20,000 dT disputant :rofl:
Pet peeve: Wet Navy in Space
- Thread starter Tikon
- Start date
Oh look at what kind of ship they posted at Woomera shipyards.
Sounds like exactly what someone wanted:
https://studiobergstrom.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=93&product_id=607&limit=25
Sounds like exactly what someone wanted:
https://studiobergstrom.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=93&product_id=607&limit=25
It enjoys a primary purpose of carrier with a secondary role as a siege engine wrapped into a single package - creating a single point of failure. It may do well in one-on-one combat, but it's questionable how many units beyond that it could take on. Loss of the carrier leaves hundreds of shuttlecraft and fighters stranded. It would be better to assign a task force containing multiple units rather than a single vessel.
That's true of any carrier. Carriers are vulnerable to opposing carriers. However, I'm not sure how much value those shuttlecraft and fighters have. If they were really useful, the carrier wouldn't have to enter battle with its barrage weapons. It wouldn't need barrage weapons. In this case, this carrier seems to be intended more as a kind of battleship with a boarding capacity:
"This 1:3125 scale Ark Royal Carrier is a huge ship carrying hundreds of shuttles and attack craft, with engines able to bring it to any conflict in a sector in record time. This ship is central to any conflict where the fleet is spread thin, by using unusual tactics to help break down enemy shields with heavy barrage weapons, and then send squads of personnel to take over or destroy the ship from inside. ..."
Just guessing from the action in the series, but I suspect if the mothership went down, the babies could scatter and make their way to a friendly port. Of course, it depends on whether this thing is intended for a specific game and what the rules of that game are.
I personally have never much liked ships designed for boarding: you end up having to finesse the attack so you don't wreck your target without getting a chance to board. That can leave you putting your ship unnecessarily at risk in order to make the capture. Notwithstanding the description, I think this thing would have a rather narrow range of uses, mostly to capture targets for intelligence purposes. In that role, it should be part of a task force, not operating alone. I don't see them risking it and its associated troops and shuttles in a fair fight unless the intelligence being sought was particularly valuable.
Ship Naming conventions
Something to keep in mind is that game designers still need the labels and titles to be relatable to the players. So if you called a frigate-class ship a 'bunk', and a destroyer-class ship a 'tard', players would not be familiar with those labels and may reject them.
The other thing to keep in mind is that navies are all about traditions, as are most armed forces. If naval destroyers and frigates had certain traditional duties in wet navies, there's no reason why they couldn't be exported to space as well. Systems still need to be policed and patrolled, capital ships (regardless of their labels) still need escorts and scouts.
Something to keep in mind is that game designers still need the labels and titles to be relatable to the players. So if you called a frigate-class ship a 'bunk', and a destroyer-class ship a 'tard', players would not be familiar with those labels and may reject them.
The other thing to keep in mind is that navies are all about traditions, as are most armed forces. If naval destroyers and frigates had certain traditional duties in wet navies, there's no reason why they couldn't be exported to space as well. Systems still need to be policed and patrolled, capital ships (regardless of their labels) still need escorts and scouts.
Really a matter of assigning the right ship for the job, be it system patrol or jump point interdiction.
Garyius2003
SOC-13
I looked this up to make sure I recalled correctly. The Lexington CV-2 was converted from a battlecruiser hull and had four 8" ships guns. During WWII these were taken off and replaced by many AA guns.
The WWII escort carriers had 5" guns, the same as destroyers, and these were actually useful during the Taffy 3 debacle, when extremely brave destroyers and escort destroyers along with a cloud of land bombing equipped aircraft convinced the most modern and powerful of the IJN surface fleet major units to retreat.
I would think in addition to the screens and many caster and laser turrets for missile defense, Traveller carriers would want a few bay weapons to give them a chance against a DE that slipped past the line and the protective patrols.
The WWII escort carriers had 5" guns, the same as destroyers, and these were actually useful during the Taffy 3 debacle, when extremely brave destroyers and escort destroyers along with a cloud of land bombing equipped aircraft convinced the most modern and powerful of the IJN surface fleet major units to retreat.
I would think in addition to the screens and many caster and laser turrets for missile defense, Traveller carriers would want a few bay weapons to give them a chance against a DE that slipped past the line and the protective patrols.
Baithammer
SOC-2
Which should be handled by your own escorts and being a carrier should be far away from direct contact with the enemy.
Garyius2003
SOC-13
Which makes sense if we are looking at a 2018 wet navy carrier battle group which moves in formation as soon as it leaves port. Not quite as great of an idea if there is even a 5% chance your carrier emerges in an enemy system 6 hours prior to the majority of her escorts.
