Massive numbers of weapons on Traveller capital ships

[apoc527]

As you probably can tell, I'm a relative newcomer to Traveller, having only played GURPS Traveller very briefly, a bit of T20, and now MGT. My observation is as follows: compared to many other sci-fi settings, Traveller capital ships (in this case, I'm going to include cruisers and above), seem to have inordinate numbers of weapons.

I know this is a tradition, so to speak, but I'm wondering if anyone has any explanation of this, of why it was done this way. The "problem" with this model, if there is one, is that it becomes impossible for PCs to ever challenge a capital ship. This is not necessarily a problem, of course, but even compared to modern naval ships, these ships are incredibly well-armed.

What strikes me more is that there is often little benefit to having 1000 Triple Pulse Laser Turrets unless you want to single-handedly destroy every small craft in an entire fleet. Which I suppose is useful when you are a Tigress-class Dreadnaught.

Anyway, what's the deal with the uber-powerful fleet ships?

 

[AndrewW]

What strikes me more is that there is often little benefit to having 1000 Triple Pulse Laser Turrets unless you want to single-handedly destroy every small craft in an entire fleet. Which I suppose is useful when you are a Tigress-class Dreadnaught.

Laser turrets are more likely to be used in a point defense roll on capital ships then against other ships. Though could also be useful against swarms of fighters. (Even if the Imperium doesn't consider a small one man fighter to be any threat or they'd have a tighter defense).

 

[silburnl]

... is that it becomes impossible for PCs to ever challenge a capital ship.

This here is the crux. The default assumption of traveller is that PCs are small scale independant contractors - the kind of people who can turn their hands to whatever needs doing in order to turn a buck and make their next mortgage payment. Such characters might be able to inconvenience, or even take out, a capital ship as the climax of a carefully executed and cunning plan (like those guys who whacked the USS Cole a few years back), but they aren't going to do it in a straight fight.

If you want to give PCs the ability to challenge a capital ship in naval combat, then they need to be the sort of characters who have access to a capital ship (or better, ships) of their own (ie planetary scale nobles, senior command staff of a naval flotilla/successful pirate fleet etc).

The traveller rules can do those sorts of games, but it isn't the default and a lot of the half-crunch/half-fluff bits of the rules (eg. the trade system) won't be relevant.

Regards
Luke

 

[GJD]

Personally I've never understood the odd way that Traveller deals with weapons on ships. Why limit it to a triple turret? What if i want quadlasers? Why have a squillion 10 ton laser turrets, why not 20 ton? 50 ton, 100 ton? It's one of the big stumbling blocks for me that every capital ship seems to be armed with the two extremes of weapons - one giant spinal weapon and loads of tiny trip turrets with nothing in between?

G.

 

[rust]

It's one of the big stumbling blocks for me that every capital ship seems to be armed with the two extremes of weapons - one giant spinal weapon and loads of tiny trip turrets with nothing in between?

This is not quite the case, because there are the various bay weapons.
The core rulebook has bay weapons of 50 dtons, High Guard adds bar-
bettes and bay weapons of 100 dtons.

Otherwise, this is just an artefact of Traveller's history, I think. The first
ships were intended as small, lightly armed player character ships, and
the turret concept was sufficient for them.

The first High Guard added capital ships with "capital" weapons (bays and
spinal mounts), but also continued to use the turrets that had already be
introduced.

The result was a sometimes strange mix of "semi-civilian" light turret wea-
pons and "battleship-type" heavy weapons with not much in between, per-
haps because the introduction of more "calibers" of weapons would have
made the design system too complicated.

But I do not consider this a serious problem, it is not difficult to modify
the system and design weapons of any size you like.

 

[Daneel Olivaw]

I've never been a big fan of the OTU's capital ship designs, and the OP's comment is one reason why. I would design my own ships with a spinal mount and bay weapons as primary batteries and maybe turret weapons for point defense.

 

[rust]

I usually design my setting's capital ships much like the big battleships
of our real world history.

For example, in 1945 the Japanese battleship Yamato had about 170 of
the smaller anti aircraft guns (25 mm and 13.2 mm), and the German
battleship Bismarck was built with about 40 such small weapons, so I
think something between 50 and 150 turrets could be acceptable for a
battleship.

 

[Treebore]

I usually design my setting's capital ships much like the big battleships
of our real world history.

For example, in 1945 the Japanese battleship Yamato had about 170 of
the smaller anti aircraft guns (25 mm and 13.2 mm), and the German
battleship Bismarck was built with about 40 such small weapons, so I
think something between 50 and 150 turrets could be acceptable for a
battleship.

I would prefer to go by more modern designs with the Phalanx systems and such.

Personally I think the Bismarck was the better ship, but that is largely because of how hard a time they had sinking her in 1941. Then again they didn't have nearly as difficult a time with her sister ship. Of course they destroyed her like a sitting duck.

Still, they are good examples to consider for any such engagement in a Traveller game. Tons of drama involved.

