GURPS Spaceships: Murphies, their fixes and alternatives

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by schmeelke

What would that ratio be?
Supermarine Spitfire: 605 km/h : 853.6 m/s = 0.19688 : 1
Mitsubishi A6M Zero: 533 km/h : 600 (or 750) m/s = 0.2468 (or 0.1974) : 1
P-51H Mustang: 784 km/h : 890 m/s = 0.2447 : 1
Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe: 900 km/h : 540 m/s = 0.463 : 1
Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet: 1060 km/h : 540 m/s = 0.5453 : 1



Does that matter? The ships aren't fighting among themselves (their own type), they're fighting other ships (other types). An unarmed but lightly armored ship can't penetrate it's own armor, but it's still a reasonable design.

To properly mimic the the feel of spacefighter combat I'd actually go back to WWI designs. That's where the "furball" really originated. The ratio of machinegun bullets to planes is about 15 to 1 and engagement ranges are about 5x the planes move per turn. You also need tremendosu turning ability in real world terms.

You're second comment is hard to decipher even after I went back and re-read all of mine. However, I would say that the logical opponent for a ship to prepare for is another comparable ship. That's the way it usually is done in the real world.

For example, back during the playtest where the Ares first appeared there was a fair bit of concern about balance of beams v. missiles. So I took the Ares-class and replaced all it's weapons except a teritiary battery with missiles (while keeping everything else the same, espcially the armor) and dubbed the missile boat the Hydra class.

This is when I discovered that the Ares could not hurt a Hydra (or another Ares either) in a frontal engagfement. The Hydra's missiles could damage the Ares, armor and all.

This would not answer anything about beams v. missiles so I swapped the Ares' secondary battery for a main battery and called it the Ares II.

If anyone wodners the answer I got was that missile defense against another ship of your own SM was relatively practical. Realistic combat though will be all about finding mis-matches.

The Ares I with more guns though smaller might have been a better match for many small ships but go too small and the small ship's weapons (except for missiles) wouldn't pentrate the armor of any ares-class vessel. Meanwhile, not being able to damage another ship of its own SM would have been potentially disastrous for the Ares I. Hence the necessity of the Ares II.