But this is a quandry. Current carrier doctrine, or Cold War doctrine, was to create a "wall of steel" around the carrier, which serves as a mobile piece of real estate to allow weapons' delivery platforms to deliver their ordinance. Do Traveller carriers really do that? A BB seems to be the vessel of choice for more heavy missions. Traveller CV(A)s seem more cinematic.
pendragonman
Absent Friends Margrave
Really depends on TL. Well, that and what the campaign maximum hull size is.
The design of a ship will depend on the rules used and how easy it is for ships to "punch above their weight". There are sets of rules in which ships have a limited number of hardpoints; above a certain size, you can't mount more guns, so you have to fill that space with fighters to maintain any kind of ship-killing capability.
If killing ships above your size is easy, ships will tend to be small. If there is a need for a large ship weapon to overcome a defense (such as carrying a weapon equivalent or more than the biggest deep-site meson gun) then you will need to mount that on a large ship and have other large ships serves as its screens.
If I were to design a ship combat system, I would make it so that ships could (depending on design) seriously threaten ships one size larger than themselves and provide credible threat en masse to ships two size classes larger. Fighters and too-small ships would be useful as means to scrub enemy ships of secondary capability, without killing them or depriving them of their main mission. The "basic" ship that all others are designed around or in contrast to would be one which carries a weapon equal to deep site meson guns. There is a lot of this in most editions or versions of Traveller, just as there are in many historical eras.
If killing ships above your size is easy, ships will tend to be small. If there is a need for a large ship weapon to overcome a defense (such as carrying a weapon equivalent or more than the biggest deep-site meson gun) then you will need to mount that on a large ship and have other large ships serves as its screens.
If I were to design a ship combat system, I would make it so that ships could (depending on design) seriously threaten ships one size larger than themselves and provide credible threat en masse to ships two size classes larger. Fighters and too-small ships would be useful as means to scrub enemy ships of secondary capability, without killing them or depriving them of their main mission. The "basic" ship that all others are designed around or in contrast to would be one which carries a weapon equal to deep site meson guns. There is a lot of this in most editions or versions of Traveller, just as there are in many historical eras.
A group of ships working together - a high value unit (carrier, transport, etc) plus escorts for example - would have to jump to a point far enough out in the destination system that this group could re-form before the defenders can attack any part of the group that arrives early.
On the other hand, ships supposed to jump in close, giving the target as little warning as possible, would have to be capable of operating alone.
Can you give an example?
pendragonman
Absent Friends Margrave
If the max tonnage doesn't allow for spinals, fighters take a bigger roll
At lower TL spinal weapons don't have as drastic a separator from what fighters can bring in
How do spinals and fighters have the same mission objectives?
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
In HG'80 your computer model nd therefore TL limits you to a maximum hull size.
At lower TLs you can not build a ship big enough yo carry a spinal
Using LBB2 only then you are limited to a maximum hull size of 5000t and no bay or spinal weapons by the rules as written.
To 'upgun' warships fighters can be carried.
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Okay, I get it. It's a metagaming issue. But in the flavor of a space opera adventure, do CVs operate the same way as BBs and DNs? I think in a Star Wars way, sure, but you can't really template modern carrier doctrine into ACS or HG Traveller space combat.
Tomcats and Hornets move faster than carriers, and carry precision HE ordinance that can ruin a ship with a single hit. That's not really the case with an Imperial Rampart fighter.
Tomcats and Hornets move faster than carriers, and carry precision HE ordinance that can ruin a ship with a single hit. That's not really the case with an Imperial Rampart fighter.
Depends on the game or setting.
Some like Battlestar Galactica rely on fighters because, in that setting, in space nukes are only a bit more powerful than the other weapons, but have to screen against fighters which might carry them.
Some like Space Battleship Yamato have spinal weapons, sure, yet still rely on fighters as the fighters can do serious damage as the live action movie shows.
Some like HG often make me wonder why have fighters, when RAW, fighters don't seem that powerful even in massed squadrons unless a crit occurs.
Then again, who is to say that the Super Star Destroyer in Star Wars VI was not subjected to a massed squadron attack and took a main bridge critical hit ala High Guard? After all that A-Wing crash could just be dramatic flavor video.
Some like Battlestar Galactica rely on fighters because, in that setting, in space nukes are only a bit more powerful than the other weapons, but have to screen against fighters which might carry them.
Some like Space Battleship Yamato have spinal weapons, sure, yet still rely on fighters as the fighters can do serious damage as the live action movie shows.
Some like HG often make me wonder why have fighters, when RAW, fighters don't seem that powerful even in massed squadrons unless a crit occurs.
Then again, who is to say that the Super Star Destroyer in Star Wars VI was not subjected to a massed squadron attack and took a main bridge critical hit ala High Guard? After all that A-Wing crash could just be dramatic flavor video.
