If you use this analogy, what are larger starships compared to?
Fighters other than the Rampart
- Thread starter Blue Ghost
- Start date
If you use this analogy, what are larger starships compared to?
I once designed a fighter/drone for use with billion credit squadron that had no pilot, but a robot brain instead of pilot/computer. I cannot find the design now, but IIRC it was about 8 dton and was armed with a fusion gun.
The main advantage (someone would say cheat) it had in billion credit squadron rules was that if offset the ilot limit, as he had none.
I've never tested it, as I never been in a BCS/TCS contest, being mostly a mental challenge, but then another problem arised: what computer number was this robot brain rated for combat pourposes?
The main advantage (someone would say cheat) it had in billion credit squadron rules was that if offset the ilot limit, as he had none.
I've never tested it, as I never been in a BCS/TCS contest, being mostly a mental challenge, but then another problem arised: what computer number was this robot brain rated for combat pourposes?
Fully enclosed in mega-armour BB's.
I probably should have said carrier (Tomahawk or Kedge) or capital ship (Harpoon or Exocet - just ask the Brits about Exocets). I mean, I dunno but the 700lbs warhead on an ASM version of the Kedge could sure mess things up and a soft kill is a kill - the ship doesn't have to sink to render it useless. Not to mention that a Kedge (and if you don't like that one the Kh-55 can carry a warhead of several kilotons and Blackjacks carry 6 at a time) can carry a nuclear warhead same as a Tomahawk....which brings me to the nuclear missile option in Traveller - why so ineffectual? If they get through the damper and all that "massive" armor they ought to do something more than they do. Don't they have megaton-ranged bay missiles in the future?
As for all that "MASSIVE" armor how thick do you think it is anyway? Even in HG it points out that a lot of that is internal strengthening and such, I imagine there's also a lot systems hardening and redundancy. So it's not like some Code 9 BB at 200kt has like 50 meters of bonded superdense all over every part of it. Sheesh, it's take forever just to get through an airlock!
Not to mention that a megaton nuclear warhead making a near, or contact detonation wouldn't just make that all go away anyhow? Or a shot up the drives? Or into a 100-ton weapons bay? No matter how much armor you stick on a ship somebody will just make a bigger bomb or shell to defeat it - just ask the crews of the Yamato, Bismarck, Arizona, Hood, etc... several of which were in fact victims of tiny airplanes dropping bombs smaller than what came out of their main guns. And these tiny little planes were going much slower, and were much more fragile, and going up against just as much firepower as any Traveller fighter would.
As for neutralizing a big ship...hmm, the Bismarck was crippled by a rudder hit so Swordfish then torpedoed it to death. And it had an awful lot of armor and lots of guns. The Yamato..same thing and it was even bigger...need I go on?
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Underground bunkers that move I guess? :rofl:
Excellent point and the one that always starts this argument.
Firstly, there is no rational reason to assume that the 50 and 100 ton missile bays shoot the same little canister jobs that a single man can load in a turret. They would need to be using seriously larger missiles that go a lot faster, are a lot smarter, and carry a bigger HE or nuclear warhead. Why they don't have armor-piercing penetrator nuke warheads is beyond me, too.
Now its not obvious that they don't exist merely because the designers of the game neglected to detail every missile type imaginable for use in a really abstract rule set like HG. Those rules were written for designing ships yes, but the combat rules are more suitable for large scale fleet combat than the LBB2 rules are for smaller scales. So they left out the minutiae like how big a capital ship missile (like today's Tomahawk) compared to a anti-aircraft missile (like a Sidewinder).
Yet they left in fighters even though they don't work like fighters in the game rules as they stand. So that's why we have these "conversations" - one side hates fighters and thinks the ships of the future should all be giant monsters from that stupid Honorverse or Star Wars, and the others think fighters have a place since every big ship has it's weak spots and small, fast craft can exploit those better (albeit at greater risk as history has shown since Billy Mitchell's demonstration) than another big ship that's thousands of km away.
A nuke up the tail pipe, hangar decks, every bay weapon, turret, sensor port, etc., are all weak spots that are easier to go after with a nuclear torpedo-carrying fighter (that is a lot harder to hit than a big slow ship - even missiles make it through the anti-missile combat table so don't try to tell me a manned fighter couldn't do it) than with a bigger ship.
And all that super-dooper mega armor can't big everywhere...try the math and figure out the area of a 150kt BB with code 9 armor and tell me how thick the armor would be and then why it couldn't be penetrated by anything short of a meson gun?
In fact, the existence of meson guns in spines, turrets, and bays makes me wonder why someone would put so dang much armor on the ship he knew would be facing meson guns that ignore it? Why waste the money and resources - instead build a lot of smaller, agile, meson spinal gun-equipped ships with a dispersed configuration, meson screen, and a big computer. 'Cuz that's all that'll save you other than lucky dice rolls.
