BCS Assumptions

[aramis]

And you are unlucky a million times - who wins?

Can't be done in isolation.

For the same money you can build a 500kt BB or a 250kt tender carrying 5 50kt BR.
The latter will beat the former every time one (tender+riders) for one (BB). One BR will struggle against the BB, so 1v1 the BB is superior due to its extensive secondary batteries which can scrub the BR, but that's not a fair fight
5v1 the BR get 5 chances to spinal the BB.

A BatRon of BBs may be eight BBs, I would want at least forty BRs to go up against them.


Those are exceptions not the norm.

War is won by planning and logistics, not one plucky cavalry charge.

Historically, Plucky Cavalry Charges win battles far more often than the strategic concerns do.

Battle is inherently chaotic, and a well timed charge is often decisive. A poorly timed one is often catastrophic.... on the tactical scale. Forces have held against 10x their number with even weapons and good tactics often enough... and sometimes, troops expected to be sacrifices for a strategic goal have held there own in ways that shocked and amazed the strategic command. Even a 10:1 is not a historical guarantee of victory.

Wars are won by winning the battles often enough and well enough to be able to outlast the political will of the opponents. That political will can often be broken by destruction of the means of production and/or causing terror in the populace, or even simply prolonging the conflict past the point where the public supports it...as was seen in the Phillipine Campaign, the Pancho Villa campaign, the World Wars (I & II), Korean War, and Vietnam War. In all of these, the will to fight was broken, and that's what ended the war. Even in Japan - the Emperor realized the US had a weapon his Army, Navy, and Air Force could not fight... and that broke the will to allow further resistance.

Wars are only won when one side or the other decides it's too much to continue - too expensive, too painful, too politically unstable, too dishonorable, or too embarrassing to continue.

Strategy is making certain the war can be continued. Tactics is making certain that more of them die than of you. Winning the war is making certain they don't want to continue, and may or may not involve strategy or simply diplomacy. Or even psychohistorical actions...

 

[mike wightman]

Historically, Plucky Cavalry Charges win battles far more often than the strategic concerns do.

But not wars, which is my point.

You have to get your cavalry from battlefield to battlefield (and hope there are no English longbowmen ) which requires fodder, blacksmiths, a supply train etc.


Too many of these discussions at focussed on to narrow a range of parameters - if you want to model campaigns you have to consider supply and logistics (and yes, politics and economics).

The Germans built some of the most sophisticated equipment of WW2, they also won some pretty impressive battles. They lost because the Allies could bring more men and equipment to where it mattered.

 

[Condottiere]

Wasn't there a thesis out there that you can win any Traveller interstellar war with only jump one battleships?

 

[mike wightman]

I haven't seen it - but the theory is sound up to a point.

Under CT HG2 rules at TL15 you can cram maximum armour, screens, agility and spinal into 74,000t and still have room for jump 1 (or greater but you would need drop tanks). The minimum size of such a monster increases with decreasing TL.

The only fatal flaw - are you going to win by destroying enemy fleets or taking enemy planets without reducing them to the stone age?

 

[flykiller]

The Germans built some of the most sophisticated equipment of WW2, they also won some pretty impressive battles. They lost because the Allies could bring more men and equipment to where it mattered.

in the first year after america's entry into the european air war the americans suffered just about 100% casualties in aircraft and aircrew. they simply sent over more aircraft and aircrew than the germans could shoot down.

read in the book "the german general staff" about a young american private (the eventual author of the book) guarding a german officer pow. "if you're a master race why am I standing guard over you?" "I will tell you. I was in command of a battery of 88's on that hill. the americans sent a tank up the road and I destroyed it. the americans sent another tank up the road and I destroyed it. the americans sent another tank up the road and I destroyed it. eventually I ran out of shells and the americans did not run out of tanks."

in the american war between the states the confederates routinely inflicted casualties on the federals at 1.5/1, frequently at 2/1, and on good days 3/1. but lincoln drafted more irish boys than longstreet could shoot, yankee industry built more material than forrest could burn, and grant blocked more roads than lee could travel. after gettysburg it was all over.

proper strategy and proper logistics wins every time. the only exception is when a tactic can be exercised against an opponent's baseline strategy from the beginning. an excellent example of this is when pizzaro and 17 spaniards captured the entire inca empire simply by assassinating the incan emperor, thus destroying the inca's command structure and religious basis with one hit.

 

[Condottiere]

The German Wehrmacht retained cohesion long after most armies would have disintegrated after suffering that many casualties, logistical difficulties, and loosing territory.

 

[kilemall]

Heh, BR vs. BB- an issue WarpWar dealt with, for heaven's sake, with similar issues- the carried ships could be heavier but could also be strategically stranded.

In my universe/rules thinking the tenders could be destroyer fodder due to a high speed pass with kinetically enhanced missiles having a spinal effect. If the destroyers die, well they were expendable ultimately compared to the result of stranding the BR fleet.

