Logistics Ships

[Hal]

A long time ago, a crew of Traveller Lovers got together in Britian and worked together on material. Little did they know that they would become known as B.I.T.S.

Why don't some of you guys create a personae each, and discuss those things that would need to be fleshed out for a Traveller universe where the Imperial Navy is concerned. Logistics would be one issue worth pursuing I think. Perhaps you could re-organize the Traveller Navy on the lessons learned from either of the 4th frontier or 5th Frontier wars and pretend you are the ranking officers who get to make the policy decisions. The person you all would report to would be the Archduke Norris (in the case of the fifth frontier war) or someone else for the 4th. Just a thought.

Heck, the idea of needing spare parts is a good one. Has anyone considered just how much maintenance work might be needed to keep missile engines in good working order? Has anyone considered the FUN that could be had in saying "Ok, you press the launch key on your missile launcher. A red alarm light is flashing saying "Dud launch - engage emergency clearing proceedures" and so on. One could also have fun with "the enemy missile homes in on your ship, matching every evasive manuever your ship takes, evading counter missile activities, whereupon, reaching ideal proximity detonation range, the missile fails to explode. Saved by someone else's lack of maintenance boys!"

Just ideas Start out small and work your way outward.

 

[Hemdian]

Originally posted by Hal:
A long time ago, a crew of Traveller Lovers got together in Britian and worked together on material. Little did they know that they would become known as B.I.T.S.

Why don't some of you guys create a personae each, and discuss those things that would need to be fleshed out for a Traveller universe where the Imperial Navy is concerned.

Interesting idea, Hal, I'll suggest it to Andy ... perhaps we can start with some sort of round-robin at this year's Gencon UK and take it from there.

Meanwhile:

1) I notice that High Passage magazine mentioned a Workhorse class Ordanance Carrier (IIRC it was 20K dtons but no other stats provided) and a Ghent class Medical Frigate (also no stats) in a squadron make up.

2) If you had a batron of, say, Plankwells ... can you transport any sizeable troop units? According to 5FW boardgame the answer is yes. But how? I used to think the defense factor of a squadron in the 5FW boardgame represented the number of capital ships, I now think that each capital ship comes with a retinue of escorts and support ships (a bit like a modern day US battle group) and thus the defense factor represents the number of 'battle groups'. Its not that the canon BB designs are broken for not having enough cargo space for rearm/resupply, its that we haven't been given any real information on the supporting ships: troop carriers, ordanance carriers, cargo ships, repair ships, hospital ships, etc.

Regards PLST

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by flykiller:
in a combat setting as wide open as the spinward marches with major hostile powers right on the boarder, power projection is not just an offensive operation. it's a necessary defensive operation as well. "best defense is a good offense" and all that.

Fly,

True, and the IN does engage in power projection. CT's SMC and other tidbits speak of 'deep strikes' and 'raids' against Zho targets in Chronor and even as far afield as Foreven.

What I'm not suggesting that the IN has no fleet train. What I am suggesting that the IN has a smaller fleet train than our USN-centric thinking presumes.

The RN managed power projection without a fleet train for centuries, even after the supply hungry, iron and steam designs left the yards.

perhaps most of these imperial "bases" are political. treaty conditions for imperial membership, bribes by dukes, excuses for welfare disbursements, prestige points for local rulers, whatever. or maybe at one time they were frontier bases but are now mothballed (now THERE'S an adventure seed). maybe many of these bases are nothing more than class E facilities. this could explain their great number.

I very much agree. IMHO, the location of most of those bases are politically motivated and, IMTU, most of those bases do host a portion of the subsector fleet whether they have the ability or not. (Thank you NAS Alameda!) Spreading out the boys, spreading out their paychecks, and spreading out the official purchasing they require is an old game in the Imperium. So too is 'homeporting' a squadron in a system that requires watching.

if the fleet has its own support then this problem is ameliorated. there's no need to dispatch it or escort it if it's already there.

