Alternatives to 'standard' ship type nomenclature?

[agorski]

Ships tend to be classified in terms that invoke ideas of their intended purpose and size. But maybe in YTU, you've done things differently.

For example, instead of calling a ship type a destroyer you call it a lancer.

Anyone done this or can point to examples?

 

[TheDS]

In most space navies, they use naval terminology to describe ships and things. However, there are a handful of fictional universes in which it is assumed the space forces will be handled by an outgrowth of the AIR FORCE, rather than the Navy. Basically you end up with different names for things. I'm sorry I can't think of any examples for you off hand, but I do remember terms like "spacecraft" (as opposed to "aircraft") and "space force" (as opposed to "navy" or "space navy") being used, as well as Air Force rank structures.

Maybe Wing Commander?

 

[Enoki]

I regularly name designs I come up with other things than the standard names. One source I draw on this are what various types of ships were called from earlier history or by foreign nations.

Examples:

Barque
Xebic (a corsair-like ship)
Chasse-Maree or Pursuit ship
Brig or Brigantine
Houario (a type of merchant ship)
Kanonjolle (a gunboat like ship)
Hoy (a type of merchant ship)
Oorlong (a type of yacht-like ship)
Periagua (similar to a small frigate or brig)
Skut or Skuta (another merchant type)
Wadden (a type of close escort for merchant ships)
Schooner
Pink (a merchant ship)

 

[Condottiere]

With small crews, the Air Force nomenclature would work, though you have the complete break with tradition RAF, or the hold over USAF variants.

 

[nobby-w]

Ships tend to be classified in terms that invoke ideas of their intended purpose and size. But maybe in YTU, you've done things differently.

For example, instead of calling a ship type a destroyer you call it a lancer.

Anyone done this or can point to examples?

Historically, IIRC the starship-as-naval-vessel trope first made its appearance in Voyage of the Space Beagle and was really widely popularised by Star Trek. It's been pretty much a standard in sci-fi since then.

The example of air-force like naming that comes to mind would be Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica where squadrons of fighters are a thing. However, the larger vessels still tend to be run like a navy in these settings.

I can't say that I recall reading anything that made a point of doing it differently, although, Heinlein's Space Cadet did it without being too overtly naval in its outlook. I imagine that somebody has made a point of doing this somewhere along the line but I can't say I've ever read anything that did.

 

[infojunky]

Ships tend to be classified in terms that invoke ideas of their intended purpose and size. But maybe in YTU, you've done things differently.

For example, instead of calling a ship type a destroyer you call it a lancer.

Anyone done this or can point to examples?

Go look at Transhuman Space by SJG

 

[mike wightman]

OTV - orbital transfer vehicle
AKV - autonomous kill vehicle
STV - system transfer vehicle
LV - launch vehicle

Replace the V with an S if you prefer ship to vehicle

 

[aramis]

Let's look at what the Naval terms were, in say, 1700...

Ship of the Line (2-4 gun decks, 60-120 guns, 3-4 masts)
Frigate (1-2 gun decks, 30-60 guns, 3 masts)
Corvette (1 gun deck, 2-3 masts)
Cutter (1 gun deck ≤18 guns, 2-3 masts)
Sloop-of-War (1 gun deck ≤18 guns, 1 mast)

Galleons were an early 3-4 masted SotL...


So, if we use 1 gun per 100 Td...
that puts a SOTL at 6000-12000 Td
Frigates in the 3000-6000 Td range
Corvettes in the 1800-3000 Td range
Cutters and Sloops of War below that.

Cutters are probably 5+G's, sloops of war 3-4 G?

I think I like that...

 

[Condottiere]

Smith's Triplanetary had a chapter that describes a traditional naval battle in space, presciently kamikaze tactics, unless that was added afterwards.

 

[TheDS]

One of the main reasons, though, for using naval conventions is that they invoke understanding in the listener. You say "Battleship" and people don't give you a funny look, they know you mean a powerful, nigh-indestructible ship capable of blasting anything else into bits. You say "Ship of the Line" or "Sloop" or "Brig" and most have no clue. "Battlestar" is close enough to "Battleship" that most people will pick up on it, but what the heck is a "Striker", "Dromedary", or "Kite"?

But the common terms only take us so far because definitions change, and often for no reason other than political reasons. A Frigate used to be a fairly powerful and fast ship, comparable to a WW2 Cruiser in power and mission, but modern Frigates are mostly a joke as the smallest warship still intended to cross an ocean under its own power. Likewise, various arms treaties in the early 20th century caused ships that qualified as Light Battleships to be labeled Heavy Cruisers. Indeed, a fairly recent American convention is to build Destroyers and Cruisers on the exact same hull, physically differing only in superstructure; this was done to save money on construction costs, but also to appeal to a budget-conscious taxpayer who didn't want to pay for a bunch of Cruisers but were willing to accept a bunch of Destroyers.

So even if you use the common terms of Battleship, Cruiser, Destroyer, and so forth, you STILL have to define exactly what that is.

 

[Condottiere]

Terms evolve, and technology is as much at work as domestic politics and/or international diplomacy in terminology.

The Zumwalt destroyer class weighs almost as much as a pre dreadnought battleship, especially considering that torpedo boat destroyers used to be largish patrol boats.

As the larger ships become obsolete and navies start to shrink, there's a size inflation as the category immediately below that gets tasked with those missions.

Frigates were the cruisers of the Age of Enlightenment and Victoria, and were partially defined as having a single gun deck, which with the event of ironclads was the norm. Then further technical developments such as gunhouses and larger cannons spurred on the next development.

After the Great War, where small ocean going escorts were termed frigates specializing in anti-submarine warfare, they evolved to become again the principal cruising vessel of most navies, and becoming larger and more general purpose.

