Solomani Confederation (Military)

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Roles, Functions and Assets

V. Inbetween these two extremes, there is the large bayed railgun.

W. It does six hectodice of damage, with factor/ten armour piercing.

X. The orbital mass driver does double that, but the railgun has a modified range of long, compared to default short, and is intended as a general purpose bunker buster Bombard.

Y. Highly technologized at technological level thirteen, it's easier to repair, requires twenty five power points, and costs one hundred five megastarbux.

Z. With a magazine capacity of twelve, consisting of five tonne slugs, each costing seventy five kilostarbux, it has a greater capacity, easier handling, and cheaper shots, than the comparable mass driver.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Roles, Functions and Assets

1. The bunker buster bombard is the primary means that the Army has direct control over, for planetary bombardment.

2. It's small enough that it can be wheeled in in any system.

3. And accurate enough to do somewhat surgical strikes, with minimal collateral damage.

4. At the other end of the stick, the Army can use them as planetary defence.

5. Obviously, you can't deep site them.

6. You could embed them on top of a mountain, say Everest, and the horizon is three and a third hundred klix.

7. Or, around a spaceport.

8. Long range being twenty five kiloklix.

9. Or, even have it on a melon sled.

 

[Condottiere]

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Roles, Functions and Assets

A. Next would be the five tonne barbette railgun.

B. Highly technologized technological level thirteen, costing three megastarbux.

C. Range modified to long, and easy to repair.

D. Power requirement five power points, causing nine to fifty four points of damage, while piecing factor/five armour.

E. Ammunition magazine weighs in at two tonnes, containing twelve slugs, and costs ten kilostarbux.

F. Also, used as planetary defence.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Roles, Functions and Assets

G. It occurs to me, that there is very little difference between a firmpointed version, and a hardpointed version, of the same weapon system.

H. The difference, appears to be power consumption, and range.

I. Other than that, same cost and volume.

J. Which sort of indicates, that both variants of weapon system are actually the same thing.

K. With a voltage switch that lowers it by a quarter, and thus affects range.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Roles, Functions and Assets

L. After the barbetted super sonic saker, there is the turretted chassis cracker cannon.

M. Highly technologized technological level thirteen, costing one and a half megastarbux.

N. Range modified to medium, and easy to repair.

O. Power requirement two power points, causing two to twelve points of damage, while piecing factor/four armour.

P. Ammunition magazine weighs in at one tonne, containing twelve slugs, and costs five kilostarbux.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Roles, Functions and Assets

Q. Mass driver is technological level twelve and weighs in at seven tonnes.

R. Costs half a megastarbux, and requires a crew of minimum eight.

S. Seven and a half kilostarbux slug, causes one deadly dice of damage, and blast/ten.

T. Range is listed at forty, presumably kilometres.

U. The mini melon mortar may be sixty times more expensive, and presumably fifty times larger, but causes three decadice of damage, at twelve and a half hundred klix.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Roles, Functions and Assets

V. Next would be the hypervelocity orbital defence cannon at technological level fourteen.

W. Which, technically, is about the limit of the Army's accessible technical base.

X. Security and the Navy would have priority for cutting edge technological level fifteen.

Y. And, at least for gause guns, and mass drivers, spacecraft variants top out at technological level thirteen,

Z. And casters, at technological level twelve.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Roles, Functions and Assets

1. Small weapons with a mass of more than 250 kilograms consume an amount of space equal to their mass, to a minimum of one ton.

2. These must be mounted in turrets (if they mass one ton or less) or fixed mounts and consume no Power.

3. At thirty five tonnes, you might as well install a small bayed railgun, with thirty to one hundred eighty damage, compared to four to twenty four.

4. An extremely large hypervelocity cannon, this weapon can engage targets on the ground but, if elevated, can attack its preferred targets, low-orbiting spacecraft.

5. If it does so, it increases its range to 1,000 kilometres.

6. Short range being one and a quarter thousand klix.

7. Cost is forty megastarbux, compared to thirty megastarbux default; highly technologized forty five megastarbux.

8. Magazine capacity twenty at ten kilostarbux, compared to twelve weighing in at one tonne, and costing fifteen kilostarbux.

9. Not sure how armour piecing factor/thirty translates, compared to a more defined factor/ten.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Roles, Functions and Assets

A. In theory, one tonne equals four spaces.

B. Thirty five divided by four equals one hundred twenty two and a half cubic metres.

C. Which, in theory, would be eight and three quarters tonnes onboard a spacecraft.

D. Fifty tonnes would be two hundred spaces onboard a vehicle.

E. The Army would have designed heavy gravitational chassis to install spacecraft small bayed weapon systems.

F. Self propelled heavy artillery.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Roles, Functions and Assets

G. This extended range (100 kilometres) is only useful in direct fire at airborne or orbital targets as this weapon cannot ‘lob’ its projectiles like a howitzer.

