Are Traveller ships too big?

[phavoc]

I was reading a letter published in the naval institutes Proceedings about what size of ship should the USN build. The letter was published in 1916, and while it meandered a bit (and there appeared to be an excessive use of exclamation points by the author), it got me thinking a bit that the arguments made iin it, while dated and referencing older technologies, the arguments are, perhaps, timeless.

Questions such as the "proper" size a battleship should be remain relevant. As do the timeless arguments of is it better to build more numerous/smaller/cheaper units vs. building larger/fewer/individually more powerful units. At the time the USN considered Germany as a primary enemy, and man of the quotations made in the article referenced older admirals and maxims. One quote stands out, and is attributed to the USN General Board and not to any historical figure. It says "The best way to accomplish all these objects is to find and defeat the hostile fleet or any of its detachments at a distance from our coast sufficiently great to prevent interruption of our normal course of life". This was in reference to the mission of the USN to defend the United States boundaries.

The conclusion of the article stated that, for any given sum of funds, the USN should build large battleships that are more powerful than those built by any other nation. And that the reasons for this are cost and maintenance per unit of power inversely vary based upon the size of the ship, that both tactically and strategically larger ships are superior, and large ships "engender the most desirable virtues int he officers and men who conceive and man them". Therefore the policy of the USN should be to build large battleships.

Arguably all of these points are debatable. Since the publication of the article we've seen that the USN, and other navies, peaked in their tonnage for battleships, and then over time we've seen the relative size of both individual naval combatants and their overall numbers fall. Top ship speeds have been stable at around ~30 kts for over half a century. Total armaments have decreased, and armor is nearly non-existent these days. Nuclear weaponry skews the argument, but overall the amount of lethal force a ship can introduce seems to be roughly the same - if taken in the aggregrate. The ability to project force of power at range has decidedly increased though.

Sure, individual missiles have decent-sized warheads, but the number of missiles that a ship can carry is quite small compared to the number of shells they used to carry. Accuracy helps a lot in that, though in a modern war we really don't know how major combatants would actually fare as we have nearly no examples of warfare in the modern age (the Falklands being the one and only war fought, and that was somewhat one-sided).

While Traveller is a game, one does have to wonder if Imperial designs of 500,000 dton dreadnoughts would be built, or would they be more modeled around more numerous and smaller-sized hulls. CT postulated a cap at 5,000 dtons for ships, then HG took that and greatly expanded it. The early Trillion credit squadron simulations showed that min/max designs won tournaments - but tournaments are not reality. Min/max designs are not favored in reality because nobody can afford to build a navy around it with their myriad of deployment needs.

What's your speculation point of view? Do you feel a 1916s Proceeding article stands true in the far future, or do you think we'd trend towards where modern navies are today? I don't think there is a right/wrong answer here.

 

[ottarrus]

Compared to BSG or Star Trek, maybe. Compared to Star Wars, not even close.

Something that is often forgotten about the difference between LBB 2 and High Guard is that players were never intended to own or operate High Guard ships. These were supposed to be the destroyers, cruisers, and battleship of naval forces and intended to be most wargamed out. But we all jumped into that gap like kids on an Easter Egg hunt

 

[agentwigggles]

I dont know why 1919 battleship should be used as a jumping off point for traveller ships.

Battleship sizes peaked, not because we've maximized battleships but because battleships are shitty at what they do. Battleships are too slow, and their range too small. It does too little, over too small of a range.

Switching to the carrier doctrine, made sense as a single carrier is much flexiable, ship, able to cover over the horizan, able to project force anywhere within range of its airwing. The airwing can do multitudes of missions.

Modern navies stopped putting armor on ships, because it doesnt matter.
When battle ships were dominate, it was possible to take a direct hit and be fine.
Now if any missile manage to land a hit, the target is put of commission if not destroyed. Why waste money and mass on something that does nothing.
Moving really fast for Naval Doctrine before flight was important, because the human ability to do the trig in their head is bad, and using prefine solitions, is slow and targetting computers, beside the really early one the Brits had, arrived when fighters and bombers were a thing.
So moving fast, was important.
Now, for the USN at the very least has the capability to get anywhere in the world in a few days.
Being faster doesnt get you anything but additional cost.

