A different paradigm for naval warfare (and maybe even piracy?)

[atpollard]

I could not find any rules in HG that would prohibit stuffing a 1000 dTon spinal mount in a 2000 dTon hull – assuming the PP will fit. (although I am confident that someone will point it out if I did miss some rule

). As a privateer who jumps in at the 100 diameter limit to grab a merchant, how many systems would have even 1 ship able to attack it without it becoming a suicide run? Sub 10,000 dTon SDBs would suffer multiple critical hits per combat round. Imagine the Privateer just waiting with impunity for a merchant ship to arrive in system (jump fuel empty) with the option to surrender of be utterly destroyed. Imagine the communications to the Imperial Navy when it finally leaves with however many undamaged merchant ships it can crew. If there is anyone big enough to attack it, the Privateer is already at the jump limit ready to escape.

How many BIG ships would the navy need to send to a sector to hunt this ship down? It sounds like a reasonable investment to disrupt trade, force insurance premiums through the roof, and divert resources from the battlefront. If one small craft will fund a typical pirate for a year, how much revenue would multiple Fat Traders and Liners bring in?

If OT is a “big navy” universe, then the privateers will need to adapt. My proposed Privateer is still too small to attack a real 100,000+ dTon warship, but imagine a pack of ships funded by captured Prizes. This would require a reputation for allowing the crews to escape to encourage surrender instead of destruction. But even destruction will achieve the strategic goal if not the immediate tactical and financial goal.

 

[flykiller]

if piracy at 100d is a serious problem then the port authority would simply designate inbound and outbound zones and park a monitor or SDB near each one.

and there's no need to track down such a pirate. assign a q ship to the routes where the pirate must operate and eventually the pirate himself will find the q ship.

 

[Whipsnade]

AT,

Oddly enough, that's one of the plots in The Traveller Adventure. A faction inside Arekut is helping a Vargr corsair group get spinal mount weaponry for a ship the corsairs are building.

The buy-in costs are huge, that spinal mount and the power plant it requires will cost more than many entire ships. The raider itself is 'fragile' too. The more you orient it towards this type of raiding, the less it can defend itself against real warships. And of course time is still a factor.

There are hundred of little details that all take time, details that can all go wrong. The raider needs to dispatch prize crews. The prize crew small craft need to intercept ships. The prize crew then needs to take over ship control-wise. One tactic in the age of sail was to disable the rigging leaving the boarders the option of spending hours on repairs or simply looting and leaving, so what would spiking the main computer do? If the ship's just arrived, as you suggested, they need to be refueled before jumping. As you can see, the devil is in the details.

Your prize crews also run the risk of being overpowered and becoming hostages. What does the raider do then? Destroy the target with it's crew aboard?

In the end you have a very expense, very specialized vessel designed with a marginal 'business plan' in mind. That Vargr corsair group in TTA wasn't building a commerce raider or privateer, they were building a warship they could use for many other things including commerce raiding and privateering. Can what you suggest have happened somewhere in the history of the OTU? Sure, why not. Is it SOP for commerce raiding? I think not.

The entities who can most easily afford to build such an expensive, one-use-only warship are governments and governments aren't going to be interested in capturing a gaggle of Beowulfs or any other merchantmen. That's chump change to someone who can set tax rates.

Commerce raiding is a type of strategic warfare. A government will be more interested in getting the biggest bang for it's buck than it will be in stealing a cargo container of Whangan necksleeves. A government raider will either damage or destroy merchant shipping, not capture and board merchant shipping because you can do more of the former than the latter. The government raider will arrive in system(1), order all merchant crews within range to abandon their vessels by a certain time, and then smash each vessel in turn with the spinal mount. This is far quicker, much more simple, involves less risk, and still achieves the strategic objectives of commerce raiding.

Now, this is not to say that a raider or two hasn't gone rogue in the long history of the OTU and done exactly what you propose. It is to say that that was an exceptional exception however!

YMMV.


Have fun,
Bill

1 - You can't arrive at the jump limit. You don't know when you'll arrive, so you don't know where the jump limit will be. This is being discussed ad nauseum on the T5 playtest board.

