Cruisers in Traveller

[Starviking]

But remember, it's not only Interstellar trade that can be interdicted. Interplanetary trade within the system can also be targeted. While the distance a Type A has to cover to make the jump limit from Earth may only take 6 hours, it can take days or weeks to get to the mining facility on Io. Many systems, especially ones with Hi-Pop worlds, will have colonies on planets and moons around the system which can only be reached by travelling the distance between them, which can be HUGE.

Cheers,

Bob W.

The long jump routes through badly-defended systems are the perfect haunting ground for commerce-raiders - not the destination or departure systems.

That said, a jump into the outer system, a powered-down drift to the mainworld's jump-limit - fire off some nukes and jump out. You may not be able to record the tonnage destroyed, but some commerce has certainly been raided.

Starviking

 

[pendragonman]

SNIP...
That said, a jump into the outer system, a powered-down drift to the mainworld's jump-limit - fire off some nukes and jump out. You may not be able to record the tonnage destroyed, but some commerce has certainly been raided.

Starviking

While your example is that of raiding, that is most likely some sort of state-sponsored raiding since the destruction itself is the result. Most raiding being discussed however is not state sponsored. As a result the idea is not to destroy the commerce but "divert" it.

 

[sid6.7]

space is a very large place...even within the restrictions of a system.
if space were 2D it might be easier to intercept a raider but its
not... its 3D...

 

[Gallowglacht]

Most of the stuff worth attacking/defending is on what is basically a 2d plane though.

 

[mbrinkhues]

While your example is that of raiding, that is most likely some sort of state-sponsored raiding since the destruction itself is the result. Most raiding being discussed however is not state sponsored. As a result the idea is not to destroy the commerce but "divert" it.

The "Nemesis" class cruisers where designed along the "drift-nuke-jump" concept of "raiding". Basically a J5 or J6 drive, black globe and a meson gun cramped into the smallest possible hull.

The "Manzikert" and "Iolare" class in "Ships of the black war" (Challenge 60) also work along that lines (no black globes but raider-optimized)

 

[Icosahedron]

Most of the stuff worth attacking/defending is on what is basically a 2d plane though.

I think what Sid is saying is that the targets can be attacked from 3 dimensions so there are no choke poiints. The only place you can guarantee intercepting the attacker is at the target, so you need personal escorts for all high value targets.

This is why I found the 'creeping past the Reavers' scene in the Serenity movie a bit silly.

 

[atpollard]

I think what Sid is saying is that the targets can be attacked from 3 dimensions so there are no choke poiints. The only place you can guarantee intercepting the attacker is at the target, so you need personal escorts for all high value targets.

This is why I found the 'creeping past the Reavers' scene in the Serenity movie a bit silly.

(of course a star system where every orbit from the innermost to the outermost is in the liquid water zone was so much more realistic).


Sorry, back on topic ...
... I always thought that the weapon ranges were even more of a problem. Even if MR PIRATE happened to be waiting a mere 100 meters from the place where an unarmed ship exits jumpspace, the odds are that he would already be in weapons range of a SDB in planetary orbit. And even if the SDB happened to be on the opposite side of the planet when the pirate boarded the helpless merchant, the SDB could maneuver to fire in less than 1 turn.

Pirates need to be VERY quick. More like a classic purse snatcher than a mugger.

 

[aramis]

Part of that, AT, is unrealistically long ranges for Traveller ship-to-ship weapons.

 

[atpollard]

Part of that, AT, is unrealistically long ranges for Traveller ship-to-ship weapons.

Is there any force that causes a collumn of photons to naturally spread out? WE cannot create a perfect collumn, but if one existed it should be able to inflict damage over an unlimited range (unless something naturally dissipates the beam).

Of course, hitting a target is a completely different matter.

 

[aramis]

the natural expansion of space, AT.

 

[Icosahedron]

Expansion of space won't do it, but check out 'coherence'.

 

[robject]

Traveller Ship Classification

There is so much crunchy goodness in this thread that I have to pull elements out of no less than six posts to try to piece my thoughts together.

From the posts clipped below, critique the following:

Mission
Escort - Primarily meant to protect, screen, shield, patrol.
Battle - Ship of the line. Capital ship.
Strike - Primarily meant for raids.

