[TML] Expanding the turret selection.

[Tom Naro]

Greg Nokes tsykoduk at gmail.com wrote:
>Did not book 5 add barbettes with more powerful PA's?
>Why not stuff a bunch of guns into a barbette?
>(Is that a barbette full of missile launchers, our are you just 
>happy to see me?)
 
The barbette was added due to the size of the PA weapons.  You cannot retrofit a barbette into a existing hardpoint.  Sure you could mechanically fit the unit into the spot, but the barbette has more tonnage than a standard turret - a drop-in wound be cheating.  You would have to sack a few staterooms to make up the tonnage difference (not sure that is even logical.)

How many guns can you fit in a barbette?  Do you get the same level of control?  Technically, a triple turret weapons could engage 3 separate targets - they are not required to fire as a battery.  Is the barbette automatically a battery meaning it can only fire at one target?
 
Is there really and benefit is cramming lasers into a barbette?  PA and fusion weapons seem to be better.
 
Smaller bays might help some designs.

I would expect that missile bays would closely resemble VLS (vertical launch system) arrays. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_launching_system The only problem is that the VLS would allow multiple missiles launches at once so traveller's combat rules would have to be adjusted.