[Deneb Sector] 2000 dT Huscarle Cruisers

AnotherDilbert said:
I think based on the designs people share on this forum alone, ships are definitely min-maxed designs. It what players do in virtually all RPG games. They want the toughest, fastest, meanest ships to ever fly in the universe.

Optimising things what engineers (such as naval architects) do. Any warship will have been optimised by hundreds of engineers. Building non-optimised ships is simply bad role-playing.

Meh, I'm not sure I would agree with that analogy, but I don't claim to be a naval architect. From building architecture I know that, at the academic level at least, all architects start off roughly the same. But from what I knew of some classmates (both architectural and engineering) the architects did not have the rigorous training in engineering design, material science and math that the engineers did. They did high-level designs, but would defer to actual engineers to sign off if their designs could actually be built with real-world materials. I suspect naval architecture works the same as far as armor and things like that.

Players don't play at that level nor do the design at that level. As I said, they don't live in the real world, they game in fantasy. Thus the designs are based upon how much fun and mayhem they can have during a gaming session. They don't live with budgets and things like that. This is where I expect the gaming universe to lay the groundwork. Obviously if everyone in the gaming universe ran around in the min/max style designs players made it would be more space opera. And I'm sure players would have much less fun since everyone would have the same super-killer ships. Pirates would be facing fanatical crews who would ram/suicide just like PC's typically do when faced with capture and death. Merchants would be running around with meson bays and crewmen would be in battledress at their duty stations - just like players tend to build and play. But if that's the accepted norm, gaming is a lot less fun don't you think?


AnotherDilbert said:
Terran warship designers have the problem of basically not knowing how the next war will be fought. Imperial warships designers should not have this problem, since warship design and hence warfare has been stable for millennia (at least until the Black Globe was discovered).

Min/max-ing characters is something completely different.

Very few warship designers have any clue about how the next war will be fought. What they do is (usually, the LCS ships of the USN show that stupidity can creep in as well - though they aren't the only examples of bad designs) design a ship based on costs and mission. HMS Dreadnought was basically designed by a single man (Jackie Fisher), along with a hand-picked board that he presided over. He got exactly what he wanted. Though he wasn't a fool. He spent a lot of time understanding other nations designs and taking into account reports of how other ships survived battle and the pro's and con's of other ships - including the RN. Less than 20 drafters and naval architects drew up all the engineering drawings for the ship.

While I have seen a few players take the equivalent of 777777 stats for their player character, it's been the exception rather the norm in my experience. And I understand that completely. PC's are just normal people, they are supposed to be hero's with at least some non-average characteristics (wealth, strength, intelligence, skills, etc). I don't know about you but I certainly am not interested in playing Bob the clerk from the local convenience store, who slays cash reports and who's best skill is stocking shelves faster than anyone else. So yes, I think we agree that player min-maxing is the expected norm. I don't see any difference in creating the PC vs. creating the environmental landscape they would play in.


AnotherDilbert said:
Because we have no rules or requirements to optimise for.
Agreed. And that's my point. I'm not advocating for them, but I'm using this point as a reason WHY.


AnotherDilbert said:
The small LBB2 designs were reasonably well optimised. The Fighting Ships designs were mostly just silly.
Yes. You see some of the core designs as being average and balance. And I agree some official published designs (which establish canon) to be less than well thought out.

AnotherDilbert said:
By recreating them in the more efficient MgT2 system they had to deliberately waste space to get back to the same silly designs. Using them as a benchmark of anything is not something I will even contemplate. Unless you want to postulate that the Imperial Navy is run by morons that does not have any idea how space combat works?

I dunno if I would agree the MGT2 design system is more "efficient". The MGT2 system has it's own set of foibles, some brought along from the original and others self-inflicted. Ideally any design system that originates from as far back as Traveller should have, logically, evolved and gotten better version over version. But that's not what we've gotten. Instead we have a mish-mash of design rules taken from various versions, previously accepted and canon technology tossed out, and an attempt to continually re-create the same version of ship done under multiple design rules. I don't know about you but that leaves me really scratching my head as to where the efficiency is supposed to come from.

I do agree trying to benchmark ships between versions is silly. Each set of ships needs to stand or fall within it's own design universe. But since continuity, especially with Traveller, is important to sell new versions, I understand why it's done. Understanding need not be equated with agreeing when it comes to sales.

I would never tend to postulate that the Imperial navy is run by morons, bureaucrats and political toadies! That would invite a visit by an unseen IBIS agent who might kill me with a spork. Though I might question the reasonableness of having carriers with spinal mounts, battleships with little armor, and bridges/combat centers not buried in the bowels of a ship (though that last part may be crossing far too many sci-fi universes).


AnotherDilbert said:
I'm sure I have: Missiles in MgT2 are only effective in overwhelming numbers, launching just a few is generally completely ineffective, so silly to waste space on.

Note that Traveller missiles are not WWII torpedoes or current shipkillers, they are just small attritional weapons that must be used in large numbers.

So, I think we are far likelier to see battleships with 2000 torpedo-launchers than with a measly 100 launchers.

I agree with you about missiles needing overwhelming numbers to penetrate defenses. But shouldn't that be the norm? That's how they work after all. They are essentially powered and guided bombs. When bombs were first invented they were no different than shells, if, perhaps, slightly more accurate. You try shoot the plane out of the sky so it can't drop it's bomb. You try to sink the other guys' ship so he can't shoot you. And you'd want to shoot the missiles down before they hit you. The logical progression seems rather self-evident to me.

Of course this all is predicated upon the defenses of the other guy. If they are non-existent missiles are great. If they exist then you run the risk of using up valuable tonnage and credits in mounting a weapon that essentially won't do any damage to your opponent. So, like all warfare, you have to deploy overwhelming firepower. It's no different than nearly all other forms of combat. Infantry are only useful in overwhelming numbers, as are tanks, if your opponent has walls, or say artillery, or really good tank killer weapons.

