> On Tue, 17 Nov 1998, John M. Atkinson wrote:
yes nowadays, as i will attempt to demonstrate.
> How many destroyers firing how many SSMs do we get for
oodles. but they still mount less SSMs in total than the battleship would. and
have less thickness of armour, and can't see as far with their radar (although
airborne radars negate this disadvantage), and don't have the same
concentration of point defence or fire control.
> That might be why nobody has battleships anymore,
they do; it's just that these days, battleships mount aircraft not guns.
carriers are just battleships with a different weapons fit, if you see what i
mean. i know it's stretching the point, sorry.
anyway, carriers replaced the battleship when the only battleship option was
guns; now we have missiles, who's to say it won't make a comeback? no
more risking valuable - and media-sensitive - lives over foreign
countries, just missile them. this is already a preferred tactic in many
cases; witness the US attack on that aspirin factory in Khartoum. i know that
tomahawk and harpoon have neither the range nor the striking power of
an F/A-18, but trident does. twelve conventional warheads with an
11000-km
range, anyone? i know they currently have a CEP of 120m, but bung in some
active terminal guidance and you're laughing.
my data on trident is from www.naval-technology.com (no, i am not in
their pay), which interestingly gives different data for trident 2s on
vanguard and ohio class boats; the british missile is heavier and more
accurate
...
> but everyone
actually, a lot of navies don't have destroyers. many just have frigates and
missile boats. for instance iraq, which is why the navy was wiped out totally
in the war. i think the norwegian navy is a bit thin on the ground in this
respect, if not as badly as some.
the real reason people use destoyers these days is that they can be spread out
more, so they are useful for showing the flag, fisheries protection, customs,
picking up evacuees from foreign countries having civil war etc.
the same applies in battle: they can spread out and find submarines better,
since the range for detecting subs is tiny, on the order of tens of nm with
towed sonar and helicopters. you need a big screen to protect your capital
ship. if we could see subs 100 nm off, then destroyers would not be so useful,
as you could just mount a big asroc battery on your battleship. there is also
the fact that you can set up a better air defence screen if you can push some
units forward, but that works with cruisers too. still, the main reason for
today's huge split between carriers and destroyers is the submarine.
> > > You have to cross bridges during COMBAT operations.
are you saying that an army never needs to fight a defence? if so, you are
wrong. armies sometimes have to, and that is where something like the maus is
useful. still, nice to know you can parrot doctrine with the best of them!
> > otoh, an AVLB conversion of a maus might be able to carry a bridge
fair enough.
> and no, it wouldn't. Do you know what a MLC 120 (I
nope, but i know the AVLB conversion of the Challenger can put down a bridge
which can carry other Challengers. it won't carry them very far, though.
> > > How long does it take to unload? Of course, much
only if both are equally easy to kill. the point of the maus is that it is
harder to kill, having thicker armour. thus, fewer are destroyed.
> So you're left
the train, every time. this is why the world's language is english (well,
english-american) and not mongol.
Tom
> > > otoh, an AVLB conversion of a maus might be able to carry a bridge
Not entirely true - there were two variants of the British Churchill
(the so
called 'funnies' of D-Day) that were primitive AVLBs. One was more of a
ditch crossing device since the idea was that you drove the tank into a ditch
and then
drove over the top of the hull ! Not much use when crossing a river :-/
The other was a 'proper' AVLB which carried its bridge vertically hinged from
the front of the chassis. It was then lowered over a stream or ditch, detached
and then the tank drove away to become a standard AVRE. The bridge capacity
wasn't enough to carry a Maus, though!
> anyway, carriers replaced the battleship when the only battleship
Oh, for crying out loud...look, can we try and remember something here? DSII
is a Science FICTION game. Remember the "F" word, it's important. You want to
justify a supertank? Fine. Try this:
Supertanks are the only land-based vehicles large enough to carry
Force Field generators, making them virtually invulnerable to conventional
weaponry.
Or this:
Supertanks, long thought to be a dead end, were revived when it was realized
that one could mount a number of antigrav generators on the vehicle's chassis,
cutting its effective weight by two thirds...and corespondingly increasing its
speed.
Or how about:
Supertanks were the only military vehicles to be equpped with a class XIII AI
system. Capable of processing nearly 18 Trillion bits of information in the
space of a single second, the Supertanks were able to use their integral laser
systems to create an unbreachable missile and air defense network.
Three ideas, very quick and simple. Both make supertanks a viable option. Give
me ten minutes, and I could come up with another ten ideas for you. Why let
yourself be bogged down by what is currently possible? If you are
going to do that, you'd better change your Neo Rhomani army...anti-grav
is not considered possible today, is it? As for your Full Thrust
fleet...better just drop that entirely. FTL is completely out of the question.
