Plankwell and Kokirrak

[robject]

Goal

I've gone thru this before, but I'm going to look at the entries in Supplement 9 and try to pinpoint exactly what makes a Plankwell, a Plankwell, and what makes a Kokirrak, a Kokirrak, and how you can tell one from the other.

Assumption

Supplement 9 is useful for extracting the intent of the ship designs, even though encountered ships of these classes may vary from the text.

Similarities

They're both 200 kt, TL 15, Model/9fib, typically no troops, no fighter wings, same nuclear damper, same meson spine, similar enough secondary weaponry (you could pretty nearly swap their loadouts around without fundamentally changing the ships).

While their armor factors are different (10 for Plankwell, 12 for Kokirrak), I am yet unconvinced that this is a defining difference between the two classes, and am tempted to state that they are both armored to essentially the same level (even though in High Guard, AV 12 is distinctly better than AV 10). I would like to assume that Imperial dreadnoughts are able to take more damage than they dish out.

Differences

Thus, ignoring cost, I am left with these primary differentiators:

Plankwell: J4, 5G, P8, Modular Construction. Screen Factor 3. 1200 Crew.

Kokirrak: J3, 6G, P10. Screen Factor 8. 1600 Crew. Black Globe (half of them).

It seems that the key difference is performance, with defenses negatively affected by jump rating. Therefore there do seem to be two basic types of dreadnought, just like there are two types of cruiser: strategically fast, or tactically fast.

The Essential TL 15 Imperial Dreadnought

A restatement of what I think the essential TL15 Imperial dreadnought doctrine is:

• J4 M5 -or- J3 M6
• Best possible computer
• Best nuclear damper and screens
• Most effective meson spine
• Best possible armor
• Plenty of secondary weaponry and defenses.

It may or may not have other features (like troops and fighters, black globes, modular construction, and whatnot), but it must have the above.

 

[Ulsyus]

What's the cost difference between the two? Enough for another entire squadron at what point?

 

[robject]

What's the cost difference between the two? Enough for another entire squadron at what point?

By High Guard rules, they're within 12% of each other. BCr 120 versus BCr 135. Buy ten Plankwells for the price of nine Kokirraks. Buy a cheaper ship, get a cheaper ship.

 

[pendragonman]

Perhaps Plankwell is the early TL 15 design, where not all technologies were up to TL 15 standard at time of build?

Kinda like the difference between a Kennedy and a Nimitz Supercarrier?

Just spitballing here.

 

[robject]

Perhaps Plankwell is the early TL 15 design, where not all technologies were up to TL 15 standard at time of build?

Kinda like the difference between a Kennedy and a Nimitz Supercarrier?

Just spitballing here.

That is certainly a possibility. Early Dreadnought-15? Maybe.

I'm prone to thinking that the Plankwell is actually better designed than Supplement 9 says. In other words, errata. In one sense this is unfair for purchasers and users of Supplement 9. On the other hand, S9 is ancient, so retrofixes are less painful than they would've been in the 1980s. And on the Gripping Hand, there's certainly a precedent for ships being designed "wrong".

But beyond all of those considerations, in reality what I've got is a strong sense for what TL15 dreadnoughts are, and what they can do. How they are designed is almost a secondary consideration at this point, since the right way to design a design system is to first write the combat rules.

In other words, this is a discovery exercise that hopefully helps me gain background information for when Marc writes BCS.

 

[atpollard]

From the mechanics of the rules, is there really anything magic about the 200,000 dTons?
I am just wondering out loud if a 'vest-pocket dreadnought' might end up overwhelmingly superior.
I seem to recall a lot of TCS combats being won by larger fleets of smaller ships (some by rules gimmicks and some not).

 

[robject]

From the mechanics of the rules, is there really anything magic about the 200,000 dTons?
I am just wondering out loud if a 'vest-pocket dreadnought' might end up overwhelmingly superior.
I seem to recall a lot of TCS combats being won by larger fleets of smaller ships (some by rules gimmicks and some not).

A dreadnought is primarily there to allow a Factor T meson gun to bear as long as possible. The payload, therefore, is the spine, tactical secondaries, and defenses including armor.

Very roughly, the drives and fuel take up appx 5% + 40% + 8% + 6% + 13% = 72% of the ship. Engineering crew increases that percentage by 11% of 26% (one stateroom per 35 tons of drive), or an additional 3%, so total drives, fuel and support is around 75%. Call the bridge and its backup as 4%. Call the armor another 11%, and we're at 90%.

