Battleships

...are quite spiffy actually. They can take (and took) an extraordinary amount of hits before actually sinking. The key to this handy little feature is compartmentalization. Once a penetrating hit is sustained, especially if flooding starts to occur, one simply needs to shut the doors surrounding the damage. What water can pour in, will, but it won't flood the rest of the ship. Hopefully this is not a new concept to the reader. As such, they can take a tremendous beating before enough areas are flooded (or it can't be contained) and the ship goes down. Of course, by the time the ship is finally fatally wounded, it has most certainly been helpless and unmoving for quite some time while under the relentless bombardment of the enemy.

Two things tend to speed this sinking process up. First, an obvious lucky hit that say, detonates a bunch of ammo, fuel, etc causing secondary explosions and fires would do it. The second would be some genius actually opening the sealed hatch and letting it spread. Best just to seal it off and if you can, let the bilge pumps pump - assuming they are available - and just keep on going. Besides, who has time for dry dock anyway?

Speaking of sealing and redirecting, in five days I'll be in court for this stupid CC appearance. Bah blah blah, written instruments vs oral contracts vs who knows what else. I'll be glad when its over with. If I win, it'll be fun to grin at the other side. If I lose - such is life. I can (and will) take the annoyance out on my fencing partner for the night, whoever that may be.