Warship type descriptions

clementk · Oct 27, 2004

Originally posted by secretagent:

"Close Escort" as a descriptor never meant much sense to me...too ambiguous.
Call it a destroyer escort. That makes more sense to me.

In CT Supp 9 DE are 1000 tons (two classes Chrysanthemum and Fer-de-lance) while the CE (Gazelle) is 300 tons.

TA#7 while set earlier has the same two DE classes and the 400 ton multi-mission Ramada class corvette which was designed "also to demonstrate the concept of the dedicated close-escort class in the fleet role." A future dedicated CE project would have drop tanks and perhaps a particle accelerator main battery. Since it's tentatively named the Antelope my guess is that's either a nod to the Gazelle or meant to be an interim design between the Ramada and the Gazelle.

In both CT Supp 7 Traders and Gunboats and Supp 9 FSotI and also in TA#7 CE/Corvettes are also termed gunboats. Skimming through all three DE are more for protecting conveys in higher risk area such as outside Imperial space or during war. CE/gunboats/corvettes more for regular escort duties against ethically challenged merchants.

Casey (dons bicorn whilst Imperial Moot Jester-in-Training Asu mutters "baka Vacchead" ^_^ )

clementk · Oct 27, 2004

Originally posted by secretagent:
...if you want more historical background -- try "Warfare in the Age of the Ironclad" by Richard Hill. I picked up a copy of it and it covers a period fo naval warfare that is roughly comparable to Traveller combat --

Also Ironclads at War by Jack Greene and Alessandro Massignani. Not a coffee table book like the Hill book but it is adequately illustrated. It complements the Hill book focusing on more obscure engagements esp. in the Americas.

War Times Journal has accounts by the commanders of Jutland here and other pre-WWII info.

Finally while not as technical perhaps as some of the other sources I like Wikipedia. For their naval ship terms start here. That page has a link to ship types at the end. Wiki's very handy for digging up info.

Casey

jchurchill · Oct 28, 2004

"Also Ironclads at War by Jack Greene and Alessandro Massignani."

There is a copy in my cart at Amazon -- the Hill book started an ugly trend.

"Not a coffee table book like the Hill book but it is adequately illustrated."

I think the Hill book is a little more substantive than a coffee table book -- that would be 90% pictures and the rest text but it does have lots of glossy pictur

"Finally while not as technical perhaps as some of the other sources I like Wikipedia."

I spent a good bit of time looking at the ship info there. Very uselful.

graden1 · Oct 28, 2004

Originally posted by secretagent:
One important point concerning modern cruisers:
They are used as defensive platforms for air and missile defense. They also tend to be the workhorses in terms of radars, etc.
Of course, that is in a carrier-based Navy.
---------------------------------------======
I let that slide because to me the Traveller navies tend to not be "carrier-based." There is a whole long thead about this issue in the Fleet about the Dreadnought versus the fighter --- I'm too rusty with High Guard to summarize it correctly here.

I think T20 brought a whole new dynamic to the "fighter v. capital ship" issue, thanks to the crit range/multiplier for the fusion gun. It might make carriers worth another look in T20.

XO

BetterThanLife · Oct 28, 2004

I know I am going waaay back. But there is a Canon DE at 400 Tons. The FASA Lucifer Class DE is 400 Tons. (Though I would more term it a Corvette.) I never really did understand the distinction between Corvette, Destroyer Escort and Frigate. They all appear to be about the same size and armed about the same. (Depending on the era.) They all fit in the smaller than a Destroyer bigger than a PT boat range. They were all used extensively in the North Atlantic as convoy escorts and ASW platforms. And they appear to be about the same size. Is there really a distinction, besides the obvious that naming them different classes means more total will be built?

BetterThanLife · Oct 28, 2004

It does bring a new dynamic but fighters armed with Fusion Guns have to seriously close with capital ships to even have a hope to score a hit. (Granted in WWII this was also the case.) The main difference is that capital ships can generally accellerate just as fast as a fighter. So a Capital ship shold be able to hold the range open long enough to decimate the fighters. They can also put enough sand in space to totally frustrate any fighter wing even in close. The problem you run into with fighters is you still need more fighters than any of the fleet carriers can carry to be effective against even a Cruiser. Since Fusion guns, in T20 are incapable of point defense, and since you have no long range weapons, you are coming in under a hail of fire that makes WWII flak look like pretty fireworks. (All of it aimed and accurate.) Actually the PA armed fighter works best. And even if you manage to kill the offending capital ship, the fighter wing dies, in an offensive role, because the carriers go down, stranding the fighters. (The 20 hex strategic range is only 3 range bands for a spinal meson.) The maximum range for a Fusion gun is 3 strategic hexes.

