Rethinking Dreadnought Design

[robject]

Why the 4 Gunboats? [...] Also, use [...]

BTW, under HG2 you can get a Meson "N" Battle Rider for 10kdt. [...]

I'm just trying to re-create the Nolikian using my "fast" assumptions; that's why most of the design decisions for it are the way they are.

 

[Amber Chancer]

I'm coming to this a bit late ... I only use HG, not any of the more recent evolutions of Traveller, and here are my thoughts for what they are worth.

At Tech 15, your power plant only takes PN% of the ship. This enables you to build a ship with a modest spinal mount weapon (probably meson) at under 75KT. To do so is an absolute no-brainer. In combat it gets a HUGE advantage over bigger ships because it is at a +1 DM to hit, whereas anything of 75KT or over is at a +2.

Result: at TL15, ships of less than 75KT beat ships of greater than 75KT on the basis of ton-for-ton or price-for-price equality, every day of the week.

Therefore Tech 15 navies, like modern day navies, have no place for the dreadnought. Get over it, guys ... in a Tech 15 navy, they are dinosaurs.



Retreat to Tech 14, however, and things get a little different. Now your power plant takes 2PN% of the ship, and mounting that battle-winning spinal mount in a sub-75KT hull ain't so easy. You have to start making compromises ... or go bigger and accept the additional +1 on your opponent's "to hit" roll.



Retreat to Tech 13, and things get hairier still. Your power plant is still only taking up 2PN% of your ship ... but your armour is now costing 2+2a% of the ship, not 1+a%. The only way to pack it all in, and still be keeping the overall size down so you are not such a big target, is to think battle rider. Alternatively, accept that your ships are +2 to hit, and go big.


Dreadnoughts therefore belong in Tech 13 & 14 navies. Along with battle riders, and other innovative ways to maximize battle-winning firepower.


Retreat to Tech 12, and it all changes again. Your power plant now takes 3PN% of your ship, and producing the energy required to power those spinal mounts requires just AWESOM amounts of ship. That factor K Meson gun is 8,000 tons; plus 3,000 tons of Power plant to produce its power, plus 1,000 tons of fuel, plus 80 gunners and 30 engineers occupying between them 220 tons of accommodation. That's 12,220 tons just to get the gun into action. Your ship is going to HAVE to be big.

Even your factor C meson gun is 2,000 tons, plus 1,800 tons of power plant, plus 600 tons of fuel, plus 76 tons of accommodation, total 4,476 tons.

Let's say you're going for Jump-2 and 6G. So we need 24% for jump drive plus jump fuel; 17% for M-drive; 18% for power plant to drive the M-drive + 6% for its fuel +2% for the bridge - that's 67% of your ship. Armour-12 (which you'll want on a tech-12 dreadnought) will add another 26%, taking you to 93%. So you've only got 7% to play with for the rest. That includes crew accommodation and so forth which I find normally takes about 2 - 3%. Let's say 3%. We've then only got 4% for our gun ... and we need 4,476 tons. So at Tech 12, the MINIMUM size of ship to deliver a Factor-C Meson (the smallest spinal mount at this tech level) at Jump-2, 6G Agility 6 looks like being approximately 120KT unless we are prepared to sacrifice armour protection.

And that's without ANY secondary armament, screens etc.

And what screens can we have at TL12? Only a factor-1 Nuclear Damper, which doesn't do a lot to repel the factor-8 nukes from the 50T missile bays available at the same tech level, or the fator-9 nukes from the 100T bays (which will score more hits).

So our Tech-12, lumbering behemoth with a puny little pop-gun of a meson spinal mount is going to be VERY vulnerable to missile cruisers and destroyers, which won't take too long to rack up the hits required to render its meson gun ineffective (A tonnage code A, Agility-6 destroyer shipping one missile bay and a few lasers will be immune to that meson gun as soon as it has taken 3 hits and its factor is reduced to 9; even before then, it will only suffer a hit from one shot in 36, so a handful of such destroyers could dance a merry dance around such a so-called dreadnought, and soon put it out of commission.


Conclusion: Dreadnoughts have no place in Tech 12 or lower navies, either.


To my mind, these rules aren't broken - far from it.

