Small one man space fighters

[srogerscat]

I just recently started spending money on the Mongoose Traveller set, my first major RPG purchase in ten years. (yeah, I am an old fart. I have just about all the Classic stuff, ran a campaign from 1980 till 1991).

This is a first class discussion of small fighters.

I would like to jump in with what I perceive to be the biggest problem with small fighters. It is a general objection to their utility as a tactical system, something not really addressed by the rules: Their size. They are just too damn small to take much punishment no matter how well they are armored.

Say you are the hotshot pilot of one of these super armored ten ton fighters, slashing an unarmored Beowolf class trader to helplessness. They are going to be pouring one hell of a lot of energy into you. Let's leave missiles aside - I have another rant about how missiles and torpedoes are undervalued in terms of the damage they do.

Lasers alone are bad enough. When those things hit you, a tiny fraction of your armor is getting vaporized. No matter what it is made of, you are losing some of it. One term for a rapidly vaporizing solid is "explosive". Your super armored ship is getting knocked around. A lot. Pulse lasers are the worst of course, because you will be getting tapped with multi-megajoule explosions every time one of the damn things hits you, penetration or no. But beam lasers are nothing to sneeze at. When you are being spotlit by a weapons grade laser you will have a continuous low level explosion drifting along your hull. Imagine the harmonic resonance effects that might cause.

Think about the depth charge attack scene from the movie U-571. The charges never penetrated the hull, but the shockwaves tore the hell out of the interior systems and the crew. That is exactly what is happening inside that small fighter.

There is a real world example of this problem: The Attack on Fort Sumter by Union ironclads in the later stages of the ACW. Only one ship suffered actual armor penetration (the USS Keokuk. It sank.) but the others all took considerable damage despite the fact that their armor held up quite well. Men were killed, turrets were jammed, guns dismounted, engines damaged, hulls sprang leaks - all from the sheer concussive shock of the bombardment. Some of those ships were out of the war for months, a couple might have been scrapped if it were not for the demands of the war.

 

[rust]

Welcome to the forum, srogerscat.

Let's leave missiles aside - I have another rant about how missiles and torpedoes are undervalued in terms of the damage they do.

I would like to read that rant, too, but perhaps on another thread - just
start one, if you like.

 

[smiths121]

You can put a particle barbette on them at 60 tons

You can mount a particle barbette on a 40 ton.

Really had not noticed you could put a 50 ton missile bay on, nice find.

Could use tech upgrades to reduce the size and get a 100 ton missile bay on a small craft.

Mr AndrewW I take my hat off to you you really do know how to pack a punch into a small craft :twisted:

I actually submitted a 60 ton (I think) fighter for the 2nd round of the TCS which never got resolved. Not sure you have anything more than a weapons platform below this - as I did work my way up to 60 tons. I was semi-pleased with it. It was part of my "determination" to show that fighters are better in MGT over a wider TL spectrum than CT. This is something the rules seem to indicate - which I have not yet proved or dispel.

May be power playing but I want more of the 100 ton missile tricks (not sure it would make a good fighter though - very little armour and paper thin!). However imagine your enemies eyes with a flight of these, as they used to say "You can't kill us all".

Thanks for cunning response.

 

[AndrewW]

May be power playing but I want more of the 100 ton missile tricks (not sure it would make a good fighter though - very little armour and paper thin!). However imagine your enemies eyes with a flight of these, as they used to say "You can't kill us all".

Doesn't have to be. With TL+3 a hundred ton missile bay is reduced to 60 tons + 1 ton of fire control. Depending on the size of the craft you could still armor it up just fine.

 

[srogerscat]

Rust,

My comments on missile damage are in the "Lasers and tactical use of missiles" thread.

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

I just recently started spending money on the Mongoose Traveller set, my first major RPG purchase in ten years. (yeah, I am an old fart. I have just about all the Classic stuff, ran a campaign from 1980 till 1991).

This is a first class discussion of small fighters.

