Spacecraft missile rack and missile bay ammunition

[feggula]

Hi-all,

I might have missed something so help or a pointer would be appreciated.
Under Spacecraft Design/Arnaments (page 111) it states that missile racks need ammunition - 12 per ton. Can a missile rack store missiles without requiring additional tonnage? I notice that none of the ship designs state additional tonnage for their missile racks.

In addition, how many missiles does a 50 ton (51 with fire control) Missile Bay hold? It states on page 112 that a bay can fire 12 missiles at a time. Does this mean that the additional space comprises a magazine? If so, would that be 38 tons of space (at 1 missile rack per ton), 44 tons space (2 missile racks per ton) or 46 tons of space (at 3 missile racks per ton)?

I remember that original Classic Traveller allowed you to store 3 missiles per rack, but depending on the version this did change down to 1 (I think in TNE).

Any help would be appreciated, or a slap on the forehead if you can point me to the right page.

Thanks,

Francis

 

[tneva82]

Not sure I understood you correctly but as far as I understand it you have for example 1 turret(1 ton) with missile launcher. Then you add X number of tonnage to ammunition resulting in X*12 missiles for ammunition.

I think bay weapons would then be 50 ton+X tons for ammunition. Only they deplete entire ton worth of ammunition in one salvo(yikes).

 

[feggula]

Sorry if that was unclear...

Lets try again.

Turret missile racks:
If you have a turret with a missile rack, does that missile rack contain space for a missile, or do you always have to buy a missile magazine at 1 ton per 12 missiles. None of the ship examples have missile magazines - does that mean that they cannot fire missiles until space is set aside for magazines?

In Classic Traveller a missile rack held three missiles before the rack had to be reloaded or before a missile magazine had to be bought for example.

Missile Bays:
A missile bay weighs 50 tons and can fire 12 missiles at a time. Does a missile bay contain space for ammunition or do you have to buy additional magazine space? If you have to buy additional ammunition space, then I can not really see the point in a missile bay if you can instead have four triple turrets with missile racks. This would weight 4 tons instead of 50...

Actually this brings up two additional points -
How long does reloading take in ship combat? If your missile rack runs out, how long does it take to reload it if you do not have a missile magazine. And if you do have a missile magazine, how long to reload it from missiles held in storage?

When firing missiles a gunner makes their roll to determine the Missile to-hit roll. Does each missile then have to make a to-hit roll, or does each flight (for example all missiles from a turret or bay) - page 147/149 is not entirely clear on this.


Has that made my issue clearer or just confused things further? ;-)

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I understand your questions, but I don't have an answer.

If my ship has 1 single Missile Turret and no missile magazine, how many shots do I have? Same question with a Missile Bay.

Regarding reload time, I would say that a missile magazine can reload a turret in less than one turn, so it would not affect the firing rate of the turret.

If you don't have missiles in a magazine (say you are just storing them as loose cargo, or they are in a magazine for a different turret. I think 1 turn is probably a nice delay, or you could roleplay it for a PC ship. YMMV.

Until I hear otherwise, I am using the 3 rounds in the turret rule. For Bay weapons, I think I will allow 10 shots (of 12 missiles each) without a magazine.

 

[captainjack23]

Hi- I'm moving this post over from the errata thread as it seems more appropriate here. Enjoy !



Missiles. That ever changing topic. This isn't an eratta, as much as a suggestion for clarification.

The MGT book describes them as "small" antiship missles. What does that mean ? Well, as stated, 12 of them fit in a dTon as storage. So how big are the blamed things anyway ? While we could assume that each missile was rectangular, and stored with no packing material, and zero tolerance spacing, that may not be the best way to describe or transport high explosives....allthough the dimentions are then easy to calculate : 3m x 3m/4 x 1.5m/3 =300cm x 75 cm x 50 cm...

