The Imperial TL15 Dreadnoughts

[robject]

Dreadnoughts

From this thread, I've come to a working concept of what an Imperial TL15 Dreadnought is required to have, according to Imperial naval doctrine:
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• Jump 4, Maneuver 6 (TL 15 Imperial fleet doctrine).
• Best possible computer.
• Best nuclear dampers.
• Best meson screens.
• Most effective meson spine.
• Best possible armor for the TL.
• Plenty of secondary weaponry and defenses.

It may or may not have other features (like troops and fighters, black globe, modular construction, and whatnot), but it must have the above.[/FONT]

 

[mike wightman]

Agility 6 is a must.

jump 4 - 45%
bridge - 2%
maneuver 6 - 17%
armour 12 - 13%
meson screen power plant and fuel 3.6%(let's round to 4% - see next bit)
power plant and fuel - 14% (if your ship is big enough this gets you the power for your computer/spinal/damper and secondary batteries).
You are left with 5% of the ship for everything else - crew, spinal, secondary weapons

 

[martletsquire]

Your analysis explains why only the battlewagons can carry heavy guns on a long jump platform. Once you get past hull, drives and fuel, the rest is... fiddly-bits.

 

[atpollard]

I played around a little with HGS (the ship design software) and seemed to have a lot of trouble with agility. With all of the percentage issues, the need for more power quickly drives up ship size. Like the Armor-Weapon-Speed (pick two) trade off in tank design, I am beginning to suspect that a Dreadnought will need to make trade-offs that will result in significantly different 200,000 dTon ships.

 

[robject]

I played around a little with HGS (the ship design software) and seemed to have a lot of trouble with agility. With all of the percentage issues, the need for more power quickly drives up ship size. Like the Armor-Weapon-Speed (pick two) trade off in tank design, I am beginning to suspect that a Dreadnought will need to make trade-offs that will result in significantly different 200,000 dTon ships.

The main thing is this: if it doesn't enhance survivability in the line of battle, it's not critical.

I see armor being shorted a bit, and even screens seem to not have to be Factor-9, but I don't see weapons or Agility being shorted (nor the computer model of course).

But I suspect that once you've passed 200kt, armor can climb up to its technological maximum. At that point you can add a secondary mission to a dreadnought (assault platform or fighter carrier, for example). For example, the Tigress has everything maxed out, plus has a pile of fighters and some troops. So at some point between 200kt and 500kt the TL15 ship can max out all its "line of battle" requirements.

 

[mike wightman]

The Tigress is a broken design.

Meson screen 9 and agility 6 are a must for any TL15 ship of the line. Your size mod makes you an easy target, mitigated by the high agility. The high meson screen makes it unlikely that the smaller meson guns can hit and penetrate so it takes something big to carry the gun to take you out in one lucky shot.

Armour has certain values where it can push other results off the damage table, an armour rating of 15 means any roll of 7 or more causes no damage

Armour 15 means 16% of the ship - so you now only have 2% left to cram in crew and weapons etc.
The good news is your size goes up the relative size of your pp can drop a bit and so can its fuel, so you can get that 2% back but it takes a very big ship to do so.
1% of hull for pp generates 1000EP per 100,000t of ship - so since the minimum % for your pp is 8%, this leaves 0.2% for powering computer, damper and weapons. So a 500kt ship has 1000EP to spare - not enough, drop the armour by 2.
A 650kt dreadnaught would have 1300EP to spend on other stuff with max armour, this is the minimum size for a TL15 dreadnaught (it still has 5% of its hull to allocate to crew, weapons etc.)

 

[robject]

Yes, I see the problem. Mike, I know you know the problem. I know that you know the problem better than I. I assume you know that I know that you know that.

So I'm moving on. I'll edit my original post to reflect best-of-class in all components in order to be classified as a dreadnought, despite the designs in Supplement 9. I will live with the contradiction.

 

[robject]

And with Traveller5, there is no armor ceiling. This makes the optima a little harder to find, because now we have to balance firepower with armor, whereas before we knew the armor limit was Factor 15. And at least in theory, coordinated fire from multiple ships could overcome defenses (that could be a big can of worms there).
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[rancke]

And with Traveller5, there is no armor ceiling. This makes the optima a little harder to find, because now we have to balance firepower with armor, whereas before we knew the armor limit was Factor 15. And at least in theory, coordinated fire from multiple ships could overcome defenses (that could be a big can of worms there).
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Or you could assume that in the OTU the ceiling remains in place.


