Traveller Equivalent of Carrier Battlegroup?

[Linwood]

The critical hit rule changes the equation as well. If you have on average a 5% (or better) chance of scoring a hit that may ignore the armor (and has a damage multiplier to boot), a flood of small, cheap weapons platforms could do some significant damage to even a major capital vessel.

Personally, I think it would be interesting to look at how a large mixed squadron of specialized fighters (say, half armed w/ triple missile turrets and nukes, the rest w/ dual fusion guns) would fare against larger vessels. The results might be surprising.

 

[Merchant Reaper]

As to the question about ships being able to jump together. Yes they can. Will they arrive together? Yes, but it will be anywhere from minutes to hours apart. Why is that? Well according to some mumbo jumbo Mr Frugate threw together in one of the Trav. Mags he was responsible for, probably MTrav. Digest. Anyway, he said that as the formual stands their computations would have enough differences in them that they would arrive at the same place but hours or days apart. Which he said is usually fine for cargo ships and the like. However, the military would need to appear out of jump space in a much tighter time period. So he suggested doubling the time requiremnets for calculating jump and also have all the ships involved in that jump on tigh beam comunication with each others computers toi keep them all in synch up to the jump time. This should greatly increase their accuracy of exiting jump within minutes of each other. I believe the average variation from first to last ship out of jump was twelve minutes.
This still allowed for "surprise" attacks from jump, etc...
To clarify on the jumping together question, the only problem with doing that is when a ship is large enough to create a gravity well of its own. If ships who have a gravity well are close enough to be effected by that gravity well, then a misjump will occur.

Bob

 

[Liam Devlin]

plop101 wrote:
Liam writes:

quote:
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ANd IMTU , we have two sizes of missiles. Turret sized; and bay missile sized
(1d6 x 1d6 hits).

So yes, a big ship could be hurt by big missiles!
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Your proving my point. In canon, fighters cannot significantly harm a well armored big ship unless the referee fudges it.

Having said that, I am all in favor of fudging for fighters. The poor undergunned fighter challenging the huge capital ship is a constant theme in Sci Fi, after all.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I remember those 8.5dtn Zho FTRs.. a dozen went cradled on a 600dtn Shivva class Patrol frigate. They carried three missiles, and had a fixed beam laser.

Now, my take on this is:
1x bay msl (14m3/ 1dtn) per 10dtns of FTR.
(allows a 15dtn Rampart to pack 2)
Turret msl's are7m3/ .5dtn each.

warheads will vary according to mission parameters. YMMV

 

[Jame]

I seem to have sparked a minor debate...

Well, that e is good (as in goody)! Now that I've had time to think, perhaps Mr. Vutpakdi's group would be the closest to a modern CVBG, _if_ we confine it to the strike group version. Thank you all, now I've got my answer!

 

[Ranger]

Just a note on the fighter debate. Challenge 27 has an article on the Imperial Rampart IV and V fighters. The Rampart V has the ability to volley fire 4 or 5 fighters' missiles at an attack factor of 7. So, that would mean you could get 25 factor 7 attacks from 100 fighters. I think this was done to adress the complaint that fighters didn't have enough punch under the regular rules.

Just my thoughts,

Rob

 

[Mythmere]

here is a variant question; what would the composition of a subsector's colonial navy be? I mean the whole navy. The subsector I have in mind is a little scattered, but what would the average navy be? Maybe even in tonnage per thousand population?

 

[Whipsnade]

"here is a variant question; what would the composition of a subsector's colonial navy be? I mean the whole navy. The subsector I have in mind is a little scattered, but what would the average navy be? Maybe even in tonnage per thousand population?"


Mythmere,

The "Trillion Credit Squadron" adventure will answer most of your questions. It gives a naval budget tax rate; for peacetime and wartime, for each classic CT government code, sets building times for a range of hull displacements, and pegs yard capacity to a system's starport and population ratings.

One proviso regarding TCS however. Mr. Miller recently commented on a Imperial budget thread that was running over at JTAS. He said the budget rules given in TCS and Striker should not be used as the naval/military budget rules for the Third Imperium as a whole.

If you use tax each Imperial world according to the naval budget rules in TCS, you'll end up with an Imperial Navy that would be immense.


Sincerely,
Bill

 

[Sophiathegreen]

I also remember reading somewhere than Imperial fleet can have over 300 ships of all type easies.

