Boarding Actions in "Age of Sail" Space Combat

[robject]

This topic sort of spilled over as I was frothing at the mouth over in the T5 forum on Lasers, Missile Launchers, and Sandcasters.

GIVEN that the "boarding action" is an exciting part of space opera and something that's rather taken for granted as something that happens in the Traveller game (regardless of setting),

THEN how does it really work? Does an attacker first have to disable all of the offensive weapons before attempting to board? Is this even SAFE? Shall we not also have to kill the power plant as well, to prevent evasive maneuver? And hits are rather random, so a ship is going to have to be well-peppered before a boarding action is going to happen, right?

So now you're going to take an expensive ship and try to use it to board another shot-up ship. Seems kind of risky, doesn't it?

Seems kind of difficult for boarding actions to take place.

But boarding actions are fun. Age of Sail, remember?

So what am I forgetting?

 

[whulorigan]

GIVEN that the "boarding action" is an exciting part of space opera and something that's rather taken for granted as something that happens in the Traveller game (regardless of setting),

THEN how does it really work? Does an attacker first have to disable all of the offensive weapons before attempting to board? Is this even SAFE? Shall we not also have to kill the power plant as well, to prevent evasive maneuver? And hits are rather random, so a ship is going to have to be well-peppered before a boarding action is going to happen, right?

So now you're going to take an expensive ship and try to use it to board another shot-up ship. Seems kind of risky, doesn't it?

Seems kind of difficult for boarding actions to take place.

But boarding actions are fun. Age of Sail, remember?

So what am I forgetting?

A boarding action might best be done by a subordinate small craft sheltering under the watchful guns of its parent ship. (Hence one of the reasons for the launch and/or gig carried by the Patrol Corvette and the Close Escort).

But yes, the maneuver drive would need to be rendered inoperative one way or another (either by damage or by credible "threat" of severe reprisal for not "heaving-to") in order to board the other ship. This can likewise be said of any weapons on the target ship otherwise bearing on the boarding vessel.

A vessel is not going to casually allow itself to be boarded without a reason.

Also, remember that depending upon the version of Traveller (and certainly under the T5 ruleset), targeting is done by identifying "hot-spots", such as engines and weapons that have just fired the previous round. So there is a certain amount of damage biased toward those systems if the targeting ship is aiming for those components.

 

[welsh]

But yes, the maneuver drive would need to be rendered inoperative one way or another (either by damage or by credible "threat" of severe reprisal for not "heaving-to") in order to board the other ship. This can likewise be said of any weapons on the target ship otherwise bearing on the boarding vessel.

A vessel is not going to casually allow itself to be boarded without a reason.

Agreed that the ship needs to either (a) have its maneuver drive and weapons disabled or (b) allow itself to be boarded.

A wrinkle: in the age of sail, pirates often boarded their victims without a fight, and I think this is likely in Traveller for non-player ships. The convention was that no one would be killed if the victim gave up without a fight, but if you fought back, everyone would be murdered. So crews, being poorly paid and having no stake in the ship or her cargo, were disinclined to fight back. Don't see that changing in Traveller, except with PC crews.

That risks sidetracking the thread, but suffice to say, in most boarding actions I would think the boarding party comes on without resistance. Much more boring that way, I know.

 

[whulorigan]

. . . in most boarding actions I would think the boarding party comes on without resistance. Much more boring that way, I know.

But then, as you say, there's the PC crew . . .

 

[Timerover51]

Theodore Roosevelt's Naval War of 1812 has a considerable number of Age of Sail boarding actions in it, if you need anything like that. It can be downloaded from Project Gutenberg.

During the Age of Sail, gunnery combat was typically at very short range, anywhere from 50 yards to the ships effectively touching. Given the dependence on the wind for motive power, damage to rigging could rapidly immobilize a ship, making it much easier to close, grapple, and board.

In Traveller, the situation would be much closer to the problems of ramming once steam became the primary motive power. It proved to be very difficult to ram a vessel which still had power. Successful ramming attacks during the Age of Steam are not common at all. Aside from some of the Civil War actions, when steam-powered rams attacked sailing ships or when the action was fought in highly restricted waters such as the Mississippi River, ramming in combat was rare. Generally, it required the target to be either immobile or close to it, while the attacking ship was under full control. As speeds were typically below 15 knots, the speed differential was still not that great.

For a successful action in Traveller, you would have to match the course and speed of your target, and then manage to close within grappling distance, presumably using some form of magnetic cable. If the target ship still has power, I would anticipate it to be close to impossible to successful grapple. The other problem would be if the target ship decided to execute a ramming action of its own. Given the incredible high armor claimed in Traveller for ship hulls, even a small ship would be a very fast moving battering ram, with immense kinetic energy.