We have had this discussion before on this board. Fighters still aren't extremely effective. Not saying they can't do damage, but you definitely need more than a carrier full of them against a typical Capital ship. Now Land Based Air, as it was termed in WWII, or as a defense force, Fighters can be effective, but you are looking at several thousand of them. (And a horriffic loss percentage.)

For defensive purposes 5000T Monitors with spinals make much more sense. Matter of fact if you really want the equivalent of a Carrier air wing, consider a 500,000 tender carrying 30-36 5000T riders with spinals. (Costs less than a 4 ship Batron of Kokirraks and about the same as the tender with 6 30KTon riders.) Now that is truly a force multiplier.

Originally posted by Xavier Onassis:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by secretagent:
One important point concerning modern cruisers:
They are used as defensive platforms for air and missile defense. They also tend to be the workhorses in terms of radars, etc.
Of course, that is in a carrier-based Navy.
---------------------------------------======
I let that slide because to me the Traveller navies tend to not be "carrier-based." There is a whole long thead about this issue in the Fleet about the Dreadnought versus the fighter --- I'm too rusty with High Guard to summarize it correctly here.

I think T20 brought a whole new dynamic to the "fighter v. capital ship" issue, thanks to the crit range/multiplier for the fusion gun. It might make carriers worth another look in T20.

XO [/QUOTE]

BrennanHawkwood · Oct 28, 2004

Originally posted by Bhoins:

For defensive purposes 5000T Monitors with spinals make much more sense. Matter of fact if you really want the equivalent of a Carrier air wing, consider a 500,000 tender carrying 30-36 5000T riders with spinals. (Costs less than a 4 ship Batron of Kokirraks and about the same as the tender with 6 30KTon riders.) Now that is truly a force multiplier.

Given the sizes of the larger warships, I have often wondered why 'fighters' in the TU weren't 200-600 dton craft. All a part of the ships size escalation problem I guess.

veltyen · Oct 28, 2004

Or go the other way.

50dTon Fusion Bay Corvette/Gunboat Battle Riders.
Max Armor. G6. 400 dTon. Max Agility. Max Sensors.
Under T20 AC30+ which makes closing a more likely proposition. 80 wings of 5 on a 500kdTon carrier.

The Oz · Oct 28, 2004

And just to add to the confusion over ship designations, some cultures (like the old Soviet Navy) might use function-based designations that owe little or nothing to the traditional names for ship types.

The Soviets used (for the most part) functional designations like Rocket Cruiser, or Large Anti-Submarine Ship, or Aviation Cruiser. I tend to do something like this myself when designing HG fleets: I have Meson Battleships, Missile Cruiser Riders, Beam Corvettes, etc, etc. A class designation is a combination of main weaponry type plus a size class name, plus Rider if a non-jump big craft.

For weapons I use:

Meson - armed with a spinal meson gun, or lots of meson gun bays.
Particle - spinal particle accelerator, or lots of particle accelerator bays or turrets.
Missile - No spinal mount and lots (minimum of 50% of all secondaries) of missile bays or turrets.
Beam - No spinal mount, lots (again, minimum of 50% of all secondaries) of energy weapon bays, turrets, or laser turrets.
Fighter - May have a spinal mount and/or other weapons, but carries a lot (at least 20% of total tonnage is carried craft) of fighters.
Rider - May have a spinal mount and/or other weapons, but mainly carries riders (at least 20% of total tonnage is carried craft).

For size classes I use the traditional names with these tonnage ranges:

Battleship/Dreadnought - 200,000 dtons and up.
Battlecruiser - 100,000 to 200,000 dtons.
Heavy Cruiser - 50,000 to 100,000 dtons.
Light Cruiser - 20,000 to 50,000 dtons.
Destroyer Leader - 10,000 to 20,000 dtons.
Destroyer - 3,000 to 10,000 dtons.
Destroyer Escort - 1,000 to 3,000 dtons.
Frigate - 600 to 1,000 dtons.
Corvette - 300 to 600 dtons.
Scout - 100 to 300 dtons.
Fighter - less than 100 dtons.

There is of course some overlap in the size ranges.

Then I add either Carrier if the ship carries lots of Fighters, or Tender if the ship carries Riders. If a ship is designed so that carrying other vessels is its main function, I usually won't put a "weapon" designation on it except for "Fighter" or "Rider" as appropriate. Also, Rider Tenders get a size designation based on the size of Rider they carry, not based on their own size.

