Colonial battle squadrons: dreadnaughts or battle riders?

[Theophilus]

Canon material says that colonial forces consist of jump capable battleships and that strategic reserve forces consist of battleriders.

The reason given is that battleships offer quick mobility, and loss of a tender does not reduce squadron mobility. A reasonable assumption since loss of the tender renders battleriders useless.

Consider this, if I was going to start a war against an enemy whose front line colonial forces consisted of Rider squadron my primary target would be the tenders. If I could "pearl harbor" even a portion of the enemies tender force I could can a considerable strategic advantage.

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

I'd always invisioned Colonial Squadrons being the main users of battle riders and battle tenders.

The system defense fleet is composed of ships which fall under the battle rider / system defense boat / monitor class. Each of these vessels can be carried by the battle tender, which like Sigg has, is only jump 1. Any empty slots on the battle tender can be used to hold fuel tanks and extend the range.

The other part of this was the ship's use in peace time. The battle tender can be used for logistics support, disaster relief, or training. I imagine the Imperial Reserves being composed entirely of these battle tenders and continually rotating squadrons of carried craft. The battle tender being part of the subsector navy reserve while the battle riders are all colonial navy.

Hope these ideas help.

 

[Hal]

Originally posted by Theophilus:
Canon material says that colonial forces consist of jump capable battleships and that strategic reserve forces consist of battleriders.

The reason given is that battleships offer quick mobility, and loss of a tender does not reduce squadron mobility. A reasonable assumption since loss of the tender renders battleriders useless.

Consider this, if I was going to start a war against an enemy whose front line colonial forces consisted of Rider squadron my primary target would be the tenders. If I could "pearl harbor" even a portion of the enemies tender force I could can a considerable strategic advantage.

One thing that Traveller (and most other wargames for that matter!) tend to overlook is what is nowadays known as "Single point of failure" issues. I seem to recall a rule in Traveller's STRIKER - that a certain percentage of war material end up being on the "disabled" list purely because of statistics. Put another way?

If the jump drives of a Tender should malfunction in a non-lethal non-jump manner, the force would be out not one ship, but how ever many were part of the Battle Rider squadron. A single maintenance failure for a jump drive regards to a squadron of jump capable ships on the other hand, would only cost the squadron one ship's assets.

As for pearl harboring a base? Imperial fleets seem to be stationed well within the Imperial space to preclude just an event. Then again - a determined thrust through the border with a straight away bee-line for where the BATRON is harboring, and yes, you can have a Pearl Harbor. Problem is? You'd have the same Pearl Harbor with ships that could jump away anyhow. Powering up from a non-ready status in the middle of the bad end of a turkey shoot is going to be bad for either of the BATRON types of forces.

 

[Ptah]

Originally posted by Theophilus:
Canon material says that colonial forces consist of jump capable battleships and that strategic reserve forces consist of battleriders.

The reason given is that battleships offer quick mobility, and loss of a tender does not reduce squadron mobility. A reasonable assumption since loss of the tender renders battleriders useless.

Consider this, if I was going to start a war against an enemy whose front line colonial forces consisted of Rider squadron my primary target would be the tenders. If I could "pearl harbor" even a portion of the enemies tender force I could can a considerable strategic advantage.

A very good idea to lock enemy battle riders in place. A coordinated assault may not just rely on attacks but sabotage as well.

Thinking off the top of my head, I'd imagine one battle-rider doctrine TOE would include extra tender capability (maybe 2 to 4 times that needed) so if one tender is taken out another can take up the slack. The extra tenders could be used to haul supplies and would be very useful in rounding up ships scattered across a system in times of alert.

Given a tender is usually lightly armed etc. to maximize space, tenders should be fairly cost-effective to construct. In addition, their cost can be defrayed by use of them in peace time to haul cargo.

Although I think in the end the cost-advantage might be a wash, this means your line ships can be heavily armored, etc. as Sigg mentions. A battle rider fleet with extra transport could be a very viable option. In addition, a tough battle rider might be better able to hold the line and prevent breaktrhough.

