Medium-Sized Cans

[marginaleye]

Is there any legitimate reason (using Book 5: High Guard design rules) for military vessels in the 10k- to 25k-dton range? Too big to really be disposable (like the the 1k- to 5k-dton escorts), but too small to have real spinal weapon mounts (like the 30k-dton light cruisers). I'm envisioning a "Kinunir-done-right," a ~12k-dton "provincial frigate" (or "cruiser-lite," call it whatever you wish), intended for patrolling the frontier, suppressing piracy, and keeping small and easily-intimidated client states properly obedient. Does this sound like a useful and legitimate design?

 

[LordVince]

Actually, yes it does. And I like the name "Provincial Frigate", too.

See, I've always had a problem with this one thing -- a High Tech world in a system with multiple planets. In some places I read that Traveller Canon is that the Imperium controls "all space between planets", but in others I read it as "all space between stars". So, if the Mainworld can lay claim to the entire star system -- which I believe it should be able to do, if it has the Tech and the Pop to do so -- then they will need something to Patrol the entire system with!

Sure, there are SDBs, but SDBs are picket ships. You put them in place, and they defend the local area. But they are SLOW, and they don't have the facilities to PATROL. A Frigate, such as you propose, would do just nicely.

It would have a Jump-1, but only so that it can perform so-called "Micro-Jumps" within the system (it would do this anytime normal travel to an outer planet would take LONGER than 1 week). It would have weapons that would make a commerce raider quake, but that a REAL warship would only flinch at. It would have the capacity to intimidate a remote mining facility, as well as the capacity to lend assistance during a crisis.

A vessel such as this would be qualified as an "auxilliary" naval vessel for the Imperial Navy, but a local system government would use such as THEIR frontline.

And the Mercenary market for such vessels wouldn't be bad, either. Big enough to challenge other Mercs & local-yokels, but small enough that the Imperial Navy isn't concerned.

 

[alanb]

I suggest you take another look at High Guard. (I presume you are talking about the second edition of HG, rather than the rather different, and short lived, first edition.)

It is entirely possible for ships in the range you describe to have spinal mounts. This is especially true if they are battle riders or system monitors.

Alan B

 

[vegascat]

A ship in the 20Kton range is the smallest effective vessel to carry a spinal mount. These ships would do the traditional frigate type duties, showing the flag, picket duty, and anti piracy duty.

To show the flag, you want an impressive vessel, one that the locals can not produce on thier own. You also want a vessel that makes it plain that the locals can not hope to stand up against, no matter where they hide, or how deep they go. If you really want to impress so low tech locals, hit a nearby semi extinct volcano in the tube to make it erupt. Instant godhood.

A ship this size makes a good cheap picket as the core ship of a light fleet to discourage adventuresome pocket empires from getting froggy.

Anti piracy can be done by destroyers in the 3 to 5Kon range if the pirates are not too well organized. If the pirates are supported by a planetary government, especially in the Vargr extents, then a little destroyer may not be enough. A pirate stronghold may have a dozen or more small raiders. When your destroyer hits the system, the pirates will scatter like oaches when the light comes on. What you want is a one shot one kill weapon, with a good range, like a small spinal mount.

When it comes time to battle another interstellar empire, then the number of spinal mounts in combat does have a signifigant impact. They will not win the battle for you like battleships will. They will keep the ohters battleships busy and give you more targets to survive, even if each unit is less survivable.

The true use of these ships is to do all those jobs where a battleship would be overkill, and to allow you to keep your battleship in place to keep that other superpower from getting froggy.

 

[alanb]

Originally posted by vegascat:
When it comes time to battle another interstellar empire, then the number of spinal mounts in combat does have a signifigant impact. They will not win the battle for you like battleships will.

Except that in High Guard, they _will_ win the battle for you.

Battleships aren't cost-effective.

All of this is doubly true when you remember that most of the ships in the tonnage range we are discussing WON'T HAVE J-DRIVES!

Alan B

 

[mike wightman]

Is there any legitimate reason (using Book 5: High Guard design rules) for military vessels in the 10k- to 25k-dton range?

It all depends on TL and design parameters (j no, m rating, agility, armour). At TL 15 it is possible to design light cruisers armed with meson spinal mounts in the 15-25kt range, as alanb says, you just have to do without a high rating in one of the above factors. At lower TLs this trade off is further complicated by powerplant size but you can still build a TL13 19900t light cruiser with a factor E meson gun, J2, M4, Ag4, AR12, lots of hardpoints, 3 cutters and a marine company on board.

I'm envisioning a "Kinunir-done-right," a ~12k-dton "provincial frigate"

I like it too, in fact is it OK to borrow the idea?

Except that in High Guard, they _will_ win the battle for you.

