Argument Thread OOC Future Tech Only

[-Raysia-]

I go for spinal... You can get away with far more powerful weapons, using your own ship to absorb the recoil. Granted, it means you gotta be quick and maneuverable, and they're only good for close range attacks, but I always did like a good knife fight

[Huerdae]

The sides are a little spartan because I couldn't figure out how to make a decent looking sponson mount

The ship I based the design off of was actually designed to take on enemies coming from ABOVE, so theoretically the best way for this ship to go into a fight would be with the top side facing the enemy, which would allow it to bring all of those top heavy guns and it's side turret-mounts into action, as well as presenting a relatively thin target.

But that would look rather silly.

It would, however, make for a mildly intimidating broadside. And most enemy ships may have trouble turning on their axis to combat such a configuration, even if they got one broadside on you. I'll buy it as rational, and possibly a counter to the standard broadside.

As for spinal...well, everyone should have ONE spinal weapon. How else are you going to open fire on your way in? The opening barrage is important, if nothing else than for shellshock, and often a spinal weapon can double for bombardment purposes. It makes ships become somewhat more capable. They're also useful in running down an enemy who may try to flee.

[-Raysia-]

Spinal weapons also leave (in most cases) the absolute smallest profile exposed to your opponent, and often the end that is toughest and most filled with redundancies and non-essential equipment... Aka, the side you can sacrifice to defense.

[Feazanthia]

The beauty of the broadside configuration and a hull that slopes is that not only can you bring most of your ship's firepower to bare on a target when on approach, but it takes a few taps of the maneuver thrusters to put the full firepower of the broadside at any target. Plus it allows for some truly massive primary sublight engines.

But to each his own.

[The Romulan Republic]

The beauty of the broadside configuration and a hull that slopes is that not only can you bring most of your ship's firepower to bare on a target when on approach, but it takes a few taps of the maneuver thrusters to put the full firepower of the broadside at any target. Plus it allows for some truly massive primary sublight engines.

I agree. However, I tend to go for a diamond hull shape, with several energy or particle beam weapons batteries arrayed along either side of the hull, both top and bottom. The advantage of this configuration is that 50% of the ship's firepower can be fired in any direction.

The downside of a diamond shape is that you can't bring all your heavy weapons to bear on one point, and also that you'll probably have less room for engines, as you noted above.

[Bryn Shander]

Clearly this is why God invented the turreted centerline arrangement. It lets you switch between a broadside and a head-on configuration at a moment's notice.

[Huerdae]

Bryn, I'm not so much a fan of that configuration. I understand the advantage to it, but it tends toward an averaging of capabilities across the spectrum. This makes your ships vulnerable to an enemy who uses a more specialized configuration if they are more maneuverable than you. In addition, turreted centerline generally can engage only one target at a time, whereas a broadside-style battleship can engage two.

In a conflict where you may be facing superior numbers, a turreted centerline arrangement can make you vulnerable to massed enemy formations, where your ships are simply overwhelmed by enemy fire, regardless of other possible advantages.

[-Raysia-]

I give my ships a diamond front-profile, so that all turreted weapons are given the ability to engage in at least half of the space around my ship... But as Ive said, my most powerful weapons are easily fixed-forward. It's the difference between a pew pew laser with little recoil, and a kaWHOMP magnetically accelerated cannon with a crapload of recoil, and even more damage to an enemy... And, at close range, that kaWHOMP sounds like BURRRRRRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHH like a giant monster letting out a loud belch as the spinal weapons turn into a Vulcan for a short burst.

Teehee..

[Sskiss]

All my warships possess a massive clustered formation of spinal mounted weaponry. There is no concept of turrets. Basically the ship is "built around" the weaponry. In order to utilize this effectively, Sskiss warships are fast and highly manueverable capable of rapid excelleration/deexcelleration and quick precise turn rates. This essentually reflects the Sskiss themselves, fast, and able to turn well, and of course the "busines end" (teeth and talons on the hands and feet) of a Sskiss also faces the front end.

http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb13 ... Raider.jpg

[Kanuckistan]

I go for spinal... You can get away with far more powerful weapons, using your own ship to absorb the recoil. Granted, it means you gotta be quick and maneuverable, and they're only good for close range attacks, but I always did like a good knife fight

You've got that backwards - spinal mounts are best utilised, in general, at range, where you don't have to turn quickly to target a maneuvering enemy.

