Small Ships vs. Big Ships in Naval Combat

[Golan2072]

I'm trying to develop several rivaling naval paradigms in order to spice up my ATU and make the various polities have very different fleets. My question is: under the MGT rules, how balanced would be a battle between one or two large combatants (2,000 or more tons) and an opposing fleet of multiple (10-20) smaller (100-300 tons each) ships?

Also, how balanced would be a battle between a mid-sized or large ship and a swarm of small craft (such as 30-50 10-ton or 20-ton fighters)?

 

[dmccoy1693]

after designing Fighters and Small Ships, I'd have to believe that the swarms of fighters wiuld win out. without a jump drive, fighters tend to have higher armor values and faster engines. combine that with the High Guard rules on how fighter swarms work, and I'd imagine that even capital ships would have trouble against them.

 

[Mithras]

Does it matter?

The fleet designers and military planners will only find out when they are pitched into full scale war, and if that isn't very common, then pound for pound measurements make never be made, ever. Pundits in YTU will argue the toss all day long, and rival theoies will exist, but there may never be that big engagement on a level playing field to test them out...

 

[Golan2072]

Does it matter?

The fleet designers and military planners will only find out when they are pitched into full scale war, and if that isn't very common, then pound for pound measurements make never be made, ever. Pundits in YTU will argue the toss all day long, and rival theoies will exist, but there may never be that big engagement on a level playing field to test them out...

The thing is that the setting in question will be set at the late stages of, or immediately after, a prolonged, large-scale civil war, so the newer designs will incorporate the lessons of the war in them.

That setting has three main ship-design paradigms: the Human one, involving large squadrons of small, maneuverable, streamlined ships; the planet-dwelling Celiran one, which has much fewer but much larger unstreamlined ships, usually using sub-craft to land on planets; and the Celiran spacer one, using an even smaller number of slow but huge main ships having many fighters or battle-riders.

 

[rust]

The thing is that the setting in question will be set at the late stages of, or immediately after, a prolonged, large-scale civil war, so the newer designs will incorporate the lessons of the war in them.

Or whatever the people in question will consider those lessons ...

The winners of the war will doubtless come to the conclusion that their
naval doctrine was the superior one, and therefore may modify it some-
what, but will not really introduce any major changes.
The losers of the war will come to a very similar conclusion, and will be
very tempted to adopt the naval doctrine of the winners.
If no side has lost completely or suffered severe defeats, all sides will
most probably keep their naval doctrines unchanged, if only because it
would be extremely costly and difficult to rebuild and retrain their na-
vies.

Looking at our real world history, and at the tendency of military leader-
ships to prepare for the last war instead of the next one, I think such an
approach to your problem would be as valid and likely as an attempt to
find out which naval doctrine really is the better on.

 

[Treebore]

I would suggest reading of some real world Naval engagements.

Like way back in wooden ship days it was assumed a specific navy was going to decimate another Navy, and didn't. Such as France and England, Sparta and Persia, etc... Then in modern times there were a few engagements with surprise winners, but there are numerous confounding factors. So it is best to read them and decide for yourself, plus it will give you great story ideas for your own games.

 

[Mithras]

I'm of the opinion that if Traveller gearheads can argue so vociferously over various aspects pros and cons of the different strategies and approaches, and they have the definitive rules mechanics in front of them to do the math, then in the RW, you can have the same debates with the same inconclusions.

In part though, I'm not a gearhead and I don't follow the arguments closely over pro-armour anti-armour, multiple drives, riders versus carriers, fighters versus turrets etc.

 

[BP]

I'm trying to develop several rivaling naval paradigms in order to spice up my ATU and make the various polities have very different fleets. My question is: under the MGT rules, how balanced would be a battle between one or two large combatants (2,000 or more tons) and an opposing fleet of multiple (10-20) smaller (100-300 tons each) ships?

Also, how balanced would be a battle between a mid-sized or large ship and a swarm of small craft (such as 30-50 10-ton or 20-ton fighters)?

As balanced as you want it to be!

You'd have to be way more specific in your questions to merit a legitimate analysis - a LOT will depend on drives, armour and weapons loadout - as well as the combat situation!

I.e. if the large combatant have 6G capable drives and good armour (almost guaranteed proof against missles) and the smaller ones only are 2G, then, unless the swam is attacking from short range (spacestation, another ship, ...) the large could get away and, especially armed with spiral mount - pick off the smaller ones at leisure...

Many, many other senarios exist... such as evenly matched drives, swarm is able to maximize position and fire - but larger combatant has great armour and defenses (sandcasters, shields, etc)...

 

[BP]

With MGT rules, you could design:

• Small ships that could easily take on almost any normal large ship...
  Large ships that could easily take on almost any normal swarm of smaller ships
  No ship that would meet both definitions in all situations.

In this regard - the rules appear to be quite balanced. In other words, it would be extremely difficult to come up with a single 'best solution' to either senario in all cases.

 

[apoc527]

As a rules matter, I do consider the fighter/small craft rules slightly broken when it's possible to make them immune to turret weapons. Being immune to turret beam lasers is ok, but not turret particle beams.

Actually, on a look over the rules, maybe it's not so bad. In order to get a seriously fast fighter with high armor values, it takes most of the hull. Additionally, the weapons they can carry aren't going to hurt a Tigress-class fleet dreadnaught. Ever.

 

[Dave Chase]

I remember the arguments that BattleTech players use to get over such matters too.



