AnotherDilbert said:
Sigtrygg said:
The Gazelle isn't a warship:
Hundreds of Gazelle class close escorts have been built and many remain in service in the Imperial Navy, despite the fact that in a combat situation, they are nearly worthless. The close escort, even when new, was not intended to stand up to combat vessels; rather it was envisioned as an anti-piracy and revenue patrol ship.
Sigtrygg is of course correct, and has provided the quote to prove it.
The Gazelle-class is useless in naval combat, but might be used to intimidate civilians.
phavoc said:
One issue with the Gazelle is that it was designed under CT rules, when the largest possible ship was 5k dtons. Hg later introduced far larger warships, thus the labels and sizes are skewed.
The Gazelle was designed from the ground up with CT HG, that did not have any such limitation. The 500 kDt Tigress is just as CT as the 100 Dt Scout.
I went back to JTAS#4, where the Gazelle was first published. According to the original write-up:
GENERAL SPECIFICATIONS - Naval tactics in the Imperial Navy call for large ships to be accompanied by well-armed, small fighting craft capable of engaging the enemy at long range, before they approach the principle ships in a task force or convoy. These small ships may be fighter craft carried by the larger ships, or they may be independent close escort vessels. Thousands of close escorts have been built in the past several centuries, and hundreds have been built in the Gazelle Class. The original quote comes from supplement 9, Fighting Ships. I suppose it's fair to say that supplement 9 would overwrite the original article.
The quite about them being nearly worthless does not exist in the original. The published date for JTAS4 is 1980. The specifications for the ship statistics are only at the high level. It's also listed in Traders & Gunboats, supplement 7, which also was published in 1980. AnotherDilbert points out a valid statement - HG was available at the time. The original JTAS writeup cites Book 2 and HG, so I guess I was remembering the first part and forgot about the latter. Though the Gazelle has remained a broken design since it doesn't follow the original design rules. In the introduction of supplement 7, it says "The original design of the close escort is by Frank Chadwick. A substantially different version of the close escort originally appeared in the Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society, Issue No. 4." So by that we know the two designs have changed in a very short period.
During my poking around I re-read the original descriptions for the close escort. Here is what the book says:
Armed starships which police the space between worlds are a necessary part of
interstellar civilization. These gunboats protect both the ships and the many different worlds they visit.
PATROLLING THE STARLANES
With high levels of trade between the stars, both the ships and the worlds they call on become vulnerable to a variety of ills. Merchants become the prey of pirates and corsairs. Worlds become the prey of smugglers and raiders. Huge warships built for fleet actions are nearly useless in this sort of situation, and special ships - gunboats - are designed and committed to the everyday patrols of the starlanes.
THE CLOSE ESCORT
To protect ships from the menace of pirate activity, stellar governments may require flights in convoys with armed escorts, or they may establish routine patrols in troubled areas in the hope of catching corsairs in the act. In either case, the close escort is an ideal small ship for the protection of merchant traffic. Originatly, the close escort was designed and produced by the lmperium for
fleet operations. The small, fast close escorts were committed as the flank screens for cruisers or small fleet task forces. Their speed and size also made them ideal for naval courier and personnel transfer duties. But ultimately, they found their true niche. Many close escorts have been assigned to specific star systems or groups of systems for commerce protection.
Notice that close escort is a
role. If we go back to the higher level labels for ships, a
spaceship is one that cannot travel between stars (e.g. no jump drive), but is not size limited. A
starship is one that can travel between stars. And a
warship is a ship (either space or star-ship) that is designed for war. By these definitions a Gazelle is a warship with the role of close escort. Supplemetn 9, Fighting Ships, says of escorts - "Escorts: Escorts are small ships of up to 5000 tons, and are meant to be light support craft for larger ships, primarily cruisers. Escorts are also widely used for convoy protection and commerce raiding roles." So the Gazelle class does fall within that category of warship as well.
TL;DR - Gazelle was built using SOME design system, maybe even Traveller related! But it's still a warship (my opinion) with the role of close escort. It won't survive long against larger warships but will do fine against pirates and life in a 5k dton universe.