Couple of questions

I'm new to this group but read the FAC. A couple of things I've been
wondering about.

1. Why no turreted designs for beam weapons. Missiles seem to big but by
putting the main energy battery in turrets on the forward and aft slopes of
the hull (top and bottom), you could get better than twice the effective
battery for less than 1/2 the weapons. You could delete the bow and stern
chaser energy weapons as 1/2 your battery could fire off each end plus you
could use 1 beam weapon to take the place of 2 (one from each side).
Another advantage would be the ability to engage ships not directly abeam of
your ship without turning the entire ship to do so. When the sailing navies
figured out how to make rotating gun mounts, the fixed broadside of old was
quickly abandoned.

2. The 2nd question is when Grendlesbane was attacked at the resumption of
the war, why didn't the Manties try and escape in some of the almost
finished ships. Adm. White Haven said some were within weeks of launch so
likely only final fitting out was needed. In WW2 when France fell, they
managed to get both of their unfinished BB's to sea and escape the Germans.
I'm not suggesting the ships would be in any condition to fight, only to
escape back to Manticore (bringing many of the shipworkers with them).

Tim

Don Sample wrote:

> They were probably sitting in the docks with cold fusion plants, and
> nodes. It would have taken more time than they had to fuel them up, get
> the fusion plants up and running, and then get the nodes warmed up so
> they could move.

Power is always a good thing to have in a construction site, so they
would have a use for the reactors, if lighting them off is compatible
with the rest of the construction. On the other hand, the nodes are big,
expensive things so there is probably constant competition over who gets
the next available, so they might not even be installed yet.

The nanotech construction methods and the sequence of what is
installed/grown could mess things up. The ship structure will not stand
up to acceleration stresses without the gravity generators and
acceleration compensators being properly tied in with the nodes/wedges,
and calibrated. The ships would not have a useful acceleration rate if
that happens late in the construction sequence. In this universe,
anything limited to less than 200 gravities is a sitting duck. And, as
you say, the situation would be even worse if the nodes are cold. If
they are installed.