V3.1 Ship Design Experiments

[Golan2072]

Patrol "Cruiser", Type-T

Hull: 400 tons streamlined, MCr17.6

Engineering Section:
- Jump Drive-F, 35 tons, MCr60, Jump-3, uses 35 power points.
- Maneuver Drive-H, 45 tons, MCr80, 4-G, uses 15 power points.
- Power Plant-H, 25 tons, MCr64, generates 4 power points, capacity 64 power points.

Fuel: 120 tons Jump Fuel, 16 tons PP fuel, total 136 tons.

Bridge: 20 tons, MCr2.

Computer: Model/3, MCr2, rating 15.

Electronics: Basic Military, 2 tons, MCr1, +0 DM.

Staterooms: 12, 40 tons, MCr6.

Low Berths: 4, 2 tons, MCr0.2

Default Crew: 8

Fuel Processors: 10 tons, MCr0.5, could process up to 100 tons of fuel per day.

Ship's Locker: MCr0.1.

Vehicles:
- G/Carrier, 8 tons, MCr15.
- Ship's Boat, 30 tons, MCr16.

Armament:
- 2x TL12 Triple Beam-Laser Turrets, 2 tons, MCr11 total, 30 Power Point use total.
- 2x Triple Missile Rack Turrets, 2 tons, MCr6.5 total.

Software:
- Maneuver/0, rating 0, (included).
- Jump Control/1, rating 5, MCr0.1.
- Jump Control/2, rating 10, MCr0.2.
- Jump Control/3, rating 15, MCr0.3.
- Evade/1, rating 10, MCr1.
- Fire Control/1, rating 5, MCr2.
- Library, rating 5.

Cargo Space: 43 tons.
---------

Final Design:
Using a 400-ton hull, the patrol cruiser is a military vessel used for customs inspections, piracy suppression, and normal safety patrols. It has jump drive-F, maneuver drive-H, and power plant-H, giving performance of jump-3 and 4-G acceleration. There is fuel tankage of 136 tons, supporting the power plant and allowing one jump-3. Adjacent to the bridge is a computer Model/3 and basic military-class sensors. There are twelve staterooms and four low berths. Four triple turrets are installed, two mounting beam lasers and two mounting missile racks. The ship has one 30-ton ship's boat and carriers a G/Carrier. Cargo capacity is 23 tons. The ship is streamlined and carriers ten tons of fuel processing equipment. The patrol cruiser requires a crew of 18: pilot, navigator, three engineers, medic, four gunners, and eight troops for boarding parties. Double occupancy for the gunners and troops is required.

Armour 0, Hull 8, Structure 8, Power 4/64. Costs 285,500,000 credits.

---------

Comments:

1) The term "Cruiser" isn't quite accurate for such a small ship, especially in a large-ship universe. "Corvette" would probably be more appropriate.

2) The Power Generation and Power Costs tables should IMHO be unified with the Drives Costs table for the sake of less page-flipping while designing a ship.

3) There should be more detailed crew rules than one crewmember per 50 tons - this allows you to gouge the skill-sets needed to fly the ship (and thus needed in the party composition), and adds color to certain ships (such as the one-person Type-S).

4) RTT power-plants are quite weak in comparison to their CT counterparts, especially LBB2 but HG as well; in order to have full M-Drive performance and fire all energy weapons at once one would need a very large and expensive PP.

5) The rules for calculating Hull and Structure (which appear on Ship Combat p.8) should also be given in the ship design chapter for the ease of reference.

 

[Mongoose Pete]

4) RTT power-plants are quite weak in comparison to their CT counterparts, especially LBB2 but HG as well; in order to have full M-Drive performance and fire all energy weapons at once one would need a very large and expensive PP.

Agreed. Whilst I can see that civilian ships would always be underpowered in a firefight, relying on their energy storage to get a a few blows before being boarded, these rules don't permit military ships to operate at their full capacity.

As it stands it seems impossible to design a military ship which can fire a full compliment of energy weapons without exhausting its batteries in a couple of rounds, let alone be able to cruise at its full manouver speed. Unless I'm misunderstanding the rules, the Type-T above could only maintain full speed for 30 minutes, assuming its not using energy for anything else. This seems a little odd.