But this line of discussion still doesn't get back to the concept of mounting thousands of torpedo launchers on a ship. As we've seen with the combat rules (and you've provided a number of spreadsheets showing the math/dice rolls), there is a practical upper limit to tonnage before you start making mobile tombs. Though this assumes an enemy capable of responding with equivalent tech levels, to an extent at least.

And yes, I'm quite aware of the difference between Traveller missile/torp tech and wet-navy torpedoes. This has been hashed through probably a zillion times. Though if you read any H.Beam Piper you'd have noted that there are equivalents in his books - Hellburners and Planetbusters are one-shot, one kills - assuming you can get one to hit the other guys ship or planet. Then again there are logical inconsistencies here too - grav-powered starships shooting cannons at one another, equipped with collapsed matter armor. Smaller vehicles firing 155mm and .50cal against vehicles also equipped with collapsed matter armor. Oh, and Piper had anti-missile missiles, which we have in reality and Traveller doesn't have (yes, MGT2 finally introduced a type, finally).

So maybe the argument would be more around is a 500,000dton ship really useful in such a universe? Or would it be more of a flag-flying target waiting to be pounced upon by multiple smaller battleships? This discussion probably belongs in a different thread. We've really taken it a bit far from the OP's point. Ah, thread-drift!
 
phavoc said:
Meh, I'm not sure I would agree with that analogy, but I don't claim to be a naval architect. From building architecture I know that, at the academic level at least, all architects start off roughly the same. But from what I knew of some classmates (both architectural and engineering) the architects did not have the rigorous training in engineering design, material science and math that the engineers did.
Not long ago architects did were a type of engineer (at least in Sweden), now they just draw pretty pictures. My uncle who is an old-school architect is not impressed...

Naval architect is a type of engineer:
wiki said:
Naval architecture, or naval engineering, ..., is an engineering discipline branch of vehicle engineering, incorporating elements of mechanical, electrical, electronic, software and safety engineering ...



phavoc said:
Players don't play at that level nor do the design at that level.
Some do, some don't.

We even have entire books devoted to that kind of play, e.g. TCS and Pocket Empires.


phavoc said:
Merchants would be running around with meson bays and crewmen would be in battledress at their duty stations - just like players tend to build and play.
That would be very uneconomical, so extremely non-optimised for the task at hand.


phavoc said:
PC's are [not?] just normal people, they are supposed to be hero's with at least some non-average characteristics (wealth, strength, intelligence, skills, etc). I don't know about you but I certainly am not interested in playing Bob the clerk from the local convenience store, who slays cash reports and who's best skill is stocking shelves faster than anyone else.
I would disagree. Travellers are just ordinary people in extraordinary situations. This is much more interesting than the usual D&D demigods.


phavoc said:
So yes, I think we agree that player min-maxing is the expected norm. I don't see any difference in creating the PC vs. creating the environmental landscape they would play in.
No, I think equipment generally is optimised, people are generally not.


phavoc said:
AnotherDilbert said:
Because we have no rules or requirements to optimise for.
Agreed. And that's my point. I'm not advocating for them, but I'm using this point as a reason WHY.
I don't understand, why is that an argument against optimising warships?


phavoc said:
And I agree some official published designs (which establish canon) to be less than well thought out.
He, that is an understatement...



phavoc said:
I dunno if I would agree the MGT2 design system is more "efficient".
I just meant that it requires less space for engineering, leaving more space for payload. Hence recreating a LBB2 Free Trader you have to waste a lot of space, e.g. on armour.


phavoc said:
I do agree trying to benchmark ships between versions is silly. Each set of ships needs to stand or fall within it's own design universe. But since continuity, especially with Traveller, is important to sell new versions, I understand why it's done. Understanding need not be equated with agreeing when it comes to sales.
Most editions define different ships. The 10 kDt Aeolus-class Light Cruiser is just as canonical as the Gionetti, and probably less silly.

I'm not very bothered by small differences between the exact design of the standard ships, e.g. if a Free Trader has a stateroom more or less. I am bothered by silly designs.


phavoc said:
Though I might question the reasonableness of having carriers with spinal mounts, battleships with little armor, and bridges/combat centers not buried in the bowels of a ship ...
Agreed. We seem to agree that warships should make sense in the context of the combat system?


phavoc said:
I agree with you about missiles needing overwhelming numbers to penetrate defenses. But shouldn't that be the norm?
Yes? Hence 2000 torpedo launchers make sense?


phavoc said:
As we've seen with the combat rules (and you've provided a number of spreadsheets showing the math/dice rolls), there is a practical upper limit to tonnage before you start making mobile tombs.
That was the case in CT, but not really in MgT2. Very big ships have disadvantages (few dodges), but are not useless.
 
1. Utilization of missile cruisers would primarily depend very much on current game mechanics; you may have noticed that the unit cost inflated from the last edition. As I tend to point out, ship armament should be complementary to chosen doctrine, which don't need to be uniform across a navy, choosing different ones for differing situations and differing ship designs.

2, I've touched on maximizing your minimized character on a different forum, so don't feel the need to rehash it; consider it a roleplaying challenge, even if your attributes resemble that of a non player character bystander.

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3. I don't think our fuel explodes when our tanks are punctured, it probably escapes into space; any loose fuel is dangerous, see Twin Towers. In Traveller, this isn't an issue, though I bet unarmoured missile and torpedo magazines, as well as charged capacitors or batteries, may be a different story.

4. Yamato is a special case, since it appears to have been large enough to accomodate an aerospace fighter group, as well as incorporate a new spinal mount.

5. Battlecruisers are a dead end, but it depends very much on what threat you're trying to suppress, or what roles they're supposed to fill. I think that part of the reason that the largest capital grade ifle was selected wasn't just the wish to outrange cruisers, but also uniformity to ease logistics, which fits in with the goal of building line of battle ships with a single calibre primary armament. That Beatty decided to be cavalier with his command, may be also partly based on his lack of knowledge of the weaknesses of this class of ships.
 
One piece of alternate history is if the Kongos had been added to Beatty's vanguard.

