I believe the President or the Congress or both attempted to slip out under the British blockade in 1813-1814, and got caught. I do not remember all the details, but there was a short battle, with the American ship or ships getting pounded and surrendering. The American Captain received hell for it, and may even have been court-martialed, as I recall. The main argument for his harsh treatment was that he should have been able to out-run the British Ship of the Line, but failed to act.
Do fighters and battleships have the same problem?
- Thread starter LeperColony
- Start date
Thank you all for the education on the war of 1812.
It was interesting.
To apply the lesson to Traveller Battleships (SotL) vs Cruisers (Frigates), would it be fair to say that Battleships need access to larger weapons than Cruisers for an 18th century naval paradigm to apply? Something equivalent to Cruisers having 50 dTon Bay Weapons and Battleships having 100 dTon Bay Weapons?
It was interesting.
To apply the lesson to Traveller Battleships (SotL) vs Cruisers (Frigates), would it be fair to say that Battleships need access to larger weapons than Cruisers for an 18th century naval paradigm to apply? Something equivalent to Cruisers having 50 dTon Bay Weapons and Battleships having 100 dTon Bay Weapons?
I was wrong about this = Sorry!
That's what I get for trying to rely upon my memory. The President was captured after she had run aground and was damaged. It was battleship leading he squadron that caught her.
The Congress was penned up in Portsmouth Navy yard from 1813 on.
In high-TL HG2, bay weapons except missiles and repulsors (which are not really weapons in the common sense of the term) are a waste of space. In general, everything except, missiles, spinal mounts and repulsors is used to pad out the USP and little else. Lasers and sandcasters have some marginal use as point defense, but if you have sufficient space, repulsors are far better.
I would say if you are using a rule set that includes spinal mounts, then a battleship would one and a cruiser would not. A "monitor" would be a non-starship with a spinal.
If you stick to bay weapons and want an 18th century feel, you could do that, but base the classification on the number of bays. You would also need more bay sizes than just 2.
If you stick to LBB2 ships, you still need more sizes of turret weapons.
In looking at my Naval Institute book, for that time period, it shows 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, 24, and 36 pounders. The Brits probably had more, and I know by the 1850's or so there were 64 pounders in service.
At the time of the Napoleonic wars, standard British long gun sizes were 6, 9, 12, 18, 24 and 32 pounders IIRC. Smaller guns existed, but I'm not sure how they were classified. Heavier 42 pounders existed as well, but were rare.
Carronades (Short-barrelled cannon for close actions) up to 68 pounders were used as well.
Carronades (Short-barrelled cannon for close actions) up to 68 pounders were used as well.
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
I've never really gotten the predilection with insisting that turrets were all 1ton single hardpoint weapons, especially not after HG. I have long optionally grouped numbers of like turrets into a larger single turret. For example treating a HG battery of 9 triple turrets as a single 9ton turret (still needing 9 hardpoints of course). And so...
And there's your 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, 24, and 36 pounders (and more) though in HG it's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 tonners (for how many 1ton "turrets" one has lumped into a single placement).
Or 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20 tonners for the F/P "turrets"
And likewise for the PAW turrets.
And there's your 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, 24, and 36 pounders (and more) though in HG it's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 tonners (for how many 1ton "turrets" one has lumped into a single placement).
Or 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20 tonners for the F/P "turrets"
And likewise for the PAW turrets.
Ah, but in LBB2, there aren't any F/P or PAW weapons
I guess you could consider single, double, and triple turrets the equivalent of 8, 16, and 24 pounders.
But, if I was to go for a closer 18th century feel, I would probably stick to LBB2 with weapons modifications. Go with lasers, plasmas, fusions, or PAWs in differing sizes but no other weapons.
Certainly not OTU
IIRC this is how T4 treated them, more or less...
Is there any historic equivalent of the 'spinal mount'?
The USS Monitor is the only ship that I can think of that really has only one big gun for fighting other ships and multi-gun Monitor-like ships quickly replaced it.
