Missile Turrets

[Condottiere]

Legacies.

The Millenium Falcon school of gunnery is alive and well.

 

[-Daniel-]

Legacies.

The Millenium Falcon school of gunnery is alive and well.

LOL, you have to admit it did look good. Very computer game like. :mrgreen:

 

[snrdg121408]

Hello Daniel,

CT Special Supplement 3 indicates that there three missiles ready to launch and another twelve stowed in the turret. What is not clear is if the gunner or whoever has to manually transfer the twelve missiles. When all the turret missiles have been launched the gunner and/or whoever has to manually reload a nearby cargo hold.magazine.

A civilian vessel would probably fall under OSHA or similar Traveller regulations, however the military has there own rules and regulations. Having one ready to launch under military regulations would probably be an issue if caught.

I think we need to take a step back from all these assumptions being made. Some real world correlations make sense, but taken too far just feels odd. Why would there be the assumption of manual loading at all? Why even assume the gunner is anywhere near the turret? Even now we have automatic loading systems. Given the advancements over the TLs seems to warrant shifting our thinking towards automatic loading as well as ready to fire systems. No need to prime the well by hand. :wink:

Just my opinion of course. :mrgreen:

The only real concept I discussed concerned OSHA and the military. The information drawn from CT LBB 2 2e 1981 and SS3 concerns accounting for missiles/canisters in combat. CT LBB 5 2e. 1980 and CT Adventure 5 TCS use an abstract combat method that waves the accounting need to track missile and/or canister usage.

CT LBB 2 2e 1981 p. 32
"Reloading: Each launcher (sand or missile) has an inherent capacity for three missiles or canisters. This means that a triple turret with three missile launchers has a total of 9 missiles in ready position.
When a launcher's missiles or canisters are exhausted, it may be reloaded by the turret's gunner in one turn. Reloading three launchers would take three turns. A gunner engaged in reloading is unable to fire other weaponry in the turret

The only mention of reloading I found is on Traveller Core Rulebook p. 161/PDF 162:

"Reload Turret (Gunner)
During prolonged battles, turrets mounted with sandcasters or missile racks may run out of ammunition. A turret may be reloaded by any Traveller with the Gunner skill but it will be unable to make any attacks in that round."

Based on the information provided in CT, along with discussions on Citizens Of The Imperium and ct starships on Yahoo, and MgT Core Rulebook my impression is that the turret has an automatic feed mechanism for the three missiles/canisters ready to launch. To reload the turret once the three missiles/canisters have been launched does not have an automatic feed mechanism since the gunner or any Traveller with gunner skill is not able to make any attacks in that round. Of course CT does appear to indicate that if the gunner is not involved with reloading and the turret has say a laser the gunner can fire the weapon.

In MgT, my opinion is that the turret cannot fire until reloading has been completed.

I believe that this forum's consensus is that MgT, and the other Traveller rule sets, design process is based on real concepts that have, where needed, been modified, simplified, and extrapolated to fit the game. Unfortunately, attempts to use real examples are regularly found to be invalid in my opinion which means that my closest real example I can think of would be would be a 5"/54 caliber Mark 45 naval gun or the Iowa-Class Battleship three 16-inch main gun turrets is not going to fly. I'll go no further than mentioning the weapons designations.

 

[Condottiere]

The question would be, exactly where these ready rounds are positioned, but that also means we need to know the layout of a turret.

Otherwise, the missiles are in the ready position in the magazine.

 

[phavoc]

The manual reload of turrets has always bugged me from the days of CT. The idea that a gunner has to physically lug a missile from a rack and load it into the breach of the missile tube makes me think of days back in artillery. I was in MLRS and while a crack crew could reload 12 missiles (in two pods) in five minutes - that assumed that everything was picture perfect, nothing jammed, there weren't any terrain issues, etc, etc. Plus they had to be humping, so either it was a graded drill or wartime. In wartime you don't follow the 'rules' for safety because you are more worried about your ass being spotted by a helo or someone else instead of safety regs.

Missiles should be stored in a magazine, in a feed mechanism. During combat automated loaders do all the work. Only after the shooting has stopped might you try and pull spares from your cargo or storage for your on-mount reloads.