Traveller military ships, dont have instant kill weapons (at ranage), they're still able to take quite few direct hits and be fine. Traveller capitcal weapons, get better the larger they are.
The larger you are, the meat you have to take hits, the bigger gun you still have.
And all traveller naval ships are fast as possible.
The 500,000 tigress doesnt slow down its taskforce like a battleship did. It can jump just as far and travel with its taskforce at the same combat speed.
The size only makes it better at what it does.

 

[Condottiere]

1. The Imperium can afford Tigressii.

2. Modern navies have less warships, so less missiles required.

3. Second to none, means the Americans were still apprehensive of the Royal Navy blockading their ports.

4. Supporting infrastructure does factor in in deciding the size of warships.

5. It's usually in no one's interest to start a naval arms race.

6. Size escalation has to be done decisively, rather than piecemeal.

7. Hence, Dreadnought.

8. Then, Hood.

9. Finally, Yamato class.

 

[Geir]

Battleships got bigger because guns got bigger. Bigger guns meant bigger ships and more armour and so it spiraled until the airplane broke the concept of firing guns at your target and only armouring your belt (okay, not only, but not the deck). And then there was a couple of treaties that probably accelerated aircraft carrier development as the giant loophole before everyone sort of stopped paying attention to the treaty.

But if you'd gone back twenty or so years, you could read how at least some of the French decided that torpedoes were the ship-killers and that small and cheap as dirt torpedo boats were the way to go - swarm those ships and move as fast as a technical so the turrets couldn't even track you (mixing centuries there, sorry), which cause the destroyers (originally torpedo boat destroyers) to get built. Ironically, torpedoes were really good at killing ships, but mostly when launched from submarines or dropped from planes (so maybe Khan should have known about three dimensional battles... but no, never mind, wrong universe).

But... as pointed out above, the way the Traveller Universe works, bigger gets you more powerful more armour and still the same speed. I think battle riders and monitors get second chair status in Traveller not because they're not as effective, but because they don't let you um... travel. Yes, you can't retreat if you lose your tenders, but at with current rules, you can load them up with bigger guns and armour and still do 9Gs and jump in from way far out (1000D becomes a tangent here, but even if it is the issue, the defender or pursuer would have more than 4000 cubic AU to patrol at Sol to find and hit the tender).

Each version of Traveller changes the rules, so the most effective type of ship should change, but it's weighed down by canon and the holes therein. What gets me peeved right now is looking at all the fleets in the 5FW series and you've got this giant missing gap, because there are only two 'standard' ships in the destroyer size range and one of them is supposed to be experimental. Drives me nuts to see battleships and heavy cruisers with effectively corvettes as the next size down. Need more destroyer designs and retcons to insert them.

[Funny you should mention min/max designs. Isn't that what the air force did for decades with the F15/16 mix (well that would be max/min, but numerology...)? ]

Haven't tried fighting a capital ship battle with the High Guard fleet or even regular Core rules, so I really don't know how it stacks up. I guess it matters most how deadly small spinal guns are. You can build an awful lot of 25,000 ton cruisers with spinals for the cost of one Tigress, and each one of those cruisers can fire each turn. Worst you can do with a Tigress in opposition is totally waste one cruiser per turn.

Or maybe it's colossal salvos of missiles or torpedoes that win the day and if they all have to come from the same ship, the old Vilani big ship doctrine of nuke them from orbit, or deep space, or wherever, just nuke them until the rubble glows, is the way to go.

 

[Nelphine]

I've talked about this a fair bit.

In my view, there are two options:

make a ship large enough your opponent can't destroy it (for me tigress is much too small to exemplify this. I'd expect it to be in the 10 million+ dton range, and arguably closer to 50+). Once complete this one ship singlehandedly defeats the enemy (on offense) and can conquer territory (but not hold it).

