Starships Versus Tanks

[far-trader]

What's it cost?

Fudges (reasonable it seems) aside, that would seem to be the type of vehicle/craft the blurring of ground, air, and space combat at high tech levels implies.

And just one of them would rip a type S to shreds

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Let's take that "think in 3-d" idea one step further. Says one skeptic, "Wouldn't the tanks be terribly vulnerable if dropped from orbit, since they are designed as ground-huggers, with soft underbellies?" My response is, "Who says they drop from the sky right-side up?"

This is where grav technology makes all our modern battlefield assumptions go out the window. You just invert the tank (and maybe crank the internal g-field a bit), and nobody inside the tank cares. Plus, they can now fire (once they slow enough to fire through the plasma) on the battlefield while in the descent.

Oh yeah, the tanks (notice plural) have an advantage over the creaky old Type S, but the players always have the advantage of doing something so stupid they just might pull it off (sounds like they are definitely working on that....).

So, as I said before (harumph) let 'em get there, but make sure their plan doesn't survive first contact.

 

[mike wightman]

Cost?

MCr 22.38

The fudges are:
0.5t of fuel, for 1.5 weeks duration,
the fusion gun is treated as a TL12 plasma gun
a sandcaster represents the countermeasures available
the missile rack represents the tac missiles carried.

The high armour factor, 10, saves this tank from automatic critical hits from anything less than a factor 6 weapon - or a meson gun

Hmm, house rule thought - should the critical hits be reduced to normal hits instead?

 

[mike wightman]

On the High Guard scale of things that type S scout doesn't stand much of a chance against a TL14 "grav tank".

I wonder how effective lower TL grav tanks designed with High Guard would be?

 

[Ran Targas]

Dan da Man!

Sorry I could not have waxed as succintly as Sigg (apologies, I'm a blowhard by nature), but basically I meant to imply the same thing; the OTU grav tank is only realistic if armor/tank designs failed radically to keep pace with technological advances.

Sigg,

I like the battle-ready Trepida; a huge improvement over the prototype! Now we need to test her in battle.

BTW, what kind of comms, sensors, and computing power would it have. By data linking a platoon together, they would be highly effective against fast movers and could even fire on targets without active targetting. With a large enough computer, automated responses to targetting sensor or missile locks could be possible (chaff, sand, aerosol, auto turrets, etc.). I would treat sensor jamming and interference as a function of sensors and computer.

 

[Hyphen]

Dear Folks -

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />However, if the tank had better armor, say AF 75, then the ship won't even scratch it (according to standard rules).

Not quite
The damage of the beam laser is 500.
So even if the tank has an AF of 75 the laser will still inflict 10% damage on a zero penetration result. 50 points to structure.

How much hull structure does a Trepida have? </font>[/QUOTE]Sorry, Sigg, I've been using it so long I forgot that IMTU I divided the damage dice from ships weapons by 10. I mean, we're still talking 50 DICE of damage.

Under the original MT rules, the laser does do 500 dice of damage. However, I thought the rule was that a zero Pen result did nothing? Or was it like you said, that 10% of the damage is applied to structure? If so, that tank is

!!!

BTW, this is why I subscribe to the view of convergence: tanks will inevitably become a version of small craft, using starship-grade weapons and armor.

Take the Belion as a case in point. (I hope far-trader thinks this is a "properly-designed flying space tank", even if it is a bit slow. It evens mentions Ran's idea about linking tanks together - factor-8 battery, anyone? )

The Trepida <spit> is only useful in internal operations, where the Imperium has orbital superiority.

 

[MrMorden]

Originally posted by Ran Targas:

Put it this way; don't you think the tank designers expect to have their baby attacked by orbital laser sats or high altitude aircraft? Wouldn't they develop counters to that threat?

It's a function of intended role. When you call something a "tank" you are hinting at its role. The role of a "tank" on a battlefield is to support infantry and take territory. It is not to shoot down aircraft/spacecraft of engage in atmospheric maneuvering contests. If that is the role, you design it to do that and designate the unit an "air defense platform" or "air/space superiority fighter." You don't call it a "tank."

Since the rules make no distinction between weapons carried by civvies and ones carried my military spacecraft, I think we have to stipulate that ALL space-based weapons in the game are "military grade." Likewise for sensors, fire control, and avionics. After all, the Imperium is a decentralized government, and they do not control access to these items.

Given that, let's look at Some "military grade" aerial weapons vs. tank scenarios. As for a laser...consider that something like a high powered gun, like may the 30mm gun on an A-10 Warthog...which annihilates tanks. Even the 20mm standard gun on other USAF aircraft can take out a tank.