They create a finely-tuned system in which, as you progress through the tech levels, different design approaches make sense, and the very large ship is pointless at lower tech levels, comes into its own at tech 13 and 14, and then becomes a liability again at tech 15 and above.


We do NOT need to rethink dreadnoughts ... we just need to think more carefully about when (i.e. at what tech levels) we should be designing them, and when not.


Neither, it seems to me, do we need to start tinkering with the rules because "rules should yield to setting". I could not disagree more violently, in fact. Traveller has a multiplicity of tech levels, and it is simply impossible to make a single, generic "setting" statement which will be true for all tech levels. We should not be taking a "setting" statement (such as the description of what a "cruiser" is in Supplement 9) and elevating it to the status of Holy Writ, such that we need to torture the rules to make them fit that setting statement at all tech levels (or call them "broken" if we cannot).


Having said that ... I'm off to do some tinkering :file_21:

I don't like the TCS naval campaign rules, so I'm trying to produce a few "house rules" for my own alternative naval campaign scenario. And I'm thinking of setting it at the cusp between Tech 12 and Tech 13. Players' fleets at the beginning of the game must be ENTIRELY Tech 12; but they have just achieved Tech 13 and can start building at Tech 13 immediately. It will, I think, be interesting to see how that plays out. (the Tech 13 / Tech 14 cusp might also be somewhat interesting ...)

 

[rancke]

At Tech 15, your power plant only takes PN% of the ship. This enables you to build a ship with a modest spinal mount weapon (probably meson) at under 75KT. To do so is an absolute no-brainer. In combat it gets a HUGE advantage over bigger ships because it is at a +1 DM to hit, whereas anything of 75KT or over is at a +2.

Result: at TL15, ships of less than 75KT beat ships of greater than 75KT on the basis of ton-for-ton or price-for-price equality, every day of the week.

Therefore Tech 15 navies, like modern day navies, have no place for the dreadnought. Get over it, guys ... in a Tech 15 navy, they are dinosaurs.

Which, if true, makes it inexplicable that the Imperium should be building TL15 battleships by the hundreds. But it does. So it can't be true.

(Incidentally, if 75,000T was the optimum size for a large combatant, there would still be battleships and dreadnaughts. It's just that battleships and dreadnaughts would be 75,000T and not 200,000T+¹.)

¹ And the Imperium would have three or four times as many of them.​

Retreat to Tech 14, however, and things get a little different. Now your power plant takes 2PN% of the ship, and mounting that battle-winning spinal mount in a sub-75KT hull ain't so easy. You have to start making compromises ... or go bigger and accept the additional +1 on your opponent's "to hit" roll.

In-setting ship designers do not accept the additional +1 on their opponent's "to hit" roll, because starship combat doesn't actually work as the combat rules says. E.g. the crew does not sit around rolling dice to see if they hit and ships don't get a quantum leap easier to hit when their size goes up one dT and crosses a breakpoint.

To my mind, these rules aren't broken - far from it.

Not if you want to play a wargame, no. If you want to emulate the ships of the Third Imperium setting, they are.

We do NOT need to rethink dreadnoughts ... we just need to think more carefully about when (i.e. at what tech levels) we should be designing them, and when not.

Until and unless you persuade Marc Miller to retcon the OTU, we don't have the freedom to do so.

Neither, it seems to me, do we need to start tinkering with the rules because "rules should yield to setting". I could not disagree more violently, in fact. Traveller has a multiplicity of tech levels, and it is simply impossible to make a single, generic "setting" statement which will be true for all tech levels.

And we're not. We're making a specific setting statement which is true for one specific setting.

We should not be taking a "setting" statement (such as the description of what a "cruiser" is in Supplement 9) and elevating it to the status of Holy Writ, such that we need to torture the rules to make them fit that setting statement at all tech levels (or call them "broken" if we cannot).

We're not trying to make them fit for all tech levels. We're trying to make them fit tech level 15. Which, according to your own statement, can't be done without changing either the rules or the setting.


Hans

 

[mike wightman]

You don't have to change the setting.