Hell, David Drake had to go to great lengths simply to justify the continued
use of tanks, as he explains in "Hammer's Slammers". I've read more than a few
books that predict that tanks will be effectively dead in another fifty years.
Not all of them are science fiction, either. I keep fielding tanks, though.
I've spent too much time and effort painting them to just push 'em aside for
the sake of realism. Same with my Ogres. Plus, I think the Ogres are really
cool....
Relax, would you? Stop taking every opinion that differs from yours as a
personal affront. Not everyone likes to game the same way you do. I sure as
hell don't.
> > 3 Mauses, 9 Pz-IVs. You loose 3 Mauses, or 3 Pz-IVs.
And if it's carrying a foot of biphase carbide armor? That's a different
story, isn't it? It was true then. It might be true today. It probably won't
be true in two hundred years. Try thinking more creatively.
Somebody on one side of an arguement said:
> > only if both are equally easy to kill. the point of the maus is that
Somebody on the other side replied:
> Drop 5 inch rocket on either, and they go away.
All right, I'm confused. While the WW2 tank bit was straying off-topic,
and I don't play SG or DS, I was still following the thread, because....well,
actually I'm not sure why...
Anyway, if you're talking WW2, the odds of someone hitting anything with a 5
inch rocket back then, especially the top of a tank was effectively nil. Did
they even have them then?
If you're not talking about WW2 tanks anymore, then why name WW2 tanks in the
same sentence as rockets. You're straying so much we're getting
apples-and-oranges arguments into it.
If you're talking about the future of tanks (appropriate for the list), then
whether a 5 inch rocket will kill a tank or not is entirely up to your vision
of the future. It is the FUTURE after all, ie. we're going to have to wait and
see...
I think this thread has wandered around so much, the participants don't even
know what it's about anymore. You have devolved into attacking minor points in
each other's posts and forgotten the point of the thread, whatever that is.
Take it off list, please.
While arguing about the "trees", keep an eye on the "forest", please. (Hey,
that even rhymes! hehe....)
> Thomas Anderson wrote:
> > That might be why nobody has battleships anymore,
Stretching past breaking point.
> anyway, carriers replaced the battleship when the only battleship
no
Realistic budget analysis, and the existence of aircraft.
> cases; witness the US attack on that aspirin factory in Khartoum. i
Yeah. Asprin factory with guard dogs, barbed wire, and a guard force from
Sudanese Army. Real valuable asprin, that. I once asked someone how they can
tell a biowar site from a real pharmecutical plant. His answer was "Usually
the SAM batteries are the first clue."
> actually, a lot of navies don't have destroyers. many just have
That and being outnumbered a couple hundred to one in the naval department.
Besides, most of the Iraqi Navy had never been delivered by
the Italians--something about Iraq not paying bills.
> > You don't win wars fighting static defenses. You delay defeat and
Sure. You may need to fight a tactical defense on occasion. But you don't win
wars that way. And strategic defense can only (logically speaking) end in
stalemate or defeat. And even strategic defense requires use of tactical
offense on occasion.
> > and no, it wouldn't. Do you know what a MLC 120 (I
Challenger weighs what, 60 tons? Is not really a linear problem.
> > 3 Mauses, 9 Pz-IVs. You loose 3 Mauses, or 3 Pz-IVs.
Drop 5 inch rocket on either, and they go away.
> Colfox wrote:
> All right, I'm confused. While the WW2 tank bit was straying
Fighter Bombers, Typhoons and Thunderbolts, in particular, were, if not the
number 1 cause of tank kills on the western front, a leading cause of tank
kills.And yes, they had 5" rockets.
> Colfox wrote:
nil.
> Did they even have them then?
Aieeeeeee! So what? Who cares? If you are going to be discussing WWII, take it
off the list! The Gulf War nonsense was bad enough, but come on now! The
relevence of this thread to Dirtside is becoming more and more tenuous. Trust
me, the relationship of a Maus to an Ogre is distant one at best. If you can
reference a WWII tank that carried several meters of BPC, and fired nukes,
then maybe we can call this
on-topic. Until then, give it a rest.
> Colfox wrote:
> Anyway, if you're talking WW2, the odds of someone hitting anything
Wrong, and yes. 5 inch rockets were fairly standard as armament of
USAAF P-47s and other fighter bombers, and more than a few RAF
fighter-bombers. They were used in great quantity, and racked up a LOT
of tank kills.