What is to be done with the Kinunir?

[rancke]

IMTU, Books 2 and 5 still share.

I switched from Book 2 to HG for every size of ship when HG came out. Whereas Book 2 enforces a small ship universe, HG enable a big ship universe, but is perfectly usable for running a small ship universe.

It's a big ship navy to fight the FFW, but there exist small ship navies to enforce customs, find pirates, and deter interstellar deviance.

That has nothing to do with big and small ship universes.

That the Kinunir is an odd duck in a bureaucracy as large as the IN can call for a colorful backstory, but it should cause for no puzzlement.

I don't know about should or shouldn't, but I do know that it did and does present a puzzle.

Bureaucracies are effective where nothing else can be, but efficiency and rationality in the discrete case are usually happy accidents for them. Worked for at least one my entire adult life...using the term "adult" somewhat loosely.

"I'm sure there must be an explanation" is not an explanation.


Hans

 

[PFVA63]

Hi,

Looking through some reference books on my shelf, I see that Second World War, due to the way the London Naval Treaty was structured the US ended up building a couple large 6in gun armed "gunboats" of about 200 tons displacement, which although large for a gunboat was fairly small for a cruiser. However, the ships were initially envisioned to perform some traditional cruiser roles, and (as best as I understand it) the sections of the treaty that governed their design and construction appear to have fallen under the sections of the Treaty governing cruisers.

As such, a thought that comes to mind might be that in the Traveller universe ships like the Kinunir maybe also were vessels whose design and construction fell into similar weird areas of some treaty or such.

Just a thought.

PF

 

[Timerover51]

Hi,

Looking through some reference books on my shelf, I see that Second World War, due to the way the London Naval Treaty was structured the US ended up building a couple large 6in gun armed "gunboats" of about 200 tons displacement, which although large for a gunboat was fairly small for a cruiser. However, the ships were initially envisioned to perform some traditional cruiser roles, and (as best as I understand it) the sections of the treaty that governed their design and construction appear to have fallen under the sections of the Treaty governing cruisers.

As such, a thought that comes to mind might be that in the Traveller universe ships like the Kinunir maybe also were vessels whose design and construction fell into similar weird areas of some treaty or such.

Just a thought.

PF

The Erie and the Charleston were built under the provisions of the London Naval Treaty allowing for an unlimited tonnage of ships of less than 2,000 tons standard displacement, with a maximum speed of 20 knots, and a maximum armament of four 6 inch guns. The concept for the US was to use the ships in the anti-surface raider role, along with providing a greater shore bombardment capability than a destroyer.

The British used that provision to build a series of anti-submarine and anti-aircraft sloops, mounting up to eight 4 inch guns, a top speed of slightly under 20 knots, and a good ASW capacity in all ships.

 

[Whipsnade]

Well, coming in a bit late. I just recently ran this one. My players...

It sounds like you and your players had a wonderful time. I hope you share more campaign reports with the forum.

So, what did I miss, and what else can be spun out of this?

As the others have already pointed out, you missed out on the black globe.

IMTU the very odd Kinunir-class was laid down to field test the first series of wholly Imperial-manufactured black globes. After that project was terminated, the Kinunirs were farmed out into various other roles. One of those other roles was testing that nasty A.I. computer your players tangled with.

Handing a black globe over to the Consulate should put your players on several Imperial lists no sane person would ever want to be listed on. Just the things for more adventures, right?

 

[PFVA63]

The Erie and the Charleston were built under the provisions of the London Naval Treaty allowing for an unlimited tonnage of ships of less than 2,000 tons standard displacement, with a maximum speed of 20 knots, and a maximum armament of four 6 inch guns. The concept for the US was to use the ships in the anti-surface raider role, along with providing a greater shore bombardment capability than a destroyer.

The British used that provision to build a series of anti-submarine and anti-aircraft sloops, mounting up to eight 4 inch guns, a top speed of slightly under 20 knots, and a good ASW capacity in all ships.

Hi,

Thanks for the additional info. I believe that since the ships were allowed to be armed with weapons up to 6.1in and according to Dr. Norman Freidman's book "US Cruisers" they were intended to fill a role similar to an older concept for something called a "peace cruiser' (if I am understanding correctly) these ships sometimes get included into either the grouping of "cruisers" or at least discussions of cruiser designs, as they are in Dr. Freidman's book.

 

[Darkwing]

Since I've only played in this universe once (mid-80's) and am now running it, with only the books and no real community around here, I didn't see the black globe as such a huge secret - kind of like the Romulan cloaking device in the TNG era, not as in the TOS era. So, bad, but not as bad or game-changing as handing over nuclear secrets in 1945.

 

[Khan Trav]

Hans is very smart.

I like it when players examine parts of the game like this. I was good with the adventure as written. My players took items that could be carried but then they got busy with other threads and never actually disposed of Kinunir.

There are plenty of items within the hull even if you exclude the BG gear to make a party happy.

My favorite portions of Traveller are written during the classic era. I also like allowing players to use their creativity. That being said, I have learned a tremendous amount of information from people on this site such as Hans, Aramis, Hemdian and others. There is a great amount of creativity on this site.

 

[Timerover51]

Hi,

Thanks for the additional info. I believe that since the ships were allowed to be armed with weapons up to 6.1in and according to Dr. Norman Freidman's book "US Cruisers" they were intended to fill a role similar to an older concept for something called a "peace cruiser' (if I am understanding correctly) these ships sometimes get included into either the grouping of "cruisers" or at least discussions of cruiser designs, as they are in Dr. Freidman's book.

If you have Norm's book on US cruisers, you are in good shape then. The concept of "peace cruisers" was derived from the US experience with using gunboats in the Caribbean area. Basically, it was a concept of putting an inexpensive warship in the area, but one that had reasonable firepower and capabilities.

 

[PFVA63]

If you have Norm's book on US cruisers, you are in good shape then. The concept of "peace cruisers" was derived from the US experience with using gunboats in the Caribbean area. Basically, it was a concept of putting an inexpensive warship in the area, but one that had reasonable firepower and capabilities.

Hi,

Thanks. Hope I'm not getting too far off track, but I found his books to be really, really good sources for so much info.

Happy Holidays

PF