Book Two Fleets

[infojunky]

Ok, was reading Andy Slack's collection of White Dwarf articles and I got to his article on using Book 2 to build fleets with.

Couple that with some of the ship ideas presented in the game Mayday.

I ask myself why I never have done this exercise. Have any of y'all done it? Or like me think; "Fleet?" why, I have High Guard for that....

 

[Brandon C]

My problem is that I find the three starship weapons in Book 2 really insufficient for heavier warships. OTOH, I'm perfectly fine without spinal mounts or energy weapon bays.

It's also hard to call something a battleship if it has the same armor as a free trader -- none.

Finally, I like a variety of small craft and you can't build them with Book 2.

So, I suppose I have no problem using mostly Book 2, but there are some bits I'd bring in from Book 5.

 

[mike wightman]

Military ship must haves for a LBB2 only fleet (IMHO):
big computer to run all the programs;
a power plant with a letter size one or two higher than your m-drive so you can use double fire, for 6g m-drive the ideal hull sizes are 400 at TL12, 600 at TL14 and 800-1000 at TL15;
all free space filled with fighters or 30t ship's boats kitted out as heavy fighters.

The 2000t hull is the last one capable of 6g, it can't do double fire but does have twice the hardpoints and a bit more room for extra fighters/heavy fighters.

4g if using vector movement combat system is not to be sniffed at either.

 

[infojunky]

It's also hard to call something a battleship if it has the same armor as a free trader -- none.

Hum, Playing Devil's advocate here, why is armor important? Most modern warships don't have any.

Finally, I like a variety of small craft and you can build them with Book 2.

Honestly that is kinda a good point. Though with a little deconstruction one can see the basis for the the Ship's Boat, Pinnace and Cutter is the Class A drives. And that by extension gives one the bases for a Drive set I call the Sub-A drive which the Slow versions of those craft use as well as giving the basis for the 5g Gig, as that we see in Fighting ships.

Or, do what was done with the Traveller Books versions of those craft and use Highguard...

As I said this just an Idea that I really hadn't played with too much over the years and was interested in seeing if anyone else had.

 

[Timerover51]

Hum, Playing Devil's advocate here, why is armor important? Most modern warships don't have any.

Most modern warships are built using 30 to 40 pound high-tensile strength steel for their hulls, 19 to 25 millimeters, which is good against small arms and bomb fragments, and is what I assume ship hulls in Traveller are using. Then they will have 40 pound thicknesses of high-tensile strength steel around their magazines for a bit of added protection against fragment penetration. The 40 pound figure is used at that is the weight of a square foot of steel plating one inch thick.

Honestly that is kinda a good point. Though with a little deconstruction one can see the basis for the the Ship's Boat, Pinnace and Cutter is the Class A drives. And that by extension gives one the bases for a Drive set I call the Sub-A drive which the Slow versions of those craft use as well as giving the basis for the 5g Gig, as that we see in Fighting ships.

Or, do what was done with the Traveller Books versions of those craft and use Highguard...

As I said this just an Idea that I really hadn't played with too much over the years and was interested in seeing if anyone else had.

Somewhere on my not-presently-functioning laptop, I have some ideas on this that I worked up. By assuming that the power plant is using deuterium heavy water for feed, I can scale down the fuel requirement, and just for running the small craft without maneuvering gives me a long operating time. I also assume some form of reactionless, a.k.a. Dean Drive, for maneuvering, so no need for reaction mass, along with contra-gravity lifters.

 

[nobby-w]

Hum, Playing Devil's advocate here, why is armor important? Most modern warships don't have any.
[ . . . ]

The reason for this is that even small warships today can carry missile systems capable of delivering very large warheads. A missile such as Harpoon or Exocet has a warhead in the 200kg range and the warheads on the big supersonic Russian missiles even larger. Missiles of this sort would be a serious threat to a WWII era battleship or cruiser but could be fired from a much cheaper platform such as a fast attack craft or light warship, or an aircraft. Even ground-based launchers on the back of a truck could engage at substantially greater range than the main armament of a battleship.

Armour becomes a lot more interesting if your tech is based on guns that can only fire smaller shells or less powerful energy bolts. When your state of the art is guns then you need bigger guns to penetrate more armour. Bigger guns mean bigger ships to carry them. Bigger ships are more expensive and become worth spending money to protect them.

This spiral led to Dreadnought type battleships growing ever-bigger until two disruptive technologies appeared on the scene: Aircraft carriers in WWII and guided anti-shipping missiles in the 1950s. Both delivery systems (aircraft and missiles) had much longer ranges than the guns on a battleship or cruiser. While aircraft carriers are still expensive, missiles can be fitted to relatively small and cheap ships that can engage from outside the range of the main armament of a gun-armed warship. This gives even small navies a credible ability to engage much larger surface combatants at a fraction of the unit cost.

If you have effective anti-missile defences then the latter technology becomes obsolete. This is partially true of High Guard where high-factor missile bays are still somewhat effective but you have to fire entire salvoes of missiles off to get one or two hits. If there is no difference in the medium of travel between fighters and larger ships then fighters are just small spacecraft carrying weapons that may or may not be effective against larger ships.

If I did a universe where point defence rendered missiles effectively obsolete and the technology du jour was large energy weapons then size would start to matter - the trend would be towards bigger ships with bigger guns.

