"Marine Carrier"

Vince wrote:I've driven for a number of years in Houston during both rush hour and off peak time traffic, where the population density is high and except in the very early morning hours (about 1:00 AM to 5:00 AM) traffic is always heavy. Except during rush hour, when the traffic on the Interstates slows to about 30 mile per hour because of the amount of traffic on the road (and that's considered good for rush hour, with no accidents), everyone drives very near 10 miles per hour over the posted speed limit on the Interstates. To drive the speed limit in Houston is asking to be run over by all the other vehicles on the road. No one uses turn signals prior to lane changes, because you will be cut off, especially during rush hour.

And this makes Houston different from other major western cities how?

fallsfromtrees wrote:

Vince wrote:I've driven for a number of years in Houston during both rush hour and off peak time traffic, where the population density is high and except in the very early morning hours (about 1:00 AM to 5:00 AM) traffic is always heavy. Except during rush hour, when the traffic on the Interstates slows to about 30 mile per hour because of the amount of traffic on the road (and that's considered good for rush hour, with no accidents), everyone drives very near 10 miles per hour over the posted speed limit on the Interstates. To drive the speed limit in Houston is asking to be run over by all the other vehicles on the road. No one uses turn signals prior to lane changes, because you will be cut off, especially during rush hour.

And this makes Houston different from other major western cities how?

I think the idea is to draw the contrast between Houston and the parts of West Texas that consist mostly of miles of miles. Houston ain't empty.

Vince wrote:I've driven for a number of years in Houston during both rush hour and off peak time traffic, where the population density is high and except in the very early morning hours (about 1:00 AM to 5:00 AM) traffic is always heavy. Except during rush hour, when the traffic on the Interstates slows to about 30 mile per hour because of the amount of traffic on the road (and that's considered good for rush hour, with no accidents), everyone drives very near 10 miles per hour over the posted speed limit on the Interstates. To drive the speed limit in Houston is asking to be run over by all the other vehicles on the road. No one uses turn signals prior to lane changes, because you will be cut off, especially during rush hour.

fallsfromtrees wrote:And this makes Houston different from other major western cities how?

JeffEngel wrote:I think the idea is to draw the contrast between Houston and the parts of West Texas that consist mostly of miles of miles. Houston ain't empty.

Which is why I specified West Texas - East Texas as a whole is actually fairly densely populated, at least compared to West Texas. The same is true of Arizona/Phoenix, New Mexico/Albuquerque, and Las Vegas/Nevada. (and yes I know that there are more major cities in those states than the ones mentioned).

About 20 years ago my wife and daughters were on an extended road trip over the summer (I had a new job and there was no vacation in the cards so they went for 2 months) when they went into Montana after a week in Yellowstone NP. She reported one or two road where the speed limit was posted as "Reasonable and Prudent". Of course when you have miles and miles of open range and relatively flat land, you can get goaing mighty fast. She did get up into the 90mph range but that was in daylight. Hitting a steer or a Bison in a Saturn gives a whole new meaning to "T-boneing" something.

Back in the early 90's I was communting from New Haven, CT down to Darien. Thats about 60 miles. In rush hour, the 3 lane (each direction) of I-95 was very often 70mph in effectively bumper-to-bumper traffic with everybody praying that nobody else had a problem. That also had 3 toll boths in that segment of the Interstate. Absoluitly insane but if you wanted to get to lower Fairfield Co. -or anywhere across the boarder into NY with NYC as the primarly NY destination. We used to joke that the State Police might sit off the sholder on I-95 in Fairfield Co during rush hour but they sure as hell were not going to try and pull anybody over for speeding. Too likely to get all sorts of people killed including themselvers.
You had 2 other options.
US 1 was not really an option. Local 2 lane US Route through the center of every town along the coast with stoplights and local traffic. The Merit Parkway (CT 15) was (and is) a 2 lane devided "parkway" with trees in the center grass covered median (wider than either of the pairs of highway) and mostly nice trimmed grass on the verge of the road running back perhaps 60' when you wern't in a built up area. Watch out for the DEER!. It was designed and built in the early 1930s for 40-50mph traffic including the exits and entrances. Nobody did 50. Not exactly fun when full of commuter traffic.