Thinking of that extra tender cargo space, what about the fuel "pods." The idea is these pods are standardized so they can slip into the side of a ship quickly. One use might be to quickly refuel ships that drop to the reserve. The pods may even have their own little drive to get to the ship to be refueled. In addition, the pods may even be drop tanks.

So a combined doctrine might be jump into system with riders and J capable BB ships ("J-ships")etc. The J-ships and first launched battle riders take up the line. As new battler riders take up the line J-ships are rotated to reserve for repair and while being repaired they are simultaneously refueled by semi-autonomous fuel pods. This might allow your J-ships to carry much reduced fuel loads, or even arrive with all J fuel spent.

OR Many of your J-ships may not carry any J fuel but instead rely on drop tank fuel pods to get away, i.e., a hybrid idea where you have a J-drive but no fuel. This way you don't need to worry about one J dirve failure stranding your ship but you can build a ship that doesn't lose volume to J fuel requirements. The added cost is rather small but the decrease in detriments from the "battle rider" doctrine could be large. First, multiple J-drives. Second, one might view the fuel pods as externally mounted or put them on a diversified configuration so that all pods culd be launched in one turn and being semi-autonomous simultaneously refuel all the ships in the reserve. This sounds like a much faster proceedure than recovering one battle rider at a time.

 

[Scott Martin]

On the original subject, I see the "colonial" forces being composed of BRs, and the "Imperial" forces having additional tenders to transport these riders. With this deployment in mind, the 3I love of BRs and tenders makes sense: the BRs are crewed by folks of less than certain loyalty, so dumping them in a system where they cannot withdraw means that the 3I doesn't really need to worry about it. Note that in this deployment pattern, the "Colonial" forces are composed of screening units (cruisers down to corvettes) suitable for anti-piracy work, and system defence forces. In the case of a call-up, the "big" SDB's (BR's) get picked up by an imperial navy tender and taken to the front. No need to worry about "pearl harbour" unless a depot is taken (where the tenders are likely to be until deployment)

IMTU large bulk haulers can be used to transport military vessels in time of war. These bulk carriers are "module" transports: in HG these would be "open frame" designed to carry 100-1,000 dTon cargo modules (one design is 10m x 10m x 1 kilometer, and carries a LOT of 10m x 6m x 20m (or 22m) containers on either side, and attaches a large jump tank to the top and/or bottom. (note 1)

Said carried vessels are generally jump capable themselves, but Traveller is a lovely system in seperating strategic mobility from tactical mobility. The use of a jump tender to drop forces "in the rear" (especially if these forces carry drop tanks) is that you can dump a large force *past* the front lines and when they are dropped they have full fuel loads.

This is a logistical nightmare for a defender. Consider a J-4 Jump tender with J-4 carried craft and drop tanks. The tender jumps 4 parsecs into "enemy" territory using its drop tanks, drops its carried craft and returns to "safe" space. The carried craft then jump another 4 parsecs rtetaining their tanks, and are now in a position to raid up to 12 parsecs "from the border" immediately or more if they can refuel 8 parsecs in. While these "raiders" are likely to be light units, the implications of an opponent able to raid a subsector past the "front lines" would be enough for governments to start screaming for partol craft...

It is unlikely at best that any polity (even the 3I) will be able to maintain enough strategic "depth" to stop this type of raid without thinning out its front lines

Of course IMO anyone not willing to put J-1 on a battlerider so that it can withdraw (albeit a very slow withdrawl) if its tender is destroyed is probably being penny-wise and pound foolish. (or very ruthless, like the picture painted of the 3I colonial forces above)

Any BR I have designed (after the first one anyway) has had enough extra fuel margin for a J-1 anyway, since heavy armour result in most hits that "score" being fuel hits, and it really sucks to have an unpowered sitting duck because of 10 surface hits.

