Crew Space Too High in Traveller?

[Whipsnade]

Wow. I thought I had it bad having to sleep under the gun tube on my tank 4-5 weeks out of 8.

Pendragonman,

It was an economics issue, like many things are. You see it's both a matter of housing and transportation. If you live off-ship you also have to be able to commute.

Simply put, in Norfolk we were able to share apartments and maintain personal cars on our "single squid" paychecks. In Alameda, we could barely maintain the cars.

When aboard the ship you were supposed to be in uniform, be it "working" or "dress". There was no lounging about in civilian clothes, although you could wear them to leave and return. As long as you were in uniform and onboard after the laughably-titled "knock off ship's work", you could be grabbed up for any number of working parties the bored chiefs and officers on duty always found time to arrange. This meant that getting dressed in civvies and getting off the ship as rapidly as possible after working hours was a priority. Even sticking around for chow could mean you'd get caught.

So, you end up with a few hundred young men on the loose for an evening with nowhere to go. Is anyone surprised at the amount of drinking that then would occur?

Fellows with large cars, pickup truck with caps, and "Ducky" Phelps the much admired owner of the motor home, could "retire" to their off-ship quarters to read or watch TV. Most of the rest of us held down a barstool until closing time and then staggered back to the ship. A civilian girlfriend could help, if she let you crash at her apartment 2 out of every 3 days. Naturally, some women weren't all too happy with that prospect!

Our living arrangements meant that retaining surface nucs(1) after their first enlistment was nearly impossible. My division went nearly three years without someone reenlisting for a tour after his original six years. We continually bled off men with all sorts of dodges being used to either get off the ship or out of the service early; "admitting" you were a drug addict worked until they shut the loophole in question and a number of other suddenly realized they were "homosexuals". We were never manned over 80% and, when BuPers sent scores of new nucs aboard, it was like bailing with a sieve. The navy even began coaxing sub nucs into surface tours with promises of points towards advancement(2). All in all, it was a pretty lousy tour of duty.

All of this illustrates the problems with retaining highly skilled people in positions with low "quality of life". (Of course, quality of life is a relative term.) Military services, paramilitary groups, and corporations in the 57th Century are going to have similar problems with rentention of skilled workers that the US Navy did (or still does). You can only count on selling "adventure" to so many people. the others are going to want something more tangible.


Have fun,
Bill

1 - Nearly all nucs; over 97% IIRC, are also submarine volunteers. I was one. Unfortunately, 97% of nuc billets at the time weren't in the subs. That meant people were, as the pencil pushers put it, "involuntarily surfaced", or as the people actually effected put it; "shitcanned to the surface navy". Making matters worse, although he'd undergone the exact same training as the sub nuc, the surface nuc was now permanently a surface nuc. This badly effected rentention.

2 - One of the happiest days of my life occured when an E7 sub nuc recieved his new orders and found himself being sent to a carrier! He'd come aboard to help us poor surface nucs with his "superior" sub training and was now trapped surface-side with the rest of us! Up your's Chief Chute! Hahahahahahahahahahahahha!

 

[pendragonman]

Seems a bit wrongheaded to not have portside transient barracks for ship crews in port. At least for the surface people.

Much easier for the sub crews, being portside for months at a time while the other crew goes out with the ship. My best freind was a sub commo guy (on a boomer, G.W. Carver, now cut up for razor blades) for twelve years and was able to keep a small apartment by himself.

 

[carlparl]

Okay, I got the 5 May issue of Navy Times, which has an article titled "Shore Quarters for All." The specifics from the article are:

-Four years ago, 24,000 junior enlisted sailors lived on ships.
-The current plan is to have all but 2,100 sailors in barracks by the end of 2010. They currently have around 9,000 sailors without shore accommodations.

The program is designed to increase living standards and reduce morale and discipline problems.

So, there's what I've got about barracks for sailors in the US Navy.

 

[Whipsnade]

Okay, I got the 5 May issue of Navy Times, which has an article titled "Shore Quarters for All."

Carl,

That's nice to hear.

Of course it's TWENTY FIVE years too late!


Have fun,
Bill

 

[aramis]

And it drives most of them slightly mad, casquilho.

Heck, most of them were before they went in.

In any case, using jails and prisons as examples of safe space alowances isn't a safe choice.

 

[Supplement Four]

Last night I was watching a show that featured many shots of people in jails. One jail was a max security place with cells that were very small. A bed and a tolet/sink combo. When I saw it I thought of the crew rooms. Interesting how much space the sleeping area was and most of the space were common areas, including the showers and eating areas. And some of these folks live years in these cells without any rest stops "in a space port".

Having seen Alcatraz a few weeks ago, I can concurr. The entire prison was small--housing something like 300 prisoners max. The cell house is where they did everything--which was stay in their cells. The cells were just a touch longer than their beds (bed + sink = length). The width of the cell used the same formula (bed width + toilet = width). They're crazy small.

