System Defense Fleets

[McPerth]

The main killer of ships in a campaign is being stranded and running the PP fuel dry. BR's suffer this a lot more than BB's.

OK. Let me correct myself to the main battle damage killer.

In effect in any given turn the odds of a Meson-J crippling his target is roughly 7% x 33.7% or 2.6% each turn. Even if you recalculate to allow for Interior Explosion Criticals or FTS, the scale of successful results from a MG per turn is not great. It most definitely is not a battle winning strategy.

And you are only guaranteed one turn of firing with a MG at full strength.

True. I accept you numbers and a J rated meson will hit and penetrate about 33 % of times of those, 7 % will be outright losses (volatilized), but another 70% whould have received a FTS result, 25.4 % of your J rated mesons will take a ship out of commision (assuming equal computer size).

T-Mesons are of course much nastier - once they hit. Bur what makes them nasty is not the number of criticals they get, but that the Imperium is the only power with Factor-9 Meson Screens and factor-9 Computers, meaning that vs Zhodane or Solomani Fleets they achieve a hit & penetration rate of 53% per T-Meson per turn;

The same may be said about the J rated MG. If you have it, you're also at TL 15, so the computer and meson screen advantage is yours too.

 

[Matt123]

I do know. I failed to catch your drift because I didn't imagine that you would assume the defender would be witless enough not to build spare BRs and deploy them as system defenses until needed.

lol, you must be having a bad day.

So how is it more cost effective to stock up on BR's and how many do you need in reserve for your strategy to be effective? Do you anticipate a 100% loss over those two years waiting for replacements to be built or 200%? More?

And of course your spare BR's must be taken into account in any BB vs BR comparison. I have been too "witless" to click onto this before...

Obviously with such a large chunk of your budget non-mobile, I'm picking my odds of defeating your mobile BR fleets to be quite good. Certainly my Homeworld is quite safe, you cannot transport enough to threaten my SDB's.

Ultimately your strategy will devolve to a Turtle strategy, where after losing some BR's, you will retreat to your (very safe) Homeworld and bank on everyone else whittling themselves down before your poke your head out again with your limited number of Tenders & all the BR's they can carry (& lots of BR's left behind twiddling their thumbs).

...all those mission-killed battleships that won't be able to move until they've been repaired...

lol, which is why I have recovery ships and fast couriers to get parts & fuel on-site.

... four weeks is plenty of time for the word to get out and a response force to get back to the captured system...

Here you are assuming I want to hold the system. I'm quite happy knocking out BR's, fighting a battle of attrition. You can keep the system (after I've destroyed the local infrastructure). My repaired BB's will jump away in a few weeks.

It would even be possible for ships two jumps away to get there (J6 courier jumps to alert, force makes two jumps back; three jumps in 28 days, plenty of time).

Absolutely, the same timeline applies to my recovery forces.

And if the defender had invested in battleships instead of tenders+riders, the attacker would have needed a smaller force to achieve overwhelming odds.

How do you figure that!

 

[mike wightman]

Which is why the Imperium will start to build battle riders with a jump 1 drive - very easy to do at TL15.

This offers tactical mobility (a get out of dodge option) while strategic mobility is still provided by the tender.

 

[AndreaV]

Sits on hands about the flaws in classic BR/Tender design :devil:

However, regarding the various merits of BR vs BB. As written you can get (roughly) 7 BR's for the cost of 1 BB. So yes the BB may be theoretically useful when things go wrong, but generally speaking, its better to spend the funds on extra BR's and rely on escorts for the missile barrage (and will sit on hands about my opinions on the "nibbled to death by missiles" factor of HG). The 7 to 1 ratio means things are far less likely to go wrong with the BR's than throwing a handful of BB's into the fleet.

Plus the whole vulnerability of the tender is IMO rather over stated. A well designed tender is actually quite survivable for the one or two rounds it will be exposed to danger.

 

[Tobias]

OK. Let me correct myself to the main battle damage killer.

That depends on which rules you use, though. If you are using the original crew damage rules, by which any crew hit means a mission kill, crew damage is by far the most effective ship killer. Meson guns get hits on the radiation hit table as well as on the surface damage table.

By the way, one rule that is often overlooked can considerably influence the balance of many smaller ships vs. one big ship: Individual skills. A genius captain (say Ship Tactics-5) combined with an ace pilot (Pilot-5) will transform a computer-9, agility-6 ship into a computer-11, agility-8 ship.

