[gurps] [VEHICLE] of the week 714 -- Gashidda-class 400-ton Surface Defense Boat

[Thomas Thrien]

Ok, 30 lbs. are nothing for a ship, and for a military vessel are the 
costs also neglectable.

But for TL5, the navigation instruments mean in general clock, sextant, 
oktant, compass, ruler and sets of maps. Sextant and oktant could not be 
used from the inside of the turret, while the inner of the turret is 
quite to cramped to provide three navigational workplaces with room for 
the maps. So the additional sets are only spare sets, and I doubt the 
necessity for these in the turret.

But you are absolutely right, if none or one, three or 100 sets, it does 
not really change the design of the vessel.

cu
thr

----------| Am 05.07.2008 17:13 schrieb Onno Meyer: |----------
>> You wrote: "[...] The Gashidda-class 400-ton SDB was designed to penetrate
>> the armor of Imperial grav tanks [...]" and "[...] The funnels of the twin
>> steam engines restrict the turret rotation to 330° unless the cannon is
>> raised for anti-air fire. [...]". And the vessel is TL5.
>>
>> All this says to me that the cannon is usually not used for indirect fire:
>> for a TL5 artillery firing on moving targets was fruitless as they could
>> not perform the required calculations fast enough and then load the gun in
>> time - not to forget that they were not capable to determine both positions
>> (that of the gun and that of the target) accurately enough.
>>
>> That brings me to your design: even if the boat knows where it is, what
>> about the forward observer? How will he determine his position? Also with 2
>> times 3 sets of navigation instruments?
>>
>> I still doubt that such a vessel would have (or need) this additional
>> three sets of navigation instruments in the turret.
>>
>> Regards
>> thr
>>     
>
> You're right that they could probably get away with fewer sets in a pinch.
> But remember that one set represents 30 lbs. of instruments, to be used 
> by a single operator. Three guys in the turret to back up the guys in the 
> hull sounds reasonable to me. They don't have to know the position of
> the observer if the observer can locate the target relative to a landmark.
>
> You're also right that direct fire is just about the only way this thing could
> score a hit on a grav tank, but I think my description made it clear that 
> the locals don't have any idea what they are truly facing. 
>
> So I could drop one or two sets of instruments, but that wouldn't really 
> change the design. 
>
> Onno
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