Missile Rack

[Easterner]

Unless I'm missing something?

My reading of space combat is that all the ammo is stored in the cargo bay and teams of powder monkeys are needed to haul a missile and sand barrel to each turret so they can be fired each round a technique that went out with the age of sail and is hampered by lack of powder monkeys too.

No where could I find a turret capacity for sand or missiles. No where is automation implied. Ammo shouldn't be stored as cargo unless excess ammo carried. There should be hoppers built into the hull bulkheads that feed sand barrels and missiles to each turret as fired and should be untouched by sophont hands until new ones are loaded or a destroyed turrets ammo is manually moved to a different turret. (That too should be automated on bigger or high tech designs.)

Magazine equipped ships are presumably as efficient as ones on warships today on military vessels. I didn't check.

 

[AndrewW]

Most ships that carry expendable weapons (missiles, torpedoes, sandcasters) specify ammunition space in the statistics. One can assume this gets autoloaded.

 

[Captain Jonah]

My 10 Centicreds

Allocate dedicated tonnage to magazines, you can assume that the launchers contain a single space for a round and the autoloader required to grab the next round from the magazine.

Deck plans should have launcher turrets next to or close to magazines.

If there is no magazine then its sent the monkey with a grav cart.

Ships would tend to have launchers clustered near the magazines, desingns with 4 turrets every one of which has a laser, missile and sand and which are at the four corners of the ship make no sense but then this is Traveller :roll:

Put in a magazine or two on the deck plans. Say which turrets can draw from it, give these the launchers. Everything else is energy weapons or needs a loader which could be the gunner since he cannot fire without ammo.

Though the idea of a starship firing its missiles then the Imperial navy trained gunnery office running down the corridors pushing a grav cart to get the next missile is funny, it cannot be the way things are done.

Or go with every launcher has a two or three round clip. Civilian ships without dedicated magazines can fire three times then lose a turn while they reload.

 

[locarno24]

Agreed. Every version I've seen just has 'ammunition' as used volume and a magazine marked out on the deckplan - which one can assume is connected to the weapon(s) by ammo feeds.

Note that barbettes often contain an internal magazine, as do railgun bay mounts.

 

[Moonstruck]

In CT Reloading: ( Which is how it works IMTU )

Each launcher ( sand or missile ) has an inherent capacity for 3 missiles or sandcanisters.

When a launcher's ordnance is exhausted. It may be reloaded by the turets gunner in one turn. Reloading 3 launcehrs would take 3 turns. A gunner engaged in reloading is unable to fire other weaponry in the turret.

Missile magazines and auto-loaders are extra.

 

[jwpacker]

Found this on a search, and really had hoped for a definitive answer...

Some bay weapons talk about ammo, but turrets do not.

CT has the crazy "three loaded, then manual" rule listed above.

GURPS:Trav breaks things down into mass and volume, and their turrets have space for 12 in the Interstellar Wars versions and over 80 in the 3rd Edition G:T Starships rules.

I've no idea how TNE and MegaT did things...

I'm tempted to say that 12 missiles to the ton in MgT includes the storage gear and autoloader systems, and that the weapons themselves have room for one bird to be on the rails, ready to fire at any given time.

 

[Moonstruck]

Triple turret ( Fixed Mounting ) TL 9, cost 0.5MCr.
1 DTon fire control

3 Missile Racks ( Auto-Loader*, Eazy to Repair ) TL 9, cost 3 X .75 = 2.25 MCr.

*The Auto-Loader is a double upgrade. That feeds ammunition from an adjacent magazine. It lowers the racks ammunition load to "one in the tube" and removes the need for manual reloading. So that Gunnery may fire non-stop.

In MgT 12 missiles or 20 sandcasters, take up a DTon of space. For missiles a fixed mounting is fine IMTU. If my players want to pay for upgrades. I have no problem overchargeing them for automation. :mrgreen:

 

[shannydez]

A missile rack of three standard miniaturised missiles. These have lower yield, range and speed than standard missiles, but are otherwise usable as standard weaponry. Once the rack is emptied, it is automatically ejected from the pylon and will self destruct once it reaches a safe distance from the ship.

 

[Greg Smith]

Didn't classic Traveller space combat turns last 15 minutes? Maybe that's how long it took a powder monkey to fetch a new missile and load it. :twisted:

 

[Jeraa]

Didn't classic Traveller space combat turns last 15 minutes?

16.6667 minutes. (1000 seconds)