As for missles, think about a Hellfire or Maverick missle...either is fairly small, yet can take out a main battle tank in a single hit. Surely a missle or laser designed to destroy a 100-400 ton armored (in some cases) spacecraft will do quite a number on a 10-25 ton armored air/ground vehicle.

I think you are still trying to shoehorn a tank into role it does not fulfill.

 

[MrMorden]

Originally posted by robject:
So what I'm hearing is that the grav tank issue is very similar to the fighter issue: their effectiveness vs spacecraft depends on the TL of the tank and the spacecraft, because armor and weapons are rated per TL.

And even that is flawed. In Somalia, Afghanistan & Iraq, TL 8-ish tanks, APCs and aircraft are constantly being hit and destroyed by TL 5-6 rockets and bombs. TL helps, but it is hard to wave away the power of a well placed bit of explosive.

 

[Ptah]

Sigg Oddra:

On the High Guard scale of things that type S scout doesn't stand much of a chance against a TL14 "grav tank".

Sigg, first let me say I like what you've done and that the numbers show a grav tank as a potent adversary. Just some thoughts though.

In my gut this doesn't seem right. (I'm not sure where gut-feeling is in the design sequence, somewhere near the end I think

) The numbers make it seems like a 10T ship is more powerful than a 100T ship. Accordingly, instead of fighters why not just load up on Trepedias? There is also something that makes me think if you designed up off of the Trepedia, a 100T ship would be truly fearsome.

The stats look like they are from HG. In HG wasn't there a limit on how much armor you could put on a small craft, as a minimum thickness is assumed. The weapons of the Trepedia also seem to be overpowered for a ship of it's size, e.g., 3 full rated weapons. I would think the missles and sandcaster are far smaller and may not deserve the full rating or rating of 1 on the starship scale. Also, wouldn't providing 3 full rated weapons on a 10T hull break the rules on turrets for small craft?

I think the Trepedia would still be potent at planetary attack scales by the main gun alone. Maybe just not as tough. Instead of just feeling I'll try to pull down HG and Striker tonight to see what shakes out with these assumptions.

Does this make sense or am I misunderstanding the assumptions and/or design/rule set used?

 

[mike wightman]

I said they were fudged

To address some of the issues:
in High Guard there's nothing to say a small craft can't be armoured up to the maximum for the TL.
A 100t version is called a system defence boat, anything less than 100t could be termed a heavy gunboat.
The weapons carried are a bit of a fiddle, the rules say that you can mix weapons within a turret providing the ship has less than ten turrets, and up to three different weapons can be carried by a small craft. It's a bit of a fudge to select a "plasma" gun, sandcaster, and a missile launcher - if I were to drop one it would be the missile launcher
It does say in High Guard that a gunner is required for each additional type of weapon except sandcasters, but Supplement 9 ignores this rule in its write up of the heavy fighter (which is 50t and has an armour value of eight, maneuver/agility six, a model 7 computer, a laser, missile launcher, and sandcaster ).

I've also broken the small craft must have 1t of fuel rule - but it's all in a good cause.

A slight bending of the High Guard rules seems to give a pretty good gunship design.

The scout ship does have one advantage - it can fire its weapons at long range while the Trepida can not respond.

Let's also not forget that the Trepida is TL14 and the scout ship is TL9.
A TL14 scout ship would give the Trepida some problems - just by having a more advanced computer.

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by MrMorden:
It's a function of intended role. When you call something a "tank" you are hinting at its role. The role of a "tank" on a battlefield is to support infantry and take territory. It is not to shoot down aircraft/spacecraft of engage in atmospheric maneuvering contests. If that is the role, you design it to do that and designate the unit an "air defense platform" or "air/space superiority fighter." You don't call it a "tank."

Since the rules make no distinction between weapons carried by civvies and ones carried my military spacecraft, I think we have to stipulate that ALL space-based weapons in the game are "military grade." Likewise for sensors, fire control, and avionics. After all, the Imperium is a decentralized government, and they do not control access to these items.

Given that, let's look at Some "military grade" aerial weapons vs. tank scenarios. As for a laser...consider that something like a high powered gun, like may the 30mm gun on an A-10 Warthog...which annihilates tanks. Even the 20mm standard gun on other USAF aircraft can take out a tank.

As for missles, think about a Hellfire or Maverick missle...either is fairly small, yet can take out a main battle tank in a single hit. Surely a missle or laser designed to destroy a 100-400 ton armored (in some cases) spacecraft will do quite a number on a 10-25 ton armored air/ground vehicle.

