Looks like Cutlass is back on the menu boys

[Spinward Flow]

Well that's the nut.

It is indeed.
So it all comes down to a decision of Have vs Need.
Is it better to Need and Not Have ... or is it better to Have and Not Need?

Which then devolves into risk assessment.

With respect to Traveller setting pirate encounters, the ramifications of being forced to "heave to and be boarded" can range from ... paying a toll/tax to the pirates, where no one gets hurt (except the operator's finances) and there's no wanton damage inflicted ... all the way up through take prisoners/sell as slaves, seize starship/take as prize ... and at the extreme end there's just straight up "kill them all" and take the hulk for scrap.

As appropriately noted elsewhere in these forums, piracy is basically a "racket of bullies" who want to reduce the risks involved in their operations too. Compliant merchants with a "help yourself" attitude will typically be treated friendlier than those who put up stiff resistance ... but that's just an abstract notion rather than a rule you can count on in every circumstance.



So seen in that light, if a merchant ship on its route can expect to encounter pirates, say ... once year (on average) ... over a 40 year service lifespan that then amounts to 40 interactions with pirates. If a ship preemptively "surrenders" each time and pays a "toll" of MCr1-6 (roll 1D6) each time to "ransom" the ship back to the operator, 40*3.5=MCr140 in expected operational losses to pirates over the course of 40 years of operations.
Note: MCr140 easily exceeds the value of a J1 Free Trader or a J2 Far Trader. It even exceeds the value of a J1 Fat Trader.

Now ... as a merchant ... ask yourself.
If you're going to pay MCr140 over 40 years ANYWAY ... would you as an operator rather spend that amount of money "on paying off pirates" to let you keep your starship (and crew and livelihood and business) ... OR ... would you rather spend an extra MCr140 on construction costs/bank loans to get a bigger maneuver drive+power plant and be able to EVADE those pirate interceptions?



I offer that mindset up as an example of the kind of financial analysis that can go into the motivations behind choosing a fast trader (with high maneuver power/agility) versus a slow trader (with minimal maneuver power/agility). If you "don't pay" up front in your choice of starship class ... you could just be signing yourself up to "pay" after taking delivery and running transport services.

You can, of course, "tickle the numbers" to get the risk analysis to provide you with different results, but I just wanted to demonstrate the thinking behind that informs the choices.



Of course, the easiest way to ensure that the opportunities for pirate attacks each year remains ZERO is to only jump to worlds with type A/B starports ... C-X need not apply. Sticking to type A/B starports is the functional equivalent of "outsourcing" the safety and security of your starship and crew to local system defense patrols (so not quite a convoy escort protection, but close enough for the purposes of our discussion).

This is why I say that the J1 Free Trader and J2 Far Trader work wonderfully inside of well patrolled and defended space lanes. Leave the "protection" of type A/B starport services for the fringes and backwater worlds and you're basically a sitting duck for some "entrepreneurial" pirate to come along and pick you off as a reward for your complacency.

In that respect, pirates are a bit like misjumps.
Pretty low odds of them happening at any specific moment ... but if you add up "low odds" lots of times, eventually you're going to get unlucky. That's why it's better to invest in countermeasures (fuel purification plants vs misjumps, escort fighters and maneuver drives vs pirates) to reduce the risks associated with those outcomes as much as possible by design and business model.

 

[whartung]

If you're going to pay MCr140 over 40 years ANYWAY ... would you as an operator rather spend that amount of money "on paying off pirates" to let you keep your starship (and crew and livelihood and business) ... OR ... would you rather spend an extra MCr140 on construction costs/bank loans to get a bigger maneuver drive+power plant and be able to EVADE those pirate interceptions?

That's a no brainer.

If you're paying off 140M in debt, you're better off not taking it on, stashing the payment in a money market, and retiring when you have your 10,, 15, 20MCr saved up. The 140M doesn't guarantee safe passage, just make you faster. Better to pay the protection racket, get home alive, stash some money in the bank and build equity in the ship so you can sell it when you hit 40 and settle on Bora Bora IV.

 

[Condottiere]

What you want, is a spread of plasma warhead torpedoes, since you can't have nukes.

 

[whulorigan]

The USMC enlisted blade is a mamluke-hilt cutlass, not a saber. Source: USN Landing Party Manual circa 1985.
USN Petty Officers' blade is a cutlass, with quarter to half basket. same source.

The only USN Petty Officer cutlass showing up on a search is for Chiefs, and labeled ceremonial.

