TMac3000
Evil Republican
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- Nov 16, 2008
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I have a great fascination with naval history and tactics, and how they relate to warship design.
But when I was writing a tutorial for one my favorite games (SSI's Star General, which probably no one else plays:lol, I got to a section where I was discussing the different kind of ships and what they do.
In terms of purpose, I find destroyers, cruisers, and battleships self-explanatory, but the concepts of "light cruiser" and "battle cruiser" a little murky, and the "small-m" monitor absolutely mystifying.
If I understand things correctly--and this is how I wrote it in my tutorial--a light cruiser is a sort of "battle-destroyer", built to carry bigger guns than a destroyer and get them to the scene faster than a standard cruiser, while a battle cruiser follows the same concept, except using the gunnery of a battleship.
Now, according to Wikipedia a "monitor" in naval history is a small craft armed with huge guns, that is very slow, weakly armored, and intended for coastal defense. In science fiction, they seem to be more like a stronger version of a battleship or dreadnought.
Thoughts on this? Do I have it right? Maybe? Kinda-sorta-not really?
But when I was writing a tutorial for one my favorite games (SSI's Star General, which probably no one else plays:lol, I got to a section where I was discussing the different kind of ships and what they do.
In terms of purpose, I find destroyers, cruisers, and battleships self-explanatory, but the concepts of "light cruiser" and "battle cruiser" a little murky, and the "small-m" monitor absolutely mystifying.
If I understand things correctly--and this is how I wrote it in my tutorial--a light cruiser is a sort of "battle-destroyer", built to carry bigger guns than a destroyer and get them to the scene faster than a standard cruiser, while a battle cruiser follows the same concept, except using the gunnery of a battleship.
Now, according to Wikipedia a "monitor" in naval history is a small craft armed with huge guns, that is very slow, weakly armored, and intended for coastal defense. In science fiction, they seem to be more like a stronger version of a battleship or dreadnought.
Thoughts on this? Do I have it right? Maybe? Kinda-sorta-not really?