Phin "U-Boat" torpedo destroyer

locarno24

Cosmic Mongoose
Okay - given the discussions here, I think I'm going to have to try planning out the "Phin torpedo destroyer" - or, to put it another way, Von Orca's U-Boat.

The aim is to pretty much try to recreate something that looks and acts like a WWII U-Boat as a traveller warship, with suitable modifications for amphibious operations and its uplifted dolphin crew.

a few back of fag-packet calculations to start off.

Anyone with advice is welcome to chime in.



First off - size.

Now a ship's displacement in tonnes is not, as has been pointed out, the same as its dTon value. However, for a submarine rather than a surface ship, we do have the submerged displacement value - which is a true measure of the volume of the ship.

For a Mark VII, that's 871 tonnes of water.

Which is 871 cubic metres of water - i.e. a volume of 871 cubic metres. Which at 14 cubic metres per tonne of hydrogen means about 62 dTons.

That's really small! Am I doing that wrong somehow?
....No, I don't think I am. 50 metre length x 4 metre width x 4 metre draft is 800 cubic metres in the bulk of the hull.




...Right. Biiiiiiiiger ship needed, I feel. May just arbitrarily go for a 500 dTon or something. That's the equivalent of 7,000 tonnes submerged displacement, or a modern attack sub.

A single bay for main armament and a 'deck gun' is, I suspect, all I'm getting!


I'm thinking that the 'torpedo tube' will be lobbing ortillery torpedoes - I know they're less effective (easier to shoot down, less accurate, etc, etc) but that's sort of the point - I want the players to see a merchant ship take a torpedo or two and receive triple hits from them - cries after the fashion of "point defence! In the name of god, point defence!" mean it's going correctly....
 
Dolphins are rather big creatures with a horizontal instead of vertical body
orientation. Think of a dolphin swimming down a corridor and then deci-
ding to turn around and swim back. While a human can "turn on his heels",
a dolphin needs a lot of space for such maneuvers, especially when he is
wearing some kind of suit. Therefore you need wide corridors, and so on.
So, when you calculate the size / volume of your ship, you should probab-
ly think of at least 150 % (more likely 200+ %) of the volume of a similar
ship with a human crew.
 
What rust said.

And no 90 degree corridor turns. In fact, the ship would likely be globular in shape. A paper on the turning radii of hunting bottlenose dolphins can be found at http://darwin.wcupa.edu/~biology/fish/pubs/pdf/2004MMSCDolphinTurn.pdf

Question to ponder..how do dolphins operate around live electrical equipment?

And living 24/7 for most of their waking/sleeping hours in a waldo'd environment suit is as little an option for them as it is for humans.
 
Heh, theres me planning a version of the Nishemani... (Stealth Hull 400tons (?) 2x Triple Beams 1xParticle Barbette 1xTorpedo Bay, High TL to pay for the various gubbins, Stealth Jump, Bloody good ECM, Privateer originally...)

For your ship:-

How about theres no corridors inside, just a huge 'tank' intersected with huge doors ? (I thinking a little about those Gas Giant dwelling aliens and there bulbous ships...)

Or big tank areas and smaller areas for Waldo suits.. sure theres a book with Dolphins and humans on the same ship...

It'd make an interesting ship to draw and do the plans...

Don't know about Dolphins and electrics, though I know its not good for Sharks... now theres an idea uplifted sharks... Hammerheads would be plain dangerous... IIRC one of the few species other than man like kills for fun (or something like that)

Sure your uplifted dolphins will be fine with electrics.. just can they cope with the taunts...'Mmm this tuna tastes like Dolphin...'*

*Apologies, I really like Dolphins, I really do, I cried watching 'Day of the Dophins'...(mind you I was about 11 or 12)
 
Ah the talk of torpedoes....
:twisted:

I had the thought suddenly of a Gl'lu* merchant vessel, looking rather like one of the Vorlon squid-ships from B5. Or how they would modify an existing Imperial design *internally* being cyclindrically bodied with tentacle arms/ legs.

Then I had the thought of what happens to the poor dumb pirates that board one...and discover (fatally for the boarding party) its a Gl'lu vessel--and its onboard air is a nitrogen rich mix of chlorine & ammonia (Atm type B in Exotic, Core Rule book)... :shock: :twisted: :wink:

FYI: the Gl'lu are the sentient High population, TL-D natives of KUBISHUSH/ Deneb!
 
barnest2 said:
Why would the boarders not be wearing vacc-suits?

On an externally Imperial designed (human) vessel? :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

Granted, it would only would only work once... :wink:
 
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