Spaceships hull armor…solid?

[Witchking]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Their guns were also quite small for their size - a WWII medium tank would have a gun of about 3" bore, and 50-70 calibres long. A WWII battleship would have main guns of 14-18" and about 45-50 calibres long (though they had many more, of course). The latter massed very roughly a thousand times to former.

Of course a lot of that mass is taken up by the difference in operational range.

Heavy Tank Char B1 bis Operational range 200 km

Battleship Richelieu Operational range 17,600 km

Both French, both roughly WW2 vintage. Does point out the vast difference in the amount of mass committed to gas, bullets and beans to be able to operate for weeks/days vs hours.