UCS Apollo

[Graham Kennedy]

Okay, I am going to do something new here. I'm going to show you how I design a ship, step by step!

Right now, I have no idea whatsoever what the UCS Apollo will look like. All I know about it is "hospital ship". I'll post everything I do with the ship here so you can see how it develops. Everything from the writing of this sentence on is the flow going on in my mind, pretty much as it happens.

So....

Hospital ship. It's not gonna be heavily armoured, no big thick hull armour. No weapons whatsoever. Stuff like this is not expected to take hits... I may skip shielding, even, or may not. I'm thinking that it might be a converted civilian design... in the Falklands war we used a cruise liner as a hospital ship IIRC, so that might be the way to go on the background for it.

Okay, so google image search for "cruise liner".

http://www.mcdoa.org.uk/images/Cruise%2 ... 202005.jpg

http://www.bized.co.uk/images/cruise1.jpg

Common characteristics : lots and lots of windows. Passengers like windows, of course. Also they seem to be fairly blocky, and a common theme seems to be a smooth slope to the front of the superstructure. So we start there.

Now I'm off to do some sketching.

[Reliant121]

ah see i process ideas from science fiction i've seen before and cherrypick the ideas. The wings on the CS-156 are taken from Kusari ships in freelancer.

[Teaos]

I understand not wanting weapons on it. It should never use them and if it had som the enemy could claim it is allowed to hit it.

But it seems a bit much to not have any on at all. Not even some very basic ones that could be used for stuff other than defence. Also shields would be good, they dont need to be super strong but no point taking risks with it.

[Mikey]

Cost-effectiveness is a factor in GK's universe, and the big guns seem like they'd be pretty damn expensive. I don't have a problem with not arming this ship.

[Reliant121]

personally, i would at least fit her with some point defense weaponry. Ariel Republic Military hospital ships carry them. They save money on using much older Slipstream drive technology. (nice to parallel ^_^)

[Mikey]

I'd buy some anti-missile or anti-torp weaponry, but that's about it.

[Teaos]

What if the enemy has anti-anti weapons

[Reliant121]

then you have anti anti anti weapons ^_^

[Teaos]

ARMS RACE!!!!!!!

[Graham Kennedy]

First sketches.



Most of my navy ships consist of two basic hull shapes, one on top of the other. The top one tends to be curved, the bottom angled. Usually the top one is bigger. Looking at the cruise ships they have a somewhat similar configuration, with the hull and the superstructure one atop the other, but the hull is the bigger part. This might be a direction to take this ship in, because it would help distinguish civilian from military vessels.

1) is just the two hulls, looking at how the overhang looks.
2) Modifies the bottom hull to add the power generating area and an aft section for the sublight engines.
3) Is trying out a more standard overhang.
3.5) Back to the underhang. If the passengers go in the lower section, then in a cruise ship the lower section should be as big as possible so I am experimenting with how big it can get before it looks silly. Also added a section on the upper hull to hold the midspace shunts.
4) I'm thinking a civilian ship would have much smaller engines than a military one, so I am thinking to reduce the shunt bay, make the passenger section "wrap around" it.
5) Another option is to put the shunts on nacelles-style projections on the sides of the hull.

Regarding armament; I can see a possibility for some defensive armament. A couple of Mark 1 or 2 AMP cannon, perhaps, purely for self defence. Or possibly even some "sub unity" AMP cannon... Mark 0.5 or 0.1 say. BUT... if it is armed, then there are those who will consider it a target. Time to google and find out the rules for today's hospital ships.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USNS_Mercy_%28T-AH-19%29

That's an existing US hospital ship. The text says "In accordance with the Geneva Conventions, USNS Mercy and her crew do not carry any ordnance. Firing on the Mercy is considered a war crime."

Now my galaxy is a rather more lawless place than today's Earth, at least some parts of it. What I might do is fit the Apollo with mounts for a few token weapons which can be added as needed.

[Teaos]

Rules of war are all well and good but if yor at total war like you seem to have them with the Tain (blowing up planets) then following rules while the other guy wont is kinda pointless.

Also pirates dont follow rules.

[Graham Kennedy]

Okay. Time to start playing around with a real design.

I'm thinking this ship will need to be pretty big, because there won't be many of them. With wars that can involve planetary invasions, and many of them at that, hospital ships ill have to be able to take millions of casualties. Looking at the real one I posted a link to, it's not actually far short of the very largest of combat ships, So something in the region of 2 km long at the very minimum.

I draw all my big ships at a scale of 2 pixels to the metre, so I start with a blank page that is 2000 x 1000 in size. I make a layer and put a bunch of alternately coloured strips on it, each 8 pixels high; these are the decks, and will act as a guide to make sure the size of the ship is right - all Coalition big ships use a 4 metre deck height.

[Captain Seafort]

If it's got weapons then it isn't a hospital ship - HMS Argus has a few machine guns and 20mm Oerlikons, which means she has to be called a "Primary Casualty Receiving Ship" rather than a hospital ship.

Regarding the overall design, I'd suggest that speed need only be sufficient to keep up with the fleet cruising speed (about 13-15 knots these days), plus a bit extra for emergencies and to avoid stressing the engines. I'd also suggest a high-capacity shuttlebay/transporter system (if your universe has transporters), to allow casualties to be brought aboard ASAP, and that the corridors should be a lot wider than typical ships, to allow beds to be moved around easily.

[Reliant121]

what programme are you using? i used paint XD

[Graham Kennedy]

Basic hull shape. At this stage I will play around with the basic sizing and proportions - maybe stretch it or shorten it, work extra decks in or take them out, get the sections roughly in the right proportions to one another.