CT Ships - Armored, or Not

[Mako]

It's been a while since I've looked at the various stats, and rules for CT, and I can't for the life of me recall if the small, adventure-class ships were armored, or not?

I think they could be armored, for a cost, but don't recall if they generally were, at least in the CT era, e.g. the 100T Scout/Courier, 200T Free and Far Traders, Subsidized Merchants, Small Craft - 50T or less, etc., etc..

I know the Gazelle Close Escorts and System Defense Boats were fairly heavily armored, and I think even the Patrol Cruisers were somewhat armored.

So, just curious, how are people using these with either the CT rules, or with later iterations, up to, and including T5?

Also, if armored, were the merchants only partially armored, or fully and lightly armored?

 

[mike wightman]

There is no rule for hull armour in LBB:1-3, so all the basic designs are considered to be civilian and unarmoured.

Access to LBB:5 brings armour rules, but they don't fit very well into LBB:2 combat (one day I will find the perfect solution...)

Ships like the Gazelle and SDB being military and LBB:5/hybrid designs do have hull armour.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

The LBB2 designs had no specific armour, including the Patrol Cruiser, but they were well-protected by default against micrometeorites etc.

From Striker we know that meant about 8 cm crystaliron, very roughly like a current tank, quite enough to stop small calibre fire.

 

[Carlobrand]

So they are unarmored relative to the baseline for ships shooting at each other, but fairly well armored by ground combat standards by virtue of the minimum hull standards applied to all craft that venture into space. Or at least, that venture through and outside the planetary radiation belt: MegaT allowed for significantly lighter standards for stuff that was only expected to do brief close orbit travel like grav vehicles.

 

[kilemall]

Using the Striker armor as a measurement, I prefer using the steel measurement straight up as that renders something most can relate to.

AV 40 is 336mm of steel armor, or 13+"- equivalent to a lot of battleship armor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa-class_battleship#Armor

CT has no armor rules, anything would have to be homeruled or converted to HG resolution.

I actually did figure out a way to CTize armor. I need to check against HG to make sure it's not out of line.

The other problem is that in CT it's possible to get that critical hit against big ships, which is great drama but not exactly an HG sort of result- should crits remain readily possible?

 

[Mako]

Thanks for your replies, and info.

I have HG, and have read/seen various stats over the years for different vessels, which is probably adding to my confusion.

I'm working on coming up with some home-brew rules for small ship battles, and was wondering about this.

It's a derivative of the hull damage/degradation rules, e.g. there's one point for the hull's surface (acts like very thin armor), and once pierced, more things happen.

1st extra hit once the hull is pierced results in a -2 for some systems, e.g. sensors, weapons fire control, etc., etc..

2nd hit results in moderate damage.

3rd hit results in major damage.

4th hit is catastrophic for that area, and results in damage to the next area underlying the hull.

Examples are:

1st hit = hull pierced, and a very slow air or fuel leak.

2nd hit (1st Extra Hit, after the hull is pierced) = minor air or fuel leak.

3rd hit (2nd Extra Hit) = moderate leak.

4th hit (3rd Extra Hit) = major leak.

5th+ hit (4th Extra Hit) = catastrophic leak/failure - hull breach or fuel tanks, exposing next underlying hull area to damage, e.g. structure, maneuver/PP/J-Drive, Quarters, Bridge, etc., etc..

Hits are tracked for various portions of the hull.

Armor doesn't count against internal hull spaces - assumed to be bolted/welded on externally, but does cost credits.

I was thinking of perhaps 1 Hull Armor Box for transports/merchants, either over the entire hull, or perhaps just critical areas, as desired.

2 Hull Armor Boxes for modified merchants, and light military ships - patrol and missile boats perhaps, as above.

3 Hull Armor Boxes for light naval vessels, e.g. Close Escorts and SDBs, etc..

More armor, as desired, for heavier vessels.

Of course, some may not have any armor at all (which is attacked first), before attacks against the hull plating, e.g. small craft of 50 tons or less.

Still up in the air on the Armor-1 for merchants, so may need to do a little playtesting on that.

Might eliminate one of the Extra Hit Levels too, since the 1st Hull Breach and Minor Damage from the 1st Extra Hit (actually the second hit on the same area seem redundant).

I'm also thinking of grouping hits from multiple weapons on the same weapons mount to either hit one area, or adjacent areas, and to do damage as a group, rather than randomizing hits all over the vessel, e.g. for a triple laser turret, if all beams hit (some could miss, I guess), the damage from them is on the same hull area. 1st hit is on the upper hull, so the second one may be in the same spot, and just do more deeper damage, or on another spot directly adjacent to it. Same goes for missile hits and other weapons too (multiple missile hits would be randomized by location, but damage would be to the same area of the hull for each hit).

Thoughts?

 

[Timerover51]

Based on the data given in Traders and Gunboats, the Double Adventure Chamax, and the ANNIC NOVA adventure, I would put the thickness of the internal pressure bulkheads for a ship at the equivalent of 1 inch of High Tensile strength steel, about HY-80, with the hull about the same, but with a double hull to allow for insulation from the cold of space. That also helps take care of the problem of micrometeorite impacts.

