Fighters Come of Age

[Klaus Kipling]

Fighters! Brilliant, aren't they? (to paraphrase Patrick Stewart from a UK advert about tellies).

Now, finally in Traveller fighters become a real threat to capital ships. We have some examples in HG, but I'm interested in state-of-the-art craft in the fighting Imperium.

So, the Rampart.... 15dTons, according to Azhanti High Lightning. Hmmm, awkward. 10 tons, or 20 tons?

I've specced both, though I think one is more like the old texts than the other. Both designs are far, far more formidable than that 6G gnat with a puny laser.

Firstly, some considerations. I will be using the Advanced Spacecraft Options on p.53, namely the volume reductions for maneuver drive and power plant. Now, the M-Drivelist does not go up to 14 or 16 thrust, so I will extrapolate: the formula seems to be Thrust/2 (round down) + 6 as minimum tech level. Therefore, Thrust 12 is TL12, Thrust 14 is TL13.

Also, the cockpit text on p.60 does not mention ejector seats. Do they include escape capacity or not? I will assume not, and add 0.5 tons for an escape pod.

Finally, there nothing that says that Particle Beam Cannons cannot be fitted. So they will be emplaced instead of the pulse laser from the original. (In fact, a heavy boat could carry a 50 ton Particle Beam bay by the rules as written!!)

10 dTon Rampart, TL15

DRIVES
Thrust 12 (F); 3 tons, 75% = 2.25t
Powerplant (G) ; 3 tons, 75% = 2.25t TOTAL = 4.5t

FITTINGS
Cockpit, 1.5t
Escape Pod, 0.5t
Fire Control (Particle Beam, Accurate, Variable Range)), 1t
Mil Sensors, 2t TOTAL = 5t

Fuel, 0.075t (5% of 1.5t, 16hrs flight)
Armour 5, 0.417

0.008 remains (cargo?) GRAND TOTAL = 10 dTons

A pretty nifty design. A massive 12 thrust, a weapon that can hurt a dreadnought, and AR5, making it very survivable vs beam lasers and missiles and somewhat survivable vs pulse lasers. However, not possible to either put in the extra seat or the missile load for the 2 seat version.

20 dTon Rampart, TL15

DRIVES
Thrust 14 (P); 9 tons, 90% = 8.1t
Powerplant (P) ; 6.3 tons, 75% = 4.725t TOTAL = 12.825t

FITTINGS
Cockpit, 1.5t
Escape Pod, 0.5t
Fire Control (Particle Beam, Accurate, Variable Range)), 1t
Mil Sensors, 2t TOTAL = 5t

Fuel, 0.175t (7% of2.5t, 23hrs flight)
Armour 12, 2t GRAND TOTAL = 20t

Even better. A peerless Thrust 14 (thrust 15 at 30dTons is just about possible at TL15, thrust 16 isn't and still carry a pilot and weapons). And a humungous AR12, making it virtually immune to lasers and missiles, and able to withstand hits from particle beam cannons. The 2 seat version would have to lose all it's armour to still carry missiles (6). Alternatively, the single seater could reduce its armour to 6 and carry Advanced Sensors (+2) instead of military ones.

A squadron of 12 of either of these versions would be a significant threat to a vessel 10 or 20 times their combined tonnage, and a serious nuisance to even capital ships.

However, apart from increased survivablity, only the speed makes the 20dTon version superior to the much cheaper 10dTon one.

We could just about have a 15dTon Rampart, but it would not be at 14 thrust, and would cost almost as much (a bit less armour, worse sensors) as the 20dTon version.

For comparison, here's a TL15 Strike Fighter at 40dTons.

40 dTon Fulcrum, TL15

DRIVES
Thrust 12 (Z); 19 tons, 75% = 14.25t
Powerplant (Z) ; 12.3 tons, 75% = 9.225t TOTAL = 23.475t

FITTINGS
Cockpit, 2-seat, 3t
Escape Pod, 0.5t (1 escape pod should carry 2 occupants as per TMB)
Fire Control - twin fixed mount, 1t:
- Torpedo, 2.5t (or a Missile Launcher - 1t FC + 18 missiles)
- Particle Beam (Accurate, Variable Range)), -
Adv. Sensors, 3t TOTAL = 10t

Fuel, 1.025t (29% of 3.5t, 4 days flight)
Armour 15 (max, TL15), 2.5t GRAND TOTAL = 37t

So we've even got 3 tons left over. Should that be:

a) Better sensors, V. Adv, +2t, with Improved Signal Processing, 1t.
b) Enhanced Signal Processing, 2t, and 1t cargo.
c) Reinforced Hull, 2 points, 2.67t, with 0.33 cargo.
d) instead of a double cockpit, a double cabin, for comfort on those long duration missions, 3t.

