vermeylenhans
SOC-11
Sorry Larsen. Didn't saw your post. Most of what I wrote come from Belgian Navy manuals, and from things designed for our on-going Traveller campaign... In french we say "les grands esprits se rencontrent", great minds meet.
Fleets, IN organization, and general TO&E.
- Thread starter BetterThanLife
- Start date
Hans Vermeylen wrote:
"Sorry Larsen. Didn't saw your post."
Mr. Vermeylen,
No apologies necessary sir. Instead please accept mine. I failed to type: Great minds do seem to think alike, although if your mind works like mine you may want to consult a doctor.
Sigh. Why do I always forget the punchline?
Sincerely,
Larsen
"Sorry Larsen. Didn't saw your post."
Mr. Vermeylen,
No apologies necessary sir. Instead please accept mine. I failed to type: Great minds do seem to think alike, although if your mind works like mine you may want to consult a doctor.
Sigh. Why do I always forget the punchline?
Sincerely,
Larsen
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Believe it
Let me qualify that statement.
Spaceship combat at the time in Traveller was gamed using the High Guard 2 combat rules. Under those rules a 20kt battlerider carries a spinal mount that is every bit as lethal as the spinals carried by the 200kt battleships. One hit is one mission kill.
Against navies less than TL15 the computer and meson screen advantage make the battleriders even more deadly.
Dig out High Guard and play out a couple of engagements...
jchurchill
SOC-12
"Spaceship combat at the time in Traveller was gamed using the High Guard 2 combat rules. Under those rules a 20kt battlerider carries a spinal mount that is every bit as lethal as the spinals carried by the 200kt battleships. One hit is one mission kill.
Against navies less than TL15 the computer and meson screen advantage make the battleriders even more deadly.
Dig out High Guard and play out a couple of engagements..."
I would qualify this statement one step further --- you are addressing a tactical issue and battle riders are tactically advantageous but strategically they can be at large disadvantages -- jump capable battleships can run to fight another day -- something that battle riders can't do. Also battleship squadrons can be be split up more easily than a BR squadron. And sometimes, dividing forces can actually work --
Finally, a useful tactic is to send fighter craft and SDBs after the tender while the BRs are busy fighting battleships or other main fleet elements.
The look of concern on the player's face operating a BR squadron when his tender is destroyed or badly damaged says it all. So yes while a BR can be as tough and effective as a ship of equal or greater size, if things go a little wrong then the BRs are literally left with a life or death fight.
Against navies less than TL15 the computer and meson screen advantage make the battleriders even more deadly.
Dig out High Guard and play out a couple of engagements..."
I would qualify this statement one step further --- you are addressing a tactical issue and battle riders are tactically advantageous but strategically they can be at large disadvantages -- jump capable battleships can run to fight another day -- something that battle riders can't do. Also battleship squadrons can be be split up more easily than a BR squadron. And sometimes, dividing forces can actually work --
Finally, a useful tactic is to send fighter craft and SDBs after the tender while the BRs are busy fighting battleships or other main fleet elements.
The look of concern on the player's face operating a BR squadron when his tender is destroyed or badly damaged says it all. So yes while a BR can be as tough and effective as a ship of equal or greater size, if things go a little wrong then the BRs are literally left with a life or death fight.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Imperial Naval doctrine in supplement 9, and mirrored in FFW, was to have starships in the front line colonial squadrons and battle riders in the reserve regular squadrans that would be employed to crush the oposition.
Something you have forgotten to mention is economics.
The Imperium can build an awful lot of 20kt battle riders for the price of one 200kt battleship. The tender can jump out system where it can't be found by fighters/SDBs. If the battle riders are losing the fight they can break off by acceleration to hide in the out-system until the tender jumps back to rescue them.
High Guard combat is won by the side that can bring the most spinal mounts and missile bays to the engagement.
You can also design a TL15 rider with a jump 1 engine so it can break off by jumping in an emergency (althjoughther are no canon designs like this ).
And while speaking of canon designs, thet 20kt battle rider should have been designed as a 19999t ship - it would have made it more difficult to hit on the High Guard combat tables
Something you have forgotten to mention is economics.
The Imperium can build an awful lot of 20kt battle riders for the price of one 200kt battleship. The tender can jump out system where it can't be found by fighters/SDBs. If the battle riders are losing the fight they can break off by acceleration to hide in the out-system until the tender jumps back to rescue them.
High Guard combat is won by the side that can bring the most spinal mounts and missile bays to the engagement.