Other than the cells, there's the visitation area, which is basically just outside the row of cells (in the same hallway, a few feet away from the last cell on the row). The only other places the prisoners went were the cafeteria (about the size of an elementary school cafeteria) and the "yard", which is a small outside yard (can you fit a football field in there? I'm not sure, but there would be no stands for it).

And, that's pretty much it, unless an inmate needed to go to hospital--which isn't that big either.

Now, here's the kicker. Alcatraz is spacious compared to the 100 men that served aboard the WWII submarine that you can visit in Frisco. And, Alcatraz compares pretty good to the rooms I saw aboad the WWII aircraft carrier Hornet in Alameda.

Space is definitely a commodity.

 

[casquilho]

Having seen Alcatraz a few weeks ago, I can concurr. The entire prison was small--housing something like 300 prisoners max. The cell house is where they did everything--which was stay in their cells. The cells were just a touch longer than their beds (bed + sink = length). The width of the cell used the same formula (bed width + toilet = width). They're crazy small.

I agree Alcatraz cells at 5x9 feet are smaller then the Federal prison I saw on TV. I agree 5x9 feet is way too small for the rooms we put in the deck plans.

Daniel

 

[far-trader]

Well even my cramped deckplans are 10' x 10' rooms (4 squares of 1.5m ea) including a nice sized private fresher. And high tech (even low tech) can go a long way towards making them much more habitable than a bare concrete cell with a simple bed bolted to the floor and stainless steel appliances.

 

[mbrinkhues]

IRL: The german army uses "housing units"(UE) of 4.5meters square. An ordinary soldier is assigned 1.5UE or 6.75m2 in a four person room. Assuming standard hights and 14m2/dton this ends up at 1.5dton/soldier. This is down from the 8-10 soldier rooms that used about 1UE per soldier back in the 1980s. (There IS a benefit to a conscript army. The soldiers can't say "no" to enlistment due to lousy quarters)

In GURPS Traveller they have the bunk room that houses up to 8 in a 4dton space (extremly cramped) or 4 (resonable cramped)

And privat ships should have more space than warships since privat spacers likely can give a "two weeks/one port" notice.

 

[samuelvss]

CT fits the Mostest for the Bestest

I think if you look at 2 dtons for someone's long-term residence, plus 2 dtons for their "share " of public spaces, this is reasonable. Think Free Trader, with no "home" territory. There may be situations where this is "excessive," (i.e.: more than the minimum possible), but setting a standard for staterooms needs to take all situations that starships will be used for over over their 40-year life into account. Double occupancy for military or charters has similar considerations. Down to 2 dtons double occupancy, with like public (multi-use) space is not an absolute minimum for all purposes, but if there has to be one rule for all purposes, this seems both highly rational, and close to optimum.

I do not think "disproving" this with military comparisons is possible. I think GURPS Traveller's "bunkrooms" can be used as exceptional circumstances, but they are not a general solution.

What the military was doing for barracks in WWII is not acceptable now, the 21st Century wet Navy, with minimum of 6 month cruises, uses more shore housing; if the Navy had to be able to be gone possibly for years, then their regulations, practices would likely be different. If recruiting, retention of trained spacers was an issue, then they would have facilities that were comparable.

Some things to think about: 100 kg is a middle passenger's baggage. Presumably it may fit in the 4 dtons. A normal size suitcase is maybe 10kg, with 22 ish kg being the max. Dining/common spaces are part of the 4 dtons.

In a military context, presumably since life support is stateroom centered, double occupancy figures a safety factor for overloading (triple and higher) that 2 dton space to account for battle damage, etc. While there may be some use of common areas for recreational pursuits (mess as day room), in addition to the contingency duty uses for these spaces (mass casualty, etc.), there will be a certain amount of the reverse: staterooms will be the offices of the vast majority if not all of the crew. Think about personal exercise, meditation, hobbies (restoring vintage combat armor??), and the 2 dtons split between 2 does not seem excessive, even with very high-quality multiply-configurable space (bunks, tables, work stations folding away, etc).

 

[CosmicGamer]

Skimmed over a few posts here and just wanted to add a few comments from another person that knows what its like to be on an aircraft carrier.

I'll start with this photo I found online.

Rows and rows of 3 high racks. Aprox 5000 people live on a carrier. So a little extra space per person = 5000x that space.

I really, really hope conditions get better as time goes forward. I believe that the nuclear ships are larger and roomier. Technologies beyond nuclear would again hopefully allow for more roomier ships.

How many people on a typical Imperial war ship? A much smaller # I believe, so giving a little more space per person would have a smaller cost for the increase in crew moral.

Typically are there not a lot of folks with high social standing in the Imperial Navy? Wouldn't they push for a bit more creature comforts?