So why are missiles even in the game then regardless of size? Why are fighters when a cutter or even a lowly ship's boat can do better since they can carry more weapons, a boarding crew, a bigger computer, and go just as fast?
See, this all part of that "glaring omission" I mentioned earlier.
The British ships were MUCH smaller and unarmoured. So, doesn't matter. And, like I said, wouldn't neutralize or kill an unarmoured Nimitz class.
Wrong - any submarine can carry just as much precision firepower as a carrier can these days and be a lot harder to counter against than a massive and impossible to hide carrier battle group. Tomahawks can carry nukes, cluster munitions, and 1000lbs warheads and can be fired from just as far away as any carrier can send planes that have to be able to survive getting there and back. That's a lot harder in a plane than with a cruise missile. And cruise missiles are cheap and plentiful compared to planes and pilots.
And the planes with the multiple cruise missile launchers can't land on carriers but can carry far more firepower and deliver just as easily, though maybe a little slower. ICBMs can do it faster still than nay other option and don't have to carry nuclear warheads - they have carried conventional, gas, biowar agents, too.
But a submarine cannot project power, only use it. That is a political issue, I know but pertinent to the reason why carriers are important. It's a flag-showing thing more than just firepower. It shows we mean business when a passle of cruisers, destroyers, and a couple subs show up surrounding a carrier parks off shore. But don't forget - all those other ships are just there to protect the carrier. That kinda points to some weakness you seem unwilling to see.
BTW: we do have uber-cruisers - the Ticonderoga which is scheduled to be replaced by the CG-X program. The Russians have the Kirov's, and there are plenty of more examples out there that carry and launch lots n' lots of conventional and nuclear armed guided and cruise missiles. Carriers these days are starting to look an awful lot like the battleships of WW2 - big, expensive, and scary but they sure make a nice target for a submarine or over the horizon cruise missile salvo. And don't fool yourself with the no-nukes myth....they would be used - it's why they are on the cruisers, too, and in the bad old days of the Cold War it was often pointed out that "nukes don't make craters in the ocean".
Besides, in Traveller nuclear missiles ARE used, its why dampers exist, and sometimes those dampers don't stop them all and neither does all that armor - so why wouldn't large nuclear ASM's carried and launch closer to the ship and into vulnerable areas not be a viable option?
Only if the enemy can't hit you with similar guns or AMSs...whcih is why the Iowas were used against targets that didn't have that sort of thing and bombers like the venerable B-52 or FB-111 (like in Libya back in the 80's?) were. For that matter the Iowa also carried cruise missiles...why, if the guns were better? As for more payload - tell that to the Iraqis when the B-52 waves flew over them. That's why a plane more than twice the age of its crews still flies and a big armored ship is a museum or forming a coral reef.
Actually, no. The total amount of ord is less for a sub. Especially if you consider small pinpoint attacks.
Oh, and lest we go too far and frighten the moderators let us define our terms:
What I mean by the term "ship-killer" : a missile that is sufficient in damage potential to render a ship combat ineffective by one or multiple hits. Not a magic Tigress-vaporizer or anti-Death Star grenade. Something akin to the modern ASM cruise missile that can be launched by a large fighter, bomber, or whatever the dang things are that bay weapons use that ought to be about the same thing I'm talking about.
Combat Ineffective: not necessarily a hard, catastrophic kill, but enough damage to effectively render the target either useless in combat or too badly damaged to continue without serious risk of losing the ship. The infamous "tanks shattered" result would do that, as would something like "Bridge Destroyed" in a ship without an extra one handy, or "Power Plant Disabled".
Fighter: a craft capable of acting like what someone would reasonably think a fighter acts like instead of a smaller and less dangerous version of a ship's boat armed with a laser and two 3-shot misile racks.
Fighter-bomber: larger version of a fighter, heavier, and capable of carrying the (maybe mis-named) ship-killer weapon. Like a SuE with an Exocet.
Capital Ship: warships with spinal weapons analogous to the old battleships and dreadnoughts. Wet Navy equivalents today could include anything from a guided missile cruiser to a carrier but since they do not fly in space they really are not the same.
There, that might help keep things on track I hope.
What I mean by the term "ship-killer" : a missile that is sufficient in damage potential to render a ship combat ineffective by one or multiple hits. Not a magic Tigress-vaporizer or anti-Death Star grenade. Something akin to the modern ASM cruise missile that can be launched by a large fighter, bomber, or whatever the dang things are that bay weapons use that ought to be about the same thing I'm talking about.
