Small Ship fleet sizes

[Timerover51]

So no matter what type of response you get, you seem to be insulted by it.

I think that comparing the sizes and volumes of things we know (Wallmarts) to the sizes and volumes of things we don't know (space ships and what they might shp) is a good thing.

Also I don't see large discount chains going away in the future. And if an industrial planet can produce Wallmart stuff inexpensively enough it might be cheaper to bring this in via starship rather than develop the capacity to build the stuff themselves.

I am just curious. Do you understand exactly under what conditions most of the stuff that Walmart and the other importers are being made? I would suggest going back and taking a look at the factory fire in Bangladesh, and the recurring complaints about Chinese labor conditions. Then figure out how little the workers making such material for interstellar commerce are going to be paid.

Edit Note: As for continuing the discussion with Cryton, we clearly have quite differing views as to what will be taking place in the future, and neither is going to convince the other to change his, I am assuming the Cryton is male, mind. Therefore, further discussion is essentially useless.

 

[aramis]

I think that comparing the sizes and volumes of things we know (Wallmarts) to the sizes and volumes of things we don't know (space ships and what they might shp) is a good thing.

I tend to agree. Hence why I double-checked someone else's math, and then expanded from there.

It's interesting enough, that I found some other references.

Also I don't see large discount chains going away in the future. And if an industrial planet can produce Wallmart stuff inexpensively enough it might be cheaper to bring this in via starship rather than develop the capacity to build the stuff themselves.

That shipping cost difference is huge. 6-7x the cost of China-NC or China-DC for a single parsec. If we accept the prices of goods in Bk 2 as axiomatic (they're essentially Illinois market prices for 1976 rounded off - I've checked many of them), and the range of variation from base (x0.4 to x4), we can make some interesting assumptions.

Costs to ship via 800Td Bk2 freighter are about as cheap as it gets - J1 is Cr640/Parsec - tho J2 is Cr1160/2Pc...

The prices in Bk2 are in rounded base units; the parsecs is by dividing by teh Cr581/Pc cost for J2. Nominal range is based upon a 4 to 10 adjustment - 70 to 110

Base Price	Max Profit	Max parsecs	Nominal Profit	Nominal Range
300	1,080	1	180	0
500	1,800	3	300	0
1,000	3,600	6	600	0*
1,500	5,400	9	900	1
2,000	7,200	12	1,200	2
3,000	10,800	18	1,800	3
5,000	18,000	30	3,000	5
7,000	25,200	43	4,200	7
9,000	32,400	55	5,400	9
10,000	36,000	61	6,000	10
30,000	108,000	185	18,000	30
50,000	180,000	309	30,000	51
100,000	360,000	619	60,000	103

Since most manufactued goods run 30k-100k per ton... about 2 sectors is the max range stuff will move routinely, because that's about the most that can expect a profit...

Certain things, however... Vehicles, Vacc Suits, Computers, Cybernetics can be expected to move 4 sectors or so if there is sufficient quality to make it better known than the nearer suppliers.

Running the numbers this way - yes, you can expect off-world goods at surprising ranges, but don't expect foods. Even spices won't move more than a sector.

 

[giant.robot]

Thanks for the math check, I was assuming raw volume of a typical Walmart in my math, 197k sq ft by 16ft high (two dTon cubes in height) to get my number. Taking into account shelving and better assumptions of empty space do make for better numbers.

I personally like to use Walmart as a spaceship comparison for players because it is a interior volume with which they have some familiarity. When you think of a spaceship as a flying Walmart the size becomes a digestible thing. It first came up in a Star Wars game years ago, saying a ship was the size of a Walmart made more sense to my players than just saying "it's 150 meters long".

 

[Carlobrand]

I am just curious. Do you understand exactly under what conditions most of the stuff that Walmart and the other importers are being made? I would suggest going back and taking a look at the factory fire in Bangladesh, and the recurring complaints about Chinese labor conditions. Then figure out how little the workers making such material for interstellar commerce are going to be paid ...

Considering the very large number of people living under repressive governments according to the system generation rules Traveller gives us, that's probably an apt comparison.

 

[HG_B]

Considering the very large number of people living under repressive governments according to the system generation rules Traveller gives us, that's probably an apt comparison.

Natural progression from non-productive poverty of communism to capitalism. More than 30 million Chinese still live in caves. It'll be a while before the extremely low wage conditions change.