I agree, small meson equipped cruisers are much more cost effective in HG because you get so many more spinal mounts. OK so you lose a few "cheap" ships but the enemy's 200000t battle wagon costs a lot more to replace.
IMTU the mainstay of the Imperial fleet is a 40000t heavy cruiser. IMHO anything bigger is a waste considering the "fuel tanks shattered" and "crew-1" hits that a mid-size meson gun inflicts so readily.

 

[marginaleye]

Darn it, what the work desperately needs is a formula-based "drop-in-replacement" for that table entitled "Major Weapons" on page 24 of the second edition of Book 5: High Guard. If I can build a starship at Tech Level 15 with
</font>

• a factor-2 particle accelerator turret or</font>
• a factor-5 50-dton p.a. bay or</font>
• a factor-9 100-dton p.a. bay or</font>
• a factor-H 2500-dton spinal particle accelerator</font>

then why can't I build such a starship with cheap, compact Tech Level 15 equivalent of a Factor-A spinal particle accelerator? One shouldn't have to use Fire, Fusion and Steel to do this.

Okay... perhaps the world doesn't need this desperately. A glance at the newspaper will reveal that the world has bigger problems. But a "formula-based replacement" for that darn table would make High Guard ever so much more useful, and I would be busily writing one up myself, if my knowledge of mathematics was a little stronger than, sadly, it is.

 

[cmdrx]

I have been working on this for some time now actualy. "filling in the gaps" in the Spinal weapon chart. Its not an easy task as I am finding out. I'll post results here or on my website soon. TL15 Type A Meson should be relatively small. If a 100 ton bay does USP 9 then 150dt? We'll see.

 

[marginaleye]

I see you have rules for meson barbettes and turrets -- although I would have contradicted canon and introduced the meson barbette at Tech Level 15, and the turret at Tech Level 16. If you can cram a useful meson gun into a 20-dton grav tank, (the Tech Level 15 "meson artillery vehicle" of The Regency Combat Vehicle Guide) then you really ought to be able to mount a similar meson gun in the 5-dton barbette (after all, you have to fit a power plant, the crew, fuel, and everything else into that 20-dton tank's hull, too).

But, anyway... thanks for tackling the problem of "missing" spinal mounts. I shall keep an eye on your page.

 

[cmdrx]

The meson barbette and turrets were an atempt to port over some toys I made for GURPS:Starships to HG/T20. They wanted them GURPS TL13 (Traveller 16/17). I originaly HAD them at TL15 to start, for the same reasons you stated.

Still working on those iterations and trying to figure out Marc's orginal pattern. BTW thanks for visiting the site

 

[alanb]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
IMTU the mainstay of the Imperial fleet is a 40000t heavy cruiser. IMHO anything bigger is a waste considering the "fuel tanks shattered" and "crew-1" hits that a mid-size meson gun inflicts so readily.

Well, not quite, IMHO.

First, of course, you have Battle Tenders and similar non-frontline vessels.

More importantly, though, there is the "Rock" element of the High Guard Paper-Scissors-Rock game. This works like so: Missiles beat Mesons, Mesons beat Rocks, Rocks beat Missiles.

I suppose I had better explain this in detail...

First, the following only works for a certain range of TLs. It's mainly true for TL C-E. TL F is a bit of a special case because of armour and power plant breakpoints. But then, it's not entirely untrue either...

OK, so, the Paper-Scissors-Rock game is a relationship between three general types of vessels:

(1) the "Missile Boat" - a lightly armoured, cheap, expendable escort sized vessel. It can either be jump capable or not. It is essentially built around a single Missile Bay. These vessels are typically deployed in what are technically referred to as "sky-darkening hordes". These vessels mainly defeat opponents by inflicting lots and lots and lots and lots of Weapon-1 hits on them, rendering the enemy incapable of damaging friendly vessels. This particularly applies to the next category of vessel:

(2) the "Meson Can" - a small spinal mount in a reasonably armoured tube. These things are typically battle riders (aka system defence monitors). These work on the principle that who ever has the most meson guns wins. But that theory breaks down against "sky-darkening hordes" of Missile Boats. Meson Cans are especially good against the next category of vessel:

(3) the "Rock" - a big, extremely heavily armoured vessel, probably with some kind of planetoid hull. Immune to missiles, and therefore Missile Boats. But... it's sucker bait for Meson Cans, is really really expensive and only has a single spinal mount...

The optimal fleet is a mixture. You need at least one Rock, preferably armed with a Particle Accelerator spinal mount. You might want at least one more, possibly with a Really Big Meson Gun spinal mount. Maybe 2 of each... no more. In battle, keep them in reserve as much as possible. You will also want as many Meson Cans as possible, along with tenders to allow them to jump. (Keep the tenders in reserve, of course). And then you want a sky-darkening horde of Missile Boats. This will cost you as many MCr as you have to spend on them. The exact proportion of Mesons and Missiles will vary according to your tastes...