You do have to accept that the rules for HG2 were designed to model ship combat in the 3rd Imperium setting (or rather the 3rd Imperium setting was changed to accommodate the HG large ship universe), and while in game people don't throw dice, after battle reports here in the real world reduce combat to statistics and probabilities, so while the HG2 rules about size giving a +1 or a +2 are not known, the statistical studies upon which they are based will be.

In setting the 3rd Imperium Navy is still transitioning between a TL14 fleet and a TL15 fleet at the start of the FFW. The statistical lessons they learn from after action reports will allow their admirals and ship designers to reach the same conclusions that those of us who have been studying and playing the simulations (1.e. actually playing HG2) reached after 30+ years

 

[robject]

To my mind, these rules aren't broken - far from it.

Not if you want to play a wargame, no. If you want to emulate the ships of the Third Imperium setting, they are.

They create a finely-tuned system in which, as you progress through the tech levels, different design approaches make sense, and the very large ship is pointless at lower tech levels, comes into its own at tech 13 and 14, and then becomes a liability again at tech 15 and above.

We do NOT need to rethink dreadnoughts ... [...]

Having said that ... I'm off to do some tinkering :file_21:

@Amber:

High Guard's rules, concise and evocative as they are, are not set in stone any more than the rest of Classic Traveller is: they exist for enjoyment of Traveller. To assume that it won't change in a later incarnation is to treat it as canon. Well, maybe that's too strong a term, but you get my drift?

Setting and rules dance around one another. This creates problems only with new rulesets. Afficionados dive deep into existing rules in order to enjoy the game, and are invested.

So when you hear us talk about High Guard 3 or 4 or 5, just remember that the Classic Traveller line is not being developed, and none of this replaces High Guard 2.

 

[rancke]

In setting the 3rd Imperium Navy is still transitioning between a TL14 fleet and a TL15 fleet at the start of the FFW.

No it isn't. In setting the 3rd Imperium Navy has been building TL15 ships for over a century. It is not still transitioning. It has had time to replace its entire fleet several times over and it has been and still is building TL15 200,000T and 500,000T battleships by the hundreds for decades. Also, it is not building TL15 75,000T battleships.


Hans

 

[mike wightman]

Yes it is.

AHL, Atlantics, every BB in S9 - they are all evidence of a fleet in transition.

We know next to nothing of the new builds in the fleet - MT may have helped out here but they changed the rules and broke their designs.

 

[rancke]

Yes it is.

AHL, Atlantics, every BB in S9 - they are all evidence of a fleet in transition.

What are you talking about? Except for AHLs they are all TL15 ships. AHLs are TL14 ships, but they're almost all of them out of service. IIRC there are five of them still in active service. Atlantics are "being phased into second line assignments by the Navy as rapidly as newer vessels can be obtained" [FS:32]. Kokkiraks are "one of the older classes of dreadnaughts [sic] in Imperial service and are now being phased out of service" [FS:42]. As far as we can tell, Plankwells and Tigresses belong the latest generation of battleships.

All the other IN ships in FS are TL15, except for the Gazelles, and it's very strange that they aren't TL15, since they were built around 1080 and in at least one case built by a shipyard on a TL15 world.

None of them are evidence of a fleet in transition from TL14 to TL15.


Hans

 

[Amber Chancer]

Which, if true, makes it inexplicable that the Imperium should be building TL15 battleships by the hundreds. But it does. So it can't be true.

(Incidentally, if 75,000T was the optimum size for a large combatant, there would still be battleships and dreadnaughts. It's just that battleships and dreadnaughts would be 75,000T and not 200,000T+¹.)

¹ And the Imperium would have three or four times as many of them.​

In-setting ship designers do not accept the additional +1 on their opponent's "to hit" roll, because starship combat doesn't actually work as the combat rules says. E.g. the crew does not sit around rolling dice to see if they hit and ships don't get a quantum leap easier to hit when their size goes up one dT and crosses a breakpoint.


Not if you want to play a wargame, no. If you want to emulate the ships of the Third Imperium setting, they are.


Until and unless you persuade Marc Miller to retcon the OTU, we don't have the freedom to do so.

Ah, the beloved canon argument.

The ship designs in Supplement 9 suck.

The statements that are made about them in the book could only have been made by somebody who had never tried to use them in actual combat.

