Computers/Fire control for medium range ships (600-2000 dtons)

[RatPatrol]

If I May ....
I am going to over simplify this ...


it seems to me 'Gunnery' between ships with computer 'assist' should be about as complicated as the zoomed in mode of World of Warships


Opps I missed, adjust the fall of the shot ... fire again
obviously this requires you to be in visual range

.... and IMHO the bigger issue is [and I am sure this has been talked to death elsewhere] computers have come along way since Main Frames were common in the 80's and the most powerful desktop computer was 1 - 4 Mhz Computer using 5 1/4 Floppy Disks - when Traveller or Mega Traveller were published

and for computers .... in WW I U-Boat Captains utilized several different mechanical computational aids ... Angriffsscheibe, Lagenwinkelscheibe,

WW I

but the close of WW II US Naval Fleet Boats had an 'analog' or electro-mechanical Computation Device

Torpedo Data Computer


it seems to be ship to ship combat would be more like a 'modern' video game ... in an advanced space faring society

Modern fire control systems

Fire-control systems are often interfaced with sensors (such as sonar, radar, infra-red search and track, laser range-finders, anemometers, wind vanes, thermometers, etc.) in order to cut down or eliminate the amount of information that must be manually entered in order to calculate an effective solution. Sonar, radar, IRST and range-finders can give the system the direction to and/or distance of the target. Alternatively, an optical sight can be provided that an operator can simply point at the target, which is easier than having someone input the range using other methods and gives the target less warning that it is being tracked. Typically, weapons fired over long ranges need environmental information — the farther a munition travels, the more the wind, temperature, etc. will affect its trajectory, so having accurate information is essential for a good solution.

Once the firing solution is calculated, many modern fire-control systems are also able to aim and fire the weapon(s). Once again, this is in the interest of speed and accuracy, and in the case of a vehicle like an aircraft or tank, in order to allow the pilot/gunner/etc. to perform other actions simultaneously, such as tracking the target or flying the aircraft. Even if the system is unable to aim the weapon itself, for example the fixed cannon on an aircraft, it is able to give the operator cues on how to aim.

57 mm programmable ammo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2yRhVXKEXU

 

[kilemall]

We've gone into fire control in another thread, I posted several links to official documents and discussions about US 1940s-70s naval targeting systems, which work out to about the same size as Model/1 and Model/2 machines and are more the sort of shipboard equipment we are dealing in rather then say a general purpose computer at a planetside bank.

In one sense I agree with the 'should be easy' part in that once you have the basics coded in, hits should be easy to come by and well understood in the centuries if not millennia of space travel and combat.

Disagree on the fall of shot adjustment, big difference between how much distance our ships can change between shots and WWII visual/analog targeting computer gunnery.

I'm postulating that most Traveller shots are in fact hits, the difference being whether they are ineffective or effective. The key stat is accel vs. ship size, give our ships 10x the accel/decel capability and a lot more misses would be generated. Others take a different tack.

One area that has not been delved into is countermeasures- beyond Evade programs, ECM for missiles and sand. I did the sandcaster round posting which was a first stab at it. That is something I am looking at hard for my CT/HG mashup, and computer programs supporting them would be a part of that ruleset.

 

[salochin999]

When designing ships, I've always had problema for non-capital ships over 600 (understanding as non capital those built under CT:LBB2 or MgT:CB rules).

... snip

One thing to consider maybe is the historical sequence.

At some point in the past those ships were the cutting edge so they were competing with the same or less advanced ships and their x, y, z programs were the best available so it didn't matter if they were perfect, they were better than the opposition or at least no worse.

Once their time was passed and other bigger ships were used as ships of the line then what would these now small size ships be used for and therefore what would they be competing with - I'd say mostly converted merchant ship pirates, or a swarm of belters who need money to repair their asteroid home - so again warship's software would likely be better than the opposition even if it wasn't the very best.


(Unless a really high tech pirate shows up dramatically.)

 

[salochin999]

So then, with this new understanding, for the OP's original question re: CT builds to 5000 tons, SHOULD GI be interpreted as 'per gunner', 'per turret', 'per target', or as a serve-all utility like Predict apparently does (no per target requirement for that one)?

And what if you go CT computer style all the way to 1,000,000 ton ships? What program mix is a Model/9 running that justifies the +9 HG mod?

Slightly faster versions of the model 6 standard?

 

[salochin999]

...

My problem is similar but on a larger scale- how do you fight a 10,000 ton ship with spinal mounts LBB2 style with a Model/4 computer?

...

The way I do it - trying to keep the core flavor as much as possible - is
simply have bigger lasers i.e. instead of slaving four laser 1 turrets you have a laser 4 turret instead (or a laser 16 or laser 64).

So a 1600 dton ship still has 16 points to allocate but in multiple potential configurations
e.g.
1 x laser 16
or
1 x laser 8 and 2 x laser 4
or
4 x laser 4
or
16 x laser 1
etc
as long as it doesn't add up to more than 16.

I keep it so a laser 16 needs 16 dtons of space and 16 crew, a laser 4 needs 4 dtons and 4 crew etc to keep all that stuff the same.

(I'm assuming capacitor banks, heat exchangers, emergency overheating etc is all part of the weapon.)

.

In my case the power output determines the weapon's range
e.g.
laser 16 hits with power of 16 at range 1
laser 16 hits with power of 4 at range 2
laser 16 hits with a power of 1 at range 4
etc

but if that extra complication wasn't needed then the power rating minus armor can be the number of hits or something.

.

Anyway, so your 10,000 dton ship in LBB2 terms would have 100 turrets or in my system maybe it could be

1 x laser 100

or for a more balanced ship maybe

1 x laser 64
2 x laser 8
4 x laser 4
4 x laser 1

 

[kilemall]

The way I do it - trying to keep the core flavor as much as possible - is
simply have bigger lasers i.e. instead of slaving four laser 1 turrets you have a laser 4 turret instead (or a laser 16 or laser 64).

So a 1600 dton ship still has 16 points to allocate but in multiple potential configurations
e.g.
1 x laser 16
or
1 x laser 8 and 2 x laser 4
or
4 x laser 4
or
16 x laser 1
etc
as long as it doesn't add up to more than 16.

I keep it so a laser 16 needs 16 dtons of space and 16 crew, a laser 4 needs 4 dtons and 4 crew etc to keep all that stuff the same.

(I'm assuming capacitor banks, heat exchangers, emergency overheating etc is all part of the weapon.)

.

In my case the power output determines the weapon's range
e.g.
laser 16 hits with power of 16 at range 1
laser 16 hits with power of 4 at range 2
laser 16 hits with a power of 1 at range 4
etc

but if that extra complication wasn't needed then the power rating minus armor can be the number of hits or something.

.

Anyway, so your 10,000 dton ship in LBB2 terms would have 100 turrets or in my system maybe it could be

1 x laser 100

or for a more balanced ship maybe

1 x laser 64
2 x laser 8
4 x laser 4
4 x laser 1

I misssed this post from before.

FREAKY!

 

[Travellerspud]

this might help clear things up...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-FT0T9Ei-4

 

[whartung]

this might help clear things up...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-FT0T9Ei-4

That's pretty funny.

 

[Enoki]

Such systems (ones that automatically track a target and aim the weapons on it) exist down to about TL 5 or 6...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h4yBxydz0E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nskFayhBcy0

While the one in the videos is strictly optical, it does have all sorts of other inputs and could have been linked to a radar system as well.