Fighters other than the Rampart

[Matt123]

... 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.

lol, those WW2 BB's were designed and built in a period before aircraft were acknowledged as a threat. They had minimal deck armour, minimal AA weapons and no support ships capable of significant AA fire.

Today the AA weapons are very well developed, as are close-in anti-missile systems and Cruisers dedicated to screening major assets from air attack. They are not foolproof, but add another 1,000 years of development...

 

[Matt123]

I don't normally post as I read, but this thread is growing too fast.

Sabredog: you have responded to my Meson-T armed fighter post and have clarified by asking for 100 ton missile bays to be added to your 10 ton fighter.

Ok, perhaps only one missile from that bay, but that assumes a bay carries more than one - not a given. And that a bay missile would be as effective if you used a small portion of its firepower - also not a given.

And regardless, bay weapons (missile or not) only provide criticals against ships under 1,000 tons.

The current day examples of fighter missiles you quote are all of missiles that have ship mounted equivalents or better. That example does not correlate to Traveller, where ship mounted missiles or any weapon system short of a spinal mount, cannot be considered a Capital ship killer.

So, again. Why should a fighter get BB-killing weapons, when much bigger ships do not.

 

[sabredog]

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 Japanese F-2 will carry at least one Harpoon, so I'm sure one will fit on a Hornet...the old F-104 carried a Kormorant for years. Just about anyone with a coastline has plane or land-launched ASM's nowadays.

 

[HG_B]

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!

Umm, yes if you are a Jedi.

 

[sabredog]

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)

I AM referring to them as swarms of torpedo boats (why I keep using the term torpedo), or at least as a line of defense against incoming torpedo boats or missiles...fleet interdiction.

But you're right - as it stands in HG the things are useless - which is ridiculous. Especially since you can build such more dangerous missiles in CT but can't use them in HG. SOmeone needed to come up with a larger bay-sized missile,.

 

[sabredog]

lol, those WW2 BB's were designed and built in a period before aircraft were acknowledged as a threat. They had minimal deck armour, minimal AA weapons and no support ships capable of significant AA fire.

Today the AA weapons are very well developed, as are close-in anti-missile systems and Cruisers dedicated to screening major assets from air attack. They are not foolproof, but add another 1,000 years of development...

Gee, I dunno, given how many AA guns the Japanese built into ALL their ships I think they at least knew planes were a threat to battleships. Weren't they the ones who destroyed our BB's at Pearl?

And after Pearl all US ships were so festooned with AA that some older battleships, like the Texas and Pennsylvania had even more AA installed on them to support the rest of the groups they were with.

The Pacific fleet was based at Pearl because the water was thought to be too shallow for torpedoes, in addition to figuring out how to beat that the Japanese used reconfigured APHE artillery shells for the bombs their Kates dropped on the ships so they could get through the deck armor. Kates, BTW, are little airplanes - not even fighters - so you are in fact making my point for me that fighters can have a purpose as I describe in Traveller.

But you can't make an argument that nobody thought planes would be a serious threat by WW2 because everyone had by then decided to at least build one or more carriers. Battleships were obsolete before WW2 - no one in the old guard wanted to acknowledge it is all, and since none of them got to do much more than get sunk by airplanes and subs, or bombard shorelines I guess that proves the point as well.

 

[HG_B]

so you are in fact making my point for me that fighters can have a purpose as I describe in Traveller.

No, he's not. Trav warships aren't only armoured on their sides and they don't lack highly accurate anti-fighter weapons (like the BBs)

But you can't make an argument that nobody thought planes would be a serious threat by WW2 because everyone had by then decided to at least build one or more carriers. Battleships were obsolete before WW2 - no one in the old guard wanted to acknowledge it is all, and since none of them got to do much more than get sunk by airplanes and subs, or bombard shorelines I guess that proves the point as well.

No, it doesn't. You are looking at a VERY short time period for BB dev vs. rapid aircraft advances. In Trav, you are looking at hundreds and hundreds of years of battle experience in type vs. type. So, no it disproves your "point".

 

[sabredog]

I don't normally post as I read, but this thread is growing too fast.

Sabredog: you have responded to my Meson-T armed fighter post and have clarified by asking for 100 ton missile bays to be added to your 10 ton fighter.

