missile and torp bays

[Jak Nazryth]

A 50 ton bay can fire flights of 12 missiles or 3 torpedoes at a time.
But it never states specifically how many missiles / torpedoes a 50 ton bay holds.
Since 12 missiles take up 1 ton and 2 torpedoes take up 5 tons, I'm going to assume that fully stocked 50 ton bay can hold either 600 missiles or 20 torpedoes.

The one confusing factor is in traders and gunboats, page 88. The antique SDB has a 50ton torpedo bay, and under ammunition it has 24 torpedoes, taking up 60 tons of space.
Does the SDB have a total of 60 or 80 torpedoes in a full loadout?

I think I may have fired one to many salvos of torpedoes at the players. I simply looked at the write up of the Antique SDB, and fired 8 salvos of 3 torps each. I'm thinking instead I should have launched a total of 20 torpedoes, then reloaded...

Speaking of that, during my last game we discussed the rule of reloading missile racks, sand casters, and torpedo barbettes and bays. Once a bay/barbette/turret expends its ammunition, how long does it take to reload? Does anyone know of a rule that covers reloading ships weapons? Is it covered in the "ship action phase" in the space combat (page 150 core rules) and occur during "Change positions" phase?
Reloading 1 missile or 1 sand canister in a normal turret is one thing, but loading a 50ton or 100ton bay seems to be completely different. I just cant find any rules on this issue.

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

As far as I can see, the missile ammo is in addition to the size of the missile bay (which covers the mechanics and electronics). This also allows a complete reload during each space combat round (every 6 minutes), as per turrets (for missiles and sandcaster). The reload is automated.

Actually, this is clearly far too slow "in the real world", but is accepted as a game abstraction.

Of course, it could be argued that a missile bay could carry one salvo as ready to use inside the mounting, can't see that being a problem.

Egil

 

[AndrewW]

Torpedo barbattes do hold 2 torpedoes but that's the only one listed as holding ammunition. I wouldn't think you could use the full bay tonnage for storage though, need room for the mechanical/electronic parts. They don't have to be manually loaded.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Test your Search fu and look back a ways.

We talked about weapon bays a lot last year and one of the things covered was the ammo in bays I think.

It wasn't the whole bay but I remember theat the end result was that bays did hold some ammo. Well I think I remember but I have trouble remembering the names of people who say hello to me in the corridors every day :?

 

[Jak Nazryth]

It makes sense that a portion of a bay weapon will need for machinery, but 42.5 tons?
If a 5 ton barbette can hold 2, why would you spend the cost and usable space for a 50 ton bay that only holds 3? I suppose the mongoose guys never clarified, or did anyone post this question to the Rules Master board?

 

[Captain Jonah]

Well if you think of modern tube launched missiles then half the space is the machinery and the other half is missiles. The machinery moves the missiles from the magazine to the launcher, the launcher fires, the next missile is moved in.

The torpedo bay should be able to hold three salvos, the missile bay 25 salvos before they need magazines.

A missile bay should be able to fight small battles without needing extra ammo. The torpedoes on the other hand will need vast magazines but reloading is handled by the 50% of the Dtons given over to machines. As long as the magazines are next to the bay the ammo is just picked up from its rack, loaded straight in and fired.

The delay comes in when some idiot put the replacement ammo in cargo and you are in the middle of a battle while crews of guys use grav cartes to float the torpedoes down corridors into the bay.

There is a very good scene in one of the early HHs where a crew is moving missiles from a magazine with a destroyed launcher to a working launcher with no ammo. One of them is crushed against the wall when the missile shifts (HH missiles are like torpedo’s)

 

[Jak Nazryth]

I guess I see a bay like an assault rifle. Part of the total "system" is a large mag inside the gun. Once the mag is empty of bullets, you need to go to "storage" to refill the mag, or replace it. It only makes sense that the huge bay holds a good number of missiles/torps/railgun slugs, before running out of ammo. I do like the automated idea of ammo storage automatically refilling the bay magazine.
Anyway, I just posted the question to the rules master. Any bets on if it will even be addressed? :wink:

 

[Beastttt]

12 missiles per salvo is is the same as 4 triple turrets(the bennie is that you only use up 1 hard point instead of 4)
since there is no added cost for machinery to move missiles to turrets from cargo next to the turret
the machinery should only weigh as much as 4 triple turrets
and the rest for storage of missiles

 

[Jeraa]

The 50 ton railgun bay has storage for 200 shots. We know from the railgun barbette that there are 20 shots per ton, so 10 tons of the 50 ton railgun bay is storage. The 100 ton railgun bay holds 400 rounds, so 20 tons. Both are 1/5th the bays tonnage in storage.

The 50 ton ortillary railgun has space for 10 shots, with 2 shots per ton. Thats only 5 tons storage. 1/10th the bays volume is storage.

As far as I know, those are the only official stats on bay storage. 10-20% of the bays volume is storage.

I've always used 40% of the bays volume as storage. So 20 tons of a 50 ton bay, or 40 tons of a 100 ton bay. 20 tons is enough space for 8 torpedoes, 400 railgun rounds, 40 ortillery railgun rounds, or 240 missiles.

(Looking at that, torpedos are way too big. 2.5 tons each? How can a 5 ton barbette hold 5 tons of torpedos, and still have room for the launcher? I would reduce torpedos to 1 ton each at a maximum. Probably half a ton each. That would increase the 50 ton bays storage to either 20 torpedoes, or 40.)

 

[locarno24]

(Looking at that, torpedos are way too big. 2.5 tons each? How can a 5 ton barbette hold 5 tons of torpedos, and still have room for the launcher? I would reduce torpedos to 1 ton each at a maximum. Probably half a ton each. That would increase the 50 ton bays storage to either 20 torpedoes, or 40.)

I guess the barbette is storing them externally to the hull. The volume of the torpedoes therefore doesn't count, in the same way that the protruding bit of a gun turret doesn't count - you only require space for fire control, in the same way a small craft with a torpedo slung under it takes only the volume of the Torp without any 'launcher' space.

That said, it does seem a little good. I've no problem with a missile launcher carrying one load in the tubes but two seems over the top.

As to the ammo capacity of bays - I'm fine with torpedo bays not having anything but machinery inside - they are essentially putting significantly faster fire through roughly the same surface area (because they only use one hardpoint). In terms of pure effectiveness they need some downside - with nukes (especially laser heads) a 50 dTon Heavy Missile bay is putting out the same firepower as three particle beam bays of the same size, for less than 3/4 the cost of just one.

 

[SSWarlock]

They already have a downside..a torp is shot only once and is easy to take out with point defense while those 3 PAW bays are point defense-proof and just keep shooting and shooting. And while one torpedo can engage only one target, three PAW bays can engage 3 simultaneously. A single 100 ton PAW bay will hit anything like a hammer while torps require a large throw weight just to get through point defense. And only capital ships have the volume to allow that kind of throw weight while a combat-effective PAW bay can be fitted on a ship under 1000 tons.

Finally, torps can require time to close with their target. PAWs allow you to reach out and touch someone now.

I'll take PAW bays over torps any day of the week.