The assumption is that they probably would have been out front, and chewed up Hipper's scouting group, leaving the remnants to either high tail it out of there or get spit out by the follow up ships. Japanese professionalism probably would have ensured accuracy and rate of fire, and fourteen inch guns would outrange the German peashooters.

It's really situational.
 
AnotherDilbert said:
Not long ago architects did were a type of engineer (at least in Sweden), now they just draw pretty pictures. My uncle who is an old-school architect is not impressed...

It may be that complexity and materials have progressed that it's not practical to be both architect and engineer any more.

And engineer used to mean more than it does today. I'm surrounded by software engineers. Oddly none of them have taken an engineering licensing certification exam... :)

AnotherDilbert said:
Some do, some don't. We even have entire books devoted to that kind of play, e.g. TCS and Pocket Empires.

True. To each their own I suppose.


AnotherDilbert said:
That would be very uneconomical, so extremely non-optimised for the task at hand.
True. Just like many other things. Which is kind of the point.


AnotherDilbert said:
I would disagree. Travellers are just ordinary people in extraordinary situations. This is much more interesting than the usual D&D demigods.

We have been playing with different players over the course of our gaming careers then. Ordinary people don't set out on epic adventures. Strange things might happen on occasion, but most people tend to go back to what they had been doing. Travellers are adventurers who seek these things out. One need not be a demigod to be an adventurer, but being more than average in something makes the odds of survival far better.


AnotherDilbert said:
No, I think equipment generally is optimised, people are generally not.
I'm not sure you optimize people quite the same as equipment. And I think we also probably differ on the optimal vs. min/max equipment definition.

AnotherDilbert said:
I don't understand, why is that an argument against optimising warships?
This goes to the above quote. What is "optimal" for a warship? Max armor, max speed, max computer, max everything? Is that optimal? Or would it be related to balancing cost, doctrine and need? The F-22 is an optimal interceptor using today's technology. But the price tag means you can't afford very many of them. Optimal deployment means having enough to cover all of your needs, as well as spares for training, maintenance downtime and replacements. Not even the US can afford enough for all it's needs.

Naval equivalent would be the new Zumwalt class DD (e.g. CL). Is it an optimal design to replace the Burke class? Obviously doctrine called for a different class ship, but it's costs make it ill-suited for a 32 ship class. So they got three out of an investment of $22billion. Granted some of that is R&D, but they are still running around $3-4billion per ship. Hence the argument that "optimal" designs depend on many things.


AnotherDilbert said:
I just meant that it requires less space for engineering, leaving more space for payload. Hence recreating a LBB2 Free Trader you have to waste a lot of space, e.g. on armour.
Ah, ok, I see your point. Did the original Beowulf have armor? I don't recall. But removing the armor doesn't make for a more efficient design system. I must be missing something in your explanation (e.g. I don't get it... :D ).


AnotherDilbert said:
I'm not very bothered by small differences between the exact design of the standard ships, e.g. if a Free Trader has a stateroom more or less. I am bothered by silly designs.
Amen to that.


AnotherDilbert said:
Yes? Hence 2000 torpedo launchers make sense?
I think the cost to mount that many launchers (and the cost for torps in the magazines, and the defenses required to ensure you very expensive ship has a chance to survive) is the issue. Granted some of the current designs today seem to be very costly for relatively useless hulls (again the LCS). Might be better to have 20 ships, each with 200 torpedo launchers instead. Gargantuan ships seem to be a moneypit of credits. And you can only deploy it to one place at one time. Of course the never-ending vexing question that has plagued every navy since the beginning of time is what is the best balance between hull numbers and hull capabilities? I've yet to read of the "perfect" balance in trading off this.


AnotherDilbert said:
That was the case in CT, but not really in MgT2. Very big ships have disadvantages (few dodges), but are not useless.

I agree with you on large ships not being useless. You need a certain size to mount the largest weapons, and then you need more size to mount all the protection you need to ensure you largest weapon can survive battle, or at least give it a good chance of surviving. I'm not sure I would agree with you that MGT2 is all that much different than CT in that sense. By changing the jump fuel rules they certainly change the dynamics of ship design for warships. In theory larger ships should be able to mount heavier armor, but the current ruleset allows you to armor small ships equivalently to the biggest. I think that rule is wrong, but it's nonetheless the rule.
 
phavoc said:
It may be that complexity and materials have progressed that it's not practical to be both architect and engineer any more.
I suspect it has more to do with the type of people that want to become architects. My Alma Mater has had a separate campus for the architects for 50 years or so. Both Engineering and Architect students seems to be very happy with this.


phavoc said:
And engineer used to mean more than it does today. I'm surrounded by software engineers. Oddly none of them have taken an engineering licensing certification exam... :)
With more-or-less everyone going to university nowadays, I suspect that is true for most branches of academia.

I once had a person working as a software engineer (with a MSc in Software Engineering) ask me what a compiler is...


phavoc said:
I'm not sure you optimize people quite the same as equipment.
Have you ever seen a D&D forum? Character optimisation is as old as "roll-playing".


phavoc said:
And I think we also probably differ on the optimal vs. min/max equipment definition.
I suspect we disagree less than you assume.


phavoc said:
This goes to the above quote. What is "optimal" for a warship? Max armor, max speed, max computer, max everything?
Choose your req. spec., then you have something to optimise against.

Stuffing a ship full of max random components is not likely to be optimised in any sense other than "max random components".

I generally use max combat bang for the buck, with some non-functional reqs related to operational warfare. Basically that is what we have some rules for. Level of optimisation is judged by fighting the ships against likely (and reasonably optimised) opponents of different types.

You can of course select any req. spec. you want and thereby the test conditions. As long as you test your ships against your own reqs. I will not complain (much).


phavoc said:
The F-22 is an optimal interceptor using today's technology.
It's probably the best air superiority fighter in the world, but that says very little about bang-for-the-buck. I believe the last major war (WWII) proved conclusively that plentiful cheap-and-cheerful equipment was superior to just enough over-engineered tech-superiority equipment at that TL.