 

[AndrewW]

I've never been a big fan of the OTU's capital ship designs, and the OP's comment is one reason why. I would design my own ships with a spinal mount and bay weapons as primary batteries and maybe turret weapons for point defense.

That's how it is now. The turret weapons on capital ships are usually lasers and sandcasters, which are used defensively. With spinal mount and bay weapons to attack other ships with.

 

[captainjack23]

I usually design my setting's capital ships much like the big battleships
of our real world history.

For example, in 1945 the Japanese battleship Yamato had about 170 of
the smaller anti aircraft guns (25 mm and 13.2 mm), and the German
battleship Bismarck was built with about 40 such small weapons, so I
think something between 50 and 150 turrets could be acceptable for a
battleship.

Interestingly, the Yamato is about 10,000 traveller tons displacement -which could have about 100 turrets absent any bays. Which I note is between "50 and 150 turrets"...

10,000 tons is about tops for any small ship universe - and parallels "modern" (ie just post WW2) ship construction. Beyond that, its gets really .....well, science fictioney.

And BTW -Treebore; the Yamato took a massive attack to finish it off, absorbing massive amounts fo damage-it was just airpower in it's case, no shiny battleships.

 

[rust]

Interestingly, the Yamato is about 10,000 traveller tons displacement -which could have about 100 turrets absent any bays. Which I note is between "50 and 150 turrets"...

Yes, indeed.

I think that in the end the expected enemy's naval doctrine would decide
the number of turrets.

With an expected enemy who favours lots of (potentially dangerous) figh-
ters or who relies on salvoes of huge numbers of missiles, a capital ship
will be designed to have as many turrets as possible.

With an enemy who designs his ships around giant spinal mounts and on-
ly rarely uses small craft or massive missile salvoes, more armour or bet-
ter screens may be the best place to put the money.

 

[BP]

A multi-role mission would also dictate a combination of large number of low power/short range vs. low quantity high-power/long range systems.

 

[rust]

A multi-role mission would also dictate a combination of large number of low power/short range vs. low quantity high-power/long range systems.

I think this would lead us to the discussion of "general purpose ships ver-
sus specialized ships", a debate that has been ongoing for a long time in
the real world navies and has led to a number of temporary "fashions" in
warship design.

In my settings most of the ships are "general purpose" ones, because the
usually small nations there are hardly able to afford a mixed fleet of spe-
cialized ships - in fact, ships usually operate alone, so they have to be ab-
le to deal with all kinds of situations on their own.

 

[GypsyComet]

I think that in the end the expected enemy's naval doctrine would decide
the number of turrets.

This is pretty much the right answer. Warships designed and built in a vacuum won't necessarily be suitable for the real opponents when they show up.

So you need to design not one Navy, but two. Or more. The Navy of the Spinward frontier may not bear much resemblance to the Navy of the Trailing frontier.

 

[BP]

Warships designed and built in a vacuum ...

Uhm... these are space ships we're talk'n about :wink:

And yeah - specific designs would probably exist for the variation in missions for the Planetary, Subsector and Imperial Navies (as covered in HG - though this is rather setting specific of a core book) as well.

This also would be seen with vessels specific to say the Army and Marines (no reason to presume these branches shouldn't have some stellar/interstellar assests so they aren't totally dependent on the Navy).

 

[Golan2072]

I like to build my bigger military ships (1,000 tons or more - I like small-ship universes) around a 'big' weapon (such as a bay, or, for even bigger ships, spinal weapon) or a few 'big' weapons. I also give them turrets for point defense and use against small ships.

In big ship vs. big ship combat, the 'big' weapons are used against the big enemy ship, and the turrets against small escorts, fighters and incoming missiles.

 

[phavoc]

I usually design my setting's capital ships much like the big battleships
of our real world history.

For example, in 1945 the Japanese battleship Yamato had about 170 of
the smaller anti aircraft guns (25 mm and 13.2 mm), and the German
battleship Bismarck was built with about 40 such small weapons, so I
think something between 50 and 150 turrets could be acceptable for a
battleship.

One thing to consider is that after the Japanese sunk the Prince of Wales and the Repulse by aeral attacks, they were the first capital ships to be sunk exclusively by air power in open water. After that every navy started putting AA guns anywhere they could find a place to bolt them. But under their designs that originated in the 1930s, the # of secondary batteries and AA guns where far fewer than after 1941.

You had 20mm and 40mm dual and quad mounts everywhere! They would even mount them on the top of the turrets - which of course as a position they could not be manned while the turrets were firing, nor would a number of other gun positions. But it was extremely rare for the AA mounts and main guns to be used in the same battle.

I've always been a bit disappointed in Traveller in that its tech basis is kind of firmly rooted in the 1970s. Today our tech and ideas of future tech has progressed a great deal. We can easily see the average person walking around with a iPod sized petabyte memory storage device, or self-aware computers (or at least really, really smart AI's that aren't quite self-aware). But Traveller never really branced out beyond that. Now we just have to make those things up for ourselves. And, of course, share!