Scott Martin
_______________________
Note 1:
While this transport is technically unarmoured (basically a long engineering section with an oversized jump drive and enough fuel to push it a few parsecs unloaded) the most common load is raw ingots of steel. Trying to shoot through 22m of industrial steel means that the J-Drive is pretty well shielded. In FF&S, this would take a Terajoule PAW to dent (serious cap ship weaponry with an accellerator tunnel most of a kilometer long)

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by Hal:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
I can't imagine building a battle rider with anything less than full armour for its TL - perhaps one less for odd TLs

A TL14/15 battle rider only has to be 20-30kt to be immune to the T PAW crits.

It is also virtually immune to any non-nuclear missile hit - you'd have to be really lucky with your pulse laser batteries though

Unfortunately, it isn't immune to Meson spinal hits. </font>[/QUOTE]No, but BRs tend to be small enough to make hitting them with a meson gun require an 8+.
42% chance of a hit.
Of course, you can always munchkin the rider design to be 19,000t, tends to limit your own spinal to an N, but that's good enough.

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by veltyen:
Or any criticals
(I'm looking at you fusion-bay-weapon)

Do you mean in T20 combat rather than High Guard?

Because T20 makes anything bigger than a meson bay armed light cruiser a dead duck.

And you can build even smaller meson bay armed BRs in T20

 

[Badbru]

Just one point that seems to have been overlooked, maybe because it's not canon, wouldn't it be better to have mixed fleets.

In a land battle group you don't just have tanks, you have everything from infantry through recon vehicles through tanks and up to mobile artillery.

Wouldn't a Fleet, or maybe this is more task force level, have both BB's and BR's so that all the pro's and con's mentioned so far are evened out?

 

[flykiller]

"... "Single point of failure" issues ...."

ooooh. a staff officer. sign that man up.

unfortunately it's not so simple. true, not every battleship will be immobilized if one ship's jump drives fail, but such a failure will happen more often since there are more drives, and now the commodore has to decide what to do. continue on mission while the down ship fends for itself? assign fleet repair/recovery assets and jump the rest of the fleet without support? delay the mission until the down ship recovers? one must be careful not to exchange "single point failure" for "multiple source failure".

but perhaps this is too much detail for gaming.

some additional considerations regarding system defense fleet composition.

any system significant enough to construct SDB's for its own defense will tend to require those SDB's to remain in-system to defend it. carting off SDB's to a "front line" or exchanging damaged riders for good SDB's may be good for the imperial fleet but it depopulates a fleet that is guarding a major home base, large population, and construction/repair yard. this dynamic should not be overlooked if an enemy fleet is nearby.

the yards building system defense fleets are the same yards building the imperial navy. likely there will be friction between the two and competition for yard space.

home defense fleets do not require endurance cargo, a fleet train, jump fuel space, or jump drives. depending on the rule-set being used, worlds like Mora and Trin can build SDB fleets that match or exceed the offensive capability of the entire assembled imperial sector fleet. toss in ground-based defenses and you might have a problem if the imperium and the world don't see eye to eye. forbid such worlds to build such fleets and you might have a problem if a concentrated enemy fleet approaches.

 

[Hal]

Just some minor thoughts on the issues raised by flykiller (you knew I'd respond didn't you?)

Regards to building the system defense units over the other more mobile units. System defense units require only a class B starport instead of a class A starport. There are more class B's than A's in the spinward marches for some odd reason (just joking, for a GOOD reason!). If a given world has built up a surplus of defensive units, and you bring back 2 damaged units and take 4 - the 2 damaged units get pressed into the repair cycle and quick, while the other ships change their coverages to make up for the missing two ships. If a system has an overage, they're not really going to miss those two missing ships all too much.

Having said that? Mean ornery son of a pup that I am - I'm convinced that fleet dispositions are too small as it is

That project I've been working on all of these last two years? I have gotten closer to finishing it off of sorts. Those of you who might be interested in that project, can see what I'm talking about down in software solutions...