Not entirely correct. Even organic support assets will still need to return to base and load up with goodies again. The longer the trip they take to and fro the more 'un-rep' vessels you'll need.

Instead, the 'imperialized' merchant assets I'm suggesting may resupply the organic naval assets you're promoting at some intermediate point. That would allow the fleet train to act as if it were bigger.

I suppose another option is to describe the colonial fleets as base-bound, and the imperial fleets as carrying organic support. come to think of it that would make a lot of sense.

That's a very good idea. It also divides the IN into an offensive strike force and defensive node force. Which neatly matches the change in IN strategic thinking described in CT; the switch from 'crustal' defense to 'nodal' defense.

Still, I don't believe that the IN's fleet train is as large as our USN-centric thinking would have it.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Whipsnade]

A few other thoughts:

- What is our continued fascination with tankers? Has oil really infected our thinking that much?

Sure, Imperium and Dark Nebula include tanker counters. Sure, the various collections of official IN designs contain a tanker or three. However, given that it is only the very rare warship that does not have a fuel purifier and given that unrefined fuel in Traveller is damn near everywhere, what is out continued fascination with tankers?

Every time we discuss this topic, people bring up tankers. Not ammo ships crammed with reloads and not cargo ships with crammed with every other fungible, they bring up tankers carrying the one item that needs to be shipped the least: fuel.

Yes, there are vessels that can't skim and, yes, there are systems where wilderness refueling is a bugger, but, compared to the other varieties of 'un-rep' vessels, tankers are going to be a tiny part of any fleet train.

- Like tankers, what is it with hospital ships? Has MASH infected our thinking too? I'd like to remind everyone of low berths and ask that they re-examine their ideas regarding hospital ships with those devices in mind.

Our current practice is to gather wounded, transport them to medical facilities, and stabilize them all within the so-called 'golden hour'. PBS' 'Frontline' recently had wonderful program concerning the experiences of an Army 'MASH'(1) in Iraq.

The wounded pass along the system we're all familiar with; immediate trauma aid by medics and corpsmen, carried to a collection point, dust off by medivac helo to a 'MASH', stabilization there, and travel to better staffed/equipped facilities elsewhere.

Along this whole path the wounded and their injuries are evaluated. Depending on the severity of their wounds, some never need a dust-off, some can be handled at the 'MASH', and some require transport back to Frankfort or Walter Reed.

This model is structured entirely around the 'golden hour'. If you can begin to treat a person's injuries within that period there is a chance you can save them no matter how severe the injuries are. Nearly all of the hospital ship/medical frigate ideas I've seen presume the same thing; the 'golden hour' and the need to evacuate/evaluate the wounded rapidly.

Everyone forgets about low berths however.

With low berths, the 'golden hour' becomes as long as you need it to be. Triage your wounded, treat those you can easily handle and those you can immediately return to the fight. As for the rest, pop them in low berths. They can be dealt with some other time. Now, instead of racing to get your wounded to better medical facilities within the 'golden hour', you're racing to freeze them out within the 'golden hour'. That is a very different concept.

Medi-vacs to orbit fail even the most cursory examinations. Unless the body in question is tiny, you cannot go from ground to ship in an hour. Medi-vacs between ships fail in the same way. So what do all these suggested hospital ships actually do? IMHO, they are little more than handling centers for low berths.

They recieve low berthed wounded, triage them, and then either handle a case themselves or arrange for the berth to be shipped to a facility with the time/expertise to handle the case. Thus 'hospital' ships aren't hospitals at all. They're handling centers routing frozen wounded to the various destinations that can care for them. An Imperial fleet on campaign doesn't bring full-fledged hospitals with it aboard ships. Thanks to low berths, the fleet can send its badly wounded to hospitals safely far from the front.


Have fun,
Bill

1 - They no longer use the term MASH, but I can't remember what the new term is.

