What are the Navy fleet support ships?

[McPerth]

Well, we do have one canon example of a specialized ship for ortillery: The strike cruiser in Sup9.

I cannot find the Sup9 right now, but most naval ships may be used as ortillery support, so I don't believe to make a spcialized ship for that would be too efficient.

IIRC the 4518 Lift Infantry Regiment has some SDBs as integral ortillery support.

By the way, since you also mention them: What do you see minesweepers being or doing? It has never even occurred to me that there would be such vessels because I thought that even if there are space mines of some kind, regular escort ships would fight them.

In fact it wasn't me who mentioned them. I just quoted Far-trader, who quoted Ranke when he mentioned minesweepers among other support ships. I don't remember right now to have read many things about mines in Traveller, but I guessthey could be used as point defense for some places (gas giants come to my mind)

Regarding hospital ships, you'd also want to have them because of wartime humanitarian concerns. Few of the Imperiums prospective enemies are so bitter or so callous that they'd ignore a suggestion to mutually agree not to target hospital ships. They'd be separate from other auxiliaries, and they'd be unarmed for the same reason.

AFAIK there's nothing in canon to say if there exists some Geneva Convention equivalent among the main powers in OTU, but I guess it is, and I agree with you here.

Think "Primary Combattant"="Ship of the line"≅Spinal Mount + armor

in some uses of auxiliary, anything not a Primary Combattant is an auxiliary. Littoral Combat ships and Littoral Zone Patrol Craft are auxiliaries without the A_ coding in modern US/UK use, but are military flagged and crewed

The A_ coding also implies strongly "no armor". An AD, like an AC, probably should be unarmored and lacking spinal mounts. A DE lacks spinal mounts, and by some reckoning is a support vessel - in the battle line, it dies quick. It's part of the screen, not the line.

I'm thinking "Combat Vessel"="cruisers, carriers, battleships, and some escorts", because that's what the text I've already cited twice tells me. That text then goes on to exclude auxiliaries, support ships, and scouts, so I also think that (in the Third Imperium) "auxiliary" and "supply ship" fall into two different categories.


Carriers are considered combat vessels. Two out of the three carriers we see in FS lack spinals. 'Combat vessels' include some escorts (emphasis mine). So some combat vessels do not have spinals (and presumably aren't expected to stand in the battle line).

But that's still a tangent. I'm not puzzled by what is and what isn't a combat vessel. I'm puzzled by what is the difference between an auxiliary and a support ship.

Combat vessels = Badass/big fighting ships.
Support ships = tankers, colliers, supply/replenishment, "mobile yards", non-combat-capable tenders, research craft, and the like.
Auxiliaries = Not so badass/small fighting ships (i.e. most escorts), perhaps?​

Hans

I concede your knowledge about naval terminology is superior to mine, but I always thought more in ship's mission than size, and so I considered as support ships those whose main mission on the design board is not combat, opposed to combat ships of any size.

So, as I see it, a fighter or a Gazelle are combat ships, more so than a Battle Tender or a Carrier, whose main mission is not combat, but transport, mobile bases/yards and replenishment of their combat elements.

That does not mind they are main battle combatents, but we must remember most of missions (even combat missions) the Navy conducts are not main battle affairs

 

[aramis]

You're not accepting that in the Third Imperium, one meaning (quite possibly one out of many) is "not a combat vessel and not a supply ship but <something that is neither a combat vessel nor a supply ship>".

You can keep repeating contemporary definitions of 'auxiliary' till you're blue in the face, but it won't explain the way the term is used on p. 27 of Rebellion Sourcebook any better than the first time you tyrotted them out.


Hans

The term has existing meaning. I refuse to consider that the game is redefining common terms until the common terms extant meanings are shown not to fit, or explicit redefinition has occurred... neither of which is present.

Auxiliary is often used for anything other than PRIMARY combattants- support isn't just supply, it's also screening, providing combat related actions (command ships)...

You're artificially taking a throwaway reference as an exemption, when it can (consistent with extant english naval use of the term) be used even for minor combatant vessels.

You're also possibly misreading "some escorts" as "not all escorts" instead of "an indeterminate number of escorts" or "a small number of escorts"... both valid reads of that turn of phrase.

I'm fine with not all combattants being considered in the 1000 warships.

The reference to auxiliaries in "auxiliaries, support ships, and scouts" is not linguistically an exclusion of support ships from auxiliaries. Redundancy is common in English.

 

[far-trader]

No Hospital Ships?

At TL15 (12 depending on your system) do you need a hospital ship when you just need low berths and a cargo ship to trundle back to the base?