You can also design a TL15 rider with a jump 1 engine so it can break off by jumping in an emergency (althjoughther are no canon designs like this
).And while speaking of canon designs, thet 20kt battle rider should have been designed as a 19999t ship - it would have made it more difficult to hit on the High Guard combat tables
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
The only way to even things up for battleships and dreadnoughts IMHO would have been to include larger spinal mounts or to allow these large ships to have more than one of them.
In High Guard it pays to build the smallest ship you can to carry the spinal mount.
Even figuring in the cost of the 300kt tender, the battle rider squadron brings more spinal mounts to the battle field for the equivalent priced battleship.
In High Guard it pays to build the smallest ship you can to carry the spinal mount.
Even figuring in the cost of the 300kt tender, the battle rider squadron brings more spinal mounts to the battle field for the equivalent priced battleship.
BetterThanLife
SOC-14 1K
In T20 it is even more pronounced. Any spinal Meson will vaporize any ship up to 800,000 tons 55% of the time. Little 5000 Ton spacecraft (Light Attack Craft or LAC perhaps?) are extremely nasty and a dispersed structure Tender that can carry 6 30KTon riders can carry about 30 of the 5KT LACs for the same cost and 36 for the same displacement and still launch all of them in one turn.
BetterThanLife
SOC-14 1K
A Battlerider Squadron is by definition a BatRon. Though it is sometimes referred to as BatRon ### (Battlerider).
</font>[/QUOTE]
I think this is a mistake. In SMC BatRon 154 is called a BatRon, but it's actually only a CruRon, seven cruiser-sized combat vessels. I resuse to believe that seven 20,000 T battleriders can be a match for 6-8 200,000 battleships even if the battleships have to spend 45% on their jump drives and fuel tanks.
</font>[/QUOTE]
BetterThanLife
SOC-14 1K
Actually the Battleships were reactivated to fill a very real role, if it were just a cheat there would have been no requirement for the extensive modifications to their armament and systems. The mechanicals were left alone but firecontrol, radar systems, ECM, and a whole host of systems were added, not to mention the addition of the missile launchers and Phalanx. (Which weren't token SAM launchers.)
The Sheffield was not a refurbished WWII Destroyer, nor was it an ASW Destroyer with Air Defense as an afterthought. Primary designed mission of the Sheffield was Airdefense and Secondary ASW. Things I read on the action, showed that the AirDefense system saw the threat, classified the threat, (Unfortunately for the Sheffield misclassified the threat.) And didn't shoot at the inbound missiles because they were friendly. The second problem was the location of the hit. (Took CIC and primary damage control and most of the firefighting equipment.) The third problem was the Aluminum Superstructure actually caught fire and burned.
The Phalanx CWIS systems were deployed after the Falklands to correct the first problem. When it was actually developed is a matter of conjecture and depends on where you actually draw the line as to what constitutes the developement of the system, as the US Army has had a ground mounted Vulcan airdefense gun since the early 70s but the automated, on mount radar, targeting system wasn't available or deployed until a couple years after the Falklands.
YOu will also find that after the Falklands the US stopped using Aluminum as the Superstructure for combat vessels built since then. (One of the Major advantages to having the Battleships was they had steel armor.)
YOu are correct that the Argentine Airforce would have had a difficult time damaging a US Carrier Group's ships. But the US Navy was designed to deeal with a much more robust threat than the Argentine Airforce. The Primary means of Air Defense in the 80s of a Carrier Group wasn't the ships in the Group but the 24 F-14s and the early warning capability of the E-2 Hawkeye. The F-4 and later the F-18 were for close in defense for anything that got past the F-14s. THe remainder of the ships were for last ditch defense and ASW capability. The biggest threat to a US Carrier wasn't a Surface Group but a Backfire wing with Cruise Missiles. It wasn't until the deployment of the VLS Aegis system that the Surface Based Air Defense could truly protect a Carrier in that kind of threat environment. (And then with two VLS Cruisers and Two VLS Destroyers they could protect a Carrier for about 2 minutes or one airraid before they were out of missiles.)
And Aegis is also quite a bit after the Falklands.
The Sheffield was not a refurbished WWII Destroyer, nor was it an ASW Destroyer with Air Defense as an afterthought. Primary designed mission of the Sheffield was Airdefense and Secondary ASW. Things I read on the action, showed that the AirDefense system saw the threat, classified the threat, (Unfortunately for the Sheffield misclassified the threat.) And didn't shoot at the inbound missiles because they were friendly. The second problem was the location of the hit. (Took CIC and primary damage control and most of the firefighting equipment.) The third problem was the Aluminum Superstructure actually caught fire and burned.