 

[TKalbfus]

For a Traveller game, I think a small carrier carrying 24 fighters will do. There are 8 fighters out on patrol at any given moment with the other 16 are onboard to maintenence and refit for the next mission. I've arrived at a total crew complement of 266 for the carrier starship including fighter pilots, fighter mechanics and all the other necessary crew for running the ship. I like to run the fighters as individuals rather than as squadrons and have the PCs fly the fighters, that way fleet actions aren't reduced to a tactical wargame. Typically there is an enemy carrier that the player's must contend with. There is a total of 9 player run ships on the combat surface and 9 referee ships opposing them. Two of those ships are the carriers themselves and the rest are fighters.

 

[Jame]

How would you run a battle between another kind of ship, Tom?

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Sophiathegreen:
I also remember reading somewhere than Imperial fleet can have over 300 ships of all type easies.

Well, according to Rebellion Sourcebook an Imperial fleet has around 8-10 squadrons. A squadron consists of a number of identical combat vessels (cruisers and above) plus an unspecified number of auxiliaries. Some examples have had 4 combat vessels, some have had 8. If we assume the norm is 8, you get about 64-80 in a fleet. The joker is the escorts and the other auxiliaries. How many are there of those? No canon exists on the subject. In one sample fleet I worked out, I wound up with one large escort per cruiser, 40 couriers, and 40 assorted auxiliaries. The total for that fleet was around 150 ships. But all you need to do to get a 300 ship fleet is to assume a few more escorts per combat vessel.


Hans

 

[TKalbfus]

How would you run a battle between another kind of ship, Tom?

What kind did you have in mind? The carrier I'm talking about has 10,000 tons of displacement, which is the smallest type of light carrier. It has 24 fighters. The carrier has 9 landing bays, 6 of them hold 4 fighters. I'm planning on using 10 different types of fighters each of different sizes and combat roles. 5 types are Imperial fighters, and the other 5 belong to the opposition force which could be an enemy nation or a group of pirates.
The 7th landing bay holds 2 shuttles, the 8th holds 2 scout/couriers, and the 9th holds 4 express boats. I'm thinking of adding a 10th bay, which I call the interdiction bay, this bay will be big enough to hold a Mercenary Cruiser, and their are 4 tractor beams above, below, to the left and right of the bay opening and a 5th tractor beam on the back wall of the bay. As to the purpose of the interdiction bay. You've seen the opening scene in the original Star Wars movie where a starship is tractored into the bay. The Traveller bays have solid doors that open and close so the bays can be filled with air when not open to space. As far as I know there are no invisible force fields in Traveller that hold in air, but let other objects pass through.
On the combat board there are 9 space ships representing 8 fighters and the 1 carrier. Add to that a 10,000-ton freighter containing 28 fighters in cargo holds, releasing about 10 of them and you now have 20 space ships on the combat grid including the carrier and the freighter. The freighter is owned by a hostile nation or a pirate outfit.

 

[Jame]

I meant, like, some sort of non-carrier, like a destoyer-sized escort against a somewhat smaller corsair? Or maybe a small convoy action with a light carrier, five escorts and ten freigters (or however many is appropriate for a light convoy) against a similar number of raiders?

 

[TKalbfus]

Having more than 20 or 30 ship's on the combat surface makes things complicated. You need a stat sheet for each spaceship. With a carrier you add alot of little ships to the mix. In historical naval actions, fighter planes were a significant force, many ships were sunk by them. In a like manner I think swarms of fighters should be able to destroy capital ships, so their presence cannot be ignored. One war to find out is to war play it. Large numbers of ships may be cumbersome, perhaps some mass combat rules can be used in this case. One of the more nettlesome issues is keeping track of ever ship's structural integrity points. T20 is based on D20 which is based on D&D. Battlesystems was used to represent masscombat in D&D. Perhaps something similar can be adapted for T20 or Traveller. Warhammer 10,000k has rules for mass spaceship combat, I never tried it myself so I can't recommend it. It might not even be compatible with traveller. Who knows?

 

[Whipsnade]

Gentlemen,

The utility of fighters in Traveller is an old and heated topic, a topic that depends greatly on the combat system used and the tech level of the combatants under discussion. I have never seen T20's ship building and ship combat rules, but I have been told they are very similar to CT's HG2.

Using HG2 as a guide and once you reach TL12 or 13, fighters are all but useless against warships. This is not to say that fighters aren't useful as recon platforms, patrollers, or merchant herders. Against warships however, they are little more than laser fodder. Using the prominence of aircraft in mid-to-late 20th century naval combat as a rationale for the effectiveness of fighters in Traveller is simplistic to say the very least. This is not Star Wars and Luke in his IN Rampart is not going to blow up that Zhodani Death Star.