Ok, perhaps only one missile from that bay, but that assumes a bay carries more than one - not a given. And that a bay missile would be as effective if you used a small portion of its firepower - also not a given.

No, I said that the missiles carried in the large bays should be bigger than the ones fired out of turrets because that is logical. Why otherwise pack the equivalent of one hundred triple turrets into one bay that can be taken out in one shot when they can be spread all over the ship and provide say around 10 batteries of missiles.

And since the code for the bay is higher that seems to point towards either an incredible load of swarming missiles - which is just stupid as I pointed out - or fewer, but larger, faster, more powerful missiles. Which makes a whole lot more sense. It's how it works today, why wouldn't it work that way tomorrow?

And regardless, bay weapons (missile or not) only provide criticals against ships under 1,000 tons.

Maybe that should change in this case and add another dimension to space combat beyond - "OMG, he's got a meson T gun!"

The current day examples of fighter missiles you quote are all of missiles that have ship mounted equivalents or better. That example does not correlate to Traveller, where ship mounted missiles or any weapon system short of a spinal mount, cannot be considered a Capital ship killer.

So, again. Why should a fighter get BB-killing weapons, when much bigger ships do not.

Read my definition of "ship-killer" again.

 

[far-trader]

And since the code for the bay is higher that seems to point towards...

Or, given the cost of the bay installation itself, dedicated and better fire directors. And since it has more crew you may also be permitted more targeting locks, so multiple missiles make sense to me. For what it's worth I do think they are larger too (only 3 times as big as standard missiles, aka torpedos, imtu) but the increasing factor is as much the added number of missiles per salvo (5 and 10 by bay size sounds nice) and the better fire director equipment.

 

[Matt123]

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.

My 2c & I like fighters. I have usually played HG/TCS at TL12/13 (the tech level of the Old Islands campaign). At TL12 and less Fighters dominate because having TL12/13 computers are viable and you can get a turret on less than 60 tons of fighter (rather than 100 tons for other ships). You also 'only' risk the fighter, not the carrier and the lost fighters are replaced in 6-8 months, not the several years a much larger ship will take.

The goal of fighters at TL12/13 in main fleet combat is weapon scrubbing. An opposing BB will lose a spinal mount factor on the first weapon-1 damage result and another one every 5-6 weapon-1 result after that.

And capital ship designers at TL12/13 have to make harsh choices between armor, agility and firepower (very few sacrifice firepower). A missile-1 will hit a capital ship on 12+ if it is agility-6 and under 75,000 ton. If the ship is over 75,000 ton it hits on 11+ (1 in 36 & 3 in 36 chances respectively). With fighter fleets numbering in the hundreds or thousands, getting hits is not a problem.

For example in the 'current' (used loosely as I think its died from GM exhaustion) Island Clusters campaign, I field a missile fighter weighing 54.5 ton and costing 112.8 MCr (after discount).

My standard carrier is a dispersed structure 315 Kton, 133,520 MCr (after discount). It carries 123,100 ton of craft J3. Thats 2,258 fighters on one ship. It has a flight section of 6065 which might limit the fighter numbers in some situations.

A fighter dominated Trillion Credit Squadron, might see me field 2 such carriers & 4,500 fighters (around 80% of the budget?).

On a 12+ those 4500 fighters will score 250 hits (say 2 missile-1 batteries), on an 11+ they will score 750 hits. Generally my fighters use HE missiles, avoiding the Nuclear dampers. And at TL12 the armor is usually 5-12, with agility or firepower being sacrificed as armor gets better.

Armour-18 rocks are usually large and slow and need nukes. The one I use in this campaign is 74,500 ton & Agility-0. My own fighters will hit it on a 5+, generating 7500 hits. Of course only 1250 will penetrate the dampers and armor-18 means that will 'only' result in 38 weapon-1 hits.

At TL12 Fighters are not ship-killers. They pave the way for ship killers to operate in a very safe environment.

The dynamic changes by TL14/15, the computer-9 needed just becomes too expensive and PP hungry. So fighters with smaller computers, perform support roles or are used to dominate lower tech navies. Which is why most published designs, which are generally at TL14/15, are no good for main fleet combat.

 

[Matt123]

Read my definition of "ship-killer" again.

