MGT Only: 3,000-ton escort carrier

[Brandon C]

This is still in progress as I am not sure what HG capital ship rules I will change or ignore. This is the TL 15 version.

3,000-ton escort carrier

The fleet carrier is capable of 3G acceleration, jump-3 and has a factor 3 power plant. Fuel tankage of 1,050 tons supports one jump-3 and 6 weeks of operation. Fifty tons of fuel are reserved for the small craft. The bridge and fleet command bridge have holographic controls and is hardened, with three Model 6/fib computers. Electronics include military countermeasures, enhanced signal processing and a distributed array. There are 70 staterooms and 12 low berths. Four briefing rooms and 3 armouries are also provided. Two tons are set aside for luxuries. The ship has 30 hardpoints, with 12 particle beam barbettes and 18 triple beam laser turrets. Two meson screens and two nuclear dampers are installed. The ship has stealth and armor 4. Armoured bulkheads protect the drives and bridges. The ship's small craft include, in full hangars, twenty 10-ton light fighters, three 30-ton ship's boats and three 10-ton maintenance pods. A launch tube rated for 10-ton craft is installed. Repair drones and five probe drones are carried. Cargo capacity is 95 tons.

Crew is a captain, first officer, 3 pilots, 3 navigators, 5 engineers, 26 flight mechanics, 38 gunners/screen operators, 3 medics, 20 fighter crew, 9 boat crew, and 10 marines. The extra staterooms are used for an admiral and his staff (when the carrier serves as a flagship). The ship costs MCr 2,542.59.

 

[CliffBates]

This is still in progress as I am not sure what HG capital ship rules I will change or ignore. This is the TL 15 version.

3,000-ton escort carrier

The fleet carrier is capable of 3G acceleration, jump-3 and has a factor 3 power plant. Fuel tankage of 1,050 tons supports one jump-3 and 6 weeks of operation. Fifty tons of fuel are reserved for the small craft. The bridge and fleet command bridge have holographic controls and is hardened, with three Model 6/fib computers. Electronics include military countermeasures, enhanced signal processing and a distributed array. There are 70 staterooms and 12 low berths. Four briefing rooms and 3 armouries are also provided. Two tons are set aside for luxuries. The ship has 30 hardpoints, with 12 particle beam barbettes and 18 triple beam laser turrets. Two meson screens and two nuclear dampers are installed. The ship has stealth and armor 4. Armoured bulkheads protect the drives and bridges. The ship's small craft include, in full hangars, twenty 10-ton light fighters, three 30-ton ship's boats and three 10-ton maintenance pods. A launch tube rated for 10-ton craft is installed. Repair drones and five probe drones are carried. Cargo capacity is 95 tons.

Crew is a captain, first officer, 3 pilots, 3 navigators, 5 engineers, 26 flight mechanics, 38 gunners/screen operators, 3 medics, 20 fighter crew, 9 boat crew, and 10 marines. The extra staterooms are used for an admiral and his staff (when the carrier serves as a flagship). The ship costs MCr 2,542.59.

You are joking.. this is wholly absurd. This ship is simply too small to be an effective carrier. Even in a small ship universe.. a fleet or escort carrier needs to be in the 20k range... I am sorry.. if your going to have more than one or two squadrons of fighters, and the cargo capacity to carry the parts and resupply ordinance for the fighter attack crafts.. this ship fails to meet the bill.

A fleet carriers ought to have at least 10-30 squadrons of fighters.. I am sorry but that is how things actually work given the scale of space you are dealing with. To operate with only 2 fighter squadrons is laughable... it give you no covering support if you send both out to attack the opponent. Even today most Carrier ops will have 4-8 squadrons and today that is enough given the speed vs space issues one deals with in today's naval combat environment.

 

[McPerth]

You are joking.. this is wholly absurd. This ship is simply too small to be an effective carrier. Even in a small ship universe.. a fleet or escort carrier needs to be in the 20k range... I am sorry.. if your going to have more than one or two squadrons of fighters, and the cargo capacity to carry the parts and resupply ordinance for the fighter attack crafts.. this ship fails to meet the bill.

A fleet carriers ought to have at least 10-30 squadrons of fighters.. I am sorry but that is how things actually work given the scale of space you are dealing with. To operate with only 2 fighter squadrons is laughable... it give you no covering support if you send both out to attack the opponent. Even today most Carrier ops will have 4-8 squadrons and today that is enough given the speed vs space issues one deals with in today's naval combat environment.