Obviously, if there was a single inevitably successful fleet, High Guard and Trillion Credit Squadron wouldn't still have all the fans they do...

Oh, yes. That's right - the origin of the digression above was a point about ships being 40000 tons max. This is, of course, not true, since the Rocks I described will be much bigger than that. (Tenders too, of course.)

Alan B

 

[mike wightman]

Perhaps I should have used the word "workhorse" instead . MTU also uses a 19000t M6, Ag6, AF15 TL15 battle rider with 2 varients a meson N(with 15 missile bays) and a PAW T (with 14 missile bays) in order to cope with a range of threats. Then there are the 2000t escorts.

I agree that at lower TLs different ship types must be mixed to make an effective fleet but at TL 15 the reduced armour % makes the big rocks you describe economically wasteful, unless used as system monitors or large battle riders and even then why build them over 50000t

I also agree with your earlier post that the (100000t plus) battleship is just not cost effective.

 

[mike wightman]

then why can't I build such a starship with cheap, compact Tech Level 15 equivalent of a Factor-A spinal particle accelerator?

I have been working on this for some time now actualy.

Me too. It started because I wanted smaller spinal and parallel mounts from TNE in HG/T20.I even posted a couple of items about it here .
My method was graphical to extend the HG tables. Here's what I got for TL15 meson spinal mounts:
A- 110t, 100EP
B- 220t, 200EP
C- 330t, 300EP
D- 440t, 400EP
E- 550t, 500EP
F- 660t, 600EP
G- 770t, 700EP
H- 880t, 800EP

 

[savage]

Smaller spinal mounts, bigger spinal mounts....all
a good thing.

In CT we use to have a 10k cruiser. Perhaps like the provincial frigate discussed. It had 120% crew for lite work detail and higher morale. It was confortable and could sit in an empty border parsec for a long time. Solving all those little border problems without being a burden.

Savage

 

[Hal]

Originally posted by cmdrx:
I have been working on this for some time now actualy. "filling in the gaps" in the Spinal weapon chart. Its not an easy task as I am finding out. I'll post results here or on my website soon. TL15 Type A Meson should be relatively small. If a 100 ton bay does USP 9 then 150dt? We'll see.

I see what you mean by "not an easy task". I just took the time and effort to input all the data for Meson spinal mounts into a spread sheet and looking at the data from various points of view. For instance, I looked at the cost per volume per weapon, hits per volume per weapon (ie you get one extra hit for every letter value past 9 where A gets 1 extra hit, J gets 10 extra hits and so on)

The ratios fluctuate wildly as you assess costs per volume, damage per volume, damage per energy point, and so on. Even taking like volumed weapons across a tech level varies greatly!

I suspect that attempting to generate the "fill in the gaps" data is going to cause you hair loss Ie, don't pull your hair out in too much frustration!

 

[Jame]

I recall someone around here saying that after a certain TL a fleet wouldn't need the 100k-ton+ ships much. Mainly 'cause the medium cans got more useful. How would this work, or would it?

 

[alanb]

Originally posted by Jame#1:
I recall someone around here saying that after a certain TL a fleet wouldn't need the 100k-ton+ ships much. Mainly 'cause the medium cans got more useful. How would this work, or would it?

First of all, remember that we are dealing with High Guard/Trillion Credit Squadron, which is a highly abstract system that doesn't overly concern itself with details like logistics, or reality.

OK, the argument goes like this: it is not possible to build a vessel that is immune to spinal mount Meson Guns. As a result, it is better to spread your eggs across a number of baskets. In addition, of course, since each vessel can carry no more that one spinal mount, having lots and lots of ships is good for your firepower. "Whoever has the most spinal mount Meson Guns, wins." Big ships are expensive, and therefore breach this rule.

Of course, there is a counter to the Meson ship, which I described in a previous post - the small Missile Boat, and of course, the counter to the Missile Boat is: a Big Ship!

So the Big Ships do have a place, but it's a rather minor one. It's a role that can be filled by very small numbers of such vessels.

Incidentally, the size of such vessels isn't particularly important. It's actually their armour that matters more. So they will be no larger than necessary to carry their armour and a reasonable weapons loadout. I haven't done the maths recently, but they may not even need to be as big as 100 KTons.

Incidentally, in terms of how many are needed: this is where the abstractions of Trillion Credit Squadron blur matters. The basic TCS fleet only needs a couple of big battleships, at most. But a fleet that actually has to be in more than one place at once, and carry out roles other than head to head combat against an equally matched force, may well need a different composition. But that still won't change the fact that medium size ships will still be the workhorses, and the big ships will be rare, and spend most of their time hiding behind other units, waiting until it's safe to come out.

Alan B