I view it as quite unlikely to occur, unless the target is essentially a "dead" ship.

 

[atpollard]

I would view boarding being accomplished with small craft designed for that function. First push the performance far beyond 6 gee (which a human can withstand for short periods), so the boarding boat might be a 16G craft with 6G of inertial compensation and marines restrained with some sort of harness and perhaps fortified with combat drugs. Then let's upgrade the simple docking tube and magnetic clamp to some sort of supermagnet that clings like a lamprey to a shark and includes an integral plasma cutter to breech the hull.

Now you are inside and the fun can begin.


[Most rules accommodate the possibility of some craft with greater than 6G performance while denying that capability to starships. There are Traveller Torpedo Boats, they just do not carry torpedoes, they carry troops for boarding actions!]

 

[Enoki]

I could also see, at least with military vessels, that you have marines using EVA (Extra-Vehicular-Assault) / spacewalking to the vessel being boarded. Once the target vessel is stopped all the attacker has to do is get close and the marines in power armor, sort of like some smaller version of anime mecha's pour out of the attacking vessel to board the target.

Who knows? Maybe you could have the defenders run their marines out to stop them...

A better question is "What is the purpose of boarding?" I'd say the main one is that the ship itself is valuable enough to want to capture it rather than destroy it. If it weren't, then why board? Just turn it into so much wreckage and leave the survivors to die in the cold of space.

Certainly, we've seen that cargo is rarely worth the risk involved in taking a ship. By itself it is almost an irrelevancy. That means you want the ship and that means taking it relatively intact. That alone argues for boarding.

 

[robject]

Right then, thank you all. It does indeed sound like the "easiest" (?) way to board would be via a fast boarding pod that can somehow not get vaporized by point-defense lasers and other unpleasant beam weapons. Definitely a difficult task involving evasion and point defenses. Or marines in boarding armor that functions like "boarding missiles". Or teleporting commandos, my favorite, but beware of range considerations. A hybrid approach would be to deliver teleport commandos into teleport range via missile. Sounds expensive.

The second-best way would be via threat: turn off everything or else we pick you apart and THEN board in an angry fashion. Presuming this can work. At least it should be role-played out in an interesting way. Interpersonal skills and a reactions roll would be important here.

Finally, the third way is to go ahead and 'stop' the ship without destroying it: disable all weapons, maneuver drive, power plant, whatever it takes. Much more likely to inflict pricey damage, however. And there's the potential for killing it dead. Where's the percentage in that? And if you're the referee, you had better be sure your players can save face, and also survive, if they try, unless they're playing Iron Man Traveller of course.

 

[Reban]

The purpose of a boarding action is to bring the enemy ship under friendly control.

There are going to be two broad environments: permissive and opposed. Permissive boarding happen where the enemy crew aren't trying to prevent boarding, for example when the ship has struck her colours, where there is no capability to resist, or for peacetime operation boarding actions for inspections. Opposed boarding operations will only occur where the boarding party can be delivered intact to the outer hull of the enemy vessel. In other words the only resistance will probably be by the enemy crew within the hull.

Boarding parties would most likely be delivered by smallcraft or EVA in vaccsuits. Boarding actions should be supported by the mothership. i.e. happen under her guns.

To attempt boarding the target vessel will have to be non-maneuvering. Not at a dead stop but holding a course and speed that the delivering smallcraft can at least match and preferably out-perform.

Either the enemy vessels weapons systems will ALL have to be knocked out (very hard in T5 with self contained weapons mounts having life support).

Or

The weapons in one quadrant will have to be non effective to allow approach in a relatively safe corridor. From astern right up the exhaust nozzles is good as long as no one lights off an engine (although does that hold true of the M-Drive?).

Once they reach the hull the boarding party have to gain access. They can either use access points like airlocks (probably only in a permissive environment). or blow themselves an entry point.

Once they get inside they have to clear the ship compartment by compartment using CQB tactics and secure major spaces such as Engineering and the Bridge.

It will be difficult for boarding actions to take place.

But not impossible once the prerequisites are satisfied. One thing to understand is that unlike the Age of Sail model where once gunnery takes down the rigging a maneuver kill results allowing (or more often causing) the two ships to lay alongside and allow boarding parties to cross at the height of the battle, the Traveller boarding action probably takes place after the battle as enemy vessels are adrift having suffered "maneuver kills" or had their sensors and or weapons scrubbed off their hulls.

I see boarding actions as part of the mopping up operation, not as a way to kill a vessel in combat.

Also under the heading of boarding actions are; space station assaults, covert boarding and cutting-out operations and rescue operations. The basic skills of boarding operations are going to be the same skills as practiced in common EVA operations.

 

[flykiller]

Assault on the ICS Jefferson Davis

 

[McPerth]

But boarding actions are fun. Age of Sail, remember?