I don't think we should discuss the Pentagon and optimal in the same paragraph. Their main problem seems to be to spend the massive flood of money poured over them quickly enough.

If I wanted to look for efficiency or optimisation I would look at someone with a recent successful history of warfare, being absolutely dependant on their military for their short term survival, and having limited resources. At a guess I would start looking at Israel. Or perhaps Finland?


phavoc said:
AnotherDilbert said:
I just meant that it requires less space for engineering, leaving more space for payload. Hence recreating a LBB2 Free Trader you have to waste a lot of space, e.g. on armour.
Ah, ok, I see your point. ... I must be missing something in your explanation (e.g. I don't get it... :D ).
There is no deep hidden meaning, I believe you understand well enough.


phavoc said:
Did the original Beowulf have armor?
No, it's a LBB2 design. It has larger drives and fuel consumption.


phavoc said:
I think the cost to mount that many launchers (and the cost for torps in the magazines, and the defenses required to ensure you very expensive ship has a chance to survive) is the issue.
The cost is not much more than a spinal ship of the same size. It can generally destroy several times its own cost in enemy battleship in a single round. The bang-for-the-buck is excellent.

The same ship with 500-1000 launchers wouldn't destroy anything, since the nearly all of the launched torpedoes would be destroyed by PD&EW. That would truly be a waste of money.

This can of course only be tested by fighting a bunch of designs against each other in both single or mass combat.


phavoc said:
Might be better to have 20 ships, each with 200 torpedo launchers instead. Gargantuan ships seem to be a moneypit of credits. And you can only deploy it to one place at one time.
It's certainly worth testing.

In this case 20 small ships (for the same cost) of perhaps 5 kDt would have slightly less launchers and much fewer hull points than a single 100 kDt ship (2000 torpedo launchers implies about 100 kDt at J-4), and the smaller salvoes would suffer much more total attrition by EW, at least at long range.

The smaller ships have much more total dodges available, but that is largely irrelevant in a large-scale missile duel (a DM-5 against a DM+1000 for number of missiles).

So, the smaller ships would have less offensive power and less total survivability.


phavoc said:
Of course the never-ending vexing question that has plagued every navy since the beginning of time is what is the best balance between hull numbers and hull capabilities?
A navy probably need both concentrated and diffuse power, but that depends on strategic position. The Imperium probably needs a lot of diffuse power as well as concentrated battle fleets, but a single system power probably does not have the luxury of affording both since if they lose a single battle in their home system they have basically lost the war.


phavoc said:
I agree with you on large ships not being useless. ... I'm not sure I would agree with you that MGT2 is all that much different than CT in that sense.
In CT any ship, regardless of how large or well defended, was mission-killed if a meson spinal inflicted damage. That made everything over 20 kDt or so largely ceremonial target practice. I call that useless as ships of the line.
 
Hehe, I look away for a bit and you guys crank out a couple pages of interesting discussion. Its a bit much to catch upon and address point by point so I'll try to sum up a few things.

I very much agree some of the published designs are silly, the Midu Agashaam is one of those that makes me scratch my head. Always has and if anything the latest version seems worse. It just doesn't seem very good at its role (whatever that is supposed to be). To me a destroyer generally has one of three roles to fill. Solo patrol which often includes customs inspections, anti piracy, anti smuggling. Squadron patrol which is more of the same but in force. Fleet escort, which means its job becomes protect the bigger ships from things like fighters, and missiles so the big ships can focus on dealing damage. That's an oversimplification but its a good starting point. The Midu isn't great for patrols because it carries no marines, so it can't do boarding inspections despite having two subcraft (which makes me wonder why it even has subcraft). It also has no armor so its vulnerable to even light weapons fire, so that makes it less useful for pirate suppression (its always nice when most or all the weapons on a "pirate" ship are largely ineffective). It has no sensor ops when it should carry at least 3 and if it were me I'd give it 15 of them for a solid Operations group capable of doing a lot of EW as well as sensor sweeps. That later is one of the key things its missing, it needs good "eyes" to do its patrol role, it needs good EW ability to help it protect the bigger ships. If I were redesigning it I'd probably drop the bay weapon, give it at least 8 pts of armor (prefer 15), speed, a marine squad or two, and 15 sensor ops and make sure it has solid PD and anti-fighter ability. Put a squadron of 20 of those Midu's escorting a squardron of four heavy cruisers and that's a total of 300 sensor ops (20 midu x 15 sensor ops each = 300) doing scans and EW to protect the cruisers, that's a helluva EW shield; leaves the cruisers to focus on doing their role, pounding other cruisers into scrap metal.

I think part of the problem is a lot of the Imperial Navy ships were, and pardon the pun, designed in a vacuum. They were just created because "that looked good" to the original designer, but there was no context as to where, when and why it was designed beyond "its a Navy ship of some specific tonnage and a vaguely defined class". Many weren't designed to fight a particular enemy. There are no ships designed to take on K'kree capital ships, Aslan capital ships, Vargr capital ships, Sword World capital ships or Zhodani capital ships, of the top of my head I can't recall a single published official example of any of those races capital ships and that is sorely missing if you want to figure out how Imperial capital ships should be designed. With that info, Imp ships stationed along the K'kree border might be very different from those stationed opposite Aslan territory and if we had that I think it would give a LOT more color and flavor to the OTU. But that's just my opinion.

