Imperial Squadrons Bombardment Factor Question

[Able Baker]

Hi guys!

Revisiting the old PE and IS rules currently. One question arose: In IS it says ScoutRons do not get a Bombardment Factor. Obviously, looking at FFW shows that ScoutRons actually have rather large BFs. So how/where in IS can I assign BF to ScoutRons? Or can the BF be echanged at the 2:1 ratio given for BR and CRs? And what does that say about the badass 0-8-4 J3 Imperial ScoutRons in FFW?

Couldn't find any errata for IS. Also sad to hear the keeper of the T4 flame is an absent friend now. Clear Skies, Don!

 

[Whipsnade]

I used to wonder why the panzer division's in Avalon Hill's The Russian Campaign had different movement and combat factor from the panzer divisions in Avalon Hill's Stalingrad. Same company, same scale, and even the same campaign, right?

Then I remembered they were two different games.

 

[Able Baker]

Point taken.

In all fairness, IS is taking many things verbatim from FFW, and has been shown to model FFW quite well.

Moreso, it says "ScoutRons cannot get Bombardment Factors at this time." So I wondered if this was an omission or sth. similar.

 

[Whipsnade]

In all fairness, IS is taking many things verbatim from FFW...

So does Invasion:Earth. Your point being?

... and has been shown to model FFW quite well.

Sez who? Among many, many, many other things, IS builds fleets while FFW uses squadrons and IS has logistic rules where FFW doesn't.

Moreso, it says "ScoutRons cannot get Bombardment Factors at this time." So I wondered if this was an omission or sth. similar.

Don't focus on a fragment of a sentence. Look at the context of the entire sentence.

 

[Able Baker]

Exactly. It does not say: "ScoutRons never can have BF". It suggest there might be another time in the desing process were they can get some Bombardment Factors. Canon ScoutRons have BFs, many of them, so where do they come from?

I see your points, but I think the question is still legit.

Regarding Squadrons: I do think IS is for creating exactly the counters for FFW, as the WAR-Rules are basically the FFW rules and so on.
ADD: PE is only concerned with Fleets.

 

[whartung]

Point taken.

In all fairness, IS is taking many things verbatim from FFW, and has been shown to model FFW quite well.

Moreso, it says "ScoutRons cannot get Bombardment Factors at this time." So I wondered if this was an omission or sth. similar.

Then perhaps you can simply lift the bombardment factors from FFW and apply them here.

 

[Whipsnade]

Exactly. It does not say: "ScoutRons never can have BF".

It also says "Having no armament and very little bombardment capability, Scout Squadrons are typically used for scouting out the opposition..."

It suggest there might be another time in the desing process were they can get some Bombardment Factors.

Suggest? Not in IS it doesn't . ScoutRons have a specific role in this specific game. Other games need not apply.

Canon ScoutRons have BFs, many of them, so where do they come from?

They come from other games designed to do other things.

I see your points, but I think the question is still legit.

The "question" is an application of semantics on one sentence fragment in search of loopholes while ignoring the rest game as a whole. It's akin to those people who passionately argued that the sub-1000dTon weapon bays were legal in HG2, they violate the spirit of the rules because they can "argue" for different semi-plausible interpretations of the letter of rules.

Regarding Squadrons: I do think IS is for creating exactly the counters for FFW, as the WAR-Rules are basically the FFW rules and so on.

IS USqP: 1234-56-789-A

FFW counter: 6-2-4, B4, refueling code

That's the same?

ADD: PE is only concerned with Fleets.

Typo and brain fart on my part. I wanted to write "IS builds squadrons while FFW uses squadrons."

 

[Able Baker]

Again, Larsen, I saw your point from the beginning. I am just not 100% sure this might not be an editorial oversight instead of a conscious design decision to have all ScoutRons with 0-0-X.

And re: counter-stats, the design sequence for Squadrons in IS does go through exactly those stats that are to be found on an FFW-counter sans it's backside.

Be that all as it may.

IFF it was a conscious design decision and the FFW ScoutRons model something different, what do they model? The counter depiction looks like they allude to Scout/Courier type of vessels, for example.
Is BF in FFW then a function of many (MANY) small turreted weapons?
Why would ScoutRons in in IS not have them then?
Or does the Imperial Scout Service have some other element that was modelled by the BFs in FFW?

 

[mike wightman]

HG1e for CT may help fill in a gap.

In those rules a bombardment factor was derived for a ship with missile bays and a missile magazine.

It could be argued that the scouts of IS are not high enough TL to make use of the 50t bay and magazine that is required for a bombardment factor, while higher TL scouts may.

The IS rules are set within the framework of the early 3I, by the time of IE and FFW scouts are higher TL and may be equipped with the missile arrays needed to gain a bombardment factor.