Surely warships are designed with a power plant powerful enough to maintain[/i) full speed, whilst still using its sensors, communications and weapons at full capacity. Its fundamental to military philosophy and design. The following semi-technical paper considering the installation of Rail Guns on the latest US naval ships illustrates the issue somewhat nicely!

www.emlsymposium.org/13th_papers/docs/EML001.pdf

 

[SableWyvern]

1) The term "Cruiser" isn't quite accurate for such a small ship, especially in a large-ship universe. "Corvette" would probably be more appropriate.

Some naval experts may be along to correct me, but I'm pretty sure that a Patrol Cruiser (PC) is a distinct and separate class of ship to larger cruisers (CA/CAG/CL/CLG).

 

[AKAramis]

On the design:
you forgot to include ammo for the missile bays (one ton per 12 missiles)

Sable:
Cruisers are generally ships of the line in all navies which used the term.
What constituted a cruiser varied from timeframe to timeframe.

In the small ship universe before HG, crusiers were in the 400-1200 ton range, and the general size of what might be a cruiser varied by TL, as maximum drive size did. Even by Bk2 standards, it's really a destroyer, not a cruiser, since the 1200 ton battlecruiser and the 800 ton cruiser are earlier in appearance in canon than the type T.

Post HG, the variance is much smaller, since the cruiser size computers (which set the Bk5 requirements) are available earlier... in such a universe, calling the T a cruiser is a joke. It is a cutter or corvette, which are small, usually tactically fast ships, designed for short patrols.


Looking at CT bk 2:
TL 9 allows drives A-D, and thus hulls to a max of 800 tons, and maximum performance of J3 (which is due to computer limits)
TL 10 allows drives A-H, and thus a max of 1000 tons, and J4
TL11 takes us to K, 2000 Tons, and J5
TL12 takes us to N, still 2000 tons, and J6
TL13 takes us to Q, 3000 Tons, and if J7 were allowed, the computer could support J7 (and some Refs allowed same), but officially J6
TL14 takes us to U, still 3000 tons, and J6/7 but could be extrapolated to J6/8
TL15 takes us to Z and 5000 tons.

So, at TL 10, the Type T might be a smallish cruiser in a Bk2 universe, with cruisers being 400 tons due to the J2 limit on larger hulls. (they can cruise, while the larger "battlecruisers" can't, being J2 at 600 tons, and dreadnoughts at 800T/J2.)

If we make the assumption that cruisers are typically ship sizes which can make jump 4*, by TL, we can make the following assumptions by TL:
TL9 Crusier: 200Td
TL10 Cruiser: 400Td
TL11 Still 400 Td
TL12 600Td
TL13 still 600Td
TL14 800Td
TL15 3000Td

Going to J3+, we get
TL9 200Td/J3
TL10 400Td/J4
TL11 600Td/J3
TL12 800Td/J3
TL13 1000Td/J3
TL14 1000Td/J3
TL15 4000Td/J3

 

[SableWyvern]

I did some quick googling to find out if I was completely mistaken. Here's a Cyclone Class Patrol Cruiser -- it's a coastal patrol ship with a crew complement of 39. To my uneducated eye, it looks significantly smaller than a WWII era cruiser. Being a coastal ship, it certainly isn't a ship of the line.

 

[AKAramis]

I did some quick googling to find out if I was completely mistaken. Here's a Cyclone Class Patrol Cruiser -- it's a coastal patrol ship with a crew complement of 39. To my uneducated eye, it looks significantly smaller than a WWII era cruiser. Being a coastal ship, it certainly isn't a ship of the line.

I suggest you read some authoritative sources designations...
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=4200&tid=2000&ct=4
http://peoships.crane.navy.mil/PC/PC.htm
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/pc-1.htm
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/02/navypatrolboats070222/

She's a "Patrol Coastal", not a patrol cruiser. Cruisers usually have a designation of C_, for example, a patrol cruiser would be a CP, not a PC. The exception is Battle Cruiser, which is a subclass of Battleship, rather than of Cruiser... the BC. But, some battlecruisers are CB...