 

[Timerover51]

The reason for this is that even small warships today can carry missile systems capable of delivering very large warheads. A missile such as Harpoon or Exocet has a warhead in the 200kg range and the warheads on the big supersonic Russian missiles even larger. Missiles of this sort would be a serious threat to a WWII era battleship or cruiser but could be fired from a much cheaper platform such as a fast attack craft or light warship, or an aircraft. Even ground-based launchers on the back of a truck could engage at substantially greater range than the main armament of a battleship.

It is a bit more complicated than that, but see signature for why that is so. I can say that unless you get really lucky, or the ship has inadequate firefighting equipment, it will take multiple Harpoon or Exocet hits to sink a destroyer. They will do very nicely taking out the fast missile boats, however.

 

[whartung]

My problem is that I find the three starship weapons in Book 2 really insufficient for heavier warships.

But if you think about it, in terms of the "Age of Sail" meme, having a ship bristling with "little guns" fits the mold.

A big ship with 100's of guns is not untoward. They simply couldn't make the guns big enough and/or maneuverable enough.

Sure that flies in the face of modern technology, but from the AoS viewpoint, it can work.

 

[Brandon C]

But if you think about it, in terms of the "Age of Sail" meme, having a ship bristling with "little guns" fits the mold.

However, all cannons in the AoS weren't 12-pounders. Very roughly, they ranged from 9 up to 32 pounds. Merchants tended to carry the lighter guns while ships of the line cartied heavier guns.

The only weapons I'm really suggesting adding are the turret guns (fusion and particle beam) and the missiile bay.

 

[Condottiere]

A lot depends on the threat vector.

Most armour on battleships tended to be plastered on the sides, and layered on top to proportionally limit damage.

Traveler warships have almost all around protection.

 

[infojunky]

Ok, looking at the the armor question and modern warship. Yes I stated that modern warship aren't armored, and yes frequently they aren't in the Armored battle wagon sense. But they are in the resilient to damage sense, frequently the machinery spaces and other required equipment spaces are buried in the hull behind a combination of void spaces and other non-critical equipment spaces, thus any damage has to pass through those space before it can do damage to critical machinery.

Now compare the modern warship to a Book 2 ship, and one finds that a good match.

 

[Timerover51]

Ok, looking at the the armor question and modern warship. Yes I stated that modern warship aren't armored, and yes frequently they aren't in the Armored battle wagon sense. But they are in the resilient to damage sense, frequently the machinery spaces and other required equipment spaces are buried in the hull behind a combination of void spaces and other non-critical equipment spaces, thus any damage has to pass through those space before it can do damage to critical machinery.

Now compare the modern warship to a Book 2 ship, and one finds that a good match.

A major factor in modern warship design is the ability to survive the flooding of a specific number os compartments, typically 3, without sinking. Ideally, all compartments below the water line should have unpierced bulkheads for water-tightness in the event of flooding, with the only access being from above.

One factor in ship design in Traveller would be the ability for warships to isolate compartments that have lost pressure from the remainder of the ship. That would require a number of transverse bulkheads capable of handling a avacuum pressure differential, with manually operated hatches. I would not trust an iris valve it a ship is damage.

Edit Note: Because a Traveller space ship would not have to worry about asymmetric flooding in the event of a hull breach, you would also want longitudinal bulkheads to help seal off damage. basically, the design should be a series of compartments which in the event of damage can be made air-tight.

 

[pendragonman]

snip...

Edit Note: Because a Traveller space ship would not have to worry about asymmetric flooding in the event of a hull breach, you would also want longitudinal bulkheads to help seal off damage. basically, the design should be a series of compartments which in the event of damage can be made air-tight.

Sounds like a perfect match for modular construction, then assemble those vacuum tight modules to make your ship.

 

[flykiller]

I would not trust an iris valve it a ship is damage.

why not?

 

[mike wightman]

It's mentioned in canon that Traveller ships, especially warships, de-pressurize and zip the crew up in vac suits during expected combat.

Decompression: Starships (and other vessels) depressurize their interiors before
combat whenever possible, the passengers and crew resorting to vacc suits for safety
and comfort. This procedure minimizes the danger due to explosive decompression as a battle result. In some cases, selected areas may remain pressurized (perhaps the
hold, for the safety of delicate cargo) while other areas are depressurized.
Any number of areas in the ship may be depressurized in the span of one turn
(1,000 seconds). Repressurization requires one turn. In practice, the following parts
of the ship may be individually pressure regulated: engineering section, hold,
bridge, staterooms (all as one group; on some ships, in groups of four or more),
turrets (individually). The pilot controls depressurization from the bridge.
Hull hits result in explosive decompression if pressure has not already been
lowered. Explosive decompression kills all persons in that section unless a vacc suit
is available and put on immediately. Throw dexterity to put on a vacc suit in an
emergency; apply DMs of double vacc suit skill.

 

[Garnfellow]

It's mentioned in canon that Traveller ships, especially warships, de-pressurize and zip the crew up in vac suits during expected combat.

Great find -- does that show up anywhere else beyond the the Starter Edition?

 

[Brandon C]

1981 edition, Book 2, starting at the bottom of p.33.

 

[Condottiere]

Seems now a trope in most recent military science fiction novels.

 

[mike wightman]

The quote is from '81 revised LBB:2 - the same quote can be found in every CT edition.

I really must get round to getting the updated FFE CT cd rom (is it on USB drive as well now?), I got my CD before the '77 edition was included so if I want to quote from 77 edition I have to copy type

 

[The Oz]

I did a deconstruction of Bk 2 small craft and created a Bk 2-like design system that lets you build such craft as you like. The system recreates the Bk 2 designs; not perfectly, but close.

I have put the system in the Files Library, http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?p=581530#post581530