Large Ships and Spinal Mounts: What is the Point?

[BetterThanLife]

Firgates are the same class as Destroyer Escorts. Traditionally Destroyers are the smallest escort that can keep up with a Battle Fleet. Destroyer Escorts/Frigates, at least IMTU, run from 400 to 2000 tons. Corvettes tend to be, IMTU, under 800 Tons. The primary Corvettes IMTU are the Type-T, the Valor, the Ramada, the Firery and the Gazelle. The Frigates/Destroyer Escorts tend to be the Lucifer, at the small end, the Fer-De-Lance, the Chyrsanthemum, the Kinunir (Which is actually primarily a Covert Insertion Platform for Marine Commando forces.) and the Audey Murphy (The replacement for the Kinunir).

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by Border Reiver:
How big is a frigate then?

The definition of frigate depends upon the century.
In the age of sail, up into the early days of steam, a frigate was...
here's the wikipedia entry, it saves typing

So, IMHO, if CT ships are based on the age of sail terminology then a frigate in the small ship universe could be 600-1000t, in the large ship High Guard+ then anything in the 10-20kt range.

If you use a modern definition then I agree with Bhoins for the High Guard paradigm, and in a CT game would have them as 200-600t.

 

[The Oz]

FASA had the 600dton Endeavour class Patrol Frigate in their Adventure Ships II package. Since my old campaign was near Solomani space I had a lot of these come around to trouble my PCs.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Border Reiver:
How big is a frigate then?

The definition of frigate depends upon the century.
In the age of sail, up into the early days of steam, a frigate was...
here's the wikipedia entry, it saves typing

So, IMHO, if CT ships are based on the age of sail terminology then a frigate in the small ship universe could be 600-1000t, in the large ship High Guard+ then anything in the 10-20kt range.

If you use a modern definition then I agree with Bhoins for the High Guard paradigm, and in a CT game would have them as 200-600t. </font>[/QUOTE]Probelm with Age of sail terminalogy is that Corvette and Destroyer Escort are WWII terms. Destroyer is a WWI (actually a little earlier), term, and Cruiser is not much before that either. Drednaught is a term applied to ships after the HMS Drednaught was sailing. And the Term Battleship is about the same era. Of course Carrier is a term from between WWI and WWII. So the majority of terms for Naval classes of ships in Traveller tend to be from after the Monitor met the Miramac, the end of the age of sail.

 

[mike wightman]

Read up on the age of the ironclads, there's some fascinating stuff in there - e.g. some of the earliest British ironclad battleships, to use the modern term, were classed as frigates because of the number of guns that they carried - which is where the rating system comes from.

And there were torpedo boat carriers (well - tenders really) before there were any aircraft carriers

I see CT ship combat as more like Trafalgar in space than Battle of Midway.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Read up on the age of the ironclads, there's some fascinating stuff in there - e.g. some of the earliest British ironclad battleships, to use the modern term, were classed as frigates because of the number of guns that they carried - which is where the rating system comes from.

And there were torpedo boat carriers (well - tenders really) before there were any aircraft carriers

I see CT ship combat as more like Trafalgar in space than Battle of Midway.

I was thinking more like Jutland.

The term Destroyer, is short for "Torpedo Boat Destroyer. " Destroyers were deployed to screen the battle fleet from enemy Torpedo Boats so they could get on with the serious business of fighting the enemy's Battle Fleet. (Of course the Destroyers also carried Torpedoes so if the enemy didn't have any screen elements and/or Torpedo Boats then the Destroyers could dash in and unleash a Torpedo salvo against the enemy battle fleet.

 

[mike wightman]

Jutland could work, but by then there were aircraft carried by battleships, and the first aircraft carrier had been built - actually a seaplane tender

Traveller doesn't have spaceship equivalents of aircraft, the space fighter being closer to an MTB IMHO.

 

[The Oz]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:

I see CT ship combat as more like Trafalgar in space than Battle of Midway.

Plain LBB#2 space combat is very much like Trafalgar in space, with the number of guns/weapons being the predominant characteristic of vessels. The only non-Trafalgar element is that fighters are viable in LBB#2 combat as they can launch a lot of missiles and don't have to worry too much about computer disadvantages. This is even more discordant if you use the SS#3 rules for nuclear missiles.

When you add HG to the mix several things happen:
</font>

• Fighters go away to almost nothing.</font>
• Other ship characteristics become important, especially armor and screens.</font>
• Spinal meson guns become lethal ship killers.</font>

One point about the armor and screens. In wet navy ships it's always been the bigger vessels that could have the best defenses since they had the displacements to carry better armor. In HG almost any ship can carry armor and screens of the highest rating available at their TL. This tends to favor building smaller ships, since bigger ships are easier to hit.

As I said earlier, I favor a "feel" to TRAVELLER space combat that would be very like a "Trafalgar in Space" but with fighters added for flavor.

 

[mike wightman]

Is there enough variety in the weapon development across the TLs?
Sometimes I think the Traveller TL chart is more like a refinement of existing tech rather tham brand new breakthroughs.