The Phalanx CWIS systems were deployed after the Falklands to correct the first problem. When it was actually developed is a matter of conjecture and depends on where you actually draw the line as to what constitutes the developement of the system, as the US Army has had a ground mounted Vulcan airdefense gun since the early 70s but the automated, on mount radar, targeting system wasn't available or deployed until a couple years after the Falklands.
YOu will also find that after the Falklands the US stopped using Aluminum as the Superstructure for combat vessels built since then. (One of the Major advantages to having the Battleships was they had steel armor.)
YOu are correct that the Argentine Airforce would have had a difficult time damaging a US Carrier Group's ships. But the US Navy was designed to deeal with a much more robust threat than the Argentine Airforce. The Primary means of Air Defense in the 80s of a Carrier Group wasn't the ships in the Group but the 24 F-14s and the early warning capability of the E-2 Hawkeye. The F-4 and later the F-18 were for close in defense for anything that got past the F-14s. THe remainder of the ships were for last ditch defense and ASW capability. The biggest threat to a US Carrier wasn't a Surface Group but a Backfire wing with Cruise Missiles. It wasn't until the deployment of the VLS Aegis system that the Surface Based Air Defense could truly protect a Carrier in that kind of threat environment. (And then with two VLS Cruisers and Two VLS Destroyers they could protect a Carrier for about 2 minutes or one airraid before they were out of missiles.)
And Aegis is also quite a bit after the Falklands.
The Oz
SOC-14 1K
I don't think I can agree with this, Sigg. Putting more firepower on a ship without improving defenses just makes that ship a more valuable target.
This is nothing but the truth, however.
To make big ships viable in TRAVELLER combat you have to reduce the effectiveness of spinal meson guns from their current "one-shot-zot" to a more attritional weapon.
One way I've thought of doing this in HG is to have meson screens act as armor against meson gun fire, giving a DM on the damage rolls and (more importantly) a reduction in the number of automatic critical hits, just as if the meson screen rating was an armor rating. You could still allow a "full penetration" of the meson screen if the roll to penetrate the screen was signifigantly higher than the minimum roll needed, say +4 higher. This way meson guns might get lucky and really blast a ship but most of the time they'll just add some more attritional damage, but that damage will be internal systems like Power Plant or Screens, instead of surface systems like Weapons or Fuel.
BetterThanLife
SOC-14 1K
OK Lets return to first principals and Statistical analysis. For the purposes of this analysis lets ignore armor and Nuclear dampers. Things change slightly, not usually in the fighters' favor, depending on the version of Traveller you are using. FOr the purposes of this analysis we will use Book 5 High Guard combat tables. If a fighter has a Factor 2 missile and has a two point disadvantage in computer model size and the Capital (Size q or larger) ship has an agility of 6 then it takes 36 shots to generate one hit. (If the computers are equal then you will have one chance in 6 of generating one hit. Though your fighters will be proportionally more expensive and You get a few more hits penetrate because 1 in 36 will penetrate.)
Once you get your one hit, you need to penetrate the defenses. At factor 2 you can't penetrate a Beam used defensively at factor 8+ You can't penetrate Sand at factor 8+ either. So to score one hit you have to take 36 shots for each battery of Sand 36 shots for each beam and have 36 shots left over to roll once on the damage table. So to take my favorite Heavy Cruiser as an example, (I would pick lower tech levels if there were common ships in the CT Canon.) Match it against the FH. (Both are in Supp 9.) The FH has a computer that is effectively 3 levels less than the Atlantic's It has a factor 2 Missile and a factor 2 beam. (Factor 2 beam is incapable of a hit.) The Atlantic only has Agility 5. It takes, statistically speaking, 792 fighters to generate one penetrating hit that makes it to the damage charts. The Atlantic will kill approximately 30 FH per turn. The fighters run out of ammo in three turns and the Atlantic keeps firing. Then, though, it gets to use the beams as well.
Cost effeectiveness. 300 FH and the Fleet Carrier to carry them cost about as much as 2 Atlantic Cruisers. 792 FH cost as much as 1.75 Atlantic Cruisers.
How is that anything above useless? How does tech level change that?
Oh and two fighters with Agility 6 without resorting to Fusion Turrets and with equal computers can't hit each other. Where is the usefullness in that?
Like I said against Typical Capital ships they are worthless. Against Merchantmen, converted Merchants (Typical COrsairs), and ground targets they have a use.