Being nimble helps, and allows you to still bring it to bear at closer ranges, but you'd nominally want turrets for the close-in fight - weapons that can be targeted independent of the ship's maneuvers, and which should traverse faster.

In other news, I finished the lineart for the Imperator Pyotr I class.

Behold:
http://i38.tinypic.com/11awfeq.png

I decided not to show anything smaller than the 47mm guns since adding a further 24 turrets would have, I felt, made it feel rather crowded.

As you can probably tell, this took over 10,000 hours in MSpaint to complete

Nice. I'm particularly fond of the crest and text - adds alot of character.

Tho personally I'd have elevated the two upper middle turrets, prolly staggered, so they could both fire forward. If the ship widens enough that the middle turrets might be paired horizontally(or, if the normal turrets are twin guns, mount single guns), such that the second back can fire around the bow turret, you could only elevate the third turret, which shouldn't screw with the ship's lines too much.

As for broadsides, well, I'd say it's a rather sub-optimal hull form - tall, big target, lots of surface area to armour; it'd really do best in the chase. Still, it is a pretty thing; been tempted to toy with something similar myself now and then.

My own approach to broadsides can be illustrated by this old render of mine(incomplete - I went full version and the demo saves can't be converted to anything compatible):

http://i37.tinypic.com/23t31wg.jpg

Now, the middle turret isn't elevated, as the gun deck rails are there to protect the turret ring(and the armoured missile banks and fly-through hangar). The spinal's cowling also houses a gravitational lens generator allowing it to fire off-axis. Armour is sharply sloped, and the thin profile presents a fairly small target in every direction except above and below.

It is, however, not the most interesting ship to look at.

[-Raysia-]

Kanuck- you fail to understand me. When I say "spinal", I mean that my ship is 800m long, and the barrels of my main guns are 400 meters long. We're talking about a -lot- of kick here. Firing even enough to knock you out a millionth of a degree and you'll be missing your target completely at long range. Yes, you can fire in a linked pattern, but not nearly as rapidly as you could at close range.

Sskiss- Right on, we think alike

and, uhh, this is only a -minor- exaggeration

[Kanuckistan]

Bryn, I'm not so much a fan of that configuration. I understand the advantage to it, but it tends toward an averaging of capabilities across the spectrum. This makes your ships vulnerable to an enemy who uses a more specialized configuration if they are more maneuverable than you. In addition, turreted centerline generally can engage only one target at a time, whereas a broadside-style battleship can engage two.

In a conflict where you may be facing superior numbers, a turreted centerline arrangement can make you vulnerable to massed enemy formations, where your ships are simply overwhelmed by enemy fire, regardless of other possible advantages.

You're assuming that A) The multiple enemies will not be on the same side of you(unless you've been flanked or have penetrated their formation, rare), B) that you actually want to spread your fire out amongst multiple enemies rather than slagging each as quickly as you can, C) you can't point different turrets in different directions(a silly notion), and D) the broadside battleship will have a heavier weight of fire.

Now, I know there are arguments and counter-arguments for D, but the fact is that, in broadsides, fully half of your firepower is masked VS any given direction, no matter if it contains one, or one hundred, targets. There is a reason warships iRL evolved centerline turret arrangements.

Kanuck- you fail to understand me. When I say "spinal", I mean that my ship is 800m long, and the barrels of my main guns are 400 meters long. We're talking about a -lot- of kick here. Firing even enough to knock you out a millionth of a degree and you'll be missing your target completely at long range. Yes, you can fire in a linked pattern, but not nearly as rapidly as you could at close range.

Ok, that's fine for you - you use spinals whose recoil you can't fully compensate for.

But as a general rule, spinals are long range weapons - you just happen to be the exception.

and, uhh, this is only a -minor- exaggeration
<OMGHUGEimgSnip>

Ow.

Some of us are still stuck on dialup here, you know.

(bastards - I can see their rural wireless highspeed tower from my kitchen, now hurry up and turn the damn thing on!)

[Auman]

Clearly this is why God invented the turreted centerline arrangement. It lets you switch between a broadside and a head-on configuration at a moment's notice.

Agreed.

[Auman]

Bryn, I'm not so much a fan of that configuration. I understand the advantage to it, but it tends toward an averaging of capabilities across the spectrum. This makes your ships vulnerable to an enemy who uses a more specialized configuration if they are more maneuverable than you. In addition, turreted centerline generally can engage only one target at a time, whereas a broadside-style battleship can engage two.