Returning to this, while digging for other data I came across this in TCS:

"Crew losses may not be repaired, although many of those lost will be only wounded and will be frozen pending delivery to naval base hospitals."

"Crew or frozen watch casualties are replaced free at any naval base."

Not that I agree, but there might be precedent here for no hospital ships in the game. The second bit quoted sounds a bit press-gang-ish to me...

...your destroyer limps into port and begins repairs. You're short nearly 700 crew from the fight but the base has cells full of ready, if not eager, replacements freshly rounded up from the local starport bars. Training? Who needs training to bleed and die for the Emperor?

 

[rancke]

Training? Who needs training to bleed and die for the Emperor?

Just to bleed and die? None. To man and fight ultra-tech starships effectively, on the other hand...


Hans

 

[far-trader]

Just to bleed and die? None. To man and fight ultra-tech starships effectively, on the other hand...


Hans

While it was a bit tongue-in-cheek I was reminded of previous military folly in replacements. Best summed by a quick google for one of the examples (US Army) I was recalling (from http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/usarmy/manpower.aspx )

"At the other end of the replacement pipeline, replacements were trained by replacement centers (or stripped from divisions), shipped as anonymous replacement increments to a theater of war, and held at the repple-depple (replacement depot) until needed by units. These men were military orphans with little esprit de corps and no cohesion. Many thought of themselves as replaceable parts in the giant army "machine," or as rounds of ammunition. The sole virtue of this system was that it allowed divisions to stay in near continuous combat for days on end, theoretically without eroding their numerical strength. As casualties left, replacements came in. However, the reality became that replacements came in, and with no combat experience and no one in their new unit looking out for them (the "I don't know him and don't want to know him, he's only gonna be a casualty" syndrome), they quickly became casualties."

Tell me that doesn't sound like Traveller's "Crew or frozen watch casualties are replaced free at any naval base."

I seem to recall a similar problem with ship crew replacements, some of the worst cases being Officers who had little or no experience with the class of ship they were assigned to command, having been trained only briefly and in a totally different class of ship.

 

[mike wightman]

Just to bleed and die? None. To man and fight ultra-tech starships effectively, on the other hand...


Hans

Ahh - you mean to press the big red button marked "fight".

Yup, loads of training needed for that.

 

[SoCar_37]

Ahh - you mean to press the big red button marked "fight".

Yup, loads of training needed for that.

But at least *some* training required to know that 'Number 5 sandcaster turret normal power supply is Load Center 12 and emergency power supply is switchboard 2EB'. Little things like that.

SoCar-37
"Prepared in Mind and Resources"

 

[mike wightman]

Very much doubt it - the computers and robots will do it all.

 

[Garyius2003]

And that is where I disagree. Cargo ships in the 3I can be Far Traders that handle containers or break bulk in a highport bay or downport ramp, or 20,000T cargo container J2 1G route carriers that jump in, move to a high port, unload and load via huge docking locks in two days, and lumber back out to to the jump limit, or 200,000T J4 LASH carriers that never see the high port until annual time, and undock and dock huge powered cargo and passenger pods and refuel at the jump limit, and leave 14 hours after arriving.

A AOE on the other hand is designed from the baseplate up to refuel one or more warships while moving, and to push missiles and sand and food/air and parts directly into warships in ready use storage order. Can they be a cargo ship? Sure, but never as good as one designed for highports. Can you convert a civvie cargo ship into an okay AOE? Sure, with some loss of cargo space and never as good as a designed ship.

So how huge are these AOEs, or are there oilers and also specialized cargo ships? Does the 3I do a few huge AOEs per numbered fleet, or bunch of 20,000Ts, or Mongoose's idea of a cloud of 600Ts for pushing reloads and also some oilers?

What else is there? Tenders to field repair ships during fleet movements? Tugs? Mobile highports to transload cargo from civvie cargo ships to the fleet or AOEs or landers (or does the army handle that)? Mobile deep system sensor ships? Gas giant survey ships to look for unpleasant stay behinds?

Yes, that would be one of the difinitions we're already familiar with and mean that there is no differenc ebetween auxiliaries and supply ships..

One could also decide that the puzzling example in RbS is an error and ignore it forthwith, of course. That would be an easy way out. But if one does not want to dismiss this bit of canon as wrong, some other explanation is required.


Hans

 

[McPerth]

Very much doubt it - the computers and robots will do it all.

If so, why to have the crew?

I believe the coordination among crew and 'sprit de corps' make advisable to try to keep the replacements at minimal, and try to keep the same men in the same ship if possible.