 

[mike wightman]

Such skill levels are far too rare - or should be anyway.

They do allow you to make up the rule that is missing from the combat tables - crew quality.

green - -1 to everything applicable from the individual skills rules section

regular - no modifier

veteran - +1 to everything applicable

elite - +2 to everything applicable

 

[AndreaV]

That depends on which rules you use, though. If you are using the original crew damage rules, by which any crew hit means a mission kill, crew damage is by far the most effective ship killer. Meson guns get hits on the radiation hit table as well as on the surface damage table.

By the way, one rule that is often overlooked can considerably influence the balance of many smaller ships vs. one big ship: Individual skills. A genius captain (say Ship Tactics-5) combined with an ace pilot (Pilot-5) will transform a computer-9, agility-6 ship into a computer-11, agility-8 ship.

With the crew rules as written, any meson C or better that hit and penetrated results in at least Crew-1. That is a mission kill.

 

[Matt123]

However, regarding the various merits of BR vs BB. As written you can get (roughly) 7 BR's for the cost of 1 BB.

Looking at your BB vs BR spreadsheet, that number only holds if you are using J4 BB's. For the J3 BB's the ratio is roughly 2 BR's to 1 BB.

FWIW, the canon Imperial BB Fleet, despite a J4 doctrine, is generally only capable of J3 (eg: the Tigress & Kokirrak only carry sufficient fuel for J3, while the J4 Plankwell is, per S9, being withdrawn to the Strategic Reserve) .

I agree though that the vulnerability of Tenders is overstated, admittedly for different reasons. I don't even give mine weapons or defences, the credits are better spent elsewhere. If they are ever in a position to need either, IMO they should have already left.

 

[Matt123]

With the crew rules as written, any meson C or better that hit and penetrated results in at least Crew-1. That is a mission kill.

Yep, facing MG armed ships with BB's or BR's is not a particularly smart battle strategy.

 

[AndreaV]

Looking at your BB vs BR spreadsheet, that number only holds if you are using J4 BB's. For the J3 BB's the ratio is roughly 2 BR's to 1 BB.

FWIW, the canon Imperial BB Fleet, despite a J4 doctrine, is generally only capable of J3 (eg: the Tigress & Kokirrak only carry sufficient fuel for J3, while the J4 Plankwell is, per S9, being withdrawn to the Strategic Reserve) .

I agree though that the vulnerability of Tenders is overstated, admittedly for different reasons. I don't even give mine weapons or defences, the credits are better spent elsewhere. If they are ever in a position to need either, IMO they should have already left.

LOL I've actually long argued for the J3 BB and J4 BR doctrine (along with single rider tenders), because the 2 to 1 ratio is workable. However that evil beastie, canon, tell us that both are built at J4. Plus the J4 rider's are again, significantly less likely to get "into trouble" (actually I can make a decent case for J6 riders).

 

[AndreaV]

Yep, facing MG armed ships with BB's or BR's is not a particularly smart battle strategy.

problem is, once you factor into the equation the cost and space requirements for missiles, it tends to become the only realistic one.

 

[rancke]

And of course your spare BR's must be taken into account in any BB vs BR comparison. I have been too "witless" to click onto this before...

The spare BRs are system defenses. Something that's already being paid for out of system defense budgets.

Obviously with such a large chunk of your budget non-mobile, I'm picking my odds of defeating your mobile BR fleets to be quite good. Certainly my Homeworld is quite safe, you cannot transport enough to threaten my SDB's.

Hopefully (for him) your attacker would also be spending a sizable part of his military budget on defending his own systems and only build battleships with the part of the budget he feels he can afford to spend on attack forces. After all, the defender's mobile forces are six[*] times as effective as the attacker's, so if he doesn't guard his homeworld, he's extremely vulnerable.

[*] Let's not lose sight of the underlying assumption I'm arguing from: That if the combat system is correct, meson spinals are the main shipkiller and that once your ship is big enough to carry your biggest meson spinal, any further size increase does not increase combat effectiveness significantly, and that you can get six or eight battleriders (including the tenders to carry them) for the cost of a battleship.​

...which is why I have recovery ships and fast couriers to get parts & fuel on-site.

Let's see, you're spending six time the cost of the defending forces (including system defenses) on enough battleships to achieve parity, plus a lot more to achieve superiority. You're adding the cost of enough empty tenders to be able to carry away the defeated riders. And now you're also spending money on recovery ships big enough to carry away battleships? (Not on mobile repair facilities able to repair them on site, since you don't have the time to do so before reaction forces can arrive to drive you away and scoop up all those mission-killed battleships of yours.)

