MGT Only: Capital ship design in a small ship setting

[Brandon C]

I plan to change the capital ship design rules since the biggest ship I plan to design is only 6,000 tons.

Changes include:

* no "core" computers -- CB computers will be used
* no dividing the ship into sections
* no customized damage location tables for each ship

I am stronglt considering extending the drive potential tables in CB to cover 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 and 6,000 ton hulls rather than using the drive formulas in HG.

Any comments or suggestions?

 

[wbyrd]

I don't see any immediate problems you'd run into, if you can find the right progression for drives, and jump ranges.

You wont be running into ridiculous numbers of turrets or bays. 60 turrets tops.Which could get a bit tedious rolling them a single attack at a time. as per CRB rules.

 

[GypsyComet]

I am stronglt considering extending the drive potential tables in CB to cover 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 and 6,000 ton hulls rather than using the drive formulas in HG.

Any comments or suggestions?

The percentages in HG actually tail onto the end of the CB tables fairly well already.

 

[McPerth]

* no "core" computers -- CB computers will be used

Beware with this point. Core computers represent many smaller ones coordinated, so that fire control programs afect all weapons (at least that's what I understand), while a fire control program in a CB computer only has so many DMs to share among all the weapons.

So, if you have a ship with 20 turrets and Fire Control/3, with a Core Computer all of them will fire with a DM +3 due to the program, while on a CB computer, only 3 weapons (not even turrets, if you take the rules literally) can have a +1, or one of them a +3 (assuming all turrets are manned and no automatic fire).

 

[aramis]

I did similar for my last campaign... So it should be a non-issue, provided you keep capital ships down to reasonable (ST TOS-like) tonnages, capping at 20K to 30K tons.

 

[Quint]

This is essentially what I do, with a couple of tweaks, IMTU. First I use an extended Letter Drive table to allow the higher end Letter drive to go over 5K dtons. A Z-drive can give a 10k dton hull Jump-1 or Maneuver-1. Then I use the MgT's sectional rules from HG to allow up to six sections, each of which needs a matching set of drives and power plants - this allows a ship (albeit a slow one) of up to 60k dtons in size.

Warship-wise, if I keep with a J4 Doctrine for the Imperial Navy (which I actually use a TL12 base for instead of TL15), this works out to the following.

Corvette: between 200-400 dtons
Frigate: Around 700 dtons
Destroyer: between 1000-1400 dtons
Cruiser: between 1800-2800 dtons
Dreadnaughts: between 3200-3600 dtons
Carriers: between 2100-3600 dtons

My Battleships (and a selection of "battle carriers") are slower (J3 or less) and can thus be larger - up to 18k dtons for the Jump- 1Super Battleships and Super Battle Carriers.

Sure, there are a couple of TL15 Fleets out there like 1st Fleet "the Emperor's Own" and the 11th Fleet "the Imperial Fist" (as well as some TL13 and TL14 ones). With those you can build a 18k dton Jump-4 and Maneuver-4 ship. But IMTU the Imperial Navy (as well as the rest of the military) builds to TL12 so that they have a clear repair and support structure throughout Imperial Space. Elite units get the high tech gear, but in much more limited numbers.

D.

 

[CliffBates]

But these are hardly Capital Ships. There are no real spinal mounts. So what your are talking about are low TL navies slugging it out with turret weapons a hand full of bays. Not the CT 3rd Imperium.

Most pirate adventuring will be small stuff.. and the fleet will send in heavies only if you start threatening the commerce of a subsector... and small operations won't do that if they are smart.

The Navy needs heavies and big cap ships because they give a Ref better beware of pushing things too far you rebels or pirates you. Like the Imperial Marines to police Merc units, the Navy is there to makes sure Interstellar Customary Law is secured.

 

[Brandon C]

But these are hardly Capital Ships. There are no real spinal mounts. So what your are talking about are low TL navies slugging it out with turret weapons a hand full of bays. Not the CT 3rd Imperium.

Okay, I need to repeat what I'm doing, since it's gotten parts scattered over several threads:

I am going to revamp my old "pocket empires" campaigns. There is no 3I and most "empires" consist of 6-15 systems[1]. I may use some races[2] from the 3I setting, but erase any connections they have to the 3I. I am not suppressing tech levels nor do I plan, at this time, to use any alternative tech.