(Note that most of the crew of a dreadnought is engineering)

Leaving 10% (20,000t) for the spine (call it 5,000t), secondaries (a hundred bays could be 10,000t), defenses AND OPERATIONAL CREW (5,000 tons). It's easy to spend 20,000 tons on payload.


Vest Pocket Dreadnought

Now let's shrink the payload down; when we do that, we're scaling the size of our ship. So a 10,000 ton payload very roughly defines a 100,000 ton dreadnought, and a 5,000 ton payload very roughly defines a 50,000 ton "dreadnought". Already we can see that there is no such thing as a viable 50,000 ton dreadnought, simply because there's no room for defenses. This is the Eurisko solution; however, we know Eurisko suffers from strategic and morale problems which High Guard cannot anticipate. So we move on.

How about the 10,000 ton payload, then? We can fit in a Factor T meson spine, but secondaries and defenses still suffer. While we have something that packs a good punch, the ship does not have the staying power to bear on its enemies.

 

[rancke]

Similarities

[...]

Differences

Thus, ignoring cost, I am left with these primary differentiators:

Plankwell: 5G, P8, Modular Construction. Screen Factor 3. 1200 Crew.

Kokirrak: 6G, P10. Screen Factor 8. 1600 Crew. Black Globe (half of them).

Originally all of them carried black globes. The present-day situation of half of them no longer carrying BGs is due to globes breaking and not being replaced.

It seems that the key differences is the Plankwell's modular construction, and its poor choices in performance and meson screen. I therefore take the Kokirrak as being the probable representative of the Imperial TL15 dreadnought and Imperial naval doctrine in general (J4, M6, best screens possible, best armor possible, most effective meson spine).

I think the main difference is that one was designed by one set of people and the other was designed by another set of people. Even if they were designed for the exact same purpose, that would be enough to account for the differences¹. And they weren't. The Kokirraks were designed to carry relic black globes; the Plankwells weren't.

¹ Assuming a ratio of 1:3 battleships to cruisers, the Imperium maintains a standing navy of 5000 battleships. Every year some of them are lost, mothballed, or sold out of the service. Every once in a while the decision is made to discontinue building one class and to build a different one to replace it. And it's going to be a new set of people who design the new class. New people means new priorities and new opinions of how to achieve those priorities.​

Hans

 

[martletsquire]

You might consider politics. Yes, the evil word.

Dread Lord A will sign off on Plankwells if Dread Lord B signs off on Kokirraks. Best way to look at it is see where they are manufactured and based. Money makes the Imperium go round, so to speak.

If you question the above hypothesis, then I request you look into various government purchases of big ticket items, such as the next gen air tanker (Airbus, no, Boing, no Airbus, no, Boing?)

Payola, payola, payola.

The manufacturing rights alone are worth, well, billions, but being the base for a single heavy capital ship and its ancillary craft, and support staff and infrastructure, can mean the difference between being on the edge financially and being well-off for many planets and systems. (Just look at the issues behind where just a USN Destroyer will be based and you'll see what I am talking about.)

 

[robject]

I can't argue with that. Both of you essentially said the same thing: different priorities create different designs, for purposes often unrelated to the stated purpose of the ship itself.

And a wargame ought to account for that, as well. Of course, High Guard is merciless as a design system, requiring the designer to locate and exploit the optimal points of the combat system in order to find successful designs. In the real world, complexities in personality, politics, and procurement create a degree of uncertainty completely absent from HG.

 

[Ulsyus]

And it's going to be a new set of people who design the new class. New people means new priorities and new opinions of how to achieve those priorities.[/SIZE][/INDENT][/INDENT]

Hans

Ah, this bears on the real-world factor here. How many hours of playing had been done with HG before the designs were published? Whereas in 3I by the time the TL15 Plankwell came along there would have been hundreds of years of design and modification and testing and operational use to drive the 3I RFP for battleship design tenders.

Unless the Plankwell was an older design that there were far too many hulls of to consider just scrapping the whole lot and they were retrofitted with TL14 and later TL15 equipment. If the bulk of the cost had already been covered, then refitting those massive hulls may have been cheaper than having to replace them. Maybe not cheaper all things considered, but cheaper for each administration?

