Re: Air Force Seeks Bush's Approval for Space Weapons Programs



Andre Lieven wrote:

Its also fair to point out that the very small number of post 1950s
design ships having been sunk in combat makes figuring out an
" average " of damage taking capacity of such ships very difficult.



I think one of the main problems was that everyone on NATO's side thought that in wartime they would be fighting the Soviets, and what your ship would be engaged by wouldn't be shellfire, but rather a cruise missile with either a very large conventional or nuclear warhead. Since either of those probably couldn't be stopped be any reasonable degree of armor protection, it was somewhat pointless to armor the ship at all against anything heavier than small to medium arms fire that one might encounter on routine non-wartime duties. In that way the cost and production time of the warship could be significantly reduced, while allowing higher speed for the same installed horsepower, and also allowing you to make more vessels for the same financial outlay.
Of course the flaw in the argument was that even though the ship might not be able to survive a direct hit by a Shaddock missile with a conventional warhead, armoring it might keep it afloat long enough for a large number of its crew to take to the lifeboats.

Pat
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