How many tankers and tenders per fleet?

[robject]

Consider one of the fleets in the Spinward Marches. What do their logistics look like?

Or just consider the Tigress squadron. How many tankers do they need to support all those ships?

[AnotherDilbert]

Most ships, including the Tigress-class, can refuel themselves, so no tankers needed.

Just a few ammo tenders, but they probably are not all that large.

[flykiller]

What do their logistics look like?

imtu I assume a given ship is able to sustain itself in ordinary circumstances for two months. for each 1% of non-fuel non-armor volume devoted to cargo space, an additional two months. I design each ship to be self-supporting for 10 months, as there is little need for longer endurance since they have to come in for yearly maintenance anyway.

for combat/other damage response repair tenders are needed. if one assumes that 10% of a component's volume is needed for each major hit (or 1%, or 5%, whatever), that informs as to the amount of equipment stores that should be available on local tenders. there will also be a need for a mobile shipyard and it's associated personnel - one tender for that should be sufficient.

use and numbers of missile/sand replenishment tenders should be obvious. what may not be obvious is the volume of any particular salvo - I just say 1 dton for each factor 9 salvo.

How many tankers do they need to support all those ships?

jump fuel lighter support is impossible. power plant fuel lighter support, allowing a combat element to remain on-station despite no immediately available fuel, is achieveable to a limited extent.

[aramis]

Originally Posted by AnotherDilbert

Most ships, including the Tigress-class, can refuel themselves, so no tankers needed.

Just a few ammo tenders, but they probably are not all that large.

Just because they can does NOT mean they should...

the TankRons seem to be more about the refining rather than the refuel proper.

The use of large craft rather than capital ships in a risky activity, as well.

I've always assumed at least a full TankRon of 8-12 heavy cruiser-sized tankers, intended to be divvied, each capapble of refining its maximum tankage in 2-3 hours... Note that most of the actual tankage isn't on the tanker - it's in the fuel shuttles it carries - but the massive processing plants...

The cruisers and battleships with it take send their dry fuel shuttles down, and get full ones from the tankers, and the tankers accept the now full ones from the cruisers, swap the fuel for refined, and repeat. This way, no capital ships are doing the dangerous skim themselves, but all their fuel shuttle tankage is in use for refuelling ops, and all the ships jump on refined fuel.

[Condottiere]

Logistic tails tend to be rather larger than the fangs.

In regards to fleet tankers, the relation to capacity becomes a question of how long you intend that task force to remain in each system, while presumably busy bee drones extract hydrogen nectar from the most conveniently placed gas giant.

You could be more Napoleonic and live off the land, and have the warships forage for themselves, speeding up the process.

[mike wightman]

The boardgame Fifth Frontier War and Trillion Credit Squadron are the best sources for this.
FFW has this to say.

Tanker squadrons are able to refuel a limited number of other squadrons. A tanker squadron may refuel a number of non-tanker squadrons equal to the tanker's defense factor; thus, a 0-0-6 tanker could refuel six squadrons.

Note that this means a tanker squadron can refuel up to six Tigress squadrons.

Tenders are components of the BatRon they carry.

[jec10]

But the Imperial Tanker Rons in 5FW can only refuel 4 squadrons. And there are only two of them.

[mike wightman]

Yup, combat tanker squadrons are a rarity. Which is just as well since there are some pretty interesting tactics the Zhodani could use if they had a few more tanker squadrons.
But remember that the four squadrons means refueling up to thirty two Tigress class BBs.

[AnotherDilbert]

Originally Posted by aramis

the TankRons seem to be more about the refining rather than the refuel proper.

The use of large craft rather than capital ships in a risky activity, as well.

I've always assumed at least a full TankRon of 8-12 heavy cruiser-sized tankers, intended to be divvied, each capapble of refining its maximum tankage in 2-3 hours... Note that most of the actual tankage isn't on the tanker - it's in the fuel shuttles it carries - but the massive processing plants...

Very few ships carry fuel shuttles because they are very inefficient. Warships (or Traders) certainly cannot afford such luxuries. It is vastly cheaper to make the warships streamlined, than to rely on external tankers or fuel shuttles.

Most warships are at least partially streamlined and have purifiers, so can and will skim themselves. Being immobilised by the lack of vulnerable tankers is completely unacceptable.

Tankers are not necessary for normal operations, but an extra capability to pass otherwise impassable gaps.

[AnotherDilbert]

Originally Posted by mike wightman

Tenders are components of the BatRon they carry.

Ammo tender = supply ship ≠ tender as in carrier of large vessels.