 

[robject]

Right - there are many ways to accommodate the Plankwell in story. But, under High Guard, there is a mechanical fiction* based on finding those optimal points.

* In Vilani: dukurshaa, an inability to tell the difference between numbers and reality. Sort of a Heisenberg's principle for interstellar commerce and industry. Failure to differentiate the two is a sign of insanity in Vilani culture.

 

[rancke]

Ah, this bears on the real-world factor here. How many hours of playing had been done with HG before the designs were published? Whereas in 3I by the time the TL15 Plankwell came along there would have been hundreds of years of design and modification and testing and operational use to drive the 3I RFP for battleship design tenders.

Well, not hundreds of years. The Imperium has been building TL15 ships for a bit over a century. But your point stands, because there must have been hundreds of thousands of man-years spent on such pursuits in the OTU.

Unless the Plankwell was an older design that there were far too many hulls of to consider just scrapping the whole lot and they were retrofitted with TL14 and later TL15 equipment.

The service life of an Imperial warship seems to be less than a century. Any ship design in service in 1105 would have been built since the Imperium started building TL15 ships. All we know is that the Plankwells have been in service "for decades" and that in 1102 the single Plankwell BatRon stationed in the Spinward Marches was rotate to the strategic reserve in Corridor. (Note: 'strategic reserve' is not the same thing as 'the reserves').

If the bulk of the cost had already been covered, then refitting those massive hulls may have been cheaper than having to replace them. Maybe not cheaper all things considered, but cheaper for each administration?

If they haven't been mothballed or sold out of the service or transferred to auxiliary service, they're probably considered adequate front-line units still.


Hans

 

[martletsquire]

Just because they've been building TL15 ships for a century doesn't mean that they have got it right. (Dodging rotten tomatoes)


Send 5 of your best ship designer friends the design requirement for a TL15 200kt battleship, and you'll get 5 different designs. One will be a defensive beast, one will be almost pure offense, and the other 3 will be splattered somewhere in between. All of them will have the same J and M ratings, computers and such.

The original HG designed ships were built using rules that were new or relatively new. We now have... 25-30 years experience with HG and its variants, plus super computer programs and such, to give us the theoretical knowledge base that a real design firm would have. I know that when HG came out (God, I was young) I thought it was perfect, only starting to curse and question it after using it for a while. The HG system is like any other system, a compromise between ease of use and reality. A good comparison are the two classic Avalon Hill WWII games Panzerblitz and Advanced Squad Leader. You can spend a day or two playing a PB game. You can also easily spend a day or two playing two rounds (4 minutes of "Combat" time) of ASL. PB gives you broad strokes, ASL lets you see the blood oozing and the screams coming from the counters...

 

[Theophilus]

They're both 200 kt, TL 15, Jump-4 dreadnoughts, Model/9fib, typically no troops, no fighter wings, same nuclear damper, same meson spine, similar enough secondary weaponry (you could pretty nearly swap their loadouts around without fundamentally changing the ships).

I believe this is an error. Based upon a misprint in Supp9.

The Plankwell is J4 m5 Pn8 While the Kokirraks is J3 M6 Pn10

Plankwell: Dreadnaught BB-S4458J4-A73909-967T9-0 MCr120,494 200 ktons
Kokirraks: Dreadnaught BB-S436AJ4-C78909-697T9-0 MCr135,102. 200 ktons

These are taken straight from Supp9.

The written text for the Kokirraks says:
200,000 tons (standard). 2.800,000 cubic meters.
275 officers, 1368 ratings.
Jump-4. 6-G. Power plant-A. 20,000 EP. Agility 6.
Model/9fib computer.

However this is impossible using HG rules as J4 (45%), M6 (17%) Pn10 (10%) Bridge(2%) Armor 12 (13%) Totals 87% and leaves insufficient room for all other equipage. 26000 tons, 14730 for weapons 20,000 for fuel etc. Plus it only has 80000 fuel So jump and no fuel for Pn or J3 (60000) and 20000 for Pn.

Hoiwever if it is J3 (34%) we gain 11% or 22000 tons leaving 48000 tons, minus weapons and Pn fuel 34730 leaves 13270 for Shields crew comp. etc.

Hence I believe the text in the writeup is a misprint, and the Kokirraks is actually Jump-3. As shown it the USP.