So what am I forgetting?

See that in age of sail ships arillery was no always silenced before boarding, but they had to be immobilized (dismasted) for it. In Traveller, I guess that would need to either destroy the MD or the PP (i nthe latter case also silencing most of offensive power).

See also the added dificulty for boarding the 3^rd diemnsion bears, as hips moved algon a 2 dimension plane (water).

I would view boarding being accomplished with small craft designed for that function. First push the performance far beyond 6 gee (which a human can withstand for short periods), so the boarding boat might be a 16G craft with 6G of inertial compensation and marines restrained with some sort of harness and perhaps fortified with combat drugs. Then let's upgrade the simple docking tube and magnetic clamp to some sort of supermagnet that clings like a lamprey to a shark and includes an integral plasma cutter to breech the hull.

Now you are inside and the fun can begin.


[Most rules accommodate the possibility of some craft with greater than 6G performance while denying that capability to starships. There are Traveller Torpedo Boats, they just do not carry torpedoes, they carry troops for boarding actions!]

In MgT;HG small crafts in the 30 dton range may reach up to 16 G

I could also see, at least with military vessels, that you have marines using EVA (Extra-Vehicular-Assault) / spacewalking to the vessel being boarded. Once the target vessel is stopped all the attacker has to do is get close and the marines in power armor, sort of like some smaller version of anime mecha's pour out of the attacking vessel to board the target.

Who knows? Maybe you could have the defenders run their marines out to stop them...

In MT and MgT (I'm not sure in other versions) even sandcastes can be quite letal to personnel performing EVA near the ship, so I guess this will only be used as last ressort, as risk involved is great...

 

[whartung]

A hostile boarding action would be almost impossible. And when possible, extremely expensive.

All of those die rolls necessary "to hit" are designed for fleeting ships 1000's of kilometers apart in deep space, not matching vectors in contact distance. Lasers, for example, are mostly modeled as "shooting lots of shots over time somewhere around where the ship at XXXXX km hoping some of the laser blasts, ANY of the laser blasts, hit the target ship". If that laser is alive and well as something is up and trying to park mere meters away, it's going to get drilled well, over and over again. "Here comes the gig!" "Point this red line thing at that gig thing until it pops."

So, any offensive weapons must be disabled first. Otherwise, the target vessel will get lots and lots of "free hits" on the attacker.

Next, the actual assault.

The actual assault is likely to be bloody against a prepared defender. The attacker has to cut a hole in the hull -- somewhere, somehow. That could be at an airlock, or…it could not. I don't know if an outer hatch or cargo door is or is not easier to penetrate. If it's mostly the same, then any hole anywhere will do, no reason to go for the hatch and have a battle ala Star Wars with everyone standing in corridors.

Then it's a question of ship knowledge (i.e. know where to open a hole) -- nice thing about the hatch is you have a reasonable idea what's behind it -- an airlock tied to a corridor vs a random stateroom or fuel tank. It's also a question of whether the attacker has any tactical surprise (can the defender see on the hull where the attacker is breaching)? Also a matter of how many teams are breaching at once.

Consider to different representations in popular film of this kind of action. The first, is "U-571".

Spoiler:

They are lucky enough to catch the hatch open, stick a machine gun in to the gap, spray the interior with bullets, and then toss in hand grenades to make the immediate areas below hostile, if not uninhabitable.

The other, is "Heat".

Spoiler:

In Heat, they breach an armored truck with a shape demolition charge. They had complete tactical surprise, incapacitating the crew with the initial collision, and then the actual breaching charge itself. They didn't have a need to fill the compartment with bullets, they could just pull the guards out.

Now, in contrast, looking at modern East African pirates, where they attack mostly unarmed ships, they use the gunmen on the boats to cover the advance of the assault team as they basically walk up the outer stairs. If there's any gun play, it happens before the actual boarding process. But on a starship, the crew is not exposed to attack like this.

If you have a prepared defender, the corridors of the ship are going to get very messy, very quickly. Close quarters combat in metal boxes filled either with ricocheting bullets and shrapnel, or combatants are just going to shoot through the walls and doors, making a mess of everything. Hand to hand combat with grenades.

The point of this being that a hostile attack very likely WILL prevail. You don't just "beam over a few men" to take a Federation Battle Cruiser. You blow holes in the hull, followed by grenades, pauses, then more grenades, then rushing through corridors to throw yet more grenades. You do this with armored assault teams. You send over enough to do the job, or…you don't bother.

So, because the price is just so blinking expensive, and so difficult, a hostile boarding will very rarely happen. The target vessel will simply be attacked until it is ready to receive boarders, peacefully, through the airlocks without the accompanying explosions and shrapnel.