 

[Brandon C]

Here's one that I think would work reasonably well: Roll a set of physical world stats, a 'set' being somewhere around 30-40 worlds (in other words, a subsector's worth, provided the subsector isn't partly empty). Roll another set of social stats. Arrange the physical stats in a column ranging from most hospitable to least hospitable. If they're equally hospitable, the one rolled up first goes above the one rolled later. Arrange the social stats in a similar column according to population size. For each set of physical stats, roll a D6 and pair it with one of the six highest social stats. Cross them off. Repeat until all stats have been paired.

On Further consideration, I might use this for my revamped "pocket empires" campaign, although for the feel I want I'll probably still want to reuce high populations.

 

[BytePro]

Just some tidbits:

Walmart uses distribution centers and cross docking and not all onsite inventory is on the shelves. In a Traveller setting, one could have starships doing direct drop shipments (especially in frontier and lower TL environs) - this cost/profit is not factored in by just comparing with RW trans-oceanic shipment costs.

Sams Clubs stock their inventory much higher and tighter - and average inventory turnover is 16-18 times annually (or was back in my corporate retail days)...

Of course, supply for such chains in established regions would mainly be the domain of big line corporate haulers - so rulebooks won't cover that variation and even 6-7 times the cost would not be too bad for independents hauling higher ticket items. There would be no hard and fast parsec limits on exotic and niche demand items - which are more likely to be the cargo of independents. In addition, given the volume as opposed to mass nature of Traveller hauling, lower margin things like food stuffs might be hauled longer distances as 'packing' - thus avoiding the direct calculated costs already incurred in the other merchandise (think coffee and dried spices). Heck, the seasonal high ticket grav mowers from 12 parsecs away might be packed solid in their crates with Kessel Prime Angus!

Also, in sci-fi settings its not too unreasonable to assume sweat shops being supplanted by automation, by and large.

 

[aramis]

Just some tidbits:

Walmart uses distribution centers and cross docking and not all onsite inventory is on the shelves. In a Traveller setting, one could have starships doing direct drop shipments (especially in frontier and lower TL environs) - this cost/profit is not factored in by just comparing with RW trans-oceanic shipment costs.

Sams Clubs stock their inventory much higher and tighter - and average inventory turnover is 16-18 times annually (or was back in my corporate retail days)...

Of course, supply for such chains in established regions would mainly be the domain of big line corporate haulers - so rulebooks won't cover that variation and even 6-7 times the cost would not be too bad for independents hauling higher ticket items. There would be no hard and fast parsec limits on exotic and niche demand items - which are more likely to be the cargo of independents. In addition, given the volume as opposed to mass nature of Traveller hauling, lower margin things like food stuffs might be hauled longer distances as 'packing' - thus avoiding the direct calculated costs already incurred in the other merchandise (think coffee and dried spices). Heck, the seasonal high ticket grav mowers from 12 parsecs away might be packed solid in their crates with Kessel Prime Angus!

Also, in sci-fi settings its not too unreasonable to assume sweat shops being supplanted by automation, by and large.

I'm comparing container costs... Cr600 for a one parsec one ton is about as cheap as it ever gets... with canonical design systems. And I'm accounting for standard design discount... whereas real world TL7 "cross half the world" shipping is only about Cr75-130 per ton. Adding container travel by truck adds about 1996$2-3 per mile per 2TEU including profit margins in the US... which would be about Cr0.05-Cr0.1 per Td per km. (Road haul is cheap for distance, but note anything below 50 miles is charged at about 50 miles worth...) And train is cheaper still... at least past 700miles (due to adding a 50mi equivalent drayage fee of about $100 per end.)

I'll note that CT Bk2 is about the lowest cost per ton (to the operator) to ship of any ruleset (including beating Mongoose, due to extra costs of hulls added in in the MGT system, which are not made up for by the reduced computer space). TL15 HG ships barely compare...

http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/4000/4300/4318/ccf_apxF.pdf

 

[Dagrill]

I did start out by saying (or at least implying) that the current system failed to take something into account. It isn't really a surprise that something would have to be added to remedy that. If it wasn't needed, there wouldn't be a lack in the first place.
Hans

Hi Hans,

You are assuming all the population are colonists, what about the ingenous alien races that are perfectly adapted (or gene-eered) to the environment?

