Mercenary Starships and Spacecraft

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Liam Devlin:
Speaking of striker units...these mudmercs have no air support!

What about the Air-Squadron Mercenary Striker units detailed in MT's-COACC? say as a follow on unit to the one you're looking at MB?

That is why I included the light fighters. Light fighters make excellent CAS, Tanks (If armored) and Space Combat assets. Why carry three vehicles when you can carry one that does all of the same roles. Rules vary, but they are generally armored as well as tanks with more firepower, they are as maneuverable, if not more so than typical aircraft and more maneuverable than Grav vehicles. They can be deployed in situations where Grav vehicles can not. (And in real space combat in most versions of Traveller fighters serve no real purpose anyway.

)

 

[Liam Devlin]

BTL wrote: That is why I included the light fighters. Light fighters make excellent CAS, Tanks (If armored) and Space Combat assets. Why carry three vehicles when you can carry one that does all of the same roles. Rules vary, but they are generally armored as well as tanks with more firepower, they are as maneuverable, if not more so than typical aircraft and more maneuverable than Grav vehicles. They can be deployed in situations where Grav vehicles can not. (And in real space combat in most versions of Traveller fighters serve no real purpose anyway.

Uh huh...

well, in T20, and in MT, there an atmospheric jet fighter of lower tech level can run rings around most starships. add air-to-air missiles of even IRH seeking TL7 and you've got troubles.

Adding a TL-14 support multi-role fighter is fine--but with the TL7-TL8 tracked merc striker unit, an added expense in upkeep!

It would be..most unwise to ignore a target planet's COACC. Most unwise, indeed.

 

[mbrinkhues]

Originally posted by BetterThanLife:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Liam Devlin:
Speaking of striker units...these mudmercs have no air support!

What about the Air-Squadron Mercenary Striker units detailed in MT's-COACC? say as a follow on unit to the one you're looking at MB?

That is why I included the light fighters. Light fighters make excellent CAS, Tanks (If armored) and Space Combat assets. Why carry three vehicles when you can carry one that does all of the same roles. Rules vary, but they are generally armored as well as tanks with more firepower, they are as maneuverable, if not more so than typical aircraft and more maneuverable than Grav vehicles. They can be deployed in situations where Grav vehicles can not. (And in real space combat in most versions of Traveller fighters serve no real purpose anyway.

) </font>[/QUOTE]TNE Grav Armor is easily capabel of punching large holes in most spaceships. Even the Pyrrus Support sled and the Attack Speeders can punch holes in most commercial starships and an Intrepid/Trepinda can puch clean through military ships at distances of 12+ km.

Armor on the tanks is also heavier than on most starships. Starships rate 10-40, even (para)military like the Vixtrix with gravtanks starting at 50 hull armor and going well past 200 (Intrepid/Trepinda)

And how is the pricing between fighter jets and spacefighters?

 

[travlar]

Originally posted by Michael Brinkhues:
TNE Grav Armor is easily capabel of punching large holes in most spaceships. Even the Pyrrus Support sled and the Attack Speeders can punch holes in most commercial starships and an Intrepid/Trepinda can puch clean through military ships at distances of 12+ km.

Armor on the tanks is also heavier than on most starships. Starships rate 10-40, even (para)military like the Vixtrix with gravtanks starting at 50 hull armor and going well past 200 (Intrepid/Trepinda)

If a tank can hurt a starship that badly, than think of what a warship will do to another ship. I think that your average ship will have more armor than a tank, as they need to worry about space junk.

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by Kaale Dasar:
If a tank can hurt a starship that badly, than think of what a warship will do to another ship. I think that your average ship will have more armor than a tank, as they need to worry about space junk.

You don't need a whole lot of armor to deal with space junk. Just a bit of spaced armor. A pure warship that has chosen to balance for low speed/high armor will have lots of armor, but most ships aren't built that way.

 

[mbrinkhues]

Originally posted by Kaale Dasar:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Brinkhues:
TNE Grav Armor is easily capabel of punching large holes in most spaceships. Even the Pyrrus Support sled and the Attack Speeders can punch holes in most commercial starships and an Intrepid/Trepinda can puch clean through military ships at distances of 12+ km.

