Experimental intelligence gathering ship

[vermeylenhans]

"Physics dictate that there are only a few ways to skin cats" (Drakon)

Most problems occuring while trying to match different technologies do not come from the general physics involved (by the way, don't try skinning my cat!), but rather from details:different kind of connexion, different standards. Try plugging a european 220 volts shaver in an american 110 volts... euh... kind of hole in the wall were you get electrical power (I don't know the word in english, and I've no dictionnary handy). Well you're in big trouble unless you reengineer completly the shaver or unless you use a transformator wich is nearly as expensive as the shaver itself. Think of the same problem at the scale of the whole starship: you'll have:

a) a engineering nightmare

b) half of the ship's volume taken by adaptators and various interfacing equipment

They got all those problem while they begun putting US modules on the russian-made Mir space station. Eventually they limited connexion between the two to a strict minimum, making, de facto, two nearly fully independant stations, only connected physicaly.

Anyway, I'll continue with a 110% imperial design. You're, of course, free to go on with your ideas to build another ship.

110%!

 

[vermeylenhans]

"But the guys you captured are saying they don't know me" (Drakon)

Irakian Mukabarat showed us again in 91 (and they havn't been the only one to do so, even among the so-called good ones) that, if you don't bother too much with the Geneva convention, you can get every information you want from a downed pilot. I admit spec ops guys can be a little bit tougher than pilots, but, IMHO, if you ask kindly enough, you'll have your infos. And think about what a zho telephatic intelligence officer could get. I think the best solution if you want to be sure your ennemy don't get any clue of who you are is to be sure they don't get anyone alive...

110%!

 

[vermeylenhans]

"You have a point about sensor tech versus stealth. Both are going to be on very high levels. However, that does not mean the entire ship has to be run like that. Your drive, sensors, communications, computers, life support, etc. can all utilize lower technology than is available." (Drakon)

I don't see the point, if you have to use top of the shelf stealth tech, to bother with older, bulkier engines, or computers or anything else.

By the way, that top notch equipment will be a signature: it as to be imperial (unless you have a very good access to someone else military R&D, in wich case I wouldn't jeopardize it, by using what I get on a behind-ennemy-lines ship for exemple). What is the point of putting an old aslan jump engine on a ship that can't be anything but imperial (the stealth tech showing it clearly enough)?

110%!

 

[Drakon]

1) I would never skin your cat. I am sure, that as cats go, it is a nice one, but as a general rule I don't go round skinning cats.

2) I see what you mean about adapters, and plugging a 220 volt shaver into a 110 socket or electrical outlet. But we are not just dealing with electronics. There is also hydraulics and other systems intergration which is not that bad a problem.

Also, if you look at most modern electronics, (computers and such) the 110 or 220 is converted for DC use of particular voltages anyway inside the computer box. The intergration is not that big a deal and in fact, if you look at the back of most computers, you'll find a switch that will deal with either European or American electrical systems. So again, mating up ain't that big a deal.

3) Zho telepaths and dispensing with the Geneva convention. Good points. There are work arounds though. You could use actual mercs, independent contractors, (or MAKE them think its an independent job,) for piloting, and not tell them. Your spec ops team is going to be more of a problem.

Military records indicate that Ensign Smith is a bit of a rebel, bad attitude, whatever. Good pilot, and a go to guy, but simply not military enough. So we let him out of his contract. While looking for a new job, Patron Jones contacts Smith for some work. Front companies, etc. All sorts of ways I can think of to provide sufficient deniablity.

4) Signature equipment: First off, who knows you have it?

If they don't know its Imperial technology, the last thing you want to do is let them know that. Which again is why a mix of older tech and alien tech helps out. It was, what, 12 years after the F-117 started flying the Air Force admitted to having it.