On a related topic, there's how many ships the Imperial Navy has and their distribution. I've seen maps showing dozens of BatRons and even more CruRons in the interior sectors of the Imperium. WHY? What are they guarding against? And don't say pirates, if there is a pirate threat in that part of the the Imperium that you need that many big ships to suppress then you have a BIG problem and I just can't see it happening. Consider this, how much do those ships cost, how much to operate and maintain them? I know, I've heard it, its a small amount compared to the budget of the Imperium or some such (when you figure in supporting personnel, logistics, training, and other costs, is it really that small?). How long before member worlds in those sectors start complaining about their taxes being spent on a "bloated military budget" just to have squadrons of big ships parked in their sub sector doing what? Especially when they'd rather it be spent on social programs (to borrow from the real world). Along the borders of the Imperium you could justify those fleets, but not in the "safe" interior. Which brings us back to what are those ships for? Who were they designed to fight and why? It would seem no real thought was ever given to that or their deployment. Its another reason I liked playing post assassination and using Hard Times, it actually gave all those ships a purpose (in a rather brutal way). Do planetary governments have capital ships or are they limited to the 2000 dT or less huscarle ships I've been focusing on? That's an important question because if planetary government can field big ship navies maybe the Imperial Navy does need all those big ships in the interior, but then that begs the question of WHY is everyone fielding big navies in an otherwise safe area? Are those worlds thinking of seceding? Are there that many member worlds fighting each other? Is the Imperium held together only by Naval threat (I doubt it, but its a point to ponder)? How those questions are answered would all shape ship design and deployment (and I'm not really attempting to answer them here, just framing an argument).

My read on the Zhodani is that all the frontier wars were really just about containment. For the Zhodani, "winning" was defined by having reduced Imperial naval and material strength to the point it slowed or stopped the steady and sometimes rapid expansion. This would in turn mean not just destroying naval ships, but especially destroying infrastructure as well. In this case infrastructure would mean highports, orbital industry, and commerce. IIRC there are published references to the Zhodani using commerce raiders, and with the above context it makes sense. They don't just try to inflict losses on the Imp navy, they want to destroy freighters and their ports, bust up the economy, etc because that slows the ability of the Imperium to continue expanding. So that might be part of the Zhodani naval philosophy, some ships designed to kill Imp naval ships (whatever that might be, doesn't have to be a straight up fight) and some ships designed as commerce raiders to jump well behind the lines and tear up the rear area. Then Imp ship and fleet philosophy in the Spinward Marches would have evolved to counter that. The Vargr are opportunistic raiders, so along those areas big ships might favor carrier groups that can squat in a system and dominate the whole thing with fighter wings good against smaller raiders, or maybe lots of smaller destroyer patrols, or something else... but probably not much in the way of battleships, nothing for them to fight (unless there is a Vargr "battleraider" out there I've not seen... :shock: ).

Anyway, to come back to the Deneb huscarle fleets, that was an area where there seemed to be plenty of context (and room to create or suggest more) for designing ships within a specific setting that were shaped by that setting, rather than just "designing in a vacuum". So ships have "noble decks" because in this particular context that makes complete sense, where as on other warships it would be nutty. Some ships have more science stuff, other less, some carry lots of marines, some less or few, each shaped by a particular design philosophy that informs the overall style. Personally, I like that, gives me more to sink my creative teeth into whether as a referee creating a campaign, a player playing in a campaign or just a writer making up stories.

Also, bonus points for the Star Blazer's reference. I still sometimes sing the theme song (which I still remember all the words too). Yes, I am a nerd. 8)
 
All these point abouts poorly designed ships and the need for well designed ships built for specific roles would be great material for a TAS publication.
 
If I could ever get organized enough to finish some of these projects... :wink: Meanwhile all this kinda of suggest another thread topic. Might start that, its worth a good discussion of its own.
 
The Imperium will need a Capitol fleet, a Praetorian Guard, and several reserve fleets, strategic or otherwise, which be more or less located at centralized nodes.

Empires have to be able to afford their militaries, and when inflation hits, high low mixtures become an option.

Pragmatically speaking, Traveller destroyers should be about ten kay tonnes, since we tend to identify ship roles closer to their modern incarnations, which means that frigates aren't fifth and sixth rate warships, but usually small specialized escorts.
 
Agreed.


Bardicheart said:
Put a squadron of 20 of those Midu's escorting a squardron of four heavy cruisers and that's a total of 300 sensor ops (20 midu x 15 sensor ops each = 300) doing scans and EW to protect the cruisers, that's a helluva EW shield; leaves the cruisers to focus on doing their role, pounding other cruisers into scrap metal.
That sounds great, but against an enemy that goes all out for missiles or fighters that is not enough. The big ships will have to contribute significantly to the defence.


Bardicheart said:
I think part of the problem is a lot of the Imperial Navy ships were, and pardon the pun, designed in a vacuum. They were just created because "that looked good" to the original designer, but there was no context as to where, when and why it was designed beyond "its a Navy ship of some specific tonnage and a vaguely defined class". Many weren't designed to fight a particular enemy.
I try to accommodate that with modules for secondary armament and active defences. That way you can tailor the squadrons to a particular enemy or treat profile.


Bardicheart said:
On a related topic, there's how many ships the Imperial Navy has and their distribution. I've seen maps showing dozens of BatRons and even more CruRons in the interior sectors of the Imperium. WHY?
Frontier fleet admirals have seized power before:
http://wiki.travellerrpg.com/Emperors_of_the_Flag
The civil war following the assassination of Emperor Strephon shows that rebellions are not exactly unthinkable now either...

The Imperium uses a strategic "Elastic Defence" doctrine, not a "Crust" doctrine (CT S9:FS, p5). Weak forces at the border delays the enemy, while strong reserves are brought forward.

And of course the Home Fleet has to be stronger than any regional reserve fleet.
 
Considering the implied honour, squadrons can be assigned to the Capitol fleet from the front, and the whole rotated out there for combat experience, as would the Praetorian Guard.
 
I really should write up a new thread post on fleets and fleet doctrines and branch that discussion off. Will get too that soonish.