Hans

 

[robject]

For all intents and purposes, that's how it works out.

 

[Carlobrand]

I would suggest it's mission-dependent. As Mike noted, high agility is a must. That being said, if you also set Jump-4 as a priority, your armor's going to be middling, rendering you vulnerable to having your weapons stripped.

I would design fleets in two mission types: a jump-4 fast reaction force that can move deep and assemble quickly, and a jump-3 heavy armor force that takes longer to get there but is a tougher nut to crack. The former would be useful for strategic maneuver. The latter would be useful for defense of strategic points that you're less willing to cede or for attacks on well-defended enemy strategic worlds.

A well-balanced fleet should have both sword and shield.

 

[The Oz]

I would suggest it's mission-dependent. As Mike noted, high agility is a must. That being said, if you also set Jump-4 as a priority, your armor's going to be middling, rendering you vulnerable to having your weapons stripped.

I would design fleets in two mission types: a jump-4 fast reaction force that can move deep and assemble quickly, and a jump-3 heavy armor force that takes longer to get there but is a tougher nut to crack. The former would be useful for strategic maneuver. The latter would be useful for defense of strategic points that you're less willing to cede or for attacks on well-defended enemy strategic worlds.

A well-balanced fleet should have both sword and shield.

How I handle this IMTU is that battleships are Jump-3 and make up the squadrons on the frontier to slow the enemy down. The Jump-4 fleet is the battle rider/battle tender squadrons and they are the reserve forces at Depot that move up to restore the situation.

 

[robject]

How I handle this IMTU is that battleships are Jump-3 and make up the squadrons on the frontier to slow the enemy down. The Jump-4 fleet is the battle rider/battle tender squadrons and they are the reserve forces at Depot that move up to restore the situation.

Between you and Carlobrand and the wall, I think y'all's suggestions make a lot more sense than what I get from reading Supplement 9.

 

[Ulsyus]

I would design fleets in two mission types: a jump-4 fast reaction force that can move deep and assemble quickly, and a jump-3 heavy armor force that takes longer to get there but is a tougher nut to crack. The former would be useful for strategic maneuver. The latter would be useful for defense of strategic points that you're less willing to cede or for attacks on well-defended enemy strategic worlds.

A well-balanced fleet should have both sword and shield.

Perhaps you should liaise with The Oz to test your theory out with his Fleet Battle Options system.

 

[mike wightman]

Between you and Carlobrand and the wall, I think y'all's suggestions make a lot more sense than what I get from reading Supplement 9.

Supplement 9 designs are almost all broken in one way or another.

 

[mike wightman]

The Imperium has another strategic option - jump 6 tenders with drop tanks.

You can make these things little more than strategic ferries to bring your reserves - BB, BT/R, cruisers, escorts, anything you want - closer to the conflict zone at which point regular fleet mobility takes over.

Strategic drop tank caches are also a great way to increase strategic mobility to move your fleet around inside your space.

 

[The Oz]

The Imperium has another strategic option - jump 6 tenders with drop tanks.

You can make these things little more than strategic ferries to bring your reserves - BB, BT/R, cruisers, escorts, anything you want - closer to the conflict zone at which point regular fleet mobility takes over.

Strategic drop tank caches are also a great way to increase strategic mobility to move your fleet around inside your space.

I like the idea of using tankers as mobile, self-refilling drop tanks.

A 200kton J-6 tanker can give two J-3 ships of equal tonnage enough fuel for one Jump. So, using really long fuel lines, two battleships draw fuel for Jump directly from the tanker, retaining their onboard fuel for their arrival. When the jump capacitors are full, the hoses are disconnected (the tanker is already a safe distance away) and the battleships Jump,

 

[Ulsyus]

What about collapsible tanks? An AO jumps in with escorts and full tanks, refuels the batrons, then with depleted tanks and a reduced displacement jumps with them again to the next system, where it's extensive scooping tenders and on-board refineries work overtime to refil it's own and the collapsible tanks?