Re: The ships of LoGH
Chi Ming Hung (cmhung@insti.physics.sunysb.edu)
Tue, 5 Nov 1996 03:37:28 -0500
On Nov 5, 2:24am, BRENT BUCKALEW wrote:
> Subject: The ships of LoGH
>
> Has anybody read anything about why the author (or maybe this is an anime
thing
> only) has the ships built the way they are? For example, the squarish design
> of Federation ships doesn't make sense in a 3 dimensional space battle. The
> port and starboard sides seem to be a little exposed. Most of the
destruction
> sequences I've seen so far (and granted, that's not a lot) have depicted the
> ships being mutilated from the bottom or sides.
Well but look at it another way: This design will minimize the *forward*
cross-section of the ships, which is the preferred position when confronting
enemy fleets. You see, on the one hand, you need a large enough ship to
host the many crews needed (hundreds? thousands?), but on the other hand,
you need to present as little a forward cross-section as possible, so the
only logical way you can do that is to have a long flattened ship, so it's
completely logical. Of course when you expose the other sides to your
enemies you're dead, but you're not supposed to do that =)
Actually another thing bothered me about the space battles in LoGH.
Seems that they're fighting space versions of attrition warfare: meaning
you put out as many ships as you can and pack them together in the hope
that the sheer number will overwhelm the other side. This is very much
like the land wars in the Napoleonic wars for example. But it hardly
seems fitting to fight such wasteful warfare when one has such advanced
technology. Obviously with proper automated weapons, one should be able
to destroy such neat and concentarted formation of ships in no time at
all: Just imagine fighting a Napoleonic army with cruise missiles! So
why haven't warfare in LoGH advanced beyond the savage wasteful stage
of attrition warfare? =)
Ming.
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| Chi Ming HUNG,Dept.of Physics,SUNYSB,Stony Brook,NY11794. (516)689-5868 |
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