In a conflict where you may be facing superior numbers, a turreted centerline arrangement can make you vulnerable to massed enemy formations, where your ships are simply overwhelmed by enemy fire, regardless of other possible advantages.

In addition, you're wrong. Turreted center line configurations allow you to engage as many targets are there are turrets. So, yeah...

[-Raysia-]

I would suggest that -turrets- be used for long range, as they are much more easily aimed on the fine magnitudes... A ship is a lot harder to maneuver by millionths of degrees. For the purpose, I have 2 heavy cannons on rotable shock mounts, but the rest are positioned for use as a
frikkin Gatling. My ship is the Arnold Schwarzenegger of close range combat... Wielding massively overpowered weapons

okay, my ships aren't exactly as -tough- as Arnold, but the offensive power is what I'm talking about.

Why snipe when you can jump up on them firing megatons per second in kinetic energy? You can't PD your way out of that crap.



And, yeah, I saw that bit about the turrets all needing to be directed at one target... I don't know who posted that, but... What?

[Huerdae]

You're assuming that A) The multiple enemies will not be on the same side of you(unless you've been flanked or have penetrated their formation, rare), B) that you actually want to spread your fire out amongst multiple enemies rather than slagging each as quickly as you can, C) you can't point different turrets in different directions(a silly notion), and D) the broadside battleship will have a heavier weight of fire.

Now, I know there are arguments and counter-arguments for D, but the fact is that, in broadsides, fully half of your firepower is masked VS any given direction, no matter if it contains one, or one hundred, targets. There is a reason warships iRL evolved centerline turret arrangements.

A) Standard tactics with a broadside vessel are exactly as you said. To penetrate a formation. This is why the wind and current in conflict were so damn important in naval conflict. The danger, of course, came from multiple such warships using matching tactics. The goal was the same, and it became less and less effective, unless your larger ships could somehow gain a maneuverability advantage (The elimination of the rudder by smaller, more nimble vessels).

B) The option is available on both. However, the difference is that spreading out fire across multiple targets with a broadside battleship (while more complex and requiring more organization and tactics) does not decrease firepower as noticeably. It is possible, with this gun configuration, to engage multiple targets without a loss of firepower.

C) Silly concern. My point was with maximum weight of fire, and, while adaptable, the overall firepower of a centerline configuration is less than that of a broadside configuration in a side-to-side conflict. Even assuming both keel and dorsal turrets on a centerline configuration, it does not match stacked guns. (Though it does present a lower profile, hence the trade-off).

D) The broadside will. One of the advantages of that configuration was that while it had a larger profile, the whole profile was armed. In a centerline configuration, much less of that profile carries weaponry. This is one of the trade-offs of this configuration.

And I cannot refute that point, but one of the major advantages of a centerline configuration (lower profile) specifically countered an advantage of a broadside. A larger gun could be mounted on a centerline, permitting increased weight of fire at range. However, up close, the broadside would still have the advantage, assuming it had survived to make that distance. It seems reasonable to me that a nation which is experienced in facing enemies that outnumber them would evolve a fleet of starships more along a broadside configuration, with smaller, nimbler ships in support, most likely bearing a field of fire that is more complete (diamond or ovoid design, for instance). The two advantages of a centerline configuration are lower profile and firepower at range, while not requiring such strict formation fighting. Broadside configurations, on the other hand, hold weight of fire at close range, and significantly increased firepower against multiple enemy capital ships.

Does this explain my reasoning sufficiently?

In addition, you're wrong. Turreted center line configurations allow you to engage as many targets are there are turrets. So, yeah...

A single turret cannot match the weight of fire of a full broadside, which was my point. To match the weight of fire, it is very likely all turrets would be required to match the weight of fire put forth, and thus my assertion that a centerline configuration is less effective against multiple targets than a broadside.

And, yeah, I saw that bit about the turrets all needing to be directed at one target... I don't know who posted that, but... What?

Nobody posted that. It was a misinterpretation of what I said, something I probably should have clarified if I wasn't quite so lazy.

[OMGeverynameistaken]

@Kanuk
Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationalism!

I thought about that as well, but I considered that it wouldn't reflect well on the ship's character. Further, the Russian's have yet to engage an alien fleet in a naval battle, so they're basically still using WWI-style battle tactics, where you line up and shoot at the other side until somebody runs away. Hence, all of their ships are basically built like WWI era ships if they had another upper deck to work with.

