pd 1924 - Shape of Beowulf's fleet

tlb wrote:Interesting, but it still means that for over a century space craft traveled with a zero-gee environment, even within wormholes or gravity waves.

Jonathan_S wrote:Didn't (most of?) those ships have rotational gravity?
I seem to recall the rotational hab sections having to get spun down and locked for combat.

If so, at least the crews of long haul freighters or long deployment warships wouldn't have been subjected to months of zero-g without a break. Many crew jobs would require working in the zero-g sections - but at minimum kitchens, mess rooms, and berthing should have been in spin gravity sections.

tlb wrote:

tlb wrote:Interesting, but it still means that for over a century space craft traveled with a zero-gee environment, even within wormholes or gravity waves.

Jonathan_S wrote:Didn't (most of?) those ships have rotational gravity?
I seem to recall the rotational hab sections having to get spun down and locked for combat.

If so, at least the crews of long haul freighters or long deployment warships wouldn't have been subjected to months of zero-g without a break. Many crew jobs would require working in the zero-g sections - but at minimum kitchens, mess rooms, and berthing should have been in spin gravity sections.

You are probably right, I do not know. I just unthinkingly repeated the text from "The Universe of Honor Harrington"'s section entitled "(1) Background (General)", which said "placing an accelerating vessel in a permanent state of internal zero-gee".

A Call to Duty wrote:He was pretty sure he would never really enjoy maneuvering in the zero-gee that held sway everywhere aboard Vanguard except the rotating spin section amidships

A Call to Duty wrote:the emergency-maneuver klaxon suddenly sounded in the wardroom.
By the time the spin section slowed to a halt two minutes later she’d finished her soup and was on her way up the lift to Axial Two and Vanguard’s bridge.

A Call to Duty wrote:“Here’s what we’ve got on the Packrat, Ma’am,” the rating at Tracking One murmured, his words accompanied by a set of simultaneous flickers as he sent the schematic to all the other stations. “Six hundred fifty meters long, about a million tons, one-gee toroidal spin section, six transfer shuttles. A little on the small side, but otherwise pretty straightforward freighter design.”

A Call to Duty wrote:The two larger warships were equally intriguing. The cruiser’s spin section, instead of the usual toroidal or cylindrical shape, was built more like a dumbbell, with a pair of wedge-shaped pieces turning around the amidships part of the main hull. Metzger had heard of such designs—the theory was that the dumbbell could be locked in place vertically during combat, working in conjunction with the pinched-side shape of the compensator field to squeeze out a few more gees of acceleration—but had never seen one in person. Hopefully, that was one of the ships for sale and she would be allowed aboard for a closer look.
The battlecruiser was even more interesting. Instead of a spin section, the amidships habitation area was compact and built close-in to the rest of the hull. Metzger had heard Haven was experimenting with a new grav-plate system for their hab sections. Apparently, that research had borne some fruit.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
Quick note that the 1581 date has been retconned. The refit that HMS Casey CL-01 got in the late 1530s and early 1540s installed not only rail launchers for the missiles but grav plates. Casey, unlike all the other ships in the RMN at the time, had permanent up/down gravity. The grav technology was probably well-known at the time because Graf von Basaltberg remarked on the tactical use of the rail launchers for the missiles, but offered no comment on the grav plates. We know that SMS Friedrich der Grosse did not have them (yet). My guess is that he simply didn't see much of a tactical or strategic advantage to comment on something that wasn't that much of a novelty. I'm also sure there were detractors saying that having the core of the ship under zero gravity, where people could propel themselves fast with arms and legs, in 3D, was better than having people running around during battle.