[1] In previous campaigns, it was more like 3-6 systems
[2] I have the CT alien modules for vargr, aslan and k'kree and I see no reason not to use them

The Navy needs heavies and big cap ships because they give a Ref better beware of pushing things too far you rebels or pirates you. Like the Imperial Marines to police Merc units, the Navy is there to makes sure Interstellar Customary Law is secured.

A 5,000-ton battleship is sufficiently heavy compared to a 800-ton mercenary cruiser or 400-ton pirate corsair.

 

[whartung]

A 5,000-ton battleship is sufficiently heavy compared to a 800-ton mercenary cruiser or 400-ton pirate corsair.

But...it's not.

That's sorta CliffBates point.

The entire point of a capital battleship, is to mount Big Guns. Big Guns that turn in to Ship Killers.

Not MORE of the same guns, but Big Guns. One shot, one kill type big guns.

A WWII battleship would most certainly be less interesting if it mounted a bunch of 5" guns than the 14/15/16/17" guns that they did mount. Why were BBs so big? So they COULD mount those 14-17" guns. And those guns were lethal, and the gunners were accurate -- particularly when RADAR came in to play.

Now, clearly, the air war completely transformed naval combat in WWII, but that's not the case with starships. So, Big Guns still rule the day.

Bringing more guns to the fight is always a good thing. Typically the larger hulls can bring more guns per dTon than the smaller hulls. But it doesn't take long, percentage wise, for that advantage to flatten out.

 

[aramis]

The ability to mount 100 ton bays makes the big (≥2000Td) ships sufficiently deadly under MGT, Whartung.

It's also quite relative.

 

[Brandon C]

But...it's not.

That's sorta CliffBates point.

The entire point of a capital battleship, is to mount Big Guns. Big Guns that turn in to Ship Killers.

I consider 100-ton meson gun bays Big Guns.

 

[GypsyComet]

"In the Kingdom of Turrets the Bay Equipped Ship is King."

It's also quite relative.

Indeed. The 50x difference from bottom to top just in CT Book 2 is quite a lot even without true spinal mounts. TNE blurred the lines of the larger weapons, as a "spinal" mount in a smaller ship was essentially a Bay in terms of power, and we see a similar reality in every edition except T5. If you never go past 8000 tons, Bays are Big Guns.

 

[wbyrd]

But...it's not.

That's sorta CliffBates point.

The entire point of a capital battleship, is to mount Big Guns. Big Guns that turn in to Ship Killers.

Not MORE of the same guns, but Big Guns. One shot, one kill type big guns.

A WWII battleship would most certainly be less interesting if it mounted a bunch of 5" guns than the 14/15/16/17" guns that they did mount. Why were BBs so big? So they COULD mount those 14-17" guns. And those guns were lethal, and the gunners were accurate -- particularly when RADAR came in to play.

Now, clearly, the air war completely transformed naval combat in WWII, but that's not the case with starships. So, Big Guns still rule the day.

Bringing more guns to the fight is always a good thing. Typically the larger hulls can bring more guns per dTon than the smaller hulls. But it doesn't take long, percentage wise, for that advantage to flatten out.

If you consider each turret on a battleship as a large bay, they were basically Big bay ships.No real world equivalent of the spinal mount exists..Unless you count Scwher Gustav

The Yamato class had 18 inch guns. One hit could inflict serious damage on a Battleship, but multiple hits were required to take down another battleship...so they put 3 200 dton(roughly) bays one her.

Other battleships followed the same pattern, no single weapon mount had the power to destroy anything larger than a corvette, or civilian ship. When battleships/dreadnought clashed they tended to be long engagements where they had to pummel each other with salvo after salvo.

My reasoning is based on...
The Hood, and Nevada, some of the few one hit kills of warships. was destroyed by a critical hit triggering her powder magazines,not actual weapons damage to her structure.....The Bismark withstood concentrated fire from multiple ships for a considerable length of time. As did Ships at Jutland, where the only rapid kills were due to internal explosions.