Now, assuming that like most milspec stuff, they don't come in odd dimensions, and round numbers are a good thing, as is a bit of wriggle room when packing, one can get 12 rectangles out of a dTon , with each in a 3m x 61.23 square container. Call it 300 x 60 x60 to avoid having to allow for air compression and zero friction containers,.

So, the basic missle space is taller than a human by a fair bit, and quite wide -for comparison, a late WWII 16" gun is (about, as everyone fudged) 40 Cm, or compared to a vehicle mounted TOW anti armor missile which is 1.16 m long and 152 mm diameter. So, these ship missles are small only in comparison to modern submarine torpedoes:
(US Mk-48 "heavyweight") 533mm diameter 5.79 m length -and even then, not a lot smaller. So, no manhandling these buggers. The modern Torp described weighs at over one and a half tons.

However, we know from CT that missles are modular : one can assemble and mix and match components within a set frame. Assuming the frame is fairly light, and part of the packing, I could see each missle essentially having three functional parts: a drive module, a guidance/sensor module, and a warhead. So, it seems reasonable then to have the long measurement of the weapon space divided to make three components.
So each module is stored in a .75 x .60 space.

Now, note that I said space. Again, even allowing for wastage to allow the spaces to fit into a dton sized container, I'm still of the opinion that storing explosives, electronics and sensors, and some kind of super high output propulsion plant is a Bad Idea.

So, as a guess, I'd want to allow about 50% of the space to be packing and dunnage (more than modern electronics are shipped with , although not by a lot, even if they don't explode).

To get the size of the actual components, we assume a cylinder with ROUGHLY 1/2 the cubic space of the container - assume that the difference between a square and a circle is more padding, and treat the components as a rectangle which means for dimensions, one can divide each by the cube root of 2. (=1.26). So......75cm/1.26 = 59.5 cm, call it 60cm high , with a width/length = 60cm/1.26 =47.6cmx47.6, call it 47cm diameter. .

Allow 5% length for four coupling collars, , we lose another 6 cm (assuming overlap)....giving a finished size of.....180cm long, 470mm diameter.

By comparison, a standard WWII german torpedo was (roughly)about 530mm x 7.1 meters long: japanese torps tended to be a bit smaller in this class 450mm x 5.5 m. Airdropped topedoes were smaller, but of similar length (230mmx 5.5m+).

So, what we have is a missile being about 1/3 to 1/6 the size of a general purpose WWII torpedo.; or about twice as wide and half again as long as a TOW anti armor.

Now, I mearly point out here that a CT missle is 15cm x 15 cm x 1m -allowing over 600 in a Dton. Now those are small.

Do I have a point ? Well, only that one way gives you easy reloads with a surprisingly small delivery and warhead system (about the size of your leg, if tall), the other seems to be more in line with its capacities and possibly cost , but requires serious work between battles for reloading.

Which was the goal, really, is the question, and the other is, is having 12 per dTon for civilian weaponry correct ? I could see120, 124 or even 144 being likely, and possibly more in keeping with the weapon described.

However, in case you haven't guessed, I'm bored today, so I figured anyone reading my posts should share the boredom...

 

[hdrider67]

Hi- I'm moving this post over from the errata thread as it seems more appropriate here. Enjoy !



Missiles. That ever changing topic. This isn't an eratta, as much as a suggestion for clarification.

The MGT book describes them as "small" antiship missles. What does that mean ? Well, as stated, 12 of them fit in a dTon as storage. So how big are the blamed things anyway ? While we could assume that each missile was rectangular, and stored with no packing material, and zero tolerance spacing, that may not be the best way to describe or transport high explosives....allthough the dimentions are then easy to calculate : 3m x 3m/4 x 1.5m/3 =300cm x 75 cm x 50 cm...

Now, assuming that like most milspec stuff, they don't come in odd dimensions, and round numbers are a good thing, as is a bit of wriggle room when packing, one can get 12 rectangles out of a dTon , with each in a 3m x 61.23 square container. Call it 300 x 60 x60 to avoid having to allow for air compression and zero friction containers,.