So I might have a 300,000 dton Destroyer Rider Tender that ferries 10,000 dton Meson Destroyer Riders and is protected by a flock of 2,000 dton Beam Destroyer Escorts. Or I might have a 100,000 dton Particle Battlecruiser as the core of a raiding force that has some 20,000 dton Missile Light Cruisers.

Auxiliaries (assault transports, tankers, repair ships) don't fall under this nomenclature.

graden1 · Oct 29, 2004

Originally posted by veltyen:
Or go the other way.

50dTon Fusion Bay Corvette/Gunboat Battle Riders.
Max Armor. G6. 400 dTon. Max Agility. Max Sensors.
Under T20 AC30+ which makes closing a more likely proposition. 80 wings of 5 on a 500kdTon carrier.

Not unlike some fighters I've designed, actually. It's not that hard to max out the armor, accel, and agility on a fighter, if you keep in mind that a fighter with the support of a carrier doesn't need four weeks of fuel, nor does it need to run at maximum power all the time. Losing the massive fuel tanks characteristic of most Traveller ship designs solves a lot of problems. Note the AC will equal the "gunboat" concept above, with a +1 size mod. The real problem is the sensor model vs. tonnage issue. What's the minimum sensor model you can use and still hit?

XO

BetterThanLife · Oct 29, 2004

Originally posted by Xavier Onassis:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by veltyen:
Or go the other way.

50dTon Fusion Bay Corvette/Gunboat Battle Riders.
Max Armor. G6. 400 dTon. Max Agility. Max Sensors.
Under T20 AC30+ which makes closing a more likely proposition. 80 wings of 5 on a 500kdTon carrier.

Not unlike some fighters I've designed, actually. It's not that hard to max out the armor, accel, and agility on a fighter, if you keep in mind that a fighter with the support of a carrier doesn't need four weeks of fuel, nor does it need to run at maximum power all the time. Losing the massive fuel tanks characteristic of most Traveller ship designs solves a lot of problems. Note the AC will equal the "gunboat" concept above, with a +1 size mod. The real problem is the sensor model vs. tonnage issue. What's the minimum sensor model you can use and still hit?

XO [/QUOTE]Depends on what you are trying to hit, how good your gunners are, how good your sensor and computer techs are. With Fusion Armament you don't need lots of computer for sensors, because you can't shoot that far in the first place.

Though it might be nice to be able to figure out, without the carrier pointing you in the right direction where the enemy is.

Without Sensor and computer operators you don't need much of a computer at all. Though shooting at a target with a Defensive EW officer will be a bitch if you don't have a decent computer and a decent Offensive EW officer.

A Good fighter will actually, in T20 need a larger crew than in CT or MT. You need a Pilot, gunner, computer operator, Offensive EW, Defensive EW, Engineer, and possibly an Astrogator.

mike wightman · Oct 29, 2004

Can't be done in HG, but using the T20 optional bay rules I reckon you can fit a 50t fusion bay into a 200t, TL15, AR15, M/A 6/6, AC31 needle hull, model 9fib computer etc., 3 staterooms for the crew of 6, and enough fuel for 10 days operation at full output.

clementk · Oct 29, 2004

Originally posted by secretagent:
There is a copy in my cart at Amazon -- the Hill book started an ugly trend.

I think the Hill book is a little more substantive than a coffee table book -- that would be 90% pictures and the rest text but it does have lots of glossy pictur

Cool. It's a fun period, very fluid. My favs are the Russian circular monitors.

By coffee table book I really meant more in size than content. It is both well illustrated and written and that series in general is good. There are supposedly better but they're $$. This one I also found at Half Price Books, which is where I got my copy of Jane's WWI ships.

Back on topic...is there a general consensus that the Third Imperium is fairly rigid in ship design with classes lasting for 100+ years? That’s what it seems to be to me. Granted that's likely due to not wanting to redo every ship type for every timeline.

Personally I prefer the more fluid experimental stages, which I guess in Traveller terms would be periods like Milieu Zero and the Interstellar Wars?

Casey

asmodeus · Oct 29, 2004

Very nice well though out system you have Oz. Makes it very clear what designation to use based on weapons and size.

The current US/British/European models seem to deal more with the roles a ship is intended to fill. A Destroyer for example is not just a small Cruiser. It is designed purely for ship to ship combat. It escorts mechant conveys or capital ships or performs patrol duties. It is not intended to support shore (or planetary) operations or carry any significant subcraft like a Cruiser or Battleship would.

BetterThanLife · Oct 29, 2004

Actually current US Destroyers are multi-role. Primary emphasis on Air Defense, secondary on ASW, third on surface warfare operations. (And the VLS types can switch roles with a simple change of the proportion in the mix of weapons in the missile cells. Frigates in the USN tend to be ASW and AD. (Depending on which Frigate determines which role is primary.)