Here you are assuming I want to hold the system. I'm quite happy knocking out BR's, fighting a battle of attrition. You can keep the system (after I've destroyed the local infrastructure). My repaired BB's will jump away in a few weeks.

I assume you want to hold the system long enough to repair your battleships. "A few weeks" sounds harmless enough, but "more time than the enemy needs to return with reinforcements" is the more accurate term.

Absolutely, the same timeline applies to my recovery forces.

I'm curious to know how much your recovery forces adds to the cost of your attack force. Just a very rough estimate will do.

And if the defender had invested in battleships instead of tenders+riders, the attacker would have needed a smaller force to achieve overwhelming odds.

How do you figure that!

Using simple arithmetic. You get (very rough estimate) six battleriders for the same amount of money you pay for a battleship. <System defenses> + <X battleships> requires fewer ships to defeat than <system defenses> + <6X battleriders>.


Hans

 

[AndreaV]

[*] Let's not lose sight of the underlying assumption I'm arguing from: That if the combat system is correct, meson spinals are the main shipkiller and that once your ship is big enough to carry your biggest meson spinal, any further size increase does not increase combat effectiveness significantly, and that you can get six or eight battleriders (including the tenders to carry them) for the cost of a battleship.​

Hans

Sadly, as written, the main shipkiller in HG is "nibbled to death by hamsters (missiles)" because missiles are both free and available in limitless supply. To make mesons the main shipkiller you need to factor in magazine requirements and charge for missiles fired.

 

[rancke]

Sadly, as written, the main shipkiller in HG is "nibbled to death by hamsters (missiles)" because missiles are both free and available in limitless supply. To make mesons the main shipkiller you need to factor in magazine requirements and charge for missiles fired.

Well, I don't know enough about how meson guns "really" affect targets to state flat out that the combat system is wrong; that's why I'm positing that there is a discrepancy between the effects as portrayed in the combat system and the building of lots and lots of battleships by OTU navies. But I do know that missiles require magazines, costs money, and are expended. So I don't feel the need to prove that the combat system that ignores that is wrong on that point. (Or rather, simplifies "reality" for game purposes). I consider that a given.


Hans

 

[AndreaV]

Well, I don't know enough about how meson guns "really" affect targets to state flat out that the combat system is wrong; that's why I'm positing that there is a discrepancy between the effects as portrayed in the combat system and the building of lots and lots of battleships by OTU navies. But I do know that missiles require magazines, costs money, and are expended. So I don't feel the need to prove that the combat system that ignores that is wrong on that point. (Or rather, simplifies "reality" for game purposes). I consider that a given.


Hans

Preaching to the converted Hans . I once worked it out. Trigger pull on a Factor-9 missile battery is about MCr3. That is 25% of the cost of the battery itself. And to mission kill a 74KTon P gun ship you need to expend around 2500 rounds of Fac-9 missile fire. This is roughly 10% of the cost of the ship being killed and requires 2.5 MTons of ship.

 

[Tobias]

Sadly, as written, the main shipkiller in HG is "nibbled to death by hamsters (missiles)" because missiles are both free and available in limitless supply. To make mesons the main shipkiller you need to factor in magazine requirements and charge for missiles fired.

At TL 15? I don't think so.
Nonnuclear missiles cannot hurt any armor 14+ ship. Nuclear missiles only get through versus factor-9 nuke dampers on a 10+, which is one in 6. Finally, missiles can be reliably stopped by repulsors.

 

[mike wightman]

From the missiles special supplement:

Each standard missile rack can hold one missile ready to fire and two additional missiles ready for future game turns. The role of the gunner in the turret is to aim and fire the weaponry in the turret; once the missile racks and ready missiles are exhausted, the gunner must reload them with new missiles. A gunner can load new missiles into the racks and still operate the weaponry in a game turn.

The standard turret has room to store an additional 12 missiles in it. Once these missiles have been used, the turret must be restocked with missiles carried elsewhere in the ship (usually in the cargo hold).

Assuming a turret and a bay missile launcher have a similar number of reloads that's 7 turns of fire with missiles carried in the turret/bay.

 

[McPerth]

That depends on which rules you use, though. If you are using the original crew damage rules, by which any crew hit means a mission kill, crew damage is by far the most effective ship killer. Meson guns get hits on the radiation hit table as well as on the surface damage table.