I can assure you that, while ceremonial only is the intent, they're still useful as a weapon... during an exebition drill with sword practice, a fellow cadet, going to "reverese-carry" didn't stop soon enough and badly sliced the pinna of his right ear. (Carry sword is standing at attention or marching with the blade exposed and the backblade on the front of the right shoulder; reverse carry is holding it by the basket so the blade is against the back of the right shoulder. Transition from carry is done by dropping the blade forward while extending the right arm, and catching the hilt so it swings under the arm, then returning the arm to starting position. Rev. Carry to carry is swing the arm forward and let the sword hilt rotate until the blade is in line with the arm, then sharply bringing the hand down and snapping the blade to the shoulder.)

The combat blade of the USMC is the K-Bar; it's also used by the USN for certain situations, but isn't standard issue AFAICT.

The last time I've read of issuing cutlasses to USN personnel for combat duties was WW II.
Note that ship's company fielding Naval Infantry units, per the USN History site, continued until 1970. https://www.history.navy.mil/resear...abetically/s/sailors-as-infantry-us-navy.html

Though I do not remember the exact terminology used, I'll note that at the University where I work (at least within the last 20 years or so), Navy ROTC graduates are asked prior to graduation/commissioning (when they are to be presented with their swords) whether they want their blades as "functional" or "ceremonial". As far as I know that applied to the Navy ROTC/Marine Option guys as well.

 

[MThompson016]

For security purposes, the US military just issues Asp-style batons, and we train with the foam ones from the manufacturer. Much easier to ensure there's a base level of competence.

And a baton doesn't require the same amount of training as a blade.

 

[Condottiere]

You don't have to sharpen the bayonettes until your unit is committed to actual combat.

At the technological levels we're working at, there should be some method to keep the edges dull until then.

 

[whartung]

At the technological levels we're working at, there should be some method to keep the edges dull until then.

There's a little switch on the hilt to turn the edges on and off.

 

[Enoki]

You don't have to sharpen the bayonettes until your unit is committed to actual combat.

At the technological levels we're working at, there should be some method to keep the edges dull until then.

Retractable blade guard?

 

[Condottiere]

Smarty blade, cuts only what you want cut.

 

[kilemall]

Smarty blade, cuts only what you want cut.

The ultimate high tech warrior culture loyalty test, seeing if you would cut your beloved/leader/vassals?

 

[Condottiere]

 

[Carlobrand]

... Now, an argument can be made that if you "pile in" the inertial compensators into the mix (as "extra G force" that can be applied. ...

Considering that you also must be able to use the compensators to compensate for rotational forces as the ship turns to align the drives for a change in vector during normal operations, you're looking at a very effective weapon against boarders. It doesn't need 6g or even 2g: random partial-g pulls from any possible direction - or lack of same while the ship spins suddenly left-right or up-down or whatever - can make it essentially impossible to maintain your footing, not to mention holding down your lunch. Even in magnetic boots, it'd be like trying to have a fight on the pitching deck of a seagoing ship in a raging storm.

 

[chipla]

So seen in that light, if a merchant ship on its route can expect to encounter pirates, say ... once year (on average)

An area of space where the average ship is getting attacked once a year has a severe piracy problem and someone will do something about it.

The caveat here is the values of course - 3.5MCr a year is an unacceptable loss - if it happens to 100+ ships. The Navy would likely be pressured by the megacorps to bash some heads.

A container or two of goods (that are covered by insurance) is much less likely to cause a reaction. If you look at modern piracy (and historical) pirates that get greedy have very short careers. Pirates that steal a cargo here and there (as in the straits of malacca or Caribbean golden age piracy) tend to have longer lifespans.

If you’re in a high piracy area (like the Trojan Reach) and you can’t join one of the convoys going along the main routes I’d expect to lose one lot (1d6) tons of cargo trip which would usually have less than 1MCr of value.

 

[Spinward Flow]

I’d expect to lose one lot (1d6) tons of cargo trip which would usually have less than 1MCr of value.

If you're talking about an "average loss of cargo per jump" amounting to 1D tons (basically, 1 Incidental Cargo lot) then you're looking at a loss of 3.5 tons per jump (or Cr3500 per jump). Assume 25 jumps per year at a maximum commercial operations pace (business week/jump week/repeat) and you get a loss of Cr87,500 per year ... which across 40 years adds up to MCr3.5 in losses over the term of a bank loan.