Certainly bleeding edge stuff. With a nuclear torp, and it's particle beam, as much a threat to the big ships as any snub fighter could hope to be. Along with armour equivalent to a battleship, proof to lasers, missiles and most particle beam attacks, and exceptionally sophisticated avionics, and a very long duration for such a craft, and of course, its high thrust, no capital ship can afford to ignore even a few of these ships.


Anyhow, any thoughts on the Rampart? And anyone else got any fighter designs?

 

[Junior]

I don't have HG yet, but for the Fulcrum I would take option d) instead of a double cockpit, a double cabin, for comfort on those long duration missions, 3t.

Edit: 100th post now a Mongoose.

 

[atpollard]

From my earliest days of role-playing, something just rubs me against the grain with anything that 'cannot be hit' or 'never misses'. I found it annoying (back in the CT days) when Fighters could NEVER damage a large warship or a Fighter could never be hit.

I am happy that MGT:HG allows fighters to attack large ships, but MGT needs a mechanic to guard against 'indestructible fighters' as well. Perhaps as simple as the old "a 20 always hits" (a D&D reference).

 

[atpollard]

Finally, there nothing that says that Particle Beam Cannons cannot be fitted. So they will be emplaced instead of the pulse laser from the original. (In fact, a heavy boat could carry a 50 ton Particle Beam bay by the rules as written!!)

The 20 ton craft with a 50 ton bay points out a flaw in the rules that should be fixed.

Strictly my opinion, but I think that no craft should be able to mount any weapon larger than 10% of it's size as a fixed mount or 1% of it's size as a 'turret' mount. I like small, fast, nimble fighters - I just don't want them to mount 50 ton bays!

PS. Nice designs.

 

[captainjack23]

Finally, there nothing that says that Particle Beam Cannons cannot be fitted. So they will be emplaced instead of the pulse laser from the original. (In fact, a heavy boat could carry a 50 ton Particle Beam bay by the rules as written!!)

The 20 ton craft with a 50 ton bay points out a flaw in the rules that should be fixed.

Strictly my opinion, but I think that no craft should be able to mount any weapon larger than 10% of it's size as a fixed mount or 1% of it's size as a 'turret' mount. I like small, fast, nimble fighters - I just don't want them to mount 50 ton bays!

PS. Nice designs.

I don't think that means to say that a 20t boat can carry a 50t bay - I suspect that the heavy boat referenced was the 50dt heavy fighter from....GT ?. I haven't run the numbers, but an advanced (+3) 50 bay would only displace 30 t, thus making it at least possible.

And yes. Nice designs. Remulaak-Lamaar may be interested in a licensing deal.

 

[captainjack23]

...snip.....
A pretty nifty design. A massive 12 thrust, a weapon that can hurt a dreadnought,
...snip.....
A squadron of 12 of either of these versions would be a significant threat to a vessel 10 or 20 times their combined tonnage, and a serious nuisance to even capital ships.
...snip.....
Anyhow, any thoughts on the Rampart? And anyone else got any fighter designs?

The particle cannon is a 3d turret version, yes ? which does mean that a shot can potentially penetrate any armor (Max armor = 15 using bonded super dense). Nice.

Yup Fighters are back. With a jet pack and bigger hammers. One must consequently wonder if large ships are still as good an idea ? Combat may be now more reflective of the WWII and after model of naval combat, as opposed to the between war period.

 

[Klaus Kipling]

The 70dTon Bomber in HG carries a missile bay, except it's 30tons or so through the advanced tech rules.

And thank you sirs!

The heavy armour is only really applicable to proper high tech designs, and via the barrage rules, and because most fighters will only have 0 hull and 1 structure, they will be by no means immune to massed fire. But yes, I think WW2 style is a good analogy, though the big battleships will still have a point, I think. A battleship will cost less than an equivalent tonnage of fighters, so it will only big polities with cash to burn that will really build those big fleet carriers. However, a light carrier would make a fine commerce raider. Unarmoured freighters, even big'uns, will be vulnerable to even single fighters.

With particle beam weapons, they even can attack from long range. I can see them launching torpedoes and then accelerating ahead of them, drawing the point defense lasers and softening up the target with PBs, before pulling away as the nuclear torpedoes make their final approach. If they had directional jammers they could blind the target vessel so that it would not even detect the incoming torpedo salvo.