I always thought carried fighter squadrons should be included in the derivation of bombardment factors, as should the much later meson bay weapons.

 

[whartung]

IFF it was a conscious design decision and the FFW ScoutRons model something different, what do they model? The counter depiction looks like they allude to Scout/Courier type of vessels, for example.

On a lark, I'd say they model small ships equipped with Rank A Observers equipped with Mark 1 eyeballs and, perhaps, a Model 301 set of binoculars. "Hey Frank, I see a bunch of ships in orbit here." "Perhaps we should phone it in".

Is BF in FFW then a function of many (MANY) small turreted weapons?
Why would ScoutRons in in IS not have them then?
Or does the Imperial Scout Service have some other element that was modelled by the BFs in FFW?

I imagine it's just the fleet yanking out the air/raft, and filling the 8 tons of hold with dead fall ordnance that the crew can kick out the back hatch to mess with the locals.

 

[Able Baker]

Thanks, these are both nice ideas!

Checking back on how specific Imperial Squadrons is to Milieu 0: I am not convinced. All the tables go up to TL 15, and are taken/inspired/extrapolated from Marc's FFW JTAS-articles, as far as I can gather, which were for, well the Fifth Frontier War.
So I still wonder: editorial brainfart or conscious design decision.

 

[aramis]

Able, I strongly suspect IS of being in the Cluster * category.

As in, I think it wasn't written for Milieux 0, but got repurposed and revised a bit when T4 got rolling (and it became clear that the OTU wasn't moving forward in the timeline...)

 

[Able Baker]

Interesting thought.
Looking through the Invasion:Earth and FFW counters points to some interesting tidbits:

• There are no colonial ScoutRons, neither Imp nor Zho
• Solomani SDBs have BF ranging from 1-3
• The J-2 ScoutRons with a Type S silhouette have values from 0-3-4 to 0-8-8

To me that suggests that many small targets need to be able to be targeted for a BF, and that a multitude of smaller vessels can do the job.
The range of values for the Imp Scouts in FFW might suggest the ScoutRons have different number of ships in them or TL difference.

But if we take the facts that IS has no proper SRs, and there is no precedent for Colonial ScoutRons, we might theorize only truly large entities can form them and they comprise thousands of ships from dozens of worlds.

If we know how many SDBs the I:E counters stand for, we can start to guess how many vessels in a FFW ScoutRon. Is there a canonical interpretation for the SDB counters in I:E?
EDIT2ADD: the counters (34) represent "Wings". From the boiler-plate tables, Terra with TL-14 or 13 gets to have 1500 SDB squadrons. That would assign, naively, 1500/34 = 44 squadrons to each "Wing". A rough estimate for 8-12 boats in a squadron would yield ~500 individual vessels per I:E counter.

As SDBs are around 4-times larger than Type-Ss and are more likely to be much more efficient combat-wise, to assume thousands (4000-8000?) Type S vessels representing one of the FFW counters seems to be plausible. What do you say?

The costs for 4000 Type-S would be around 30 MCr * 4000 = 120,000 MCr = 120 GCr aka 120 Billion.
What does a CruRon cost? The famed Trillion Credit (for a squadron)?

 

[Able Baker]

Rambling on...

If we interpret the lack of Colonial ScoutRons as a problem of logistics or rather number of pilots and berths for individual vessels, we could let the IS rules stand, but amend them:

Should an individual Planet want to create ScoutRons with a BF, they must be bought with SDB-squadrons. Basically a reassignment of pilots and berths from small boats to small ships with quite a loss in defensive power and (not a lot to be gained?).

A first ratio I'd suggest is 200:1. [44 rounded up to 50 and times 4 for basic tonnage].

So you strike 200 SDB Squadrons from your roster to get 1 "Imperial-style" ScoutRon at 0-BF-DF, where BF > 0.

Tentative Formula for DF:
P-2+UM (as for colonial ScoutRons)
Tentative Formula for BF:
DF/2+UM (as for colonial BatRons)

As bombardment factor is also used to fight SDBs in FFW and I:E and IS, the whole idea of BF representing many, many small individual weapons makes a lot of sense.

I'd appreciate any input on former analysis of the comparative efficiency of SDBs vs Type-S. currently we would basically just adjust for tonnage. How much more combat efficient are SDBs? Surely this question has been done to death? We would need to multiply our "200" by that coefficient to arrive at the proper exchange ratio between SDB squads to imperial style ScoutRon.

 

[mike wightman]

There are no colonial scout forces because Imperial worlds do not maintain any independent scout services - the IISS is the only scout service.

 

[Able Baker]

Well,

1) there is not only the OTU
2) In M:0, there might be independent Scout Services for Pocket Empires
3) somewhere there needs to be some consideration of how and why imperial (lower case "I", as the Zhos have them too) ScoutRons get their rather High BF.