What Ship of the Line ever mounted ONE 32 pounder and a hundred 8 pounders to stand toe to toe with a Frigate mounting ONE 32 pounder and twenty 8 pounders? What StoL ever faced a swarm of schooners with 300 combined 8 pounders against its single 32 pounder and a hundred 8 pounders?
Which Dreadnaught ever had one Main Gun? Which Battleship (WW2)?
It seems to me like this is really going to throw a spanner in the works of any historic analogy for Traveller combat. Traveller Battleships have a sledgehammer, but it is only a 1 or 2 shot sledgehammer, and Cruisers get to wield the same sledgehammer.
Bireme vs Trireme is the best historic analogy I can think of (and it is not very good).
Each ship has one ram, but the bigger ship carries more men for the boarding action that follows.
The USS Monitor is the only ship that I can think of that really has only one big gun for fighting other ships and multi-gun Monitor-like ships quickly replaced it.
What Ship of the Line ever mounted ONE 32 pounder and a hundred 8 pounders to stand toe to toe with a Frigate mounting ONE 32 pounder and twenty 8 pounders? What StoL ever faced a swarm of schooners with 300 combined 8 pounders against its single 32 pounder and a hundred 8 pounders?
Which Dreadnaught ever had one Main Gun? Which Battleship (WW2)?
It seems to me like this is really going to throw a spanner in the works of any historic analogy for Traveller combat. Traveller Battleships have a sledgehammer, but it is only a 1 or 2 shot sledgehammer, and Cruisers get to wield the same sledgehammer.
Bireme vs Trireme is the best historic analogy I can think of (and it is not very good).
Each ship has one ram, but the bigger ship carries more men for the boarding action that follows.
Amber Chancer
SOC-12
I agree your reference ... but I'm not sure I agree your conclusion. "Fighting Ships" page 9 is headed "The Imperial Fleet", and is an overview of just that ... the IMPERIAL fleet. And when it describes what you should expect to find in cruisers, it is obviously referring to the cruisers of the IMPERIAL fleet, which the supplement then goes on to describe.
And, if we're confining ourselves to the cruisers in Fighting Ships then the observation that "most are too lightly armoured to stand in the line of battle" is plainly right. I mean, just look at them.
Gionetti class - unarmoured hull and no meson screen? Definitely a good idea to keep THAT away from the line of battle. But then again, it's Jump 5! Knock it down to jump 4 and give it Armour-10 and it's beginning to look more like it ... although I'd still want to give it a meson screen. Throw away most of those lasers and it could have a factor-7.
Arakoine class - totally unarmoured hull. But then, it is "specifically designed for ground support and surface bombardment", and was never INTENDED to stand in the line of battle.
Ghalalk class - the "basic fleet work-horse", but only armoured to factor - 5. I certainly wouldn't let THAT anywhere near my line of battle ... leastwise, not while there was any serious fighting to be done!
Azhanti High Lightning - Armour 5 and agility 0? Watch them fold up at the slightest provocation! But then again, like the Gionetti, they've given it jump-5 and you gotta pay a big prtice for that.
Atlantic class - at last we have a cruiser that CAN stand in the line of battle. But at Armour - 10 and Meson Screen 6 it is still questionable whether it truly "fulfils the basic design requirement of meeting the enemy and winning in battle" if the enemy were of the same tech level. Nonetheless, it's a shame it has been declared to be "fast approaching obsolescence", since it is so clearly the best cruiser there.
So, yeah, if those are the cruiser classes under consideration, then there's nothing wrong with the proposition that "most are too lightly armoured to stand in line of battle". But that doesn't make it a universal truism - and I'd happily put my 18KT J3 CLs in the line of battle any day, with their Armour - 13, good screens and J class meson guns. It is entirely possible to create cruisers suitable for standing in the line of battle, and Supplement 9 doesnt' say that it isn't, or you can't, or you shouldn't.
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None that i know of. Now that said, the Monitor had 1 turret but two guns in it. There were a lot of ships like that in history.
