Do fighters and battleships have the same problem?

[hiro]

an aside...

I'm not trying to derail, I'll drop back to lurking this one in just a mo...

But...

Am I the only one that finds it somewhat disheartening that so much of this talk revolves around slapping "high tech" names on historical battles/ships and rehashing the past? Why not play historical tabletop games? Why bring it into Traveller?

OK, I know that many see the OTU as having historical parallels but how far is too far?

Where's the fiction in this science fiction?

(starts rooting thru the deepest drawers for the Nomex suit, I know its here somewhere...)

 

[mike wightman]

As Mr. Whipsnade has mentioned several times - HG ship combat is not the age of sail in space, it is not ironclad era or predreadnaught or WW1.

It is ship to ship combat using the technology that underpins the Traveller setting across the entire TL range of 7 to 15.

The only way to appreciate HG is to play it, properly and fully. Build fleets, not ships, at every TL. Try to find the strengths and weaknesses of fleet design at the various TLs.

 

[Vladika]

I don't care for any large ship, call it what you will. A large ship is an expensive target and easy to hit. A small ship is a less expensive target and harder to hit.

I joined in on this because a certain prevailing thought was that BBs should work.

ANY one of us, given half the Imperial Fleet budget, could destroy the Empire in short order.

Assume we get half the credit value of ANY Imperial fleet in any given battle. It could even be done for a whole lot less.

 

[dean]

...
Therefore, reduce the number of “extra” damage by the difference of the weapon size verses target size. Firing weapon size minus target hull size equals extra damage.

Examples:

Firing WEAPON size T – target HULL size K = 8 “extra hits” NOT 18 as otherwise would occur.
Firing WEAPON size T – target HULL size T = 0 “extra hits” NOT 18 as otherwise would occur.

EVERY Spinal weapon still gets at least one shot. That can account for the “Lucky” shot of Bismarck/ Prince Eugen on the Hood.

J and even N size Meson weapons stop being decisive weapons. That I do consider a drawback as both should pack a wallop. (Maybe HALF the size difference [make it a positive 1 if it comes out negative] PLUS HALF the tech difference between 11 [when meson spinal weapons begin] and the weapon tech level as a MINIMUM for EXTRA damage?)

Example:

(Firing WEAPON size J – target HULL size K)/2 + (15-11)/2 = 3 “extra hits” as a MINIMUM.

Also, I fully realize that armor plays no part in these thoughts. So be it. If you don’t armor up, secondary weapons will annihilate you. It is your choice to make.

Some thoughts on armor for ships:

Armor 0 = merchant ship hull scantling
Armor 4 = destroyer hull scantling (safe from internal explosions)
Armor 6 = light cruiser armor level (crew safe)
Armor 11 = heavy cruiser armor level (maneuver drives safe)
Armor 14 = battleship armor level (safe from non-nuclear secondary weapons)

Note the difference between scantling and armor.

Ships with less armor and higher Jump and/or agility would be battle cruiser and light cruiser types.

Ships with heavy armor, large spinal mounts and high screen USP would be heavy cruiser to battleship types.
...

(a) Welcome.
(b) I really like the idea you present here and the presentation is well thought out.
(c) You need to post more and lurk less, based upon this post!

 

[McPerth]

(a) Welcome.
(b) I really like the idea you present here and the presentation is well thought out.
(c) You need to post more and lurk less, based upon this post!

ditto

 

[Hal]

One other "minor" modification that can be used against Meson Critical hits is to borrow the idea from Armor rules...

Each level of Meson Screen adds 1 to the die roll against criticals.

I don't know how much a difference that would make per se, but the lowest Meson Screen required to avoid the Fuel tanks shattered is 4, because the lowest die roll possible is a 2, plus 4, results in a modfied roll of 6.

What makes this nice in a way, is the fact that Meson Screens degrade as a result of combat damage. It is also nice in the fact that pitting a battleship against lesser ships might be done to "pre-digest" the ship in an effort to render its meson screens less effective.

Alternatively? Just move the Fuel Tanks Shattered result from its current location to the very first location on the table.


Also?

You might rule that the only way fuel tanks shattered can come up via damage rolls is for surface attack crits only. Why? In theory, the damage done by the meson weapon, is the applied mathematics of aiming two particles whose velocity decays with known times - to impact on a given point of space such that they decay and reach impact at the same time. This sounds more like a cutting weapon rather than an actual "bursting" effect weapon. If a single point of burst is incapable of destroying fuel tanks (aka nuclear warheads), then why is the meson gun capable of doing so?