A ships is capable of resisting boarding if it can make it clear that such an action will be very, very expensive. At that point, the attacker will either leave the ship alone, or just start blasting more holes in to the ship from afar with its ship board weaponry until the ship heaves to and is more amenable to boarding.

But if the crew is a bunch of rogue adventurers with little but a random shotgun and cutlass, having to do combat in vacuum in a vacc suit that actually offers little actual protection, eh, the outcome doesn't look good. Better to take the boarding, eject the cargo, scuttle the ship, or whatever other recourse may be available.

So, this is what makes it rare. if the defender is capable of defending, the attacker is likely not willing to pay the price to take it. If the defender is incapable of defending, then they may as well heave to or do something else. Both cases show little need for an actual hot boarding action of Marines swinging on ropes from ship to ship with knives in their teeth.

Finally, most likely, there is no impasse here. Save, perhaps "saving the Princess", once one ship dominates another, the target ship is a dead duck. In the end, it's "just pull along side of them and keep shooting them until the lights go out -- then we'll wait for the air to run out". "We don't have time to wait for the air to run out." "Oh, ok, just shoot them until the lights go out then. Make large holes in their engineering section, then we'll leave and they can suffocate on their own time. Just point the lasers until you see the red dot on their tail section, then turn the knob to 'extra crispy' and wiggle it around a bit until it's all glowing and broken. And grab a vector, maybe we can come back in a few months and track them down. We'll salvage it then."

 

[pendragonman]

The target's maneuver need not be destroyed if the aggressor is of higher maneuver value.

e.g. a Type A being boarded by a corsair. The type A has 1 g, the corsair is 3 g. Eventually the corsair will be able to do two critical things: Match vectors and close the range. Once they close range to within close enough for the Chariot-type manned torpedo Marine delivery system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chariot_manned_torpedo) your Marines in boarding kit can take it from there.

Even if the rotation of the target is not matched, the Marines will be able to latch on and the end is nigh.

If the target's maneuver is equal to or greater than the aggressor, then of course suppression of the target's engines is a must.

In either case, the target's weapons either need disabled or distracted by larger threats to allow the Marines to board. Larger threats include inbound missiles that keep the lasers busy. As dummy missiles are indistinguishable from live explosive devices, subterfuge can be used. If the target is missile armed, using missiles against individual chariots is countered by the aggressor's own laser counter battery fire.

 

[Enoki]

In MT and MgT (I'm not sure in other versions) even sandcastes can be quite letal to personnel performing EVA near the ship, so I guess this will only be used as last ressort, as risk involved is great...

I'd be far more concerned about debris around a target vessel than sand. Troops in battle armor, and even those in vac suits could easily carry a shield to protect themselves from sand or small debris. A big chunk of some ship is a totally different prospect.

 

[flykiller]

seems like it would be easier and cheaper just to buy the target ship.

 

[flykiller]

In either case, the target's weapons either need disabled or distracted by larger threats to allow the Marines to board. Larger threats include inbound missiles that keep the lasers busy.

I'd be far more concerned about debris around a target vessel than sand.

not to mention inbound missiles ....

 

[Condottiere]

How about if you snipe the bridge? Central control is gone.

 

[McPerth]

I'd be far more concerned about debris around a target vessel than sand. Troops in battle armor, and even those in vac suits could easily carry a shield to protect themselves from sand or small debris. A big chunk of some ship is a totally different prospect.

In MT (PH, page 80), a sandcaster fired at close range has a Damage value of 10 (average person can sustain 3 hits before being unconscious and 4-5 more before dying) and a penetratioon of 20 (BD has armor 10-18).

In MgT, the sandcaster can achieve with 1 damage point at close range (CB, page 149). As this is in ship scale, it's equivalent to 50 points at character scale (CB, page 151 sidebar).

In both cases sandcasters are expected to fire as shotgun's pellets, so covering an area (and possibiliy taking more than one trooper)

As I said, I don't know about other versions, but in this two cases, I see them as something to concern any EVA would be boarders... Sandcasters become what grapeshot was in Age of Sail when it comes to repel boarders, as long as they come in EVA.

 

[Lycanorukke]

In Babylon-5 you had boarding pods. They slipped in under weapons fire, clamped onto the station and drilled a hole through the hull. The troops inside then swarmed in.

As for disabling the ship have a modified version of a missile to function as an 'interdictor'. A (relatively) small nuclear damper is packed into it and it clamps onto the hull, activates, and knocks out the main power plant and local Fusion+ modules. The ship now has no weapons, no drives and no power except battery backup.

The other option may be to use a data caster to shut down the power plant (aka disable the power section), though that still leaves F+ modules for weapon power. The downside though is the range is miserable.

 

[flykiller]

in space, what does "slipped in under weapons fire" mean?