Fighters

[sabredog]

A battery of secondary weapons with a factor > 9 would be very useful, even if it didn't benefit from the -6 on the damage table modifier, or the additional damage rolls. I've pointed out before that High Guard high-agility frigates (<2000 tons) can be very difficult to hit; being able to improve the to hit and penetration roll target numbers would be helpful.
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I agree, and this is the biggest reason I allowed the fighters to be used as roving batteries. The traditional use of destroyers and frigates is screening the capitol ships and harrassing lines of supply. Torpedo boast would launch torpedoes at pre-dreadnoughts and dreadnoughts en mass...and torpedo boat destroyers would try to intercept them.

Destroyers in this game can also have that task if so designed (lots of laser batteries), but they tend to lack the agility because of thier size. Also, they are far more expensive to buy enough to make this really effective unless the battles are only small skirmish affairs. Swarms of cheap fighters with agility-6 and 3 beam lasers are far more cost effective for missile interdiction and support craft harrasment.

If you have <2000 ton support craft like assault landers, Broadsword Cruisers, missile boats, SDB's, and the like, then a roving "battery" of beam lasers that has the speed to break the line and hit the rear is a real threat.

For casualties, just determine how many fighters you need for every point in the battery and compute from there.

 

[Peter Schutze]

>because if you think in penetration (ie., "drop-through" value against armor belts and decks) of a weapon then no matter how many you use, if they individually won't punch through they won't hurt anything of value

so why do the high RoF weapons like the fairly small calibre rotary cannon eg A10 warthog make such effective anti armour weapons when a single shot of the same ammo little more than scratches the paint ?

 

[veltyen]

>because if you think in penetration (ie., "drop-through" value against armor belts and decks) of a weapon then no matter how many you use, if they individually won't punch through they won't hurt anything of value

so why do the high RoF weapons like the fairly small calibre rotary cannon eg A10 warthog make such effective anti armour weapons when a single shot of the same ammo little more than scratches the paint ?

High velocity armor piercing 30mm cannon rounds tend not to scratch paint.

The GAU-8 has a 69mm penetration value at 500m. I assume that is for the AP round, the source I am using is unclear.

Light and Medium combatant vehicles generally won't be able to stand up to that. MBT would be able to stand up to that from most angles - but not all - which is where angle and direction of attack start to matter, and for that matter why warthogs often carry anti-tank missiles as well as their gun.

As a rule of thumb 10-20mm for light armour and 30-60mm for medium armour of rolled steel (or rolled steel equivalency). More for MBTs. Which means that main warthog gun - if you are close enough - will happily smash through most battlefield targets.

 

[sabredog]

Any on single 30mm depleted uranium high velocity round from a GAU-8 will punch easily through MBT armor. The reason for the gun firing a lot of rounds at a target very quickly isn't because those rounds all impact the same 30mm spot and gradually chew through. It is because

A) a single round might not be enough to kill the tank -these are AP rounds and don't explode on entry. The DU will form a plasma jet upon entry and do a lot of damage that way, but it might not do enough depending on where it penetrates.

B) the gun is mounted on the nose of a plane moving at 250-300mph, possibly jinked around a bit to avoid AA fire, and shooting a small target with only a tiny window of opportunity to hit it. So the gun hoses the target with 50+ rounds in the second or two that it's in the killbox, and around half to a third actually hit and kill it.

A proof would be maybe if you pointed a 7.62mm minigun at the same MBT and fired a steady stream of rounds at the same spot would it punch through? Since each round would barely scratch the paint by itself...mmmmm...no. 100 miniguns firing? Maybe in a million years, after all the Grand Canyon was carved by water.

 

[Peter Schutze]

>isn't because those rounds all impact the same 30mm spot and gradually chew through

I was originally thinking of the 4 barrel russian and german (gepard ?) aa guns that also fired on ground targets but could only think of the A-10 Warthog

Im assuming the same general reasoning applies as with the GAU-8 despite some descriptions I vaguely recall mentioning "shattering" the armour from multiple hits

 

[veltyen]

Any on single 30mm depleted uranium high velocity round from a GAU-8 will punch easily through MBT armor.

I disagree, but only on the definition of "easy"

Fire at an oblique angle at the front armor and easy it won't be.