I use fighter numbers, not a big missile usually fired from a 100 ton bay, needing two gunners, support equipment and a 1,000 ton of carrying ship.

 

[Blue Ghost]

*sniperoo*
Which is why most published designs, which are generally at TL14/15, are no good for main fleet combat.

And I think that's the ultimate point that got lost on me. Like anything else, a club, sword, spear, bow or bolt action rifle become "useful" in the sense they function and can do their job, but there're other devices out there with a lot more efficiency at certain levels of combat.

 

[sabredog]

I use fighter numbers, not a big missile usually fired from a 100 ton bay, needing two gunners, support equipment and a 1,000 ton of carrying ship.

Right, so do I..and somebody else also pointed out that a fighter need not be limited to only 10 tons. Some are Tomcats or Flankers, and some are F-16's or Alpha Jets. Form and size follows mission so if you want a fighter that can carry a big missile (let's stick with real life examples here to avoid confusion) like say a Tomahawk then you need a "fighter" that is probably at least as big as a Tomcat was or a Flanker is now. And that might be all it carried.

Now since these things are purpose-built it might help the argument here to define a "fighter". Is it for fleet interdiction (or the land war version called air superiority) - then you need something that can carry plenty of anti-aircraft missiles and the capability (combat range, speed, agility, avionics) to lock up as many targets from as far away as possible and then kill them with long range missiles...then close to use medium to short range missiles. Then shoot them full of holes. Then when all else fails eject and engage with your handgun. Those are the F-15's, Su-27+ series, and similar big multi-engine long range air superiority types. They tend not to be the best close-in dogfighters (Top Gun and Tom Cruise notwithstanding), but that can have more to do with what kind of weapons it can carry and pilot ability. Their mission is to rule the skies and keep bad guys as far away as possible.

A "fighter"-fighter is kind more like what is called today a multi-role fighter and also used to be called a fighter-bomber. That's an F-16 or F-2 type. It is a close-in dogfighter (or they tend to start out that way), don't carry a huge array of different missiles (a current Block Falcon only carries 4-6 and those are short to medium range...an Su-30 carries 12 and some can hit you from 20 miles away), but you can usually hang a lot of different A-G ordnance off of them so they can bomb things and hunt ships. It sometimes is the ruin of a killer fighter but it saves money and is a force multiplier.

This is also what I would call a 10-ton Rampart in HG, in LBB2 a fighter is more like a Learjet with a machinegun hotglued to the nose.

There are also highly specialized (very mission-specific) things you could call fighters like EA-6 Prowlers, the new EF-18 Growler, the old A-6, and the F-117 that run interference for the weapon carrying fighters, or carry very limited, but very mission-specific ordnance.

OK, lecture over - sorry, its a hobby of mine and runs in my family's
service lineage to deal with planes. My point is that there is no reason at all that you have to stick to a 10-ton Rampart, and if you don't limit yourself that way all sorts of possibilities will preset themselves...or at least start spirited discussion about why you can or can't do those possibilities.

 

[sabredog]

I use fighter numbers, not a big missile usually fired from a 100 ton bay, needing two gunners, support equipment and a 1,000 ton of carrying ship.

BTW: it isn't the big missile that requires 2 gunners and a 100 ton bay to fire it from 1000 tons of surrounding ship......the size of bay is so it fires more than one missile at a time...and the two guys are manning the fire controls not loading the missiles by hand, and it is highly illogical and nonsensical to imagine that nobody would look at that big bay and say, "Gee , we could launch BIG missiles outta here, and a bunch of them at the same time, to!"

You do realize a 100-ton bay is the same size as a Scout ship? What would you want to shoot out of something that big: like 200 little turret-sized missiles to scorch the paint of a destroyer, or maybe 40 Tomahawk-sized jobs with maybe a half ton or more of HE or nuclear explosive on board? Plus the bigger missiles can carry onboard ECM to prevent spoofing, guidance packages to help it avoid anti-missile fire by random course corrections (ah, agility!), and go a lot faster and farther (they are long-range in HG...beams are not) than something smaller.

SO why not do that?

 

[sabredog]

And I think that's the ultimate point that got lost on me. Like anything else, a club, sword, spear, bow or bolt action rifle become "useful" in the sense they function and can do their job, but there're other devices out there with a lot more efficiency at certain levels of combat.