 

[flykiller]

The RN managed power projection without a fleet train for centuries, even after the supply hungry, iron and steam designs left the yards.

as I understand it, this was because they had bases and prevented anyone else from establishing their own base system. anyone working against them faced an enormous initial disadvantage. that's not power projection, it's simple denial. but if a fleet is able to operate independently of bases for useful lengths of time then denial doesn't work. this turns the tables and puts the base-bound fleet at an equivilant disadvantage, because the self-supported fleet can concentrate at will while the base-bound fleet will have difficulty doing so.

Even organic support assets will still need to return to base and load up with goodies again.

of course. but with organic support the fleet's range and time on station (in my rules) doubles. the length of time before resupply uncertainties set in also doubles. even as a strictly defensive measure this gives a defender quite an advantage against an incoming opponent, who will have already expended part of his support just getting to the defender.

Instead, the 'imperialized' merchant assets I'm suggesting may resupply the organic naval assets you're promoting at some intermediate point.

if they were assigned to resupplying existing bases that would greatly simplify the use of such assets. let the assets resupply the bases while the bases resupply the fleet.

 

[Hemdian]

Originally posted by Bill Cameron:
- Like tankers, what is it with hospital ships? Has MASH infected our thinking too? I'd like to remind everyone of low berths and ask that they re-examine their ideas regarding hospital ships with those devices in mind.

So perhaps a large part of a medical frigate is just a specialised portable low-berth dispenser (you still have to get the seriously wounded into low berth within the 'golden hour').

But what about non-serious medical conditions? Given that most battleships don't have a significant amount of space for medical purposes, a widespread medical problem could easily overwhelm a ship's doctor's capacity. For example, if a contaminated food supply gave half your flagship's crew a persistant and debilitating gastro-intestinal bug, sticking the afflicted in low berth for weeks or months doesn't seem an ideal solution during wartime. And if most of your fighter pilots got the crabs you wouldn't want them all thrown into low berth for weeks or months either (not when they're needed for fighting). In other words, its not always appropriate to use low berths for conditions where, once treated, the crewmember can be returned to active duty.

Regards PLST

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by Hemdian:
So perhaps a large part of a medical frigate is just a specialised portable low-berth dispenser (you still have to get the seriously wounded into low berth within the 'golden hour').

Hemdian,

Yes. That's what I believe I wrote. A medical frigate or hospital ship is primairly a low berth handling operation.

But what about non-serious medical conditions? Given that most battleships don't have a significant amount of space for medical purposes, a widespread medical problem could easily overwhelm a ship's doctor's capacity.

No medical spaces? Have you seen any official battleship deckplans for Traveller? I haven't.

And, as is also pointed out in this thread, many official warship designs ignore common sense cargo requirements. We've all seen those 50K dTon battlerider designs with nary a single dTon of food storage alloted, so just because a certain volume doesn't have a specific tag reading 'sickbay' I wouldn't assume no medical facilities exist. Besides, the classic 4dTon stateroom volume is supposed to include passageways, lounges, and sickbays along with bunks and freshers.

For example, if a contaminated food supply gave half your flagship's crew a persistant and debilitating gastro-intestinal bug, sticking the afflicted in low berth for weeks or months doesn't seem an ideal solution during wartime. And if most of your fighter pilots got the crabs you wouldn't want them all thrown into low berth for weeks or months either (not when they're needed for fighting).

You do what navies do now in such situations; either treat the affected personnel in their bunks or move personnel around to create temporary wards in existing berthing compartments. We had a large case of food poisoning underway one Thanksgiving thanks to some bad pies and that's exactly what the medical staff aboard did.

What are you suggesting instead? That half the crew of INS Gargantua be evacuated aboard a hospital ship because they've got the trots or caught the clap? Those aren't even 'golden hour' type injuries.

In other words, its not always appropriate to use low berths for conditions where, once treated, the crewmember can be returned to active duty.

