ottarrus
Cosmic Mongoose
I'm a lifelong military historian, not just a hobbyist, but a reenactor with a couple of published articles. To put another way, I'm long past the 'cool looking airplane /boat /rifle /uniform' stage of the game and am interested in the real depths of the subject. I'm interested in the serious trivia and ephemera of history... not the battles, but the people who fought the battles; not battleships but the destroyer escorts and 'small boats' that shouldered most of the naval load...
I was just reading an article from Great Britain about the Restoration of the S-130 that I found both very interesting and might be applicable to Traveller.
Some background:
S-130 is the last surviving German Kriegsmarine schnellboot, or fast attack boat. These vessels are the organizational equivalent to the USN PT Boat and the RN MTB -- fast, incredibly fragile torpedo boats. However, this is a bit of a misnomer in the case of S-class boats. S-boats came in at almost three times the tonnage and twice the physical size of the USN and RN boats. In many respects they were more like small corvettes or destroyers. They could withstand much more punishment, had longer at-sea endurance, were just about as fast, and could operate in the same shallow waters as their allied equivalents. If an Elco PT Boat was a Mustang, and S-Boat was a Jaguar.
So now that we've got MgT2's High Guard and a significant body of ships as exemplars, I'm rather wondering if a torpedo boat type SDB wouldn't be a solid addition in Traveller.
While I haven't done the design work on it, the procurement design request might look something like this:
-- Hull Size 500 to 1000 tons
-- TL 13-15, technologies should be easy to maintain
-- Advanced detection and targeting electronics
-- Radical Stealth systems equipped
-- Sufficient crew accommodations for extended duty tours w/o undue fatigue or loss of efficiency
-- Minimum Speed 6G Maneuver
-- Armored Hull and Screens to survive engagement with two combatants larger than itself
-- Armament: 2 x Torpedo Bay, Dedicated Point Defense turrets, Fusion turrets /barbettes
Ships meeting these criteria will be expensive, almost prohibitively so. What's more, they're probably be useless unless they attack in squadron strength. These facts tend to militate towards high-tech, high-pop, systems under a viable threat of attack and probably already having a Naval Base present. Because of the expense and the need for squadrons of these vessels, I imagine that such systems have a certain militant attitude and probably spend more than what is merely adequate for their at-home defense. Example systems would include Efate /Regina, Jewell /Jewell, Rhylenor /Rhylenor, and Tobia /Tobia.
I was just reading an article from Great Britain about the Restoration of the S-130 that I found both very interesting and might be applicable to Traveller.
Some background:
S-130 is the last surviving German Kriegsmarine schnellboot, or fast attack boat. These vessels are the organizational equivalent to the USN PT Boat and the RN MTB -- fast, incredibly fragile torpedo boats. However, this is a bit of a misnomer in the case of S-class boats. S-boats came in at almost three times the tonnage and twice the physical size of the USN and RN boats. In many respects they were more like small corvettes or destroyers. They could withstand much more punishment, had longer at-sea endurance, were just about as fast, and could operate in the same shallow waters as their allied equivalents. If an Elco PT Boat was a Mustang, and S-Boat was a Jaguar.
So now that we've got MgT2's High Guard and a significant body of ships as exemplars, I'm rather wondering if a torpedo boat type SDB wouldn't be a solid addition in Traveller.
While I haven't done the design work on it, the procurement design request might look something like this:
-- Hull Size 500 to 1000 tons
-- TL 13-15, technologies should be easy to maintain
-- Advanced detection and targeting electronics
-- Radical Stealth systems equipped
-- Sufficient crew accommodations for extended duty tours w/o undue fatigue or loss of efficiency
-- Minimum Speed 6G Maneuver
-- Armored Hull and Screens to survive engagement with two combatants larger than itself
-- Armament: 2 x Torpedo Bay, Dedicated Point Defense turrets, Fusion turrets /barbettes
Ships meeting these criteria will be expensive, almost prohibitively so. What's more, they're probably be useless unless they attack in squadron strength. These facts tend to militate towards high-tech, high-pop, systems under a viable threat of attack and probably already having a Naval Base present. Because of the expense and the need for squadrons of these vessels, I imagine that such systems have a certain militant attitude and probably spend more than what is merely adequate for their at-home defense. Example systems would include Efate /Regina, Jewell /Jewell, Rhylenor /Rhylenor, and Tobia /Tobia.