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Title Posted
<em>The Great Vanishing Crucian Mystery</em> Oct 2002
The Terran Federation - partial (high resolution - 157KB) Oct 2002
ISW 4: The Arachnid War (1) (low resolution - 27KB) Oct 2002
Mother's recall of surviving Battle Fleet units Oct 2002
Upgrading <em>Dahak </em>to a hyperdrive Oct 2002
Honor Harrington series timeline Oct 2002
Naval refits Oct 2002
Cover art Nov 2002
Treecat intelligence I Nov 2002
Why did Paul Tankersley accept Summervale's challenge? Nov 2002

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Pearls of Weber

A collection of posts by David Weber containing background information for his stories, collected and generously made available Joe Buckley.

Asymmetrical broadsides

  • Series: Honorverse
  • Date: October 22, 2002

Why Are Starships Symmetrical? The question of why ships aren't designed with separate broadsides optimized for different types of combat -- that is, missile-range combat as opposed to energy-range combat -- has emerged once again. Do you want to comment on this one at all?

 

Symmetrical Broadsides. No, I don't want to comment on this. I've done it before, and the statements I made then still apply. Indeed, they've become even more relevant in an era in which broadside missile tubes are becoming less and less significant for major combatants and the need for missile defenses has never been greater. Asymmetrical broadsides would be a bad idea.