@AnotherDilbert
Regarding the Midu's, I guess what I was thinking was assume a CruRon of 4 heavy cruisers (75kdT each) so they *should* have about 75 sensor ops each for a total of 300 for the cruisers. Add the my version of the Midu's and you doubled that number. If the Midu's focus on EW, that's a significant augmentation to the cruisers EW shield, say the cruisers use about 25 each (guesstimate) for offense / targeting, that leaves 200 of theirs + 300 from the Midus on EW. I've never gamed it out but on paper that seems like a pretty significant boost to their defense. Would it be sufficient, dunno, never gamed it and probably should when I can find time just out of curiosity. But anyway, that was the gist of my thinking as opposed to the current Midu design which has no sensor ops listed in the crew roster at all (and should have, the lack of that and sensor ops being listed in the crew requirements or ship design crew requirements was an unfortunate oversight on the part of Mongoose). Since 20 such Midu's add up to a total tonnage of 60kdT, that's a lot of sensor op bang for the kdT buck compared to the cruisers, and while individually the ships would be fairly easy for a cruiser to destroy, 20 of them would take time to destroy (so you could only incrementally degrade their EW performance) and if the enemy cruisers do that, that's time they aren't focusing on their opposite number. Either way the Midu's would be doing their job of protecting the cruisers, albeit in a brutal fashion in the later case. You likely realized that but I just wanted to clarify my thought process on it.

I also agree that Imperial Destroyers, especially new designs, should be around 10kdTs but OTU seems to vary this from 3 to 10 kdTs with other ships in that range variously called frigates and escorts and fleet escorts. The nomenclature and ship classes seem to have evolved a bit haphazardly from the early days when 5kdT was the max ship size. Short of Mongoose undertaking an overhaul of all the various designs including changing tonnages and using a better defined ship classes, I guess we're stuck with what we have (not that I wouldn't mind seeing the Midu as a 10kdT proper destroyer).

----

Meanwhile, did actually have time today to get back to work on the Voshtar and even tinker a bit with some Ermingard and Farhadi designs in part because I wanted to address some of why Karl Reinhardt designed the Voshtar the way he did as a partial response to his family's two chief rivals and their ship styles; the Ermingard preferring to close in to brawl and board while the Farhadi prefer to stand off and launch swarms of missiles. When I was starting with the concept I thought about solid point defense and decided at least half the hard points needed to be in the form of turrets that could handle PD, ended up with 12 which seemed reasonable coverage (with some helpful advice on that :wink: ). The marine compliment, all the armories in various sections to arm the crew and the internal "security" airlocks were all part of prepping to defend against possible boarders in the event that happened. So kinda developing them all in tandem in a general sense and how each chose both offensive and defensive design philosophies in response to who their allies and rivals were (mainly rivals).

I also got started on both the deck plans and the general shape of the ship. I'm building the shape out of "primitives" that add up to the total volume of the ship in cubic meters (28,000 m^3 since this if for MGT 2e) as a base starting 3D model. There are 3 decks in descending order, Diplomatic Deck (Noble section + launch aft), Main Deck (bridge, science, medical, crew area) and B Deck (marines, cargo, engineering, marine launch forward). Just a rough start so far but I'm finding it easier to use primitive 3D models to work out the ship shape, size and layout of the decks and then later I'll use those primitives at a guide to creating the final ship hull. Hopefully will have some early graphics soonish, but tis the season so we'll see.

Happy Holidays!
 
Bardicheart said:
Regarding the Midu's, I guess what I was thinking was assume a CruRon of 4 heavy cruisers (75kdT each) so they *should* have about 75 sensor ops each for a total of 300 for the cruisers. Add the my version of the Midu's and you doubled that number. If the Midu's focus on EW, that's a significant augmentation to the cruisers EW shield, say the cruisers use about 25 each (guesstimate) for offense / targeting, that leaves 200 of theirs + 300 from the Midus on EW.
Doesn't work that way...

Let's say we fight missile cruisers of the same tonnage, say they launch 5000 missiles each in a single salvo. To engage all the salvoes every round you would need ~5 × 6 = 30 sensor operators. With a hang time of 6 rounds that is a total 6 EW attempts for perhaps 100 missiles removed from the salvo, the other 4900 reaches the target. A Midu with all laser turrets might kill 200 with PD or 4000 from all Midus. So all the Midus can neutralise a salvo from a single missile cruiser enemy. The other 3-4 enemies will be more or less unimpeded engulfing the squadron in ~20000 missiles...

If we are instead fighting a swarm of smaller missile boats, say 60 ships of 6 kDt launching 500 missiles each. The enemies pump out 6 salvoes with a hang time of 6 rounds. Your squadron would need 60 × 6 × 6 = 2160 sensor operators to engage all the salvoes every round. Again, most missiles reach the target, say 15000 missiles every round. The Midus PD kills something like 4000 leaving ~10000 to inflict damage.

And then the missile boats starts to play games like double time-on-target salvoes with multiple warhead missiles to completely outclass the PD.

So, while the additional EW operators would certainly be welcome, the squadron would need much higher PD capacity to be survivable against missile boats.


Bardicheart said:
I also agree that Imperial Destroyers, especially new designs, should be around 10kdTs but OTU seems to vary this from 3 to 10 kdTs with other ships in that range variously called frigates and escorts and fleet escorts.
The guidelines in both CT FS and MgT2 HG say that escorts go up to 5 kDt. Anything bigger (much bigger in CT) is a cruiser and a "capital" ship.

System-wise you really want to be larger than 2 kDt to be immune to crits from turrets and possibly less than 3 kDt to deny large bays bonuses.

10 kDt is questionable since that is more or less the only size of ship vulnerable to crit-fishing by bays. I would be tempted to go to >25 kDt to get a lot more Hull and be immune to crits.
 
AnotherDilbert said:
Bardicheart said:
Regarding the Midu's, I guess what I was thinking was assume a CruRon of 4 heavy cruisers (75kdT each) so they *should* have about 75 sensor ops each for a total of 300 for the cruisers. Add the my version of the Midu's and you doubled that number. If the Midu's focus on EW, that's a significant augmentation to the cruisers EW shield, say the cruisers use about 25 each (guesstimate) for offense / targeting, that leaves 200 of theirs + 300 from the Midus on EW.
Doesn't work that way...

Let's say we fight missile cruisers of the same tonnage, say they launch 5000 missiles each in a single salvo. To engage all the salvoes every round you would need ~5 × 6 = 30 sensor operators. With a hang time of 6 rounds that is a total 6 EW attempts for perhaps 100 missiles removed from the salvo, the other 4900 reaches the target. A Midu with all laser turrets might kill 200 with PD or 4000 from all Midus. So all the Midus can neutralise a salvo from a single missile cruiser enemy. The other 3-4 enemies will be more or less unimpeded engulfing the squadron in ~20000 missiles...