I see the Navy as an elite force, and, as such, those factors are sure important and cared about. Most of what makes a force elite is, as much as the training of its members, its sprit de corps and the trust members have among them, and that can only be achieved by working together. Having the best players in your football team does not mean by sure you'll have the best team, they have to learn how to play together, or you'll have many good players trying to play alone with no coordination.

Sadly, nothing of this is reflected in CT/HG rules.

 

[Omnivore]

So how huge are these AOEs, or are there oilers and also specialized cargo ships? Does the 3I do a few huge AOEs per numbered fleet, or bunch of 20,000Ts, or Mongoose's idea of a cloud of 2,000Ts for pushing reloads and also some oilers?

I've been examining the munitions angle in HG/TCS lately and nuclear bay missiles alone are going to be used up at such a high rate that in any prolonged battle missile heavy ships are going to be popping in and out of the reserve to get reloads. With regards to nuclear missiles, an AOE would be able to justify mounting a damper equipped cargo hold, otherwise the volume (and likely mass) of the nuclear missiles will be multiplied by 5. Less if warheads are kept separately and assembled just before transfer but that seems rather unlikely.

In twenty minutes of combat, a single 50 ton factor 9 missile bay will burn through around 1.25DT of missiles (by my calculations anyhow), multiple that by 5 for nuclear missiles in shielded shipping containers and then by the number of bays in the squadron and your looking at a rather large number of tons in nuclear bay missiles alone. If you're forced to reload magazines in the midst of battle, the supply ships would almost certainly need to use shuttles to transfer the munitions as actually docking the supply ship with the warship would be rather hazardous in a fleet undergoing battle maneuvers, even if you're in the reserve.

My conclusion is that you'd be better off with a bunch of 20KDT AOE ships to handle mid battle resupply and as large as convenient auxiliaries for replenishing AOE stores between battles.

 

[McPerth]

The need for missile replenishment (and so the limited salvos missile weapons have and its cost, not negligible) has been discussed some times here since I joined this forum (little more than a year), and I guess before.

Andrewmv started an interesting thread about this subject some monts ago:

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=25452

Both replenishment and hospital ships are mostly needed, IMHO, on offensive operations, where you go inside enemy territory and, so, far from your supply bases.

In the operation against Rhylanor by the Zhodani (IIRC 1109), I have serious doubts about the feasibility to take the casualties to the rearguard (crossing the Abyss again) and replacements to the vanguard. I guess hospital ships were there a must to keep your non fatal casualties back on their posts ASAP. I also guess they carried quite a lot of missile reloads in freighters and replenishment ships, and that even so they saved missiles if at all possible.

 

[Garyius2003]

I have been working on an idea for Army Spacial Port Brigades.

They run 10KT TL13 J2 Squareish modules. The modules have large and small standard hatches on 4 sides, and only have J1 tankage and another J2 in breakdown tankage (100 tons stored). Figure 7KT of space while jumping, almost 8 while operating. 20 triple beams and sandcasters for local issues, damper 3

The port module Battalion has four modules which can hook into each other or existing damaged highports. They deploy with a 5KT lander and fighter/gigs crammed in. Once in place they tranship cargo from cargo ships into landers and give the Orbital Artillery Battalions a place to repair and hook their FSCC into.

So one module battalion, one lander, one fighter and small craft, and one H&S.

I assume these would also be in demand to tranship from cargoships to AOEs where highports are not present or too damaged. Interesting fights between the army and navy for dock time.

 

[Omnivore]

Here's an alternate idea for a fleet support shuttle:

QY-9631 Merger 0604401-000000-00000-0 MCr 49.114 95 Tons
Fuel=1.0. Agility=4. Crew=1. TL=9. Fuel purification plant. No bridge.
Quick release and fuel transfer fittings for two 30DT modules.

Designed as a multi role fleet support shuttle, the cheap and rugged TL9 Merger class modular shuttle carries two 30 ton mission modules which are compatible with standard modular cutter modules.

The idea with this design is that it fits in a standard shuttle bay, can quickly exchange cargoes with civilian craft even in deep space through the use of the 30DT modules, and also can fulfill the role of a fuel shuttle complete with scoops, hoses, and on-board refinery. The TL9 design also fits in with Imperial Naval procurement goals of supporting lower tech level economies where possible and simplifies maintenance in frontier areas.

Assuming the civilian support vessels have hangars for either standard shuttles or have their own modular cutters, this would largely eliminate the need for using a port for transshipping. Alternatively, cargoes could be transshipped from smaller civilian vessels at any convenient airless body large enough for grav-forklifts/sleds to operate. If deep space cargo handling equipment is available, smaller vessels such as free traders could transship directly to (possibly detached) modules without need for landing.