A proof would be maybe if you pointed a 7.62mm minigun at the same MBT and fired a steady stream of rounds at the same spot would it punch through? Since each round would barely scratch the paint by itself...mmmmm...no. 100 miniguns firing? Maybe in a million years, after all the Grand Canyon was carved by water.

Minigun and same spot don't really go together, you would need to start thinking about cones of effect instead. Otherwise - without AP rounds - you wouldn't be able to significantly damaged the armour, but you would

* damage/disable the tracks
* kill viewports and remote cameras
* take off aerials and exposed equipment
* jam/damage turret mechanism

Of course, doing this before the return fire scrags you is the hard part, as is getting a Crew kill or Kill kill. Mobility and Weapon kills on the other hand would certainly be "easy" (again, depending on your definition of easy). It would be an interesting experiment though.

Dragging the discussion back on topic - the similarity between infantry carrying a rapid fire rifle and a fighter, and that between a battleship and a MBT is a little bit of a stretch, but they do share commonalities. The lighter factor needs to use stealth or numbers to get close enough to the heavy without being picked off, and once close enough to be effective can only really inconvenience the target - not destroy it in righteous fire - though inconvenience may be enough in some cases.

 

[atpollard]

A proof would be maybe if you pointed a 7.62mm minigun at the same MBT and fired a steady stream of rounds at the same spot would it punch through? Since each round would barely scratch the paint by itself...mmmmm...no. 100 miniguns firing? Maybe in a million years, after all the Grand Canyon was carved by water.

Good post.

The video on Metalstorm suggests that this technique might work a whole lot better than "Maybe in a million years" if the impacts can be a near continuous stream on the same location. It pulverized reinforced concrete.

I lack the first hand knowledge to make a definitive statement in this (you can only trust manufacturer video so far), but I think "Maybe" rather than "No" to 'Would it punch through?'

 

[pendragonman]

Any on single 30mm depleted uranium high velocity round from a GAU-8 will punch easily through MBT armor.

Not quite correct. The GAU-8 will actually punch thru top MBT armor easily. Front and side armor from the trajectory normally attacked by other MBT/AT weapons will not be penetrated by the 30 mm single round, (otherwise, why load MBTs with 120 mm cannon when a mini gun will do?) and with modern armors will create very little "spall" within the vehicle individually. However, with the cone of fire and the jackhammer effect of the GAU-8 much "spall" is created this way, giving a potential kill roughly equivalent to the old HEAT rounds.

 

[sabredog]

I thought the subject was on the why the smaller batteries wouldn't harm the capital ships in High Guard (because they can only cause minor damage like antennas, ports, and all the little things sticking past the armor, etc.) vs. how fighters with light weapons are better suited to take on smaller, lightly armored craft.

Given that, the example of the heavy AT autocannon vs. the lighter minigun (which was also design to be mounted on ground attack aircraft) is a perfectly valid one. Same could be said of an A6M2 with wing mounted 20mm cannon firing on the USS New Jersey from the air. It still amounts to the same thing no matter how you parse it.

Fighters in High Guard just can't hurt line ships, but if used with some creativity can help protect them and be used to good effectiveness to attack tenders, support craft, and others. Think of the tactical implications of coordinated fighters breaking the line and going after battlerider tenders. Or the fleet's fuel scoop/refinery ships do the fleet cannot retreat from the battle?

 

[sabredog]

Not quite correct. The GAU-8 will actually punch thru top MBT armor easily. Front and side armor from the trajectory normally attacked by other MBT/AT weapons will not be penetrated by the 30 mm single round, (otherwise, why load MBTs with 120 mm cannon when a mini gun will do?) and with modern armors will create very little "spall" within the vehicle individually. However, with the cone of fire and the jackhammer effect of the GAU-8 much "spall" is created this way, giving a potential kill roughly equivalent to the old HEAT rounds.

Before this goes much farther I'd just like to point out the obvious fact that the gun was, and is only designed for use in the A-10, precisely because it will be firing down through the deck armor of an MBT. Not even the M-1 or Challenger can stand up to that kind of attack which is why the Russian SU-25 carries similar armament.

The examples were used for scale. 30mm tank killing autocannons vs high ROF antipersonnel and soft target guns against an MBT is to Spinal weapons and nuclear missiles vs. beam and pulse lasers against capital ships in High Guard.