One of the arguments that should be considered is the military budget and can they afford all the man power cost involved with so many small ships.

Pilot, engineer, loading crews, billeting of all the individuals and etc.

That might actually make the cost higher, besides just building and replacing the lost small craft.

Dave Chase

 

[Golan2072]

You'd have to be way more specific in your questions to merit a legitimate analysis - a LOT will depend on drives, armour and weapons loadout - as well as the combat situation!

I.e. if the large combatant have 6G capable drives and good armour (almost guaranteed proof against missles) and the smaller ones only are 2G, then, unless the swam is attacking from short range (spacestation, another ship, ...) the large could get away and, especially armed with spiral mount - pick off the smaller ones at leisure...

Many, many other senarios exist... such as evenly matched drives, swarm is able to maximize position and fire - but larger combatant has great armour and defenses (sandcasters, shields, etc)...

My intention was to have big, slow ships with lots of armour and big guns (particle, meson, etc, both turret and bay, sometimes spinal too) on one side (Celiran planet-dwellers); large squadrons of smaller, high-acceleration ships with much lighter armour and mostly missiles/torpedoes (nukes included) on the second side (typical Humans); and big, very very slow ships with medium armour and huge amounts of small-craft fighters with light armour and lasers/particles on the third side.

The fourth side, Cera Tellan, is a compromise between paradigms, with large (but not as large as typical Celiran warships), fast (but not as fast as typical Human jump-fighters), moderately-armoured battlecruisers and frigates with a combination of beam weapons and missiles/torpedoes.

I just don't want any side to be greatly inferior in actual combat; according to the backstory, the civil war has to last for decades, so massively decisive victories will have to be less common in order to fit the plot.

With MGT rules, you could design:

• Small ships that could easily take on almost any normal large ship...
  Large ships that could easily take on almost any normal swarm of smaller ships
  No ship that would meet both definitions in all situations.

In this regard - the rules appear to be quite balanced. In other words, it would be extremely difficult to come up with a single 'best solution' to either senario in all cases.

Great to hear that - this is exactly what I am looking for in a ruleset

One of the arguments that should be considered is the military budget and can they afford all the man power cost involved with so many small ships.

Pilot, engineer, loading crews, billeting of all the individuals and etc.

That might actually make the cost higher, besides just building and replacing the lost small craft.

hmmm.... That might be something that I'll have to consider. That won't be much of an issue for the Celiran spacers (who are semi-nomadic belters and thus have a high percentage of people with space skills in their population) but that could be an issue with Humans (who tend to live on planets).

So maybe the Human main naval combatants will be in the 300-600 ton range instead of the 100-300 range I've originally intended, with the lower tonnages (100-300) used mostly for SDBs, interceptors and their likes.

 

[BP]

One of the arguments that should be considered is the military budget and can they afford all the man power cost involved with so many small ships.

Pilot, engineer, loading crews, billeting of all the individuals and etc.

That might actually make the cost higher, besides just building and replacing the lost small craft.

hmmm.... That might be something that I'll have to consider. ...

Well - not during your 40 year wars - salaries aren't a problem at such times

Post war - it presents an interesting problem - but again, in a society that spends 40 years at war - such trends would not change quicky - i.e. pilots and crews might have prestige, but their pay may not reflect this (additionally these same skilled individual may have a hard time in a civilian market - so accept less pay). Consider RW salaries - today pilots are decently paid in military service (but still lower than civilian counter parts probably) - but earlier on this was not the case. Training and equipment is a lot better to - meaning more investment in the skilled crews and higher salaries retain them.

Those numerous swarm ships would probably become bigger and better equiped - though, as someone else mentioned - the tactics and doctrine would probably remain.

 

[alex_greene]

There is always the Star Wars option of the "small, isolated exhaust port in some obscure location that requires a squadron of small craft to navigate a corridor lined with turrets and hostile small craft fighters ..."

Naah.

 

[BP]

There is always the Star Wars option of the "small, isolated exhaust port in some obscure location that requires a squadron of small craft to navigate a corridor lined with turrets and hostile small craft fighters ..."

Naah.

Yeah - you're right - who needs a squadron - just a few small ships with one having a predator bird sounding name

 

[alex_greene]

There is always the Star Wars option of the "small, isolated exhaust port in some obscure location that requires a squadron of small craft to navigate a corridor lined with turrets and hostile small craft fighters ..."

Naah.

Yeah - you're right - who needs a squadron - just a few small ships with one having a predator bird sounding name

What, Eagle?

 

[BP]

Haha! I've always liked that ship - though I don't recall it having any weapons - so ram speed ahead!

I was referring to this:

with something like this in mind:

 

[Beastttt]

computers are going to be the what does it for ships
long ago I did a fleet battle with stock ships I took 3 800 ton merc cruisers vs 2400 tons of nothing over 4oo tons and wiped the floor with them
on average I took out 2 ships a turn
I had better anti missile defense and was able to dodge better because I had bigger computers that could hold all the programs I needed
6 modular cutters with laser turrets for anti missile defense
2 cruisers with 5 triple missile and 3 triple laser turrets
1 cruiser with 8 triple laser turrets
being able to have all the best programs fit into your computer was what made it work

if you are defending the fighters can work provided your bases do not get trashed
if you have to go as a battle rider you have to defend your taxi or fight with out it
so you may have more armor you still have to get there to fight

unless you have lots of money to spend so you can have better computers and programs
bigger ships will win as they put more weapons under better computers and programs than the same moneys worth of smaller ships