If we are instead fighting a swarm of smaller missile boats, say 60 ships of 6 kDt launching 500 missiles each. The enemies pump out 6 salvoes with a hang time of 6 rounds. Your squadron would need 60 × 6 × 6 = 2160 sensor operators to engage all the salvoes every round. Again, most missiles reach the target, say 15000 missiles every round. The Midus PD kills something like 4000 leaving ~10000 to inflict damage.

And then the missile boats starts to play games like double time-on-target salvoes with multiple warhead missiles to completely outclass the PD.

So, while the additional EW operators would certainly be welcome, the squadron would need much higher PD capacity to be survivable against missile boats.


Bardicheart said:
I also agree that Imperial Destroyers, especially new designs, should be around 10kdTs but OTU seems to vary this from 3 to 10 kdTs with other ships in that range variously called frigates and escorts and fleet escorts.
The guidelines in both CT FS and MgT2 HG say that escorts go up to 5 kDt. Anything bigger (much bigger in CT) is a cruiser and a "capital" ship.

System-wise you really want to be larger than 2 kDt to be immune to crits from turrets and possibly less than 3 kDt to deny large bays bonuses.

10 kDt is questionable since that is more or less the only size of ship vulnerable to crit-fishing by bays. I would be tempted to go to >25 kDt to get a lot more Hull and be immune to crits.

This is a prime example of where the anti-missile technology is behind the times. If it's possible and/or probabla for an enemy squadron to routinely be able to throw that sort of missile weight around then logic says defenses would be available to defend against 10k inbound missiles. Which means missile defense should be more robust. So your missile salvo's would first need to penetrate large volumes of anti-missile fire each turn plus EW. Point defense should only get one shot as they become terminal.

The number of operators set in the rules shows a lacking of understanding of how EW works. You wouldn't have that many sensor operators unless you had at least that many ships. A ships ESM capabilities are tied to it's emissions. So only one operator is required to manipulate the jammers each turn. Yes, you'd have secondary operators ready to pick up any slack, but the emitters and jammers would be all working together on a per-turn basis.
 
Couple of quick thoughts on the fleet topic.

First, I'm not saying what you propose is impossible, but lets say we have two Imperial CruRons facing off as part of the rebellion after the assassination of Strephon, and that mainly because I don't know of any official Zhodani heavy cruiser designs to use for a comparison for the Fifth Frontier war. So, apples to apples so to speak assuming each side turns out to be equal (which never actually happens but just as a starting point). Four heavy cruisers on each side with 20 variant Midu's on each side (let's call them Midu 2s just for clarity). According to HG 2e the Atlantic class heavy cruiser has 30 small missile bays so that's a salvo of 12 each or a total of 360 missiles x 4 for a total of 1440 missiles. Each of the Midu 2s can fire 18 missiles in a salvo x 20 for another 360 missiles or a grand total of 1800 missiles launched per turn by each fleet. That's using designs I have at hand and not going back to older designs from CT or MT. Currently NONE of these ships have any sensor ops at all as designed. :roll: So none of them are going to be doing sensor locks or EW at all. That was my main point, the designs don't fit the RAW.

But, suppose instead of the 75 administrators the Atlantic class has were instead actually the 75 sensor ops it *should* have. Or maybe they could have dropped the silly 2 gunners per turret rule (there, I said it, its silly :wink: ) and used some of those crew for sensor ops, take your pick. Then bring in my Midu 2, and now you have a total of 600 sensor ops for each side trying to fend of 1800 missiles per turn from each side plus sensor locks for the direct fire weapons. Will they stop all of it, I'm guessing no, but its a far cry better than what we have now. Again, that's my main point about the silly ship designs which is were this began.

As Phavoc points out, if the EW and PD rules are so far behind missile offense, that's a rules problem Mongoose needs to address, not much I can do about it other than suggest a few ship design alteration so at least they actually have some sensor ops. Likewise they should have caught the lack of sensor ops and addressed that. I like including EW in combat and having rules for it, but the crew to do it actually needs to be included in the ship designs. Narf! Again, something Mongoose needs to fix. How much trouble would each of those fleets have swatting the missiles of the other fleet, I'm sure you guys will tell me and I'll believe ya. As I mentioned before, I haven't played the rules enough to know what would happen or how bad it would be, but its not hard to figure 600 sensor ops doing EW > 0 Sensor Ops. If anyone wants to break down how the above would play out by either Core or HG rules, have at it, I'll take notes (seriously, never hurts to learn a thing or two). My point was simply that the designs, pretty much all of em, are silly as they stand.

Speaking of which, I have a first draft of the Diplomatic Deck done as I write this and I'm making good progress on the Main Deck so things coming together quicker than I anticipated (plus I can't sleep, I'm bored and felt like messing with it :wink: ). One thing I ran into is the launch for the Diplomatic Deck. Its the 30 dT Launch Dilbert designed (happy to use it, good design btw) but if I go with the "standard" launch from HG 2e that thing is WAY bigger than 30 dT if its a cylinder as depicted. So I'm drafting my own at 6m diameter and about 15m length which fits snuggly at the back of the deck. If you guys have suggestions as to what you think the dimensions of the 30 dT launch should be and why, I'm all ears. I was hoping to make the launch sort of a "standard configuration" as far as docking and airlock placement goes so that in theory it would be be possible to dock either other launches here if the bay was empty or these launches could dock in similar bays on other ships which makes a lot of sense to me. But, again, being tripped up by deck plans that are... odd.

(My other option was to change the diameter to 5m and about 21m long which I can work with but I need to sort it out now because the marine launch needs to have the same dimension and whatever I use will likely be standard for pretty much every 30 dT launch on any ship I design in the future, so kind matters what I decide on now)
 
Bardicheart said:
So, apples to apples so to speak assuming each side turns out to be equal (which never actually happens but just as a starting point).
Agreed, it's a good start.