For example:

"Originally intended as a fast-reacting fighting ship, [The Gionetti's] actual use has evolved with experience. The ship is currently in favour as a flagship for many minor operations."

Any actual experience of using the ship in combat would quickly reveal (to anyone who could not deduce it from the USP alone) that it is completely and utterly broken. It cancels out its size advantage by being only Agility 5 not Agility 6; it has no meson screen so it is next to useless in a fight against capital ships; and it has no armour protection whatever so it can be burned to a crisp by a few gunboats packing lasers. Relegate it to the training squadrons - FAST!

The Ghalalk is getting there - but the weapon choice is wrong and that has affected everything else about it. A factor J meson gun saves 1,000 tons on the factor H particle accelerator it ships. That 1,000 tons could be used to uprate the power plant by 1 number (500 tons for the drive; 500 tons for the fuel) giving the extra 200EP needed for the weapon and 300EP over. That would enable the Meson Screen to be upgraded from Factor-5 to Factor-9 and still have some EPs to spare. The armour is still a concern, though: factor-5 is rather puny for something which is optimistically described as an "armoured" cruiser. Gotta find some weight from somewhere to increase it a bit. 500 tons is needed for each "pip" of armour; so I would halve the number of bays to allow for uprating the armour to factor-7. It still wouldn't be anything like a battle-winner; but it would be getting closer to the "basic fleet work-horse" that it is supposed to be.

I personally would ditch the marines - 400 tons of accommodation saving there - and look for a few more scrimps and scrounges to take it up to armour - 8. But that would restrict the roles it could undertake, and if you want a multi-functional ship then it's gotta have its marines.

Azhanti high Lightning? Agility 0? Complete liability.

The only two ships in Supplement 9 which come anything close to being front-line fighting ships in the OTU which the setting statements conjour up for us are the Atlantic and the Kokirrak.


The conclusion I draw is that Supplement 9 was drawn up in a hurry, with minimal testing, in order to meet a demand for some "oven-ready" warships for the big-ship universe of HG, by people who had a concept of what a fleet of fighting ships "ought" to include but who had minimal actual combat experience of how the rules play out. Most of the ships in Supplement 9 are broken. So don't treat it as definitive. Treat it as a challenge to do better. Supplement 9 shows how warships ought NOT to be designed ... use them if you have little time or inclination to prepare your own, better designs (many don't) - but don't say that the rule set needs to be tinkered with to make these atrocious designs into battle winners. Cos they're sows' ears, not silk purses, pretty much all of them!

 

[Amber Chancer]

What are you talking about? Except for AHLs they are all TL15 ships. AHLs are TL14 ships, but they're almost all of them out of service. IIRC there are five of them still in active service. Atlantics are "being phased into second line assignments by the Navy as rapidly as newer vessels can be obtained" [FS:32]. Kokkiraks are "one of the older classes of dreadnaughts [sic] in Imperial service and are now being phased out of service" [FS:42]. As far as we can tell, Plankwells and Tigresses belong the latest generation of battleships.

Quite so, Hans.

Of the Atlantic we read that it is "... fast approaching obsolescence, and is not the equal of more modern vessels in the Imperium and neighbouring regions. The slight disadvantage of 5-G acceleration and agility 5 are telling in otherwise equal engagements, and make the class inferior enough to affect strategic judgements concerning its commitments."

Interesting.

"Obsolete" Kokirrak class Dreadnought: Agility 6; meson screen factor 8 (2 "pips" better than the Atlantic armour 12 (2 pips better than the Atlantic)

"Modern" Plankwell class Dreadnought: Agility 5; meson screen factor 3 (3 "pips" WORSE than the Atlantic; armour 10 (same as the Atlantic)

So all of the Plankwell shares all of the Atlantic's vulnerabilities; but whereas the Atlantic is being phased out, the Plankwell is replacing the Kokkirak (which doesn't share those vulnerabilities).

Go figure ...

 

[atpollard]

Supplement 9 shows how warships ought NOT to be designed ... use them if you have little time or inclination to prepare your own, better designs (many don't) - but don't say that the rule set needs to be tinkered with to make these atrocious designs into battle winners. Cos they're sows' ears, not silk purses, pretty much all of them!