Armor on the tanks is also heavier than on most starships. Starships rate 10-40, even (para)military like the Vixtrix with gravtanks starting at 50 hull armor and going well past 200 (Intrepid/Trepinda)

If a tank can hurt a starship that badly, than think of what a warship will do to another ship. I think that your average ship will have more armor than a tank, as they need to worry about space junk. </font>[/QUOTE]I can't say about CT but in TNE and GT both ships and tanks use the same armor system so the tank, we are talking top of the line Cold-War style Leopard II A6(1) here, can kill any non-warship and most light warships he can hit.

In both systems armor has an influence on the Maneuver drive(2) rating so fast and agile ships have less armor. Normal GT ships have DR100 (IIRC DR70 was equal to 1 inch or the mytical Rolled Homogenous Armor (RHA) used to rate armor materials(3)) OTOH the Intrepid/Trepinda has frontal armor in the 5-digit range but moves rather slow

As for warship vs. civie: Yes, a warship, even the Typ T if armed with military lasers or plasma/particel guns(4) can kill a civie in very short time. At the same time a heavy warship can carry armor that allows it to ignore hits from a civilian ( as in: turret armed) ship. Traveller uses a "classic" warship model with thin-skinned destroyers/frigates and thick-walled "line of battle" cruisers and battleships. And there merchants go down after 2-3 hits or a torpedo

(1)The planned 140mm armed version, not the cheap upgrade we got
(2)In TNE only once weight gets past IIRF 15xdisplacement tons
(3) RHA is an universal measurement code. The real armor may be thinner/thicker and not even metal but it will be said to "protect against weapon type x like z centimeters of RHA" and weapons are rated as "can punch throug z centimeters or RHA at m meters"
(4) GURPS has "heavy" lasers with better range and a decend punch. And IMTU anything but standard lasers (3 per turret type) are restricted to military units, huscarls and mercenary units in good standing

 

[Anthony]

I will point out that a (modern) tank has more armor than anything short of a battleship, and that modern freighters are functionally unarmored, though they have enough structure that anti-tank weapons won't be especially lethal against them.

 

[Liam Devlin]

TNE Grav Armor is easily capabel of punching large holes in most spaceships. Even the Pyrrus Support sled and the Attack Speeders can punch holes in most commercial starships and an Intrepid/Trepinda can puch clean through military ships at distances of 12+ km.

Armor on the tanks is also heavier than on most starships. Starships rate 10-40, even (para)military like the Vixtrix with gravtanks starting at 50 hull armor and going well past 200 (Intrepid/Trepida)

And how is the pricing between fighter jets and spacefighters?

Using credits and not $U.S. right?

A Jet Fighter with on board radar can still engage with TL7 missiles at distances greater than a Grav sled's 12Km.

Simple jet Ftrs at Late TL6 are still cheaper than a Rampart-15, and more amnueverable in the atmo to a descending 1G+ Starship/ Spacecraft coming into land.

How much for Me-262 'Swallow', or F-86 'Sabre' or a MiG-17? This is the tech era jet we're talking of.

Ground-based missiles that work like starship Missiles are also much cheaper than a space Ftr or a jet Fighter (MT-COACC, AAA-section from auto-gun cannons to SAM's & PADM's). There's even a light TL9 laser gun pack that can added to a aircraft's weapon point (fuselage, or wing if its large enough) to make even a larger jet-Fighter, or other non-turbo-prop-driven interceptor a threat to spaceborne vehicles entering atmosphere intent on landing.

 

[atpollard]

Originally posted by Michael Brinkhues:
And how is the pricing between fighter jets and spacefighters?

That craft are so variable that there is an element of comparing apples to oranges involved, but all of the following data is from the Megatraveller CD (COACC and REBELLION):

TL 6 Transonic Jet = 11 dTons = 0.44 MCr
TL 7 Supersonic Jet = 50 dTons = 1.9 MCr
TL 8 Supersonic Jet = 50 dTons = 6.1 MCr
TL 9 Hypersonic Jet = 125 dTons = 18 MCr
TL 9 Orbital Interceptor = 125 dTons = 11 MCr

TL 14 Astrin Grav APC = 10 dTons = 18 MCr
TL 14 Trepida Grav Tank = 13 dTons = 21 MCr

TL 15 Rampart (Space) Fighter = 10 dTons = 14 MCr

Hope that helps.