Here's and overview of fighter utility against warships across various Traveller rule sets:

- LBB2: Given the PC-centric nature of ship combat, the limited weapons available, the lack of many TL effects, and the 5K dTon upper limit for all vessels, fighters have some utility.

- HG2: After the introduction of nuc dampers (TL12), nuc missile armed fighters become much less useful. When powerplant MWs-per-dTon increase enough (TL13+) to let large vessels carry moderate armor levels and achieve moderate agility ratings, fighters become worthless. The fact that all fighter weapon batteries have a factor below 9 weighs heavily against fighters also.

- MT: Pretty much the same as HG2, the advent of nuc dampers and better powerplants make fighters worthless after certain tech levels.

- TNE: The introduction of bomb-pumped x-ray laser missiles give fighters a small niche in combat. Unlike the HG2 variety with their <9 weapon factor batteries, fighters in TNE can now carry a weapon that can damage most warships. A carefully managed fighter missile strike can swamp most warship's anti-missile capabilities and cause damage.

As you can see, the question of fighters in Traveller is far more complex than a simple good vs. bad statement. The utility of fighters depends on the role they fill, the TL they opearte at, the TL of their foes, and the weapons availble to them. However in most version of Traveller and at the TLs usually available, fighters have no utility against warships. In Traveller, bringing a carrier to a naval battle is akin to bringing a club to a gun fight.


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[Falkayn]

Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:
The utility of fighters in Traveller is an old and heated topic, a topic that depends greatly on the combat system used and the tech level of the combatants under discussion. I have never seen T20's ship building and ship combat rules, but I have been told they are very similar to CT's HG2.

I think T20 has tried to be as simplistic as CT, but has added elements in from later versions. So bomb-pumped laser missiles are available to T20 fighters, as are quite nasty fusion turrets.

The fusion turrets allow the fighter to do 1d20 damage, which the defending ship reduces by the USP of their Armor (limited by ship's TL) - so a TL-15 cruiser would take 1d20-15 damage, which means you only worry about it 1/4 of the time. Statistically, that does make fighter squadrons scary in close (the range for the fusion gun is very low) - they are made scarier by the fact that when they do get a critical hit (which they probably will about 1/4 of the time) the damage scales up and the cruiser will take 1d20-11 damage.

In T20, ANY damage that makes it past armor goes straight to SI (structural integrity) AND requires rolls on the internal damage table.

Also, the squadron rules in T20 allow up to 10 fighters to be grouped together and fire their weapons as a battery with an averaged AC and BAB, and a higher USP.

Perhaps what we would see is fast and heavily armed carriers, designed to survive long enough to deliver their fighters in close to overwhelm their opponents. Or tough swarms of fighters that are used to dissuade an enemy ship from approaching too close to you. Either way would be more 'Star Wars' like.

EDIT: My Polite Endeavor II class fighters are armed in just this way. Heavily armored (AR:15), hard to hit (AC:32) and with a double fusion gun turret (having two doesn't actually up the USP, but when multiple fighters are together in a squadron, they fire as one and improve the USP considerably!

). A pair of these fighters has a USP of 6 (6d20 damage normally, 30d20 in case of a critical hit!). A squadron of 10 of these fighters has a USP of 9 (9d20 damage normally, 45d20 in case of a critical hit).

 

[Rupert Boleyn]

Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:

- TNE: The introduction of bomb-pumped x-ray laser missiles give fighters a small niche in combat. Unlike the HG2 variety with their <9 weapon factor batteries, fighters in TNE can now carry a weapon that can damage most warships. A carefully managed fighter missile strike can swamp most warship's anti-missile capabilities and cause damage.

Greetings Larsen,

I feel I need to point out that in TNE/Brilliant Lances even very large det-lasers won't do much damage to large warships because they can't critical them and there are so many systems that it would take an enormous number of hits to seriously degrade a large warship (assuming it had plenty of backup sensors systems). If you're carrying that many missiles one has to wonder if not bothering with the fighters and carrying even more missiles makes more sense.

In Battle Rider as written missiles are actually very effective because of the outstanding hit rules, which double missile damage (unlike every other weapon). If you put this back to simply getting two hits (like in every other TNE space combat rules set) they become bothersome to sub-100,000 DTon ships, but not big ships.

