The role of various ship types in the Imperium

[StrikerFan]

Originally posted by TheColonel:
The target harrassment ability of small fighters would be enough to warrent their use. You would have to design ships to be able to take on close small targets. You would lose some space for large weapons. Fighters could(as stated) take out sensors or large weapons. And....nuclear dampers can't work all the time. Or...what about a nice matter/anitmatter missle? The TL to create one would be less than creating a working M/AM engine.

Anti-matter missiles are, IIRC, TL17 or so under MT rules. Fighters are not a major threat to capital ships, but they can sting them (at a fair amount of risk, when the big ships get annoyed and turn the missile bays in the fighter's direction fighters die like ants). Fighters are a useful auxiliary force, and in a close battle can make the difference in who wins or loses, but they're not the decisive arm of battle. Though if you allow them to use hardpoints and externally mounted missiles, they can hit pretty hard once.

StrikerFan

 

[Liam Devlin]

And for the truly wicked minded GM admirals..instead of armaments, equip with jammers (hey you can geta trip turret in a 50dtn FTR, why not a jamming array?)--wild easel affect-blinding enenmy sensors/ scramble ship to ship comms...ahh cry havoc, and slip the dogs of War!

 

[StrikerFan]

Originally posted by Liam Devlin:
And for the truly wicked minded GM admirals..instead of armaments, equip with jammers (hey you can geta trip turret in a 50dtn FTR, why not a jamming array?)--wild easel affect-blinding enenmy sensors/ scramble ship to ship comms...ahh cry havoc, and slip the dogs of War!

Jamming's tougher, at least under MT, because so much of your sensing's done with the densitometer, and comm's is handled by laser/maser/meson comms. Jamming the densitometer isn't likely, and it's not easy to jam laser/maser comms (though you could do it temporarily using a sandcaster in the right place, perhaps). Meson comms, well, no, you're not jamming those either.

However, a tactic that can be used, and is IMTU, is to use drones to decoy enemy forces away from where they should be: send drones across the system and have them turn on their active sensors. Now, does the enemy think the rest of the fleet's there? Or do they think it's a feint? It could be either. Gets to be a bit of a dilemma....

StrikerFan

 

[Liam Devlin]

And to that dilemma the Admirals must decide..is the enmy bluffing/ feinting/ or what? How many ships to I send to check it out? Or do I send FTRS?
Decisions like that can cost a battle. And a whole lot more. Thats why Admiral's get paid the big bucks.

 

[Ben W Bell]

Though of course using a bluff of drones won't work against most military ships as a densiometer would be able to tell in an instant that they are not the enemy fleet. May work against smaller ships and pirates and the like, but not larger ships with densiometers.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Originally posted by BenBell:
Though of course using a bluff of drones won't work against most military ships as a densiometer would be able to tell in an instant that they are not the enemy fleet. May work against smaller ships and pirates and the like, but not larger ships with densiometers.

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Ahhh densitometers... Rather short ranged aren't they? Most passive sensor systems (PEMS) are shorter ranged than Actives (AEMS).
But we get into semantics...and another thread entirely for The Fleet--the electronic warfare & counter measures aspects of space combat. Shall we take it there?

 

[BluWolf]

I am sure I am making a hugely obvious reference here but what the hell....

For an excellent example of how navies tactically dance read "Red Storm Rising" by Clancy.

There are a few chapters detailing the whole fient and sensor dance situation.

Nothing like playing chicken with a few hundred thousand dt worth o' ships.

Its funny, with all the technology, defensive, aggresive, passive, active, layered and consditioned sometimes the battle is all over and done with by two people making singular decisions.

Bizzare

 

[Simon Jester]

Originally posted by Liam Devlin:

Ahhh densitometers... Rather short ranged aren't they? Most passive sensor systems (PEMS) are shorter ranged than Actives (AEMS).
But we get into semantics...and another thread entirely for The Fleet--the electronic warfare & counter measures aspects of space combat. Shall we take it there?

Rather the opposite; passive sensors are longer ranged, though inherently less detailed, than active sensors. The easiest example I can think of to reflect this is the flashlight. You can see someone using a flashlight (passive) a hell of a lot further away than that person can see objects with the flashlight (active). Radar and sonar are much the same way.

Simon Jester

 

[Liam Devlin]

Au contraire mon ami!
Active sensors less powerful/ less ranged than passive? Not in my experience with MT/TNE...

The advantages of passive sensors is not their range, but in their ability to keep the searching vessel from detection. Active sensors are farther ranged in these two Trav variants--Active also alerts the foe yer lookin fer him.

I cite Battle Rider & Brilliant lances as sources for this, for the general info, as well as numerous ship write ups in the TNE-HB, and elsewhere-in thousands of Km, the PEMS is always shorter ranged than the AEMS.

 

[manley_t]

I think using wet-navy concepts for space combat vehicles is rather limiting. In the wet-navy aircraft launched from a mobile platform project force much farther than the vessel can. Adding to this the utility function of aircraft in conjunction with the increase is radar coverage.

So the question I’ve often thought; why have a fighter in space anyway?