Make a huge number of small ships. There are two sizes to this:
Small enough to threaten civilians (Vargr corsair are probably the exemplification of this). Use these when you can't fight and decisively defeat your opponents main fleet. Make millions, so that your opponents main fleet simply cannot catch them all, no matter how fast they are. Use this for a scorched earth policy, and due to quantity over quality, these small ships will be able to scorch the opponents planets faster than the opponents main fleet can scorch the corsairs worlds.
Small enough to scratch the large class of ships. In Traveller this is the smallest possible ship that can mount a spiral weapon, a glass cannon. If you can make these cheaper per dton than the large ship (usually by removing armour, and going for the minimum speed and range that will allow the ship to get one shot off against the large ship before the large ship kills it), you can still economically fight the large ship. Use this if you are close to economic parity, but not quite there, and your opponent opted for the large ship policy.

This then leads to 2 more classes:

The corsair hunter: a medium 5000ish dton ship that moves as fast as possible, and can defeat more than it's weight in corsairs. Purely defensive to try and protect against the scorched earth policy.

The glass cannon hunter: something that can defeat the glass cannon economically. Probably very fast and very long ranged, but with fairly weak weapons that can't hurt the large ships, but can hurt the armourless glass cannons. Not exactly an escort ship (since the large ship can be caught by the glass cannons, so these won't be cost efficient if they're stuck defending the large ship), but rather a hunter. The tigress is actually closest to this category, although it's trying to be a battleship, so it's not a very good example.

So we rename them:

3 classes of capital ships:

Dreadnoughts are large, absurdly large, so large that the largest spinal weapon (75k dton meson I think?) can't cause a critical hit by doing damage because it can't do 10% of a dreanoughts hull even if it rolls max damage*. They can have carrier elements.

Frigates: the smallest possible ship that can mount a spinal weapon, who can economically (by having no armour) chip a dreadnought to death.

Cruisers: super fast and long ranged, so that they can defeat the frigates, but (in order to economically beat the frigates) with weapons so weak they can't hurt the dreadnought. This could include carrier types.

2 smaller classes:

Corsairs: tiny ships that target civilians, that you build in such quantities that none of the 3 capital ship classes (dreadnought, frigate cruiser) can hope to stop them.

Corvettes: specifically designed to economically fight corsairs, and useless against the capital ships. They could be carriers maybe?


Generally, you have to choose between the classes:

if your opponent goes all in on corsairs, and you do anything other than all in on corvettes, you lose. If you go all in on Corvettes, and your opponent goes for anything but corsairs, you lose.

Corsairs 'beat' capital ships beat corvettes beat corsairs.

Capital ships: dreadnoughts beat cruisers beat frigates beat dreadnoughts

If you both opt for dreadnoughts, whoever can make the bigger dreadnought wins. So you need to recognize if you're going to lose that so you can switch to frigates before it's too late.



*If I could change the rules, I would continue to make crit immunity and armour levels on a curve, such that dreadnoughts would be immune to crits by anything smaller than a spinal weapon, and would have increased armour such that missiles/torpedos or small bays simply can't hurt them at all. In particular, I would make crit immunity based on a ratio between the hull points of the target ship, and the max damage of the attackers weapon. And just like very small ships have decreased armour values, I would make large ships have increased armour values, and this would simply keep going up on some kind of scale - but I'd need to rethink how spinal weapon damage/tonnage is calculated, as otherwise you'd eventually get high enough armour values that the ship would be immune to spinal weapons.

EDIT: Renamed classes to be consistent with Geir

 

[J. L. Brown]

The 1916 paper correctly points out two essential missions for Traveller navies:
1} Find the enemy, and
2} Defeat the enemy.

Communications in Traveller means 'ships', so 'Find the enemy' means building many ships -- and the faster the better. 'Fast' in this context does not mean big M-Drive numbers, it means big J-Drive numbers -- and big sensor suites with maximal range and resolution. While the ideal is to have ships in every single system where the enemy might be, naval budgets are limited. Even with limited ships, 12 ships does not mean '12 systems covered', because 1} the enemy might kill a single picket before it can jump out to pass on the warning, and 2} the picket might not jump to the optimal place for the information to be immediately useful -- so two or three pickets per system will be prudent, where the resources to do this exist.

