CT Only: How big an infantry unit can fit into a 3,000dton hull?

[kilemall]

For 1,100 credits per soldier, life support requirements can be cut by 1/60th in the sense that 1 stateroom will provide life support for 60 people. It is the Fast Drug and Fast antidote.

Simple "bunk bed" cargo pallets could house the soldiers while they are in a hibernation like state (1 hour = 1 minute for them). All that would remain then, would be the war materials they'd need for when they deploy.

No Saving roll versus Death as with Low Berths, and if they're sleeping, 60 hours would seem to be as if 1 hour. 168 hours under "fast" would feel like approximately 2.8 hours sleep for the soldiers.

Might be a useful method for shipping soldiers into combat using the bog standard CT rules.

I've got Fast Passage defined IMTU CT so been thinking through the whole technique.

One thing that strikes me about using Fast in a combat setting is anything that throws them out of the cot/bunk/hammock, they literally cannot brace themselves or react to any quick realtime event. One bump or shock to the ship could disable your whole force prior to landing. Getting into vacc suits for decompression in time is right out.

So best one have an antidote wrist dispenser or something you can hit a radio signal and snap them to within 5 minutes or less.

 

[McPerth]

For 1,100 credits per soldier, life support requirements can be cut by 1/60th in the sense that 1 stateroom will provide life support for 60 people. It is the Fast Drug and Fast antidote.

Simple "bunk bed" cargo pallets could house the soldiers while they are in a hibernation like state (1 hour = 1 minute for them). All that would remain then, would be the war materials they'd need for when they deploy.

No Saving roll versus Death as with Low Berths, and if they're sleeping, 60 hours would seem to be as if 1 hour. 168 hours under "fast" would feel like approximately 2.8 hours sleep for the soldiers.

Might be a useful method for shipping soldiers into combat using the bog standard CT rules. Me? I use GURPS TRAVELLER where they had "bunk rooms" for soldiers being carried. A 30,000 dTon Keith class transportt could carry a Brigade into combat, The 1,200 dton landers could carry a Battalion into combat zones. That however, is GURPS, not classic Traveller.

Yes, the use of fast drug could be a way to move large quantities of people using less space/life support. IIRC, somwhere in MT is told that cold berth above TL 13 is in fact drug induced coma, using some derivate of fast drug.

I've got Fast Passage defined IMTU CT so been thinking through the whole technique.

One thing that strikes me about using Fast in a combat setting is anything that throws them out of the cot/bunk/hammock, they literally cannot brace themselves or react to any quick realtime event. One bump or shock to the ship could disable your whole force prior to landing. Getting into vacc suits for decompression in time is right out.

So best one have an antidote wrist dispenser or something you can hit a radio signal and snap them to within 5 minutes or less.

Any antidote will take a while to act. As the relative time is 1:60 and the metabolizing of the drug and antidote will be in subjective time, even an IV drug that take a 30 seconds to act (a very fast drug, if it's efect is felt in 30 sec) will take about half an hour to make its effect on such a subject.

Those troops (as any carried in cold sleep) are not for immediate use, but to be transported and have their antidote administred well before they are needed.

 

[Golan2072]

Or maybe build dedicated Fast Berths (or Hibernation Pods) - they allow the soldier to be strapped into a safe, shock-absorbing container (similar to a Low Berth) and have life-support attached. The machine then injects Fast and puts the subject into a week-long coma. This doesn't have the long-tern durability of cryosleep, but there are far fewer risks attached.

 

[rancke]

Or maybe build dedicated Fast Berths (or Hibernation Pods) - they allow the soldier to be strapped into a safe, shock-absorbing container (similar to a Low Berth) and have life-support attached. The machine then injects Slow and puts the subject into a week-long coma. This doesn't have the long-tern durability of cryosleep, but there are far fewer risks attached.

Fast. It would inject Fast. Slow would speed up the subject's metabolism.


Hans

 

[Golan2072]

Fixed.

 

[flykiller]

imperial marine combat battalion

 

[Jame]

I believe that there's an alternate rule for CT that allows for higher jump ratings by putting in two of a type of drive. If used you'd probably have to redo the fuel rules though, unless you're keeping it by jump number and not by engine number.

Though it would cramp your space. If so I'd suggest a "barracks stateroom" type where you could put more people in, but make it more expensive for life support cost. YMMV, of course, and the "fast berth" might be a reasonable alternative.

 

[coliver988]

...Though it would cramp your space. If so I'd suggest a "barracks stateroom" type where you could put more people in, but make it more expensive for life support cost. YMMV, of course, and the "fast berth" might be a reasonable alternative.

From an interesting project to re-use 40' cargo containers (2392 cu. ft. = 67.7 m3 = 4.8dTons for 14 / 5.01 dTons for 13.5 tons per cubic meter).

Fits 6 per 5 tons give or take. Life support extra.

See http://www.40feet.net/

 

[whartung]

Racks from the USS Midway

 

[flykiller]

same pits on the cvn-70 too. ah the memories ....