I think you are still trying to shoehorn a tank into role it does not fulfill.

As I've posted before, the term grav tank is obsolete by TL12 according to Mercenary - the term gunship should be used instead.
I'll bet the tri-D still calls them tanks though

 

[mike wightman]

A TL15 gunboat:
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">GT - 0103C11 - A30000 - 05002 - 0 10tons
1 1 1 Crew 2
1 1 1 TL15
Fuel = 0.8t EP = 2.3, Agility = 3 </pre>[/QUOTE]A TL12 gunboat:
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">GT - 0103C11 - 330000 - 10001 - 0 10tons
1 1 1 Crew 2
1 1 1 TL12
Fuel = 0.5t EP = 1.3, Agility = 3 </pre>[/QUOTE]A TL13 gunboat:
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">GT - 0103C11 - 430000 - 03002 - 0 10tons
1 1 1 Crew 2
1 1 1 TL13
Fuel = 0.6t EP = 1.3, Agility = 3 </pre>[/QUOTE]

 

[Ptah]

Sigg Oddra

Let's also not forget that the Trepida is TL14 and the scout ship is TL9.

I completely missed that. TL9, its a flying tin can with a really pretty light it calls a weapon. My gut feels much better now.

in High Guard there's nothing to say a small craft can't be armoured up to the maximum for the TL.

Ahh the dangers of impatience and posting from work, no books among other things. This must be a memory from a house-rule.

I said there were fudged

Hey I'm all for fudging, I like to call it reasonable extrapolation. This makes much more sense and I'm liking the stats that come out from you runing the numbers. Personally I might balance off the crew member and 1T fuel fudge by removing the missile and sandcaster from at least a starship level rating. But that's just me. I guess I'd keep the armor rating. The end result to me is still a potent design.

The scoutship does have one advantage - it can fire its weapons at long range while the Trepida can not respond.

I agree that there are other aspects of a starship that can give it advantages, e.g., sensors (if you have those), range, computer, etc. Your work gives a nice example of what happens when starships start to play in a "tank's" back yard.

I'll bet the tri-D still calls them tanks though

This I must strongly disagree with, they are "armored cavalry" units.

 

[Golan2072]

Also remember the Striker errata of unarmored ships (such as a Type-S unless its a VERY high TL modified version) have a Striker Armor Rating of 40, comparable to that of a (light?) high-tech tank.

And about the laser, I was thinking about towning ship lasers from 250-MW to 50-MW.

 

[Ptah]

Employee 2-4061

Also remember the Striker errata of unarmored ships (such as a Type-S unless its a VERY high TL modified version) have a Striker Armor Rating of 40, comparable to that of a (light?) high-tech tank.

Good point. Maybe the next exercise is to write the scout in Striker format (at least the weapons and armor) and compare to those of the tank.

And about the laser, I was thinking about towning ship lasers from 250-MW to 50-MW.

Interesting. Are you thinking of lowering laser power because of their power versus ground forces, the energy requirements (e.g. probably pretty rough for a TL9 ship) or something else?

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Civilian lasers really should be more limited.

 

[Golan2072]

Originally posted by Ptah:
Are you thinking of lowering laser power because of their power versus ground forces, the energy requirements (e.g. probably pretty rough for a TL9 ship) or something else?

Mostly for balance against ground craft; A lightly-armed civilian ship shouldn't be THAT much all-powerful.

 

[Ptah]

Employee 2-4601

Mostly for balance against ground craft; A lightly-armed civilian ship shouldn't be THAT much all-powerful.

That makes sense. I think alot in terms of orders of magnitude, and would think a military-grade starship laser is two orders of magnitude "more powerful" than that of a heavy ground vehicle, and a civilian laser one order of magnitude.

 

[Ran Targas]

^ You see, that's my confusion over this topic; why would civilian space lasers (that take up valuable space and weight) be more powerful than those available to armored vehicles. Don't you think the same guys who build civilian laser build the military ones?!? Would you buy a tank that could be knocked out by a lousy ship's boat pilot joy riding over the battlefield? Would you buy a tank that couldn't knock said joy rider out of the sky?

No wonder mercs are so prevailent in the OTU; the Imperial military has crappy equipment and can't even hold their own against the Scout Service!

 

[robject]

A Scout theoretically has maybe one EP to spend on weapons (I think) -- if a triple laser turret used up all that spare energy, then that works out to around 80MW per laser, which might not be too bad.