H. Hypervelocity cannon is technological level thirteen, and weighs in at twenty tonnes.

I. It inflicts only two deadly dice of damage, but has the same armour piercing factor as the orbital defence cannon.

J. Magazine capacity is fifty, and costs five kilostarbux.

K. Cost of the hypervelocity cannon itself, is twenty eight megastarbux.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Roles, Functions and Assets

L. The rail gun is introduced at technological level nine, and weighs in at three tonnes.

M. One deadly dice of damage, with the same armour piercing factor as a heavy laser cannon, and four klix range.

N. Seventy five kilostarbux doesn't seem too expensive.

O. Magazine capacity is fifty, costing twenty five hundred starbux.

P. It is an option.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Roles, Functions and Assets

Q. Gauss cannons are introduced at technological level twelve, and stage in at light half a tonne, medium one tonne, and heavy two tonnes.

R. Damage, armour piercing, and range almost the same, except light at six dice with armour piercing factor/five at one klix, medium one deadly dice with armour piercing factor/ten at two klix, and heavy two deadly dice with armour piercing factor/fifteen at three klix.

S. Costs are light at sixty kilostarbux, medium at a hundred kilostarbux, and heavy at two hundred and a quarter kilostarbux.

T. Magazine capacity is light two hundred costing eight hundred starbux with automatic/three, medium two hundred costing a thousand starbux with automatic/three, and heavy sixty costing eighty with automatic/two.

U. And that, would appear to be it for default listed mass drivers and gauss guns.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Roles, Functions and Assets

V. The two hundred fifty kilogramme very rapid firing gauss gun, costing twenty kilostarbux, is a rather popular in the Navy, especially, as, according to the rules, ammunition capacity is endless.

W. Also, plops neatly in a quarter tonne slot, either on the hull itself, or, a one tonne turret, which has four possible slots, and technological level twelve isn't an issue.

X. The VRF gauss gun may use the rifle variant ammunition types found in the Specialised Ammunition chapter.

Y. At four dice at three quarters klix range, that about the same as gauss rifle, armour piercing factor/five and automatic/eight.

Z. Ammunition capacity is four hundred costing a kilostarbux.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Roles, Functions and Assets

1. Small weapons with a mass of more than 250 kilograms consume an amount of space equal to their mass, to a minimum of one ton.

2. These must be mounted in turrets (if they mass one ton or less) or fixed mounts and consume no Power.

3. Not much point in installing anything weighing more than a quarter tonne.

4. Anything larger would compete with actual spacecraft weapon systems.

5. The advantage that smaller weapons had, was that you could stuff the hull full of them, without regard to fixed mountings limitations.

6. Basically, it allows skirting of said limitations, though leveraging that for actual space combat, is really a stretch.

7. Hint, range.

8. It's meant more for boarding situations, and close combat support.

9. Though, use in dogfighting has potential.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Roles, Functions and Assets

A. Optionally, dirtside weapon systems built to a one tonne limitation.

B. Those could be installed in one tonne turrets.

C. Quarter tonne weapon systems, sort of pointless if not utilizing that exact weight, really are a loophole in the spacecraft arms limitation treaty.

D. Weapons of up to 250 kilograms may be mounted on spacecraft using 0.25 tons per weapon.

E. They are attached to fixed mounts on any spacecraft of less than 50 tons adding Cr5000 to the cost of each weapon, or small pop-up turrets operated from a remote station on larger ships at an added cost of Cr50000 per weapon.

F. Fifty kilostarbux plus, is really a small price to pay for this:

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Roles, Functions and Assets

G. For smallcraft below fifty tonnes, smaller weapons must be attached to firmpoints, either in the hull or turret, at five kilostarbux per installation.

H. For fifty tonnes and above, they are installed in small pop up turrets, costing fifty kilostarbux plus per installation, independent of any firmpoint.

I. You have to wonder if they increase, or decrease, volume, by a quarter tonne, each time the turrets pop, or depop.

J. And, if you can use them for point defence.

K. Considering, they are turrets.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Roles, Functions and Assets

L. Smallcraft are capped with a single monoturret.

M. Essentially, it's a firmpoint expressed as a monoturret.

N. The monoturret can host a small weapon upto one tonne.

O. It could also host upto four small weapons, each not exceeding a quarter tonne each.

P. What's unknown, is if you can install both quarter tonne small weapons, with a single turret based weapon system.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Roles, Functions and Assets

Q. From the weapon systems listed, the one tonne medium gauss cannon seems the optimal choice.

R. It causes one deadly dice of damage at a range of two klix, with automatic/three and armour piercing factor/ten.

S. Magazine capacity is two hundred, costing a kilostarbux.

T. Hundred kilostarbux seems fairly cheap, and the one tonne volume is acceptable for the effect.

U. Firmpoint rules limit spacecraft weapon systems to close range, presumably due to lack of ampage, whereas small weapons don't tap the spacecraft's power grid.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Navy: Roles, Functions and Assets

V. From the listed options, you have technological level six, quarter tonne rocket pod, costing eight kilostarbux.

W. Magazine capacity is eighteen rockets, costing also eight kilostarbux, 444.45 starbux each.

X. Range one and a half klix, causing four dice of damage and blast five.

Y. Ripple fire automatic/three.

Z. Apparently, there is a guidance kit, not mentioned in Traveller.