Redesigning the Gazelle...

[Rigel Stardin]

Just a general question which was brought up by a post in the art gallery Armais, in which he states the Gazelle is going to be redesigned under T5.

We know the design is flawed when it was created.

The question I have is the Gazelle going to be 400 tons without drop tanks, making the gross weight 500 tons or is there something else going to happen to bring it in line with the rules?

 

[Carlobrand]

Just a general question which was brought up by a post in the art gallery Armais, in which he states the Gazelle is going to be redesigned under T5.

We know the design is flawed when it was created.

The question I have is the Gazelle going to be 400 tons without drop tanks, making the gross weight 500 tons or is there something else going to happen to bring it in line with the rules?

Maybe they'll just take away that verdammt extra turret. That's what always bothered me.

 

[Rigel Stardin]

See, that is what I'm thinking but it wouldn't be the Gazelle then. And we've grown use to the idea that the Gazelle has 4 weapons mounts. The ship has been cannonized in all the game verizons since then as well.

I've posted a design where I dropped the dorsal turrent and called it the Equine. Which allows room for the Gazelle in the Traveller Universe...

 

[Carlobrand]

...The ship has been cannonized in all the game verizons since then as well ...

Got cannonized on a TL 4 world once too. A battery of 32 pounders; shot bounced right off the hull. Then she lifted and turned her lasers on them, and ... well, not much more to say.:rofl:

 

[Rigel Stardin]

---canonized---

Okay, one more 'n' than was necessary...

Did I tell you I flunked spelling in school and Word spell checker is my friend

 

[Carlobrand]

Sorry; given the context, that one was particularly hard to resist.

 

[Rigel Stardin]

No need to apologize, I am use to leaving myself open to other amusement.

It happens everytime I open my mouth.

 

[Timerover51]

Got cannonized on a TL 4 world once too. A battery of 32 pounders; shot bounced right off the hull. Then she lifted and turned her lasers on them, and ... well, not much more to say.:rofl:

Actually, depending on how brittle the round shot are, when hitting armor one of three things happen. The first two would apply to British round shot of the Victorian period, the last to the US Navy's charcoal cast round shot of the time of the Civil War.

1. The round shot shatters into fragments on impact, endangering all in the immediate area.

2. The round shot sheers of into what I call "an iron ice cream cone", with that portion of the shot supported by the impact staying intact, while the remainder of the shot sheers off along stress lines. Best to illustrate with a picture. One such in found in Capt. Orde-Brown's Armour and its Attack by Artillery. The results of other tests appear in Holley's A Treatise on Ordnance and Armor, published in 1865, giving many of the US Navy's tests on armor penetration by round shot.

3. US Navy charcoal cast round shot were apparently very tough, and rarely exhibited brittle failure on impact with armor. Some tests the British Royal Navy did of a 15 inch Dahlgren gun and shot that they purchased for testing proved very disquieting to them. The reports make interesting reading.

Note: I do have copies of all of the above mentioned books.

 

[robject]

T5 has options, but one thing it would not allow is four hard points on a 300t hull. However, there are other options, I'm sure, which will bring the Gazelle close to existing descriptions.

 

[Carlobrand]

Actually, depending on how brittle the round shot are, when hitting armor one of three things happen. The first two would apply to British round shot of the Victorian period, the last to the US Navy's charcoal cast round shot of the time of the Civil War.

1. The round shot shatters into fragments on impact, endangering all in the immediate area.

2. The round shot sheers of into what I call "an iron ice cream cone", with that portion of the shot supported by the impact staying intact, while the remainder of the shot sheers off along stress lines. Best to illustrate with a picture. One such in found in Capt. Orde-Brown's Armour and its Attack by Artillery. The results of other tests appear in Holley's A Treatise on Ordnance and Armor, published in 1865, giving many of the US Navy's tests on armor penetration by round shot.

3. US Navy charcoal cast round shot were apparently very tough, and rarely exhibited brittle failure on impact with armor. Some tests the British Royal Navy did of a 15 inch Dahlgren gun and shot that they purchased for testing proved very disquieting to them. The reports make interesting reading.

Note: I do have copies of all of the above mentioned books.

Oh, bless me, they're both available online for free by PDF. I love you!

Which is not to say I'm leaving my wife for you.

 

[pendragonman]

---canonized---

The Gazelle is up for Sainthood?