Combat Ineffective: not necessarily a hard, catastrophic kill, but enough damage to effectively render the target either useless in combat or too badly damaged to continue without serious risk of losing the ship. The infamous "tanks shattered" result would do that, as would something like "Bridge Destroyed" in a ship without an extra one handy, or "Power Plant Disabled".
Fighter: a craft capable of acting like what someone would reasonably think a fighter acts like instead of a smaller and less dangerous version of a ship's boat armed with a laser and two 3-shot misile racks.
Fighter-bomber: larger version of a fighter, heavier, and capable of carrying the (maybe mis-named) ship-killer weapon. Like a SuE with an Exocet.
Capital Ship: warships with spinal weapons analogous to the old battleships and dreadnoughts. Wet Navy equivalents today could include anything from a guided missile cruiser to a carrier but since they do not fly in space they really are not the same.
There, that might help keep things on track I hope.
Not if the target is destroyed it isn't. You don't always need to bounce the rubble anymore. A single 1000lb warhead on a cruise missile will do the job just fine for those "pinpoint" attacks, and if not then a nuclear weapon certainly will. Not that I advocate using them, but they are there and weapons that "are there" tend to be "there" in case the other kinds don't work.
And for area destruction thermobarics have been tested in Tomahawks and medium-range ICBMs that could also be used from attack subs. Can't get more punch out of that than with a nuke.
And once again I'll point out that it is easier to shoot down a plane than a cruise missile launched with minimal warning and with the same technology that the JDAM uses a cruise missile (or drone for that matter) can be just as accurate as anything dropped from a plane and can be launched from a lot safer distance.
steventirey1985
SOC-12
A really good reason why there is no ship-killing missile is that missiles are stupidly easy to shoot down. What good is your missile if it can't get anywhere near enough to the ship to hurt it?
The only way to reliable hit a military vessel with a missile is to launch large numbers of them, and hope to overwhelm the point defense. Which means you need an entire flight of fighters. But why spend that money and time training pilots and building expensive fighters when you can do the same thing with a bigger ship that may very well be cheaper than the fighters and their required carrier, and take less people to crew it? And probably have more armor and weapons as well.
Missiles may be a really good option now, but once we get the capability to shoot them down as well as the vessels in the Traveller universe can, they will become less effective.
The only way to reliable hit a military vessel with a missile is to launch large numbers of them, and hope to overwhelm the point defense. Which means you need an entire flight of fighters. But why spend that money and time training pilots and building expensive fighters when you can do the same thing with a bigger ship that may very well be cheaper than the fighters and their required carrier, and take less people to crew it? And probably have more armor and weapons as well.
Missiles may be a really good option now, but once we get the capability to shoot them down as well as the vessels in the Traveller universe can, they will become less effective.
I'm not talking static targets. Most targets are NOT static.
100% correct. With capital ship weapons, a "ship killing" missile would be atoms LONG before it got close.
Could more old timers please chime in? For some reason the week before last we had a plethora of postings all over from old time posters and gamers of this BBS, now not so much, only the usual suspects.
In case you can't tell, my group never did a lot of spaceship combat. Part of the reason I ask this question is that when the subject was previously addressed, the responses I recall was along the lines of "fighters aren't worth it", or something like that. So that seemed to answer my query of why the only "official" fighter designs I've ever seen were the venerable Imperial bullet with wings, the Rampart, the Sol/Terran version, and I think a Vargr fighters.
I've come up with lots of stuff in various unpublished fiction and adventure concepts, but I've never had the patience to thuroughly read High Guard, or the MT version (heck, I've taken calculus, differentials, high-energy physics, and read about orbital mechanics, and those underpining are a lot less esoteric than the MT version of "build your own spaceship" rules).
With all that in mind, my thoughts on fighters are as such; I think I heard someone on the Star Fleet Battles BBS compare SFB/Star-Trekian fighters to WW2 Hellcats and Zeros; i.e. they offer fire support for mainline units. But WW2 fighters, unlike SFB fighters, actually have a deep strike capability. And where SFB fighters don't have anti-shipping weapons, WW2 fighters did, though they didn't pack the wallop of an Exocet or Harpoon (heck, can you even fit a Harpoon on a Hornet or A6?.... probably not).
Ergo, I alwas figured that if fighters did exist in a Traveller like setting, then they might fall into the WW2 / Star Wars-ish spectrum of sci-fi space-fighter tech; i.e. they buzz around, strafe targets, and drop a bomb or torpedo when they can. But, I never saw anything of the such published. And when I saw the limitations to constructing smaller craft for large space battles, I always figured it was a moot point. I guess in the back of my mind I had this notion that maybe Marc Miller or whoever really hadn't considered space-fighters, weren't that interested in them, or just didn't want them.
I really didn't think that to be true, but that was the only tentative conclusion I could draw as space-fighters, one of the more obvious sci-fi staples, never seemed to be thuroughly addressed.