It's tall chiefly because they're quite thin. Have to cram all that equipment in somewhere, y'know? Fortunately (for me), though, the belt armor is generally the thickest on the ship, it'd take a lot of pounding to get through. 16" of my ultra-derptonium ub/-\rsooper plating in the center tapering down to 8-12" at the edges. That's average, of course.

I do have one ship that features a triangular arrangement of turrets, two forward, one rear on the upper and lower decks. They're fairly old vessels by now, though. They've got the old pillbox style turrets you can see on the scale Pyotr Veliky there.


@Huerdae
But really, what's the point of doing something in a battle if it doesn't look cool?

And obviously the Russian designers haven't given much thought to it, given the measly 4" of armor on the decks.

That'll probably thicken up once somebody else figures out that you can punch through the top of my ships with a sharpened paperclip.

[Sertian]

The more and more I hear about the Galactic Assembly, the more and more I'm glad I chose not to attend. xD

As for spinal vs. turreted weapons, currently the Sertians havor a somewhat mixed approach. Most of their plasma canons are internal 'spinal' weapons, which in the extreme class of the Phoenix-Class results in a 3.2 kilometer long dreadnought built around a 3 kilometer long plasma canon, and their rail and coil guns (as well as smaller plasma canons) are turreted broadsides.

However, I'm currently planning for the Sertian's ships to be replaced and phased out after some tech progression on my part, resulting in particle beam weapons being the main weaponry for my ships. The advantage I think for these is that their main mechanism is inside the ship's armor, while a (complicated) magnetic lens could bend the plasma beam to allow it to fire like a turret. Therefor you could, theoretically, get a weapon that's just as strong as a spinal weapon while still keeping the range of fire of a turret (if your magnetic lens was good enough, which mine won't be).

[OMGeverynameistaken]

Maybe my next ship should just be a giant cube built of railguns. Say, 100 pointed in every direction. Just park it in the middle of a fight and BAM

[Kanuckistan]

I would suggest that -turrets- be used for long range, as they are much more easily aimed on the fine magnitudes... A ship is a lot harder to maneuver by millionths of degrees.

Even a fixed spinal mount should have some limited independent aiming capability, even if it's only a small fraction of a degree. Be it a lens system in a beam weapon, or projectile RCS or asymmetric mag fields in a gauss weapon.

Tho to touch on recoil again, I should note that a properly balanced, salvo-fired spinal gauss weapon should produce recoil symmetrically and not significantly impact aim. Similar to how a multi-gun turret must fire all their guns at the same time to avoid asymmetrical recoil that would hamper aim and potentially damage the turret ring(and one of several reasons tanks iRL don't have more than one main gun).

Why snipe when you can jump up on them firing megatons per second in kinetic energy? You can't PD your way out of that crap.

Because tactical FTL is cheap, IMO.

Also, knife fighting is dangerous and dirty and things can happen very quickly - things go bad, and you can be dead befor you can do anything about it, and you have less freedom to maneuver.

And I happen to enjoy a good battle of maneuver.


(of course, there was that time during the Shivan War they tried to jump-ram me, were shunted aside by ASPEW FTLi, and found themselves in the 7500km "Hard Kill" zone of a Battleplate's Gravy Guns. Hard Kill, as in 'can generate Event Horizons at this range' - they jumped out next post, having lost, iirc, 4 of 6 ships, or something like that. Was years ago - I still find it hilarious; reverse-ambush.)

Fortunately (for me), though, the belt armor is generally the thickest on the ship, it'd take a lot of pounding to get through.

This is actually one of the problems - large surface area with thick armour means much more weight to move, and much more high-tech armour to pay for.

But it sounds like you realise that.

Does this explain my reasoning sufficiently?

Yes, I see what you're getting at; weight of fire seems to be the main sticking point, but it's not as simple as you seem to think(which is partially why I had hopped to get away with glossing over it ).

A broadside battleship has more surface area to slap barrels onto the hull, this is true. That does, however, ignore everything else a big-ticket energy weapon needs - things you generally don't stuff in the turret; ammo, power, cooling systems, etc. The turret well is part of the weapon, too, afterall, and support systems can extend beyond. There are also other considerations, from cost, to extra mass for the engines to push. Your argument is basically one of hull form, and how many guns you can pack into it is you array they a given way.

You also make several tech-specific assumptions about weapon capabilities(and ignore the RL rule of thumb that a large gun will penetrate more armour, better, than it's weight in smaller guns).

Fundamentally, the turret mechanism, and armour for it, is the only thing a centerline needs that a broadsider doesn't - in exchange, the centerline's firepower can far more efficiently focused, and traversed to target without turning the whole ship(well, less so).