Size tends to be the determining factor in US designations for ships. Though Frigates don't generally have a hanger for an aircraft, Destroyers generally do as do Cruisers. And all of the ships have landing pads and capability for aircraft operations in all weather and both day and night ops. (Well landing a Helicopter in a gale is still a bit much, but you get the idea.

)

Originally posted by Asmodeus:
Very nice well though out system you have Oz. Makes it very clear what designation to use based on weapons and size.

The current US/British/European models seem to deal more with the roles a ship is intended to fill. A Destroyer for example is not just a small Cruiser. It is designed purely for ship to ship combat. It escorts mechant conveys or capital ships or performs patrol duties. It is not intended to support shore (or planetary) operations or carry any significant subcraft like a Cruiser or Battleship would.

The Oz · Oct 29, 2004

Originally posted by Asmodeus:
Very nice well though out system you have Oz. Makes it very clear what designation to use based on weapons and size.

The current US/British/European models seem to deal more with the roles a ship is intended to fill. A Destroyer for example is not just a small Cruiser. It is designed purely for ship to ship combat. It escorts mechant conveys or capital ships or performs patrol duties. It is not intended to support shore (or planetary) operations or carry any significant subcraft like a Cruiser or Battleship would.

Of course, I immediately began to mess my neat system up, which is not such a bad thing since no gov't in history has ever been able to keep such a clean, organized system in place for long....

The Soviets, for example, first called the Sovremennyy class "Large Rocket Ships" which was an excellent use of their old system, referring to their size and their main armament of anti-ship missiles, but then they changed the class designation to "Eskadrenny Minonosets" which literally translates as "Squadron Mine vessel." This was what the old Russian Navy called what we would have called "destroyers." I think the current Russian Navy still calls the Sovremennyys "Eskadrenny Minonosets" but I'm not sure.

So messing up a clean, organized system of designation is an old, old tradition and we really shouldn't expect any TRAVELLER gov't to resist.

jchurchill · Oct 29, 2004

Casey wrote:

Cool. It's a fun period, very fluid. My favs are the Russian circular monitors.
-------------------------------------------------
Yes it is a good perios and I'm constantly ripping it off....err...making an homage to it IMTU.

"By coffee table book I really meant more in size than content. It is both well illustrated and written and that series in general is good. There are supposedly better but they're $$. This one I also found at Half Price Books, which is where I got my copy of Jane's WWI ships."

The Hill book was sitting on a remaindered shelf and I got a decent discount on it.

I bought the Janes WW1 book several years ago and have shamelessly borrowed from it for ship names and "flavor." MTU is borrows a lot from the period 1870-1914 -- the politics and attitudes, rivalries between empires, etc etc...

One might argue "Secret Agent, Why don't you just play Space 1889 and be done with it?" But Space 1889 --as much fun as it is --- doesn't have all the rich building mechanisms of Traveller.

asmodeus · Oct 29, 2004

Originally posted by The Oz:

So messing up a clean, organized system of designation is an old, old tradition and we really shouldn't expect any TRAVELLER gov't to resist.

I totally agree. It also tends to add a little flavor.

jchurchill · Oct 29, 2004

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by The Oz:

So messing up a clean, organized system of designation is an old, old tradition and we really shouldn't expect any TRAVELLER gov't to resist.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I totally agree. It also tends to add a little flavor.
=================================================
Yes like calling the Kiniur a "battlecruiser."
By Book 2 standards it was pretty impressive.

graden1 · Oct 29, 2004

Originally posted by Bhoins:
A Good fighter will actually, in T20 need a larger crew than in CT or MT. You need a Pilot, gunner, computer operator, Offensive EW, Defensive EW, Engineer, and possibly an Astrogator.

Here's a thought: if a squadron of fighters can fire their weapons as a single battery, could they also perform targeting and EW at the squadron level? Less manpower and dice-rolling all around would make this a lot simpler, yes? It would also be more cost-effective to have one or two 'command fighters' per squadron, rather than a whole squadron with top-of-the-line computers, sensors, etc. At least until the command craft get spotted and picked off by meson bays....

XO

Warship type descriptions

SOC-14 1K

SOC-14 1K

SOC-12

SOC-12

SOC-14 1K

SOC-14 1K

SOC-12

SOC-14 1K

SOC-14 1K

SOC-12

SOC-14 1K

SOC-14 10K

SOC-14 1K

SOC-4

SOC-14 1K

SOC-14 1K

SOC-12

SOC-4

SOC-12

SOC-12

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