'Defeat the enemy' means having more force available; so the ideal is a single massive ship -- except that this must be within the bounds of economy and practicality. A swarm of Glass Cannons can kill a Battleship before it can kill all of them -- and more Glass Cannons means more options for deployment in response to the expected concentrations of enemy forces. Note that while these are called 'Glass Cannons', defense against Meson spinal weapons is cheap and absolute for any ship in the hundreds of kilotons; and that any such ship can probably afford to have enough armor to ignore the vast number of turret-mounted weapons.

So I see several classes:
1} Pickets -- designed to see things & report them;
Lightly armed with defensive weaponry in turrets; excellent sensors, communications, and J-Drive; no appreciable armor;

2} Raiders -- to hunt Pickets, and small craft, & to engage in commerce-raiding;
Lightly armed with a mix of non-expendable weapons; excellent sensors; J-drive sufficient for raiding; minimal armor

3} Destoyers Corvettes -- to hunt Pickets, small-craft, and Raiders; repel other Destroyers Corvettes;
Heavily armed with mix of bays and turrets; J-Drive for Fleet speed; maximal M-Drive; light armor sufficient to ignore turrets;

4} Frigates -- 'Glass Cannons' for killing enemy Naval elements;
Minimal Spinal weapon; mix of mostly defensive bays and turrets otherwise; J-Drive; maximum M-drive; light armor sufficient to ignore turrets; Meson and Nuclear Defenses sufficient to ignore one maximum sized Spinal weapon hit;

5 4b} Light Cruisers -- as 'Frigates' above, except added requirement 'J-Drive for fleet speed'.
Will tend to mount more offensive weapons in the bays & turrets; and to favor non-expendable weapons; more J-capacity means compromising on defense & firepower at the designers discretion.

6} Battleships Dreadnoughts-- only brought to bear where they will be decisive
Maximal Spinal weapon; mix of bays and turrets otherwise; J-Drive; maximum M-drive; medium armor sufficient to ignore turrets and most bays; Meson and Nuclear Defenses sufficient to ignore several maximum sized Spinal weapon hits; [Edit: Heavy capital ships which do not mount a Spinal Weapon are 'Battleships'; in some navies the 'Battleship' designation is ignored in favor of the term 'Carrier' if the main armament of the ship is in other vessels carried aboard. /Edit]

7 6b} Heavy Cruiser -- as 'Battleships' 'Dreadnoughts' above, except added requirement 'J-Drive for fleet speed';
Will tend to mount more offensive weapons in the bays & turrets; and to favor non-expendable weapons; more J-capacity means compromising on defense & firepower at the designers discretion.

 

[JustEastOfTheEdge]

I think one reason they are too big is that under its 1970s vision of the future they need so much space for fuel. Always struck me as a bit odd how huge areas of a ship's floor plans is labelled as "fuel", often entire decks. Feels very 'NASA' and not the Far Future,
But it's Traveller...

 

[Nelphine]

The 1916 paper correctly points out two essential missions for Traveller navies:
1} Find the enemy, and
2} Defeat the enemy.

Communications in Traveller means 'ships', so 'Find the enemy' means building many ships -- and the faster the better. 'Fast' in this context does not mean big M-Drive numbers, it means big J-Drive numbers -- and big sensor suites with maximal range and resolution. While the ideal is to have ships in every single system where the enemy might be, naval budgets are limited. Even with limited ships, 12 ships does not mean '12 systems covered', because 1} the enemy might kill a single picket before it can jump out to pass on the warning, and 2} the picket might not jump to the optimal place for the information to be immediately useful -- so two or three pickets per system will be prudent, where the resources to do this exist.

'Defeat the enemy' means having more force available; so the ideal is a single massive ship -- except that this must be within the bounds of economy and practicality. A swarm of Glass Cannons can kill a Battleship before it can kill all of them -- and more Glass Cannons means more options for deployment in response to the expected concentrations of enemy forces. Note that while these are called 'Glass Cannons', defense against Meson spinal weapons is cheap and absolute for any ship in the hundreds of kilotons; and that any such ship can probably afford to have enough armor to ignore the vast number of turret-mounted weapons.