Visual Aid:
http://i36.tinypic.com/2qbzuqw.jpg

Remember, mounting big guns requiors more than just the gun barrel, and a warship needs more than weapons to be of any use.

B) The option is available on both. However, the difference is that spreading out fire across multiple targets with a broadside battleship (while more complex and requiring more organization and tactics) does not decrease firepower as noticeably. It is possible, with this gun configuration, to engage multiple targets without a loss of firepower.

That is very misrepresentative.

How does the centerline, as you imply, lose firepower by targeting multiple vessels? You have X firepower, split amongst Y targets. 1/2 X is 1/2 X. All you claim is that the broadsider will have a larger value for X, I dispute that it will be significantly larger.


And while targeting multiple targets is an option for both, full focused-fire is not something the broadsider can do.

And you seriously underestimate the advantage of focused fire. The only time you don't want to do that is when you can cripple(or otherwise seriously reduce in combat efficiency) your target with less than a single salvo, because he who reduces their enemy's ability to fight fastest wins a self-reinforcing advantage that only grows as the fight progresses.

The fact that shields mean that most folks take no reduction in their ability to fight until you batter them down only adds to this - if you're battering the shields of my fleet while I'm blowing holes in one or a few of your ships, the balance of power quickly starts tipping in my favour, as you lose guns.


You also rely on being able to get in close and grapple with your enemy, and for your enemy to be numerous enough that many of your guns aren't rendered unable to bear. In anything short of a large fleet action, you are at an inherent disadvantage.

The advantage I think for these is that their main mechanism is inside the ship's armor, while a (complicated) magnetic lens could bend the plasma beam to allow it to fire like a turret. Therefor you could, theoretically, get a weapon that's just as strong as a spinal weapon while still keeping the range of fire of a turret (if your magnetic lens was good enough, which mine won't be).

A bit what I'm getting at - say a plasma cannon? You don't stuff everything in the turret; the turret would contain the mag accelleration coils and focusing mechanism; power, waste heat managment, plasma generation, everything else would be in the turret well or elsewhere in the body of the ship.

[Huerdae]

Yes, I see what you're getting at; weight of fire seems to be the main sticking point, but it's not as simple as you seem to think(which is partially why I had hopped to get away with glossing over it ).

A broadside battleship has more surface area to slap barrels onto the hull, this is true. That does, however, ignore everything else a big-ticket energy weapon needs - things you generally don't stuff in the turret; ammo, power, cooling systems, etc. The turret well is part of the weapon, too, afterall, and support systems can extend beyond. There are also other considerations, from cost, to extra mass for the engines to push. Your argument is basically one of hull form, and how many guns you can pack into it is you array they a given way.

Fundamentally, the turret mechanism, and armour for it, is the only thing a centerline needs that a broadsider doesn't - in exchange, the centerline's firepower can far more efficiently focused, and traversed to target without turning the whole ship(well, less so).

Visual Aid:
http://i36.tinypic.com/2qbzuqw.jpg

Actually, there's a difference in this configuration. A proper setup for a broadside battleship has the weapon mounts sunk into the hull a short distance, and does not include a turret. This is one of the failing points of a broadside configuration. It literally has a plane of fire, and very little traverse. In three dimensional combat, this can be a dangerous weakness, but let me illustrate my point.

For reference, I'll bring up Games Workshop's battlefleet gothic, and their predominant use of broadsides. An imperial battleship appears thus:
http://www.nugaming.com/assets/images/BFGGame.jpg

You can see the stacked guns on the side, sunken into the hull to a point that does not permit turret mounting. This permits a larger size weapon and increased firepower, but it also limits the traverse of the weapon to almost nothing, the same limitation experienced in a spinal mounting. This means that a broadside configuration will be effectively taller than a centerline configuration, but will have more facing guns. Now, this often ends with a mighty block of a battleship, which is not very maneuverable. But moving in a half-echelon or full echelon formation ( http://wwwdelivery.superstock.com/WI/22 ... 3-5748.jpg ) you provide the firepower of an impressive amount of guns, able to focus upon a single enemy vessel. Against a more mobile enemy, this strategy suffers. But again, who among us has a perfect navy? I don't.

One major advantage of this configuration is the ability to mount spinal weapons for the approach. While less accurate, it allows for a 'bombardment' style advance where your formation which is already headed for the enemy group, opens fire with longer-range weaponry to weaken the enemy formation. This works particularly well against planets or other immobile targets, where sustained fire from heavy guns at range can be achieved by the use of multiple warships.