The Littoral Combat Ship was meant to fill in the gap between the frigates and the corvettes, among other unrealizable goals, and having fallen flat on it's face, one option that was grasped is just to evolve that design into a larger ship.

Conclusion: ships gets larger to fulfill more roles as older ships become obsolete, as militaries abhor vacuums.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Conclusion: ships gets larger to fulfill more roles as older ships become obsolete, as militaries abhor vacuums.

That is one way of looking at it, another is that as higher tech makes ships more expensive, they become smaller to keep numbers up.



Classifications are just names that vary with time and navy.

Destroyer, ~300 t. Main armament: Torpedoes.

Destroyer, 1800 t. Main Armament: Torpedoes, Guns, AA, Depth Charges.

Destroyer, ~7500 t. Main Armament: Aegis anti-missile.

Destroyer, ~14000 t. Main Armament: Helicopters.

They are all classified as Destroyers by the same navy, yet they vary wildly in size, armament, intended use, and capability. Classification means next to nothing.


When we compare different navies classifications means even less:

Current Corvette, ~1800 t

Current Corvette, ~600 t

 

[agorski]

various arms treaties in the early 20th century caused ships that qualified as Light Battleships to be labeled Heavy Cruisers.

This reminds me of the excellent iOS app, Atlantic Fleet, which even if you don't pay for it, lets you play several scenarios and make your own. One of the canned scenarios is the Battle of the River Platte.

The Graf Spee can, if you get lucky, sink the Exeter with a single salvo. There's practically no armor on the York class cruisers. Great fun. Heavy cruiser, indeed.

 

[Condottiere]

The Germans gamed the Versailles Treaty restrictions, but the Graf Spee was way over all weight restrictions, but still was armour lite; also going obsolete by the time the Great Patriotic War started.

Treaty cruisers are notoriously compromised, with three twin eight inchers about the minimum armament for a heavy cruisers, usually everyone cheated to greater or lesser degrees, even the Germans when they made a naval agreement with the British.

 

[Carlobrand]

Well, for the Traveller setting, it boils down to:

Big-heavily-armored-ship-that-hits-really-hard

Somewhat-smaller-ship-that-hits-fairly-hard-but-they're-cheaper-so-you-can-have-more-to-cover-more-systems

Ship-that-carries-lots-of-little-boats-to-scout-the-system-and-give-holy-hell-to-enemy-ground-forces

Small-ship-that-flies-picket-for-the-big-ships-to-warn-of-approaching-enemies-and-keep-little-boats-and-small-ships-from-scouting-the-big-ships

Small-cheap-ship-that-goes-scouting-everywhere-to-look-for-the-enemy-and-help-the-big-ships-find-them-and-sometimes-to-chew-up-the-enemy-merchant-fleet

Small-ship-that-protects-your-merchant-fleet-from-those-damn-small-cheap-ships-but-it-has-better-armor-and-guns-than-them-'cause-it-only-needs-to-jump-as-far-as-the-merchants-do

And of course:

Little-boat-to-scout-the-system-and-give-holy-hell-to-enemy-ground-forces

And, then there are the:

Flying-fuel-stations

Flying-supply-warehouses

Flying-army-bases

Flying-hospitals

Now I just need to find a language that can say all that more succinctly.

 

[flykiller]

for my setting it boils down to:

primary combatants (two kinds, one mission)
screens (one kind)
sensor gigs (one kind, seldom deployed because they're not survivable)
rider transports (two kinds differing only by construction tech level, one mission)
scouts
and support (one kind, general transport with interchangeable task modules - fleet marine, rescue and recovery, mobile yard, parts and supplies, and fuel)

a grand total of eight classes, only six missions, with one little-used.

so I suppose line, screen, transport, scout, and support would do it.

 

[warwizard]

I would add civilian classes pressed into service to provide part of the logistics tail for the fleet, and J-(max available at TL) packets for fleet to fleet coordination. long range scout tenders at deep space points J-1 from systems under scouting watch. (I had a very good Islands campaign scouting service write up from a person in charge of the French colony) In short perhaps 10% of your naval budget is spent on information gathering and transmission/ command and control assets. We are too used to being able to see the 5th frontier map with all the counters on it, Actually seeing where the enemy is located and where it appears to be moving in time to concentrate forces to stop it short of it's target requires a very detailed scouting and communications network.

 

[Condottiere]

We can always call them stardestroyers, though apparently they evolved from a two man fighter to a mile long dreadnought.

Under Mongoose Second, I term frontline starwarships as actual capital ships are over a hundred thousand tonnes, major combatants at twenty kay tonnes plus, intermediate ones somewhere between that and five kay.

Below that, it gets more complicated, since not all would be minor combatants.

 

[mike wightman]

Using CT 1980 HG2e as the common reference point.

The nature of a fleet and its ships changes a lot as the TL scale advances.

Since it can take centuries to advance through the TL8-16 range the names navies give their ship classes will change also.

Consider this. A TL 7 wold can build m//ag 2 AF7 C2 ships up to 2,999t in size armed with missile bays, lasers and sandcasters.
By TL8 m/ag can now reach 5, AF is 8 everything else remains more or less the same. Would boat classes be renamed during this pre-stellar era?
Advance to TL9 brings m/ag 6, AF 9, smaller power plants, and a maximum hull size of 9,999t thanks to C3. You can even get jump 1 now for a true starship.

Would the names stay the same?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Consider this. A TL 7 wold can build m//ag 2 AF7 C2 ships up to 2,999t in size armed with missile bays, lasers and sandcasters.

Planetoids?

Would the names stay the same?

I assume starships would get a new classification.