My view is there should be three tiers of weapon system. One that's good against fighters, one that's good against escort ships, and one that's good against capital ships.
Turret, bay and spinal would fit the bill, but as they work at the moment only spinal PAWs will hit fighters, and only spinal mesons will kill anything else.
In High Guard, that is

 

[The Oz]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:

My view is there should be three tiers of weapon system. One that's good against fighters, one that's good against escort ships, and one that's good against capital ships.
Turret, bay and spinal would fit the bill, but as they work at the moment only spinal PAWs will hit fighters, and only spinal mesons will kill anything else.
In High Guard, that is

If you think of your three tiers of weapons (turret, bay, and spinal) as being good against (respectively) unarmored, lightly armored, and heavily armored ships, it does match up with HG pretty well.

 

[daryen]

Sigg,

There is one post-jump breakthrough TL in Traveller: TL12. A whole host of technologies become available starting with TL12.

As an aside, I only see two main "breakthrough" TLs: TL 9 (with jump) and TL 12 (with screens and such). Everything else is pretty incremental.

 

[mike wightman]

Hi daryen.
I agree with what you're saying about breakthrough TLs.
Here is what I see when I look at High Guard/TL table in Grand Census/MT Referee's Companion:

TL9 gravitics, jump technology
TL10 repulsors, plasma guns,
TL11 meson weapons
TL12 meson screens, nuclear dampers, fusion guns
TL13-14???
TL15 black globe
TL16 tractors, disintigrators
TL17 antimatter power plants and missiles

It just looks like it could all be collapsed - at least IMTU

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Hi daryen.
I agree with what you're saying about breakthrough TLs.
Here is what I see when I look at High Guard/TL table in Grand Census/MT Referee's Companion:

TL9 gravitics, jump technology
TL10 repulsors, plasma guns,
TL11 meson weapons
TL12 meson screens, nuclear dampers, fusion guns
TL13-14???
TL15 black globe
TL16 tractors, disintigrators
TL17 antimatter power plants and missiles

It just looks like it could all be collapsed - at least IMTU

TL13 smaller fusion plants, weapons become more efficeint.
TL14 Armor becomes much lighter.
TL15 Even smaller and efficeint fusion plants.
TL16 Even smaller Fusion plants.
TL17 Antimatter.

Remember power is probably the single most important element of military design.

 

[mike wightman]

I was referring to weapon tech - the original musing was four posts back.
I shouldn't have put AM power plants in my list
Weapons and power plants becoming more efficient is a refinement, not a whole new tech development IMHO.
Armour changes across the TLs too

What I'm considering is collapsing the TL chart, but allowing different stages of development for a system within a TL - all IMTU of course.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
I was referring to weapon tech - the original musing was four posts back.
I shouldn't have put AM power plants in my list
Weapons and power plants becoming more efficient is a refinement, not a whole new tech development IMHO.
Armour changes across the TLs too

What I'm considering is collapsing the TL chart, but allowing different stages of development for a system within a TL - all IMTU of course.

I noticed that you were primarily concerned with weapons. However you have to consider the whole system, not just the weapon itself. The basic principle of the firearm hasn't changed much in the past 300+ years. It is still gunpowder and projectile. Power supplies have changed weapon systems drastically.

More effecient power designs revolutionized warfare more than simply changing the caliber of the weapon. It allows mass production of rifled barrels, mass production of repeating cartridges, in larger sizes. (Canons, used to use bags of powder after they used loose powder. Now an auto canon works well and ships are armed with, effectively, 12.7cm machineguns. Vehicles, both transport and actual combat vehicles went from animal powered, to wind to steam to internal combustion, to better internal combustion to gas turbine, to nuclear fission. It is all part of the weapon system changes. So it is important to consider.

 

[mike wightman]

Yep, definitely important to consider.
On a collapsed TL chart the different armours and fusion plants could still be included.

I'm going to start a new thread for this, instead of hijacking this one any further

 

[lightsenshi]

Let me point out that TL15 is another "jump" improvement. Between better fusion plants and black globes generators, you can do drastic amounts of damage to a fixed defense (such as planetary defenses) before they even have a chance to react to your presence.

(Think Romulan cloaking field).

 

[Anthony]

Improvements in power plants, while significant, are evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Same for the improvement in armor seen at TL 14. Black globe generators are arguably revolutionary, but represent only a single technology, as opposed to the multiple technologies suddenly becoming available at TL 12.

 

[Chuck Anumia]

Originally posted by Anthony:
Improvements in power plants, while significant, are evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Same for the improvement in armor seen at TL 14. Black globe generators are arguably revolutionary, but represent only a single technology, as opposed to the multiple technologies suddenly becoming available at TL 12.

Significant in that at TL 14 using what is half as dense and twice as strong for armor cannot be done at TL 13.
This gives you lighter ships with more space and effectivly double armor value.
That is like the difference between concrete and reinforced pastic concrete. You can do more with less. Is that not a breakthrough instead of an evolution?

 

[robject]

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This thread is old, but it's a great read.