Function
Corvette - performance over guns and armor
Destroyer - targets smaller or lower-TL ships
Frigate - more guns than armor
Cruiser - equal guns and armor

So you could have combinations like
Destroyer Escort
Cruiser Escort
Battlecruiser
Strike Cruiser

plus a lot of less plausible-sounding classifications...

The breaks in Traveller weapons are significant at 1) the introduction of Bay Weapons and 2) the introduction of Spinal Mounts.

I would view the 'Traveller Frigate' or Escort as a Bay Weapon Ship able to beat up on Turret-only ships.

I would view the 'Traveller Cruiser' as a Spinal Mount Ship able to beat up on Bay Weapon-only ships.

I would view the 'Traveller Battleship' as the largest Spinal Mount Ships able to outgun lesser Spinal Mount ships.

So, in ATTU (AT's TU), Frigate = Large Escort (a la Sloan), and ships can generally only beat up ships of a lesser configuration (Small ships < Frigates < Cruisers < Battleships). So is there a battleship which can't be bested?

Battleship: max armor/defenses, biggest spine mount permitted at tech level.

Battle Cruiser- about the same size as a battle ship, same jump, max speed, biggest spine mount, less armor. Designed to fight battleships of lower tech level and pursue fleeing ships. Usually several supporting a squadron of battleships.

Frontier Cruiser- Same size, Medium spine mount, lots of ship's troops, small craft. Max speed, less armor/defenses, max jump. Designed to patrol the frontier, reach trouble spots fast and deal with whatever problem they find. A lone commission- think Star Trek's Enterprise.

Cruiser (or Frigate) Smaller, medium spine mount, medium armor/defenses, max maneuver and jump. Used for scouting, raiding, and escort.

Corvette: Too small for a spine mount, modest jump, max maneuver. Too tough for a pirate or commerce raider, used for escort and patrol.

So, in UBTU, Cruisers are divided into three spine-carrying classes, defined by function, which in turn dictates general performance characteristics (with the exception of the "Cruiser/Frigate" being significantly smaller than the other two). The Corvette class includes large and small escorts, small ships, etc.

Bob, I was tracking with you all the way until the end of your list. I still like to maintain naming distinctions among the smaller ships just as I do with the larger vessels IMTU.

For me there is a significant size difference between the cruiser and frigate. Cruisers are as you described, followed in size by destroyers, destroyer escorts, frigates, and then corvettes (or close escorts). Cruisers are the smallest vessels mounting spinal weapons so in game terms there is little difference between all of the smaller ships, but their relative firepower does vary along with their expense and the types of missions they are assigned.[/FONT]

Major B's contribution is because players live in a Small-Ship universe, even when there are Big Ships around. I think this makes sense.

So, in MBTU, Gazelles are the Corvettes, then above that are Frigates, Destroyer Escorts, and Destroyers.

I also noticed the term "Escort" here being used as a modifier. I've thought about that as well and think it may be worth playing with. Could one define a "Battleship Escort", "Cruiser Escort", and "Frigate Escort"? (Perhaps a Cruiser in Traveller is a "Battleship Escort"...)

Marc defines small-ship Cruisers as "equal guns and armor", and small-ship Frigates as "more guns than armor". So the Mercenary Cruiser and Kinunir are both "Cruisers" in that sense, whereas a patrol ship is probably more like a Frigate. In the large-ship world, ships appear to be named according to size (Battleship, Cruiser, Destroyer, Escort) or function (Flagship, Monitor, Carrier, Intelligence, Support) with typical modifiers (Attack, Battle, Chase, Defense, Fast, Heavy).

I'd like to see Corvette defined for T5, probably as a small-ship, but not sure how to differentiate it. More speed and agility than firepower and armor? And, what sets a small-ship Escort (Gazelle) apart from a Cruiser? Size only?

I think my thoughts became somewhat muddled at this point, since there is clearly a division between function as much as size going on here. Without knowing which term represents what, madness follows.

Major B,

The changes between CT and MT or CT and TNE or CT and any other rules version is miniscule when compared to the change that occurred within CT itself. Up through LBB:4 Mercenary, the Imperium and it's warships were one thing and, after LBB:5 High Guard, the Imperium and it's warships were something completely different. LBB:5 High Guard is when the "large ship" setting came into being and blasted everything that came before.