So, the basic missle space is taller than a human by a fair bit, and quite wide -for comparison, a late WWII 16" gun is (about, as everyone fudged) 40 Cm, or compared to a vehicle mounted TOW anti armor missile which is 1.16 m long and 152 mm diameter. So, these ship missles are small only in comparison to modern submarine torpedoes:
(US Mk-48 "heavyweight") 533mm diameter 5.79 m length -and even then, not a lot smaller. So, no manhandling these buggers. The modern Torp described weighs at over one and a half tons.

However, we know from CT that missles are modular : one can assemble and mix and match components within a set frame. Assuming the frame is fairly light, and part of the packing, I could see each missle essentially having three functional parts: a drive module, a guidance/sensor module, and a warhead. So, it seems reasonable then to have the long measurement of the weapon space divided to make three components.
So each module is stored in a .75 x .60 space.

Now, note that I said space. Again, even allowing for wastage to allow the spaces to fit into a dton sized container, I'm still of the opinion that storing explosives, electronics and sensors, and some kind of super high output propulsion plant is a Bad Idea.

So, as a guess, I'd want to allow about 50% of the space to be packing and dunnage (more than modern electronics are shipped with , although not by a lot, even if they don't explode).

To get the size of the actual components, we assume a cylinder with ROUGHLY 1/2 the cubic space of the container - assume that the difference between a square and a circle is more padding, and treat the components as a rectangle which means for dimensions, one can divide each by the cube root of 2. (=1.26). So......75cm/1.26 = 59.5 cm, call it 60cm high , with a width/length = 60cm/1.26 =47.6cmx47.6, call it 47cm diameter. .

Allow 5% length for four coupling collars, , we lose another 6 cm (assuming overlap)....giving a finished size of.....180cm long, 470mm diameter.

By comparison, a standard WWII german torpedo was (roughly)about 530mm x 7.1 meters long: japanese torps tended to be a bit smaller in this class 450mm x 5.5 m. Airdropped topedoes were smaller, but of similar length (230mmx 5.5m+).

So, what we have is a missile being about 1/3 to 1/6 the size of a general purpose WWII torpedo.; or about twice as wide and half again as long as a TOW anti armor.

Now, I mearly point out here that a CT missle is 15cm x 15 cm x 1m -allowing over 600 in a Dton. Now those are small.

Do I have a point ? Well, only that one way gives you easy reloads with a surprisingly small delivery and warhead system (about the size of your leg, if tall), the other seems to be more in line with its capacities and possibly cost , but requires serious work between battles for reloading.

Which was the goal, really, is the question, and the other is, is having 12 per dTon for civilian weaponry correct ? I could see120, 124 or even 144 being likely, and possibly more in keeping with the weapon described.

However, in case you haven't guessed, I'm bored today, so I figured anyone reading my posts should share the boredom...

Wow. That's a whole lot of missile for the paltry damage, especially considering the laser weapons consume no energy and can do a boatload of damage (compared to the missile).

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Seems like the missiles are about the size of a Tomahawk missiles (just eyeballing it here). That seems appropriate.

 

[SSWarlock]

Seems like the missiles are about the size of a Tomahawk missiles (just eyeballing it here). That seems appropriate.

Given the range in space such missiles may be required to operate over, I'm really hoping some missile design options will be in High Guard.

Anti-ship missile performance vs. missile size has been one of the Great Mysteries(tm) of Traveller since the LBB days..as in "how the heck can they do that?!?".

I've never understood from any published deckplan how a 1-dton turret could contain three missile launchers, all the controlling equipment, a gunner's station for a large seated human being (to allow for vac-suited gunners) and a bunch of spare missiles which are light enough to be loaded by one person of average strength.

To sooth my confusion, I've always ruled that each launcher held only one missile and any storage had to be via extra tonnage being allocated for one or more missile magazines. Military turrets allowed for the use of auto-loaders which also had to be allocated tonnage as part of a magazine.