The hull thickness is going to be dependent on the size and configuration of the ship. D. K. Brown, a Royal Naval Warship Constructor, who actually designed nautical vessels, in an article for Warship International Magazine, states that using the formula for internal pressure for cylindrical steam boilers gives a very good first approximation for the required thickness of a submarine hull. At the end of World War 2, US Navy submarines were being built with a hull of 7/8 inch or 0.875 inch vanadium alloy steel, of about HY-50 strength, and had a collapse depth of in excess of 900 feet, or about 30 times atmosphere pressure of 14.7 pounds per square inch. Assuming a hull made of 1 inch of HY-80 steel would give you a considerable safety margin over this. The submarine hull was a cylinder of 16 feet in diameter, with resistance being proportional to diameter. A hull of cylindrical form,160 feet in diameter, would be able to withstand a pressure of 3 bar, or 44.1 pounds per square in pressure, using the material of a WW2 submarine pressure hull with appropriate framing. One inch of HY-80 gives a nice safety margin. This holds true for cylindrical hulls only though. Once you get away from the cylinder, the calculation start getting quite complicated.

The Japanese I-400 class of submarines used a double cylinder hull to get the necessary volume for the very large Diesel engines and space for the aircraft supplies without going to an excessively large single hull. The Dutch used a triple cylinder hull for a class of their submarines. Ships in my universe tend to resemble submarines or cargo planes, with a cylindrical hull for the reason of pressure.

If you are operating with worlds that have a high surface pressure for their atmosphere, you might want to adjust your safety margins accordingly.

 

[kilemall]

Mako, sounds a lot like MgT1E.

 

[The Oz]

Here's what I remember of a system I used to bash Bk2 and Bk5 together. This applies only to ships 5,000 dtons and smaller, without any bay weapons( I told my players to either run from or surrender to bay weapons). All weapons follow the BK 2 rules for firing;, that is, they only fire as individual weapons, no grouping into batteries.

Hitting the target stayed with Bk 2 rules, but different weapons have different modifiers to the roll. Weapons dealt with sand as usual, except plasma guns had only a -2 for each 25mm of sand, and fusion guns only had a -1 per 25mm of sand. After hitting (and dealing with ECM, for missiles) a weapon rolls for the hit location according to Bk 2, Weapons that hit multiple locations (fusion guns and both types of missiles) roll separately for each hit location just as in Bk 2. The defending player now has each location hit use its armor to save against the hit. The HG armor rating was used as a +DM, and the weapon penetration (see table below) was a -DM. A roll of 8+ saved the location.

Damage not saved was applied to the location just as in Bk 2.

I allowed six types of weapon to non-military ships: pulse lasers (PL), beam lasers (BL), plasma guns (PG), fusion guns (FG), stand-off missiles (SM) {also called standard missiles, these are the ones in Bk 2}, and contact missiles (CM) {missiles which make actual physical contact with the target}.

WEAPON TABLE

NAME	HIT MODIFIER	SAND MODIFIER	# OF LOCATIONS HIT	PENETRATION
Pulse Laser	-2	-3	1	-2
Beam Laser	+0	-3	1	-0
Plasma Gun	+0	-2	1	-2
Fusion Gun	+0	-1	2	-4
Stand-off Missile	+0	-3	1d6	+3
Contact Missiles	-4	-3	4	+6

Contact missiles cost and behaved in all ways like the stand-off/standard missiles. Other weapons were at their book prices.

I think I've reconstructed most of that; it was 30 years ago.

 

[infojunky]

That is a route I hadn't thought of...

Currently I was thinking armor value/2 absorbed hits per turn. Armor is reduced by one on each roll of a critical.

 

[Carlobrand]

What "cold of space"? There's essentially no mass to carry away heat by conduction. You're limited to radiating away heat. Things might actually get uncomfortably warm if you're in the habitable zone of that system's sun and are not in shadow.

 

[Ex_Pendable]

What "cold of space"? There's essentially no mass to carry away heat by conduction. You're limited to radiating away heat. Things might actually get uncomfortably warm if you're in the habitable zone of that system's sun and are not in shadow.

Agreed, as Space is actually a vacuum, it doesn't have a temperature as such. Many thermos bottles and "insulated" mugs often use vacuum as the insulator between the internal and external walls to slow down heat loss.

The true purpose of a double hull is to protect the living areas of the ship by allowing the outer hull to absorb the damage by low impact strikes. If the outer hull is punctured but not the inner hull, there should be little to no atmosphere loss. If a high-power strike hits the outer hull, it will also penetrate the inner hull.

It also helps with craft buoyancy if you need to land on a body of water.

Edit: For ships that are streamlined, the outer hull is the one that's streamlined, while the interior hull is the more angular shell for the living, control, engineering, and storage compartments. Some ships use the space between these two as a fuel tank.