The Kinunir lays on one side of this "fault line", the FSotSI destroyers lay on the other, and there's no real way to reconcile one with the other. We can handwave like mad - and we've being doing so ever since 1981 - but's there no real way to make each side "fit" with the other.



You still don't understand that size is only an indicator at one remove. A ship's function determines it's class, a given function requires certain "tools", those "tools" will require a certain amount of space, and that space will require a certain size. However, function is still the driving force and not hull size.

As Whipsnade says, the fault line is uncrossable. But his point stands that there are many functional terms that could be used, if they're meaningfully applied -- especially to the smaller ships.

And we ignore the effect of scaling on armor (i.e., 10% armor mass on a 100 ton ship really gives the same protection as 5% on a 800 ton ship). Which is why, in the real world 30,000 ton battleships had 25cm armor and a 1500 ton destroyer had none.

This is an issue I hope T5 will address. Perhaps a Rampart-class fighter shouldn't have the same armor rating as a Tigress Dreadnought.

 

[dccarles]

But remember, it's not only Interstellar trade that can be interdicted. Interplanetary trade within the system can also be targeted. While the distance a Type A has to cover to make the jump limit from Earth may only take 6 hours, it can take days or weeks to get to the mining facility on Io.

True enough; I wasn't thinking of intrasystem trade. (The thought popped into my mind, and then out again.) However, if the system is so large, the freighters will simply microjump, even in peacetime.

Of course plenty of important intrasystem trade routes will be shorter than this, and equipping every cargo vessel with a jump drive is inefficient. Therein lies the rub: it's the short-route traders that are most vulnerable.

If interception is limited to choke points, then these choke points will either be well-defended or have their facilities pounded into molecules by the raiding cruisers. (If the defender doesn't have the resources to defend all choke points simultaneously, then they might resort to patrols, accepting the occasional raid as a necessary evil. They'll spend a lot of time in transit, though.) If interception is not limited purely to choke points, then it makes sense to convoy.

--Devin

 

[dccarles]

A step backward

I think we're looking at the wrong era for ship classes. Post-Dreadnought/Pre-Midway ship classes don't work that well for Traveller-era ships. (Or for modern ships, either. It's a peculiar strain of semantic madness to call an Arleigh Burke a destroyer when the Ticonderoga, an escort vessel of roughly the same size, is termed a cruiser.)

A more useful taxonomy, I think, can be found from looking not at 1905 but at 1805. In the Royal Navy, there were basically two kinds of ocean-going ships: frigates and ships of the line. Some frigates were cruisers, i.e., capable of operating independently. (Smaller ships were often termed according to how they were rigged, but we can leave that aside.)

There are two questions that need to be answered with respect to any clas of combat vessel:

Does the ship have a spinal mount?
Is the ship jump-capable?

These two questions give a good guide as to what a combat vessel can do. If it has a spinal mount, as an admiral I want it in the line of battle; the underarmoured battle cruisers will have to hope that Jackie Fisher was right and that speed is the best defense.

(A digression here: there are really two types of battle cruisers, the Fisher tinclad battleship and the Alaska class of WWII. The Alaskas were thought of as part of the natural development of cruisers, without the London Treaty limiting them to 8" guns; Fisher's battlecruisers, whatever his original intention, formed a wing of the battle fleet at Jutland.)

If it's jump-capable, I want it in my fleet, assuming fleet speed is not an issue. If it's not, it'll either have to be carried or left behind for defense. Jump drive ships without any jump fuel are really just system defense boats - they can't jump out of the battle line when the mesons hit the fan, and possess no real strategic offensive capability.

Therefore, like Nelson, I feel cruisers should be classified more as frigates than as battleships. You don't really need a spinal mount for molesting freighters and convoy escorts, though having one gives your commerce raider a lot more bang.)

The term destroyer, on the other hand, is badly obsolete both RL and in Traveller. There are no torpedo boats to be driven off, after all. The term 'destroyer' seems to just be synonymous with 'beefy frigate.' The U.S. Navy uses the term 'frigate' to mean 'small sub-hunter we can afford to lose' and destroyer to mean 'badass emm-effer designed for antiship and carrier escort, big enough to be a cruiser, but we call it a destroyer to get it through Congress.'


--Devin

 

[jawillroy]

Hmm.

So, looking at my (non OTU, LBB2 small-ship) universe, robject's model might apply like so:

Battle cruisers run (depending on tech) in the 3-4000 ton range, with an equal complement of lasers and sand for defensive roles, and do their hitting at range with lots and lots of missiles.