Don't hold back, what do you really think?

Seriously, thank you for the insight of your assessment.
If the ships in S9 don't work, do you have a Battleship design that you feel does work?
What would you replace the Plankwell with?

[Or were you just pointing out the internal inconsistencies?]

 

[rancke]

Ah, the beloved canon argument.

The ship designs in Supplement 9 suck.

So I've been told and I don't doubt it. But that doesn't alter the fact that in a book that describes the Imperium's TL15 fleet, battleships are supposed to be able to "absorb damage and keep fighting" thanks to their bulk. And yet, I've also been told that when you're facing meson spinals, bulk does not provide much of a defense.

In that connection, I have to wonder how a meson shot has the same chance of hitting the computer in a 20,000T hull and in a 500,000T hull. You'd think the extra bulk would make a random hit MUCH less likely to hit such a small target inside the bigger hull, wouldn't you? I would. And I could provide other problems in a similar vein.

So perhaps the combat rules are not actually all that plausible?

Secondly, the Imperium NEEDS to spend a LOT of money on its large combatants in order to have so few as it is said to have (a mere 20,000). I do NOT think it is compatible with the canon setting that the Imperium can buy an entire BatRon for the cost of one 300,000T carrier and seven 20,000T riders.


Hans

 

[rancke]

So all of the Plankwell shares all of the Atlantic's vulnerabilities; but whereas the Atlantic is being phased out, the Plankwell is replacing the Kokkirak (which doesn't share those vulnerabilities).

Go figure ...

I said that for all we know the Plankwells belong to the newest crop of battleship classes, because the text doesn't say anything one way or the other. Your arguments suggest that they're not replacing the Kokkiraks.

The real mystery is why they were built like that in the first place. If you were to suggest that most or all of the various ship classes in FS ought to be retconned, I wouldn't object. If they were retconned into large, tough battleships and small, vulnerable cruisers, that is.


Hans

 

[robject]

And so, we come full circle, in rethinking dreadnought design. GDW didn't design them well (probably accurate to say they didn't playtest them), and it is a form of challenge to do better.

I find it significant that High Guard wasn't engaging enough for GDW to playtest. Pressed as they were for a schedule, other Traveller rules seem to have fewer flaws. Ship design is complex. But a rule system can either hide that complexity, or turn it into an obstruction.

So, I consider High Guard itself a challenge to do better. Like Hans, I see setting mismatches, but I also see room for improvement in the rules -- some improvements which don't change the game, some which nudge it slightly, and some which make significant changes.

To some degree, some significant rules changes won't matter to what's already broken.

 

[Vladika]

Look at the USN BB design, development and production.

IM(H)O a perfect example of a fleet in transition, and, building exactly, KNOWINGLY, the wrong ships.

The BBs day was twilight before the newer classes were even laid down. Admittedly hindsight is considerably more 20/20.

35,000 long tons North Carolina-class, thought not to be "fast enough to counter the Japanese Kongō class". (Treaty Limits, therefore Political)

35,000 tons (standard) South Dakota-class "Commissioning through the summer of 1942, the four ships served in both the Atlantic, ready to intercept possible German capital ship sorties, and the Pacific, in carrier groups and shore bombardments." (Treaty Limits, therefore Political)

45,000 short tons The much vaulted IOWA class was a GREAT BB, but, obsolescent before construction started. "Four were completed; two more were laid down but canceled at war's end and scrapped. Like other third-generation American battleships, the Iowa class followed the design pattern set forth in the preceding North Carolina-class and South Dakota-class battleships, which emphasized speed and the secondary and anti-aircraft batteries." (Military choice but using outdated planning.)

Sanely done away with by the USN BUT "the United States Congress compelled the Navy to reinstate two of them" (POLITICAL decision, not military.)(Same as 3I IN?)

70,000 short tons The "Perfect" BB, the Montana class was "but changes in wartime building priorities resulted in their cancellation in favor of the Essex-class aircraft carriers and Iowa class before any Montana-class keels were laid." (Military and Political choice.)

The big issue was that the Navy knew that carriers were the way of future naval warfare though older Admirals were intrenched in outdated beliefs. (Same as 3I IN?)