Lots of juicy tactical options with fighters. They deserve their own supplement...

 

[rust]

.
Lots of juicy tactical options with fighters. They deserve their own supplement...

The new fighters will be a most welcome addition to my setting, because
they will enable even comparatively poor planets to finance a planetary
and system defence which is sufficient to deter most pirates and raiders.

 

[cmdrx]

This certainly "ain't yer daddy's" High Guard!

While only missile bays are the only bay you can fit (p.61) its still enough to make those heavy fighter/bombers formidable.

Add the hull options for reinforcing hull and structure as well as armour and you got something akin to a small can of whoop-butt

But we can all agree that it's the lowering of the Particle Beam TL and the addition of drives over 6 g's that truly makes the MGT Fighter something worth considering.

I've started trying to do some conversions of my old HG, GURPS and T20 designs. I've practically stopped at TL12. There you're already maxed out on weapon upgrades for particle beams and beam lasers...

unless you break the +3TL barrier! :twisted:

 

[PFVA63]

... here's a TL15 Strike Fighter at 40dTons.

Hi,

Thanks for posting your stuff. So far, I really like what I've seen of High Guard, but I'm still working my way through it all and I hope to put together some ship's and fighters soon. One thing that gets me about some of the craft I've seen though is that they are really alot bigger than what I had previously thought of when I think of fighters.

Specifically, I have some rough data on real world ocean-going ships that I have tried to convert to Traveller dtons for comparative purposes. Specifically, if I have done my math right, I believe that a ship like this Damen 2600 Patrol Boat http://dredgebrokers.com/Boats/80929-VW/boat.html has an enclosed volume that is equal to about 30dtons in Traveller terms. Similarly, I have some other rough data that suggests that a ship about 108ft by 22.25ft might be close to about 35 to 40 dtons, while a PHM attack Hydrofoil
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/phm-1.htm may be about 90 to 95 dtons, and the PG 84 USS Asheville class http://www.navsource.org/archives/12/11084.htm might be close to about 100dtons[/url].

As such, to me a 40dton small craft in Traveller terms would seem more along the lines of maybe a mid to late 20th century Motor Torpedo Boat, Patrol Torpedo Boat, or Motor Gunboat, than a fighter type craft.

Anyway, just some thoughts.

Regards

PF

 

[rust]

As such, to me a 40dton small craft in Traveller terms would seem more along the lines of maybe a mid to late 20th century Motor Torpedo Boat, Patrol Torpedo Boat, or Motor Gunboat, than a fighter type craft.

Since 40 dton are about 560 cubic meters, you could compare a Travel-
ler small craft of that size to a real world patrol boat about 21 meters
long, 7 meters wide and 4 meters high.

A Tornado combat aircraft is about 18.7 meters long, has a wing span
of about 8.6 meters (wings retracted) and is about 6 meters high, so the
"box" around this real world fighter-bomber would be about 12 dton.

 

[klingsor]

I must admit that this makes High Guard sound broken to me though of course I cannot say for sure until I have seen the thing.
The two points that bother me are:

1. Acceleration of more than 6G. This is not your father's Traveller. 6G may have been an artificial limit but it seemed pretty definite.

2. Fighters being effective against warships (ie. the big ass-kicking things, not the piddly little things PCs get their hands on).

The first is not really a problem though – enforce the 6G limit for the OTU and ignore it for other settings. I keep forgetting that the new Traveller is trying to cope with more settings than the OTU. The second though might be harder to cope with. I liked fighters being ineffective, it set Traveller apart from Star Wars and the like – I prefer pre-dreadnought naval wargaming to WW II.

 

[Klaus Kipling]

I must admit that this makes High Guard sound broken to me though of course I cannot say for sure until I have seen the thing.

Hardly 'broken', just a difference in design philosophy.

The two points that bother me are:

1. Acceleration of more than 6G. This is not your father's Traveller. 6G may have been an artificial limit but it seemed pretty definite.

2. Fighters being effective against warships (ie. the big ass-kicking things, not the piddly little things PCs get their hands on).

The first is not really a problem though – enforce the 6G limit for the OTU and ignore it for other settings. I keep forgetting that the new Traveller is trying to cope with more settings than the OTU. The second though might be harder to cope with.

I don't see why OTU stuff should be limited to 6g - that's an artefact of the the original, quick and dirty design system, not an intrinsic aspect of the setting.