I would like to jump in with what I perceive to be the biggest problem with small fighters. It is a general objection to their utility as a tactical system, something not really addressed by the rules: Their size. They are just too damn small to take much punishment no matter how well they are armored.

Say you are the hotshot pilot of one of these super armored ten ton fighters, slashing an unarmored Beowolf class trader to helplessness. They are going to be pouring one hell of a lot of energy into you. Let's leave missiles aside - I have another rant about how missiles and torpedoes are undervalued in terms of the damage they do.

Lasers alone are bad enough. When those things hit you, a tiny fraction of your armor is getting vaporized. No matter what it is made of, you are losing some of it. One term for a rapidly vaporizing solid is "explosive". Your super armored ship is getting knocked around. A lot. Pulse lasers are the worst of course, because you will be getting tapped with multi-megajoule explosions every time one of the damn things hits you, penetration or no. But beam lasers are nothing to sneeze at. When you are being spotlit by a weapons grade laser you will have a continuous low level explosion drifting along your hull. Imagine the harmonic resonance effects that might cause.

Think about the depth charge attack scene from the movie U-571. The charges never penetrated the hull, but the shockwaves tore the hell out of the interior systems and the crew. That is exactly what is happening inside that small fighter.

There is a real world example of this problem: The Attack on Fort Sumter by Union ironclads in the later stages of the ACW. Only one ship suffered actual armor penetration (the USS Keokuk. It sank.) but the others all took considerable damage despite the fact that their armor held up quite well. Men were killed, turrets were jammed, guns dismounted, engines damaged, hulls sprang leaks - all from the sheer concussive shock of the bombardment. Some of those ships were out of the war for months, a couple might have been scrapped if it were not for the demands of the war.

Interesting, and in line with some of the doubts I have about the utility of small spacefighters in a "real" world (as opposed to just following the rules!). Perhaps it is not just the thickness of the armour that matters, but the amount of mass (or perhaps even structured volume) behind the armour to help spread the energy of the hit, and to alleviate the issues of concussion etc you refer to. Have considered "capping" the max amount of effective armour allowed on small craft, perhaps to 10% volume for craft under 50 tons, 15% up to 99 tons, to try to represent this in a rather arbitary fashion.

Egil

 

[BP]

Spaceships generally have an advantage over terrestrial vessels - they are not being knocked against an incompressible medium (water!).

Designed to be excellent thermal radiators (one could assume) and with the kinetic energy which results in stresses on a hull due to pressure against water, instead, being transformed into motion in a gravity controlled environment. So the ship may get 'knocked' about a bit (even more so position-wise) - but the effects wouldn't compare well with terrestrial vessels.

Fighters can be so armoured that they can be quite invincible to turret weapons and normal missiles - but the big boys would play with bay weapons.

Spinal cannon, of course, would make short work of small vessels - but I'm pretty sure the rules as they stand don't favor this in terms of number of fighters (limited shots per round).

 

[phavoc]

According to the rules, a dozen regular missiles takes up 1 Dton. A 100-ton bay launches 24 missiles per salvo. So, in theory, 24 missiles should only take up 2 Dtons on your fighter. Say you have them in some sort of box launcher, and you double their displacement for racks and such, and add in 1 ton of fire control. Then, in theory, you should be able to create a missile system on a fighter that allows you to launch 24 missiles in either a single salvo, or in whatever size salvo you want, in a single turn.

There is no need to try to shoe-horn a big bay-style weapon on a fighter since its not that tough. Fighters have always been sledgehammers wrapped up in eggshells. If they survive long enough to get close to you, then can (and do) kill their targets. They've always depended on speed, surprise and maneuverability to survive.

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

According to the rules, a dozen regular missiles takes up 1 Dton. A 100-ton bay launches 24 missiles per salvo. So, in theory, 24 missiles should only take up 2 Dtons on your fighter. Say you have them in some sort of box launcher, and you double their displacement for racks and such, and add in 1 ton of fire control. Then, in theory, you should be able to create a missile system on a fighter that allows you to launch 24 missiles in either a single salvo, or in whatever size salvo you want, in a single turn.