And as far as the storage on-mount goes, it's never been a good rule, but it kinda sorta falls in the 20% rule that is used for deck plans. If missiles take up space, and the one ton is set aside for fire control, then all the rest of this is magical Tardis space.

 

[snrdg121408]

Hello EldritchFire

Interesting find in the CRB: "Each turret with one or more missile racks holds 12 missiles and costs Cr250000 to refill. It takes one round to reload a missile rack (see page 161)," (pg 157).

The missile rack entry in HG is an exact copy/paste for the first half, then when it starts talking about where to find the rules for missile salvos, the copy/paste stopped. Which is a shame, since the above quote comes right after the 'find missile weapon rules on page xx' blurb.

This might alleviate some of the questions/concerns in this thread. We now know that no matter how many launchers in a turret, there will only be 12 missiles. It also shows that once a rack is empty, it takes an action to reload, meaning snrdg121408 could have a point about flying around with a loaded missile tube.

The cost of 12 standard smart missiles is Cr250,000 or approximately Cr20,800 per missile that takes up approximately 0.08 d-tons or 1.17 m^3 of space.

I disagree that we know there are only twelve missiles in a turret. From HG 2e p. 25/PDF 26:

"Missile Rack: Though missile racks require ammunition and the warheads take time to reach distant targets, they can be very powerful weapons and, when a range of warheads is available, extremely versatile too. Each missile rack holds 12 missiles (missile racks on Firmpoints hold four missiles). The missile rack here is equipped with standard missiles."

My understanding of the underlined sentence is that a single missile rack has twelve missiles, two missile racks has twenty-four missiles, and three missile racks has thirty-six missiles. A single Small craft missile rack on a firmpoint would have four, two missile racks on the same firmpoint would have eight, and three missile racks would have twelve missiles or four missiles in a single turret mount on a firmpoint. Once all available missiles have been launched reloading, per Traveller Core Rulebook, prevents the gunner from engaging targets until the task is completed.

The bit about Cr250,000 to refill also lets us know that the prices in HG are per ton (12 missiles per ton, and the price for standard missiles is Cr250,000).

Yes, 12 standard smart missiles cost Cr250,000 and take up 1 d-ton of space. However, from HG 2e p. 29/PDF 30 twelve missiles take up 1 d-ton of space the cost varies depending on warhead type.

 

[snrdg121408]

Hello Condottiere,

The question would be, exactly where these ready rounds are positioned, but that also means we need to know the layout of a turret.

Otherwise, the missiles are in the ready position in the magazine.

In CT LBB2 the first three are ready to fire the fuzzy part is where the gunner gets the reloads from indicate. With the addition of SS3 the fuzzy part gets fuzzier of where the twelve are stored on the turret.

In MgT twelve missiles assigned to each missile rack does appear to be somehow part of the turret. My guess is that they are stored in a similar manner to real turrets on naval vessels or maybe tank turrets.

 

[snrdg121408]

Hello phavoc,

During the Age of Sail manually loading was similar. During the U.S. Civil War the USS Monitor's guns were manually reloaded too. Of course the gunner had assistants in loading, which indicates that in CT that there is enough mechanical assistance for the gunner to reload the turret alone with the cost of not being able to use the turret.

The manual reload of turrets has always bugged me from the days of CT. The idea that a gunner has to physically lug a missile from a rack and load it into the breach of the missile tube makes me think of days back in artillery. I was in MLRS and while a crack crew could reload 12 missiles (in two pods) in five minutes - that assumed that everything was picture perfect, nothing jammed, there weren't any terrain issues, etc, etc. Plus they had to be humping, so either it was a graded drill or wartime. In wartime you don't follow the 'rules' for safety because you are more worried about your ass being spotted by a helo or someone else instead of safety regs.

Missiles should be stored in a magazine, in a feed mechanism. During combat automated loaders do all the work. Only after the shooting has stopped might you try and pull spares from your cargo or storage for your on-mount reloads.