 

[Captain Brann]

I understand your questions, but I don't have an answer.

If my ship has 1 single Missile Turret and no missile magazine, how many shots do I have? Same question with a Missile Bay.

Regarding reload time, I would say that a missile magazine can reload a turret in less than one turn, so it would not affect the firing rate of the turret.

If you don't have missiles in a magazine (say you are just storing them as loose cargo, or they are in a magazine for a different turret. I think 1 turn is probably a nice delay, or you could roleplay it for a PC ship. YMMV.

Until I hear otherwise, I am using the 3 rounds in the turret rule. For Bay weapons, I think I will allow 10 shots (of 12 missiles each) without a magazine.

P111
Missile racks are launchers ........ Missile racks need ammunition.

This seems to mean that you get no shots unless you buy the ammo.

I would also assume that the gunner is not sat in the Turret but at a fire control console, at the bridge or else were.

Therefore the turret is just a launch rail, attached to an ammo space for the missiles.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Agreed.

The "1 ton of Fire Control" is for the gunner seat and controls (where ever you want those to be).

I assume that each turret could hold 1 missile at a time "in the breach" if you will.

SO, unless you have a magazine, you get ONE shot from each Missile Tube mounted in your turret.

So a Triple Missile Turret (1 ton + 1 ton Fire Control) has 3 missiles available, without a magazine.

In a small ship, I would actually make them select WHICH turret the magazine was for (distributed missile storage) and make the magazine be physically located next to the turret. Want it farther away for safety? OK, but you pay extra tonnage for that and have a higher (above 0) failure rate. Maybe need an extra gunner (loader) just to man the that fancy mechanism during combat.

 

[pasuuli]

I've never understood from any published deckplan how a 1-dton turret could contain three missile launchers, all the controlling equipment, a gunner's station for a large seated human being (to allow for vac-suited gunners)

Plenty of space! Not that I'd want to try it. (Hey, how does it compare with the interior of a tank?)

and a bunch of spare missiles which are light enough to be loaded by one person of average strength.

Probably robotic-hydraulic assist, even if only for loading the 'hopper'.

 

[captainjack23]

I've never understood from any published deckplan how a 1-dton turret could contain three missile launchers, all the controlling equipment, a gunner's station for a large seated human being (to allow for vac-suited gunners)

Plenty of space! Not that I'd want to try it. (Hey, how does it compare with the interior of a tank?)

Interesting point - I note that the late sixties and seventies were the heyday of the concept of arming tanks with missiles - The Sheridan is the most famous American example of that (and, IIRC a failure) armed with -shillieghlie (sp) missles ?

The M60 Patton had a missle turret version, also - the A2 ? In any case short stubby gun, big bore.

Anyone got the specs on what the Sheridan could carry ? I remeber it had a very limited ammo capacity -and wasn't all that big.

In any case, the comment about the turret of a tank is right on target (so to speak -I make funny !) Its often hard for a layman (such as myself, i hasten to add) to get a gut feel of just how crowded some military equiptment is...even a walk thru a WW-II Sub, while claustraphobic, doent even include the crew, supplies and gear stashed everywhere.....

 

[captainjack23]

Probably robotic-hydraulic assist, even if only for loading the 'hopper'.

I'm pretty sure most tanks now have autoloaders - the 120mm round is HEAVY.

 

[captainjack23]

Seems like the missiles are about the size of a Tomahawk missiles (just eyeballing it here). That seems appropriate.

As per the Us Navy fact site:

Length: 18 feet 3 inches (5.56 meters); with booster: 20 feet 6 inches (6.25 meters).
Diameter: 20.4 inches (51.81 cm).
Wingspan: 8 feet 9 inches (2.67 meters).
Weight: 2,900 pounds (1,315.44 kg); 3,500 pounds (1,587.6 kg) with booster.

diameter is right, but looks like the tomahawk fits more the "torpedo standard" of 500 - 600cm long.