 

[robject]

See, what we need right now are some handy, high-level, strategic rules for resolving the kinds of scenarios mentioned above.

I'd love to see the results of such engagements. And if they just happen to approximate the results that real High Guard slugfests would accomplish, so much the better.

 

[flykiller]

(you knew I'd respond didn't you?)

well I'd fondly hoped in passing ....

If a system has an overage, they're not really going to miss those two missing ships all too much.

(smile) that's such an imperial navy view. the world in question will not consider any of their SDB's to be "overage".

and that's another issue for BGG's system defense fleets. to whom do they belong? this will carry great weight in determining their composition, and their reliability if transferred elsewhere.

 

[Black Globe Generator]

Originally posted by flykiller:
and that's another issue for BGG's system defense fleets. to whom do they belong?

I'm working from the position that these are planetary navies that contribute squadrons to the colonial fleet - they are under local control until they are called up to serve under the subsector admiral. Most planetary navies are composed almost exclusively of non-jump-capable system defense boats and monitors - only high population, high tech worlds will have the resources and the perceived need to include jump-capable battle squadrons.

My thought is that most planetary navies exist primarily for self-defense, and therefore battle riders and a tender make more sense than dreadnaughts. From the perspective of the Imperial Navy, this affects tactical doctrine and strategic deployment of its resources as well - if the colonial navy is heavy on riders, then the Imperial squadrons will tend to skew the other way to preserve operational flexibility.

In any case colonial battle squadrons are owned and operated by their home worlds as part of the planetary system navy.

 

[The Oz]

Originally posted by robject:
See, what we need right now are some handy, high-level, strategic rules for resolving the kinds of scenarios mentioned above.

I'd love to see the results of such engagements. And if they just happen to approximate the results that real High Guard slugfests would accomplish, so much the better.

Hey!! Give us a chance, will ya? Sigg and I are working on it....

 

[Hal]

Originally posted by flykiller:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />(you knew I'd respond didn't you?)

well I'd fondly hoped in passing ....

If a system has an overage, they're not really going to miss those two missing ships all too much.

(smile) that's such an imperial navy view. the world in question will not consider any of their SDB's to be "overage".

and that's another issue for BGG's system defense fleets. to whom do they belong? this will carry great weight in determining their composition, and their reliability if transferred elsewhere. </font>[/QUOTE]Darn it Flykiller - will you please move to BUFFALO (sheesh, you're darned stubborn to stay where we can't game together )

Ok - having said that, here are some thoughts...

In an environment where you have a multiple tier of military commands and/or financing systems (ie, taxation brackets for the Local planet, the subsector, and finally, the Imperium) there are implied limitations on how big a navy can be. If you want to look at any given defensive situation, the emphasis tends to be "who has the advantage and when". In addition, some of the issues involved depend on perceived need. For example, if a given star system sees no need to have 3,000 system defense boats when it deems that its needs are only 2000 system defense boats - you might expect that they won't foot the bill for the extra 1,000 sdb's. Now, lets add a "fudge factor". The Imperium itself says "We want to use a design philosophy for use of local resources as much as imperial resources" and they use treaties or laws or what have you to enforce their "political" will on the member worlds. Then they add a carrot to the picture by saying "We will reduce your tax burden by X percent if you levy an additional 10 squadrons of System Defense monitors (ie, 20K dton ships). Train them in Imperial fleet tactics, and we will not only drop your taxes a fixed amount, but when we Imperialize certain elements of your fleet, we will pick up the tab on their pay, and reimbursments for battle damage repair etc". Now? Those extra squadrons are maintained during peace time by the Locals, subsidized by the Imperials, and used only in time of war. Imperial fleets slip in when they need those squadrons, pick them up, and go off to war. They bring back the damaged units, and then pick up more replacements.