Since fighters have been there since Bk2, it's not as if they are not part of Traveller. It's just that, by the rules back then, they were totally ineffective, making those massive fleet carriers detailed in Supplement 9 totally redundant, to the point that it's hard to understand why any military would build carriers at all. That was a flaw in the system (Bk5 combat means that fighters cannot hurt bigger ships and bigger ships cannot hit fighters - now that's not satisfactory).

Given that we know that the Imperium builds giant fleet carriers, and that the original HG had it's flaws, it makes total sense to upgrade fighter class craft to actually have some military purpose.

Even then, it's not like a handful of fighters can knock out a dreadnought; you're talking massed fighter wings taking heavy losses - the big ships are not as vulnerable to fighters as RL battleships were - they can, after all, maneuver in the same number of dimensions as the fighters themselves. So it's probably closer to WW1 than WW2.

I liked fighters being ineffective, it set Traveller apart from Star Wars and the like – I prefer pre-dreadnought naval wargaming to WW II.

Each to their own, I suppose. But fighters are a feature of every sf media work except Star Trek, so having pointless fighters kind of sets it against all other screen based sf, save Trek.

They are, too, player sized military ships, as in, players can fly them, and players can face them. A free trader vs a couple of souped up fighters is a challenge, but doable. A free trader vs a destroyer is just a short fight or a short chase.

 

[klingsor]

Very good points and well argued. I think I would still support the 6G limit for the OTU though.

I think I just have a problem accepting that fighters could be any use - their only protection is their speed and agility - and at close range against light speed weapons (lasers) that will not count for much. Again this is going from older editions, my copy of the new High Guard has not yet come.

Where they might be very useful is for assaulting planets - another reason for streamlined designs in addition to their use by planetary defences. Ortillery is good but having a some fighters right there would be awfully handy.

For other settings though, I wonder what a Babylon 5 Starfury would look like if built using High Guard? unstreamlined with reaction drives. Probably my favourite starfighter design in any setting, they just seem more plausible than the aeroplanes in space everyone else seems to have. I like them but I still think the concept is invalid - though where have I heard that one before? Oh yes, the British White Paper that decided future manned fighters were impossible. It made sense at he time but was completely wrong and did horrible damage to the British aerospace industry. So I am quite prepared to eat my words on this one.

 

[Klaus Kipling]

Raumpatrollie does not have them
Space:1999 does not have fighters (The Hawks are much larger)
Lexx: No fighters

Not sure about the crafts in Serenity/Firefly but IIRC they are also a lot bigger

So (thankfully) NOT every universe has Carrier-crap and Fighter-Trash.

Well I did say screen based.

Raumpatrollie is "Space Patrol"? German antecedent to Star Trek?

Space 1999 did actually have fighters. They were only seen in one episode, I think. "War" was it? They were called 'Hawks', and they were designed along with the moonbase and the Eagles for the planned second season of UFO, which was then shoehorned into the Star Trek style planet-of-the-week show demanded by the networks.

Lexx was so strange as to be an anomaly all by itself. Albeit an enjoyable one.

I think any sfrpg rules, especially ones that consider themselves a general sf toolkit, should be able to accommodate space fighters, as many groups will want to include them

Very good points and well argued. I think I would still support the 6G limit for the OTU though.

The problem you might have with this HG rules set is that you'll have plenty of space left over unless you go over 6G, especially for ships bigger than 20 tons or so, and that they'll then tend to exceptionally well armoured. And that higher tech designs will not be much better than mid tech ones - going over 6g makes TL15 ships definitively superior to TL11 ones.

I think I just have a problem accepting that fighters could be any use - their only protection is their speed and agility - and at close range against light speed weapons (lasers) that will not count for much. Again this is going from older editions, my copy of the new High Guard has not yet come.

Where they might be very useful is for assaulting planets - another reason for streamlined designs in addition to their use by planetary defences. Ortillery is good but having a some fighters right there would be awfully handy.

A laser would be a peashooter vs the better armoured fighters, but the particle beam allows them to pack quite a punch. Like a WW2 fighter armed with 4 pounder howitzers (and I believe there was a marque of Mosquito that was similarly armed!).

For me though, the most useful things for fighters to do, and this is true for the old school weaklings as well, is to link their sensors together and form massive dispersed sensor arrays, that could be far more effective than even the most powerful sensors stuck on a single ship. Think the VLA or that proposed/existing? set of satellites that will/are? form a telescope millions of kilometres across.

Fighters are even better for ground attack in this HG, as they can carry personal/support/field weapons in addition to the space weapons. Useful to have a pair of VFRGs for those strafing runs!