Just thoughts on how to render that "fuel tanks shattered" less effective in a meson gun ruled universe. Frankly? I don't much care for the Meson Gun simply because in theory, it is a planet killer. Why? How much energy can a single planet's interior take before the meson guns cause gelological damage (volcanoes etc)? If it can be done to rocky interiors, why not icy interiors? If it can be done to rocky/icy interiors, why can't it be done to stars? (Stars are probably too large on the energy scale for meson guns to affect - but one has to wonder just how "Hot" the meson gun's burst is and how much actual energy is being dumped into a small location at any given time!)

 

[Carlobrand]

I'm not trying to derail, I'll drop back to lurking this one in just a mo...

But...

Am I the only one that finds it somewhat disheartening that so much of this talk revolves around slapping "high tech" names on historical battles/ships and rehashing the past? Why not play historical tabletop games? Why bring it into Traveller?

OK, I know that many see the OTU as having historical parallels but how far is too far?

Where's the fiction in this science fiction?

(starts rooting thru the deepest drawers for the Nomex suit, I know its here somewhere...)

This is a sci fi board. If they want to flame you, I don't think your Nomex is going to help: they'll bring out the high temperature plasma.

And, your point is valid, though I wouldn't be disheartened by it. It's just that a lot of us come from a fairly wide gaming-and-miscellaneous background and can't help dragging in those old examples when trying to explain ideas.

When push comes to shove, a lot of sci fi draws on old examples - fighters, battleships, and so forth - if for no other reason than to present stories that have some familiar paradigms for the reader to latch onto. A story about amorphous clouds of nanobots warring with each other beyond our perception would be entertaining, but it doesn't grab you the same way a story about men and women winning through by wit and daring grabs you - even though pure logistics wins more wars than wit or daring.

As Mr. Whipsnade has mentioned several times - HG ship combat is not the age of sail in space, it is not ironclad era or predreadnaught or WW1.

It is ship to ship combat using the technology that underpins the Traveller setting across the entire TL range of 7 to 15.

The only way to appreciate HG is to play it, properly and fully. Build fleets, not ships, at every TL. Try to find the strengths and weaknesses of fleet design at the various TLs.

I don't care for any large ship, call it what you will. A large ship is an expensive target and easy to hit. A small ship is a less expensive target and harder to hit.

I joined in on this because a certain prevailing thought was that BBs should work.

ANY one of us, given half the Imperial Fleet budget, could destroy the Empire in short order.

Assume we get half the credit value of ANY Imperial fleet in any given battle. It could even be done for a whole lot less.

I would agree with this sentiment except that High Guard does not exist in a vacuum. As a part of the Traveller Milieu, it creates a rules environment that starkly contradicts the canon depiction of the universe of the Imperium and her neighbors. A lot of people are irritated by that and would prefer to find some way to resolve the contradictions.

I like High Guard by itself, and there's no reason to believe battleships should dominate - that idea was pretty well retired on Dec. 7, 1941 (I did warn you, Hiro:devil, and any holdouts need only look at the fate of Yamato to understand that bigger is not always going to be better. However, from CT Supplement 9 through FFW and Invasion Earth, down to MegaTrav's Fighting Ships of the Shattered Imperium, and in more mentions in more supplements than can be described here, the universe inhabited by the Imperium is painted as a universe where bigger is better. If my intention is to fight the Imperium verses the Zhodani, then I either adjust those rules to fit that paradigm or I chuck High Guard completely and assume it has nothing to do with the Traveller universe - which leaves me without a big-ship rules set.

 

[Garyius2003]

The lesson should have been learned June 7, 1942, except November 1942 seemed to say different, as did October 1944. Ten-Go and the Battle of Okinawa in general actually proved the point.

Just as I assume the upcoming US/China battles will prove railguns and directed energy weapons have shifted the balance back to very heavy powerplanted cruisers. But it will take several battles to learn the lessons, and I could be wrong.

 

[HG_B]

Just as I assume the upcoming US/China battles will prove railguns and directed energy weapons have shifted the balance back to very heavy powerplanted cruisers. But it will take several battles to learn the lessons, and I could be wrong.

Naw, the lesson will be, if you can't detect our attack subs, your navy gets sunk by Mark 48's. Not to mention the pilot-less carrier based, stealth drone bombers...

 

[Carlobrand]

Naw, the lesson will be, if you can't detect our attack subs, your navy gets sunk by Mark 48's. Not to mention the pilot-less carrier based, stealth drone bombers...

Ayup. And besides, the carrier stopped being pre-eminent about the time nuclear-tipped missiles were being fielded. They're extraordinarily useful, but they take a long time to build and, in a full-on conflict with a real sea power, attrition would render them either dead or too cautiously used to be effective within a short while. Rather like Traveller's dreadnought in that way.