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Old December 8th, 2002, 05:40 PM
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Default Re: thoughts - the source of all problems and disbalances

The main consideration with recoil isn't going to be it moving the ship around anyway. The vast differences in mass between the projectile and the ship says that the counter force isn't going to move the ship all that much. Certainly nothing that thrusters designed to move the ship around to begin with can't handle.

The main problem is the stresses that are placed on whatever mounting points you have for the gun. Before the force is applied to the mass of the ship as a whole it has to be transfered through the mounting hardware, and it would be very dificult to design a rigid system that could handle those level of loads.

That is the reason the 15in guns on the WWII battle ship recoil like they do. Not because the ship would roll over or anything, but because the counter force would break stuff the first time you shot it if you tried to mount it rigidly.

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