Tom was looking for some civilian liners. A good model for this if you
can latch hold of it is the Subsidized Merchant (Class-M?) from the
old Traveller line. It has the look of a fair sized FT liner. In fact,
it is a liner/cargo hauler hybrid which probably more accurately
reflects the type of ships likely to be deployed in the GZGverse. Only in the
core itself can I see large scale dedicated liners.... and there they would
have good UN coverage.
An interesting one might be a Falklands-in-space type scenario where a
major power has impressed a cruise ship as a troop carrier (quite likely as
big ass troop carriers probably are too expensive to keep
around for little normal day-to-day usage, and you might need one in a
hurry) a la Queen Elizabeth II. Stick on a few defensive systems, an escort
group, and off she goes. Would make for some good scenarios for FT.
TTFN
> On Thu, 26 Aug 1999, Thomas Barclay wrote:
> An interesting one might be a Falklands-in-space type scenario where a
Passenger Liners were frequently build with government money on a contingency
that if the nation went to war, the vessels would be pressed
into serverice by the military for Troop Ship duities. Most Liners were done
so during WWI and WWII.
> At 3:43 PM -0400 8/26/99, Ryan M Gill wrote:
And proved to be almost worse than useless in actual combat. Things may be
different for spaceships, but for floating liners the disadvantages are:
1) High target profile, very easy to hit. 2) No armor
3) Usually had second-rate armament
somewhat surprisingly, crew quality was rarely a problem.
> At 06:48 PM 8/26/99 -0700, you wrote:
the British used a few liners as auxiliary warships in WWI and WWII, the
Germans used a few as raiders. The HM(M)S Carmania fought a duel with the Cap
Trafalgar, both were originally liners (both ships sank). I've heard of very
few troopship losses in WWI or WWII, I've seen a reference to a troopship loss
in "Infamy" and a documentary that covered a small coastal troop convoy
attacked off the coast of England and lost 3 ships and about 1000 men. Even
with those, the Allied navies did a fine job protecting troopships.
> At 10:11 PM -0400 8/26/99, Fred and Evelyn Wolke wrote:
(Truk
> lagoon is an exception) Instead, they were used as troopships; if your
> On Thu, 26 Aug 1999, Michael Llaneza wrote:
> And proved to be almost worse than useless in actual combat. Things
Its an auxillary craft. Its not meant to be combat worthy. Its for getting
troops from Point A to Point B. They usually had a high transit
speed so that meant they could be in the faster Supply/Troop Convoys.
> 1) High target profile, very easy to hit.
So you'd build a ATBB? Auxillary Troop Transport Battleship?
> On Thu, 26 Aug 1999, Michael Llaneza wrote:
> the British used a few liners as auxiliary warships in WWI and WWII,
The US had a number of Converted Troop ships. Surprisingly there were a number
of things tha had to be done to make them workable for troopship duty. The
easy part was striiping out the really expensive furnishings and adding some
basic defensive weapons. The hard part was fitting a much larger Water
Purification plant for the increased capacity of people on board.
In a message dated 99-08-26 22:12:29 EDT, you write:
<<
Passenger liners were very rarely pressed into service as warships. (Truk
lagoon is an exception) Instead, they were used as troopships; if your
troopship gets fired on, you're doing something wrong...
> [quoted text omitted]
Here's a thought: How about a passenger liner or large merchant ship as a
Q-Ship like in WWI? Do two versions of the same ship. When it comes time
for
the Q-Ship to unmask, you replace the civilian ship with something
bristling
with guns/missile pods/DEW fire points or something else obvious that
you have a wolf among the fold.
Perry