But in a universe where whips are limited (for whatever reasons, be them structural integrity, maximum size to jump, etc...) to 6000 dtons (as Brandon describes it) those 20000 dton carriers would not be posible, and the máximum you could have is a 6000 dtons one.

And remember this is described as an escort carrier, not thought for main battle, at least as main contenders...

 

[Brandon C]

And remember this is described as an escort carrier, not thought for main battle, at least as main contenders...

This is my fault for assuming readers would know the difference between a fleet and escort carrier.

Escort carriers are smaller and slower than fleet carriers. They general don't escort warships, but transports (troop, tankers, cargo, etc.) which are slower than warships.

Light carriers are similar to escort carriers, but faster, capable of keeping up with a fleet of warships.

And, thinking about it, that 5,000 ton fleet carrier should probably be 6,000 tons instead.

 

[CliffBates]

But in a universe where whips are limited (for whatever reasons, be them structural integrity, maximum size to jump, etc...) to 6000 dtons (as Brandon describes it) those 20000 dton carriers would not be posible, and the máximum you could have is a 6000 dtons one.

And remember this is described as an escort carrier, not thought for main battle, at least as main contenders...

So we are talking what pre TL 9 worlds.. without Jump. I am sorry but once you have space based construction then it makes no sense to build only small ships. The whole issue of small ships was due to the energy it took to get them in orbit.

Now if you are dealing with stuff like warp drives and distruptor beams or disintergrators then yes, small sized make sense.. as you need to you need to make your targets smaller so given a hit is a vaporized ship you need many smaller targets. Heck in such a world anything above 200tons would be foolish. But with lasers and PA and nuke missiles.. then the bigger the better so you can pile on the armor and load up the weapons.

This talk about 6k limit is just so arbitrary and not realistic as to what would happen if one would start building ships to move between stars.

 

[McPerth]

This talk about 6k limit is just so arbitrary and not realistic as to what would happen if one would start building ships to move between stars.

As arbitrary and non realistic as the lower limit at 100 dtons...

We (or at least I) don't know about jump, and so we don't know about the stresses to the materials and the fabric of space itself as to be sure of its limits, so the Referre has freedom to set them...

Brandon (using this same freedom) has set the limit in his TU at 6000, and so his fleet is based on this assumption

 

[Brandon C]

Brandon (using this same freedom) has set the limit in his TU at 6000, and so his fleet is based on this assumption

FWIW, the Yamato-class battleships were roughly around 6,500 Traveller tons, so my upper limit is good-sized by real world standards.

 

[Brandon C]

This talk about 6k limit is just so arbitrary and not realistic as to what would happen if one would start building ships to move between stars.

Aside from pocket empires of 6-15 worlds, I also don't play to have any very high population worlds. I think both of these combined should be sufficient to provide an in-game reason for limits on ship size.

 

[aramis]

You are joking.. this is wholly absurd. This ship is simply too small to be an effective carrier. Even in a small ship universe.. a fleet or escort carrier needs to be in the 20k range... I am sorry.. if your going to have more than one or two squadrons of fighters, and the cargo capacity to carry the parts and resupply ordinance for the fighter attack crafts.. this ship fails to meet the bill.

A fleet carriers ought to have at least 10-30 squadrons of fighters.. I am sorry but that is how things actually work given the scale of space you are dealing with. To operate with only 2 fighter squadrons is laughable... it give you no covering support if you send both out to attack the opponent. Even today most Carrier ops will have 4-8 squadrons and today that is enough given the speed vs space issues one deals with in today's naval combat environment.

You're conflating small ship universe with mid-ship universe.

SSU almost exclusively means ≤5000 Tons (The limit of CT Bk2), while mid-ship is Star Trek TOS-Sized - to about 20-25 KTd.

 

[CliffBates]

Aside from pocket empires of 6-15 worlds, I also don't play to have any very high population worlds. I think both of these combined should be sufficient to provide an in-game reason for limits on ship size.

But until you bump into a race or new people who does...