 

[pendragonman]

Before this goes much farther I'd just like to point out the obvious fact that the gun was, and is only designed for use in the A-10, precisely because it will be firing down through the deck armor of an MBT. Not even the M-1 or Challenger can stand up to that kind of attack which is why the Russian SU-25 carries similar armament.

The examples were used for scale. 30mm tank killing autocannons vs high ROF antipersonnel and soft target guns against an MBT is to Spinal weapons and nuclear missiles vs. beam and pulse lasers against capital ships in High Guard.

My point was, you said thru the armor of an MBT. Armor in general. This is not true. It is thru the top armor that it will penetrate. Top armor is not the armor in general.

 

[dccarles]

There is a way - crew skill =)

A lot of people overlook the section in HG with regard to PC skills and the combat tables. Now the average NPC is assumed to have a skill of 2, so what is needed is an NPC crew quality system:

green - NPC skill level 1
regular - NPC skill level 2
veteran - NPC skill level 3
elite - NPC skill level 4

That's pretty much what I use IMTU; skills are often useful for reflecting the society they're drawn from. Esperanzan crews (with their massive population base, high motivation and psychopharmologically-induced cooperative gestalt) sometimes have skill level-3 in most crew skills, but lack the initiative and innovation necessary for Fleet Tactics (average ~ 1.5.) Serendip crews, being basically conscripted technoserfs, have lower average skills, but since their officers come from the warrior class, often have better Ship and Fleet Tactics skills.

It's difficult, though, bringing up crew skills if you use an average. (I use something like a weighted average, supplemented by high degrees of Handwavium. (No, I never run out.)

--Devin

 

[dccarles]

Good post.

The video on Metalstorm suggests that this technique might work a whole lot better than "Maybe in a million years" if the impacts can be a near continuous stream on the same location. It pulverized reinforced concrete.

Concrete is soft (though it's harder than you, so please don't jump from any hig buildings, okay?) You can damage concrete with your own muscle power, provided there's a 10-pound sledge and maybe a cold chisel nearby. Getting through the rebar would be more difficult, of course, but what you saw was likely flying chips of concrete.

In Base Boredom - err, Borden - near Barrie in Ontario, they have some tanks and guns of WWII era and later on display. The face-hardened steel armour on the front of a Panther's turret is easily 30 cm thick (i.e., a foot). It'll be every bit as hard as the chisel. If someone on this board would loan me their wife's engagement ring, I'll go up and see how long it takes to hammer the diamond into the surface. I'll also serve as a character witness for the subsequent divorce proceedings, too.

IMTU, I assume battleships do present their thickest face (the front) to the enemy, much like an MBT. Since the third dimension and constant maneuvering makes them much easier to flank, though, the difference between front and flank is nowhere near as radical as in a Real Life MBT.

There used to be a very good web site named Guns vs. Armor, which had an article on how armour works. (Many of the pictures were very educational, and will be useful next time I stroll a tank-strewn battlefield.) Unfortunately, it's gone now, and last time I checked the Wayback it had the site, but not the article in question.

--Devin

 

[Chaos]

My point was, you said thru the armor of an MBT. Armor in general. This is not true. It is thru the top armor that it will penetrate. Top armor is not the armor in general.

But since the gun in question is only installed in an aircraft, and this aircraft only fires through the tank´s top armor from above, this gun´s projectiles will, in general, penetrate the only armor facing of any MBT they will fire through. It is no good arguing with front armor if the front armor is never the only armor exposed to the gun.



Back to the topic on hand, though, I have always seen fighters in a big ship TU as being used mostly for patrol, recon, to help with SAR, stuff like that - more in the way that seaplanes on cruisers and battleships were used in WW2, than how actual carrier aircraft were used. Small ship TUs are a different story though.
Another use for fighters would be as a space equivalent for highway patrols or coast guard units, or for blockade and red zone interdiction forces. A dozen fighters can be in more places at once than any single warship, and they are much, much cheaper than any dozen warships. Plus, they are probably very effective, for their size, in fighting the kinds of small, fast, lightly armed and armored ships that are usually employed as blockade runners.

 

[sabredog]

IMTU, I assume battleships do present their thickest face (the front) to the enemy, much like an MBT. Since the third dimension and constant maneuvering makes them much easier to flank, though, the difference between front and flank is nowhere near as radical as in a Real Life MBT.

