Low tech battleship
- Thread starter mike wightman
- Start date
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
OK, experimental TL7 
The Oz
SOC-14 1K
I don't think the 16" gun turrets would be on the sides of the Brick (main hull). On the battleships those turrets were held on only by gravity (this is why many sunk battleships are missing their turrets which fell off as the ship rolled over on the way to the bottom). Obviously they can't count on gravity to hold them on in space, so they would add some kind of restraint, but I doubt that restraint would hold against the G forces of liftoff or maneuvering. Those 16" turrets have a lot of mass.
I would think the 16" turrets would be on the top of the Brick, under the forward armor shield. This would restrict their field of fire but they would be held on by their own mass when the ship was under acceleration and a fairly simple restraint would hold them down when the ship was in zero-G.
Also, I think the secondary gun turrets would be the modern single-barreled 5"/45 turrets as found on the Spruance-class destroyers, rather than the twin 5"/38 mounts the drawing seems to have. The 5"/45 is an autoloading, unmanned gun mount that would be perfect for a space battleship.
I would think the 16" turrets would be on the top of the Brick, under the forward armor shield. This would restrict their field of fire but they would be held on by their own mass when the ship was under acceleration and a fairly simple restraint would hold them down when the ship was in zero-G.
Also, I think the secondary gun turrets would be the modern single-barreled 5"/45 turrets as found on the Spruance-class destroyers, rather than the twin 5"/38 mounts the drawing seems to have. The 5"/45 is an autoloading, unmanned gun mount that would be perfect for a space battleship.
We could have built an orion in the 60s easily...
Once the Saturn V was completed we had the "knowhow".
Yes today we could build a better orion today and an even nicer one in 20 years. But I have my doubts about how successful such a program would be in any era. Something about having nuclear explosions jerking the ship about...even with the MASSIVE shock absorbers it would be an unpleasant
activity.
If you read the research on these methods the NERVA sounds more feasible. Actually they had
the research far enough along that they believed
a minimal radioactive exhaust was feasible. The
problem is that we discontinued this research. At
least bush signed off on a next generation fission
reactor for space missions. Its long overdue.
It is interesting however that in Traveller we discuss Hydrogen as the great fuel. Odds are that it would've been easier to contain an alternative in our pre-tech 10 societies. I can only assume that a magnetic containment for fuel would be part of the overall fuel storage plan.
Savage
Once the Saturn V was completed we had the "knowhow".
Yes today we could build a better orion today and an even nicer one in 20 years. But I have my doubts about how successful such a program would be in any era. Something about having nuclear explosions jerking the ship about...even with the MASSIVE shock absorbers it would be an unpleasant
activity.
If you read the research on these methods the NERVA sounds more feasible. Actually they had
the research far enough along that they believed
a minimal radioactive exhaust was feasible. The
problem is that we discontinued this research. At
least bush signed off on a next generation fission
reactor for space missions. Its long overdue.
It is interesting however that in Traveller we discuss Hydrogen as the great fuel. Odds are that it would've been easier to contain an alternative in our pre-tech 10 societies. I can only assume that a magnetic containment for fuel would be part of the overall fuel storage plan.
Savage
Similar threads