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by atpollard:
I could not find any rules in HG that would prohibit stuffing a 1000 dTon spinal mount in a 2000 dTon hull – assuming the PP will fit. (although I am confident that someone will point it out if I did miss some rule

).

spinal mount - 1000t
bridge for 2000t ship - 40t
TL15 power plant for smallest spinal - 700t
fuel for the above - 700t
computer
crew staterooms

It doesn't fit

You could limit the duration of the power plant...

As a privateer who jumps in at the 100 diameter limit to grab a merchant, how many systems would have even 1 ship able to attack it without it becoming a suicide run? Sub 10,000 dTon SDBs would suffer multiple critical hits per combat round. Imagine the Privateer just waiting with impunity for a merchant ship to arrive in system (jump fuel empty) with the option to surrender of be utterly destroyed. Imagine the communications to the Imperial Navy when it finally leaves with however many undamaged merchant ships it can crew. If there is anyone big enough to attack it, the Privateer is already at the jump limit ready to escape.

How many BIG ships would the navy need to send to a sector to hunt this ship down? It sounds like a reasonable investment to disrupt trade, force insurance premiums through the roof, and divert resources from the battlefront. If one small craft will fund a typical pirate for a year, how much revenue would multiple Fat Traders and Liners bring in?

If OT is a “big navy” universe, then the privateers will need to adapt. My proposed Privateer is still too small to attack a real 100,000+ dTon warship, but imagine a pack of ships funded by captured Prizes. This would require a reputation for allowing the crews to escape to encourage surrender instead of destruction. But even destruction will achieve the strategic goal if not the immediate tactical and financial goal.

The large ship High Guard OTU does not favour pirates - especially with the weapon ranges given in Mayday.

Restrict the weapon ranges and it's a different ball game...

 

[atpollard]

I didn't run the numbers, but I had a gut feeling the PP might not fit. The basic concept of a vest-pocket warship still applies, it will just need to be a little bigger. 3000 dTons? 4000 dTons? It will still require several MUCH larger warships to hunt it down and ships under 10,000 dTons will still suffer multiple critical hits.

Unless the Navy has Dreadnaughts at most major ports, a small ship with a spinal mount will pose a problem for most Type A starports with lots of traffic.

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by atpollard:
I didn't run the numbers, but I had a gut feeling the PP might not fit. The basic concept of a vest-pocket warship still applies, it will just need to be a little bigger. 3000 dTons? 4000 dTons? It will still require several MUCH larger warships to hunt it down and ships under 10,000 dTons will still suffer multiple critical hits.

Unless the Navy has Dreadnaughts at most major ports, a small ship with a spinal mount will pose a problem for most Type A starports with lots of traffic.

In which case you can definitely fit such a package in 5kt - and give it maneuver/agility 6.

No jump fuel, but a tender or drop tanks can take care of that...

Note that your original idea would work using High Guard first edition.

 

[atpollard]

Bill,

Unfortunately I tend to agree. The concept of Pirates in Dreadnoughts seemed silly, so I was just trying to figure out how to build a pirate ship big enough that it could hold its own against the SDBs arriving within two hours (or less) of the first Mayday. Bay weapons just don’t have the same “kick-ass” factor as spinal mounts.

If I were going to steal a ship, I would sign on as a gunner, work for a few months, have some companions book a low berth, and kill the crew in jump space with a pistol. That gives me a week without any official interruptions to clean up the mess.

 

[atpollard]

Originally posted by Bill Cameron:
1 - You can't arrive at the jump limit. You don't know when you'll arrive, so you don't know where the jump limit will be. This is being discussed ad nauseum on the T5 playtest board.

I thought that in the kinder and gentler days of CT, a ship which intersected the jump limit simply fell out of Jump Space at the limit.

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by atpollard:
The concept of Pirates in Dreadnoughts seemed silly...

AT,

It isn't exactly silly. It's just on the far edge of plausibility, that's all.

... so I was just trying to figure out how to build a pirate ship big enough...

That's the rub. If you already have enough money to build such a vessel, why are you stealing ships and cargos in the first place? It's like building a complete CVN battlegroup to knock over the corner 7-11.