The lighter conventional BB fleet could then jump out, and either leave the BRs to be out of the fight for weeks or months, or come back with a sufficient force to destroy them outright and/or ambush any rescue fleet come to retrieve/reenable BR jump movement.

A huge factor IMO in BR vs. BB is the 'jump terrain' in the combatant theater-

* how many gaps higher then J-2 exist,
* how dense is the area with fueling systems to allow alternate routes or short jumps, and
* what is the design doctrine of each fleet in dealing with the big gaps or possibly the ability to 'move strategically faster' then the opponent.

Of these, probably the enemy design interaction is the most important.

In most ship design then demolition derby test design games I have run, I have people split their forces into 5 20% groups-

1 obsolete TL-1 group, which both share, these are likely reserve mothballed ships.

Then they design 2 20% groups current TL, after which I show the opposite one of the groups but not both.

Then they design the last 2 20% groups and I show them one of the opposing groups.

This way they can see which way the enemy navy is trending in doctrine and counterdesign, but can still be surprised by remote/hidden/unappreciated/strategic reserve ships, or just plain bad intel on their service's part.

Works for army builds too.

 

[kilemall]

I'd say the tactical influences operational and strategic options and vice versa.

For instance, the Korean turtle boats allowed the Korean navy to cut off the Japanese army, reducing it's ability to finish off the country and setting them up for the ultimate Chinese counterstroke.

The strategic situation put the Japanese on a longer supply line, the tactical options of both allowed for the turtle boats to have that superiority, which then informed how operations went to allow for the tactical to achieve advantage and succeed in the strategic goal.

 

[Condottiere]

Interesting question would have been if the Ming would have allowed the Japanese to consolidate their hold on the Korean peninsula, especially if they knew Hideyoshi, or even Nobunaga, had planned a Lesser East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, regardless of any operational difficulties the Japanese were experiencing, or not.

 

[kilemall]

Interesting question would have been if the Ming would have allowed the Japanese to consolidate their hold on the Korean peninsula, especially if they knew Hideyoshi, or even Nobunaga, had planned a Lesser East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, regardless of any operational difficulties the Japanese were experiencing, or not.

The answer was no way, only reason the Japanese got as far as they did was because of the Korean king's incompetence and the Imperial Chinese Army busy with the usual barbarian threat, and the only reason they didn't get further was the naval losses.

Definitely a fight-hold-fight capacity for the Chinese at that time, but if they weren't tied down the Japanese would have faced the full Army much earlier.

 

[Ackehece]

off topic?

 

[Arien]

Can we please go back to canon - the Imperium favours BR as line of battle ships when operationally advantageous because a BR can destroy a BB many times its size.

A BatRon of BR brings a much more cost effective number of spinals to the battle due to the silly BB can only have one spinal rule.

What the BB can do it jump to avoid operational disadvantage. Which is why on the frontier the fleets are BB, but the off board reserve is made up of BR and tenders.

In the 3I setting the IN should seriously consider building jump 1 BBs carried by tenders for strategic movement.

Jump fuel takes up so much of a BB that the BR will always have the advantage in an engagement - unless you change the setting assumptions.

It's been a while, but I seem to recall there being something about the Imperium's better showing in the Fifth Frontier War being partly due to a shift from BRs to BBs. Or maybe it was the other way around? Certainly the original rules did make BRs generally superior to BBs, but I'm not sure that was how it was described. Personally, I'd like to see it be an actual decision between them, with uses for both to the point where both see use.

 

[warwizard]

I feel that a game with computer support has to bring into the mix the stealth question, a native fleet will have deployed large sensor platforms in system that will not generally be available to an intruder, thusly the detection range of a native force should be improved vis. a vis. the intruder, but here is where the +2 TL offering a major advantage can be modeled, an inferior technology can fail to detect the higher tech sensor frequencies leading to tactical advantages like the lower tech is detected when it's units use active sensors, but the higher tech units are not.
Sensor rules can be abstracted with a sensor rating and signature rating with a mod applied due to Tl difference between the sensor and the object to be sensed.

Disregarding the whole theological discussion about there is no stealth in space, there are physics reasons you can calculate the effective range of an active sensor you have 4 variables that say if you detect the reflection of your sensor energy off the target: range , power, sensor area, and target reflectivity.
There is another thing to ponder is that the frequency of the radiation used to do the sensing determines the minimum feature size you can resolve. A 10m wavelength radio signal can't resolve a 1 meter sized port on the target.

 

[flykiller]

Disregarding the whole theological discussion about there is no stealth in space

doesn't seem theological, seems more hard science. of course one may decree that "we don't know the stealth science of the future" (quite so) and one may disregard it for game purposes (just so), but this leaves everyone feeling twitchy (rightly so).

 

[warwizard]

Yes it's physics, but the no stealth folks are forgetting some of the problems vast distance gives, and that is that none of the photons hit your detector during your observation time window.

You need to either have a larger area or a longer observation period in order to gather enough photons from a weak or far away target.