 

[EDG]

Space:1999 does not have fighters (The Hawks are much larger)

Mark IX Hawks were similar in size to Eagles (and Klaus, the Hawks appeared in "War Games", and pretty much destroyed Alpha). And while Eagles aren't exactly small they were Space 1999's equivalent to fighters since pretty much everything else they came up against was a humungous mothership that could flatten the base with a twitch

Hawks were definitely designed for combat though - they were two-man weapon platforms (unlike the Eagles, which were multipurpose designs).
See http://www.space1999.net/moonbase99/tech4.htm

 

[Klaus Kipling]

Space:1999 does not have fighters (The Hawks are much larger)

Mark IX Hawks were similar in size to Eagles (and Klaus, the Hawks appeared in "War Games", and pretty much destroyed Alpha). And while Eagles aren't exactly small they were Space 1999's equivalent to fighters since pretty much everything else they came up against was a humungous mothership that could flatten the base with a twitch

Hawks were definitely designed for combat though - they were two-man weapon platforms (unlike the Eagles, which were multipurpose designs).
See http://www.space1999.net/moonbase99/tech4.htm

Nifty link, sir! By those blueprints, an Eagle fits into a 70 dTon box and the Hawk into a 20 dTon box. Think that qualifies as a fighter...

In comparison, an F/A-18 also just fits into a 70 dTon box, albeit much less compactly than the Eagle. A B2 Spirit is, crudely, about 400 dTons.

[edit] as an addendum, and some idle fiddling with a calculator, a jumbo jet, sans wings would be around 2000 dTons, the battleship Yamoto 15,000 dTons, and the original USS Enterprise 20000 dTons...

 

[klingsor]

Space 1999 - that dates us all. I loved it and still have great affection for it despite the poor plots - but ahh the ships...

Could the Eagle have been the inspiration for the Modular Cutter? Then there were the landers in Space Above and Beyond which also had detachable pods.

Arming an Eagles seemed to be almost the equivalent of a spaceborne Technical - a hasty hybrid of one of those big impressive Russian HMGs or an RR and a pickup truck or small lorry (the ultimate evolution of the pickup truck with a shotgun rack?). I think that might be based on a long ago reading of the novelisations of the episodes where the point was made that the arming was a bit of a lashup.

 

[PFVA63]

Since 40 dton are about 560 cubic meters, you could compare a Traveller small craft of that size to a real world patrol boat about 21 meters long, 7 meters wide and 4 meters high.

A Tornado combat aircraft is about 18.7 meters long, has a wing span
of about 8.6 meters (wings retracted) and is about 6 meters high, so the
"box" around this real world fighter-bomber would be about 12 dton.

Hi,

One thing that's never been fully clear to me is how measurements are done for small craft. I've always assumed that if a craft had a displacement of 10dtons that meant its internal volume was 140 cubic meters (or so) but that the bounding box around it might be much bigger, but I've seen others calculate things as bounding boxes so I was never certain.

Specifically, if you look at an aircraft like an F-104 Starfighter which seems to be mostly a fuselage wrapped around an engine and cockpit, with short stub wings http://membres.lycos.fr/wings2/3vues/f104_1_3v.jpg - http://membres.lycos.fr/wings2/3vues/f104_2_3v.jpg
it might be able to fit within a bounding box of about 4.1m in height by 6.75m wide by 16.5m long for a total volume of 457 cubic meters (or about 32.6 dtons) [not including anything on the wing tips]. If you neglect the extended landing gear you could drop the height to about 3.55m for a bounding box of 395 cubic meters (or 28.25 dtons).

However, just for the sake of argument, if you were to assume that the wings were to fold you could get the width down to maybe 3.6m, for a box volume of 244 cubic meters (or about 17.4 dtons). (Or if you neglect the extended landing geat then it would be 211 cubic meters - 15 dtons).

On the other hand though, looking only at the actual internal volume of the aircraft (as estimated from the cross section views in the figures in the links above) it looks like the aircraft is only really about 1.7 dtons in volume (if I did the math right).

If that's correct, then a small craft with an internal volume of 40 dton would seem huge.

Anyway, just some thoughts.

Regards

PF

 

[rust]

If that's correct, then a small craft with an internal volume of 40 dton would seem huge.

Indeed, it would be much more like, for example, the A-5 Vigilante than
like a typical fighter:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-5_Vigilante

The "box" around a small craft is just a simple way to get a very rough
estimate of the craft's volume, and is only really useful to determine
the necessary storage space for such a craft.

All data for the craft use the internal volume, so a 40 dton craft really
has an internal volume of 40 dton.