So I see several classes:
1} Pickets -- designed to see things & report them;
Lightly armed with defensive weaponry in turrets; excellent sensors, communications, and J-Drive; no appreciable armor;

These make sense, and I didn't actually add this class, but yes it would exist.

2} Raiders -- to hunt Pickets, and small craft, & to engage in commerce-raiding;
Lightly armed with a mix of non-expendable weapons; excellent sensors; J-drive sufficient for raiding; minimal armor

These are my corsairs, except I'd put dirty missiles on them when at war.

3} Destoyers -- to hunt Pickets, small-craft, and Raiders; repel other Destroyers;
Heavily armed with mix of bays and turrets; J-Drive for Fleet speed; maximal M-Drive; light armor sufficient to ignore turrets;

These are my guards. But, by definition, the corsairs have less armour than the guards, and lighter weapons than the guard, and so since the armour of the guard should stop the weaponry of a corsair, the weapons of the guard won't actually be super effective against another guard (therefore relegating them to defense).

4} Frigates -- 'Glass Cannons' for killing enemy Naval elements;
Minimal Spinal weapon; mix of mostly defensive bays and turrets otherwise; J-Drive; maximum M-drive; light armor sufficient to ignore turrets; Meson and Nuclear Defenses sufficient to ignore one maximum sized Spinal weapon hit;

These are my destroyers, except they'll maximize the ratio of spinal to size, while keeping size minimum, which in turn severely limits their other weapons. But since the battleships primarily focus on particle weaponry (both due to screens and range), these will also focus on particle weaponry.

5} Light Cruisers -- as 'Frigates' above, except added requirement 'J-Drive for fleet speed'.
Will tend to mount more offensive weapons in the bays & turrets; and to favor non-expendable weapons; more J-capacity means compromising on defense & firepower at the designers discretion.



7} Heavy Cruiser -- as 'Battleships' above, except added requirement 'J-Drive for fleet speed';
Will tend to mount more offensive weapons in the bays & turrets; and to favor non-expendable weapons; more J-capacity means compromising on defense & firepower at the designers discretion.

These would be my destroyer hunters. Due to the focus on particle weaponry (by the battleships and destroyers), I have a feeling these guys will be much more missile/carrier focused than described here in order to outrange them.

6} Battleships -- only brought to bear where they will be decisive
Maximal Spinal weapon; mix of bays and turrets otherwise; J-Drive; maximum M-drive; medium armor sufficient to ignore turrets and most bays; Meson and Nuclear Defenses sufficient to ignore several maximum sized Spinal weapon hits;

My version of battleships will maximize armour and size. While they will still have the meson/nuclear defenses as described here, they will also be so large that they could just absorb the damage anyway - and since meson won't be a real option, that will make it all the more effective against particle spinals. They'll also mostly use particle weapons as well, to try to destroy enemies before getting into range of any other weaponry.

 

[J. L. Brown]

These are my guards. But, by definition, the corsairs have less armour than the guards, and lighter weapons than the guard, and so since the armour of the guard should stop the weaponry of a corsair, the weapons of the guard won't actually be super effective against another guard (therefore relegating them to defense).

Please note that 'Destroyers' repel, not defeat, other 'Destroyers'. An one-on-one engagement between opposing Destroyers is not envisaged as a decisive win for either side; whoever is the most skilled, or most numerous, has an edge -- but destroying 'Destroyers' is not their function, Since they are hunting Pickets and Raiders -- both of which are thinly spread out by the very nature of their roles -- Destroyers will also typically operate singly or in small flotillas. Their primary duty when encountering enemy Destroyers (or larger) is to survive to run away.

These are my destroyers, except they'll maximize the ratio of spinal to size, while keeping size minimum, which in turn severely limits their other weapons. But since the battleships primarily focus on particle weaponry (both due to screens and range), these will also focus on particle weaponry.

Excellent point; 'Frigates' are required to mount at least a minimal Spinal weapon; but they are intended to be built to deliver their force as economically as possible so crew-size, cost-per-hull, and so on will all be important factors. Also the armor requirement should be 'light armor at least sufficient to ignore turrets'.

