Imperium's ship designation (i.e. IMS, TIS...?)

[Kingside_Bishop]

What would the Imperium's ship preface abbreviation be? You know, like USS for United States Ship, or HMS for Her Majesty's Ship. What would it be in the Third Imperium? Has anyone come across a reference to this?

 

[Reynard]

Might be wrong but Imperial Star (Space) Ship seems a proper designation.

 

[GypsyComet]

Classic materials suggest that there isn't only one, and that they are role-derived instead of flag dependent.

 

[dragoner]

IIRC, they use the prefix to their designator number, similar to aircraft.

 

[Rick]

You mean a form of the US Hull classification system or UK pennant numbers - e.g: F239 HMS Richmond or FFG-53 USS Hawes?
Typically, a modern ship will use both a national identifier and an ID code (pennant or hull classification number).

 

[Jame Rowe]

One of my previous GMs referred to a far trader as an Imperial Merchant Vessel, or IMV. The logical progression would be Imperial Naval Vessel, Imperial Research Vessel, Imperial Scout/Survey Vessel and so forth.

I would figure that the Army and Marines would utilize Navy or (rarely) Scout vessels, and only utilize Merchant vessels out of necessity.

 

[madmike]

When I ran an "Imperial campaign", either canon or my own TU harking back to Classic traveller, I used the following;

IMV - Imperial Merchant Vessel
INSS - Imperial Naval Star Ship
ISS - Imperial Scout Ship

Worked well.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

How would/do you differentiate between a Space Ship (non-jump) and a Star Ship (Jump).

 

[RichardP]

INS for Imperial Naval Ship has been used several times. 8)

 

[Reynard]

I'd say, because of their large numbers, spacecraft would have an alphanumeric code to identify the vessel such as ID codes on trucks. Haven't found Ship Type Code in the Mongoose books yet (Is there?) but the classic High Guard has it. F - fighter, G - gig, K - pinnace, S - station, T - tanker, Y - shuttle or cutter.

 

[wbnc]

How would/do you differentiate between a Space Ship (non-jump) and a Star Ship (Jump).

I've Always used the terms Vessel for interstellar ships, and Craft/Boat for in system/non jump vehicles.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

So an Imperial Merchant Vessel IMV is jump capable and an Imperial Merchant Boat (IMB) is not?

I was thinking about using J for jump capable and S for space capable (but not jump)

So Imperial Naval Ship would be

INJ - Jump Capable
INS - Non-Jump Capable

 

[Epicenter]

I don't think the Imperium has a national identification prefix on its ships (it's mostly an Anglo thing even here on Earth - you see authors who are bugged by this making up weird prefixes and attaching them to vessels of other nations that never had them because of this).

The prefix used to designate what kind of ship it is different from the national identification prefix. Using a real-world example, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier would have a ship type of CVN. However, it'd still be a USS (United States Ship).

So it'd be along the lines of: CVN-XX USS SomeCarrier.

 

[Rick]

I don't think the Imperium has a national identification prefix on its ships (it's mostly an Anglo thing even here on Earth - you see authors who are bugged by this making up weird prefixes and attaching them to vessels of other nations that never had them because of this).

The prefix used to designate what kind of ship it is different from the national identification prefix. Using a real-world example, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier would have a ship type of CVN. However, it'd still be a USS (United States Ship).

So it'd be along the lines of: CVN-XX USS SomeCarrier.

Believe I may have made the same point earlier. Although it isn't just an 'Anglo' thing, most navies have them; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_prefix