And as far as the storage on-mount goes, it's never been a good rule, but it kinda sorta falls in the 20% rule that is used for deck plans. If missiles take up space, and the one ton is set aside for fire control, then all the rest of this is magical Tardis space.

Traveller in my opinion has always used Tardis space with components, which is another discussion that I will not take further here.

 

[-Daniel-]

I believe that this forum's consensus is that MgT, and the other Traveller rule sets, design process is based on real concepts that have, where needed, been modified, simplified, and extrapolated to fit the game. Unfortunately, attempts to use real examples are regularly found to be invalid in my opinion which means that my closest real example I can think of would be would be a 5"/54 caliber Mark 45 naval gun or the Iowa-Class Battleship three 16-inch main gun turrets is not going to fly. I'll go no further than mentioning the weapons designations.

You are right, I have found Traveller often seems to be a real interesting mix of SciFi and "Old Style Tech" that gives the game a particular feel. The idea of hand loading a gun as if we were in the 1800s but doing so in a space ship that can fly at FTL is so odd and yet I admit, part of what I love about Traveller. :mrgreen:

 

[Condottiere]

You can manually load six inch breech loaders, fairly fast, which is why they were known as quick firers.

The largest practical manual loader was the nine point twoers, which is why that was armoured cruisers largest guns.

A colleague told me how he got a medical discharge/disability from the Marine Corps, by lifting up a one fifty five millimetre shell.

 

[phavoc]

You can manually load six inch breech loaders, fairly fast, which is why they were known as quick firers.

The largest practical manual loader was the nine point twoers, which is why that was armoured cruisers largest guns.

A colleague told me how he got a medical discharge/disability from the Marine Corps, by lifting up a one fifty five millimetre shell.

ROF for a 155 is about 4 rounds/minute. That includes closing the breech, loading the propellant (bags for most, liquid for G6). Shells are about 100lbs. In US artillery you are supposed to duo-load them, though there are some big guys that can do it solo, at least for a little while. Sustained rates of fire don't stay that high for long as the crew gets fatigued. Auto-loaders really help here. Personally I preferred using hydraulics and saving my muscles to put the fracking camo netting.

 

[snrdg121408]

Hello Daniel,

Yep, I agree with you about Traveller.

I believe that this forum's consensus is that MgT, and the other Traveller rule sets, design process is based on real concepts that have, where needed, been modified, simplified, and extrapolated to fit the game. Unfortunately, attempts to use real examples are regularly found to be invalid in my opinion which means that my closest real example I can think of would be would be a 5"/54 caliber Mark 45 naval gun or the Iowa-Class Battleship three 16-inch main gun turrets is not going to fly. I'll go no further than mentioning the weapons designations.

You are right, I have found Traveller often seems to be a real interesting mix of SciFi and "Old Style Tech" that gives the game a particular feel. The idea of hand loading a gun as if we were in the 1800s but doing so in a space ship that can fly at FTL is so odd and yet I admit, part of what I love about Traveller. :mrgreen:

 

[snrdg121408]

Hello Condottuere,

You can manually load six inch breech loaders, fairly fast, which is why they were known as quick firers.

The largest practical manual loader was the nine point twoers, which is why that was armoured cruisers largest guns.

A colleague told me how he got a medical discharge/disability from the Marine Corps, by lifting up a one fifty five millimetre shell.

A very lucky Marine since there was a chance the colleague could have been charged with failing to follow procedures and/or damaging government property, the colleague if the wrong senior personnel disliked the individual.

 

[snrdg121408]

Howdy phavoc,

You can manually load six inch breech loaders, fairly fast, which is why they were known as quick firers.

The largest practical manual loader was the nine point twoers, which is why that was armoured cruisers largest guns.

A colleague told me how he got a medical discharge/disability from the Marine Corps, by lifting up a one fifty five millimetre shell.

ROF for a 155 is about 4 rounds/minute. That includes closing the breech, loading the propellant (bags for most, liquid for G6). Shells are about 100lbs. In US artillery you are supposed to duo-load them, though there are some big guys that can do it solo, at least for a little while. Sustained rates of fire don't stay that high for long as the crew gets fatigued. Auto-loaders really help here. Personally I preferred using hydraulics and saving my muscles to put the fracking camo netting.