Once you get your one hit, you need to penetrate the defenses. At factor 2 you can't penetrate a Beam used defensively at factor 8+ You can't penetrate Sand at factor 8+ either. So to score one hit you have to take 36 shots for each battery of Sand 36 shots for each beam and have 36 shots left over to roll once on the damage table. So to take my favorite Heavy Cruiser as an example, (I would pick lower tech levels if there were common ships in the CT Canon.) Match it against the FH. (Both are in Supp 9.) The FH has a computer that is effectively 3 levels less than the Atlantic's It has a factor 2 Missile and a factor 2 beam. (Factor 2 beam is incapable of a hit.) The Atlantic only has Agility 5. It takes, statistically speaking, 792 fighters to generate one penetrating hit that makes it to the damage charts. The Atlantic will kill approximately 30 FH per turn. The fighters run out of ammo in three turns and the Atlantic keeps firing. Then, though, it gets to use the beams as well.
Cost effeectiveness. 300 FH and the Fleet Carrier to carry them cost about as much as 2 Atlantic Cruisers. 792 FH cost as much as 1.75 Atlantic Cruisers.
How is that anything above useless? How does tech level change that?
Oh and two fighters with Agility 6 without resorting to Fusion Turrets and with equal computers can't hit each other. Where is the usefullness in that?
Like I said against Typical Capital ships they are worthless. Against Merchantmen, converted Merchants (Typical COrsairs), and ground targets they have a use.
Bhoins wrote:
"OK Lets return to first principals and Statistical analysis."
Mr. Bhoins,
Sure.
"For the purposes of this analysis lets ignore armor and Nuclear dampers."
Why? BTW, choosing HG2 as a starting point is good. In every other version of Traveller, fighters are more deadly.
"Things change slightly, not usually in the fighters' favor, depending on the version of Traveller you are using." {big snippet of analysis assuming Tech Level 15 builds only)
"Like I said against Typical Capital ships they are worthless."
Like I said, against capital ships above roughly TL 13 fighters are useless. Why do you assume every ship is built at TL 15? The Zhos don't build at TL 15. Neither do the Darrians, Swordies, Sollies, Vargr, K'Kree, or Aslan. You're ignoring scads of lower TL ships in CT canon and concentrating on Supp. 9 alone. Why?
Sure, at TL 15 FHs are useless against capital ships. At TL 15 FH's can't even hit each other!
However, at Tech Level 13 and below, things change. For starters, your capital ship will not have an agility rating of 6. You'll use so much tonnage for the m-drive, powerplant, and fuel, that you'll have little left for armor, screens, and weapons. Your vessel may be 'fighter-proof' but it will also be easy pickings for a real capital ship. Hence my statement about specialized designs.
At levels below TL 13, fighters will lick their cost in capital ships handily. We ran a Smoke Test at 'ct-starships' close to three years ago. The results are still in the group's archives.
"Against Merchantmen, converted Merchants (Typical COrsairs), and ground targets they have a use."
Yup, very true. And at lower tech levels fighters have a use against capital ships. Run the numbers at all tech levels. The results are surprising.
Sincerely,
Larsen
P.S. How'd you wrangle that 'marquis' rating? It's nifty!
"OK Lets return to first principals and Statistical analysis."
Mr. Bhoins,
Sure.
"For the purposes of this analysis lets ignore armor and Nuclear dampers."
Why? BTW, choosing HG2 as a starting point is good. In every other version of Traveller, fighters are more deadly.
"Things change slightly, not usually in the fighters' favor, depending on the version of Traveller you are using." {big snippet of analysis assuming Tech Level 15 builds only)
"Like I said against Typical Capital ships they are worthless."
Like I said, against capital ships above roughly TL 13 fighters are useless. Why do you assume every ship is built at TL 15? The Zhos don't build at TL 15. Neither do the Darrians, Swordies, Sollies, Vargr, K'Kree, or Aslan. You're ignoring scads of lower TL ships in CT canon and concentrating on Supp. 9 alone. Why?
Sure, at TL 15 FHs are useless against capital ships. At TL 15 FH's can't even hit each other!
However, at Tech Level 13 and below, things change. For starters, your capital ship will not have an agility rating of 6. You'll use so much tonnage for the m-drive, powerplant, and fuel, that you'll have little left for armor, screens, and weapons. Your vessel may be 'fighter-proof' but it will also be easy pickings for a real capital ship. Hence my statement about specialized designs.
At levels below TL 13, fighters will lick their cost in capital ships handily. We ran a Smoke Test at 'ct-starships' close to three years ago. The results are still in the group's archives.
"Against Merchantmen, converted Merchants (Typical COrsairs), and ground targets they have a use."
Yup, very true. And at lower tech levels fighters have a use against capital ships. Run the numbers at all tech levels. The results are surprising.