Yes in a pocket empire, you would have need for perhaps 2-3 big boys.. 30k.. as was the case after the Fall of the Rule of Man and during the Dark Night.. Then the most you would need is enough frigates and patrol your space to prevent pirates and project the flag. But to call these things anything more than frigates is to misrepresent them. The second they ran up to a Tigeress or the Planten or a Fair Phillys they are toast.

Or what happens when something like the TCN Ark Royal shows up from a misjump and then you are screwed...

 

[CliffBates]

You're conflating small ship universe with mid-ship universe.

SSU almost exclusively means ≤5000 Tons (The limit of CT Bk2), while mid-ship is Star Trek TOS-Sized - to about 20-25 KTd.

That was always wrong with Star Trek TOS.. was how underpowered their weapons were vs their power sources and their engine speeds. Why arn't photo torps warped power.. the kinetic energy impact alone would vaporize most of those sized ships. Heck remember how in the episode about the Romulian Warbird that dumps a Nuke self-destruct and how the blast rocked the Enterprise.. but come on.. a photo torpedo would actually have much more of a bang than a thermo nuke.

Look at the OTU Ancients if one looks at the way they moved through intra-galatic teleportation systems, their weapons were vastly destructive, but what we are shown of their ships they are smallish. Very small in comparison to that of the battleships of the 3rd Imperium.

 

[CliffBates]

FWIW, the Yamato-class battleships were roughly around 6,500 Traveller tons, so my upper limit is good-sized by real world standards.

The Yamato given that in Traveller 14m³ is 1 dton would be 7824.4571 dtons.. and that is a world were you can operate outside the surface of the ship. That is also not counting the stuff above the main deck... so lets say that would add 20% that would make its nearly 10k dtons. The modern carrier is of the Nimitz class is 245143.43dton and again that is only counting up to the flight deck not things above it... and in space you would have to have the whole flight deck enclosed and high enough to move stuff comfortably.

 

[aramis]

The Yamato given that in Traveller 14m³ is 1 dton would be 7824.4571 dtons.. and that is a world were you can operate outside the surface of the ship. That is also not counting the stuff above the main deck... so lets say that would add 20% that would make its nearly 10k dtons. The modern carrier is of the Nimitz class is 245143.43dton and again that is only counting up to the flight deck not things above it... and in space you would have to have the whole flight deck enclosed and high enough to move stuff comfortably.

The Yamato's bounding box and water displacement both bear out a roughly 6500 Td number, but that's quibbling. Her frame was designed for no more than 1.5G loading, and her own mass was well more than capable of snapping her in half. Supported mass loads are different from dynamic thrust loads.

And SSU for most purposes is code for "CT Bk2 universe". Note that CT Bk2 also limits a 5KTd ship to 2 Gs at TL15. Given that maximum drives on a 5KTd Bk2 design (ZZZ) are 245 Td, require 8 engineers, 7 cadre, 1 ea. Pilot, Navigator, and Medic, and 1020Td of fuel; maximum turrests and their crews add 50x(1+4)=250 Td of weapons, and 72Td of crew staterooms... leaving the CT Bk2 "BB" a bit over 3600 Td of "Non-weapon payload" - which can be fighters, marines, cargo, labs, or an extra jump of fuel...

Given the CT standard "10 Ton Fighter", adding a stateroom and a ton of stores, the BBV is mounting 240 fighters and pilots, or more likely, 225 plus some repair techs.

Those are the dictates of that design system.

Many of us with SSUs don't use Bk2, but still retain those size ranges.

Some use MGT for the same effect - one can extrapolate the tables out to 5KTd easily, and about 10 KTd is the limit of drive Z.

So, given the OP's initial comments about it being an escort carrier - most real world historical CVEs carried 12 to 30 combat aircraft. 1-2 squadrons, plus some spares and support. That's pretty much what he's hit here.

A fleet carrier (CV/CVM) should be about 35-50, and a fleet carrier 50-75.

 

[Brandon C]

A fleet carrier (CV/CVM) should be about 35-50, and a fleet carrier 50-75.

I can get 50+ 10-ton fighters in a MgT 5,000 ton carrier, but even armed with beam lasers they are of marginal usefulness. For a more useful particle beam armament, a 20-ton fighter is required, which doubles the size of the launch tube (250 to 500 tons) and really cuts down on the number of fighters.