Phew. I got that out of the way.
So, what does all this mean? Well, it means that I've got some adventures that I'd like to complete that involve space fighters, and I'd like to know the old grognards opinion and direction on the topic.
So, oldbees, if you're lurking, post away and enlighten me.
In case you can't tell, my group never did a lot of spaceship combat. Part of the reason I ask this question is that when the subject was previously addressed, the responses I recall was along the lines of "fighters aren't worth it", or something like that. So that seemed to answer my query of why the only "official" fighter designs I've ever seen were the venerable Imperial bullet with wings, the Rampart, the Sol/Terran version, and I think a Vargr fighters.
I've come up with lots of stuff in various unpublished fiction and adventure concepts, but I've never had the patience to thuroughly read High Guard, or the MT version (heck, I've taken calculus, differentials, high-energy physics, and read about orbital mechanics, and those underpining are a lot less esoteric than the MT version of "build your own spaceship" rules).
With all that in mind, my thoughts on fighters are as such; I think I heard someone on the Star Fleet Battles BBS compare SFB/Star-Trekian fighters to WW2 Hellcats and Zeros; i.e. they offer fire support for mainline units. But WW2 fighters, unlike SFB fighters, actually have a deep strike capability. And where SFB fighters don't have anti-shipping weapons, WW2 fighters did, though they didn't pack the wallop of an Exocet or Harpoon (heck, can you even fit a Harpoon on a Hornet or A6?.... probably not).
Ergo, I alwas figured that if fighters did exist in a Traveller like setting, then they might fall into the WW2 / Star Wars-ish spectrum of sci-fi space-fighter tech; i.e. they buzz around, strafe targets, and drop a bomb or torpedo when they can. But, I never saw anything of the such published. And when I saw the limitations to constructing smaller craft for large space battles, I always figured it was a moot point. I guess in the back of my mind I had this notion that maybe Marc Miller or whoever really hadn't considered space-fighters, weren't that interested in them, or just didn't want them.
I really didn't think that to be true, but that was the only tentative conclusion I could draw as space-fighters, one of the more obvious sci-fi staples, never seemed to be thuroughly addressed.
Phew. I got that out of the way.
So, what does all this mean? Well, it means that I've got some adventures that I'd like to complete that involve space fighters, and I'd like to know the old grognards opinion and direction on the topic.
So, oldbees, if you're lurking, post away and enlighten me.
For Traveller style fighter combat I always think of Space 1999. The episode "War Games" in particular features Eagles (module cutters armed with a beam laser) verse Hawks (similarly sized heavy fighters armed with pulse lasers). Just ignore the big ship in that episode, it's too fragile to fit the metaphor.
And a quick observation on Star Wars: light figters like TIEs and X-Wings have very poor computers. Throughout the original film we saw evidence for this with fighters missing their targets from pointblank range. And at the end of the movie it was even demonstrated that it was easier to hit your target with your computer turned off, such were their uselessness!
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IIRC Harpoon game, Hornets use harpoon missiles in their anti-ship configuration. I think to remember A-6 also use them in this role, but I'm not sure
The Oz
SOC-14 1K
So, what does all this mean? Well, it means that I've got some adventures that I'd like to complete that involve space fighters, and I'd like to know the old grognards opinion and direction on the topic.
So, oldbees, if you're lurking, post away and enlighten me.
If you're talking CT, then fighters are very dangerous to ships, since they can carry weapons just as lethal as anyone else. The lack of computers makes them somewhat less dangerous than a 100-ton ship, but only a little. If you let fighters have nuclear missiles they become deadly ship-killers.
Under HG, fighters are at best an annoyance to serious warships, although fighters are still dangerous to the major of the civilian traffic out there.
In any Traveller setting, fighters are always good at the jobs of scouting, screening, and routine patrol.
You forgot anti-piracy and ground support
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Ok I'll try this one last time.
In CT and HG fighters are not in any way similar to aircraft launched from an aircraft carrier. They have the same performance characteristics as the big ships they are launched from, so lose the mental image of swarms of fighters like in Star Wars, BSG etc.
Think instead of motor torpedo boats, except CT fighters lack a torpedo equivalent in HG. In CT if you use the missiles special supplement it is possible for fighters to carry missiles that will threaten large ships (but remember large in CT isn't the same as large in HG)
In CT and HG fighters are not in any way similar to aircraft launched from an aircraft carrier. They have the same performance characteristics as the big ships they are launched from, so lose the mental image of swarms of fighters like in Star Wars, BSG etc.
Think instead of motor torpedo boats, except CT fighters lack a torpedo equivalent in HG. In CT if you use the missiles special supplement it is possible for fighters to carry missiles that will threaten large ships (but remember large in CT isn't the same as large in HG)