--Devin

In battleship combat, unlike the old days of sailing ships, the guns were designed to arc the shells into the target and drop through (hence the term) the deck armor and superstructure armors. It is also called plunging fire. As battleships became faster and more manuverable (hmmm...agility) with the advent of steam turbines in the dreadnought and post-dreadnought eras, and lighter, better armors, then even then off chance of direct lateral fire was less efficient. Like the days of sail, however, the front presented to the enemy is broadside so as to bring the maximum batteries to bear. Presenting the bow on to the enemy only works for small ships making torpedo runs if the tubes point that way, or when trying to run down a sub before it torpedoes you.

And these are all the things that seem to be alluded to in High Guard otherwise only the Spinal Weapons would ever bear. You even line your ships up like it's Trafalgar or Tsushima Straits in High Guard. So this is why I keep going back to the original naval desgin and tactical theory in this argument. I apologise if I am seeming to be pedantic, I don't mean to be.

The punching through the deck ship-killing method was why Billy Mitchell declared years before (and proved) that aircraft made the battlewagons obsolete. The Arizona, Bismark, YAmato...the list goes on, proved him right.

The heavy armor belts around the hulls of battleships were for torpedo defense, along with spaced armoring called torpedo bulges.

In High Guard the battlewagons will constantly rotate and adjust to always present the maximum firepower until the damage done to batteries is reduced enough that it's below a certain threshold dictated by size of the ship. (page 29)

Now you could argue that that rule shows that fighters could do the same thing to a 100kt battleship in High Guard that planes did to the Yamato WW2 and always try to do the bomb runs in the areas where the batteries had been scrubbed off. The planes didn't sink the Yamato, but they got close enough to cripple her and she would have been easy pickings for any nearby battleship as a result.

Maybe a torpedo run against a capital ship should somehow have it factored in that if the torpedo craft ( a large fighter with a missile bay sized nuke missile) approaches inside these damaged areas then it can get close enough to fire the nuke into a vulnerable area and damage the ship in a real way?

Maybe it's really just a question determined by whether or not you are running something like Trillion Credit Squadron or a High Guard battle in the background...or something you are resolving that involves dramatic role-play for you campaign? Depending on which one I am doing IMTU I go back and forth between to get the desired dramatic effect. Inside every fighter jockey there lives a Luke Skywalker wanting to kill the Death Star so I try to be flexible.

 

[R_Chance]

Like the days of sail, however, the front presented to the enemy is broadside so as to bring the maximum batteries to bear. Presenting the bow on to the enemy only works for small ships making torpedo runs if the tubes point that way, or when trying to run down a sub before it torpedoes you.

And these are all the things that seem to be alluded to in High Guard otherwise only the Spinal Weapons would ever bear. You even line your ships up like it's Trafalgar or Tsushima Straits in High Guard. So this is why I keep going back to the original naval desgin and tactical theory in this argument. I apologise if I am seeming to be pedantic, I don't mean to be.

Actually I would suspect Traveller capitol ships would face bow on to the enemy. In deck plans and illustrations the spinal mounts always fire forward, so, if anything, it would be a forward facing line (a wall?) of battle. Which would make the wedge design popular -- all batteries can concentrate fire forward. The batteries bearing has to do with size IIRC and is modified by design as well.

A traditional line (ship following ship) would be useful until you closed for actual combat, then all ships would wheel to close on the enemy bow on. Battle walls would close on each other either coming to a relative halt (attempting to maintain seperation if you have the advantage at a given range) or closing to gain advantage (perhaps by interpenetrating the enemy's wall) until one side broke off the engagement and attempted to flee.

It would give a different look and feel to Traveller space combat than to an Age of Sail naval battle, where they pulled along side each others line and banged away (or tried the risky manuever of closing and crossing the "T" in individual ship duels like Nelson did at Trafalgar). Different look, different options and different outcomes I'd say. In the age of Sail few battles were decisive (which is why Trafalgar is so celebrated -- it was decisive), in a Traveller space battle I suspect most battles would be decisive... the chances of being able to move through the enemy fleet and escape or turn and flee from a closing enemy being much more limited than simply turning away and refusing the line in a sail powered (or even steam powered) naval engagement.

