Hi,
Some of the discussions on these boards in recent months concerning Traveller ship designs and how much space different systems take up, has gotten me thinking about how they might compare to modern ship designs. Unfortunately, its hard to find alot of consistant data on any given ship. However, there is a fair amount of data on some student designs on the internet, particularly from places like Virginia Tech, MIT, and the Naval Post Graduate School (NPS).
In particular at the link for the NPS http://www.nps.edu/Academics/GSEAS/TSSE/subPages/experienceTSSE.htmlthere is some data on a couple frigate/Destroyer sized desgns that were developed using some of the same tools that the US Navy uses for its own ship designs.
In particular, there is one design for a frigate sized vessel called the CPCX that displaces about 4000t of Sea Water and has a total enclosed volume of about 499,000 cubic ft. As such in Traveller terms the ship has a volumetric displacement of about 1000 dtons.
If I did the math right then the machinery spaces take up about an additional 49678 cubic feet (99dtons) with another 5738 cubic feet of space in the double bottom in the Machinery Spaces (11.5 dtons).
Using an average hull deck height of 10.57ft and a deck house deck height of 9.84ft (as stated in the data on the NPS site) here is a summary of other internal spaces;
Ship Fuel 18305 cu ft (36.6 dton)
Small Craft Fuel 2814 cu ft (5.6 dton)
Fresh water 653 cu ft (1.3 dton)
Sewage 245 cu ft (0.5 dton)
Waste Oil/Water 366 cu ft (0.7 dtons)
Human Support/Accommodations etc for 122 personnel 167 dtons or 1.37 dtons/person
Internal Accesses (passageways) 135 dtons
Other Ship Support (maintenance & stores etc) 125 dtons
Small Arms 3.4 dtons
Weapons Maint 15.5 dtons
Aviation Support 13.1 dtons
Weapons 37.4 dtons
Countermeasures 3.9 dtons
Chart Room 1.6 dtons
Pilot House 10.4 dtons
CIC 10.4 dtons
Sensors 13.5 dtons
Radio Rms 15.3 dtons
Interior comms etc 7.3 dtons
As such, in summary
Machinery Space (including double bottom) - 11% total volume
Ship fuel - 3.7% total voulme
Small Craft fuel - 0.5% total volume
Other Tankage - 0.25% total volume
Berthing, Passages & Stores etc - 43% total volume (or about 3.5 dtons per accommodation)
Aviation Support - 1.3% total volume
Weapons etc - 6% total volume
Command, Comms, & Surveillance etc - 5.9%
Anyway, I thought it was kind of interesting to see just how much space is dedicated to things like command spaces and accommodations spaces on ocean going ships, and how these compare to the rules for space ships in Traveller.
Some of the discussions on these boards in recent months concerning Traveller ship designs and how much space different systems take up, has gotten me thinking about how they might compare to modern ship designs. Unfortunately, its hard to find alot of consistant data on any given ship. However, there is a fair amount of data on some student designs on the internet, particularly from places like Virginia Tech, MIT, and the Naval Post Graduate School (NPS).
In particular at the link for the NPS http://www.nps.edu/Academics/GSEAS/TSSE/subPages/experienceTSSE.htmlthere is some data on a couple frigate/Destroyer sized desgns that were developed using some of the same tools that the US Navy uses for its own ship designs.
In particular, there is one design for a frigate sized vessel called the CPCX that displaces about 4000t of Sea Water and has a total enclosed volume of about 499,000 cubic ft. As such in Traveller terms the ship has a volumetric displacement of about 1000 dtons.
If I did the math right then the machinery spaces take up about an additional 49678 cubic feet (99dtons) with another 5738 cubic feet of space in the double bottom in the Machinery Spaces (11.5 dtons).
Using an average hull deck height of 10.57ft and a deck house deck height of 9.84ft (as stated in the data on the NPS site) here is a summary of other internal spaces;
Ship Fuel 18305 cu ft (36.6 dton)
Small Craft Fuel 2814 cu ft (5.6 dton)
Fresh water 653 cu ft (1.3 dton)
Sewage 245 cu ft (0.5 dton)
Waste Oil/Water 366 cu ft (0.7 dtons)
Human Support/Accommodations etc for 122 personnel 167 dtons or 1.37 dtons/person
Internal Accesses (passageways) 135 dtons
Other Ship Support (maintenance & stores etc) 125 dtons
Small Arms 3.4 dtons
Weapons Maint 15.5 dtons
Aviation Support 13.1 dtons
Weapons 37.4 dtons
Countermeasures 3.9 dtons
Chart Room 1.6 dtons
Pilot House 10.4 dtons
CIC 10.4 dtons
Sensors 13.5 dtons
Radio Rms 15.3 dtons
Interior comms etc 7.3 dtons
As such, in summary
Machinery Space (including double bottom) - 11% total volume
Ship fuel - 3.7% total voulme
Small Craft fuel - 0.5% total volume
Other Tankage - 0.25% total volume
Berthing, Passages & Stores etc - 43% total volume (or about 3.5 dtons per accommodation)
Aviation Support - 1.3% total volume
Weapons etc - 6% total volume
Command, Comms, & Surveillance etc - 5.9%
Anyway, I thought it was kind of interesting to see just how much space is dedicated to things like command spaces and accommodations spaces on ocean going ships, and how these compare to the rules for space ships in Traveller.
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