If I were going to steal a ship...

And that's what makes the idea barely plausible, the ship has somehow been stolen. Or the owners want you to believe it was stolen!

So, a government built it and now someone else is using it. Could be mutineers, rogue naval elements of a defeated power, folks who hijacked it out of a storage facility, there are many different 'answers' you can apply to the question of how the pirate got their hands on it.

The question then becomes how long can they keep it up? Manning and maintaining the ship is going to be a bugger. There are very specialised skills at use here, you just don't find spinal mount battery chiefs holding down a stool at the local tavern. Ditto dependable prize crews. Finding someplace to fence all the cargos and ships you'll snatch is another big problem too. If they plan on building a 'nest egg' and then disappearing, they'll do well. Quit before the Powers That Be can mobilize after you. Keep it up too long or try and shift your operation elsewhere and you're doomed.

If someone pulled it off the events would be legendary.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by atpollard:
I thought that in the kinder and gentler days of CT, a ship which intersected the jump limit simply fell out of Jump Space at the limit.

AT,

It's always been that way even during the days of CT. Mass precipitation is not required, deep space jumps are as old as The Traveller Adventure. As for the effects of jump's temporal uncertainty, folks just didn't think about it.

Sure, we've lots and lots of color text about 'hitting the jump limit'. However, we also have jump drive's temporal uncertainty given to us in an authorial voice. Jump arrival occurs in a 33.6 hour window.

Star, planets, and moons all move. They all move vast distance in 33.6 hours too. If you don't know when you arrive, how can you 'aim' at a moving target? You can arrive anywhere between Time A and Time A+33.6 hours. Where is that jump limit going to be at Time A? Where is the jump limit going to be at Time A+33.6 hours?

Try this little thought experiment. Mark off 20 boxes in a straight line on a sheet of paper and label them one through twenty. Choose one box, that is your jump arrival point. Roll a single d20 and mark the result.

Tell me, how often does the box you chose and the box you rolled coincide? Often enough to bet your life on?


Have fun,
Bill

 

[flykiller]

how the pirate got their hands on it.

well, the spinward marches have had five big wars. there are probably quite a few old forgotten ships of varying tech levels, flags, and types that had big vectors when hit and went sailing out into high-eccentricity long-period orbits. how long can a backup crew low berth sustain a man?

so some prospector with a seeker detects some way-off-course asteroid and rushes out hoping to mine virgin territory. and he finds ....

 

[atpollard]

Originally posted by Bill Cameron:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by atpollard:
If I were going to steal a ship...

And that's what makes the idea barely plausible, the ship has somehow been stolen. Or the owners want you to believe it was stolen! </font>[/QUOTE]You made an interesting point, but I was unclear in my earlier post. “If I were going to steal a ship...” was intended to replace piracy, not acquire military hardware. Forget about attacking ships in deep space, just steal them in jump space. One man, One pistol, one week without Imperial interference and you can have a Free Trader, undamaged except for the blood stains on the carpet. Lower overhead and startup costs mean a higher profit margin … and the bank is looking for the Captain who skipped out on his loan.

Do they have starship “chop shops”?

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by atpollard:
piracy, not acquire military hardware. Forget about attacking ships in deep space, just steal them in jump space.

AT,

Good thinking! What you suggest happens all the time or, more accurately, it is attempted all the time and succeeds often enough for people to be worried. Remember the Anti-Hijack program in the CT computer section?

Of course the Yo-Ho-Hos and Mugwumps will grouse that hijacking isn't piracy. Well it is in my books. What's more, when hijacking planes became popular in the early 70s, laws and procedure were put in place to end what was described then as air piracy.

Do they have starship “chop shops”?

But of course! Think of all those out of the way locations scattered throughout all those star systems. All those places where a piece of equipment might mean whether you can breathe or not. You think they're going to go out of their way looking at ownership papers? Parts is parts.

And some of those players are right out in the open on hi-pop worlds with Class A ports. As long as your papers are forged well enough, they'll buy what you're selling. They'll even help you find a forger!


