Can anyone describe fleet/task group formations and/or combat tactics; otherwise, when physically in space, how does a group of ships (say a light carrier group: light carrier, 2*light cruiser, 3* destroyer, smaller escorts) organize itself in flight, and when in combat how does it face the enemy?
Fleet tactics/formations?
- Thread starter Jame
- Start date
Not really. High guard/Trillion Credit Squadron is pretty abstract, so tactical organization is not well developed. I am not aware that anyone has experimented with fleet tactics using vector movement.
When we played Trilion Credit Squadron fighters weren't much good in fleet actions, even with nuclear missiles. A carrier group such as you describe would be used by us to support a planetary assault. Rather than the cruisers and destroyers we would include 1-2 battle cruisers (60 KT @ TL 15) to take out planetary defenses and run interfearance in case the carrier has to bug out.
When we played Trilion Credit Squadron fighters weren't much good in fleet actions, even with nuclear missiles. A carrier group such as you describe would be used by us to support a planetary assault. Rather than the cruisers and destroyers we would include 1-2 battle cruisers (60 KT @ TL 15) to take out planetary defenses and run interfearance in case the carrier has to bug out.
Ben W Bell
SOC-14 1K
When engaging I believe it is common for the carrier to launch it's fighters and then hang back from the main advance covered by one of two escorts (in this case probably just one) and support with additional missile fire.
A good read or two would be the Honor Harrington series. Its not exactly Traveller (and the ships have much greater accelerations), but the tactics would be pretty much similar.
Dreadnaughts, SD's and BB's organize themselves into the "wall of battle" so as to maximize their collective broadsides and concentration of fire. The cruisers, destroyers, and other ships in the "screen" then spread out to assist in providing the counter missile fire.
In Traveller, where ships don't have a broadside (per se), this probably wouldn't change too much, as the wall formation gives you the greatest offensive overlap of fire from all ships involved.
Borrowing from the maneuvers used by tanks in land warfare, one could also extrapolate the following formations:
WALL: already described
CONE: used for probing forces. The ships in this formation are arranged into a three dimensional wedge or hollow cone. The lead ship is responsible for forward coverage in a 90° cone. Each ship out the side is responsible to cover sectors of fire ranging from 10° out from the ship ahead to 10° ahead of the ship to the stern. This formation limits offensive fire in exchange for better sensor coverage when probing an enemy controled area.
This formation is also good for penetrating an enemy wall, as the exposed areas are masked by the leading ships until the wall is penetrated, when the flanking sides of the cone then have the concentration advantage over the now perpendicular wall.
ESCHELON LEFT/RIGHT/UP/DOWN: A variant of the wall formation, which is sloped 30° to one side. This is used in place of the cone when contact is anticipated from one flank.
SPHERE: A defensive formation used to protect or evacuate non-combattants or wounded ships from the battlefield. This formation sacrifices concentration of firepower in exchange for wide area coverage. It is also an effective anti-fighter formation.
COLUMN: Not a recomended combat formation. Ships are arranged into a set of parallel lines for ease of travel.
STAGGERED COLUMN: A travelling formation with some defensive precautions. This formation flanks a standard column with fighting ships in a helical pattern. This is good for piracy suppression, but vastly inferior if contact is ancticipated.
In the case of your carier group, your principle threat (at least most of the time) is enemy fighters and light elements. A sphere formation would probably be best, with the carier in the center, cruisers to fore and aft, and destroyers in a tripod around the axis of travel.
In HG terms, this formation has all of your elements in the reserve or on the line (depending on how you look at it, and where they are in the fight)
When under contact from heavier elements, the cruisers and destroyers would re-deploy into a wall or eschelon in effort to protect the carier while the fighters did their best to bring the intruder under fire.
In HG terms, this places your carier into the reserve for most of the fight, with the screening elements on the line.
Your mileage may vary.
Dreadnaughts, SD's and BB's organize themselves into the "wall of battle" so as to maximize their collective broadsides and concentration of fire. The cruisers, destroyers, and other ships in the "screen" then spread out to assist in providing the counter missile fire.
In Traveller, where ships don't have a broadside (per se), this probably wouldn't change too much, as the wall formation gives you the greatest offensive overlap of fire from all ships involved.