In the battle of Leyte gulf several destroyers and destroye escorts survived direct hits from battleship main guns and were heavily damaged not destroyed. the Hoel was struck repeatedly. 40 direct hits ( before being disabled) by weapons ranging from 5-16 inch guns She was under power until her boilers took a direct hit from an 8 inch gun, and then was shelled to pieces by concentrated fire.( by the way it took an hour to sink Her...thanks to some deft maneuvering)

basically the spinal mount, and one hit, and quick kills, are a creation of fiction. Nothing like a spinal mount has been used. So spinal mount warships are in their own private arena. Even our biggest and most powerful warships were big bay sluggers.

Also:
Dropping the tonnage of starships into the sub 10k range changes the nature of the game from one hit uber weapons, dueling at great range, to bloody brawls. No one comes away looking pretty,and direct engagements between warships becomes a very risky proposition.

 

[CliffBates]

If you consider each turret on a battleship as a large bay, they were basically Big bay ships.No real world equivalent of the spinal mount exists..Unless you count Scwher Gustav

The Yamato class had 18 inch guns. One hit could inflict serious damage on a Battleship, but multiple hits were required to take down another battleship...so they put 3 200 dton(roughly) bays one her.

Other battleships followed the same pattern, no single weapon mount had the power to destroy anything larger than a corvette, or civilian ship. When battleships/dreadnought clashed they tended to be long engagements where they had to pummel each other with salvo after salvo.

My reasoning is based on...
The Hood, and Nevada, some of the few one hit kills of warships. was destroyed by a critical hit triggering her powder magazines,not actual weapons damage to her structure.....The Bismark withstood concentrated fire from multiple ships for a considerable length of time. As did Ships at Jutland, where the only rapid kills were due to internal explosions.

In the battle of Leyte gulf several destroyers and destroye escorts survived direct hits from battleship main guns and were heavily damaged not destroyed. the Hoel was struck repeatedly. 40 direct hits ( before being disabled) by weapons ranging from 5-16 inch guns She was under power until her boilers took a direct hit from an 8 inch gun, and then was shelled to pieces by concentrated fire.( by the way it took an hour to sink Her...thanks to some deft maneuvering)

basically the spinal mount, and one hit, and quick kills, are a creation of fiction. Nothing like a spinal mount has been used. So spinal mount warships are in their own private arena. Even our biggest and most powerful warships were big bay sluggers.

Also:
Dropping the tonnage of starships into the sub 10k range changes the nature of the game from one hit uber weapons, dueling at great range, to bloody brawls. No one comes away looking pretty,and direct engagements between warships becomes a very risky proposition.

But spinal mounts don't always produce one (or few) shot kills, that is unless they are lucky.

Factor 9 bays--- which CT HG lists--will produce at least 1 critical hit on 800 tons ships and less... per:

"Critical Hits: All batteries whose weapon code exceeds the size code of the
target ship will inflict (if they hit and penetrate) automatic critical hits equal to the size difference." (Pg 42 CT High Guard 80)

So if you add Armor (factor 8-10) to 2k ton ships it will be very hard to get critical hits if at all. This was the problem with world of Jefferson Swycaffer's Traveller universe (see Dragon #59, pgs 32-48 ) which did not have Spinal Mounts or PA or Meson Guns.. thus it was rather hard to actually kill the big ships. You could kill the weapons and slow it down, and make it ineffective, but you really couldn't kill it.

 

[Brandon C]

So if you add Armor (factor 8-10) to 2k ton ships it will be very hard to get critical hits if at all. This was the problem with world of Jefferson Swycaffer's Traveller universe (see Dragon #59, pgs 32-48 ) which did not have Spinal Mounts or PA or Meson Guns.. thus it was rather hard to actually kill the big ships. You could kill the weapons and slow it down, and make it ineffective, but you really couldn't kill it.

Please note this thread is about MgT ships, not CT ships. There is a difference.

 

[salochin999]

But...it's not.

That's sorta CliffBates point.

The entire point of a capital battleship, is to mount Big Guns. Big Guns that turn in to Ship Killers.

Not MORE of the same guns, but Big Guns. One shot, one kill type big guns.

... snip...

Is that it exactly though - or is it to mount the longest *range* guns so they can destroy smaller ships before they could even get in range.

And by extension they were superseded because carrier planes had even longer range.

So I tend to think the same - that capital ship weapons should be in a different league but to me it's more about range than one shot kills.

The way I've been looking at this idea for the same range of ships - up to 6k tons - is to aggregate hard points.

So 4 hard points can be aggregated into a laser4 weapon and 16 hard points can be aggregated into a laser16 weapon.