 

[TKalbfus]

A 100,000 dTon spaceship is a big ship. My carrier is only 10,000 dtons and it holds 28 fighters. The referee ought to think carefully before adding mobile planets. Gigantic spaceships look impressive in Star Wars, but remember your players can't see them. Also considering that a Far trader is a small ship yet it costs Mcr66 you should consider whether any government can truly afford a Star Wars style "SuperStar Destroyer".

 

[Falkayn]

Originally posted by Tom Kalbfus:
A 100,000 dTon spaceship is a big ship. My carrier is only 10,000 dtons and it holds 28 fighters. The referee ought to think carefully before adding mobile planets. Gigantic spaceships look impressive in Star Wars, but remember your players can't see them. Also considering that a Far trader is a small ship yet it costs Mcr66 you should consider whether any government can truly afford a Star Wars style "SuperStar Destroyer".

Well, modern fighter planes cost tens of millions of dollars each ... and battledress is pretty pricey if you're buying it for most of your Marines. I suspect that an interstellar government with multiple planets that have 100s of billions of inhabitants, can probably afford a few large ships.

Of course, I am partly defending my own large ship designs

State Colour class carrier - 400,000 dtons
The carrier has 400 fighters (30 and 40 dtons), 50 fuel lighters (200 dtons), 40 marine assault landers (100 dtons) and 20 modula cutters (50 dtons) for basic crew needs. There is a crew of several thousands.
Useful Object class Jump-3 ferry - 1,000,000 dtons
The Jump-3 ferry is an idea I came up with due to the astrography of some parts of the Julian Protectorate. There are a few 2 parsec wide rifts that separate large, wealthy mains. I thought it would make sense for the government to create a Jump-3 ferry design that could join the mains together, so that Jump-1 trade ships could economically travel both mains. There is also a military Jump-6 design that can do two Jump3's:

The Useful Object II class Jump-6 Ferries are a higher-tech, military version of the Useful Object Jump-3 ferries. Highly classified, the ships are used to make an initial Jump-3 jump with 235,000-tons of carried naval vessels, which then make their own maximum jumps beyond that initial one. This typically gives the carried fleet a range of Jump-7, and can give Jump-9 range to extended jump fighting vessels. The ferry carries enough fuel to then enable a return Jump-3 back to a safe system.

Unlike the civilian version, the Useful Object II ferries do not carry a maneuver drive, the time lost in needing to be maneuvered by tugs being deemed worthwhile. It does however mount TL-15 armour (AR:2), enough to increase it's survivability should it's home base be overrrun before it jumps away.

 

[Antony]

I was looking at the TNE NT Warheads, especially the 500kt TL15 which is probable the standard. It is also the biggest warhead listed. The laser generated by this has a maximum penetration (ignoring the 2d6 random factor) of 1975.

I then looked at my design of the BI-15 Titan class dreanought with armour of 2520, obviously the warhead cannot penetrate this level of armour at all. This means that all the missile can do is scrape surface fixtures (how many back-up antennas are fitted anyway?). Against my version of a Ghalalk class cruiser (armour 1680, 295 remains equating to a damage of only 12 reaches the interior. A critical success only doubles this.

The obvious conclusion is that at TL15 at least, the missiles function in battles involving dreadnoughts and cruisers is just to remove sensor arrays, this could be done with smaller warheads allowing higher thrust on the missiles. (This can produce combat kills but the ships themselves can get away and the damage is readily repairable.)

Another conclusion that can be made is that the 500kt warhead is not the largest available or that the ND missile is itself no longer used much by the big ships when they fight each other (the 500kt missiles laser equates to a beam intensity of 998.56 Mj. Many high tech warships carry weapons of higher intensity.

So are missiles growing in size to accomodate larger and larger warheads? or are they gradually becomming an irrelevance in major fleet battles?

Note this only applies to modern battle and cruiser squadrons fighting each other, against smaller targets ND missiles are still effective and will likely remain so until the introduction of TL17 Coherant SD armour.

At lower techs or against targest smaller than cruisers the ND missile is still potents, made more so by the fact that a ND missile on a successful hit rolls 1D6 for the number of beams actually hitting the target, critical hits doubling the final penetration value.

Incidently from memory the ND missiles in the Honor Harrington came in various masses but a mass of 70 tons was mentioned in one novel. (Though ship masses are way off given the dimensions of the ships.

Just a few thoughts. Any comments?