Kind Regards

David

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Hi there! I had several questions about Small Ship Fleets
Whether one reduces the population digit or not, High Population Worlds (A reduced to 9 or even 8 say) will still have hundreds of millions if not billions of people to invade/suppress/liberate. On the issue of Planetary Invasions (always liked Invasion: Earth):

In a small ship universe:
How many soldiers could a 5000dTon troop transport ship fit? Would you need to have them all be frozen to make more effective use of space?
How many of said troop transports would be needed to invade a million personnel defense force (say 1% of a Pop 9 planet)?
What would SDB's be like? Would they be 300 tons necessarily be smaller?
Finally, because they are my favorite aliens, how do you all feel about Solomani "fixed mounts" on ships (From CT Alien Module 6: Solomani) to double up on weapons for CT Book 2 designs?

 

[Timerover51]

In a small ship universe:
How many soldiers could a 5000dTon troop transport ship fit? Would you need to have them all be frozen to make more effective use of space?
How many of said troop transports would be needed to invade a million personnel defense force (say 1% of a Pop 9 planet)?

A couple of comments. First, if you invade a planet where currently 1% of the population is in the military, and one per cent of a population 9 planet is 10 million, not one million, that percentage is going to increase dramatically, to between 5% and 10% based on past Earth averages. Germany invaded the USSR in 1941 with a very well trained and equipped veteran army of 3 million men, and did not succeed. As you are thinking System Defense Boats, it appears that the invaders are not going to have a significant Tech advantage.

Next, your invasion force is not all combat troops by a long shot. Somewhere between 50% and 67% are going to be either combat support troops or combat service support (real supply and maintenance and medical types, along with military police and sundry other types). And then they have to be supplied, on a regular basis, and also land with sufficient supplies to last until resupply arrives. A safe planning factor for that initial supply would be somewhere between 0.5 tons and 1 ton mass per man landed. Ideally, you should also have a planning factor for losses of supplies in the initial invasion.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Sorry about the numbers. My post was late night. I am always interested in how people reconcile the information presented in the "official" story as a basis, mix in their world view and turn it into "their" story. I do not go slavishly with with the official story all the time.

My best non-Traveller examples:
Official Star Wars Universe: Greedo shot first (G. Lucas says that the story, deal with it)
My Star Wars Universe: Han shot first (makes his becoming a hero cooler, to me anyways).

I should self-identify. I like the large ship universe in general. My questions should sort of give that away. But I am interested in knowing other people's views. What are the nature of ships involved in planetary invasions (attack or defense) in a small ship universe?

 

[Fritz_Brown]

In a small ship universe:
How many soldiers could a 5000dTon troop transport ship fit? Would you need to have them all be frozen to make more effective use of space?

Based on other threads related to this, let's assume:
1) you can get in 9 troops (and their pack and weapon and ammunition - I'm assuming no battledress and such) per 2dTon of space*, with the accompanying 2dTon of common area and life support (you're gonna need that life support space for 9 guys per 2dTon *phew*);
2) the command section has staterooms, so don't count in the calculations;
3) something akin to a cargo hold is where the troops pass their time, a la World War II troop transports;
4) each soldier needs about 1dTon of supplies after they land;
5) those supplies are coming on another ship;
6) you have about 1/4 to 1/3 of the ship available for transport area;
then I would say you can get about 3,000 to 3,600 troops in that size of a ship.
If you further assume:
7) fast drug, and they just get into their hammocks and don't move for the trip (mostly)
then you might pack in 1/2 again as many? Call it 4,000 to 5,000.

As far as freezing them - not if it's an invasion force.** If it's an expansion force, then you could do that. I don't think you gain anything in numbers over not freezing them if you use my numbers above - a low berth requires 1/2dTon per berth, whereas my numbers squeeze it out to a little less than 1/2dTon per berth.

Mind you, you're gonna want an airlock between the hold and the rest of the ship. The crew is not gonna want to smell *that* during the trip.

How many of said troop transports would be needed to invade a million personnel defense force (say 1% of a Pop 9 planet)?

Have to double up on timerover here: 1% of a pop 9 planet would be 10,000,000, not 1 million.*** As to invading against any particular amount...

1) Again, as timerover says, that 10 million under arms becomes something closer to 100 million (or more) as soon as the homeland is put under threat - unless you are liberating the people, possibly. (But, never underestimate how people will fight to remain under an oppressive system, as long as it's their oppressive system.)