Hydraulics make a lot of things easier, on one patrol of SSBN610 the hydraulics went down for loading the torpedo tubes, I was one of the volunteered to help unload and load tubes. Sonar at that time on SSBNs were part of operations not weapons, at least I did not have workout that day.;-)

 

[phavoc]

Hydraulics make a lot of things easier, on one patrol of SSBN610 the hydraulics went down for loading the torpedo tubes, I was one of the volunteered to help unload and load tubes. Sonar at that time on SSBNs were part of operations not weapons, at least I did not have workout that day.;-)

You guys still had the chain hoists above the tubes right? Old-school chains and tackle? Though how do you pull it OUT? Carefully I know, but does it slide out somehow, or do you have to tug it out with chain?

 

[snrdg121408]

Hello phavoc,

Hydraulics make a lot of things easier, on one patrol of SSBN610 the hydraulics went down for loading the torpedo tubes, I was one of the volunteered to help unload and load tubes. Sonar at that time on SSBNs were part of operations not weapons, at least I did not have workout that day.;-)

You guys still had the chain hoists above the tubes right? Old-school chains and tackle? Though how do you pull it OUT? Carefully I know, but does it slide out somehow, or do you have to tug it out with chain?

The Torpedoman rigged the hoist, block and tackle, lines, and chains to haul the fish in and out of the tube. Of course I was not paying too much attention to the details since I was an extremely happy sailor griping about a sonar tech having to do weapons work.;-)

IIRC when we pulled the torpedo out of the tube we were on the line close to the tubes and when putting the dirty thing back we were back by the hatch leading into the mess decks. I also had on SSN 591 the pleasure of loading the torpedoes on board the boat. The nice thing there is that we used the forward capstan to do most of the work, still no fun.

 

[Condottiere]

I think he mentioned it's supposed to be a two man job; I can't recall if he gave an explanation as to why he did it.

So we're back to the one tonne turret, which supposedly has space for a human gunner.

The sand canisters are now the same size as the missiles, so I doubt the gunner is moving anything around manually.

 

[-Daniel-]

So we're back to the one tonne turret, which supposedly has space for a human gunner.

Warning Heretical Comment Ahead..... I do not care one bit what any rule says, I will never, ever picture a gunner sitting in the turret B-24 belly gunner style. I just can't accept that between now and the future that is Traveller that man has not figured out how to load and fire a missile from a magazine using an automatic loading system. I just can't. :|

Sorry, back to your regularly scheduled conversation. :mrgreen:

 

[snrdg121408]

Hello Condottiere & Daniel,

Condottiere I don't have any idea who you are referring to when referring to someone mentioning reloading is a two person job, however the current 5"/54 caliber Mark 45 naval gun has four ammunition loaders in addition to the gun captain and panel operator.

Daniel there is an illustration of a Traveller turret, unfortunately I can not find the book it is in, that appears to show the gunnery station/fire control located next to the turret foundation going up to the area where the weapons are mounted. One thing I just caught is that the Iowa-Class 16" guns are housed in a three gun turret not a triple turret. Each gun tube can be elevated and fired separately. Until now I thought the triple turret could elevate and fire mounted weapons looks like I've been in error, nuts.

 

[phavoc]

Hello Condottiere & Daniel,

Condottiere I don't have any idea who you are referring to when referring to someone mentioning reloading is a two person job, however the current 5"/54 caliber Mark 45 naval gun has four ammunition loaders in addition to the gun captain and panel operator.

Daniel there is an illustration of a Traveller turret, unfortunately I can not find the book it is in, that appears to show the gunnery station/fire control located next to the turret foundation going up to the area where the weapons are mounted. One thing I just caught is that the Iowa-Class 16" guns are housed in a three gun turret not a triple turret. Each gun tube can be elevated and fired separately. Until now I thought the triple turret could elevate and fire mounted weapons looks like I've been in error, nuts.

Yeah, the Iowa's guns were designed that way. Not every battleship and battlecruiser did this though. The Bismark had the same ability, and I think the Vanguard did as well. I don't recall at what point in the 30s that they started making this available.