But I agree - the tomawawk/cruise missle model seems to fit the capabilities of a Traveller turret missle...one would think it would be lots smaller by tech 12, let alone 15 -except - obviously it has to operate at vastly higher speeds and ranges. Plus, IIRC, the cruise/Tomahawk are air breathing, so they would need oxidiser to work in space -although they would then lose the wings but need to gain a biffer stabilization system. Not sure how much extra booster they'd need to make 3G for 3 twenty minute turns my guess is LOTS. So, perhaps the size isn;t that far off.

A stubby Tomahawk missle - plus, it would (sort of) fit in a turret space - whereas a 5.5 meter one would have...a bit of an issue in what is, one assumes, a 3x3x1.5 meter space....

Problem is, while the big version above seems to make sense, the small missle idea seems to play more like a traveller missle ought to -multiple shots, reloadable, easily accessorized.

As St Thomas Aquinas said, "It is a great Mystery...." (although he probably wasn't playing Traveller at the time).

 

[zozotroll]

Auto loaders are unreliabe. Crew can adapt. I dont know of anybody other than the late soviets that ever used an auto loader, and thiers had severe restrictions.

An armored vehicle in action is an event in chaos that is pretty much indescibable. I suspect a starship to be much the same. Not a place for someone that needs thier personal space.

 

[captainjack23]

Auto loaders are unreliabe. Crew can adapt. I dont know of anybody other than the late soviets that ever used an auto loader, and thiers had severe restrictions.

An armored vehicle in action is an event in chaos that is pretty much indescibable. I suspect a starship to be much the same. Not a place for someone that needs thier personal space.

???? Okay, news to me (as I said, I'm a layman) perhaps the automated turret concept went away at the same time as the guide missle turret - Didnt the swedes have one ? question - do gunners have some kind of mechanical assist at least ? Not an autoloader as in the sense of an automatic pistol, but rather some kind of power assist ?

 

[zozotroll]

I am an atrilleryman, not a tanker, but I worked with them a lot. No, on an M-1 the loader just pushes the round into the breech, and closes it. I dont know if there is an assist on the closeing.

On an M109, you do have a power rammer to insure you have a good seat on the projo. The reason is that 155mm is seperat laoding, where as the 120mm is a solid round. However, you can manuely ram on the 109, you just have to be sure you get a solid ram. Often you do it by hand because it is much faster.

 

[zozotroll]

Another major disadvantage not often thought of by non-crew, is that an auto-loader can only load. It cant pull guard, it cant drive if the driver is exhuasted, and it certainly cant help fix a broken track( a brutal task on any vehicle I ever worked on or around).

Cutting 25% of your crew does not cut 25% of the work load. Good crew are self programming and self actuating. An auot loader just sits there.

There is also a problem of what angle you have to have the main gun at to use the autoloader. On the sov models, you had to bring the gun off target and go back to load position to use it. That means that if you did not hit first round, you cant adjust on a quick follow up. And if you got a hit, but not a kill, you still had to leave target. Where as a western vehicle with a human loader could do just that. This is a huge advantage in a tank fight.

 

[SSWarlock]

Auto loaders are unreliabe. Crew can adapt. I dont know of anybody other than the late soviets that ever used an auto loader, and thiers had severe restrictions.

An armored vehicle in action is an event in chaos that is pretty much indescibable. I suspect a starship to be much the same. Not a place for someone that needs thier personal space.

Correction..today's auto loaders are unreliable. Even then, the French AMX-56 Leclerc main battle tank uses them, not that that's a big endorsement. I think it's safe to assume that TL13+ missile autoloaders would be much more reliable than those used in TL8 MBTs to load cannon shells.

 

[zozotroll]

Maybe not. But they may be another laser. Combat lasers are popular sci-fi, but they most likely will never happen. Why? Because the batterys to store the energy to power it make better warheads than the lasers make good weapons. Or maybe they will be the standard gear on all starships. Right now it is hard to tell.