 

[McPerth]

When I began playing Traveller, we started a campaign based on FFW. I played an Scout who was on detached duty (had received an S class ship in mustring out).

The referee told me then that those scouts used to be used as Stukas were in WWII, profiting from their small size, high numbers and oth turrets and cargo capacity (how small it seems to be).

I don't know if he was tight or just assued it from FFW counters, but I find it quite beliveable, and if th scout ships represented in IS (that I don't know) ae something like them, then I agree with Able Baker they should be able to have bombardment capacity...

OTOH, when this same BF is used against SDB, the souts are likely to be less useful...

 

[whartung]

The referee told me then that those scouts used to be used as Stukas were in WWII, profiting from their small size, high numbers and oth turrets and cargo capacity (how small it seems to be).

Trying to picture a wing of Scout ships, nose down, 75 degree angle of attack, and the sirens...

 

[Whipsnade]

The J-2 ScoutRons with a Type S silhouette...

Good Sweet Strephon... You're trying to use counter art to further explain this nonsense? Seriously?

So, the ScoutRon counters show a wedge-shaped ship so that means they're nothing but a horde Suleiman couriers? Explain the jump3 and jump3 counters with same silhouette then.

Explain all the BatRons too. Every Imperial BatRon, every blessed one of them, has the silhouette of a lumpy sphere. That simply must mean all Imperial battleships are Tigresses, right?

Ever think GDW used easily identifiable silhouettes on the counters so players quickly differentiate between various squadron types without having to squint at the tiny B4 or S3 in the upper left hand corner?

Nah, it couldn't be something that simple. It simply has to be a silhouette of the actual ship in question.

What do you say?

Do you really want to know?

As bombardment factor is also used to fight SDBs in FFW and I:E and IS, the whole idea of BF representing many, many small individual weapons makes a lot of sense.

No, it doesn't. If your flight of fancy were true, why do all the Imperial BatRons have higher bombardment factors than all the Solomani SDB flotillas with their "many, many small individual weapons"?

1) there is not only the OTU
2) In M:0, there might be independent Scout Services for Pocket Empires

Wait a minute. Weren't you arguing earlier that because IS went as high as TL15 that it referred to the Imperium?

There is no problem with bombardment factors in IS. Instead, the problem with your inability to comprehend the give and take of game design.

Games are imperfect models and deliberately so. Many aspects of the situation a game models are deliberately elided, compressed, and even ignored to speed or ease play. All of Traveller's war games contain multiple examples of this.

FFW, for example, has squadrons using all their fuel for any jump regardless of length. Streamlining fuel usage in that manner means the players aren't bogged down recording remaining fuel amounts for each squadron. However, someone employing the same "logic" you're using regarding IS "missing" ScoutRon bombardment factors, could "deduce" that the jump fuel regulator hadn't been invented by the time of the FFW and that's why all fuel is used for any jump. (Don't laugh, people have seriously suggested it.)

Another example involves laser and sandcaster defensive fire against laser and missile hits in HG2. The sequence of play has lasers and sand firing after the lasers and missiles they defending against "hit". It should be obvious that this sequencing is done for ease of play. Defenses exist and having them fire "after" a "hit" was the easiest and fastest way to insert them into the play sequence. (Another indication of the sequential nature of the weapon fire model in HG2 is the fact that a weapon which "hits" doesn't do damage until it "penetrates".)

Obvious or not, it didn't stop DGP and others from seriously trying to provide an in-game "explanation" for what was a game design decision. They suggested that there was a ranging/targeting "ping" which somehow gave ships enough time to deploy sand against the laser beam(s) which would follow. DGP's "explanation" solved a problem which didn't exist or, more accurately, a problem created by their incomprehension of the model and not the model itself.

You're now doing the same thing.

You're falling down a rabbit hole full of handwaves, assumptions, and misconceptions because you cannot or will not understand that IS is a deliberately imperfect model of the situation it simulates. You're so far gone into this fantasy that you're now looking at counter silhouettes thinking they're the Rosetta Stone for some big mystery.

There is no mystery. ScoutRons in IS have no bombardment factors because the designers decided they shouldn't. That's it. Nothing more. They didn't forget about it and it wasn't a mistake. The rules are what they are. Accept them for what they are.

Now, if you want to come up with a variant that allows ScoutRons in IS to be built with bombardment factors, please do so. We all love variants.

 

[Able Baker]

I know Games are imperfect models. The question regarding the imperfections is still: design for simulation or design for effect or oversight/error?

You behave as if you knew the effect the designer wanted to design for.

Please share your insight!

What DO the ScoutRons in FFW model and why that way?
What DO the ScoutRons in IS model and why that way?
What DO the BFs of BatRons model and how does that relate to SDBs?