If your capitol ships are missile armed as a primary weapon, that could shift tactics back to the traditional line of battle, but spinal weapons seem dominant in traveller naval design and combat.

All of this presupposes you want to engage the enemy (or feel compelled to do so). Given the vast arena of space and use of jump drives, avoiding an engagement would be easier in Traveller than in naval engagements.

 

[far-trader]

Actually I would suspect Traveller capitol ships would face bow on to the enemy. In deck plans and illustrations the spinal mounts always fire forward, so, if anything, it would be a forward facing line (a wall?) of battle. Which would make the wedge design popular -- all batteries can concentrate fire forward.

That's about how I always saw it too.

The batteries bearing has to do with size IIRC and is modified by design as well.

Only size in CT. TNE and/or Brilliant Lances might have factored configuration but I don't think so. Memory is foggy on that, though it does ring a bell. Maybe a different game...

 

[sabredog]

I agree that it would be implicit that the capitol ships would have to execute a High Guard version of the Tojo Turn to bring the spinal guns to bear, but that begs the question of the language and rules used in High Guard and Trillion Credit Squadron for conducting the battles.

It says on pg 23 on the Batteries chart that "the number of batteries which may bear in combat is affected by the size of the ship." The rules for laying out and resolving the battle say for the ships to fight in a line which screens the secondary line. In fact the fleet must move at the rate of the slowest ship in the line because that is how initiative is determined. And further, that the player may fire as many or few of batteries bearing as he wants modified only by the pg 23 size chart.

On page 29 in HG it says that ships will change attitude to make sure the maximum batteries are bearing. They can't all be clustered on the front of the ship, so that logically means the batteries are along the flanks.

All this, and having participated in Trillion Credit Squadron matches (where we literally lined our ship figures up like we were playing Wooden Ships & Iron Men) at cons in the 80's has always has always given me the impression that the battles would resemble a line action. We didn't face of and pass eachother like in Babylon 5 or something - though that would be kinda interesting..... In fact on pg 38 the phrase "line of battle" is used.

But, given that spinal weapons being what they are means that the capitol ships must point them directly at eachother, and agility seems to play such an important role in hit resolution, AND, considering that the ships are realistically going to be at greater ranges than Nelson's, then it's not unlikely that the capitol ships fire the spinal guns first, then turn to present the secondary batteries so they can interdict the incoming missiles, etc.

BTW: where is it that the configuration of the hull can also determine batteries bearing? I can't find it in TCS or High Guard but if you have something like that I'd love to see it because if there is some way of computing batteries bearing based on configuration, too, then that would make more sense to me than just basing it on size.

 

[aramis]

Batteries bearing was always a function of size. I don't recall it factoring config in CT, and it doesn't in MT.

MT is purely size.

 

[sabredog]

I forgot...since you mention the question of how decisive the battle would be, let alone how you engage and fight the enemy in the first place...consider how nations have always treated thier battleships in real life. The dreadnoughts and battleships were the focus of an arms race of thier own and while everyone wanted to see what they did against eachother it was incredibly expensive to lose the things. So after Jutland that was that for the capital ships getting to go at eachother. They were used for support or commerce raiding and that was it. Too much tied into them psychologically and financially.

Now project that into the future where you probably wouldn't even be able to "refloat" the hulk after the battle because it's irradiated, and it'd be incredibly hazardous to get through the clouds of floating debris. The BB probably cost as much as a subsector's GNP (I think AHL discussed this) and it's maintaining it is near ruinous so during peactime they have to go into "ordinary" to save costs. I doubt there are many of the really big ones cruising around, but even the AZL cost a fortune (I remember something about schoolkids contributing their milkmoney to fund one).

So how often would these be used in battle, and how "decisive" would that battle really be allowed to be? How decisive are the ones in YTU?

Mine are more like the old AoS days...even then the major actions were not too common, usually more due to mutual agreement because it wasn't too difficult to avoid your opponent (Trafalagr was after a lengthy blockade so the British always knew exactly where the French were, Nile had one side already at anchor...). The vast majority were frigate and single squadron type actions involving only a handful of line ships (typically 2nd and 3rd line). So I have big set piece battles infrequently to avoid laying waste to subsector economies after every action. Oh, those repair bills!