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Tobias]

Originally posted by atpollard:
http://www.falkayn.com/traveller/jp/commerce.html

Ah, there it is. I had noticed it somewhere else some time ago but failed to make a note of it. This is as good a time as ever to point out a flaw in that article that I had noticed at that time:
The assertion that practically all merchant shipping in the Atlantic survived (though the statistics given may actually be true on some level - too ambiguous) and especially the conclusion that U-Boats threatened the war effort only indirectly by forcing the Allies to use convoys and counterefforts.
This is, simply speaking, nonsense. Some non-ambiguous statistics:
Total world merchant marine tonnage (minus Axis powers) in 1939:
55 Million
Total new construction 1939-1945
39 Million
Total merchant tonnage sunk by German forces (U-boats accounted for approx. 2/3 of this)
21 Million
In other words, of all oceangoing merchant ships that existed during the 1939-1945 period, ~22% were destroyed by German forces; ~15% by U-Boats alone. The vast majority of those losses fell into 1940-1943.
It is quite obvious that the Allies (to be specific: Britain) couldn't have even maintained its peacetime economic requirements, let alone its war economy, without a massive construction effort. The U-Boats did not work by stretching military resources for protection but by taxing the industrial capacity of the shipyards. This was their major impact, in terms of strategic warfare, until the "Battle of the Atlantic" was decided in early to mid-1943. Only after that the rationale to keep up the U-Boat war changed to occupying military resources (especially aircraft) that would have otherwise been used elsewhere.

Regards,

Tobias

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by Tobias:
[QB]The assertion that practically all merchant shipping in the Atlantic survived (though the statistics given may actually be true on some level - too ambiguous) and especially the conclusion that U-Boats threatened the war effort only indirectly by forcing the Allies to use convoys and counterefforts. This is, simply speaking, nonsense.QB]

Tobias,

Sorry, but you're the one spouting nonsense now.

The claim wasn't invented by me. Indeed, at first I refused to believe it. It was only after I ran the numbers that I reluctantly agreed.

It was made and proven by Clay Blair, the preeminent submarine historian of the 20th Century, a fellow of the US Naval Proceedings Institute, and a WW2 submarine officer. You need to read his two volume set Hitler's U-Boat War and get a fresh look at the events.

In that work he puts paid to several myths regarding the Battle of the Atlantic. He refutes the usual claims regarding the Type-XXI 'wonder subs' (they sucked and Coastal Command sank over 20), places the causes of "Operation Drumbeat" into context (it wasn't Admiral King's fault, it was Roosevelt's if anyone), and exposes Donitz' faulty
'tonnage warfare' strategy (a banana boat of Sierra Leone doesn't equate a tanker off Liverpool.)

He also tracks down the "shipping crisis" claims you refer to. Oddly enough, Admiralty documents and memos written during the war make no mention of it, it can't even be found in the secret minutes of the Allied Anti-U-Boat Division or the minutes of the various Allied strategic conferences. Even more oddly, this frightful 'crisis' which everyone faithfully repeats only first appears in 1956 in the Admiralty's official history - a history written with political concerns and public consumption fully in mind and a history that fails to mention Engima and several other technical advances even once.

Simply throwing out tonnage numbers without putting them in context is worthless. The U-boats' tonnage per day at sea numbers began to fall as early as 1940. Even the entry of the US in December of '41 and the second happy time in early '42 off the eastern US failed to keep those numbers from dropping. In Spetember of '40 with an average of 13 U-boats at sea on any given day, an average of 753 GRT per boat per day at sea was achieved. One year later in Spetember of '41, and in the middle of the shipping 'crisis' everyone mindlessly repeats, an average of 36.5 boats were at sea on any given and an average of 186 GRT per boat per day was achieved. After that the GRT averages dropped even further. Twice the boats, a quarter the tonnage, and we're somehow in a 'crisis'?

Only 14 commanders accounted for nearly 20 percent of sinkings. Only 131 boats sank or damaged six or more ships. 850 commissioned German U-boats never sank or damaged a single ship. The U-boats came nowhere near to winning the war or closing the Atlantic. Period.