Bardicheart said:
Four heavy cruisers on each side with 20 variant Midu's on each side (let's call them Midu 2s just for clarity). According to HG 2e the Atlantic class heavy cruiser has 30 small missile bays so that's a salvo of 12 each or a total of 360 missiles x 4 for a total of 1440 missiles. Each of the Midu 2s can fire 18 missiles in a salvo x 20 for another 360 missiles or a grand total of 1800 missiles launched per turn by each fleet.
The missiles from the Midu 2s would trivially be taken care of by EW, they can be disregarded. With a hang time of 6 rounds each cruiser salvo would lose perhaps 6 × 15 = 90 missiles to EW, leaving about 270 missiles per salvo or perhaps 1000 missiles totally. Any semi-comatose PD would easily kill them all. The missiles are wasted: Fire a lot of missiles or none at all.


Bardicheart said:
Currently NONE of these ships have any sensor ops at all as designed. :roll: So none of them are going to be doing sensor locks or EW at all.
HG said:
Because of this, assume that a ship will have one sensor operator for every full 1,000 tons. A 7,500 ton ship, for example, would normally have seven sensor operators who could between them perform the Electronic Warfare action on seven different incoming salvoes.
I would, perhaps a bit creatively, interpret this to mean that the example ships do have sensor operators. They might not belong to the line department, but the gunnery department or engineering department, but they are hiding somewhere on the ship.

I believe MgT2 needs to be interpreted a bit impressionistically at times, the rules are not designed to be wargaming hard, but to be malleable to Referee whim.


Bardicheart said:
As Phavoc points out, if the EW and PD rules are so far behind missile offense, that's a rules problem Mongoose needs to address, ...
We have not considered the PD capacity of the cruisers. My original point was that a destroyer squadron is not enough to protect the cruisers against any reasonable foe, the cruisers have to protect themselves with a bit of help from the destroyers. Add a few thousand PD mounts on the cruisers first...

Also the Element Class Cruiser book has some surprises in store for missile storms.

Note that if a few very non-optimal destroyers were enough to protect the cruisers, then missiles would be obsolete as a weapon of war.


Bardicheart said:
One thing I ran into is the launch for the Diplomatic Deck. Its the 30 dT Launch Dilbert designed (happy to use it, good design btw) but if I go with the "standard" launch from HG 2e that thing is WAY bigger than 30 dT if its a cylinder as depicted. So I'm drafting my own at 6m diameter and about 15m length which fits snuggly at the back of the deck.
Thanks, and welcome.

If the Launch is to fit comfortably on two decks à 3 m, it should not be bigger than ~5.5 m diameter?

On the other hand that would waste a lot of space (the dock is only supposed to be 33 Dt).

In the end I would probably go with a 6 m diameter, as a reasonable compromise.
 
Prioritizatioin, that's what you pay those sensor operators to do after they detect inbounds.

Also, the enemy may take out the eyes, ears and eventually the means to defend targets, first.

1xc445.gif
 
Old School said:
All these point abouts poorly designed ships and the need for well designed ships built for specific roles would be great material for a TAS publication.
I was thinking about a book of designs following a consistent reading of the rules.

phavoc said:
Well, the Traveller setting has some serious logical holes in it, but it's a game. The holes being that a TL8 missile is the same as a TL15 missile, that TL15 ships mount lower TL equipment, etc, etc. There are some exceptions obviously, for example the standard MG42 has changed little between it's introduction in 1942. The M2 Browning .50cal that we used in the US Army in 1933 also remains essentially the same.
Indeed. I was thinking about some house rules there, particularly on items player characters would be likely to encounter.
 
@Dilbert

Unfortunately the Atlantic class heavy cruiser has very little in the way of PD. It has 4 Type II PD batteries which after reading over the rules again from both Core and HG, I doubt it would eat those missile salvos. When I ran the numbers (and I might not have done it correctly, so we'll take my numbers with a grain of salt) somewhere between 80 to 100 were getting through per salvo from their opposite number in the opposing fleet. Reason, the Atlantic class in 2e does not have a single laser turret on it, so other than the PD it has nothing to defend itself with against missiles. Going back to CT Fighting Ships the original had 210 triple laser turrets which, as you said, would have eaten those missile salvos. So, back to the same point, the ships in 2e are just broken. Missiles would eat up the current Atlantic class if it doesn't have a lot of escorts to protect it, it can't protect itself from missiles.

Funny you should mention wargaming rules, I prefer those. Clear, concise and well thought out, but then I was playing Avalon Hill wargames way before I ever played my first session of D&D (which was actually Chainmail and that was still 3/4 wargaming). The problem I'm having with some of this stuff from 2e is apparently nobody actually gamed these ships in simple set piece test battles before going to print. How do you strip out 210 laser turrets and not think that's gonna matter? :| Anyway, think we've beaten that horse pretty well to death. :wink:

Also, I need to get the Element book when I can afford it, maybe sometime after the holidays.

6m diameter launch happens to be what I have drawn on the deck plan, probably what I'll stick with. I'm also trying to pay attention to the placement of airlocks / hatches and standardize that. I got to thinking that if on many ships launches are used to transfer people and cargo from one ship to another or ship to highport, then they need to be standardized to fit into the docking spaces and mate up correctly. So just trying to give that some thought in what I do here.

@steve98052
Some ship books is kinda part of what I had in mind. I have notes for a couple right now. A huscarle fleet book with some "flag" ships, cruisers (both at 2kdT), escort destroyers (1kdT), corvettes and gunboats plus some troop transports to round it out. The other idea I started (actually started first and then got distracted with the huscarle thing) is just a variety pack of commercial ships from 200 to 5000 dT, mix of freighters, passenger ships, mining ships, salvage and rescue, science, etc. Only things I got semi done on that were an 800 dT "frontier transport" I named the Turtle-class and the Clarke class 2,000 dT research ship. No promises about when I might have em done cause I want to 3D model everything and that'll take time.
 
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