Let’s look at it his way. You have a ‘capitol’ ship that has the power to fire a vast array of weapons, and has the size to carry reinforced hull plating, and has the space for large sensor packages. Why even bother with a small fighter? The powerplant shouldn’t be considered large enough to mount an energy weapon that can do any significant damage (respective to the capitol ship). The only reason we have today is the fact that aircraft can carry ordinance, the same warheads that can be placed on a missile, can be placed in a clustered package aboard an aircraft. Hence, the pilot + vehicle become an intelligent reusable delivery system.

That’s the only reason I can come up with to have a combat fighter in advanced tech space combat. You have an ordinance deliver system that can get in close, deliver its payload, and then try to get away. However, if you look at the modern US fighters and the role they play you can see that a large number of missions are being taken over by cruise missiles. As long as you have intelligence on the area and have the coordinates you can use a missile instead of a plane. The benefit that aircraft play is the ‘attack of opportunity’.

This was tested out using the vectored math / butcher paper combat system we used to use for CT. If you launch your ordinance while at distance, the continuous 6G acceleration makes the maneuverability of the missile piss poor. You ended up having the missile ‘chase’ the target as each round it readjusted and accelerated in that direction. We had missiles move in the combat segment instead of movement. But, if you infuse real-time into the mix it becomes even more complex.

When you add advanced avionics and robotics into the mix why should you even bother to spend money on space-fighters when you can just build advanced drones/torpedoes that think on their own instead? Overall it’s cheaper (the cost to train and support a pilot compared to the cost to build and deploy an advanced robotic brain system).

So, you have your 10ton fighter, why not instead build a 10ton torpedo? Anything that can defeat that torpedo should/would be able to defeat said same fighter. But, there are more things (radiation for one) that can defeat that fighter that will have no effect on the torpedo.

So, my thoughts come to this. ‘Carriers’ are really nothing more than Battle Riders. The best savings is to build a ship without the massive jump engines and fuel requirements needed for interstellar travel.

Anyway….just my few cents worth….

 

[StrikerFan]

Originally posted by Liam Devlin:
Au contraire mon ami!
Active sensors less powerful/ less ranged than passive? Not in my experience with MT/TNE...

Under MT, the two are approximately equal in range EXCEPT that your energy signature is heightened if you're running active sensors. So even a roll of Failure is a success against a target that's radiating a large signature.

A fleet commonly has a screen of small units (drones/fighters/small ships) out in front to prevent ambushes, so a group of radiating drones could easily be followed by the capitol ships (if you're close enough to tell that they're the drones). The bluff is a strategem to move the enemy fleet away from where you don't want them, to try to encourage them to break into smaller parts so you can defeat them in detail. It's not so much a tactic that you use at close quarters.

StrikerFan

 

[Liam Devlin]

Originally posted by StrikerFan:

Under MT, the two are approximately equal in range EXCEPT that your energy signature is heightened if you're running active sensors. So even a roll of Failure is a success against a target that's radiating a large signature.
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Hmmm. We converted MT ships to TNE, OTOH, imtu. I liked the hard science of FF&S better there than MT's. Signalling out to those ranges that AEMS requires uses power-power on ship that can be detected unless masked.
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A fleet commonly has a screen of small units (drones/fighters/small ships) out in front to prevent ambushes, so a group of radiating drones could easily be followed by the capitol ships (if you're close enough to tell that they're the drones). The bluff is a strategem to move the enemy fleet away from where you don't want them, to try to encourage them to break into smaller parts so you can defeat them in detail. It's not so much a tactic that you use at close quarters.

StrikerFan[/QUOTE]
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In the Battle Rider Game (again, TNE reference), the commander's Fleet Tactics skill asset comes to play in separating his "fleet" (and in this era-four or five ships could be a fleet depending on who you faced/ as opposed to rpe-collapse era type of scenarios) into smaller TF counters. It still remained to the opposing player to discover which was decoy and which was "the main effort"-only the referee knew which was which as passed to him by the two players (minimum). Again, range of sensors comes to the fore. And crew quality, etc.
Its my opinion (and just that Strikerfan, nothing more) that PEMS in space are shorter ranged, use less power/ to effect the stealth of the probing ship.

 

[StrikerFan]

Originally posted by Liam Devlin:

Its my opinion (and just that Strikerfan, nothing more) that PEMS in space are shorter ranged, use less power/ to effect the stealth of the probing ship.

I'm just saying that under MT rules (I couldn't stand the TNE character rules so never got to FF&S), the two types of systems have the same range (at least at the higher TLs). Passive systems are nice for the reasons you give, they don't advertise your existence to all and sundry, but active systems may spot things that you'd miss with passsive systems (smaller, low-powered units, for instance). So what you run when is an issue, a decision for the person in charge.

StrikerFan

 

[Liam Devlin]

StrikerFan posted-"I'm just saying that under MT rules (I couldn't stand the TNE character rules so never got to FF&S), the two types of systems have the same range (at least at the higher TLs). Passive systems are nice for the reasons you give, they don't advertise your existence to all and sundry, but active systems may spot things that you'd miss with passsive systems (smaller, low-powered units, for instance). So what you run when is an issue, a decision for the person in charge."
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S'all right Striker, I know where ya comin' from. Sorry ye missed out on the FF&S. Made much more sense to me.
And yer right-it comes to down to the man makin the decisions-when to go "hot" and tell the world out there yer huntin em, and when to lie "doggo".

Glad we had this chat, sir.

Drive on!