Borrowing from the maneuvers used by tanks in land warfare, one could also extrapolate the following formations:
WALL: already described
CONE: used for probing forces. The ships in this formation are arranged into a three dimensional wedge or hollow cone. The lead ship is responsible for forward coverage in a 90° cone. Each ship out the side is responsible to cover sectors of fire ranging from 10° out from the ship ahead to 10° ahead of the ship to the stern. This formation limits offensive fire in exchange for better sensor coverage when probing an enemy controled area.
This formation is also good for penetrating an enemy wall, as the exposed areas are masked by the leading ships until the wall is penetrated, when the flanking sides of the cone then have the concentration advantage over the now perpendicular wall.
ESCHELON LEFT/RIGHT/UP/DOWN: A variant of the wall formation, which is sloped 30° to one side. This is used in place of the cone when contact is anticipated from one flank.
SPHERE: A defensive formation used to protect or evacuate non-combattants or wounded ships from the battlefield. This formation sacrifices concentration of firepower in exchange for wide area coverage. It is also an effective anti-fighter formation.
COLUMN: Not a recomended combat formation. Ships are arranged into a set of parallel lines for ease of travel.
STAGGERED COLUMN: A travelling formation with some defensive precautions. This formation flanks a standard column with fighting ships in a helical pattern. This is good for piracy suppression, but vastly inferior if contact is ancticipated.
In the case of your carier group, your principle threat (at least most of the time) is enemy fighters and light elements. A sphere formation would probably be best, with the carier in the center, cruisers to fore and aft, and destroyers in a tripod around the axis of travel.
In HG terms, this formation has all of your elements in the reserve or on the line (depending on how you look at it, and where they are in the fight)
When under contact from heavier elements, the cruisers and destroyers would re-deploy into a wall or eschelon in effort to protect the carier while the fighters did their best to bring the intruder under fire.
In HG terms, this places your carier into the reserve for most of the fight, with the screening elements on the line.
Your mileage may vary.
Liam Devlin
SOC-14 5K
Another book with ship's tactics in it, a shorter series, By Alan Cole & Chris Bunch, the STEN series...there is an interstellar war, and the naval battles in space are directly taken from the pacific theater WW 2.
Other wise, the good RADM Bachfisch has pretty much summed up the basic maneuvers.
Of note: like sea battles, the majority of firepower is placed in flanks. The Spinal mount main guns are fixed fireing so facing the enemy/ and his/ her facing to you has some bearing on the battle.
ANd, like in submarine warfare, use of sensors locating ( to "see" the target) each other in the vastness of space comes into play.
Other wise, the good RADM Bachfisch has pretty much summed up the basic maneuvers.
Of note: like sea battles, the majority of firepower is placed in flanks. The Spinal mount main guns are fixed fireing so facing the enemy/ and his/ her facing to you has some bearing on the battle.
ANd, like in submarine warfare, use of sensors locating ( to "see" the target) each other in the vastness of space comes into play.
The GDW game Double Star had formation chits for each battle fleet.
Formations were:
Scattered, required 1 ship, and was the default formation
Wedge, required 4 ships, plus any screened ships
Cylinder, required 6 ships, plus any screened ships
and Globe, which required 8 ships plus at least three more ships than the target enemy formation.
Now, not exactly a space game, but with Janes Fighter Anthology, you have
Line abreast, Echelon, and Line Astern
with high stacking [your wingmen are higher than you] and low stacking[your wingmen are lower than you], tight spacing[500ft apart] or 'combat' spread[2000ft apart].
I think I always went with Line abreast-combat spread-level altitude.
Formations were:
Scattered, required 1 ship, and was the default formation
Wedge, required 4 ships, plus any screened ships
Cylinder, required 6 ships, plus any screened ships
and Globe, which required 8 ships plus at least three more ships than the target enemy formation.
Now, not exactly a space game, but with Janes Fighter Anthology, you have
Line abreast, Echelon, and Line Astern
with high stacking [your wingmen are higher than you] and low stacking[your wingmen are lower than you], tight spacing[500ft apart] or 'combat' spread[2000ft apart].
I think I always went with Line abreast-combat spread-level altitude.