I valued my sleep so I always picked the bottom pit on the deck, so that no matter how much everyone on the other eleven attached to min thrashed around it wouldn't rock my pit. also their voices up above were muffled down beneath. down-side was having to lift it, and all your possessions in it, and latch it every day for damage control purposes.

people on the top rack could sit up, have their own private sit-down space. down-side was trying to open up the locker lid and get anything out of the locker, total pain in the ass.

people in the middle rack could lift their locker lid and get to anything in their locker while standing normally like a human being.

at the end of one row, tucked behind some lockers so you had to crawl into it and back butt-first out of it, was martell's pit. he was a big guy and slept naked. every morning everyone on his row would see his giant naked hairy italian butt backing out towards them, no stopping it.

 

[wbyrd]

Try living in an area that big, but half of it is taken up by your galley.

That stinking, rust bucket my Brother-in-law operated my first trip out with him was only about 90ft long, and smelled of fifteen or twenty years of sweat, and Diesel fuel....

A few years later her bow literally folded when she got caught in a storm( hurricane force)..same storm The work boat boat i was on got caught in. I rode out in my bunk. Getting tossed around by 20-30 ft swells, and hit from two directions at once.

After living on a boat for a while I appreciated my beat up old single wide trailer a lot more. Tankers were a lot better, more room, better food.and you could shower twice a week...more if you didn't mind a sea water shower.

Ugh just had a thought..lights out, suit drill in one of those bunk areas...

 

[whartung]

I valued my sleep so I always picked the bottom pit on the deck, so that no matter how much everyone on the other eleven attached to min thrashed around it wouldn't rock my pit. also their voices up above were muffled down beneath. down-side was having to lift it, and all your possessions in it, and latch it every day for damage control purposes.

people on the top rack could sit up, have their own private sit-down space. down-side was trying to open up the locker lid and get anything out of the locker, total pain in the ass.

people in the middle rack could lift their locker lid and get to anything in their locker while standing normally like a human being.

How egalitarian. Everyone suffers in their own special way.

at the end of one row, tucked behind some lockers so you had to crawl into it and back butt-first out of it, was martell's pit. he was a big guy and slept naked. every morning everyone on his row would see his giant naked hairy italian butt backing out towards them, no stopping it.

But then there's everyone suffering equally…

 

[kilemall]

On the other hand, one may consider the case of the Viking longships, with not much more room then sitting at the oars or laying down on deck per man, and the long voyages they undertook.

Not a one for one as of course a starship will need life support along rather then the open sea, but an example of what can be endured for the sake of plunder and colonization if nothing else.

 

[flykiller]

But then there's everyone suffering equally…

nah, that was on a pit-by-pit and row-by-row basis. the equal suffering was

1) we were directly beneath the wing shop. they had a 20-ton sheet metal press for making parts, and they worked from 0000 to 0600. 0200, totally without any warning or predictable pattern EVER, there would be this tremendous "BOOM" overhead as the press cut a quarter-inch thick piece 10 feet long.

2) we were over the fantail, and when the ship did high-speed navigation runs the entire fantail would vibrate up and down like a cheap motel bed all night long. I loved it, I really did, slept like a baby, but everyone else hated it.

3) we were right underneath the round-down, so when the planes came in to land the pressure wave would slam open all the doors in the head access, then they'd slam shut again. during flight ops all night long ... whoosh WHAM BAM ... whoosh WHAM BAM ... whoosh WHAM BAM ....

 

[Condottiere]

Yeah, but, you know, practically no life support costs.

Temperature controls, if you aren't onboard a Russian carrier.

Though does chow count as life support?

 

[nobby-w]

I was thinking about troop transport in my Visions of Empire setting, which is a Book 1-3 Classic Traveller setting with a few add-ons from Book 4 (Mercenary). I was thinking how big an infantry unit (of ground troops) can you fit in a 3,000dton Assault Transport?
...

IMTU (which is a historical setting W.R.T. the 3I) I have a sort of Mercenary Cruiser equivalent. It was a landing ship that could drop 3 cutters and carry a company-sized commando unit with a support element. This was 1,500 tons and it also had a 50-ton bay weapon that could be used for ground bombardment (maybe a missile bay or a mass driver - or even a meson gun at higher tech levels).

A squadron of these could land a brigade sized commando force that could be tasked to secure a landing area, allowing a larger invasion force to be landed. The ships could then take up an orbital pattern meaning that at least one was within range of the landing site at any given time and could provide fire support.

The cutters could land one or more vehicles - one grav tank (I did a light-ish TL11-12 design that was intended to be landed in a cutter module) or more than one smaller vehicle.

I also had a larger pure troop/logistics transport (8,000 tons) to go with this ship. It carried some cutters and shuttles and a brigade sized troop unit with supplies, some 3,300 tons of supplies or a combination thereof. This ship wasn't as tough as the landing ships (it was basically a freighter) so it would stand off out of range of ground fire.

The cutters from the landing ships could also be used to ferry troops from the carrier after the initial landing.

 

[Timerover51]

A 3,000 Traveller Displacement Ton hull equates to 15,000 Gross Register tons for a Real World water-borne transport, and looking at WW2 transports, that would allow for 1500 troops plus about 300 ship's crew. Note, this does mean the troops are in 3-high bunks in mass quarters.

They will use about 10,000 gallons of water a day, which can be recycled, and go through about 1 Traveller Displacement Ton of food per day. You might want to consider supplemental oxygen supplies and make sure that you have very good odor removal in your life-support system.