2) The general rule is a minimum of threefold the defending force - but that isn't applied across something like a planetary surface. You will need three times whatever a local fortification or position will hold as a defensive force, plus enough reinforcements to have that 3x force when you get to the next battle - lather, rinse, repeat. BTW, that 3x figure brings you to "assured victory" according to the standard, but it doesn't guarantee it won't be just your command element left standing at the end - that's a lot of replacements.

3) As timerover says, not all your force will be combat troops. Some will be combat support and some will be combat service support. This can be partly mitigated with direct-from-orbit delivery of supplies, but it still factors into your 3x calculations. The flip-side is that your enemy also has those non-direct-combat troops, but it also has the entire civilian populace from which to draw supplies, police forces, storage, intelligence, etc. Remember that 1% to 10% increase "under arms"? It makes for an effective 1% to 15-20% when you take into account combat support and combat services support.

4) You would also need an occupation force, over and above the combat force you have maneuvering against the enemy. These folks would need to hold the ground taken by the combat force. It would need to be a mix of military police and actual combat forces and a sprinkling of special forces.

* a 3m x 3m area, with 3 sets of racks/bunks/hammocks, stacked 3 high, using the end-space for their packs and weapons.

** If it's a "hot landing", where these troops have to get off and away from the landing area rapidly, unfreezing folks is going to be too laborious and too time-consuming. If you're bringing them in to a safe area where you can wake them by platoons and such, then freezing would be acceptable. [If it's an assault landing, then you aren't going to use a 5kdTon ship packed with troops, you're going to use multiple smaller, very well-armored ships, onto which your assault force has transferred before descent, and from which they can emerge rapidly, spouting death and destruction unto their enemies.

*** Actually, it would be anywhere from 10,000,000 to 99,000,000. I assume anything over that would just get estimated up into the next pop value.

 

[flykiller]

In a small ship universe:
How many soldiers could a 5000dTon troop transport ship fit?

just soldiers themselves? well, using lowberth/drop capsule combo units perhaps several thousand. "wake up corporal. you are in descent to target x, alternate plan b phase 1, opposition strength class c, planetfall in 30 seconds." but if the soldiers are to be supported - transport, re-supply, medical care, support weapons, intel, rotation, retrieval, etc - then each combat soldier might require up to 20 dtons.

How many of said troop transports would be needed to invade a million personnel defense force (say 1% of a Pop 9 planet)?

what, strictly by infantry brute force? well, the standard ratio for successful attack is six attackers for each defender at the isolated point of attack. but naval gunfire, support weapons, covert espionage, ground-side allies, strategic target vulnerability, technical superiority, and other such all play a role as well.

What would SDB's be like? Would they be 300 tons necessarily be smaller?

they will be whatever size necessary to carry whatever weapon configuration(s) deemed most effective against the kind of assault anticipated.

 

[PFVA63]

Hi,

Don't know if this helps or not, but this is a real world naval ship whose internal volume supposedly is close to 5000 dtons (I think it may actually be about 5200dtons, but it helps show what may be possible).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Harpers_Ferry_(LSD-49)

 

[whartung]

If you want to look at what a large invasion consisting Small Ships would look like, you can ponder the armada involved at D-Day.

I'm sure some reference somewhere has a list of the type of ships involved, but since it seems pretty much anything that floated and had oars was sent over, it's a broad mix of equipment.

But it would be a fine study of logistics to look at it in some detail considering the initial thrust was designed to last several weeks with no new support (since they had to move inland and still set up the beach heads etc.).

Also, regardless of the number of total population, likely only select central points of power need necessarily be conquered to effectively capture the entire planet. But it depends, they could all go guerrilla, etc. May depend how balkanized they are as well.

 

[Timerover51]

Sorry about the numbers. My post was late night. I am always interested in how people reconcile the information presented in the "official" story as a basis, mix in their world view and turn it into "their" story. I do not go slavishly with with the official story all the time.

My best non-Traveller examples:
Official Star Wars Universe: Greedo shot first (G. Lucas says that the story, deal with it)
My Star Wars Universe: Han shot first (makes his becoming a hero cooler, to me anyways).

I should self-identify. I like the large ship universe in general. My questions should sort of give that away. But I am interested in knowing other people's views. What are the nature of ships involved in planetary invasions (attack or defense) in a small ship universe?

You are in Orland Hills, Illinois?