Again, if they get the ship, you still have an option of confusing them enough to prevent an diplomatic incident. You build your ship, 110% Imperial, and it gets taken, you give them undeniable proof that it was you who sent it. You are going to be unable to wiggle out of it. Whereas me, while my ship may be more expensive, I can always say, "I would never even build a wreckbash like that, let alone send it on some secret mission. Its just laughable." You ain't got sufficient proof, because I denied it by simply NOT building all of it from Imperial technology.

Besides which, we've had some intel penetrations in our design labs that we are still investigating. Perhaps the same guys that his us, hit you too.

In short, you seem to be willing to give up, if the ship is captured. I ain't. I still got a few tricks up my sleeve.

I have one other pet peeve about uber tech. You use it where you need it, where it is necessary. A big chunk of this comes from my years on submarines, where while fire control was the latest greatest state of the art, we were using mag amps in the engineering spaces. (Does anyone even know what a mag amp is these days?) Why? It worked, it did the job. The fancier stuff might break down in unexpected ways, ways never thought of by anyone. At least with the old stuff there was a history, and new failure modes were far rarer.

And there is the old Star Trek bug where all the doors are computer controlled. Screw up the computer, you own the ship, and can lock everyone out of your way. Whereas the old fashion door does not have that problem, and the problems you might have with them, you know about. Keep things as simple as possible.

 

[MrMorden]

Do not the later CT rules have the "jump governor?" This is the device that allows a ship to use fuel in proportion to the jump attempted. I'm pretty sure I saw that in "Traders and Gunboats" with regard to the Far Trader.

It seems you guys are talking about two different designs:

1) Intelligence gathering craft;

2) Covert strike craft.

In a lot of ways these two missions have contradictory design requirements. The intel ship will have a lot of displacement reserved for sensors and monitoring gear. The strike craft needs this tonnage for troops and vehicles. The strike craft also needs to be a stealth design, whereas the intel ship can either be stealthy or of the innocuous "trawler" type.

For the strike craft, streamlining and stealth are prerequisites. I'd include a cutter (or two) for quick insertion, and a couple of G-Carriers and maybe even a grav tank for planetary operations. At LEAST 30 elite troops, but a full platoon (100+) would be better. Jump-6 (with the jump governor, that's a jump-3 "in-and-out" strike), and 6G acceleration required, preferably with a high agility. The idea is not to be detected, but if you are you can outrun near anything.

Given the fuel requirements of Jump-6, this is pointing to something in the 500-1000 dTon range.

With regard to technologies, just equip the ship with a single nuclear warhead to be used in the event of imminent capture...

Andy

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by MrMorden:
Do not the later CT rules have the "jump governor?" This is the device that allows a ship to use fuel in proportion to the jump attempted.

Andy

First edition Bk 2 rules were you use all your fuel for a jump computed as your maximim jump. i.e. a J2 Far-Trader making a J1 uses the same fuel as if it were making a J2.

First edition Bk 5 introduced the Jump-Governor, a 1T add on available at TL10 for Mcr0.3 that let you use the new fuel = 10% of ship T per parsec rule for ships built using Bk 2. Ships built using Bk 5 had it built into the Jump drives.

Second edition Bk 2 and Bk 5 eliminated the old rule and any need for a Jump-Governor and just made all Jump drives, Bk 2 and Bk 5 versions, use the new standard 10% rule.

At least as I understand it.

There was a neat idea posted on CotI around extra fuel use for jumps that ties into this, back with a link in a bit.

Quite non-canonical but interesting, almost tracked down

Ah, here it is click

Not exactly part of this topic but related to the jump-governor idea and so perhaps of interest to those asking about it.

 

[vermeylenhans]

"Also, if you look at most modern electronics, (computers and such) the 110 or 220 is converted for DC use of particular voltages anyway inside the computer box. The intergration is not that big a deal and in fact, if you look at the back of most computers, you'll find a switch that will deal with either European or American electrical systems. So again, mating up ain't that big a deal." (Drakon)

I'm not sure the zhos equip their top secret prototypes with imperial voltage adapters...