(or any other size - i use 4 and 16 because they work with the ranges)

The key difference being the range at which the weapon's energy dissipates so
a laser1 has a pen of 1 at range 1
a laser4 has a pen of 4 at range 1 and 1 at range 2
a laser16 has a pen of 16 at range 1, 4 at range 2 and 1 at range 4

so a 5k battle ship with 50 hard points could have
- 3 x laser16 turrets
- 2 x 16s and 4 x 4s
etc

and their 16s could hit at 4 times the range of a standard laser.


so if i ever finished it the space combat would be like CT but with different turret ranges and the battleships hanging back at max range.

#

edit

so in the general case you could assign varying numbers of hard points to the available weapons in whatever sysem so only bigger ships could mount ht elonger range or high damage weapons.

 

[mike wightman]

You have just shown me how to marry Star Cruiser, High Guard and CT ship combat into something that works

brilliant, just brilliant (and I'm a bit annoyed that I never thought of it)

 

[kilemall]

Now, clearly, the air war completely transformed naval combat in WWII, but that's not the case with starships. So, Big Guns still rule the day.

Bringing more guns to the fight is always a good thing. Typically the larger hulls can bring more guns per dTon than the smaller hulls. But it doesn't take long, percentage wise, for that advantage to flatten out.

I worked out some rules to Change All That.

Let's put it this way- NO ONE will allow an enemy ship within 10,000 km of them willingly even if they are presumably dead, and those ship boats become mandatory survival for boarding actions.

 

[kilemall]

Is that it exactly though - or is it to mount the longest *range* guns so they can destroy smaller ships before they could even get in range.

And by extension they were superseded because carrier planes had even longer range.

So I tend to think the same - that capital ship weapons should be in a different league but to me it's more about range than one shot kills.

The way I've been looking at this idea for the same range of ships - up to 6k tons - is to aggregate hard points.

So 4 hard points can be aggregated into a laser4 weapon and 16 hard points can be aggregated into a laser16 weapon.

(or any other size - i use 4 and 16 because they work with the ranges)

The key difference being the range at which the weapon's energy dissipates so
a laser1 has a pen of 1 at range 1
a laser4 has a pen of 4 at range 1 and 1 at range 2
a laser16 has a pen of 16 at range 1, 4 at range 2 and 1 at range 4

so a 5k battle ship with 50 hard points could have
- 3 x laser16 turrets
- 2 x 16s and 4 x 4s
etc

and their 16s could hit at 4 times the range of a standard laser.


so if i ever finished it the space combat would be like CT but with different turret ranges and the battleships hanging back at max range.

#

edit

so in the general case you could assign varying numbers of hard points to the available weapons in whatever sysem so only bigger ships could mount ht elonger range or high damage weapons.

That's in the ballpark of what I have in mind, but it's also integrating the CT distance and movement rules with HG batteries and armor (and hull type for mesons).

 

[wbyrd]

Is that it exactly though - or is it to mount the longest *range* guns so they can destroy smaller ships before they could even get in range.

And by extension they were superseded because carrier planes had even longer range.

So I tend to think the same - that capital ship weapons should be in a different league but to me it's more about range than one shot kills.

The way I've been looking at this idea for the same range of ships - up to 6k tons - is to aggregate hard points.

So 4 hard points can be aggregated into a laser4 weapon and 16 hard points can be aggregated into a laser16 weapon.

(or any other size - i use 4 and 16 because they work with the ranges)

The key difference being the range at which the weapon's energy dissipates so
a laser1 has a pen of 1 at range 1
a laser4 has a pen of 4 at range 1 and 1 at range 2
a laser16 has a pen of 16 at range 1, 4 at range 2 and 1 at range 4

so a 5k battle ship with 50 hard points could have
- 3 x laser16 turrets
- 2 x 16s and 4 x 4s
etc

and their 16s could hit at 4 times the range of a standard laser.


so if i ever finished it the space combat would be like CT but with different turret ranges and the battleships hanging back at max range.

#

edit

so in the general case you could assign varying numbers of hard points to the available weapons in whatever sysem so only bigger ships could mount ht elonger range or high damage weapons.

okay let me see if i have the basic idea down..by combining weapons into a larger weapon you get better range and hitting power?

If that is the basics I have to admit it's simple and clean.