The tonnage war, if it ever existed, was over by 1941 before US entry. While aircraft were important killers of U-boats, ASW went begging for aircraft throughout the war. In fact, raising the speed for independent sailings from 13 to 15 knots was as statistically important in reducing sinkings as closing the central Atlantic 'air gap' was. Context counts.

What the U-boats did do was force the Allies to expend resources, materials, and men to contain them, just as Allied strategic bombing - which never came close to winning the war either - forced the Germans to tie up approximately 750K men in all aspects of air defense (including production).

After Waterloo, the British quickly forgot that it was the Prussian arrival on Napoleon's right flank that won the day. The British even forgot about the Hanoverian, Belgian, and Dutch troops that fought with them at Waterloo. Suddenly it was Britian alone who defeated Napoleon. The same sort of 'after action' bragging has occured regarding the Battle of the Atlantic on both sides. Both sides inflated the threat posed by the U-boats in order to inflate their role history.

Thankfully, we have the numbers and historians not afraid to use them.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Arthur Denger]

Originally posted by Bill Cameron:

So, a government built it and now someone else is using it. Could be mutineers, rogue naval elements of a defeated power, folks who hijacked it out of a storage facility, there are many different 'answers' you can apply to the question of how the pirate got their hands on it.

The question then becomes how long can they keep it up? Manning and maintaining the ship is going to be a bugger. There are very specialised skills at use here, you just don't find spinal mount battery chiefs holding down a stool at the local tavern. Ditto dependable prize crews. Finding someplace to fence all the cargos and ships you'll snatch is another big problem too. If they plan on building a 'nest egg' and then disappearing, they'll do well. Quit before the Powers That Be can mobilize after you. Keep it up too long or try and shift your operation elsewhere and you're doomed.

Back in the Terran Age of Sail, many so-called pirate crews began their careers as legitimate, even distinguished, naval crews. Permitted during wartime to privateer (plunder enemy shipping), at the cessation of hostilities those naval officers and crews were understandably reluctant to end this lucrative practice (in many cases their own governments could not pay them, or owed them egregious amounts of back-pay). Piracy was an economic imperative for many crews in these circumstances. (Besides, they liked getting all that booty!)

Naturally, in almost every case the pirates were eventually killed. Those who weren't killed outright were captured and put on public trial, then executed; not infrequently by the very government that had given them license to plunder in the first place. When the governmental authorities grant a Letter of Marque it's privateering, otherwise it's piracy.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Bill--

Excellent reference replies with U-Boat war paradigm, and the exaggerations of roles in post war revisionist historians.

I think I see coalescing here several key things, besides the colloquilaism of Camp Yo-Ho-Ho-ists, & Camp Mugwumpism. As noted earlier by yourself, Walt Smith's article on Piracy (which I have perused many times) does prove crime does pay in heisted smallcraft alone.

Even in a Small ship universe, these versatile spacecraft far outnumber jump capable hulls in ANY region of space, save the most primitive corners of the TU where Tech levels remain below TL5.

Hijacking/ Sky-jacking is by RL-RW Law, legally "Air-piracy", so I see no denial ( Save from die-hards in the Yo-Ho-Ho, or Mugwump camps ) possible in this. Whether you 'jack a Starship (Jump 1+) or a 10dton Gig or 95dton Shuttle, or multi-kiloton Lighter--its piracy.
So you dump and kill the crew? Once away, you can deal with swag and where to drop it off, and even the vehicle.
Many a mystery "Ghost" ship in Traveller coming crewless out of jump had some reality in this method of vessel seizure (And the Hijackers escaped, to do it again), IMTU...

Insystem traffic Piracy--Previous posters are absolutely right! A well settled system will have outposts that non-jump ships are cheaper to make and maintain to keep these places supplied in food and supplies, mail, and take back to the main world (That place named in the UWP)starport.

Wrecking as Piracy-- Guaranteed, and no argument. Wrecking a starship/ spacecraft destined somewhere and making off with its parts, cargoes and valuables is theft, and thus,is a form of "Piracy".

"Privateering" vs 'Commerce Raiding'--
Defining Privateering by the seizure and capture of Vessels is fraught with more risks to the Privateer unquestionably. Destroying the enemy's commercial shipping is far easier, and weigh less risk to the Privateer-Commerce Raider in the TU, as well as the real world.