 

[SableWyvern]

Right you are.

I saw some references to it as a patrol cruiser, and then conveniently kept reading cruiser whenever it was referred to correctly as a coastal in more authoritative sources.

 

[hdrider67]

I feel bad for the Coasties having to borrow ships. They've be screwing up their current ships by lengthening them and that plan was not turning our well when I contracted for them a few years ago. Apparently they're having trouble with breaking the ship's back and putting it together again.

Who'd a thunk it!

 

[captainjack23]

FWIW, the distiction is as old as the age of sail. Cruisers were any ship intended to sail an extended voyage, by itself, and deal with whatever it couldn't run from.

Line ships were that. Battle ships, intended to fight in a line against other ships.

The terminology has changed, often every generation. Cruisers evolved from smaller frigates at about the same time huge "frigates"(based on carried guns) were replacing line of battle ships. They were envisioned much as frigates were in the Napoleonic period; scouts and screens, and show of force where battleships aren't or cant go.

In the "world wars", crusiers were more and more used in groups as subbattleships to fight other cruisers (Java sea)...but a Battleship (a line of battle ship) could paste them (Falklands I).

Nowadays, cruisers are pretty much huge escorts (for carriers) and destroyers are the size of ww2 cruisers and fill the traditional 'cruiser' role in many ways. Destroyers came out of nowhere (except perhaps the PT boats they were desined to stop) and have a cool name which is often misappropriated (eg Star Destroyers). Dreadnaughts are the class name of a pivotal class of immproved dreadnaughts, and then came to refer to obsolete ships superceeded by the last big battleships. In SF, Dreadnaughts now seem to be "super battleships", likely due to the coolness factor of the name......

Today's terms tend to be more specific as to size and design, than use,or number of guns as was the case in the past.
So, what relevance to this ? Names will likely keep evolving. The OTU seems to have elements of both past and modern usage, likely due to the naming inflence of modern naval gamers (Harpoon was GDW, right ?) and extensive retconning once HUGE ships became the defacto SF standard. (and we know what series to thank for that, eh ? And no, NOT the famous Constellation class Heavy Cruiser, carrying out a classic age of sail frigate mission ).

In the big ship OTU, classes simply represent size, not mission, with a few exceptions. HG escorts seem to mostly be used like cruisers, as do destroyers; bigger ships (5000dt+ ) are effectively all line of battle ships (with the proviso that the high end will always pummel the low end). partly this is due to the upper speed limits- (even plankwell BBs are M4/J4 ships, as are atlantic class cruisers, despite close to an order of magnitude size difference), partly due to the squadron use and organization, and partly due to the AMAZING amount of damage even one loose cruiser can do to starsystem or shipping: every ship is a Bismark.

So, cruiser is actually a surprisingly good term for a ship designed to operate independently away from a base, often for an extended period irregardless of size; generally a jack of all trades, master of none. The type T isn't a bad fit, although I've always felt it was more of a pack hunter, like a destroyer. The real fit is the classic type M merc cruiser.

And, yes it's confusing....it always is, even for navies.

Cap out.

 

[Deniable]

A couple of interesting points:
A while back someone asked about J5/J6 warships. I pulled out Fighting Ships from CT and found that most IN ships are J4. J5 is usually only ships designated "cruiser." This fits with the long range independent role.

For changing names, the USN redefined several ship types in the '70s. Politicians bleated that the Soviets had more cruisers, so the Navy redefined the term. (See This for more.)

 

[captainjack23]

For changing names, the USN redefined several ship types in the '70s. Politicians bleated that the Soviets had more cruisers, so the Navy redefined the term. (See This for more.)

My god, I forgot about that. We're lucky NASA didn't decide to rename the Moon "Mars" just to really beat the Soviet space program.

 

[SableWyvern]

Wasn't the point of that reclassifcation that Russian cruisers were equivalent to US destroyers anyway? The "cruiser gap" existed only on paper, but was causing politcal problems, so the only real option was to reclassify?