Proposed Ship mission codes

[mike wightman]

Frigate usually denotes a ship class, escort is a mission type. And therin lies the problem with the mission code shorthand - the conflation of ship class and ship mission.

It has already been mentioned that the word cruiser was originally a mission type, it later changed into a ship class.

 

[Condottiere]

When I had a go at describing a more politically correct interstellar navy, all capital ships were cruisers, with battle being the largest, and intermediate combatants being frigates, ending up with sloops, skipping battleships and destroyers.

The reason the warship names evolved in the Victorian Age was that single gundeck combatants were frigates, and as guns got larger and heavier, and you needed the lower decks for engines, two, three and four deckers disappeared, and the number of guns shrunk.

Line of battle ships was simplified in Late Victorian, and we all know where dreadnought and monitor came from.

Torpedo boat describes the principal mission of a (usually) fast small boat, and it's counter, the torpedo boat destroyer.

Then the two missions merged, and by the Great Patriotic War, the destroyer became the disposable utility craft, which could be built for specific missions, whether independent cruises by the larger ones, fleet escorts, patrol sweeps, taking over flotilla leader role from light cruisers, and so on.

Part of the reason were treaty obligations, trying to squeeze out more capability because the larger warships were limited in number.

I think until the twentieth century, navies were quite happy to keep track of their orders of battle simply by name, not pennant numbers or letters.

 

[McPerth]

The distinction that I would make here is a question of Law ... as in which side of the Law you're operating on.
Under my proposal, P coded ships would be operating under color of law, while R coded ships would effectively be outlaws.
So the P ships are the system defense forces and the R ships are the pirates (in the wet navy sense) at the paramilitary organization level.

But, and excuse me to ask, who would put a mission code that reveals you as illegal?

I mean, we all know there may be pirates, and that's a ship's mission, but for its very nature, it's one to keep hidden, not to reveal in your code definition. That would be, IMHO, as stting you're a thief or an assassin in your linkedin page...

Frigate usually denotes a ship class, escort is a mission type. And therin lies the problem with the mission code shorthand - the conflation of ship class and ship mission.

Sure, but the frigate class ships mission has changed with time. At age of sail, they filled the role latter taken by cruisers (scouting, raiding and convoy escort), latter becoming more a light patrol ship, and currently a nearly captial ship in many a Navy..

What's now the distincltion (name aside) from a Frigate to a destroyer, or even a cruiser?

Some DDGs are large enough to be named cruisers, being kept as Destroyers just for political reasons, and the roles of the three classes usually blurr...

And I guess space navies will need different roles (ev en myabe some ones we cannot foresee now), and, while the classes may keep due to tradition, the class blurring may even increase.

I guess those classes are mostly for Solomani influences Navies, as the Vilani might have other definitions (be it by roles, by their own traditions, or whatever it could be), Zhodani still others and non-human races still others, maybe derived from their own needs...

 

[Spinward Flow]

But, and excuse me to ask, who would put a mission code that reveals you as illegal?

I mean, we all know there may be pirates, and that's a ship's mission, but for its very nature, it's one to keep hidden, not to reveal in your code definition.

Uh ... because the current wiki page system includes the P-Corsair code ... so it already exists?
I'm just advocating for carrying that forward but consolidating it into the mission of Raider, since most Corsairs are raiders on shipping.

As for keeping your status as a Raider/Corsair hidden (and I agree, that would be preferable, at least at first until you "hoist the colours" and reveal that you're actually a pirate ship), the way to cover that is for the ship to be officially coded as an RQ (Raider/Corsair, Decoy) that essentially masquerades as a different class of ship (until they reveal their true nature). So the ship doesn't "officially" show up on transponder signals (and the like) as being a Raider/Corsair, meaning you aren't "advertising" your ship's true mission type for everyone to see (because you're keeping it hidden until the jig is up). After all, the element of surprise is one of the pirate's greatest weapons for encouraging "compliance" until it is too late to run (or fight back).

So a PT (Patrol, Transport) ship that has fallen into pirate hands and is now employed as a Corsair would be officially classified as a RQ, but which would spend most of its time masquerading as a PT (Patrol, Transport) still. If they can use the appearance of (still) being a legitimate PT ship in order to board merchants (for customs inspections, presumably), only to reveal themselves as pirates after it's too late for the target ship (and crew) to fight back, then the pirates can "win without firing a shot" and nobody needs to get hurt. The criminal activity involved amounts to petty theft rather than kidnapping and/or murder, especially if the pirates leave their target substantially intact (albeit lighter in the purse and cargo hold than before being boarded). The best fight to win is one where you didn't have to fight at all ... minimum risk for the rewards you can claim.

 

[Condottiere]

Usually, pirate ships are conversions.

Or if corsairs are specifically built for optimal capability, it would be difficult to disguise their purpose.

 

[robject]

But, and excuse me to ask, who would put a mission code that reveals you as illegal?

This is a really good observation. These mission codes are always for us, and usually for the game.

 

[robject]

The Fuzzy Problem is that the wiki needs a sane way to sort ships. Category, class, mission, type, code, whatever you want to call it.

Maybe it's less controversial and less confusing to use a word-based classification system.

Commercial. Exploration. Resource. Research. War.

 

[Spinward Flow]

The Fuzzy Problem is that the wiki needs a sane way to sort ships. Category, class, mission, type, code, whatever you want to call it.

Maybe it's less controversial and less confusing to use a word-based classification system.

Commercial. Exploration. Resource. Research. War.

Arguably, the wiki is already doing this, since each primary code letter corresponds to a word.

