Making Battleships Work

[robject]

This morning Marc idly suggested that battleships are the Imperial versions of our modern aircraft carriers. Not only are they ships of the line, capable of standing in the line of battle, but they're also logistic or support platforms for regional military activity.

They're like mobile Imperial Navy bases.

In other words, they support a subsector's worth of military activity. No longer do we need a TL15 world nearby. We just send a battleship and have it squat smack dab in the center of a subsector, and launch sorties from it in any direction we like. Or we post it on or near or just beyond a border and let the Joes catch it.

To make short story long, then, battleships serve a key strategic or operational or logistic role, in a way that cruisers do not. Or they ought to. And it seems to me that large tenders could potentially operate in a similar function.

The nicest thing about is is that we don't need a lot of TL15 worlds in order to support a TL 15 fleet.

 

[pendragonman]

So, Marc has the idea that BBs are central features to a BLM? (Base, Logistic, Mobile)

Interesting idea. What other components would be requires for this BLM to function properly? Giant Cargo Pods? Mobile Repair Bases?

What are your ideas? Let's here 'em!

(And no, this does not mean we get to rehash the BR/BT vs BB debate again!)

 

[Starviking]

This morning Marc idly suggested that battleships are the Imperial versions of our modern aircraft carriers. Not only are they ships of the line, capable of standing in the line of battle, but they're also logistic or support platforms for regional military activity.

They're like mobile Imperial Navy bases.

Two points: 1) Modern aircraft carriers do not have major logistics or support taskings. Aircraft carriers need logistic and support, from supply ships and from bases.

2) If you're adding support and logistics capability to your battleship hull you're adding complexity, detracting from the main mission of engaging and destroying the enemy, and making a ship which can be taken on by a much smaller, but more focussed design.

Doesn't make sense to me.

 

[HG_B]

This morning Marc idly suggested that battleships are the Imperial versions of our modern aircraft carriers. Not only are they ships of the line, capable of standing in the line of battle, but they're also logistic or support platforms for regional military activity.

??? This isn't a role currently held by our Nimitz class carriers. What is he (Marc) referring to exactly?

 

[Rigel Stardin]

So, Marc has the idea that BBs are central features to a BLM? (Base, Logistic, Mobile)

Interesting idea. What other components would be requires for this BLM to function properly? Giant Cargo Pods? Mobile Repair Bases?

What are your ideas? Let's here 'em!

(And no, this does not mean we get to rehash the BR/BT vs BB debate again!)

The way I read the statement made by Marc is a ship simular to the Death Star. Large enough to maintain a battle fleet, but having an offensive capability with fighters and weapons. Thou never shown in the movies, I suspect the Death Star could house a single Star Destoryer for repairs or maintainance?

As far as the logistical concerns mention in this post, mobile or even stationary ships of this size needs support ships to bring supplies. The only way around it is to make a planet mobile...

 

[Dragoner]

I think Marc is talking about a carrier group, not that all functions are included in the BB.

 

[HG_B]

I think Marc is talking about a carrier group, not that all functions are included in the BB.

A carrier group doesn't fulfill those functions either.

 

[robject]

Don't quote me too closely, because I'm not a military expert, and my memory can be leaky. Obviously. But Marc did draw a parallel between (for example) the Kokirrak, Tigress, and Plankwell, with modern aircraft carriers.

Not because they're carriers, but rather because they're the "bases" by which missions are supplied. And it may not be exactly that.

Here's the context. I was telling him about the problem we've been discussing here on COTI with cruisers, riders, and battleships, and I was also commenting about the rarity of TL15 worlds in a supposedly TL15 sector (the Spinward Marches). I thought this poses a problem for the Imperium, who would want to field TL15 units against the Joes. How do we do this?

So Marc muses (and he said this is just off the cuff) that battleships serve a role similar to our aircraft carriers: we base missions off of them, and we don't need support to do it. He suggested that our aircraft carriers are, for all practical purposes, ships of the line, capable of standing in the line of battle. I don't think of carriers like that, but maybe Marc has an angle I don't... won't be the first time and won't be the last; I'm not a game designer.

I'm sure limitations apply, but Marc wasn't writing the rules, he was suggesting a reason for the battleship to exist... I think there need to be other reasons (they're relatively easy to kill in HG), but that was a big "a ha" moment for me, because it addressed two problems at the same time (the role of battleships and the requirement for technical support for a battle group) in a manner that was organic to Traveller, as well as suggesting a plank in a yet-to-be-determined set of operational guidelines for Traveller warfare.

 

[Dragoner]

A carrier group doesn't fulfill those functions either.

Yes and no, but they are logistics/Command points of operations, I could see BB groups having Fleet HQ with Logistics and Support Command having the million ton tankers, 500k ton cargo vessels as well as repair and recovery depots. There never has been a definite x to x ton, line to support, rule as far as I know, but it does exist, it has to.

 

[HG_B]

Yes and no, but they are logistics/Command points of operations,

No, they aren't logs. That is land bases. The "group" (ships in the group) don't perform that function.

 

[Dragoner]

No, they aren't logs. That is land bases. The "group" (ships in the group) don't perform that function.

There are no support ships in a Carrier Group? There used to be, maybe this is onlty a peacetime disposition.

 

[robject]

Back to Making Battleships Work, for a moment.

How about adding back the concept of the missile salvo from HG version 1? Could that be used to wipe out cruisers faster than battleships?

The rule which was dropped is:

High Intensity Missile Fire: A ship armed with missiles may attempt to over- whelm its enemy by firing all of its missiles at once. This maneuver may be per- formed only once, but allows a DM of +4 to penetrate any and all defenses operat- ing, including to hit the hull of the target.

Instead of adding this rule back in, how about looking at taking a page from T5 and creating "Salvo Racks" which functions as something strong enough to penetrate Factor-8 armor commonly enough to be a significant threat? How about Factor A or better missile bays?

 

[The Oz]

I don't like going against Marc, but I think he doesn't really understand the nature of modern naval warfare and the role the CVBG plays, especially logistically.

That said, he's right that the CVBG is the equivalent to the old "ship of the line" in that it's the biggest, baddest fighting ship around. In that way Traveller BBs are "ships of the line." In fact Traveller BBs are more like the old sailing battleships than modern CVs are, since the old battlewagons had to come close enough to be shot at, while CVs stand off and pound away with airstrikes.

In a way, the BT/BR combination is tactically more like a CVBG; launching the fighting vessels into battle from a position of (relative) safety.

Perhaps what Marc was thinking about (at least with a Tigress-class ship) is the ability of a single Tigress to control an entire star system against any threat smaller than the battleship herself. The fighter wing of a Tigress allows her to patrol the whole system and keep any unarmed/lightly armed vessels (especially any civilian vessels) from passing though. In this way a Tigress is like a CV; once she's in the area, other surface ships pass only on her sufferance.

 

[robject]

That might be so. I admit ignorance.