Frigates run between 2-3000, and are heavy on missiles, with minimal defensive weaponry.

Cruisers run between 1-2000, have a balanced array of lasers and missiles.

Destroyers run between 1-2000 and are primarily armed with lasers.

Destroyers and Cruisers in the escort role will have more tonnage given over to fuel and supply, and be on the smaller end of the scale. Cruisers in Strike configurations will be larger, to accommodate larger marine contingents without sacrificing endurance: a strike cruiser ought to be able to make two successive jumps at full range without stopping for refuel, either to be able to use hit-and-run tactics or to extend attack range.

Corvettes will tend to be smaller IMTU; properly speaking, the Patrol Cruiser should be classified a corvette at tech 11-12. By tech 15, corvettes will be between 400 and 800 tons and will be drive-heavy, long-jump craft with small crews.

Carriers in Escort, Battle, and Strike modes will be employed as well, since fighters are still effective in LBB2 combat. Strike carriers will have to sacrifice flight deck space for extra fuel; escort carriers will be smaller, and geared to providing fighter cover for supply convoys.

Dreadnoughts created by GM fiat larger than the 5000 ton range and employing Bizarre New Weaponry may appear from time to time to mess everything up for everybody.

 

[The Oz]

Another approach is to take the old Soviet Navy method and adapt it for Traveller. The Sovs classified ships by their weaponry and size, so you could have "Large Antisubmarine Ship", "Small Rocket (Missile) Ship" etc.

In Traveller this might work out to:

Large Meson Ship: any jump-capable vessel with a spinal meson gun, at least 100,000 dtons.

Medium Meson Ship: any jump-capable vessel with a spinal meson gun, at least 40,000 dtons.

Small Meson Ship: any jump-capable vessel with a spinal meson gun, at least 10,000 dtons.

Large, Medium, and Small Meson Riders: non-jump-capable vessels with spinal meson guns, the sizes might be different (30Kton+, 10-29Kton, 9Kton-).

Large, Medium, and Small Particle Ships: starships with spinal PA mounts, sizes as for Meson Ships.

Large, Medium, and Small Particle Riders, as for Meson Riders but with spinal PAs.

Vessels without spinals might have "Escort" in front of the word "Ship" or "Rider" but still classified by their majority or mission-critical bay/turret armament. Sizes might well be different, with "Large" being 10Kton+, "Medium" being 5-10 Kton, and "Small" being 4Kton-.

So you would have:

Small Missile Escort Rider
Small Fusion Escort Ship
Medium Meson Escort Ship
Large Particle Escort Rider

 

[robject]

Another approach is to take the old Soviet Navy method and adapt it for Traveller. The Sovs classified ships by their weaponry and size, so you could have "Large Antisubmarine Ship", "Small Rocket (Missile) Ship" etc.

In Traveller this might work out to:

[Large/Medium/Small] [Meson/PA] [Ship/Rider/Escort]

I've started down this route, going overboard in adding in a class of modifiers that adjust the balance between firepower, defense, maneuver, and jump.

I'm still twiddling the names and numbers, but:

Gunned/Armored
Short/Far/Long
VLight/Light/Heavy/VHeavy
Slow/Fast

Strike/Recon/Intruder

Corvette/Destroyer/Escort/Frigate/Cruiser/Rider/Monitor/Battleship


So for example, a Gunned Strike Corvette, or a Heavy Fast Armored Frigate. Potentially over 1,000 different ship configurations. It's not yet an efficient use of that data space though... needs refinement.


I'm still mulling over the ship classifications, how where and why. Here's the rationale so far:

Corvette
A fast, lightweight class of warship for patrol and pursuit w/o/ relying on small craft.

Escort
A ship designed to protect ships (e.g. from Destroyers).

Destroyer
A type of Escort designed to defeat ships up to ten times its size.

Frigate
A cruiser- or rider-sized ship without a spine. Carries a massive amount of non-spinal firepower, probably in the form of numerous nuclear missile batteries and planetary-bombardment-capable magazines. Not currently cost effective, by the way...

Rider
Carried by a tender; Battleship amounts of guns and armor in a Light Cruiser package. Usually Jump-0.