Again, all of this is coming to a question of Risk Management.
If the risks are low and the losses are "affordable" then it starts turning into a "cost of doing business" type of expense.
If the risks are low but the losses could potentially be "total" (as in, loss of starship) ... then that requires a very different response/answer.

Like I said, it depends on how "bad" you can expect things to get where you intend to be going.
If you never leave the A-B starports routing ... piracy isn't even a (credible) "risk factor" for you.
If you're mainly going to C-E starports ... you might want to be prepared for the "Run & Gun" possibilities.

 

[TamsinP]

If you're talking about an "average loss of cargo per jump" amounting to 1D tons (basically, 1 Incidental Cargo lot) then you're looking at a loss of 3.5 tons per jump (or Cr3500 per jump). Assume 25 jumps per year at a maximum commercial operations pace (business week/jump week/repeat) and you get a loss of Cr87,500 per year ... which across 40 years adds up to MCr3.5 in losses over the term of a bank loan.

That's the losses to the ship of the freight income, rather than the value of the goods taken. It also assumes the standard freight rates from CT, although GT and both Mongoose editions have freight (and passage) rates which increase with jump distance. In the Trojan Reach, most freighters will be capable of (and doing) 2-parsec jumps, for which the freight rate in MgT2e is Cr1600 per dTon, so all of your figures would need to be multiplied by 1.6.

 

[chipla]

which across 40 years adds up to MCr3.5 in losses over the term of a bank loan.

MCr3.5 over 40 years is a lot more palatable to insurance companies, shipping companies and for that matter free traders than MCr140. Basically the cost of buying an armaments package vs the cost of a new free trader.

Yes it’s risk management but I think the risk management aspect comes from both sides of the coin. A long-lived pirate is also going to mitigate their risks. Assuming they’re acquisitive criminals rather than destructive (I.e doing it for the cash vs destroying trade for a military or political goal), a pirate is going to be relatively professional about the whole thing. If they come up again an armed trader (which in a pirate filled area everyone will be) they’re gonna demonstrate overwhelming force, only take what they can get quickly and refrain from needless brutality (I.e anything that will make people decide on to be a hero.)

That's the losses to the ship of the freight income, rather than the value of the goods taken.

In the case of freight (which by my assumption would make up the majority of all shipping in charted space as opposed to spec) the cost to the ship should be the freight income rather than cost of goods. The merchant lines (Mega, Major and Minor) and any smart free trader are going to have shipping insurance specifically to cover loss like this. The planetside logistics company(ies) that are sending the freight are also likely to have insurance. If we want to do Accurate Adventures in Accounting I’m sure we could work out how the increase in insurance premiums would affect the losses to piracy over 40 years but that requires better maths than I can do.

For spec trade averages I’m getting an average of 95950Cr per ton based on the trade tables at the back of the 2022 update to the mongoose book. This is probably wrong so I’ll let the math people correct me.

EDIT: I’m phone posting so please excuse my grammar and spelling errors.

 

[Condottiere]

Piracy within Imperium space is probably the same as armoured car robbery.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Piracy within Imperium space is probably the same as armoured car robbery.

It happens rarely ... but when it happens (successfully) the amount of "losses" are non-trivial (except to megacorporations, for whom an armored car is "mere chump change" to their balance sheets).

 

[chipla]

Piracy within Imperium space is probably the same as armoured car robbery.

It happens rarely ... but when it happens (successfully) the amount of "losses" are non-trivial (except to megacorporations, for whom an armored car is "mere chump change" to their balance sheets).

I actually think the comparison apt.

Armoured car robberies or Cash in Transit (CIT) heists are more common in certain areas (in 2019 about half of all CIT heists in the US happened in Houston. In 2023 Chicago took that spot.)

The numbers are very low in safer areas but a daily occurrence in others.( There are about 36 CIT heists a year in the USA, there are about one a day in South Africa)

The total numbers are large from an individual standpoint but from an organisational or economic standpoint are not massively impactful (total value of all armoured car and bank robberies in Chicago in 2023 were something like $5m.)

The payout is fairly variable (some of those robberies in Houston had a haul of the princely sum of $500 in quarters while othes had hundreds of thousands of dollars in South Africa the average haul is about $18000)

The death rates among victims is relatively low. (Between 2020 and 2023 despite a threefold increase in armoured car robberies in Chicago there were no reported fatalities in conjunction to robbing armoured cars).

 

[mike wightman]

How many armoured car robberies involve someone in the inside?