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Wouldn't that create a lot of problems, such as issues with recoil?

Recoil is only really channeled into the turret, in Plasma weapons. If the turret's gyro-stabilizers cannot compensate, the ship rocks. THe higher the weapon, the more stabilizers you have to fit. if you dont, you will end up with your deck in the water.

The biggest problem wouldn't be with regards to the recoil capsising the ship (look at battleships firing broadsides - they don't noticably roll) but with the mounting itself. From what you're saying, these weapons appear to be simply bolted to the deck, rather than being an integral part of the design. Unless you're very careful about where you put the things, and how you attatch them, you run the risk of a shot ripping the entire weapon away, possibly taking a good chunk of the deck with it.

Yeah, that's what I was reffering to.

Ah i see. That thought had not occurred to me.

I suppose it might be possible that the turret comes with all the firing equipment deployed below the hull line, that is slid into a large slot in the hull. Would having a huge chunk of metal that is hard locked into the hull reduce some of this issue?

It might reduce it a bit, if only by increasing the mass of the unit. What you really need is to build the ships with a strong frame, and specific points on that frame to attatch the gun mounts to. You can't just slap them onto any bit of the deck willy-nilly, just because it looks nice/gives good firing arcs/you want more guns, etc.

oh i didnt mean that you could put them anywhere! dear gods no. I meant you can put a variety of of weapons on specialized hard-points. If you want more hard-points, you make serious and highly uneconomical, not to mention likely unstable modifications to the hull itself.

Ah, right - you should be alright then, although for the nitty-gritty you'd be best off asking Abraxas for his input. I'm a military historian, not an engineer.

Does anyone in the Terran government have an issue with selling mil-spec bombardment weapons to private entities or individuals?

These are nowhere near Military spec. The sizes are the same, but the power output and the rate of fire are much reduced. Plus, only licensed sellers are permitted to develop weaponry, and they have a hell of a lot of red tape to make sure of completely legal transactions. There are also limits as to how many vessels of a certain type one man may control. The whole point about the limitations is, if you put a Civvy battleship against a military one, even a Terran one, the military one would wipe the floor.

OK. I didn't know such checks were in place.

believe me, its bloody hard to get some of this stuff. For owning a battleship, there are about 6 cross referenced security checks, then 4 eligibility checks, plus a contract about legal usage, then a license to be bought...etc.

Kiei Battleship



The Kiei battleship is a design built to fill the roll of low end battleship in the Corporations market. She has 3 hard-points for heavy calibre guns, up to 15" barrel sizes; the armament shown is those from the Matsuda's own weapons package of 3 twin mount 14" standard plasma cannons with a re-fire rate of 1 shot : 10 seconds (duel to cool down) per barrel. There are also 2 hard-points for medium calibre guns, up to 8" barrels; the weapons shown are 2 7.5" plasma stream cannons with a re-fire rate of 1 shot: 5 seconds per barrel. There are 8 hard points for small calibre cannons (5" or lower) that are often Dual purpose systems; shown are 8 single 50" Dual purpose plasma cannons with a re-fire of 1 shot every second. Finally, there are 12 AA hard-points (50mm or lower); on this package, the armament is 12 twin 20 mm guns with a re-fire rate of 1 shot: 0.25 seconds. The top speed is a terribly low 30 knots, owing purely to the huge size of this leviathanical craft. She is powered by 4 medium capacity fusion reactors, all venting into the central funnel.

You've mentioned before these ships can exchange fire with space ships. It doesn't look like these guns can point up. That an optical illusion or a design problem of the manufactuers?