As time goes on, assuming the war is going badly, or perhaps the cost in manpower and materials is higher than expected - the original fleet size of the system defense fleet is steadily being whittled away from its overage in hulls to something closer to what the world believes it needs for system defense. Lets say for the sake of argument, that this "pool" of ships has dropped from 2,040 to 2,002. The Imperium shows up yet again and drops off 2 damaged ships, and requisitions 4 more. This still leaves the system with its originally desired 2,000 system defense boats. It is perhaps an uncomfortable situation for the world as it finds itself at the bare minimal levels it wants to have. If however,the war is going as badly for the enemey as it has been going for the Imperium when it started out with that 40 ship surplus - the original world might find comfort in knowing that it is better to fight the enemy OUTSIDE its home system boundaries than to let the enemy arrive in force and then fight with everything it has defensively.

Having said that, I think we should open up a new thread about the issues facing any planetary defense fleet.

 

[travlar]

Originally posted by Hal:
Regards to building the system defense units over the other more mobile units. System defense units require only a class B starport instead of a class A starport. There are more class B's than A's in the spinward marches for some odd reason (just joking, for a GOOD reason!). If a given world has built up a surplus of defensive units, and you bring back 2 damaged units and take 4 - the 2 damaged units get pressed into the repair cycle and quick, while the other ships change their coverages to make up for the missing two ships. If a system has an overage, they're not really going to miss those two missing ships all too much.

Actually, somewhere in either CT or MT it says that all planets with high enough tech levels can build ships for their navy.

 

[Jame]

To answer the question posed by the title:

Neither. The Imperial Navy co-opts all the colonially-built ships over 100,000 tons, and if the planet is TL-D+, Imperial or not otherwise affiliated and within three parsecs of the official border, the Imperium makes them either client states or Imperial worlds.

 

[Hal]

I've been revisiting a few threads looking for a "nugget" of information squirreled away somewhere (a chart of how many system defense factors are expected per world based on population and tech levels), I had a few more thoughts on the matter.

Because of a stupid quest of mine, I've been delving into defense budget ideas, theory of funding, etc - for the 3rd Imperium. I've also been discussing ideas of sorts with Chris and he is stimulating my mind to explain precisely what is going on in my mind rather than just make blanket statements. For example, Chris asked me "Where does it say that Imperial Planets are sovereign planets?" and asked for a cite. That made me wonder just how "subjective" one's views of the third Imperium can be and still share a sort of "reality" witho other people's views. None the less, I realize in part, my "soveriegn" entity belief lies in part with the rules and the history of the Imperium, and in part with an unspoken and seemingly shared viewpoint of this forum's collective discussions. More on that in the next post

 

[Hal]

In looking at the Holy Striker rules, where it is spoken "The Imperium reserves 30% of military expenses for its own coffers" or words to that effect, I sat down and did the math.

3 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (henceforth GDP) is utilized for war machine purposes. Of that, 30% is allocated to the Imperium - the rest is utilized locally. Now look at those numbers very carefully.

.03 x GDP = Military expense

.30 x .03 x GDP = Imperial Budget for military expense

.70 x .03 x GDP = local Military budget

Military budget is comprised of wages, benefits, cost of operations, etc for all of the following:
Navy
Marines
COACC
Army

Since the Imperium doesn't do COACC, that leaves .9% of the GDP to be allocated amongst Marines, Navy, & Army

I think too, that somewhere it states that the COACC is the joint responsibility of both the Navy and the Army - fancy that.

The irony may be that instead of a strictly Strategic or Tactical consideration being the guiding force on which ships get purchased, the following forces will come into play:

Political Will: How many people remember the fiasco involving World War I fighter bi-planes when it was discovered that a clearly inferior plan was fielded in war for purely political/corruption purposes? In the US, it would be an issue of which Company bribed the Senator the most to add an "earmark" that funded a project for which the company doing the bribing gained some financial benefit from?

On the flip side? With hundreds of years of feasibility studies standing behind the Office of Naval Procuments or the Naval Procurements Committee or what have you - it may be that one form of BatRon is CHEAPER in quantity over another form of BatRon.