Which is exactly what I said in my post. Let me quote it: Triage your wounded, treat those you can easily handle and those you can immediately return to the fight. As for the rest, pop them in low berths.

You treat who and what you can with an eye towards returning them to action as soon as practible. That determination will change as the situation changes. You pop those can't handle into low berths to be handled elsewhere. Getting them elsewhere is no longer a race against the 'golden hour'. Time is no longer your enemy.

With the 'golden hour' no longer a factor, you can even thaw out those wounded you originally froze and treat them yourself when you find the time. There is no longer any need to rush the wounded about to facilities that can handle them immediately. You can store your wounded until you can handle them. If you need them treated faster because you want them back faster, you can just as easily ship them about and spread out the work load.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by flykiller:
as I understand it, this was because they had bases and prevented anyone else from establishing their own base system. anyone working against them faced an enormous initial disadvantage. that's not power projection, it's simple denial.

Fly,

Do the Zhos have bases in Imperial space? Or the Sollies? That's denial. The Imperial Navy plans on defending nodes while allowing enemy forces to operate in the regions between those nodes. The Imperium plans on trading space for time and counterattacking from strong points. The Imperium doesn't plan on operating for long periods beyond its borders in Foreven, Ziafrplians, Gvurrdon, or Aldebaran.

As I wrote earlier, I don't see the Imperial Navy doing power projection anymore. Other than the Rim War, I don't see the Imperial Navy doing power projection beyond its network of bases since the Julian War.

The IN in your TU may have a strategic offensive mindset. The IN in the OTU most certainly does not. Other than the Rim War (which is so odd in many ways) the Imperium has not operated beyond its borders with conquest in mind since the Second Century.

In every conflict since the Julian War; the last and biggest of the Pacification Campaigns and the only one that failed, the Imperial Navy has fought either within its own borders or just outside them. Even in the Rim War, the Imperium could count on friendly worlds and regions within the so-called Solomani Sphere.

It isn't any coincidence that the Imperium's offensive in that conflict halted once Earth was reached for rimward of Earth there were no more previously Imperial worlds. The Sollies had both absorbed and settled the rimward regions after their autonomous zone had been granted. The regions beyond Earth had only known the satrap and not the emperor.

because the self-supported fleet can concentrate at will while the base-bound fleet will have difficulty doing so.

A base-bound fleet is concentrated already. As I've posted before, the IN uses a nodal defense. They defend those worlds worth defending, cede for a time to the enemy those worlds not worth defending, and then counter-attack at those times and places of their choosing. Yes, a fleet train will help with those counter-attacks but a small fleet train can meet that need. What the IN doesn't have is the large fleet train necessary for large scale, conquest in mind, power projection beyond its borders. The IN doesn't do that anymore and hasn't done that in nearly a thousand years.

of course. but with organic support the fleet's range and time on station (in my rules) doubles. the length of time before resupply uncertainties set in also doubles.

The benefits of doubling the fleet's range are moot as is increased time on station. Strategic range is not an issue because the IN fights at home. Time on station is not an issue because, given the IN's nodal defense plans, the fleet is already based on station. Yes, a fleet train will help extend operational range; i.e. counter-attacks meant to force an enemy from Imperial space, but again a small organic fleet train or an 'imperialized' fleet train can do that.

The telling phrase in the last bit of your post I quoted is in my rules. The Imperial Navy in your version of Traveller may be an echo of the 20th/21st Century USN - a force built for strategic power projection. However, the Imperial in the Official Traveller Universe is no such thing. The IN in your TU requires a large, organic fleet train in order to accomplish it's designed mission. However, the IN in the OTU requires no such fleet train.

It's apples and oranges, Fly. Your IN is very different from the OTU IN.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[flykiller]

A medical frigate or hospital ship is primairly a low berth handling operation.

imtu each ship has its own medical facility sufficient for itself. the hospital ship is primarily a personnel rescue/retrieval platform. when a combatant is scragged or otherwise lost they go in to recover as many crew as they can, and those that aren't immediately transfered to other ships as replacements are retained in lowberths. sort of a holding tank. medical treatment is simply one facet of the boat's mission.

