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Originally Posted by Darkone  She quite literally took the ship apart explaining what was wrong with the design, and I would not have mined but it DURING THE SHOW AAaaahhhhh! |
Hi, this is my first comment here. I enjoyed reading your feedback from your aunt! She had some very good points about design. Also the note about ship losses from magazine hits is very realistic, whether the impact was to the magazine itself or ignited from fires.
There are also waterline and below waterline hits that spelled doom as a ship rapidly took on water even without hitting ammo or fuel stores. To help with that I would expect compartmentalization to be even more important aboard spacecraft, especially warships and it seems to be evident in many epsiodes with several pressure doors about the interior of Galactica.
Also hits to the bridge can be quite devastating reducing the offensive capabilities of a ship while most of it is still operational. Some battles in Leyte Gulf resulted in ships taken out from bridge hits. The Galactica's CIC (which appears more akin to a submarine control room with combined operations and combat stations) appears to be possibly more internal and hardened versus an exposed upper superstructure like on a modern day warship. Provided sea going ships typically have a similar CIC that is not directly exposed, its purpose is more specialized versus supporting all operations.
Sea going ships depend on a rudder for steering and some have thrusters, but larger ships depend on the rudders for main maneuvering. Ships in BSG utilize various emplacements of RCS thrusters and may have several to boot that could assist each other when damaged, providing more redundancy than a rudder assembly.
As for the percentage of guns bearing from the rear, I would think that is dependant on the expected use of the ship. In space, the engagement ranges would be much larger so expectations might be that ships would typically only engage facing the enemy and if they need to leave the battle they would jump away provided the FTL was working. Sea going ships would need to steer away and expose their aft quarter in the process.
The ships could also spin about their axis to bring weapons to bear as needed while still maintaining their desired vector, definitely not possible with sea going vessels. I am truly happy with the presentation of flight this way with realistic physics...love it!
Of course, this is all sci-fi anyways, but it is fun to look at it from a realistic design perspective. I too consult with friends with military experience when designing stuff from time to time...you can surprised at what you can learn! You could even do a reverse analysis when compared to space combat as to how current ship designs have limitations. A lot of sci-fi has helped inspire designers.
I think the BSG folks did a wonderful job in many ways, but would not expect everything to make sense...the jump drive and anti-gravity plating are more or less the big fictional components, but they made it all work rather spectacularly together.