True. I'm assuming here we're talking about the HG rules with the crew variant or MT, whose main differences are the use of sensors and the lesser letality of Interior Explosion result on the SUrface Explosion table (due to the table distribution and the lack of the +6 in the IET roll). Otherwise, crew killing is another of the main ship-crippling result.

By the way, one rule that is often overlooked can considerably influence the balance of many smaller ships vs. one big ship: Individual skills. A genius captain (say Ship Tactics-5) combined with an ace pilot (Pilot-5) will transform a computer-9, agility-6 ship into a computer-11, agility-8 ship.

I never forget about the ship tactics or pilot use, but I also assume that among large fleets its influence would be minor, as you won't have many more such officiers than you enemy (another guess of mine, of course, but I think most fleets would be likely trained).

Another thing that (IMHO) fails in HG too is that if you have a captain with Ship's Tactics 5 and a pilot 5 pilot, the rest of the crew could as well be raw recruits just taken out of the bar, and your ship efectiveness won't be affected.

In MT more skills are assumed to be featured, but it's so badly explained that (again IMHO) makes it useless ecept again for Ship Tactics, but there the tactics pool may be easily abused (how many ship's tactics skill may you have on a 2000 men crew? And even more if you remember tactics may be used as ship's tactics at minus one).

As it would take too much space to repeat it here, let me direct you to early posts of mine (who will again refer you to another, sorry for that): http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showpost.php?p=378300&postcount=626

The spare BRs are system defenses. Something that's already being paid for out of system defense budgets.


Hopefully (for him) your attacker would also be spending a sizable part of his military budget on defending his own systems and only build battleships with the part of the budget he feels he can afford to spend on attack forces. After all, the defender's mobile forces are six[*] times as effective as the attacker's, so if he doesn't guard his homeworld, he's extremely vulnerable.

I guess the BB fleet's home defenses will also be paid by the system defense budgets, as your, that also must pay for your spare BRs to make up losses.

I assume you want to hold the system long enough to repair your battleships. "A few weeks" sounds harmless enough, but "more time than the enemy needs to return with reinforcements" is the more accurate term.

I've found your earlier posts about time to mobilize and counterattack quite optimist. In it you assumed that:

-You have a straong enough TF in suport range.

-You know where your supporting forces are (if this battle is not the only operation on the area, there's a nice possibility that any mobile forces it has have jumped from the position you assumed them on the last weeks, so sending your courrier to a wild chase trying to find them.

If you just go rearguard with your tenders to pick reserve BRs as spares to fight again, are you sure you want to jump, with an equivalent force to that who just retreated (even if you have a million BRs waiting where you jump to pick them, your tenders can only carry that many) into the same fleet that has overwhelmed them? And this time without spare fuel to jump away...

Sadly, as written, the main shipkiller in HG is "nibbled to death by hamsters (missiles)" because missiles are both free and available in limitless supply. To make mesons the main shipkiller you need to factor in magazine requirements and charge for missiles fired.

I fully agree with you here. Most of you have already read my opinion about that. In MT, where this is factored, a 50 dton bay nuclear missile salvo costs MCr 3.75, adn a 100 dton one MCr 7.5. If we accept your nubers (2500 factor 9 nukes savos), it costs about MCr 9375 to cripple a 74 kdton ship...

Assuming a turret and a bay missile launcher have a similar number of reloads that's 7 turns of fire with missiles carried in the turret/bay.

At wich cost? How much tonnage do you need for spares?

 

[McPerth]

At TL 15? I don't think so.
Nonnuclear missiles cannot hurt any armor 14+ ship. Nuclear missiles only get through versus factor-9 nuke dampers on a 10+, which is one in 6. Finally, missiles can be reliably stopped by repulsors.

I guess 3I doesn't make its ships to fight other TL 15 fleets (as there are no enemy with such a capability on their borders).

That may be one of the factors leading Rebellion to such an attrition inconclusive war...

 

[mike wightman]

Cost of missiles is nothing compared with crew wages =)

Or put another way - HG doesn't bother itself with costs for anything but construction. Life support, crew salaries, repair parts, ordnance... none of it.

When you move up to campaign games like TCS again the support costs are ignored - it's a simplification necessary to stop a tedious amount of detail.

How much does a ship Captain on a BB get paid compared with the commander of an escort? How does rank affect pay?

By my reckoning you get 7 turns worth of fire from your missile batteries before you have to worry about missiles carried in cargo, magazines or replenishment.

Seven turns is a long time for a HG engagement to last.