I personally don't care for the concept of a spinal mount. It seems ridiculous to whip a very large ship about to aim 1 weapon. Perhaps even to the point of absurdity. In MTU, I never use them, but I do allow bays to grouped into batteries using the beam laser turret battery chart to get higher values. Example: group 3 Factor-9 PAW bays to get a Factor-B PAW battery.
Speaking of rams, you could also apply this analogy to the brief period in the mid- to late 19th century when rams were considered the primary weapon of ironclad battleship, due to false lessons drawn from the battle of Lissa.
But you're right: There is no close analogy in surface warfare. A spinal mount has more in common with a modern jet aircraft's gun.
Amber Chancer
SOC-12
Of COURSE there's no historical equivalent ... the whoel idea is to force you to think in new terms. So your historical metaphors will only get you so far.
Besides which ... age of sail ... the broadside. You only get one of THEM ... but some ships have bigger ones than others ... and little ships don't really have one at all
Besides which ... age of sail ... the broadside. You only get one of THEM ... but some ships have bigger ones than others ... and little ships don't really have one at all
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Here's a thought - if you don't like the idea of a spinal mount then rebrand the weapons as a particle array or meson array... a bit like the phaser array used in Star Trek since next gen.
You could, of course. But have you ever compared the tonnage/cost/EP of turret weapons vs bay weapons vs spinal mounts? They don't scale together.
I imagine the only reason bays can't be grouped into batteries is because you can build a ship with a given main battery factor cheaper and smaller with bays than you can with a spinal mount. And it is also easy enough to interpolate bays other than the mundane 50 & 100 tonners.
It's all what you desire in your game. Mostly, I use the RAW as a guideline, then recast it to enhance the setting I want to play in.
I imagine the only reason bays can't be grouped into batteries is because you can build a ship with a given main battery factor cheaper and smaller with bays than you can with a spinal mount. And it is also easy enough to interpolate bays other than the mundane 50 & 100 tonners.
It's all what you desire in your game. Mostly, I use the RAW as a guideline, then recast it to enhance the setting I want to play in.
Interesting point. The quote may refer to a consequence of Imperial design philosophy rather than being a global statement about cruisers in general. They make cruisers that can't stand in the line of battle because they envision the cruiser as primarily intended for roles other than the line of battle. Kinda conflicts with the FFW portrayal of the fleet, but we've said before that FFW shouldn't necessarily be taken as Gospel. Kinda conflicts with the MegaTrav view of the fleet too, but the MegaTrav cruisers (per MegaTrav "Fighting Ships") are a good deal more heavily armored than CT "Fighting Ships" cruisers, so the MegaTrav vision of the fleet doesn't really apply to CT "Fighting Ships".
That bit aside, there's still enough discordance between High Guard and the canon view of the Imperial Fleet to indicate a problem. My guess is a couple squadrons of your CLs are more than a match for an equal weight of DNs. I'm thinking the Zhos wouldn't hesitate to answer superior Imperial tech with superior numbers of smaller and more expendable ships, overcoming the computer penalty by bringing more spinals to the fray. Either High Guard doesn't actually reflect the "realities" that the admirals face, or there is some as-yet undisclosed pragmatic reason why the admiralty favors big expensive ships that are inferior to an equal weight of smaller ships, or - in an era when their computers can simulate battles far more realistically than our modern ones - the admiralty's a bunch of fools.
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PPF has several zho designs that carry a big gun on a smaller displacement to do just that - get lots of spinals in and expect to have bunch of them destroyed.
The terran missile boat mentioned in the interstellar wars era is a low tech version. its a missile bay with a ship wrapped around it and by its very design / tactics will suffer heavy casualties - counterbalanced by sheer numbers.
The terran missile boat mentioned in the interstellar wars era is a low tech version. its a missile bay with a ship wrapped around it and by its very design / tactics will suffer heavy casualties - counterbalanced by sheer numbers.
pendragonman
Absent Friends Margrave
A clear example of an error in design philosophy is the British BCs that fought at Jutland. They sacrificed armor for speed, in the erroneous idea that speed IS armor.
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