomes useless in a fleet action. > Alternativly one or more goverments might adopt the strategy to put their > power in very few super dreadnoughts, and keep a relativly large fleet of > destroyers, for scout and patrol missions. Those destroyers would have little combat value. The wet navy memes include aircraft carriers, submarines, and submarine weapons (torpedoes). Imagine a situation where you have just wet navy surface ships and guns. The destroyer would be back to the gunboat configuration (for colonial service, gunboat diplomacy, and shore bombardment). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_class_gunboat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigilant_class_gunvessel Regards, Onno _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