Admittedly, this relies on overwhelming firepower of large, heavily armed and armored vessels supported by accurate firepower from smaller, quicker ships designed to disable the ability of the enemy to avoid that fire.

In contrast, a centerline battle group would be capable of picking out an enemy in a fleet at long range and disabling or destroying it, and engaging at almost any range with the same amount of firepower. It is less indiscriminate, more accurate, and often carries less overall firepower at close range. Formations of these vessels can be much looser, and conflicts are often resolved at what would be an extreme range for a broadside battleship.

That is my understanding. The most significant difference being the lack of requirement for a turret mounting, permitting a drastically reduced size for each weapon, while also eliminating any sort of fast-tracking. Effectively, such battleships become utterly dependant upon their escorts for any sort of protection against nimble opponents that do not wander into their field of fire.

That is very misrepresentative.

How does the centerline, as you imply, lose firepower by targeting multiple vessels? You have X firepower, split amongst Y targets. 1/2 X is 1/2 X. All you claim is that the broadsider will have a larger value for X, I dispute that it will be significantly larger.

And while targeting multiple targets is an option for both, full focused-fire is not something the broadsider can do.

And you seriously underestimate the advantage of focused fire. The only time you don't want to do that is when you can cripple(or otherwise seriously reduce in combat efficiency) your target with less than a single salvo, because he who reduces their enemy's ability to fight fastest wins a self-reinforcing advantage that only grows as the fight progresses.

The fact that shields mean that most folks take no reduction in their ability to fight until you batter them down only adds to this - if you're battering the shields of my fleet while I'm blowing holes in one or a few of your ships, the balance of power quickly starts tipping in my favour, as you lose guns.

This is something that stems from the previous point. A broadside has more firepower only if sitting between two enemy vessels. While this is part of the tactics involved, I admit it is rare. And I don't think I underestimate the advantage of focused fire. It is, quite simply, the single most useful tactic unless you intend to scare your enemy away without causing great harm. A fleet of broadsides really is forced to try to segment and disrupt an enemy formation, attempting to make such an advantage impossible simply by positioning.

Again, I'm not saying it's the perfect configuration. I'm simply saying it has strengths that should not be discounted.

[-Raysia-]

Might I ask what the purpose of a plasma cannon is? I mean, it fires an electrically-charged glob at the enemy... I suppose it might be like combining an ion cannon with napalm then fired like a sand blaster, but what damage is it supposed to inflict? It sounds like it'd be mostly electrical and cosmetic damage

[OMGeverynameistaken]

@Kanuk
Yup. They're big, slow, and get terrible MPG, but they're hard to kill and have a lot of firepower.

[Sertian]

Might I ask what the purpose of a plasma cannon is? I mean, it fires an electrically-charged glob at the enemy... I suppose it might be like combining an ion cannon with napalm then fired like a sand blaster, but what damage is it supposed to inflict? It sounds like it'd be mostly electrical and cosmetic damage

The (current) plasma canons utilized by the Sertian Empire is basically a concoction of gas and metals so vastly heated that their electrons are stripped off. The important thing though, is that plasma can be easily shaped and moved with magnetic fields, which allows a glob of plasma to move much faster than a typical metal slug. If you can find a way to keep the plasma intact after firing it, and can accelerate a plasma bolt far enough, not only is it a burst particle beam weapon, but it's heat could also potentially melt any metal that it's kinetic energy couldn't over come.

Of course,once I phase into plasma particle beams, it's advantage over typical particle beams is that it's affected by magnetic fields without spreading out due to electrical charge. If you could get the individual atoms in a plasma particle beam traveling parallel (where their vibrations due to heat don't cause them to knock into each other and spread out due to thermodynamics), the plasma beam could theoretically have a less declination than a positive or negative particle beam.

[Bryn Shander]

crap

In what world do you live in that a broadside has larger guns and more throw weight than a turreted centerline? The only time that was ever true was during opening days of the ironclad era. Once steam power allowed larger armored warships without sails, guns got bigger and bigger. I'd like to see you mount fourteen inch naval guns in a broadside.

A turreted centerline allows you to have larger guns that can engage far more targets and focus all of your available firepower on a single target instead of having half if you're lucky. Sure, you have fewer guns with the centerline, but they're larger, more powerful, and can hit a target regardless of its position relative to your own.