The letter codes are a useful "shorthand" for intended mission roles in the same way that the USP is a useful condensation of all the combat relevant things you need to know about craft.

This is a really good observation. These mission codes are always for us, and usually for the game.

I agree.
They're primarily useful for Players and Referees.
They're also useful for helping to sort wiki pages, so ...

 

[robject]

Except if we use a letter system that doesn't correspond with ANY Traveller rules system, have we done a disservice?

 

[McPerth]

This is a really good observation. These mission codes are always for us, and usually for the game.

I thought they were more (at least for military ships) as a reference system ,as in US navy (to keep with my former example, CV-6 for WWII Enterprise, CV-65 for year 2000 one)...

 

[mike wightman]

Why would the whole of charted space use the same codes? And why would those codes be based on some outdated system from several millennia back?
There are several issues being conflated here:
mission vs class
meta vs universe specific

 

[McPerth]

Why would the whole of charted space use the same codes? And why would those codes be based on some outdated system from several millennia back?

Not necessarly the whole chartered space. They don't even use the same alphabet, I guess.

Just the IN (and probably the Solomani, out of tradition, having been part of it). That's already a large chuk of it, and probably the whole charteres space knows of them, even if does not use them.

After all , the usual ones used on Earth (CV, BB, CA, DD, etc.) are not on the whole earth in current times...

 

[Condottiere]

I kinda doubt that the Vargr would bother with a registry.

In fact, unless some captains like to show off their starships as captured trophies, I would think there would be quite a lot of effort undertaken to obscure the history of a lot of starships.

And probably smallcraft.

 

[aramis]

I thought they were more (at least for military ships) as a reference system ,as in US navy (to keep with my former example, CV-6 for WWII Enterprise, CV-65 for year 2000 one)...

The USN's system is specifically to dodge certain limitations of the naval limitations treaties and the US congress.

EG: The Arleigh Burke class is a light cruiser by role and design... but it's labeled a frigate beccause Congress ordered them to build frigates, not cruisers
EG: The Alaska Class "Cruiser Battle" CB was a cruiser that was built to just shy of the line from capital ships in every dimension, save one: She had "battleship" guns - more than 8" and more than 8 barrels. After WW II, she had to be placed in reserve since she counted as a BB, despite the raising of non-BB gun size to 12"... as they didn't raise the 8 main guns limit, and the US Capital Tonnage had to be reduced back; it had been hoped at design that she'd be requalled as a superheavy cruiser, a practical designation that didn't materialize in the treaties.

 

[McPerth]

I kinda doubt that the Vargr would bother with a registry.

Well, I guess they know them, so that if a ship's transponder shows as an Imperial BB (before sensors give more details) they'd rather flee when they can than close for a prey....

The USN's system is specifically to dodge certain limitations of the naval limitations treaties and the US congress.

Ok, I also talked about the Kutnezov, rated as cruiser because there are treaties limitations for CVs to cross the Bosphorus straits...

But what I mean is that this system is known to many other countries, despite being basically US. So most (if not all) naval amateurs know what DD, or SS, or CA etx. means, even if their own countries don't use those codes (or even if they can be misleading due to rhe reasons you gave)

 

[Condottiere]

Technically speaking, if you have an extensive organic surface to surface missile armament for a direct ship to ship, you aren't a pure carrier.

In our case, a spinal mount is rather telling.

Whether I'd use the descriptive strike or attack carrier, it's hard to say, since it's a convention started in Fighting Ships.

 

[McPerth]

Technically speaking, if you have an extensive organic surface to surface missile armament for a direct ship to ship, you aren't a pure carrier.

Then the US Essex class (CV-2 Lexington and CV-3 Saratoga) were not pure carriers, as they had some 8" anti ship guns...

According wikipedia, the Kutnezov has no ani ship missiles, and it only anti shi parmament are torpedoes.

 

[Silverhawk]

Then the US Essex class (CV-2 Lexington and CV-3 Saratoga) were not pure carriers, as they had some 8" anti ship guns...

Lexington (CV-2) and Saratoga (CV-3) were not Essex Class carriers. They originated as two under construction Battle Cruisers that would have otherwise been scrapped after the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty. As the designers did not believe that aircraft could be an effective anti-ship weapon they were armed with 8" guns.

 

[Condottiere]

1. The "cruiser" role is facilitated by Admiral Kuznetsov's complement of 12 long-range surface-to-surface anti-ship P-700 Granit (NATO reporting name: Shipwreck) cruise missiles, resulting in the ship's Russian type designator of "heavy aircraft-carrying missile cruiser".

2. To be fair, I doubt they've loaded the launchers, since sailors have this bad habit of smoking near the magazines.

3. As regards the Lexingtons, context then applies, as to the then perceived capacity of naval air strike (not that great), defence against cruisers and battlecruisers that could catch them and engage, and the possibility that aviation cruisers could be used to circumvent the restriction on how many warships can carry six inch plus gun batteries, which then gets written into Washington and London.

4. It goes both ways, that's why I think a quarter of the cruisers could be converted to whatever version of through deck their naval architects could conceive of.

5. One loophole that London closed was that a carrier was defined as being at least ten kilotonnes; the Japanese launched the Ryūjō at eight kilotonnes, and discovered that even light carriers need a minimum size to operate optimally.

 

[McPerth]

Lexington (CV-2) and Saratoga (CV-3) were not Essex Class carriers.

You're right, they were Lexington class (2-3 classes before the Essex). My fault.

The Essex class did not have anti ship guns (though it had dual pourpose 5" ones)