Non OTU: Military Ships and Crewing

[Hal]

Inspired by the thread titled: A Modern Friaget Size Vessel for Comparison, I decided to start this thread and invite people to discuss their thoughts on crewing needs for warships of the Imperium. While my post below discusses a GURPS TRAVELLER design, and incorporates rules from GURPS, there is no reason people can't discuss other possibilities such as Classic Traveller, MegaTraveller, Traveller the New Era, and even subsequent Traveller systems

This was taken from my design of a GURPS Tech level 10 ship design (Traveller Tech level equivalent of Traveller Tech C)

NETTLE CLASS DESTROYER ESCORT 1,000 Dtons designed and built at the Lunion Shipyards.

Jump-4, Manuever 2.03 G's

Crew: 63
Command: Commanding Officer, First Officer, Computer Officer, Chief Navigator, 2nd Navigator, Communications Officer, 3 Command Ratings.
Chief Engineer, 2nd Engineer, 2 Jump Mechanics, 2 Manuever Mechanics, 7 Maintenance crew.
Chief Medical Officer, medic.
Chief Gunner, 9 Turret Gunners, 4 Nuclear Dampner Operators.
Flight Officer, 2 Flight Crew.
1 Marine Officer, 21 Marines

Accomodations:
7 Bunk Room for Navel Enlisted.
Luxury Double-size Stateroom (Captain's Quarters)
7 Stateroom (Officer's rooms)

Double Sized Sickbay (4 Patients)
36 Cryoberths
2 Brig (Holds 4 prisoners)
2 Complete Workshop (6 Users)
Triple sized Gymnasium (12 Users)
Hall/Bar/Conference Room (capacity 50 Users)
2 Ships Galley (can create up to 56 meals at a time)
2 Armory (50 Users)
Minifac (for machining new parts required for repairs after battle)

Marine Barracks:
Officer's Stateroom, 5xBunkroom, Gym, Armory, Cap Launcher, 2xCap Rack, Morgue, Shooting Range, Military Holoventure),


Note that this is NOT a typical GURPS design in the sense of how many crew are required, but instead, reflects my own dissatisfaction with how few crew are needed for the ships per standard GURPS rules. The whole issue of designing a ship, and then trying to imagine what life might be like aboard such a ship is half the fun for me. Trying to imagine establishing a security perimeter for this ship in a foreign port made me cringe a little as I thought about it. You'd need a guard at all access points to the ship such as the cargo bay doors, the Gig access point, the airlocks, the Captain's cabin, the entrance to the bridge, the entrance to the Engineering bay, as well as someone to guard the armory and/or prisoners. Now do that for a 24/7 schedule and see if you want to reduce the required security detail any further.

Can the bridge be maintained 24/7 with a crew of 9? That's three crew on duty during any 8 hour segment. During battle stations, It is likely that at least 5 of those 9 would report to the bridge, possibly more. With an engineering crew of 6, plus a maintenance crew of 7, that should keep the engineering section well populated 24/7. As for gunners? It is likely that 2 would be kept on duty at all times with a powered up turret, or near powered up in case of a surprise requiring some response quickly. Otherwise, it would seem that one would need only 1 turret kept active as minimal protection at all times. During a Battle alert, all 10 gunners would be present at their stations.

So - who has expanded upon the crew requirements for their ships, and how did you describe the ships using your ship design rules set of choice?

More importantly? How many of you might want to try and take a stab at designing a ship similiar to my GURPS version of a Destroyer Escort in your favorite system and show how you did it?

As for myself? The ship design I created had an enhanced Sensor suite, and cost a whopping MCr441.77 sans ship stores and loads. Just food for thought...

 

[DangerousThing]

So - who has expanded upon the crew requirements for their ships, and how did you describe the ships using your ship design rules set of choice?

More importantly? How many of you might want to try and take a stab at designing a ship similiar to my GURPS version of a Destroyer Escort in your favorite system and show how you did it?

As for myself? The ship design I created had an enhanced Sensor suite, and cost a whopping MCr441.77 sans ship stores and loads. Just food for thought...

I tried creating a 5,000t ship in T5, and tried to staff it 24/7 and found this led to a crew of several hundred. And yet the example ships in the various supplements don't have aywhere near this number of crew.

And I hadn't thought of a security cordon, though this ship was unsreamlined and not meant to land anywhere near a planet.

 

[CosmicGamer]

I have never designed any large ships but hopefully you'll find something I say useful.

Whether it's actual bots bustling about and unnoticed since they are just part of daily life in the future or it's higher end automated systems, I'd think that the crew requirements of today might serve as a guideline but future requirements would be lower.