 

[barfoo]

In my view, weapon mounts represent surface area so that ships can have more of smaller mounts than larger ones. In LBB High Guard there wasn't any barbettes and neither was there any in the ship design system of LBB Starship, so one wonders where that came from? It came out in issue 2 of Journal so no wonder it was a bit weird, but not nearly as weird as the Annic Nova ship of Journal #1, THAT was weird. If I remember correctly it used an expandable solar collector to charge up the jumpdrives, apparently needing no LHyd at all! It was not an alien design and it used standard cutters for ferrying, just like so many other Traveller ship did, Broadsword, Donosev, Lisiani etc.

My design system would only be able to fit 3 single mount turrets and one triple mount on the streamlined hull of a 400 dTon Gazelle.

Hmm, I should do the Gazelle next as a writeup to see how it fares.

 

[McPerth]

You see the Gazelle as a 300 dton ship to which 2 50 dton tanks may be added, but in truth, it's a 400 dton ship with 2 50 dton tanks dettachable, and so it may mount 4 hardpoints :devil:

 

[rancke]

T5 has options, but one thing it would not allow is four hard points on a 300t hull.

4 hardpoint on a 300T hull is nothing. GT has an Aslan design of a 600T multipurpose transport. Naturally, being Aslan, it has its full allowance of six turrets. But it consists of on 240T stem and six 60T replacable cargo modules that can be cargo modules or passenger modules or (IIRC) fuel tanks. And the turrets are all located on the stem. So if you leave off the modules, you'll have a 240T vessel with six turrets!!


Hans

 

[selunatic2397]

WOW! and I was thinking the star trek phaser collimatters from the new generation that my player wanted as lasers were a bit overpowered...

Although, now that I think about it, all they really add are more fire arcs for the same laser buck...hmmm...

*goes off to ponder a scout with laser collimatters and a pop up sensor turret as an unarmed research ship*

 

[robject]

There are options for the Gazelle.

1. Keep it 300t. This makes the original deck plans compatible. The fourth hard point goes away. Maybe the drop tanks have small guns, maybe they don't.

2. Make it 400t. In a sense, it becomes a Fiery capable of carrying drop tanks.

3. Make it bigger. Unlikely, but a possibility.

 

[mike wightman]

The Gazelle was designed using embryonic HG1 rules by the look of it.

I'll bet that the original rules included drop tanks in hull tonnage for determining hard points - or alternatively the designer didn't read the rules properly

There is a 4th option - use a design system like TNE where hardpoints are limited by surface area and not arbitrary rules like 1 per 100t.

 

[rancke]

My suggestion would be to establish that you can have more hardpoints than 1 per 100T. It's just not a good idea. Figure out why it's a bad idea, i.e. what negative consequences such an arrangement would impose on a ship, and let the 300T Gazelle suffer from them.

Unfortunately, I can't come up with a plausible disadvantage. I can only hope that someone else can.


Hans

 

[mike wightman]

There is a way for a ship in LBB2 to have more than 1 turret per 100t - carry a fighter.

If you have 14 tons of spare space you can carry 1 fighter.

IMTU I have toyed with the 5t barbette as being a weapon installation in addition to the 1 per 100t limit. You get an extra turret but it costs you 5t instead of the 1t a regular hardpoint would.

 

[atpollard]

My suggestion would be to establish that you can have more hardpoints than 1 per 100T. It's just not a good idea. Figure out why it's a bad idea, i.e. what negative consequences such an arrangement would impose on a ship, and let the 300T Gazelle suffer from them.

Unfortunately, I can't come up with a plausible disadvantage. I can only hope that someone else can.


Hans

What I always toyed with was hull cost. A 300 ton hull costs 30 MCr and includes enough innate strength and internal bracing to support up to 3 hardpoints. A 400 ton hull costs 40 MCr and includes enough innate strength and internal bracing to support up to 4 hardpoints.

So the Gazelle was designed with a 40 MCr hull (normally found on a 400 dTon ship) wrapped around 300 dTons of internal space. It is a hull design optimized for hardpoints rather than the more typical volume optimization. In all ways except cost* and hardpoints (ie. drives, crew, etc.) it is treated as a 300 dTon hull.

* hull cost would include armor cost, so the Gazelle would pay for armor like a 400 dTon ship even though it would only cover 300 dTons of volume ... all that extra internal bracing needs to be strengthened as well.