Interesting. IMTU, the spinal mount weapons are specifically mounted on traditionally light units so they can target enemy heavies when the heavies turn to unleash a broadside while engaging friendly heavies. Fighter cover is provided by friendly heavies and pickets too light to mount spinals.
Typical offensive formation is a circular wall of heavies, a 3-5 layer high "belt" with 2 waves following (wave 1 heavies, wave 2 anti-fighter and anti-missile, wave 3 spinals, rear reserve--not advancing ships--are carriers and small carrier pickets with fleet tenders).
Typical offensive formation is a circular wall of heavies, a 3-5 layer high "belt" with 2 waves following (wave 1 heavies, wave 2 anti-fighter and anti-missile, wave 3 spinals, rear reserve--not advancing ships--are carriers and small carrier pickets with fleet tenders).
What weapons do you have in your broadside? Once you get canon spine mounts in the game the other beam weapons become less significant. You can't mean missiles, because they can turn after launch.
Very few ships can take more than one or two hits from a big spine mount, so we found (at least at TL15) that four 60,000 ton battlecruisers with T meson guns could beat two 200,000 ton dreadnaughts with the same weapons for 2/3 the cost.
Very few ships can take more than one or two hits from a big spine mount, so we found (at least at TL15) that four 60,000 ton battlecruisers with T meson guns could beat two 200,000 ton dreadnaughts with the same weapons for 2/3 the cost.
Sorry, was away from system access for a few days.
IMTU I play with a few house rules to effect large scale fleet engagements. I've established a capital turret system, basically identical to the regular turret system but upscaled. This allows me to mount smaller versions the spinals in the capital turrets (which are 1 to every 500 tons). I also have weapon bays adding to the firepower. For best quantity of weapons-on-target broadsides are a necessity. Head on attacks are good for missiles, but too many weapons are occluded by superstructure or other weapons turrets.
IMTU I play with a few house rules to effect large scale fleet engagements. I've established a capital turret system, basically identical to the regular turret system but upscaled. This allows me to mount smaller versions the spinals in the capital turrets (which are 1 to every 500 tons). I also have weapon bays adding to the firepower. For best quantity of weapons-on-target broadsides are a necessity. Head on attacks are good for missiles, but too many weapons are occluded by superstructure or other weapons turrets.
Liam Devlin
SOC-14 5K
Aye, the rolling broadside: brought forth with the command "Bring all batteries to bear!"( wherein the ship rolls so port and starboard side "guns"/ weapons are turned on target(s).( a Barrel roll maneuver).
which brings up facing/ and what weapons are where on individual ships. TNE was good about this, I recall.( as well a where a shot landed on yer ship).
Kewl stuff.
which brings up facing/ and what weapons are where on individual ships. TNE was good about this, I recall.( as well a where a shot landed on yer ship).
Kewl stuff.
Liam Devlin
SOC-14 5K
Another Excellent reference, Ellros! Kudos! reminds folk even though we play in a 2D fashion, Space combat is 3D!
Tom Schoene
SOC-12
The cone, cylinder, and sphere formations seem fairly likely if any close fomration is required. The fleets in E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman series use them for much the same reasons described above (plus some other ones specific to the Lensman universe, like pressors and tractor beams). Note that a cone allows all the ships in the formation to bring their spinal mounts to bear at once, but only if the enmy is along the cone's axis. To turn a cone intact will require that the outer ships be MUCH faster than the inner ones.
In practice, I woudl expect something more flexible, like modern warship screens where ships move within assigned coverage areas. Computers continuously recalculate the weapon ranges of the screening ships and the various threats to ensure that they provide optimum coverage.
Trivia bit: some sources credit Smith with inspiring the creation of Combat Information Centers on Navy ships in WW2. ADM Nimitz wrote to Smith after the war that his descriptions of the command ship Directrix had directly shaped the design of shipboard CICs. Not bad for a pulp SF writer.
In practice, I woudl expect something more flexible, like modern warship screens where ships move within assigned coverage areas. Computers continuously recalculate the weapon ranges of the screening ships and the various threats to ensure that they provide optimum coverage.
Trivia bit: some sources credit Smith with inspiring the creation of Combat Information Centers on Navy ships in WW2. ADM Nimitz wrote to Smith after the war that his descriptions of the command ship Directrix had directly shaped the design of shipboard CICs. Not bad for a pulp SF writer.
