Auxillary Vessels

[Ben W Bell]

Does anyone know what has been published before, canonically, concerning the navys auxillary and support ships. I have a decent sized collection and can find very little covering this topic.

I am just doing some research on it so I can write some stuff up and it seems pretty lacking.

 

[Tom Schoene]

Originally posted by BenBell:
Does anyone know what has been published before, canonically, concerning the navys auxillary and support ships. I have a decent sized collection and can find very little covering this topic.

I am just doing some research on it so I can write some stuff up and it seems pretty lacking.

I believe there's some material in "Frightening Slips of the Shattered Imperium" (oh, wait, that's supposed to be "Fighting Ships..." ) But given the quality of that book, you may be better off starting from scratch.

Other than that, I can't think of any extensive references off hand. There may be a paragraph in Supplement 9, and perhaps one or two sentences in The Spinward Marches Campaign.

 

[Father Fletch]

These two sites give you an idea as to what our (USA) Navy considers important in the auxiliary capacity.
http://www.msc.navy.mil/pm1/
http://www.msc.navy.mil/N00P/mission.htm
I would imagine that the needs of a Space based Navy would be similar in some regards and in others you will need to just extrapolate (fancy word for "make it up!")
Interesting to note is the transition to a civilian run auxiliary. Would the IN go the same way? This certainly opens things up to Player groups for small Naval Contracts.

 

[Tom Schoene]

Originally posted by Father Fletch:
These two sites give you an idea as to what our (USA) Navy considers important in the auxiliary capacity.
http://www.msc.navy.mil/pm1/
http://www.msc.navy.mil/N00P/mission.htm
I would imagine that the needs of a Space based Navy would be similar in some regards and in others you will need to just extrapolate (fancy word for "make it up!")
Interesting to note is the transition to a civilian run auxiliary. Would the IN go the same way? This certainly opens things up to Player groups for small Naval Contracts.

I would say the IN would probably not go this route. The modern preference for civil service mariners running support ships (both in the US MSC and the British RMAS) is pretty much tied into labor and safety regulations that don't really apply to the 3I.

 

[themink]

I don't know why you say that the IN won't use civilian contractors to fill the Auxillary role. Fundamentally that what a subsidised merchant was origionally intended to be.

The Government helped you purchase a larger transport vessel as long as you agreed to follow a route that helped them and could be called up in cases of emergency.

That way a fleet/government doesn;t need to bother looking after it's "fleet train" when they aren;t using it. They don;t have to worry about upkeep and maintainance for them and yet in times of war they have trained crew using ships they are familiar with.

Of course when traveller changed from being small ship (3 LBBs) to large fleets, the entire concept would have changed. A 400dt merchant is practically zero value when your fleet is messured in Mdt. The same concept could be used for bulk merchants (in the k-> M dt range) however it doesn;t really affect players.

Having said that, I use small ship traveller and I've had the players "take over" a subsidised merchant just before it was called up.

 

[Tom Schoene]

Originally posted by The Mink:
I don't know why you say that the IN won't use civilian contractors to fill the Auxillary role. Fundamentally that what a subsidised merchant was origionally intended to be.

The Government helped you purchase a larger transport vessel as long as you agreed to follow a route that helped them and could be called up in cases of emergency.

We're talking about two dfferent things here.

The MSC ships I'm talking about are the Fleet's primary, full-time, combat logistics force and support ships. They are ammunition ships, tankers, repair tenders, and so forth. They travel with the fleet in peacetime, and there are not always direct civilian counterparts. These ships I would expect to remain in Navy hands in the 3I.

Subsidized merchats are different -- basically cargo ships that can be used to carry military cargoes in wartime. These exist in the real world as well -- in the US it's called the Military Security program (MSP). But these are not really auxiliaries in the technical sense of the word, and not the same as the MSC ships.

 

[Tom Schoene]

I got to thinking about exactly what sorts of auxiliaries a Traveller navy would need. Here's a list to start with. I broke it down into a few basic categories:

Logistics Ships

* Tankers: obviously, needed to exted the range of fleets without frontier refuelling

* Ammunition Ships: mostly to resupply missiles, which some units will use in large numbers.

* Stores Ships: food, other stores, and spare parts.