For the same cost, TL 7 COACC fighters will outnumber a TL 15 Space Fighter by 7 to 1 odds and TL 6 COACC fighters will outnumber a TL 15 Space Fighter by over 30 to 1 odds. That equates to a lot of missiles per turn.

 

[BetterThanLife]

The fighter I showed has an agility of 6. (In T20 the best a Grav vehicle can obtain is Agility 4 and the max agility of anything is 6.) Further the armor on that 15 ton fighter, as opposed to a Stock Rampart II is 10, which is equivalent to a heavily armored Cruiser and many of the Battleships. (If I did it at TL15 it has as much armor as the most heavily armored Battleships.)

In T20 there is a 5 point differential between vehicles and Starship armor. So a TL15 tank can have almost equal armor to the fighter as shown. The difference is that a Critical hit from the tank will ignore the armor on the fighter but not the 5 die differential. The Triple Laser turret hits as hard as any vehicle system and has vastly superior range. (And ammunition.) Sensors are also vastly superior to virtually all vehicle systems.

Similar situations exist in MT and the Light fighter is still superior to most tanks, both in firepower and armor. (Fighters start at a baseline 40 and can seriously add from there, Tanks tend to max out in the 70's.) Striker, while I haven't seriously messed with it, shows similarities to T20. TNE, T4 and GT may have differences, but as long as you purpose build the fighter you should be able to get similar results. The standard light fighters of Traveller do not fit this mold. (In fact the Standard heavy fighters don't do as well in this job.) But build them yourself and you will generally come out with a superior product.

Further, the Tank doesn't work as well in space. (Though they tend to take up about as much, if not more space aboard.)

 

[Anthony]

The way Striker/Megatraveller handle starship armor, and the way T20 handles all armor, is more than a bit incoherent, because it means a 100 dton ship with 10% armor has exactly the same armor rating as a 100,000 dton ship with 10% armor -- though logically the armor is 10x thicker.

A fighter with factor F armor has a Striker armor value of 85, equivalent to 1660 cm steel or 118 cm of bonded superdense.

A 50 dton sphere has a radius of 5.5m. A 42 dton sphere (16% armor by volume) has a radius of 5.2m. That's only 30 cm of bonded SD, or an armor value of 69. It also represents 1,680 tons of armor, which for any rule version that pays attention to mass is ridiculous on a 50 dton ship.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Anthony:
The way Striker/Megatraveller handle starship armor, and the way T20 handles all armor, is more than a bit incoherent, because it means a 100 dton ship with 10% armor has exactly the same armor rating as a 100,000 dton ship with 10% armor -- though logically the armor is 10x thicker.

However that is how the rules are written. And those are the rules the specs were for. If you wish to design your own system, you are welcome to. However given the rules as written, and the design specifications, the point is valid.

And while it would, of course depend on the shape. 110cm of Bonded Superdense is going to take up more room on a bigger ship than a smaller one. After all all the bulkheads and the skin is that thick and uses that armor, so having it a flat percentage, is actually closer than you might think. (Granted it abstracts it a little, but it does work.) After all a 15 ton fighter having the same thickness of armor as a 50 ton fighter or a 400 ton corvette is going to have quite a bit less of the armor, both in exterior surface area and internal bulkheads. So the percentage isn't that bad an idea.

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by BetterThanLife:
However that is how the rules are written. And those are the rules the specs were for. If you wish to design your own system, you are welcome to. However given the rules as written, and the design specifications, the point is valid.

And, in Traveller design systems that don't work in that way (i.e. FF&S, FF&S2, GURPS Traveller), the point isn't valid.

So the percentage isn't that bad an idea.

Yeah it is. The equation is basically k * thickness * (displacement)^2/3, where k is a constant depending on hull shape.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Anthony:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by BetterThanLife:
However that is how the rules are written. And those are the rules the specs were for. If you wish to design your own system, you are welcome to. However given the rules as written, and the design specifications, the point is valid.