24/7
First, I see no reason this is 3 8hr shifts. When I was in the Navy our standard rotation was 12 on 12 off. 2 shifts (some jobs, like the barber shop or personnel department, only had one). 7 days a week. On top of that, 1 out of every 3 or 4 days (varied based on needs) was a duty day where you might be cleaning berthing, loading supplies, standing watch and so on. Sometimes duty was to cover an unskilled job that didn't have the manpower for the second shift. There were times I had a normal work day, was assigned a job for duty during the 12 hours I was "off" and then went back to my normal job for 12 hours. 36 hours without sleep. Typically a duty watch was not 12 hours. The 12 hour watch was a easy phone watch were you just took messages but if something warranted it, you went to wake up the appropriate person. Maybe it's no-doze, red bull, futuristic drugs, meditation techniques, devices that manipulate brainwaves and increase the productiveness of rest cycles, or something else, but I'd think the future capability of people to work longer shifts requiring high alertness would be possible.

On average, I'd say that for so called 24/7 coverage there could be less than 2 people per position.

Trying to imagine establishing a security perimeter for this ship in a foreign port

For starters, you wouldn't even port if you thought there was a security issue. In many locals we stayed at sea and took the liberty boats in. Some foreign ports are friendly and you are at a secured location with some security is provided by local forces. We didn't have a squad of marines at each and every access point of the ship. Typically you limited access to the area the ship was in and only needed security at a few checkpoints. The majority of the armed response security forces were unseen and just needed to be ready and available to respond if the folk on watch sounded the alarm.

It's been 20+ years so I can't remember the code but when a ship wide alert requiring a marine response was announced it didn't matter if you were the lowest crewman or a high ranking officer, you hugged the bulkhead because those passageways were narrow and the jar heads took their job seriously (and wouldn't mind the opportunity to mess up a sailor without reprimand) and would make you one with the bulkhead on their own if you were in their way.

 

[Timerover51]

How about starting here, with the current US Coast Guard standards for ship manning. It is Volume III, Marine Industry Personnel.

http://www.uscg.mil/directives/listing_cim.asp?id=16000-16999

Use that for your basic ship crew, and then figure out what additional personnel you need on board a military ship. One thing that would be needed on all but the smallest military ships would be a medic of some form, along with at least a one-bed sick bay.

 

[Mithras]

Coming from Cosmic Gamer's perspective, I watch or try to watch as many documentaries as I can on modern ships and military vessels. There have been some great British series following HMS Ocean, HMS Manchester and recently the training of new Royal Navy submarine commanders. You see all kinds of great stuff for use in games and designs, like the academic classes held for ratings in their free time, or the nurse running clinics, who gets involved in the fire fighting drills and what do they do. Who gets leave, who has to stand watch. Who gets into trouble and what happens to them. Great stuff. Seen a couple of great hour long documentaries on life aboard a US aircraft carrier, too. One of those is on You Tube, as may be the others I mentioned.

 

[warwizard]

This was taken from my design of a GURPS Tech level 10 ship design (Traveller Tech level equivalent of Traveller Tech C)

NETTLE CLASS DESTROYER ESCORT 1,000 Dtons designed and built at the Lunion Shipyards.

Jump-4, Manuever 2.03 G's

Jump 4 will be TL D

More importantly? How many of you might want to try and take a stab at designing a ship similiar to my GURPS version of a Destroyer Escort in your favorite system and show how you did it?

k here you go:

P.S. I have the first pass at afull design in an excell sheet you can PM me for it, we can't post the full nuts and bolts of a design, just the results.
I'm going to do this in T4 FF&S

All I have to go on is 1000 Td J4, 2g's and military escort, so I'll assume the escort would be providing area missile defense for the protection of the escorted ship. ECM fittings and lasers , sand casters, and point defense missiles 4, 2, and 4 turrets devoted to each respectively, though T4 does not apply a 1 turret per 100 Dt rule.

I put in anti grav and g comp for 2g's, max computer for TL 13 CM.3 (multiply crew needed by CM for Low automation) though you could go with standard automation ( CM divide by 3) or high automation (CM divide by 5) to shrink the crew size)
Low automation:
Maneuvering crew = 5 (28000*.3=4200 , lookup table 206 more than 2055, but less than or equal 4227 = 5)
Electronics crew = 2 (number of electronic systems * CM round down)
Engineering crew = 21 CM * (power in MW/30 + (mass of j and m drives /60))
Maintenance crew = 3 (ships troops can replace this item) (mass of all drives defenses weapons and whatever else needs it /500 times CM)
Medical crew = 1
Command crew = 9
Ship's troops = 24 (I have ship's troops act as gunners)
cooks = 1 (1/50 crew and troops round down)
Low Automation Total = 66

High Automation = 39

 

[Hal]

Jump 4 will be TL D

Correction noted (oops)




Ok, now - set up a duty roster for day to day operations covering 24/7.