Sincerely,
Larsen
P.S. How'd you wrangle that 'marquis' rating? It's nifty!
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Mr. Whipsnade,
this is where we get them
...when the log in box appears click on "cancel" and wait...
this is where we get them
...when the log in box appears click on "cancel" and wait...
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I don't think I can agree with this, Sigg. Putting more firepower on a ship without improving defenses just makes that ship a more valuable target.</font>[/QUOTE]Good point, I was only thinking of balancing the offensive weaponry. Better defensive screens would help too.
That's a neat idea, and it ties in with how meson screens work in TNE, T4, and T20 (the latter depends on your reading of the rules). I'll have to go and check how they work in GT.
The Oz
SOC-14 1K
I got (stole) the idea from TNE, adapting it to CT.
Once you allow meson screens to work this way, what I'm considering to increase capital ship firepower is to say that any weapon that has a tonnage greater than 1% of a ship's displacement is a "spinal weapon" and has the restrictions of such a weapon (if you're using a system that has such restrictions) and that any weapon with a tonnage of 1% or less of a ship's displacement is a "turret/bay" weapon.
So, any fighter under 100 dtons has only "spinal mounts," that is, fixed-forward weapons. 50-ton bays become "spinal mounts" on ships of less than 5000 dtons, 100-ton bays similarly do so on ships of less than 10,000 dtons.
Here's the real kicker....
Spinal mounts of 1000 dtons size become =turret/bay weapons= on ships of 100,000 dtons or greater, and the allowed "turret/bay" weapon size goes up as the ship does. So a Plankwell could mount factor-N meson guns as "turret/bay" weapons, and a Tigress could handle factor-R meson "turrets".
I've played around with this in HGS (thanks, Andrew!) using the "User Defined" section to add the other meson guns. If you accept only J-3 for fuel tankage you can get a factor-T spinal mount and two factor-N turrets into a 200,000 dton hull, and I have room for backups for everything, including the bridge.
I've not done any serious combat testing with this concept yet, but I would think that such a ship could give an equal-cost number of battleriders a run for their money. It has a lot more firepower (especially the secondary weapons) and better passive defenses (backups for systems, etc) and just more toughness to absorb damage.
Believe it
Let me qualify that statement.
Spaceship combat at the time in Traveller was gamed using the High Guard 2 combat rules. Under those rules a 20kt battlerider carries a spinal mount that is every bit as lethal as the spinals carried by the 200kt battleships. One hit is one mission kill.
Against navies less than TL15 the computer and meson screen advantage make the battleriders even more deadly.
Dig out High Guard and play out a couple of engagements... </font>[/QUOTE]I believe you about the rules. In fact, ISTR someone claiming, long ago, that the biggest starship it made sense to build (under the HG2 rules) was the smallest one that could carry the biggest available meson gun (Something around a 60 or 75 kT IIRC). But that just means that the HG2 combat rules are stuffed. Because if they were 'true to life' no one would build battleships. Yet we know for a fact that they do. And we know from 5FW that batrons are more powerful than crurons.
Sop I say again: I refuse to believe that seven 20,000 T battleriders can be a match for 6-8 200,000 battleships even if the battleships have to spend 45% on their jump drives and fuel tanks.
Hans
BetterThanLife
SOC-14 1K
Actually a Battlerider has much more punch and protection than a similar sized Cruiser. While it may not be quite up to the secondary armament af a Battleship it definitely outclasses a Cruiser of the same or even larger size.
Hans </font>[/QUOTE]
I'm not disputing that. I'm claiming that it is wrong, an error, a mistake. Because if BatRon 154 is a BatRon, then all CruRons are BatRons too.
Hans </font>[/QUOTE]
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I'm not disputing that. I'm claiming that it is wrong, an error, a mistake. Because if BatRon 154 is a BatRon, then all CruRons are BatRons too.
Hans </font>[/QUOTE]Have you looked at the counter mix in FFW?
BatRon 154 at J4 6-2-8 is one of the four top of the line BatRons. Only the BR 501 to 507 can be argued to be their equal at J3 8-0-4, rising to jump 4 when damaged (representing the loss of a rider?).
CruRons 501 and 503, at J5 5-4-6, outclass nearly all of the BatRons, except those above and BR 190, 191 & 203 at J4 5-1-7. Then there are CruRons 460,470,480 &490 which, at J6 4-2-8, are almost as fearsome as the BatRons but with much longer legs.
There are several references in canon to the fact that a Battle Rider can defeat a battleship many times its size, and the Imperial Navy favours Battle Riders for its regular Naval BatRons.