We had a large case of food poisoning underway one Thanksgiving thanks to some bad pies and that's exactly what the medical staff aboard did.

same on the vinson once. two hundred fifty men down. mostly they just stayed in their pits (bunks).

 

[flykiller]

The IN in your TU requires a large, organic fleet train in order to accomplish it's designed mission. However, the IN in the OTU requires no such fleet train.

well, the rules I was referring to were for supply and endurance, nothing more, and I don't think they'd be much different from anyone else's. it's not that my tu requires a large organic supply train, it's that the seeming realities of strategic jump maneuvering and the imperial situation (at least in the spinward marches) appear to dictate a requirement for a large organic supply train.

wouldn't it be great to wargame this out!

anyway what is specific to mtu is that the supply ships are available at no cost to the rest of the fleet or its mission, so they're there, so the extra capability is there. as a game setting the coastal defense model, however, would work just as well and would, yes, fit canon better.

 

[Hal]

Question concerning Low Berths:

If you place a person in low berth, something has to keep the cellular destruction from occurring that happens when a cell freezes and the water in the cell crystalizes. There has been talk about replacing all the blood in a body with salt water at 32 degrees, and then "killing" the person to be frozen/suspended. Upon waking them up, hitting them with a jolt of oxygen and replacing their icewater with blood and a massive electrical shock. This technique supposedly has been tried on dogs in real life.

But lets look at it from the sci-fi perspective and say that there is some sort of solvent injected into the body that keeps the cells from rupturing. Might it not be that in order to insure that *ALL* cells have this "anti-freeze" in them, there has to be a healthy unwounded individual for this to occur? I'm not saying that low berths shouldn't be used to extend the golden hour. I'm not saying they should be used to extend the golden hour. What I am saying is that if you suggest this concept, consider what might be negative influences on the survival rate of those who enter cryonic suspension. The old traveller rules had people in low berth dying a tad too much Of course, the newer game systems don't seem to suffer from this idea. ::shrug::

 

[far-trader]

That'd be the early TL9-11 (irrc) "chill berth" model with all it's low survival rates and complications.

With gravisonic tech improvements and applications at TL12 (again iirc) the "low berth" is developed. By using gravisonic field generators the subject's whole body is "damped" slowing down the motion on the molecular (or atomic, can't reall) scale. This perfectly preserves the subject with no (or little) need for injections and no risk of freezer burn or burst.

This is from my dim recollections of the article from the MT rules era.

 

[far-trader]

Oh, and on the RealLife(tm) front I saw a news story a while back about a Japanese (iirc) researcher who has found a way to quick freeze meat with large powerful magnets as part of the process. It allows the meat to be frozen without rupturing the cells. The reason was to preserve sushi for shipping. Since the normal freezing ruptured cells and destroyed the texture and flavour they were looking for another way.

Naturally the first thought I had when reading the story was cryonics are that much closer. I bookmarked the site but lost it and all my google-fu was not enough to turn it up again. Of course maybe I just dreamed it.

Just kidding, I'm pretty sure I didn't dream it.

 

[Hemdian]

Originally posted by far-trader:
This is from my dim recollections of the article from the MT rules era.

That was in either a late issue Digest or in one of the MegaTraveller Journals (both are DGP publications). I thik it was the former.

Regards PLST

 

[Hemdian]

Originally posted by Bill Cameron:
Hemdian,

Yes. That's what I believe I wrote. A medical frigate or hospital ship is primairly a low berth handling operation.

Sorry Bill. Brain-fart on my part and I hadn't read your post as carefully as I should while thinking out loud.

Regards PLST

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by flykiller:
wouldn't it be great to wargame this out!

