CliffBates
SOC-12
I recall being told how useless Escorts were contra Cruisers... but here in this SSU, we have much bigger problem because ships under 900tons when hit with a factor 9 weapon system get a critical hit to them, but those above 900 don't. So in this SSU no sane fleet designer would build any no military ship (a ship that seeks to survive against your biggest ship can throw at it) below 1000tons.
Ok fighters, etc... they have their functionality.. and if in numbers they can over whelm most 5000tons ships with severe limits to the numbers of batteries they can assign to point defense and retain their lethality toward other capital ships.
My Sunday was spent not only building a TL 13 SSU fleet but putting it to battle with similar level units up to and under the 6kton limit. And what was evident in combat was what start happening when you had at least 2 Factor 9 missile bays on a 2Kton+ ship... ships under 900tons were toast. Where as ships that were well armored above 1000tons were roughed up some, but not critically.
When at higher TL with a Factor 9 Meson guy, then those 1000+ ships are finally faced with a weapon that can cause a critical hit.. unless you have meson shields which reduces the chance of such a hit significantly with factor 9 or less weapons.
To be honest, the WWII analogy falls short given the kind of weapons and their official rules abilities. The world of 16-18inch ballistics was limited to the gunpowder ability of the time what could be thrown vs the armor that could be carried. The vast increase in ships sizes where do the amount of armor it had to survive the ordnance to be thrown at it. (Thus it usually took lucky hits to get one shot kills.) And yes most ships of the time were in fact killed by Torpedoes and bombs dropped right on target. Again the only the amount of armor a ship had on it could save it. But given the changes in lethality of ordinance on missiles and torpedoes armor no longer gives the advantage it used to give. And this is even more true given what we are about to be able to do with rail guns.
In the Traveller OTU, esp given CT HG book 5... you are limited are what you can produce at the TL you are at... and if you have enough RUs to do it. Now there might be cultural reasons also why you opt to do what you do.. but then other cultures or peoples won't have those same limits.
What I really liked about CT Traveller was how it really did limit the Refs hands.. he was not an omnipotent God... he was bound by rules just like the PC.. he just had better information.
Ok fighters, etc... they have their functionality.. and if in numbers they can over whelm most 5000tons ships with severe limits to the numbers of batteries they can assign to point defense and retain their lethality toward other capital ships.
My Sunday was spent not only building a TL 13 SSU fleet but putting it to battle with similar level units up to and under the 6kton limit. And what was evident in combat was what start happening when you had at least 2 Factor 9 missile bays on a 2Kton+ ship... ships under 900tons were toast. Where as ships that were well armored above 1000tons were roughed up some, but not critically.
When at higher TL with a Factor 9 Meson guy, then those 1000+ ships are finally faced with a weapon that can cause a critical hit.. unless you have meson shields which reduces the chance of such a hit significantly with factor 9 or less weapons.
To be honest, the WWII analogy falls short given the kind of weapons and their official rules abilities. The world of 16-18inch ballistics was limited to the gunpowder ability of the time what could be thrown vs the armor that could be carried. The vast increase in ships sizes where do the amount of armor it had to survive the ordnance to be thrown at it. (Thus it usually took lucky hits to get one shot kills.) And yes most ships of the time were in fact killed by Torpedoes and bombs dropped right on target. Again the only the amount of armor a ship had on it could save it. But given the changes in lethality of ordinance on missiles and torpedoes armor no longer gives the advantage it used to give. And this is even more true given what we are about to be able to do with rail guns.
In the Traveller OTU, esp given CT HG book 5... you are limited are what you can produce at the TL you are at... and if you have enough RUs to do it. Now there might be cultural reasons also why you opt to do what you do.. but then other cultures or peoples won't have those same limits.
What I really liked about CT Traveller was how it really did limit the Refs hands.. he was not an omnipotent God... he was bound by rules just like the PC.. he just had better information.
