Re: Battlestar Galactica

 --- Dan Minette <dsummersminet-KWxODaeudppTGrOy2lmfZw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Right, but why do we only have aircraft carriers,
> and not small boat
> carriers for fleet vs. fleet operations?  IMHO, its
> because aircraft has a
> different set of tradeoffs from boats/ships.  I
> cannot imagine a carrier
> of, say PT boats being effective in fleet to fleet
> operations.  If they
> were effective, wouldn't we have had at least one PT
> carrier in a fleet?
> 
> Dan M.

No, but it's not clear that WWI fleets wouldn't have
evolved in that direction, with destroyers (which
were, among other things, used to launch torpedo
attacks on enemy fleets) possibly getting
smaller/faster/more manueverable in order to increase
their chance of getting to torpedo launching range.  I
think carriers might make sense, actually, but only if
you assume the existence of a weapons technology with
the ability to do a fairly high degree of damage at a
very short range that can be carried by a small craft,
and that such small craft have a significant ability
to penetrate enemy defenses in order to deliver this
weapon.  Given that, then fighters might make sense -
you'd want to use them to deploy that weapon at longer
range than your onboard systems could deliver, and
then you'd want fighters to defend against the other
guys fighters...and then you're off to the races.

=====
Gautam Mukunda
ulysses02143-/E1597aS9LQAvxtiuMwx3w@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Freedom is not free"
http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com


        
                
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