Figured it was a longshot, but thanks for the summary.
Got a link to your CGSC thesis?
Book Two Fleets
- Thread starter infojunky
- Start date
Figured it was a longshot, but thanks for the summary.
Got a link to your CGSC thesis?
I have been thinking about this and Missiles in general. Consider this if one multiplies the mass of the classic missile by 10, 500kg instead of 50kg. Which is in the ballpark of average for modern anti-shipping missiles.
Taking a slightly different tack, the standard missile is 15cm in diameter and 100cm long for a weight of 50kg. If one doubles the outside dimensions it give a eightfold increase in mass to 400kg.
Then looking in later editions handling of missiles vis-a-vis storage volume one finds either 10 or 12 per dTon for storage which in comparison to the above figures we find that those missiles would be even larger.
Circling back around to CT, and even more specifically to Special Supplement 3, it's pretty much a no effort solution to to use the x10 solution to provide a better feeling solution to what missiles look like.
I used to work with someone who was on it when it was hit (I think it was the Sheffield). Apparently the story about the crew singing 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life' while they abandoned ship was true. The chap had it as the ring tone on his phone.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
I was medically retired as a 1st Lieutenant, so never went to CGSC. I am looking at getting an online Master's, so I will probably be writing a thesis. I am debating doing it on the 5-year memory cycle of the Air Force, which i can pretty thoroughly document, when it comes to the tactical effects of weapons, or what I call muscle-powered logistics (logistics before the advent of the railroad), or friendly fire casualties from air attack. I have enough in my files already to do any of those, as well as several more possibilities. Another possibility would be a detailed discussion of terminal ballistics in World War 2 and how they compare to the modern day. That might raise some hackles in the flybys as well. I assume that you get the idea that I am not a cheerleader for the U.S. Air Force.
I am not sure if a paper on why I think that the Lusitania was hit with two torpedoes would fly, but one on why I disagree with the Rickover book on the loss of the USS Maine and have some alternate ideas might.
I have worked on a couple of papers concerning the loss of the Lusitania and the hospital ship Britannic in World War One, along with analyzing the loss of PT-109, and a few other World War 2 ships.
Last edited:
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
A lot depends on how you view the hull of the average Book 2 ship. If you view it, as I do, of on the order of 25mm High-Tensile Strength HY-80 steel, the larger missile would be effective. If you assume that it is the equivalent of 33cm of hard steel plate, which I assume means face-hardened armor, then the larger missile just makes a bigger mark on the hull. You have to remember that most of the Western anti-ship missiles warheads are about 50 percent explosives, and correspond to a World War 2 high-explosive, or if your British Medium Case, bomb, with limited armor penetration capability. Hitting a hull of 33cm steel at high subsonic speed would result in about all of them breaking up before detonating. That is for the current crop of anti-ship missiles. Now, if you are talking of a direct hit with a missile traveling at many miles per second relative to the target, the any form of explosive warhead is a waste, while a proximity-fuse in the event of a near-miss is also a waste.
The large Russian anti-ship missile intended for carrier attack are a different category. Against that, missiles of that size would make excellent targets for lasers and also counter-missile fire. Overall, the missiles as depicted in the LBBs do not make a lot of sense from the standpoint of damage or performance. Increasing them by a factor of 10 does help to a degree, as that would make them about twice the mass of the Sparrow air-to-air missile. It would depend on what you actually viewed as the warhead though. The Sparrow used what is called a continuous-rod warhead which was quite lethal with a proximity fuse burst as long as it was within the warhead damage radius. If outside of the damage radius, lethality dropped drastically. Against one inch armor plate, it would not do so well. One inch/25mm plate also does a very good job at stopping fragments from a warhead.
The very large Talos ramjet-powered US Navy surface-to-air missile, when used in its secondary anti-ship missile role, was fired with the warhead deactivated with the damage being done simply by the very large mass and speed of the missile.
In high school, I wrote a paper defending the sinking of the Lusitania ...
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
I was not asked about the ethics of the sinking, but about the mechanics of it. The damage required to sink it so quickly requires two torpedo hits, which is definitely the minority opinion.
I defended the legality, not the ethics. My primary point was that it was a ship flying the flag of the enemy in waters that were a declared war zone, therefore making it (as a cargo carrying ship) a legitimate target.
As a side note to this, it was German practice early in the war for a submarine to surface near a merchant ship and fire a warning shot with the deck gun. After the merchant crew abandonded ship, the submarine sank the ship. The British started putting hidden deck guns on merchants. Once the submarines started getting used as target practice when they surfaced, the sub commanders said "to hell with this" and would sink the ship without warning. Predictably the British started screaming bloody murder ...
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
A surfaced submarine would have little to no chance of sinking a ship the size of the Lusitania by gunfire, in addition to which the Lusitania could have outrun the submarine fairly easily. The sub happened to be in the right place at the right time to get a shot off. Again, I am not intending to discuss the issue of sinking it in the first place. That sort of discussion is best done in the Pit.
Fair enough. While I remember my main points, it's been 35 years, and I don't remember most of the details.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
In theory, if you hit the jump capacitors while they still have a charge in them.
Or the missile magazine.
Or just something volatile.
Or the missile magazine.
Or just something volatile.
Note my observation was about feel. In light of the Book 2 centric nature of what was postulated, I was asking about a somewhat nebulous area.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
If you actually think about how a missile would look which is strictly used in the vacuum of space, you should end up with something that looks a bit like the Lunar Landing Module. Something like a box, with a large engine facing the rear, attitude jets on all four, or more, sides, with the homing mechanism in the front. There would be no need for streamlining.
Or it could be a rectangular box with a vector thrust nozzle at one narrow end and a pair of gyroscopes for steering...
Or it could look like the missiles in Peter Hamilton's Night's Dawn books.
The crux of the missile question/commentary is how does the changing the mass and volume of a missile without changing it's in game performance change the game. Frankly this is more a Roleplay question than it is a Ship's combat sorta question.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
The Traveller 50kg missile can not be chemically propelled. Therefore the engine is a miniature maneuver drive and the 'fuel' is actually a battery.
That's how it was built in GT, FWIW. It also had a HEAT warhead, but above a certain velocity that will not arm and instead acts as a kinetic kill missile.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
Not everyone has GURPS Traveller though. As for the operation of the warhead on that missile, that is basically what the US Navy did with the big Talos surface-to-air missile when used on ships. The Navy relied on the mass of the missile, and it was a big missile to do the damage. I would put it as the equivalent of being hit by a Japanese kamikaze aircraft. One of those in the midsection of a destroyer-size target and the ship is immobile at the least, and possibly sunk, depending on the quality of damage control.