I won't discuss driving in Miami these days. I visit there, I have decided that I hate driving in cities.

One could make a Marine LAC.

A bit more than an Assault Shuttle and a bit less than a Cruiser.

Made to fit for deployment from a CLAC.

A Hydra Class CLAC could carry 12 Marine LAC with 5 x 8 Marine squads in Battle Armour.

Made for short duration and to get the Marines on-board and prisoners off any ships. 480 Marines would be more than a Kammerling and would leave 93% of the Total LAC.

A Marine LAC would be easy to make and wouldn't interfere with any other ship productions. Yard slip space etc...

Lord Skimper wrote:One could make a Marine LAC.

A bit more than an Assault Shuttle and a bit less than a Cruiser.

Made to fit for deployment from a CLAC.

A Hydra Class CLAC could carry 12 Marine LAC with 5 x 8 Marine squads in Battle Armour.

Made for short duration and to get the Marines on-board and prisoners off any ships. 480 Marines would be more than a Kammerling and would leave 93% of the Total LAC.

A Marine LAC would be easy to make and wouldn't interfere with any other ship productions. Yard slip space etc...

I see where you are going, but I guess my question is what the LAC can do better than the Assault shuttle they have. See the landing at Mobius in Shadow of freedom where the shuttle's missles took out the emplacements, the heavy tribarrels suppressed other fire, and the rest deployed Marines in drop gear, all literally in seconds, not allowing the Gerdarimes to react (admittedly, they were hardly the best troops, but still...).

what does the LAC give you that the Assault shuttle does not?

Hutch wrote:

Lord Skimper wrote:One could make a Marine LAC.

A bit more than an Assault Shuttle and a bit less than a Cruiser.

Made to fit for deployment from a CLAC.

A Hydra Class CLAC could carry 12 Marine LAC with 5 x 8 Marine squads in Battle Armour.

Made for short duration and to get the Marines on-board and prisoners off any ships. 480 Marines would be more than a Kammerling and would leave 93% of the Total LAC.

A Marine LAC would be easy to make and wouldn't interfere with any other ship productions. Yard slip space etc...

I see where you are going, but I guess my question is what the LAC can do better than the Assault shuttle they have. See the landing at Mobius in Shadow of freedom where the shuttle's missles took out the emplacements, the heavy tribarrels suppressed other fire, and the rest deployed Marines in drop gear, all literally in seconds, not allowing the Gerdarimes to react (admittedly, they were hardly the best troops, but still...).

what does the LAC give you that the Assault shuttle does not?

But you have to consider the source. Skimper makes Hemphill look like a dyed in the wool dinosaur. he never met a cockamamie idea he didn't like. (Can you say frigate?)

Back to beating the dead horse. There have been a number of military transports captured from the SLN, with marines, their small arms, and probably their ground vehicles. They have less armour and should be easier to modify than warships. I propose modification to a "jeep LAC carrier" and marine transport.

lelder5 wrote:Back to beating the dead horse. There have been a number of military transports captured from the SLN, with marines, their small arms, and probably their ground vehicles. They have less armour and should be easier to modify than warships. I propose modification to a "jeep LAC carrier" and marine transport.

To what end. As assault shuttles, they are no doubt vastly inferior to even second line Havenite equipment, and Haven probably has all of that type of stuff required.

fallsfromtrees wrote:

lelder5 wrote:Back to beating the dead horse. There have been a number of military transports captured from the SLN, with marines, their small arms, and probably their ground vehicles. They have less armour and should be easier to modify than warships. I propose modification to a "jeep LAC carrier" and marine transport.

To what end. As assault shuttles, they are no doubt vastly inferior to even second line Havenite equipment, and Haven probably has all of that type of stuff required.

Seriously - the humble assault shuttle seems to do its job very well. Whence comes this burning, itching, possibly bleeding need to replace it with LAC's, mini-LAC's, frigates, towed modules, and goodness knows what else?

Truly - you just need to have the Marines and their gear around, an assault shuttle, and you're good to go do the sorts of things you need Marines, marine gear, and an assault shuttle to do. If you haven't got it on a newer small ship, use an older small ship, a newer large ship, or a Kamerling system control ship. It's covered, at least at the unit design point. The deployment one, that may need tweaking, but that's life.