There is no need to try to shoe-horn a big bay-style weapon on a fighter since its not that tough. Fighters have always been sledgehammers wrapped up in eggshells. If they survive long enough to get close to you, then can (and do) kill their targets. They've always depended on speed, surprise and maneuverability to survive.

Of course, the other side of the armour debate is that any decent warship should have enough amour to ignore the effects of, even, a nuclear missile barrage. The heavily armoured fighters we have been designing are also immune to missiles, so it doesn't really matter if you develop some kind of bay launch system or not, the target doesn't have to evade or shoot down, it just flys through the missiles.

IMHO the 20 and 40 ton fighters high tech fighter should be carrying partical beams, more expensive, but as we are talking about designs in the 40MCr+ bracket (and the rest) 4 MCr for an effective weapon is well on budget.

Egil

 

[srogerscat]

BP writes

Spaceships generally have an advantage over terrestrial vessels - they are not being knocked against an incompressible medium (water!).



Designed to be excellent thermal radiators (one could assume) and with the kinetic energy which results in stresses on a hull due to pressure against water, instead, being transformed into motion in a gravity controlled environment. So the ship may get 'knocked' about a bit (even more so position-wise) - but the effects wouldn't compare well with terrestrial vessels.

Fighters can be so armoured that they can be quite invincible to turret weapons and normal missiles - but the big boys would play with bay weapons.

Spinal cannon, of course, would make short work of small vessels - but I'm pretty sure the rules as they stand don't favor this in terms of number of fighters (limited shots per round

They do, but seagoing ship hulls are surprising elastic - they have to be because a truly rigid hull would be cracked open by even calm sea wave action very quickly. The knocking around a ship gets in combat is mostly absorbed and dampened by flexing structural members, only a small part of it is transmitted to the water on the opposite side from the hit. In a spaceship, however, once the energy reaches the opposite side from the hit, it can't keep going, there is nothing to conduct the shock wave, so it bounces around inside the ship like one of those ball clacker executive toys until the energy is damped out by the material of the ship. This can't be doing the interior systems any good. Or the crew.

Now of course, if you want a Star Wars flavor to your space battles, you don't give fighters any armor at all but you make them harder to hit. Maybe DMs along these lines:

99-61 tons: -1

60-31 tons: -2

30-11 tons: -3

10 and under tons: -4

And if they get hit, they die. Hmm. How about this: If a fighter is hit roll 1D6 and if the roll is greater than the tens digit of the hull size, don't roll for damage, it just dies. But gain, this is for the Star Wars flavor, if that is what you want.

I suppose the key is just what exactly does the maneuver drive grav field actually do? The M drive gives a one G internal environment no matter how much boost the drive is giving the ship. But in the games I run it is not a fully effective shock absorber against impacts. It does give some protection, an M drive capable of a given G rating will reduce impact force felt by that number of G, but when a ship is really nudged, people and objects inside can get knocked around.

 

[BP]

... In a spaceship, however, once the energy reaches the opposite side from the hit, it can't keep going, there is nothing to conduct the shock wave, so it bounces around inside the ship like one of those ball clacker executive toys until the energy is damped out by the material of the ship. This can't be doing the interior systems any good. Or the crew. ...

The hull flexes, gives, or moves (i.e., the energy becomes thrust) - in space there is nothing for the energy to push against on the 'other side' to reflect the energy back into the ship (as is the case in water).

If the interior remains sealed, there is no real shockwave (that requires outward expansion) as the structure and internal pressure move as a unit - though a nice racket is quite likely as resonant frequencies remain from structure absorption.