These would be my destroyer hunters. Due to the focus on particle weaponry (by the battleships and destroyers), I have a feeling these guys will be much more missile/carrier focused than described here in order to outrange them.

No, I do not think these work as 'Destroyer Frigate Hunters'. They have the requirement of dedicating a larger percentage of their hull volume to J-drives and J-fuel, so by definition they will be less formidable than 'Frigates' of the same tonnage. In my paradigm these are interceptors or rapid-response reserves; they are intended to quickly move to where the enemy naval assets are & defeat them -- but they need to operate in larger groups than 'Frigates' in order to stand against 'Frigates'.

Since 'Frigates' are designed to be maximally economical for maximum applied force, and they also operate in large groups, this is NOT ideal. But, ideals aside, this ship can be available, and get to the enemy when slower 'Frigates' and 'Battleships' cannot. Also, 'Cruisers' are built to show the flag, put out fires, and generally fill in gaps where other assets simply are not available; so at least some are built with an eye towards skimming their own fuel & independent operations.

My version of battleships will maximize armour and size. While they will still have the meson/nuclear defenses as described here, they will also be so large that they could just absorb the damage anyway - and since meson won't be a real option, that will make it all the more effective against particle spinals. They'll also mostly use particle weapons as well, to try to destroy enemies before getting into range of any other weaponry.

Maximizing size reaches a point of diminishing returns; and armor is trivial to maximize once you get above 100k dTons. I maximize firepower; but even the most formidable Spinal weapon only fires at one target per turn -- and Spinal weapons have a maximum size they can be, too. Building a ship big enough to carry a dozen maximal-sized Spinal weapons does not actually allow it to carry more than a single Spinal weapon; better to build half a dozen or so ships, each carrying a maximal Spinal Weapon and a formidable secondary armament of Bay weapons.

The armor requirement for 'Battleships' should be: 'medium armor at least sufficient to ignore turrets and most bays' -- heavier is sometimes better, but the exact weapons prevalent in the meta will change this.

I would never arm my 'Raiders' with dirty-nuke missiles; their whole point is to go without re-supply, looting and destroying enemy civilian shipping and manufacturing capacity.

As an aside: A maximally advanced Spinal Meson weapon is 7500x0.8 = 6000 dTons per 6D of damage; twelve and a half of these increments fit below the 75000 dTon maximum size for a Meson weapon. That gives 75D of Meson damage; every 5 Meson Screens (10 dTons, 30 power) reduces this by 1D -- so 75x5x10 = 3750 dTons (and 11250 power) to ignore a hit from a maximized Spinal Meson weapon.

A maximally advanced Spinal Particle weapon is 3500 x 0.8 = 2800 dTons per 8D damage' ten of these increments fit below the 28000 dTon maximum size for a Particle Weapon. That gives 80D of Particle damage; every 5 Nuclear Dampers (10 dTons, 20 power) reduces this by 1D -- so 80x5x10 = 4000 dTons (and 8000 power) to ignore a hit from a maximized Spinal Meson weapon.

11250 power + 8000 power = 19250 power / 20 power per dTon = 962.5 dTons of additional powerplant to run these defenses; 962.5 dTons + 3750 dTons + 4000 dTons = 8712.5 dTons for defense against one big Spinal hit. Each 'Frigate' and 'Light Cruiser' has at least (but probably no more than, due to costs) one of these 'defense blocks'. 'Battleships' and 'Heavy Cruisers' will have more.

 

[Geir]

Okay, sorry complete aside - or at least nearly tangential but names give things meaning: A while back I figured that some future version of civilisation would try to get away from 'violent' names for warships defensive classes of ships, while still keeping something familiar.

Not quite Ministry of Truth, or Ministry of Peace, but rather more like Ministry of Protection (not to be confused with the Ministry of Population Control, which is altogether different).

From big to small:
(100K+dT -> 10K+dt -> 1K+dt -> 100+dt)
Starships: Dreadnaught* -> Cruiser -> Frigate -> Escort (was going to go with Corvette, but that would be two 'C's)
Spaceships: Sentinel -> Monitor -> Guardian -> Protector

I guess over 1Mdt you could go with Super-Dreadnaught and Mega(?)Guardian. But that's also reusing letters. (Big and Large are available but lame).... Hero and Warden? Hmm. Well, Hero is better than Humongous.