Also the Kokirraks is mentioned in Gateway to Destiny as being in service, circa 990, hence a TL14 design which was upgraded to TL 15? (Yes you can fit it all in at TL 14 if you drop the PN to 8 and the spinal mount to Q) So I suppose the Kokirraks is a TL 14 design that was upgraded (Like the Atlantic Heavy cruiser from T20 Supp 7 fighting ships)

(yes I know the reference in gateway way a "misprint" but it's there so I'll milk it for all it's worth)

 

[robject]

The Kokirrak is a Jump-3 design? That is interesting indeed.

BB-S436AJ4-C78909-697T9-0

Wow, you're right, the USP notes it as Jump-3. The text must be a copy error from the Plankwell.

Well that explains how the Kokirrak can have better defenses.

I'm updating my OP yet again.

 

[rancke]

Also the Kokirraks is mentioned in Gateway to Destiny as being in service, circa 990, hence a TL14 design which was upgraded to TL 15? (Yes you can fit it all in at TL 14 if you drop the PN to 8 and the spinal mount to Q) So I suppose the Kokirraks is a TL 14 design that was upgraded (Like the Atlantic Heavy cruiser from T20 Supp 7 fighting ships)

(yes I know the reference in gateway way a "misprint" but it's there so I'll milk it for all it's worth)

Actually, I'd prefer to explain away Gateway's mention of Kokirraks. 120+ years is a long service life for a ship, and I just don't believe that retrofitting TL15 stuff onto a TL14 ship miraculously turn it into a TL15 ship. (It certainly is against the ship design rules :devil.


Hans

 

[martletsquire]

Went to my handy-dandy dog-eared Sup 9, and under the Kokirrak description, last paragraph says they are older models and are being phased out. Sounds like they may have been TL14 models upgraded to TL15 levels, or TL15 models built to an older TL14/J3 requirement.

Furthermore, it does state that they are being phased out, with some being transferred to client states and such.

 

[rancke]

Went to my handy-dandy dog-eared Sup 9, and under the Kokirrak description, last paragraph says they are older models and are being phased out. Sounds like they may have been TL14 models upgraded to TL15 levels, or TL15 models built to an older TL14/J3 requirement.

I disagree. If you look at the service life of the Azhanti High Lightnings, they started to get rid of them in 1002, 11 years after the first one was built, before the last one had been finished. No doubt this had something to do with them being TL14 and the IN having begun to build TL15 ships. But most of them were kept in service until 1048, when 16 were transferred to fleet auxiliary, 20 were placed in ordinary, and 12 were scrapped. I think one can safely say that in 1048 the AHLs were being phased out. That's around 50-60 years after being built. If the Kokirraks are just reaching that point in their lifetime by 1107, then everything else being equal they should have been built around 1050 -- 50 years after the Imperium began building TL15 ships in earnest.

This also fits quite nicely with the Atlantics, TL15 ships built between 1020¹ and 1050, of which some 37% have been lost or transferred out of the navy in 87 years and are "fast approaching obsolescence.

¹ Some may or may not have been built earlier than that.​

Furthermore, it does state that they are being phased out, with some being transferred to client states and such.

Certainly. That's not in dispute. But what does that say about their age? I submit that it could mean that they are 60 or 70 or perhaps even 80 years old, but there's no way they are over 105 years old and built at TL14.


Hans

 

[Ulsyus]

The original HG designed ships were built using rules that were new or relatively new. We now have... 25-30 years experience with HG and its variants, plus super computer programs and such, to give us the theoretical knowledge base that a real design firm would have. I know that when HG came out (God, I was young) I thought it was perfect, only starting to curse and question it after using it for a while. The HG system is like any other system, a compromise between ease of use and reality. A good comparison are the two classic Avalon Hill WWII games Panzerblitz and Advanced Squad Leader. You can spend a day or two playing a PB game. You can also easily spend a day or two playing two rounds (4 minutes of "Combat" time) of ASL. PB gives you broad strokes, ASL lets you see the blood oozing and the screams coming from the counters...

This gets back to the nub of the matter in that the BCS game needs to be fun, engaging, swift and challenging with large vessels in numbers of up to a couple of squadrons, all playable in an evening. I'd use Battle Rideras a space analogy for PB (which is neatly sitting on a shelf looking down into my living room!!) but for ASL I'd use the Saganami Island Tactical Simulator: man, that's one crazy game of 3D movement and insane tracking of firing arcs and missile movement...