Stores are likely to be much smaller in volume than either fuel or ammo. Thus, stores might be carried on tankers or ammo ships, rather than on dedicated stores ships.

Support Ships
* Repair Tenders: large dispersed structure ships that serve as mobile docks and repair yards

* Tugs/Salvage Ships: high-thrust ships capable of pushing or pulling disabled major warships. Some might use jump nets (see Supp 9) to carry smaller ships or other cargoes through jump space.

* Hospital Ships: Self-explanatory. Need lots of small craft to collect casualties, plus dock to land additional small craft.

Transports
* Drop Assault Ship: for landing marines by drop capsule, must be very fast to minimize warning time. Possibly with jump capability like the J-5 fleet intruders.

* Heavy Lift Ship: large dispersed structure ships carrying large and odd sized cargoes (may be similar to repair tenders)

* Assault Transport: carries Army/Marine armored formations, with landing craft to land troops.

Merchant ships taken up from trade also carry troops and equipment.

Miscellaneous

* Fleet Courier: Small, long-range (there is already a canonical design).

*Intelligence Collector: Covert deep-space vesels, possibly carrying small jump ships to send reports.

*Training ships: probably old warships (light cruisers seem promising) with extra berthing and training spaces replacing some bay armament.

* Command Ships: squadrons and fleets are typically commanded from modified combatants, but high-level (e.g. Sector/Domain) command may require dedicated command ships to ensure the commander and staff can move when needed (though commuications dicatates that they not move often, or do so on a pre-planned schedule). Defensive armament, but large carried craft capacity, including many couriers.

Note that a lot of the types found in modern navies didn't seem appopriate. Survey and research functions fall to the Scouts.

 

[shield]

If your looking for auxiliary ships, then try either the BARD site or the BITs site with the 101 starships download.

The BITs ships are GURPS versions but easily convertable, and the supplement covers all the major races and some of the minor ones. Gurps supplements Ground Forces and Star Mercs have a number of troopship / landers.

PS.

Another ship type for the navy would be the prison transport - certain criminals / rebels are just too dangerous for civilian shipping, + POW transports. For Solsec, there is a relocation transport on the Gurps JTAS site for moving all those political dissidents.

Hope this helps

Cheers
Richard

 

[savage]

Great input.

Yep, MT's books provide a few ideas on fleet makeup. With fleets one needs to consider the purpose of the navy.
-If its purely defensive the roles require less tonnage in assault ships.
-If the area being defended has a significant number of bases ammunition ships might not be necessary either.-Mobile bases might be the key to replacing some support vessels.
-Or maybe they need to be able to crank out Liberty ships at 1 per day if they really need it.

Savage

 

[trader jim]

remember that Supply ship in the movie MR. Roberts
(henry fonda, jimmy cagnie) Great Movie!!!...any way...always wanted to convert ship to Traveller!!
would make Great senerios to play....many "hooks"...ideas....

 

[Jame]

An interesting topic. Can anyone point me to some designs of "civilian" auxiliaries, such as a smaller (less than 1k tons) ship that would be used as a subsidized merchant, or perhaps as a merc vessel (not the famous 800 ton Merc Cruiser, though). You know, like the whatever it was merchant cruiser? Thanks!

 

[mike wightman]

There's the Leviathan class 1800t Merchant Cruiser from Adventure 4. The 600t Subsidised Liner can be converted into quite a good troop carrier, or at least it was in the Assignment Vigilante folio adventure for MT.

 

[Badbru]

"
Logistics Ships

* Tankers: obviously, needed to exted the range of fleets without frontier refuelling

* Ammunition Ships: mostly to resupply missiles, which some units will use in large numbers.

* Stores Ships: food, other stores, and spare parts.

Stores are likely to be much smaller in volume than either fuel or ammo. Thus, stores might be carried on tankers or ammo ships, rather than on dedicated stores ships
"

For myself I'd prefer one class of ship that did all three of these duties. Think about a support fleet of one tanker, one ammo ship, and one stores ship. If it gets hit and you loose one of these ships the fleet it's supporting has lost it's entire load from whatever was hit. Loose your tanker = no fuel, loose the ammo ship = no ammo etc. If you had three identical ships that each carried a third of the fuel and a third of the ammo and a third of the stores, then no one ship makes a more tempting target than another and you only loose a third of your supplies if you loose one ship. Reduces the likelyhood of your fleet being combat ineffective which is as good as being dead. Another bonus is crew training if all support ships are of a single class.