Cruiser
Capital ship not quite tough enough for the line of battle, can operate w/o/escort(s).

Monitor
Large insystem defender. Like a Rider that doesn't go anywhere. Jump-0 (or perhaps an in-system jump drive).

Battleship / Dreadnought
Biggest and Baddest.



I'd also like to have four shades of meaning at least for each term, too.

For example, short/far/long doesn't seem adequate. system/short/far/long? Eeek.

Slow/Fast similarly doesn't do it for me. I probably need four shades here. Lumbering/Slow/Fast/Agile? Am I combining too much, here?

Strike/Recon/Intruder seems either incomplete or unrefined. What am I trying to say about the ship using these three terms? If I can pin that down then another one or two terms may shake out.

Corvette/Destroyer/Escort/Frigate/Cruiser/Rider/Monitor/Battleship is totally dissatisfying to me, for two opposite reasons: one, Traveller doesn't use some of these terms, and two, there seem to be an awful lot of terms with too-fine differences. That's not a good thing. So maybe a reassignment is in order.

I've tried to break off "Escort" into a semi-qualifier, i.e. "Fleet Escort", "Close Escort", but haven't found a way to make it feel natural -- yet.

If I can resolve these, then I think I'll have enough descriptors to cover the broad categories of Traveller's big ships.

 

[Wolfpack]

I think we're looking at the wrong era for ship classes. Post-Dreadnought/Pre-Midway ship classes don't work that well for Traveller-era ships. (Or for modern ships, either. It's a peculiar strain of semantic madness to call an Arleigh Burke a destroyer when the Ticonderoga, an escort vessel of roughly the same size, is termed a cruiser.)

A more useful taxonomy, I think, can be found from looking not at 1905 but at 1805. In the Royal Navy, there were basically two kinds of ocean-going ships: frigates and ships of the line. Some frigates were cruisers, i.e., capable of operating independently. (Smaller ships were often termed according to how they were rigged, but we can leave that aside.)

There are two questions that need to be answered with respect to any clas of combat vessel:

Does the ship have a spinal mount?
Is the ship jump-capable?

These two questions give a good guide as to what a combat vessel can do. If it has a spinal mount, as an admiral I want it in the line of battle; the underarmoured battle cruisers will have to hope that Jackie Fisher was right and that speed is the best defense.

(A digression here: there are really two types of battle cruisers, the Fisher tinclad battleship and the Alaska class of WWII. The Alaskas were thought of as part of the natural development of cruisers, without the London Treaty limiting them to 8" guns; Fisher's battlecruisers, whatever his original intention, formed a wing of the battle fleet at Jutland.)

If it's jump-capable, I want it in my fleet, assuming fleet speed is not an issue. If it's not, it'll either have to be carried or left behind for defense. Jump drive ships without any jump fuel are really just system defense boats - they can't jump out of the battle line when the mesons hit the fan, and possess no real strategic offensive capability.

Therefore, like Nelson, I feel cruisers should be classified more as frigates than as battleships. You don't really need a spinal mount for molesting freighters and convoy escorts, though having one gives your commerce raider a lot more bang.)

The term destroyer, on the other hand, is badly obsolete both RL and in Traveller. There are no torpedo boats to be driven off, after all. The term 'destroyer' seems to just be synonymous with 'beefy frigate.' The U.S. Navy uses the term 'frigate' to mean 'small sub-hunter we can afford to lose' and destroyer to mean 'badass emm-effer designed for antiship and carrier escort, big enough to be a cruiser, but we call it a destroyer to get it through Congress.'


--Devin

Great post and I total agree.

 

[pendragonman]

Great post and I total agree.

Just reread that post, and I agree wholeheartedly. In fact, I hadn't thought of it like that before. Since communications between planets is limited to jump speed, it really only makes sense to use a designation system based on a similar era of our technology. In fact, additional designations, like those developed for the manner of age of sail rigging, could be used to describe the various levels of jump and/or manu capability.


(I know this doesn't at first make a lot of sense, until you ponder it a bit.)

 

[robject]

Scott Martin mentioned two other factors which I haven't been keeping track of until today:

The first is Operational Range, or Endurance. Cruisers, for example, differentiate themselves from Frigates in their ability to show the flag far from home port.

The other is CCC - Command Control and Communications. Some ships are designed to coordinate operations, while others aren't. This can have interesting implications to large-ship design.