"Signature equipment: First off, who knows you have it? If they don't know its Imperial technology, the last thing you want to do is let them know that. Which again is why a mix of older tech and alien tech helps out. It was, what, 12 years after the F-117 started flying the Air Force admitted to having it." (Drakon)

Everyone knew about the F-117 existence for years when they finaly admited it. And I doubt the GRU waited that long. Anyway if a F-117 had crashed above Russia, do you think it would have take long to figure out where it was coming from? Unless every single transistor is unmarked. That kind of ordrer won't be unremarked. And what about general design. A new plane is always based on former experiment. You just can't reinvent the wheel each time. A US design is a US design, even if you haven't seen it before it will be familiar with what you alreday saw. Now think of the difference between two major alien races who have evolved independantly for millenia. Every single bolt is signature. Do the zho only use bolt? For all I know they could glue they ships. Or their bolt could require turning anti-clockwise (this alone would be a serious problem for matching technologies; you see, there is more than just voltage differences to solve). Or some other think I can't even imagine. The size of the beds, the way doors open, the use of psy switches... Every single part of a ship is signature.

For the deniability part, just prevent it from falling into ennemy hands (I like MrMorden idea of a nuke self destruct device, it even hasn't to be a very large one).

"I have one other pet peeve about uber tech. You use it where you need it, where it is necessary. A big chunk of this comes from my years on submarines, where while fire control was the latest greatest state of the art, we were using mag amps in the engineering spaces. (Does anyone even know what a mag amp is these days?) Why? It worked, it did the job. The fancier stuff might break down in unexpected ways, ways never thought of by anyone. At least with the old stuff there was a history, and new failure modes were far rarer." (Drakon)

First, I'm not sure the US navy has anything to learn our pour belgian navy about jury-rigging. After all our current, still sailing, flagship was launched in 1963. Second, jurry-rigging is always handy when something goes wrong or doesn't work the way it should, but you don't start with it when your still designing your ship. Otherwise what will you do when problems occur?

"And there is the old Star Trek bug where all the doors are computer controlled. Screw up the computer, you own the ship, and can lock everyone out of your way. Whereas the old fashion door does not have that problem, and the problems you might have with them, you know about." (Drakon)

It's not because a engine can burn and is more complicated that you still use sail.

"Keep things as simple as possible." (Drakon)

Wasn't you talking about some technologies mix?

110%!

 

[Richard Saunders]

Hello.
I agree with Mr Morden.
For inteligence missions you will build as high tech as possible (if you get caught you failed anyway).
If its an insertion mission there is generaly only one possible enemy anyway (yes you can have deniability but they will know who did it).

I liked the sensor platforms in Honor Harrington (the peeps) why couldn't you build them, launch them through the system at high speed (balistic) on passive only looking like a rock then you pick it up later.
5-10ton rock, passive scan, solar powered the chances of finding it are nil rising to infinitisimal if you suspect its out there.
Infomation you would get, number of jumps in or out of the system, what ships - freighters will be beeped by the starport and the platform will hear the repies warships may or maynot reply but either way you know there warships.
Anything that goes active in system, SDB, fighters, Meson guns on planet (you wont know where or how many but you will know their there and a possible guesstimet of how many.
So until i get to reply to the replyes to this reply.
Bye.

 

[maitrejeanth]

Quoting myself:
"I'll check my books at home tonight, but I'm really not sure that starships can do shorter jumps than their rated maximums AND use up only a proportional amount of jump fuel. But again, I'm not 110% certain, so I'll check, at least as far as CT/MT are concerned"

As several people on the list quickly pointed out, from 2nd edition HG onwards, partial jumps are allowed (HG, p 26, the 10K Dton Akron). Doh !

Hans Vermeylen :
"What about some kind of modulatity? Tanks replacing the landing sphere? Some kind of bladder "

HG and TCS have drop tanks and collapsible tanks you just put away in the cargo hold after use. They can't be used directly (their contents have first to be transfered to the ship's permanent tankage before jump), but they are worth considering.