 

[locarno24]

Now of course, if you want a Star Wars flavor to your space battles, you don't give fighters any armor at all but you make them harder to hit. Maybe DMs along these lines:

99-61 tons: -1

60-31 tons: -2

30-11 tons: -3

10 and under tons: -4

And if they get hit, they die. Hmm. How about this: If a fighter is hit roll 1D6 and if the roll is greater than the tens digit of the hull size, don't roll for damage, it just dies. But gain, this is for the Star Wars flavor, if that is what you want.

Thing is, it should really affect the drives fitted to the small craft. If I can build a 10G capable fighter (not that hard), then ultimately I might want to be able to throw 6 or more thrust as a single reaction at dodging one attack. Making the pilot make multiple piloting tests (so it's not all-or-nothing) is fair enough, but allowing small craft to do that seems a simple but not that unbalancing house rule for a BSG/B5/SW feel

 

[srogerscat]

BP<

But the fighter is not a single unit, it is an asembly of parts, which bounce off of each other as the shock wave moves through the vessel. Look at a car accident: The front bumper/grille hit an object, then the engine hits the grille/bumper, the passenger compartment hits the engine, and the trunk hits the rear of the passenger compartment.

In the pre-airbag era, people were sometimes found dead in cars with fairly intact passenger compartments: They were killled by the force of their bodies slaming against the seatbelts. Not very often, true, but many many were severely injured that way.

Concussive shock really does not pay much heed to armor, in fact a dense armor is very effective at conducting shock to whatever is behind it. When that small fighter is getting pounded, lots of parts are hammering against each other.. In fact, they are hammering against themselves, as the point closest to the impact is shoved towards the point farthest away.

 

[BP]

BP<

But the fighter is not a single unit, it is an asembly of parts, which bounce off of each other as the shock wave moves through the vessel. Look at a car accident: The front bumper/grille hit an object, then the engine hits the grille/bumper, the passenger compartment hits the engine, and the trunk hits the rear of the passenger compartment.

Ah - that is due to a number of factors - especially near equivalent masses hitting in combinations of inelastic and elastic impacts (the internal 'assemblies')...

Last week I saw what was left of a modern crossover (suburban / compact what you call it) after a freeway speed head on collision with a road construction vehicle (yes, alcohol was involved). The engine was literally in the front seat (which was on its side, bottom to what used to be the door, at about normal mid height) - the car was only about 1/2 its normal width for 2/3rds its length (the width of the tires on the large vehicle it embedded itself in).

The road construction vehicle was essentially unmarked. The energy of the impact was simply absorbed and transmitted to the ground - resulting in merely pushing the larger mass vehicle a few feet.

... In the pre-airbag era, people were sometimes found dead in cars with fairly intact passenger compartments: They were killled by the force of their bodies slaming against the seatbelts. Not very often, true, but many many were severely injured that way.

Yep - an improperly worn seatbelt, or one that fails to grab, will cause all sorts of damage (busted sternums are common) as it functions like a wide whip.

However, with a good five-point racing harness properly worn - one walks away at even very high speed collisions. (Spent time with stock car racing back in the day).

... Concussive shock really does not pay much heed to armor, in fact a dense armor is very effective at conducting shock to whatever is behind it. When that small fighter is getting pounded, lots of parts are hammering against each other.. In fact, they are hammering against themselves, as the point closest to the impact is shoved towards the point farthest away.

Yes the force is transmitted to the target and its attached components, but the actual result depends on the construction and materials. (I.e. proper strength attachments and unibody designs result in no real movement until shear forces are experienced). And, again, space is a bit different than normal terrestrial experience for say ships.

Consider the 'bullet proof' vest. Standing in the open, one can be hit without penetration - likely some bruising - as long as one is free to fly backward (often quite some feet) with the force of the bullet.

If one were standing against a wall, however, the wall would be 'pushing back' and thus the energy of the bullet would expend more of itself on the wearer - likely resulting in internal injuries (and posterior injuries as well). One might be better off if the bullet was allowed to just penetrate and expend its excess energy on the wall...