Black body radiation has another interesting effect the colder the object is the fewer photons it emits, and the lower the frequency of the photons, so a body with 100X as much surface area on the radiator can keep the temperature of the radiator much lower, thus shifting the frequency and lowering the photon per square meter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-body_radiation#/media/File:Black_body.svg
Keep the radiators below 300 degrees k or so and you do not produce light that the mark 1 eyeball can see. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-body_radiation :
"A black body radiates energy at all frequencies, but its intensity rapidly tends to zero at high frequencies (short wavelengths). For example, a black body at room temperature (300 K) with one square meter of surface area will emit a photon in the visible range (390–750 nm) at an average rate of one photon every 41 seconds, meaning that for most practical purposes, such a black body does not emit in the visible range"

 

[flykiller]

You need to either have a larger area or a longer observation period in order to gather enough photons from a weak or far away target.

yeah, but apparently some versions of the game have neutrino detectors sufficient to detect and locate power plant emmissions, and if those are in-play then I don't think there's any game reason there will any problem detecting any emmissions of any source at any distance in any timeframe whatsoever.

heh, not to mention densinomoters reading mass densities. if that can be seen then anything can be.

 

[mike wightman]

Yes it's physics, but the no stealth folks are forgetting some of the problems vast distance gives, and that is that none of the photons hit your detector during your observation time window.

And are you are conveniently ignoring that all the waste heat generated by a multi-gigawatt power plant has to go somewhere.

You need to either have a larger area or a longer observation period in order to gather enough photons from a weak or far away target.

Here is an experiment to try.
Find a really big field. On a really dark night have a friend go and hide somewhere on it.
On your signal they have to strike a match - see if you can spot them.

Black body radiation has another interesting effect the colder the object is the fewer photons it emits, and the lower the frequency of the photons, so a body with 100X as much surface area on the radiator can keep the temperature of the radiator much lower, thus shifting the frequency and lowering the photon per square meter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-body_radiation#/media/File:Black_body.svg
Keep the radiators below 300 degrees k or so and you do not produce light that the mark 1 eyeball can see. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-body_radiation :
"A black body radiates energy at all frequencies, but its intensity rapidly tends to zero at high frequencies (short wavelengths). For example, a black body at room temperature (300 K) with one square meter of surface area will emit a photon in the visible range (390–750 nm) at an average rate of one photon every 41 seconds, meaning that for most practical purposes, such a black body does not emit in the visible range"

Second, how do you limit your radiator temperature when you have the waste heat from a multi-gigawatt fusion reactor to deal with? The heat has to go somewhere.
Third, you use a thermal imaging camera app...

This discussion has been had for decades, the informed consensus is that without some magi-science solution (subspace heat sink or the like) there is no such thing as stealth in space.

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/misconceptions.php#id--Rockets_Don't_Got_Windows

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewardetect.php

 

[mike wightman]

yeah, but apparently some versions of the game have neutrino detectors sufficient to detect and locate power plant emmissions, and if those are in-play then I don't think there's any game reason there will any problem detecting any emmissions of any source at any distance in any timeframe whatsoever.

heh, not to mention densinomoters reading mass densities. if that can be seen then anything can be.

Why they put neutrino detectors and densitometers into the game rather than just use thermal imaging cameras has long been a mystery to me lol. Consider the problems we have here in the real world detecting neutrinos compared with observing thermal radiation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrino_detector

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermographic_camera

 

[whartung]

Yes it's physics, but the no stealth folks are forgetting some of the problems vast distance gives, and that is that none of the photons hit your detector during your observation time window.

Similarly, the essential point of stealth at all is in a combat context, and it's pretty clear, even with the "problems vast distance", those same vast distances eliminate any potential value of stealth at those ranges. Specifically stealth would offer neither strategic, nor tactical surprise, or even a tactical advantage.

Could you perhaps sneak in a discrete, quiet listening post to gather intelligence? Maybe. But you're not going to hide an invasion fleet, a defense fleet, a "secret pirate base", etc.

You can quibble about maximum detection ranges, but whatever those ranges are, they far surpass the combat and reaction envelope.

Why they put neutrino detectors and densitometers into the game rather than just use thermal imaging cameras has long been a mystery to me lol. Consider the problems we have here in the real world detecting neutrinos compared with observing thermal radiation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrino_detector

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermographic_camera

That was one reason neutrino sensors were bumped up to simply star system survey tools, not fusion plant detectors in TNE. We have enough problems detecting neutrinos from that rather large fusion furnace ~8 light minutes away in our own solar system, something the Mark 1 eyeball has little problems detecting as is.

 

[kilemall]

That was one reason neutrino sensors were bumped up to simply star system survey tools, not fusion plant detectors in TNE. We have enough problems detecting neutrinos from that rather large fusion furnace ~8 light minutes away in our own solar system, something the Mark 1 eyeball has little problems detecting as is.

I would tend to go with neutrino detection being a general 'look thataway' for identifying areas of space to pay special attention to, as the emission/detection rate would be low and more like occlusion in that you are looking for differences from background neutrino sources and particularly one that changes bearing more radically then distant objects would.