Within each class you could add the modifiers like: Light, Medium, Heavy, Fast, Carrier, Support (really Assault, but let's just say we're 'supporting those troops and delivering them to a place where they can 'restore the peace' - Transport, works too but might conflict with Tanker).

*Only works because that first new-style battleship had a tough-sound but not necessary bellicose name. Had it been HMS Warrior, the concept would fail.

 

[J. L. Brown]

Okay, sorry complete aside - or at least nearly tangential but names give things meaning: A while back I figured that some future version of civilisation would try to get away from 'violent' names for warships defensive classes of ships, while still keeping something familiar.

Not quite Ministry of Truth, or Ministry of Peace, but rather more like Ministry of Protection (not to be confused with the Ministry of Population Control, which is altogether different).

From big to small:
(100K+dT -> 10K+dt -> 1K+dt -> 100+dt)
Starships: Dreadnaught* -> Cruiser -> Frigate -> Escort (was going to go with Corvette, but that would be two 'C's)
Spaceships: Sentinel -> Monitor -> Guardian -> Protector

I guess over 1Mdt you could go with Super-Dreadnaught and Mega(?)Guardian. But that's also reusing letters. (Big and Large are available but lame).... Hero and Warden? Hmm. Well, Hero is better than Humongous.

Within each class you could add the modifiers like: Light, Medium, Heavy, Fast, Carrier, Support (really Assault, but let's just say we're 'supporting those troops and delivering them to a place where they can 'restore the peace' - Transport, works too but might conflict with Tanker).

*Only works because that first new-style battleship had a tough-sound but not necessary bellicose name. Had it been HMS Warrior, the concept would fail.

Anything goes at your table; and it seems reasonable that some civilization or other might name some of their most devastating ships the 'Plaited Daisies'-class.

[Edit: to be clear, the following is for stuff solely at my table. These are the ways that I think the definitions truly apply, but that is just my own opinion -- and there are vast swathes of sci-fi that ignore all of the following completely. Please do not take this as a prescription of 'You Must Do It This Way' the point of the game is to have fun. /Edit]

'Dreadnought' is a particular (big-gun) type of Battleship. Honestly, every Battleship with a Spinal weapon in Charted Space ought to be considered a 'Dreadnought'. But since there are non-spinal Battleships, I will keep the name around. The Battleships I described are 'Dreadnoughts', though, so I will swap the names. [Edit: The HMS Dreadnought was also notable for putting the big guns into turrets which could be swiveled, instead of hard-mounted or limited-traverse -- so the argument could be made that 'Spinal mounts' (being hard-mounted) are not the distinguishing feature of a Dreadnought. I am staying with my version. /Edit]

A 'Frigate' was very much a line-of-battle ship, just with fewer gun decks. I think it makes a useful minimal standard for 'What is a Capital ship?', so I am sticking to my (fewer than Battleships) guns here.

To me 'Escort' and 'Cruiser' are the names of roles assigned to ships -- these roles demand some changes in design of the base ship in order to be more optimal in its' assigned duties.

'Escorts' are ships assigned to support and protect a specific ship or group of ships; they have better sensors and point-defenses, and do not need to move much faster than the ships it is escorting. For civilian convoys, which need protection from 'Raider'-type ships, Corvettes (with J-drives reduced from fleet-speed) will do.

'Cruisers' are Capital ships which undertake 'Cruises'; they travel extensively to patrol the shipping lanes and show the flag, so they are expected to be able to do at least a little bit of everything, and to be more (if not entirely) self-sufficient and not in need of constant (costly & sometimes difficult-to-arrange) support & re-supply. 'Light Cruisers' are light Capital ships which are optimized for performing Cruises; 'Heavy Cruisers' are heavy Capital ships which are optimized for performing Cruises. I suppose 'Medium Cruiser' could be a medium Capital ship optimized for performing cruises, but I don't envision a 'Medium Capital ship' class 'Battle Cruiser' has always seemed a bit ad hoc; more of a 'we stuck some more guns on this ship, even though it probably was not a good idea' sort of thing.