You're exactly right. That's why there is a doctrine of combined arms used in modern warfare. And your point illustrates exactly why ships need to be purpose-built designs to support each other in a fleet action. The biggest gun need not always apply, but it helps to have one, and then helps more to have a lot of smaller guns to run around and cover the flanks of the big gun so it can do it's job: killing the other big gun. Etc., etc..

 

[far-trader]

...At TL12 Fighters are not ship-killers. They pave the way for ship killers to operate in a very safe environment.

I would be happy if that were a viable role across a wider TL. If Fighters could scrub smaller weapons off the big boys without suffering too great a loss, then scramble clear and let the Heavies slug it out with spinals it would make a much more interesting contest. For what it's worth, to that end, I don't think spinals should be able to bear on anything less than a capital ship... but then my heresy extends to a 'small ships fast, big ships slow' meme because the idea of a 500KT Battleship having the same speed and agility as a 50T Fighter is in my opinion patently ridiculous

 

[sabredog]

No, he's not. Trav warships aren't only armoured on their sides and they don't lack highly accurate anti-fighter weapons (like the BBs)

How do you know? Ever do the math...that armor might get spread pretty thin if it covers every single little spot on a ship the size of a couple of carriers. Maybe the designers think its more important to harden some spots more than others? They always have before, and the hit tables do reflect a certain rationale to that argument.

Except for the fuel tanks thing...but then I've always drawn my plans with the idea that the fuel tanks are a calculated risk buffer to wrap around less important areas (staterooms) so I can figure and extra few cm's of armor around the drives, weapons, and bridge.

No, it doesn't. You are looking at a VERY short time period for BB dev vs. rapid aircraft advances. In Trav, you are looking at hundreds and hundreds of years of battle experience in type vs. type. So, no it disproves your "point".

100's of years huh? So what you are really telling me is that while weapon designers can go from stringbags to jet aircraft and nuclear weapons in less than 10 years, they somehow grew dumber when they have 100's of years to think up how to armor ships and make weapons to defeat that armor as cheaply and efficiently as possible?

 

[HG_B]

How do you know? Ever do the math

Yes, extensively and many times over the decades. You should too.

 

[sabredog]

I would be happy if that were a viable role across a wider TL. If Fighters could scrub smaller weapons off the big boys without suffering too great a loss, then scramble clear and let the Heavies slug it out with spinals it would make a much more interesting contest. For what it's worth, to that end, I don't think spinals should be able to bear on anything less than a capital ship... but then my heresy extends to a 'small ships fast, big ships slow' meme because the idea of a 500KT Battleship having the same speed and agility as a 50T Fighter is in my opinion patently ridiculous

Bravo! I haven't allowed spinals to easily hit anything below 5000 tons by using the difference of the size codes as a negative DM at that size. Code T meson shooting at a 5000 ton frigate? yeah maybe at -10 or so to hit it. plus all the other negatives like agility, computer and config. Plus, no matter what your acceleration is it is straight-line acceleration, not dodging around agility....you only get that type of agility if you use your emergency agility and tell the crew to strap in and grab the barf bags.

Otherwise the agility I use for determining the defensive "real" agility is:

So long as your maneuver drive can reach these G's then...
1-99 tons = max agility 6
100-300 = max 5
301-600 = max 4
601-800 = max 3
801-1000 = max 2
1001-2000 = max 1
over 2000 = no agility (other than emergency)

This does two things: first, it explains why I don't let ships above 2000 tons land on planets. Secondly it makes the kind of sense you point out about not having Star Destroyers dodge around like fighters...hey didn't two of those thing bang into each other once? Must have had them in the wrong gear so they could accelerate fast enough.

And below 1000 tons it just won't happen at all. That's what all those laser turrets are for, cuz' they much good for anything else!

Although I recall the Yamato crew was so desperate to chase off those pesky planes that crippled it that they actually fired the main cannons at the incoming Helldivers. Not that they hit any but I'm sure it scared the crap outta the pilots to see that!

 

[sabredog]

Yes, extensively and many times over the decades. You should too.

So you came to the same conclusion I did and you still want to argue that in the future people who design ships and the weapons to defeat them are dumber than they are now?