The use US BBs were actually put to were shore bombardment, which they excelled at, though the older Pennsylvania Class, 31,400 long tons, could, and did, provide the same service, cheaper.

Military's are ALWAYS designed to fight the LAST War. (Same as 3I IN?) This is not illogical as that is where their most resent experience was obtained. Unfortunately the Last War is almost never the right way to fight the NEXT War. (Same as 3I IN?)

New ships, some good and some bad, will be designed and built between Wars. For expedience obsolescent ships will be build in large numbers as the Next War looms. They continue to be built as new designs are developed based on combat experience. (Same as 3I IN?)

The cycle will repeat if History is any guide.

The 3I IN is repeating a long history of retaining the "old" while leaning, and building, the new. (Battle Riders and Tenders, the new Carriers and Fighters plus Cruisers (USN post WW2))

Nobody is wrong, and nobody is right, until you fight the next war. (Same as 3I IN?)

There are many CotI members who have learned through design and battle experience and others who are intrenched and/or politically holding on. In the end it doesn't matter as we are all here to have some fun.

To me, the Rules are Traveller Physics and the Setting is Traveler History. Both have experienced way to much RetCon.

 

[Vladika]

...large, tough battleships and small, vulnerable cruisers, that is.

Hans

A modern Cruiser (higher TL) will kick the Crap out of a "Modern" BB. If you built BOTH today, in the very best of designs, the Cruises will still kick the Crap out of the BBs. And they'll do it for far less and you'll have a lot more of them.

They both carry the same ship killer weapons... As long as that is true, and it is today, smaller and cheaper will be better.

BTW, in the USN you can't tell the difference between a Destroyer and a Cruiser.

 

[Amber Chancer]

In that connection, I have to wonder how a meson shot has the same chance of hitting the computer in a 20,000T hull and in a 500,000T hull. You'd think the extra bulk would make a random hit MUCH less likely to hit such a small target inside the bigger hull, wouldn't you? I would. And I could provide other problems in a similar vein.

It's an interior explosion, shaking the ship about and causing all sorts of concussion. The computer damage is as likely to be from secondary causes (flying debris; critical trunking shaken loose etc. etc.) and it really doesn't make a lot of difference how big the ship is.

 

[rancke]

A modern Cruiser (higher TL) will kick the Crap out of a "Modern" BB. If you built BOTH today, in the very best of designs, the Cruises with still kick the Crap out of the BBs. And they'll do it for far less and you'll have a lot more of them.

21st century wet navy cruisers and battleships are completely irrelevant. We're not discussing them. We're discussing Imperial Navy cruisers and battleships.

IN cruisers are "too lightly armored to stand in the line of battle". IN battleships have "a tremendous ability to absorb damage and keep fighting because of their bulk.

I see no ambiguity there. If a set of ship design and combat rules are unable to model that difference, that set of ship design and combat rules are inadequate for the setting.

They both carry the same ship killer weapons... As long as that is true, and it is today, smaller and cheaper will be betters.

The setting description portrays cruisers as eggs armed with hammers and battleships as coconuts armed with hammers. The ship design and combat rules make it impossible to design coconuts. So the rules do not fit the setting. It's as simple as that. Either the setting or the rules has to be changed to make them fit each other. Which one you prefer to change is a matter of opinion. Since changing the rules will just result in rules that work just as well as the old ones, albeit a little differently, whereas changing the setting has all sorts of repercussions, my vote goes to changing the rules.


Hans

 

[rancke]

It's an interior explosion, shaking the ship about and causing all sorts of concussion. The computer damage is as likely to be from secondary causes (flying debris; critical trunking shaken loose etc. etc.) and it really doesn't make a lot of difference how big the ship is.

I think you are quite wrong. Two interior explosions of the same size in ships of very different size won't affect the larger nearly as much as the smaller. The effect MAY affect the larger one but the odds of it doing so would not be anywhere near the same.


Hans

 

[rancke]

The big issue was that the Navy knew that carriers were the way of future naval warfare though older Admirals were intrenched in outdated beliefs. (Same as 3I IN?)

How long did that changeover take? More than a century as the 3I has had?


Hans