One would presume fighters, like race cars and tanks, will be designed to take a beating - i.e. pilots will be in protective shock absorbing seats - and fixtures will be appropriately fastened.

Not saying there aren't noticeable effects - and secondary damage (seals rupturing, viewports cracking and anything not fastened or shock mounted well will provide for 'excitement'). Just that the analogy to terrestrial ships and cars is generally not very equivalent...

 

[rust]

I would be more concerned with the health of the pilots than with the
fighters they fly. The pilot is by far the weakest part of the combination
of technology and biology, and it really does not take much in the way
of sudden shocks / speed and vector changes of movement to cause
a concussion with temporary and potentially permanent brain damage.

So even if an impact does not penetrate the fighter's armour, it may
well still disable the pilot, or at least injure him enough to make him
unable to carry out his job for quite a while, being busy to fight disori-
entation and to keep his last meal down.

I would consider it an unnecessary complication to write a game rule
for this, but perhaps one should keep in mind that even a potentially
completely invulnerable armour shell around the pilot does not neces-
sarily protect him from all of the force of the impact, and that it could
well result in an undamaged craft with a dead pilot.

 

[srogerscat]

BP writes:

Consider the 'bullet proof' vest. Standing in the open, one can be hit without penetration - likely some bruising - as long as one is free to fly backward (often quite some feet) with the force of the bullet.

Actually, I am pretty sure this is wrong. If you get hit that hard by a bullet, you are in big trouble from sheer blunt trauma. What I am getting at is that if a ten ton fighter with 12 points of armor takes a twenty points of damage from various non penetrating attacks, it has had the hell knocked out of it. Something important inside will break, probably including the pilot, as Rust just pointed out.

 

[rust]

If you get hit that hard by a bullet, you are in big trouble from sheer blunt trauma.

Yep. For ballistic vests this is measured as "backface signature". The vest
is put over modelling clay (replacing the human body) and then fired at,
with the impact energy of the bullet resulting in an indentation in the clay,
even if the bullet does not penetrate the vest.

In most of Europe a "backface signature" of up to 25 mm is considered ac-
ceptable, in the USA the limit is considered to be nearer to 40 mm.

Getting the ballistic vest rammed those 25 mm to 40 mm into one's body
by the impacting bullet is a blunt trauma that will hurt badly, depending on
where the bullet hit it can even cause more or less serious internal dama-
ge - in theory at least, a "40 mm hit" on the sternum could even kill a per-
son.

 

[vitalis6969]

Consider the 'bullet proof' vest. Standing in the open, one can be hit without penetration - likely some bruising - as long as one is free to fly backward (often quite some feet) with the force of the bullet.

Just to clarify this one point, a bullet, weighing in at 55 to 200 grains will not, and can not, move the human body.

Just like a beam of coherent light, vaporizing armor plate, will never move a ship massing in at 10+ tons.

-V

 

[rust]

Just like a beam of coherent light, vaporizing armor plate, will never move a ship massing in at 10+ tons.

Laser and maser are considered as means to accelerate solar sail craft
with a mass of considerably more than 10 tons, so I would not bet that
a megawatt laser would be unable to move a starship, especially under
zero-g conditions.

 

[srogerscat]

Just to clarify this one point, a bullet, weighing in at 55 to 200 grains will not, and can not, move the human body.

I've seen video of soldiers in Iraq knocked off their feet by rifle hits stopped by their armor, so I think I will disagree on this point.

12.7mm machine gun bullets, weighing in at over fifty grams, or shotgun slugs massing in at well over that can and have if they strike body armor.

Just like a beam of coherent light, vaporizing armor plate, will never move a ship massing in at 10+ tons.

Depends on how many megajoules we are talking. For starship weapons? We could be talking hundreds. At four-and-change megajoules being one kilo of TNT equivalent, yes, I bet they could. And it depends on what we mean when we say "move". Moved as in the whole ship shifting? Or moved as in a nasty shockwave reverberating through and flexing the ship hull and interior components?