And, in Traveller design systems that don't work in that way (i.e. FF&S, FF&S2, GURPS Traveller), the point isn't valid.

So the percentage isn't that bad an idea.

Yeah it is. The equation is basically k * thickness * (displacement)^2/3, where k is a constant depending on hull shape. </font>[/QUOTE]Except that armor also includes bulkheads (which includes decks) and things like extra armor over vitals. Armor is not a uniform thickness covering just the exterior of the ship/vehicle. (For a good example as to how this works, look at the plans for a WWII Battleship.)

 

[mbrinkhues]

That depends a bit on the building style of the ship. And I would not want to use the armor model of a warship (Citadel armor) for a spaceship.

While Tanks have variabel armor thickness by facing in TNE, T4, GT as the do in reality and can get away with it by being used right(1) and maneuvering a lot to present the strong breast, starships don't have that luxury. Neither do they have the luxury to use fuel tanks or crew quarters to absorb damage as a sea-going ship can do. They can not allow Vacuum into the ship since air is likely a limited commodity(3) And they don't have the luxury of using lighter armor on the deck/keel/lower hull either since in space these are not protected by water or ballistics(2). So IMHO it is save to assume the ships hull has the same armor value everywhere.

IIRC TNE has the option to put additional armor around critical elements but that is in addition to the one on the hull
(1) And while the other gamer called me a "camper" I have it from good authority that hanging back and popping Shermans at one klick was considered proper use for a 75L70.
(2) Neither where they in late WWII with the advent of heavy airplanes and reliabel magnetic torpedo fuses
(3) It can be recycled until doomsday but not simply produces unless you have access to water or similar elements

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by BetterThanLife:
Except that armor also includes bulkheads (which includes decks) and things like extra armor over vitals.

Okay, then the formula is S*T*V^2/3 + I*V, where S is a shape factor, T is the hull armor thickness, V is volume, and I is an internal armor factor. The presence of internal armor does not change the weight of hull armor.

 

[Scott Martin]

You may want to split this discussion into another thread, since "Armour thickness" is a different topic than "Mercenary Starships and spacecraft"

There is a considerable amount of discussion on this topic (and the mechanics of the "real world" in the T5 Forum.

Scott Martin

 

[Liam Devlin]

An excellent Idea Mr Martin!

Like here: http://www.travellerrpg.com/cgi-bin/Trav/CotI/Discuss/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=4&t=001165

 

[BetterThanLife]

Back to Mercenary Starships.

Some key design features that you want in a Mercenary ship.

1. The ability to deploy a unit into a Hot LZ.

2. Minimize the risk to your major capital investments. (In General any Ship and most small craft would fall into this category.)

3. Ability to deploy Boarding Parties without exposing your main ship assets to Counterboarding operations. This applies to both Starmerc operations for Customs and Safety Inspections and to entering Spacestations/Arcologies for more traditional Merc operations.

4. The ability to resupply a unit, potentially under fire.

5. The ability to extract a unit under fire.

Most of these requirements favor the use of Small craft as both a

6. The ability to accept tickets and get to them in a relative hurry. (The less time spent traveling to the ticket the more tickets you can accept.) (Favoring an above average Jump drive.)

7. The ability to provide Armor Support and/or CAS to the Mercenary Unit. Available transport cubage dependent, this can either be a multi-purpose craft or for a more specialized unit, specific armor and separate CAS assets.

8. The vast majority of locations in the OTU are not nice habitable worlds with a standard atmosphere and sufficient land mass to conduct traditional mechanized operations.

9. Starships and Small craft are very expensive and represent a Capital investment that most Mercenary units can not afford to lose during the course of normal operations.

Did I miss anything?

 

[atpollard]

It seems like something of a Catch 22.
Any craft capable of doing "the job" (whatever job that is) is too valuable to risk.

On the other hand, Risk is why they need a merc unit and not a shuttle full of accountants and attorneys.

On the third hand, you cannot deliver an Infantryman (which you can afford to risk) to the site without a ship/craft (that is too valuable to risk).

At TL 17, we could beam them down.