I point to the examples of the 20th century submarine warfare (US-Pacific vs Japan/ German efforts vs. Allied Shipping). In No way was it even feasible to take on survivors of a vessel--life aboard these tiny ships couldn't sustain it. The age of 'chivalrously' allowing the crew to abandon ship before destruction of said vessel went out in WW 1, with the advent of Q-Ships.

I refer to the better definition seen in the TNE-Players Handbook under the career "Corsair"--a person who engages in the theft of persons, cargoes, off of other people's starships/ spacecraft, sometimes the whole vessel included.

Now in the TNE-Setting, there is cases to be made for all sides in the region of the Reformation Coalition Space to seize starships/ spacecraft from people--whether they are marooned relic ships, or under full operation--its cheaper than building one usually, and the lack of Shipyards around after the collapse.
The Guild attacked and ransacked ships of the Dawn League; The Soleean Empire captured RCES ships; The RCES conducted ship-to-planet raids seizing hostile power starships; Planetary rulers seized RCES starships, sometimes for their own use, sometimes as barter with the Guild--all of this is a form of Piracy .

The RCES sponsored with their Auction system a sort of privateering in the fact that even if the group seizing the vessel couldn't afford to keep it afterwards, they made a 5% Finders' Share of the final proceeds from the vessel sold off-- Prize money, if you would. 5 % of Hull value is still a lot of credits when you consider most of these ships require a small crew of folks to fly back (Crews of 2-8 folks).

Other examples of State Sponsored commerce raiding-etc can be found in the 992 TU in Gateway product by QLI--the Raidermarch polity's Navy practices this form of "Naval Operations" against its neighbors, and blames missing ships on rogue piratical outfits.

In the Gateway Sector, several "Pirate States" have evolved ala like Bill's Madagascar example did.

True Yo-Ho-Ho-ism--if thats what you want in your TU, great. True MugWumpism--its too costly therefore doesn't exist--its Your TU, great.

But in regions where Naval patrols, and vigilance are low to non existent, corruption of officials is high, and Laws glossed over for the tally sheet in the scales of justice-- there the predators of the TU will lurk, practicing the theft of Persons, Cargoes, from Vessels, sometimes even their ships entirely.

Great topic ya'll!

 

[Tobias]

Originally posted by Bill Cameron:
It was made and proven by Clay Blair, the preeminent submarine historian of the 20th Century,

Yeah, similar to how it was proven by him that the initial US response to the U-Boat threat under Admiral King was on the whole sound and reasonable, eh?
Actually preeminent historians like Michael Gannon tend to disagree.

a fellow of the US Naval Proceedings Institute, and a WW2 submarine officer.

He never served as an officer, nor in any position that would allow him to actually be involved in command functions.

You need to read his two volume set Hitler's U-Boat War and get a fresh look at the events.

Did. But I read more than one book on the subject.

He refutes the usual claims regarding the Type-XXI wonder subs,

No, he simply spouted off his biased opinion and made several false assertions over alleged failures in their constructions, which it took me about 30 minutes to shoot down (at the time I had access to archives documenting the decade-long service of XXIs.)

and exposes Donitz faulty tonnage warfare strategy

Oh yeah, the other flaw in the article.
Actually, the Germans, when it was feasible, *did* concentrate on high-value targets (Tankers, usually.) However, unlike the Americans, who were going up against a non-convoying enemy whose every move they were informed about, they couldn't be choosers most of the time.

Simply throwing out tonnage numbers without putting them in context is worthless.

So, in your opinion, the Allies could've just continued at peacetime ship construction levels (less than 1 million tons per year) and still have all their transport needs satisfied?
No?
Then don't go about how the only effect of the U-Boats was tying up defenses. It was tying up strategic industries (until 1943.) The Allies won because they had enough of those. To use the words of Masson, neither Imperial nor Nazi Germany was big enough to take on coalitions of the world's principal great powers all by itself.

The U-boats' tonnage per day at sea numbers began to fall as early as 1940.