Even if you decide that people don't need to do maintenance 24 hours a day, but only put in 8 hours a day, it would be interesting to see just what the duty roster of any given Traveller ship might look like.

 

[warwizard]

My military experiance was in the Air Force not the navy. When we had alerts and compressed our three shifts into two we had extra bodies that we could give over to pulling guard someplace. First shift had the NCO in charge of all of the repair shops and the NCO's in charge of each shop working on that shift, (not that they ever turn a screw or flip a switch), and would get some 45% of the roster, 2nd shift would get some 33% of the roster and then the 3rd shift would get what remained some 22%.

We had 6 test stations that each would be manned by a single person. 3rd shift would get 4 people, 2nd, 7 and first 10 when we went on 12 hr days that became 10 and 11, with only 6 folks actually needed at a time to do the work of the shop, we could offer up to 8 bodies for alert taskings.

We have 21 crew for my engineering staff and they get 2 full time command and a third command that also has the maintenance crew reporting to that officer. I establish the stations that have to be manned and proceed from there.

In the Essex class aircraft carriers you had somebody sitting on a chair at the back of the boiler watching a pressure gage and that duty station was manned any time the boiler was in operation, they did not have any automation, if you have three boilers, three stations had to be manned. With automation that pressure gage is still there and there is a procedure in place to watch it if the automation should fail, but now all the pressure gages are reported on a single screen and you have a person sitting in front of the screen in low automation, in high automation the screen is not watched, instead S/W loop monitors the pressures about every second and alerts the engineer on his screen if the pressure is outside the parameters set by the engineer.
So now on a starship we have a power plant where heat is generated and used to make steam and turn a turbine to make electricity not much different from the TL=5 Essex class or even the TL 6 Enterprise or TL 7 Nimitz.

The Jump drive requires monitoring only in jump , and the maneuver drives only in acceleration so I have the same folks monitor both the jump and maneuver drives. After establishing the mandantory monitoring stations the excess bodies are used to perform preventive maintanence checks and scheduled maintenance on whatever equipment is not currently in use and due for the checks or service. I perfer to have my monitoring personnel not pull long periods of watching a screen, so I'll break up their 8 hrs of sitting and watching with 4 hrs of being active puling the maintance jobs. Normally the engineering staff will have 4 Hr's of "free" time, the NCO's and officers job is to make sure that free time is used to good effect, training or team excercizes, workouts or whatever else they can think of. Too much idle time in a small steel box = bad.

The ship's troops form two squads each with a jr officer and then 1 more officer for overall command of the troops they will have duty in 12 hrs a day, with extra tasking for an additional 4 so I keep them busy 16 hrs a day. Men with guns and idle time = bad.

So the ship can run on 8 to 12 hours a day doing official jobs or secondary jobs from all personnel, with extra inventive tasking for an additional 4 hours to keep the crew busy.

Does that sound about right to all the folks that served in various wet navies?

 

[Mithras]

That's really interesting Warwizard. Do you create duty rosters for all your ships then? I'm intrigued by what kind of duties you give your ship's troops... I always struggle to find things for them to do.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

When I was in the Navy our standard rotation was 12 on 12 off.

Yes, though in-port could be different. This is why you have admin personnel in your crew - to figure that stuff out. (Try putting one of your adventurers on watch while the ship's in port; see whether he assumes it's because something will happen to the ship or if he's simply being cut off from the adventure.)

We didn't have a squad of marines at each and every access point of the ship.

Often just ordinary crewmen standing around and looking tough. Though after the USS Cole bombing, they started arming those ordinary crewmen in a lot of instances (sidearms and shotguns a lot of the time).

...you hugged the bulkhead...

Oh yeah! One of the few opportunities they get to actually do their thing, and they take great satisfaction in doing it! :smirk:

 

[Fritz_Brown]

One of the things to keep in mind (as some have mentioned) is automation. However, automation is usually driven by a need to reduce your human resource requirement. (I know, how very specieist of me. ) In a huge empire with oodles of worlds with pop 9-A, do you really need to minimize your crew requirements? In my ATU, the worlds are much younger with significantly less population, with small polities - so automation is key in some places.

Also, as has been mentioned elsewhere, in some situations - such as damage control - you need lots of people. Automation won't cut it. So you plan your crew for the worst situation... and have to find things for them to do the rest of the time. (The situation is the same in the army, where you need lots of bodies when the bullets fly, and have to find make-work in garrison.) So, your bulkheads get painted - a lot - and your decks get swabbed and brass gets polished, etc. And, if you don't *need* that bit of automation, then you might stick with the manual process - because it means you can do the work of one with two people during that non-critical time.