To be absolutely fair, 'Destroyer' is an assigned role as well (from 'Destroyer of Torpedo-Boats') -- I will switch to referring to the base class as 'Corvettes'. While 'Corvettes' can be (and often are) sent on 'Cruises', they are too small and limited to undertake the duties expected from 'Capital ships'.

 

[Nelphine]

Hmm. So I'll swap to dreadnought and frigates as well..

Not sure what to call my hunters though. I guess I can use cruiser for consistency.

Nor the guards. Escort is not appropriate. I don't really like corvette, but I guess it could be done? Eh, if I'm trying to make them relatable to the rest, sure, I'll call them corvette.

 

[Reisender]

 

[Condottiere]

A. The Imperium can afford to design and manufacture starwarships of classes, types and tonnages across the board, and does.

B. The Ponies think larger is better.

C. The Confederation (Navy) tends to take a more Fisheresque view, basically destroyers, battlecruisers, and submarines.

D. Though at some point I was thinking Starfleet, with everything called a cruiser, from patrol to battle.

E. The Vargr build and operate dogships, though it's likely most are unique.

F. The Aslan are probably somewhere between the Imperium and Vargr in design and construction.

 

[tytalan]

A couple of things make this comparison faulty. Jump means a large portion of the ship is fuel so you need a much larger ship for all the other essential. A jump 4 ship loses over half its space to fuel, drives and other essentials modern day warships do not have this problem (one of the reasons for a nuclear fleet is how much less volume is required for drive systems. Another major factor is weapon systems barbettes < Bays< Spinal while the power to mass improve along this progression the minimum size also vastly. Finally the larger the ship the more armor it carries.

 

[tytalan]

A. The Imperium can afford to design and manufacture starwarships of classes, types and tonnages across the board, and does.

B. The Ponies think larger is better.

C. The Confederation (Navy) tends to take a more Fisheresque view, basically destroyers, battlecruisers, and submarines.

D. Though at some point I was thinking Starfleet, with everything called a cruiser, from patrol to battle.

E. The Vargr build and operate dogships, though it's likely most are unique.

F. The Aslan are probably somewhere between the Imperium and Vargr in design and construction.

A. Most definitely
B. The size requirements for their crew forces this
C. Yea but the Confederation is by far the smallest of the large states so economic plays a major part
E. I’m not sure you can give a unified design philosophy to the 100+ Vargr states
F. Yea mostly because of the way their government works

 

[Sigtrygg]

I once sat down with LBB:5 HIgh Guard 2ed and wrote an essay about how ships and space warfare change as you advance through the TLs.
This thread has gone the usual way of only thinking about the Third Imperium and TL15, The FFW was fought between theTL14 forces of the Zhodani and the TL15 forces of the Imperium, so how did the Zhodani plan to fight a technologically more advanced enemy? How did the TL14 vs TL14 Solomani Rim War play out? Why is the TL15 vs TL15 Rebellion such a meat grinder?

In HG 80 space warfare starts ay TL7, as you advance through the TLs everything changes, at some TLs the changes for a more advanced fleet make a massive difference. Often overlooked are that maximum ship size changes, maneuver drive and agility change as the low TLs advance from 7->9

 

[Condottiere]

Logistics - interior lines of communications, and all that.

I have an idea of how the Darrians, Swordies (or Sw[o/e]des?), and Imperium compose their respective navies, but I got the impression that the Zhodanis are Romulans.

 

[Condottiere]

A couple of things make this comparison faulty. Jump means a large portion of the ship is fuel so you need a much larger ship for all the other essential. A jump 4 ship loses over half its space to fuel, drives and other essentials modern day warships do not have this problem (one of the reasons for a nuclear fleet is how much less volume is required for drive systems. Another major factor is weapon systems barbettes < Bays< Spinal while the power to mass improve along this progression the minimum size also vastly. Finally the larger the ship the more armor it carries.

In Traveller, bulk substitutes for damage absorption.

If the Zhodani follow Soviet doctrine, their D'Deridexii reinforce success.