(part of this is that MgT:HG requires a hanger at 130% of craft volume if external work is to be performed on it)

If I go up to a 6,000 ton carrier (still Jump-3, 4G), I can get 40x10-ton fighters and 10x20 ton fighters ... or 75x10-ton fighters.

 

[Brandon C]

But until you bump into a race or new people who does...

Which is entierly under my control as GM.

Yes in a pocket empire, you would have need for perhaps 2-3 big boys.. 30k.. as was the case after the Fall of the Rule of Man and during the Dark Night.. Then the most you would need is enough frigates and patrol your space to prevent pirates and project the flag. But to call these things anything more than frigates is to misrepresent them. The second they ran up to a Tigeress or the Planten or a Fair Phillys they are toast.

I think six 5,000 ton ships would be more generally useful than one 30,000 ton ship -- and I can actually use a 5,000 ton ship in a campaign without a wargame space battle.

Or what happens when something like the TCN Ark Royal shows up from a misjump and then you are screwed...

Again, as GM I control what ships and empires are present in my campaign.

 

[wbyrd]

I go away for a day and miss the fun.

A Jeep carrier uusally only carried one or two squadrons. It's role as convoy escort, anti-sub patrol, and support for ground forces did not require more than that.

A light( Jeep) carrier is a secondary support vessel at best. If it gets involved in a battle SOMEONE needs their butt kicked.

 

[Condottiere]

If standard fleet carriers can only limp around at factor two, they too, aren't supposed to be anywhere near the battle line.

 

[Brandon C]

If standard fleet carriers can only limp around at factor two, they too, aren't supposed to be anywhere near the battle line.

This was mainly why I used CT HG -- not to build large ships, but to allow a 5,000 ton ship be more than a plodding target

 

[McPerth]

I can get 50+ 10-ton fighters in a MgT 5,000 ton carrier, but even armed with beam lasers they are of marginal usefulness. For a more useful particle beam armament, a 20-ton fighter is required, which doubles the size of the launch tube (250 to 500 tons) and really cuts down on the number of fighters.

(Bold is mine)

Not necessarely:

10 dton fighters:

Item	Notes	Tonnage	MCr
10 dton hull	Hull: 0 Structure:1	10	1
Streamlined	-	-	0.1
Armor	Bonded Superdense 15 points	1.25	1.25
Gravitic Drive sF	Thrust=12	3	6
Fusion Power Plant sG	Power=12	3	6
Fuel	12 hours	0.075	-
Crew Cockpit	1 Crewmember (pilot)	1.5	0.05
Computer Model 3	Rating 15	-	2
Electronics	Standard (-4)	-	-
Weapons	Triple turret: 1 PB (accurate, very high yeld, variable range)	1	5
Software	Maneuver	-	-
-	Fire Control/3	-	8
Totals	-	0.175	26.46

This is a very small fighter with made as survivable and hard punched as posible. Being single seated, the PB uses to be fired by the computer (as it has FC/3, it fires at +2). Though quite expensive (about 1.5 the Price of the fighter shown in CB page 136), it represents a difficult enemy to face.

(part of this is that MgT:HG requires a hanger at 130% of craft volume if external work is to be performed on it)

But it's unlikely you need to work in all your fighters externally at once. Maybe just having such full hangers for 5-10% of your fighters may be enough, while the rest can be in smaller ones (and so not able to be externally serviced/repaired, but fully opperative otherwise), or even externally in Docking Clamps (1 dton per clamp, as per HG page 46), so forfeiting the need of the launching tubes (I asume all the clamped small crafts may be launched at once, as can all the drop tanks that are also so clamped)...

 

[wbyrd]

If standard fleet carriers can only limp around at factor two, they too, aren't supposed to be anywhere near the battle line.

Quite honestly a carrier that has any sort of direct combat capability is a waste of tonnage. They are not supposed to be in the same postal code as direct actions. IF a carrier is threatened with direct contact it's first action should be to drop a bomb in the lap of the escort battle groups commander.

It's primary striking power and defense is it's fighter group. and In a fleet battle the fighters should be launched, and the carriers withdrawn to a safe distance. Behind it's destroyer/cruiser screen, and lots and lots of frigates and corvettes to boot.

f it is carrying more than PD, and Turret lasers/sand, it is definitely not using it's tonnage to cram in every last fighter it can carry.

Special purpose battle/strategic strike carriers might be better armed and protected simply because they are expected to jump into a hornets nest.