This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Working Title: Admiral Kuznetsov In Space: From YKTTW
The Bad Wolf: um isn't one of the main reasons for air craft carriers not having many guns, the lack of space due to the run way, made redundant by the lack of up or down in space?
Broken Chaos: On a similar note...
- "Technically" and "realistically", you shouldn't combine the firepower of a battleship with the aircraft landing/launching capabilities of a carrier because it's redundant, and the ship would have to be too large to maneuver effectively (unless you have some kind of technobabble to avert that).
The Bad Wolf: I'm going to go out on a limb and say who ever created this fell victim to Two-D Space so I'm going to delete the parts about this being a bad idea.
Spectre Agent: While well written and all, the preface of the article is demonstrably inaccurate. The carrier already replaced the battleship way back in WW 2. Battleships are all but extinct today.
Rogue 7: I don't think that they fully replaced them in WWII- it was certainly proven that carriers were more critical, but if I recall certain battles, Battleships had their place. A lot of American ones were out of the fight since they were all at Pearl Harbor.
Morven: Battleships certainly were used, but they ended up being more useful for shore bombardment than naval battles. It's arguable that excessive Japanese caution prevented the Yamato and Musashi from being used in several instances where they might have been much help in battle, for instance at Midway, where a night attack might have caused much damage against poorly armed aircraft carriers unable to put up much of an aerial defense.
Part of the problem was that battleships had become such prestige items that navies didn't want to risk their loss; this was especially the case with the Germans (who after losing Bismarck were too afraid to risk Tirpitz in action) and the Japanese.
The crucial weakness, though, was that battleship armor wasn't all-encompassing; parts of the ship remained highly vulnerable, and aircraft crews learned to aim specifically for those, such as the bows (damage to which rendered a ship unable to keep up with its unharmed companions), and the stern, with its propellors and rudders (the latter being the Bismarck's achilles heel). Once you can't run, then you're a sitting duck to be pounded until the steel melts if necessary.
Earnest: As much as I like the current picture of the Pegasus, can't we find one with her or Galactica launching vipers (or at least noticeable fighter cover) for the article?