Fly,

That it would! Even the addition of a simple logistics model would change GDW's Fifth Frontier War beyond all recognition. No more killer stacks for one thing, the Zhos would have to be worried about their supply lines - just as they were 'historically'.

Used properly, wargames can be great teachers. I know many of the participants in John Appel's FFW PBeM last year were thrown for a loop when they finally realized the true nature of 'double blind' and 'one jump per week comms'. Suddenly it wasn't so easy to fight the war. There was quite a bit of 'unlearning' to do.

I remember my first double blind Panzerblitz game. What a shocker! All those 'useless' counters like trucks, scout cars, and light tanks suddenly became worth their weight in gold. You could no longer use them as 'speed bumps' on the road net, you needed them to be your eyes!

Another eye-opening wargame that illustrates the power of logistics was XTR's Chaco. The Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay during the 1930s has always been on the Grognards Wish List. It's little known, was of little lasting consequence, and featured amazing achievements in command as 'out-everythinged' Paraguay kicked Bolivia's slats in thanks to far superior leadership. The last bit is always a selling point to any wargamer 'cause we all suffer from the Rommel Effect to one degree or another.

Despite the hunger in the grognard community for a Chaco game (it held the highest feedback rating at SPI's Strategy & Tactics magazine for years), no company had been able to come up with a game that actually worked. This was because logistical issues effected the Chaco War more than any before or since.

The Chaco region has been described as either the world's wettest desert or the world's driest jungle. The vegetation is normally so thick that men cannot walk far beyond the trails they hack out of the foliage. Yet despite all this plant life, there is almost no free standing water! Engineering detachments in the war spent more time drilling wells than digging trenches. Battles revolved around a few 'lakes' and other points where natural and man-made water sources were located. Each side struggled to hump in enough supplies along the roads they cut to conduct operations and those 'roads' had to be trimmed back on a regular basis.

Combat resembled siege warfare oddly enough with the armies 'tunnelling' through the vegetation in order to get at each other. Your enemy would hack kilometers-long paths through the brush towards your base in order to bring up his forces and launch an assault. You in turn brought up your reinforcements up along your trails and cut new trails towards the enemy's works in attempts to forestall their advance.

You can see how the enviroment the war was fought would be tough to model in a game. To their credit XTR managed to produce a servicable game. I enjoyed it for one. However, the major complaint against it was that it dealt too much with logistics - the very thing that made the Chaco War unique!


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by Hemdian:
Sorry Bill. Brain-fart on my part and I hadn't read your post as carefully as I should while thinking out loud.

Hemdian,

As far as brain farts go, once they come with a version of Bean-O that works on the cerebrum, I'll be their biggest customer.

And as far as thinking out loud is concerned, I routinely frighten family members, co-workers, and complete strangers by doing it on a routine basis. If I had a dollar for every worried soccer mom pushing her cart through Hanaford's and glancing nervously at the gray-headed fat man who just blurted out "Dulinor is a fraud!" or "Low berths change triage!", I could buy a lot more beer.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Sifu Blackirish]

(injecting a spurious aside...)

Larry Niven's KNOWN SPACE series notes that cryonic freezing (-200 deg C liquid nitrogen) causes irreparable damage to body cells. Corpsicles who were revived were usually processed for their RNA, which was injected into a host body.

IMTU low berths were never really used by Terrans, except for mass shipping of colonists as a cost saving measure.

It sounds a lot safer to chill the body, not freeze, and keep temperatures at 2 deg C, the point where water has its maximum volume.

 

[flykiller]

It sounds a lot safer to chill the body, not freeze, and keep temperatures at 2 deg C, the point where water has its maximum volume.

don't you mean the minimum?

 

[mike wightman]

[aside - continued]Is the original CT low berth directly modelled on the ones from the Dumarest saga?
If so the reason for potential human fatalities is the things were designed for transporting livestock.
Low berths killing people didn't make an appearance in the High Guard frozen watch rules

[/aside]