Just one low tech vac suit probably takes as much space as todays enlisted sailor gets.

If you still think its too much space, IYTU you can determine that each individual needs extra storage for food, water, emergency equipment, physical fitness equipment and all sorts of things. Most deck plans do not allow for a lot of storage.

The ISS is pretty good at recycling water and reducing what non drinking uses it is needed for and this will only get better but there will still need to be some water storage.

Air replenishment (does not have to be oxygen, does not even have to be stored in the form of a gas) - some form of storage would be required to compensate for losses from numerous sources so that the internal pressure of the ship can be maintained.

Waste. In open space it may not be a problem, but when you are orbiting a planet and definitely when you are at a space port you will be storing your waste.

Aircraft carriers are designed to go extended periods without resupply and that takes a lot of storage reducing the amount available for crew. In Traveller is there any canon as to how long military patrols are?

Most of the comments here are regarding space for military. It seams logical that merchant ships, scouts and others would have more space and traveller was mostly designed to keep things simple so think of the space requirement for crew as an average from the small amount that military vessels have to the space that Luxury passenger liners, and wealthy free traders would use.

There may be pipes misc equipment, storage tanks and whatnot possibly encroaching on those berthing areas.

 

[aramis]

Samuel:
Having had a "normal" sized bag mass in at over 30kg (85#, to be specific... I was charged for excess weight) with nought but well packed clothing... everything tightly rolled then forced in...

100kg isn't really much at all... four relatively normal suitcases measuring 15x35x90cm will fill it. (Water would mass it at about 40kg... tightly packed clothing is about the same density.)

Keep in mind, a laptop is about a 1/2 a KG, and under a liter as well.


Cosmic: the CT and MT cruisers go all the way up to about 25,000 people aboard for the largest. In general, ships tend to be about 5-10% crew space...

 

[BlackBat242]

MHS Daring (nearing completion), the Royal Navy's newest destroyer is designed for junior crew to be in "6-man cabins", senior enlisted in 1-2 man cabins, and all officers in single cabins.

Here is one of those "6-man cabins":

from http://navy-matters.beedall.com/daring1-1.htm

 

[casquilho]

We are still discussing the minimum space needed per crew member right?

Daniel

 

[atpollard]

We are still discussing the minimum space needed per crew member right?

For 'minimum crew space', the Navy people had it luxurious compared to the Air Force/NASA:

“All around the Gemini was considered the ultimate 'pilot's spacecraft', and it was also popular with engineers because of its extremely light weight. The capsule allowed recover of a crew of two for only 50% more than the Mercury capsule weight, and half of the weight per crew member of the Apollo design. The penalty was obvious - it was christened the 'Gusmobile' since diminutive Gus Grissom was the only astronaut who was said to be able to fit into it. The crew member was crammed in, shoulder to shoulder with his partner, his helmet literally scrunched against the hatch, which could be opened for space walks. With the crew unable to fully stretch out unless an EVA was scheduled, living in the capsule was literally painful on the long missions (Gemini 5 and 7). Getting back into the seat and getting the hatch closed in an inflated suit in zero gravity was problematic and would have been impossible if the spacewalking astronaut was incapacitated in even a minor way.”

Mercury = 1 man = 1.70 cubic meters = 24 hrs max duration
Gemini = 2 men = 2.55 cubic meters = 14 days max duration
Apollo = 3 men = 6.17 cubic meters = 12.5 days max duration

 

[casquilho]

I would hate to see the minimum become the only number used though and it seems to me we have a habit of square counting when we make deck plans. We total up what we need and see what the number is.

I believe the average number used will be higher then the minimum. Some designs will be made with the idea of the crew living on the ship. Their "rooms" and spaces are more then just temporary cabins for the "flight" but rather their whole living spaces period. Sort of like if you looked at my office and my car and my apartment combined then reduced it by eliminating redundent spaces. Just a thought with this latest rush to see how small we can go.

Just a thought.

Daniel

 

[aramis]

For 'minimum crew space', the Navy people had it luxurious compared to the Air Force/NASA:



Mercury = 1 man = 1.70 cubic meters = 24 hrs max duration
Gemini = 2 men = 2.55 cubic meters = 14 days max duration
Apollo = 3 men = 6.17 cubic meters = 12.5 days max duration

two things:

1) Apollo adds another roughly 6 cubic meters with the lander
2) The men allowed to fly were specifically selected for tolerance for isolation and cramped spaces.

 

[Straybow]

There are some figures on stateroom sizes in Price-Fixed Travel. A 4dT space, with full bath, is near top of the chart luxury at double occupancy. Of course that doesn't include allowance for common spaces, but the answer to that is to design common spaces. Minimum ratios for High Passage and Medium Passage (which would still be luxury), add in a Standard Passage and steerage class...