 

[The Oz]

Badbru:

From a strictly tactical point of view you're quite correct that it would be better to have ships that can deliver a little bit of everything. The US Navy has the Sacremento class resupply ships that are capable of doing just as you say, delivering fuel, food, and ammunition all at once. They are normally used for front-line resupply of carrier battlegroups. They have the speed to keep up with the carrier battlegroup under almost all conditions and carry a fair amount of defensive firepower.

Of course, they're very big and very expensive, both to build and to operate. As a result the Navy only has four of them, and uses less capable ships for most resupply operations.

 

[womble]

The purpose of a tanker in the Traveller universe is very different from that of a fleet collier in a diesel/gas/jp8-fuelled maritime fleet.

In a maritime fleet, fuel is dense enough that one ship can carry 'lots' of miles of travel.

In a Traveller fleet, the collier would have to be enormous to carry enough fuel to supply the fleet for many jumps. I think that most of the time it would be used as the 'refiller' to get the fleet back out of a system they needed to retreat from without being able to refuel from local stores or sources, either by design or misfortune of war. As such, it'd probably have dumpable, cheap tankage so that it could provide the maximum fuel to its dependents and use the least to get itself back out-system with the Fleet.

In normal cruising, it'd have a number of fuelling lighters to expedite the skimming process.

 

[Antony]

Does the imperium, or for that matter the solomani have repair tenders? What do you do if your 700,000dt Titan class dreadnought has suffered a jump drive failure? If not a repair tender (essentially a somewhat limited mobile starport) what about tugs. You would need a pretty big tug to tow a Titan into jump space (in those systems that allow it). Thoughts?

Incidently Fighting Ships did mention the dromedary which was basically a combination tanker resupply vessel.

 

[shield]

There is a 6.5ktn hercules tug in one of the early challenge mags. It could haul a ship upto 200ktns.

Azhantis have been used as fighter / escort baseships before.

But yes there should be some repair tenders or TCS does allow you to ship a new jump drive / power plant to a ship and do the repair in place. But even that will need some sort of repair base.

Cheers
Richard

 

[savage]

In traveller there are several vessels that don't purifier their own fuel. Tankers that can enter a gas giant, purify fuel, and deliver it to secondary vessels are very beneficial.

Savage

 

[Antony]

Looking at the deck plans and distirubtion of drive systems on an AHL if your jump drive reactor is toast it looks like the hull has to be opened up to repair/replace it.

I vaguely remember something similar in the Honor Harrington universe necessitating the hull to be opened up on the Nike to repair portions of that ship.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Most ofthe Fleet Tankers I have designed have been in the 50-75Kton range. That way they can be used to skim fuel and refuel the rest of the Squadron while the squadron isn't in the GG. If you set it up for Jump-5 then it can stay with AHL class squadrons or 2 of them could refuel and entire CruRon of 8 Cruisers for jump one with one gas giant skimming operation. Usually deploy two per CruRon and 4 per BatRon. Which means without risking your capital ships you could refuel your entire squadron (At 5 hours per skimming run) in about a day.

(That does include refueling the tanker.) If you make it 60KTons and Jump-5 then it can refuel a Cruiser with jump-4 up to 75KTons in one pass. And 150KTons in two passes.(Which means that you might want bigger tankers or one per Drednaught in Batrons of Dreds bigger than 200KTons. If it is just a refueling shipwith only Laser Batteries for self defense and limited armor, you can carry enough extra fuel tankage to resupply a 200KTon ship in two passes. You would of course need a seperate ship for other expendables.

You resupply ship for missiles and other expendables would tend to be one per squadron in the same size range but limited to jump-4. (And could be used to help with the refueling operations just because it's fuel tankage is so big. But its primary mission would be carrying supplies. (Usually if you have one Resupply ship per Cruron and two per Batron you can refuel all of the escorts in the same time frame as the rest of the squadron with the tankers.)

Other Auxillaries in MTU include Carriers, Transports, Couriers, and Scouts. Though Destroyers and Destroyer Escorts do serve admirably in the battlefield courier and scout roles.)