The same H. Vermeylen : "I don't own anything Traveller before that (I'm not sure I was even born)"

Consedering I got my black box in 1980, you weren't indeed born back then...

Drakon : "Can the ELINT be a module, swappable for a few low berths and gear for the team? Kind of like the modular cutter idea?"

Now, this might be real interesting approach. Consider having a standard mothership with several modular payload bays. Might not necesssarily work for the SpecOps ship, but could be an option as far as EW/Elint/C3i and the like are concerned. One possible snag, however, is the risk of creating something like the Amtrack (not the railway company but the LVTP series) : it does several things moderately well, but excels in none. Bottom line, this is a matter of policy and long term strategy.


Drakon" understand your position. I disagree, and hope your folks never find themselves in a hot LZ. Granted a turrent won't do much, but its better than nothing."

Every Marine is a rifleman. Better a little firepower for contingencies than none at all. A VRF gauss might be enough to cover an extraction or should the LZ be compromised.

"The American Navy, especially submarines, does this too. JOs split a stateroom, the XO/CO have single occupancy staterooms, the Chiefs have a separate bunking space, stacked 3 high"

HG provides for triple or even quadruple- occupancy staterooms.

"And there is the issue of hot bunking. Which, while not pleasant, is livable for months."

Dragon SDBs are so cramped their crews have to hot-bunk as a SOP.

"There are work arounds though. You could use actual mercs, independent contractors, (or MAKE them think its an independent job,) for piloting, and not tell them."

That's usually where your average Traveller band of PCs comes into play. Can you spell expendable ?

"Front companies, etc. All sorts of ways I can think of to provide sufficient deniablity."

That's why MTU has companies like the Imperial Mutual Interstellar Navigation Company (another shameless ripoff from another great writer of naval stories - guess who ?)

This a very interesting thread. Keep the comments flowing.

 

[vermeylenhans]

What are we actually talking about? In the very first post of this topic I wrote: "I decided to use her as an intelligence gathering ship, her two mission being ELINT and deploiment of small intel teams (much like the new Virginia US SSN)."

So, I intent this design to be just that. Not a C³ ship: that kind of ship would be much larger, having to support a whole HQ; and it wouldn't be the first ship to receive TL13 (GURPS) stealth tech, what would be the point of having a stealth C³ when the rest of the fleet isn't. Not a picket ship: why wasting experimental stealth on a ship whose mission is to handle the active emissions of a whole fleet? Not an scrambling ship: again why using stealth tech on a ship designed to operate a huge homing device? Not a strike vessel: those vessel are far to prone to fall into ennemy hands to risk equiping them with experimental tech.

What I'm talking about is a state of the art stealth ship. Rather small (certainly less than 500 dT, more likely around the 300 dT). Designed to handle to kind of mission: ELINT (mostly by mean of passive sensors, otherwise the stealth part is pointless) and (altough not neceserly both simultaneously) small (less than ten people) intel team (say again, intel, not stealth).

"Can the ELINT be a module, swappable for a few low berths and gear for the team? Kind of like the modular cutter idea?" (Drakon)

I'll consider this altough rather than having a full 20-minutes swappable module like the modular cutter I'll rather use multipurpose spaces inside the ship (you know, a couple of tech bolting the bunk of and replacing them with ELINT equipment racks, there is no need for the volume and mass consuming coupling of the cutter: intel mission aren't usualy planned in such a hurry that you can't wait a few hours for the needed equipment to be put aboard).

"Every Marine is a rifleman. Better a little firepower for contingencies than none at all. A VRF gauss might be enough to cover an extraction or should the LZ be compromised." (Thierry Maitrejean)

I'll consider adding some kind of Gauss MG to the landing sphere but the main vessel will probably keep a probe/missile launcher. I do not expect the main vessel to land in even only potentialy dangerous aeras (try hiding a four story building, even a stealth one, in a hot zone).

110%!

 

[Drakon]

Yep MrMorden came up with the answer to all this. One small nuclear skuttling charge does it.