 

[Carlobrand]

Hi there! I had several questions about Small Ship Fleets
Whether one reduces the population digit or not, High Population Worlds (A reduced to 9 or even 8 say) will still have hundreds of millions if not billions of people to invade/suppress/liberate. On the issue of Planetary Invasions (always liked Invasion: Earth):

In a small ship universe:
How many soldiers could a 5000dTon troop transport ship fit? Would you need to have them all be frozen to make more effective use of space?
How many of said troop transports would be needed to invade a million personnel defense force (say 1% of a Pop 9 planet)?

A point:

The Germans lost mucho troops at Stalingrad, and the Russkis took quite a few casualties taking Berlin. Meanwhile, back at the ranch - and in the same era, Japan was defeated without landing forces on their main islands.

Now, I'm not saying invasion of a world is akin to the Battle of Stalingrad. Nor am I saying a large-pop Traveller world can be choked of resources the way Japan was; a large-pop world's going to be a lot, lot more self-sufficient than WW-II Japan, you aren't going to provoke surrender by isolating them.

However, given the advantages of future-tech, you can make life pretty difficult for folk at the bottom of a gravity well. Steer enough big rocks in their direction and, even at your everyday meteor velocities, you're going to make a right royal mess of things down there even if you don't hit any big cities. Unless there are specific treaties or understandings outlawing such behavior, power in the Traveller universe grows from the turret of a warship, not the barrel of a gun.

...Finally, because they are my favorite aliens, how do you all feel about Solomani "fixed mounts" on ships (From CT Alien Module 6: Solomani) to double up on weapons for CT Book 2 designs?

What do you mean, "double up"? Two fixed weapons per hardpoint's equivalent to a CT double-turret, except of course that the ship's pirouetting around trying to aim the things. Only real advantage is they don't need to allocate fire control tonnage.

A couple of comments. First, if you invade a planet where currently 1% of the population is in the military, and one per cent of a population 9 planet is 10 million, not one million, that percentage is going to increase dramatically, to between 5% and 10% based on past Earth averages. ...

Future tech's expensive. The TL10 fellow in a combat environment suit with chameleon surface and an ACR costs 5 or 6 times more to equip than the TL7 fellow with the cloth and assault rifle, and then there's the increased cost of vehicles. Factor in combat armor and energy weapons at higher techs, it gets even worse. Maybe increased per capita income at higher tech levels would offset some of that, but not by enough. Outfitting future-tech forces costs quite a chunk more per unit, so - given the same budget - the resulting force is going to be less numerous than modern Earth equivalents would suggest.

 

[Timerover51]

Future tech's expensive. The TL10 fellow in a combat environment suit with chameleon surface and an ACR costs 5 or 6 times more to equip than the TL7 fellow with the cloth and assault rifle, and then there's the increased cost of vehicles. Factor in combat armor and energy weapons at higher techs, it gets even worse. Maybe increased per capita income at higher tech levels would offset some of that, but not by enough. Outfitting future-tech forces costs quite a chunk more per unit, so - given the same budget - the resulting force is going to be less numerous than modern Earth equivalents would suggest.

The expense cuts both ways. Are you saying that every one of the invading troops is going to be a combat soldier equipped with the gear that you mention? If they are not, all those that are not become very nice targets for guerilla activity. Also, how acclimatized are your landing troops to the planet? What are the atmospheric, gravitational, and weather differences between the attacker and the defender?

Also, I assume that the invasion is intended to capture the planet and not simply engage in deliberate destruction of the planet's infrastructure. Dropping rocks is easy, assuming that they do not take action to destroy the rocks coming down. But then you do have to occupy the planet. How many millions of men do you think are going to be required to hold a planet with a populous in the billions? The Germans and Italians combined had over 250,000 men in Yugoslavia alone, and did not have full control of the country. And then you have the Russian partisan movement, which also tied up large numbers of German troops.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Outfitting future-tech forces costs quite a chunk more per unit, so - given the same budget - the resulting force is going to be less numerous than modern Earth equivalents would suggest.

Except you don't have to outfit your militia/irregulars to the same level as your full-time troops. It depends on the world's political situation - if the people are sheep under the almighty hand of Zorg and have nothing but wooden pitchforks with which to defend their homes, then, yeah, you get 9 million sheep to add to the 1 million military. If it's a well-to-do constitutional republic with a long history of militias and occasional drills of the "citizen soldiers", then you get 99 million well-armed, psyched-up, disciplined troops who each brought their own combat armor. But, either way, the numbers will up massively once you invade their home turf.