Just my CrImp0.02.

 

[CosmicGamer]

When I was in the Navy our standard rotation was 12 on 12 off.

Yes, though in-port could be different.

Of course in port was different. Typically a 8 hour work day and liberty unless it was a duty day. To tell you the truth it's been so long I can't remember, but I think it was still a 7 day work week when not in home port.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Agree, CosmicGamer, in-port could be different in all sorts of ways - min manning, minimal watch-standing at night, full manning and watch-standing, etc. (Mainly, it seemed to depend on how fun the port was. )

 

[HG_B]

One of the things to keep in mind (as some have mentioned) is automation. However, automation is usually driven by a need to reduce your human resource requirement. (I know, how very specieist of me. ) In a huge empire with oodles of worlds with pop 9-A, do you really need to minimize your crew requirements?

With starships there is a HUGE incentive to reduce as you free up tonnage than can be used better. More armour, drives, fuel, et al.

When you get into a battle, wanting to provide employment for the masses isn't going to make the enemy give you quarter...

 

[Timerover51]

With starships there is a HUGE incentive to reduce as you free up tonnage than can be used better. More armour, drives, fuel, et al.

When you get into a battle, wanting to provide employment for the masses isn't going to make the enemy give you quarter...

You are only thinking military ships. On a civilian ship, the pressure to reduce up front capital costs for automation has to be balanced against paying ship crew, which do give you extra bodies if you need them.

 

[HG_B]

You are only thinking military ships.

Yes, because the title of this thread IS: "Military Ships and Crewing"

 

[Timerover51]

Yes, because the title of this thread IS: "Military Ships and Crewing"

My apologies, I forgot that.

 

[HG_B]

My apologies, I forgot that.

No prob. It would be interesting to explore though. Lots of variables to consider.

 

[Timerover51]

No prob. It would be interesting to explore though. Lots of variables to consider.

Well, part of it is going to be how heavily populated the home world of the planet or nation building the ship is, and what Tech Level are they. Also, how comfortable are they with automation, or do they prefer the flexibility of having humans. What are the expected roles or missions of the ship is another factor. A ship that is intended for more police duties may put a premium on having more than enough crew to make boarding and seizing possible.

 

[warwizard]

That's really interesting Warwizard. Do you create duty rosters for all your ships then? I'm intrigued by what kind of duties you give your ship's troops... I always struggle to find things for them to do.

No I emphatically do not create duty rosters, (if the game that is being played require such, I have the players create them).
I do however have a feel for how a military ship is organized and can trot out suitible shore parties and boarding parties and prize crews at a few minutes notice, more than that and I have to come up with more details as needed for the game to proceed.
Hopefully the write up of the campaign has addressed crewing strategies of the various polities in the campaign as well as para military and coporate and non military common crewing accepted practices.

As for all the bells and whistles in your ship design, I assume many of the spaces are multi use (a ward room / dining hall/ ball room/ court room/ briefing room/ whatever else they need it to be at the moment)
Call some of the spaces as multi use reconfigurable 4 Dt., and that covers a lot of it.
I see the 14,000 m3 Destroyer escort as presented here as equivalent to a 7000 Ton displacement wet navy surface combatant (.5 mt/m3 average density for a surface combattant) so a light crusier sized ship in today's Navy. Obviously the computer automation has reduced the crew requirements by over 2/3 of what we crewed such ships with as recently as WW2 where a Fletcher class DD would have a crew of nearly 200.

IMTU I'm looking at establishing completly different paradgims for the two antignostic culture's crewing standards.
The Valani Breaux ships have families aboard their military ships with 3 and 4 generations represented. The ship is their home and the spaces are designed with an eye towards harmony and peace of mind. Growing green things, small alcoves where one can go and surround onself with nature and in all things an eye towards beauty of design and function. Typically I'd double the volume available per crew person, and qudriple the costs of the habitation spaces, and rack this cost in space and effort to a higher level of "culture", (per pocket empires defination of culture). High automation is the assummed default.
The Terran nations have put almost no effort into making the berthing areas of their ships even marginally pleasing to the eye, everything is functional conciderations only, put a "rack" wherever it fits without regard to foot traffic, or noise or operating macherery, except where it represents an active hazard to the person trying to use the rack. If needed assign hot bunking, keep the crews tasked every waking moment. Standard is low automation.

A Valani taking a tour of a Terran ship will likley not recognise a rack for it's function untill specifically told what the things are, and then would be horrified by the brutality and mental stress such spaces imply.