Transition of a target-rich environment with very few boats at sea to a less target-rich environment with more boats at sea.

After that the GRT averages dropped even further.

Just a few notes on your flawed comparison:
- You arbitrarily compared one month to another, which is not an acceptable method.
- Notwithstanding the number of boats at sea (which is, without actual analysis of how, what, where, not relevant) the total tonnage of destroyed merchant shipping increased (and the worst year was actually 1942, not 1941.)
- "Shipping crisis" is a historiographical term (and one you brought up), not a historical one, and you should be aware of the difference.

850 commissioned German U-boats never sank or damaged a single ship.

The vast majority of which were comissioned after 1943, many of which did not ever go on a war patrol.
That the U-Boat war was strategically lost by ~May 1943 is undisputed.

The U-boats came nowhere near to winning the war or closing the Atlantic.

Who has claimed that now, anyway?
But they were not merely tying up military resources needed to combat them but strategic resources needed to rebuild what they destroyed.

The tonnage war, if it ever existed, was over by 1941 before US entry.

Which is why merchant ship losses in 1942 were twice that of 1941?
Ain't buying it.

What the U-boats did do was force the Allies to expend resources, materials, and men to contain them,

No, that is what they did post-1943. What they did before was that and force the Allies to expend strategic resources to rebuild what they had destroyed (and then some.)

Timeo hominem unius libri. I would advise you to widen your horizon somewhat beyond Blair's (IMHO biased and lacking, if massive) work. Maybe works by Gannon, or Terraine's "Business in Great Waters".
And just remember:
22% of all merchant tonnage that existed on this planet (minus the Axis) 1939-1945. I see no way how you are going to work this into a theory of how the actual sinkings were irrelevant.

Regards,

Tobias

 

[atpollard]

I have one or two concerns about blindly accepting the assertion that 20th Century Technology rendered 18th Century warfare utterly useless AND THEREFORE the Traveller universe must be fought with 20th Century tactics instead of 18th Century tactics. Please correct me if and where I am wrong – this is me thinking out loud as much as anything else.

The defining characteristic of Age of Sail battles was the fact that they were slow by modern standards. Limited communication means that help is usually far away, information travels slowly, and ships operate (to a large extent) on their own. The ships were tougher than the weapons, so defeat involved a long slow pounding.

Modern battles, by contrast, are swift and deadly. Weapons far exceed defenses and a small missile can sink a large warship with a single hit. Rapid communications means that reinforcements can be on the way as soon as a threat is detected. The ability of submarines to “hide” under the oceans is the only source of a “surprise attack” against an alert foe (there is no cure for complacency). With the weapons tougher than the ships, defeat is swift – leaving little time to ponder surrender.

Traveller seems to fall somewhere between these two historic models. Communication is fast within a system (like the Modern Era) but slow between systems (like the Age of Sail). The ships seem a little tougher than the weapons since there are few one-hit-kills and defeat usually takes the form of a long pounding. In-system reinforcements are on the way and will arrive in hours (typically). If help is needed from another system, then it will take weeks to get here.

 

[atpollard]

PIRATES:
Age of Sail: Pirates have time to seize a ship, repair the damage and escape before anyone could come to interfere. Rescue from a pirate attack was the exception rather than the rule.

The Modern Age: Pirates are more “snatch and grab” thugs on the seas – What would you do with a supertanker or container ship if you captured one? What will you do when the Armed Forces arrive?

Traveller: A Yo-Ho-Ho Pirate would need to travel in a fleet strong enough to defeat the System Defenses, repair itself, loot the system and leave – all in less than 2 weeks. That is a lot of mobile infrastructure and capital investment. It would require a mobile WORLD. A population 4+ world all living on ships and operating at TL 12+ by raiding and plundering. That is neither the Hollywood nor the historical version of the Age of Sail pirates. That would be closer to the SERENITY model of “pirates” and worlds would live in terror of such an attack. Pirates would then have a reason to steal ships – to expand the fleet and replace losses – but they would loot the entire starport, warehouses and orbital construction facilities. The lone Pirate ship raiding a Free Trader must be an oddity – the desperate act of desperate men.