Question re use of Missile Magazines

[Falkayn]

OK, I've re-read the bit on Missile Magazines in the starship design guide and it seems to be saying that whenever a starship has missiles, it should pay the extra MCr for magazines because that armors them, and makes them less susceptible to blowing up.

My original reading of this area was that magazines were needed to store missiles ready for use by missile racks, and that not having them would mean that each missile needed to be hand-loaded from the missile storage area. However, this does not make sense when one considers sandcasters, and that led me to review the area.

So, are missile magazines only necessary to safely store missiles, and the full ship's complement of missiles are available to missile turrets otherwise?

 

[tjoneslo]

Missiles are stored in two places: The turret (which holds three missiles), and a magazine.

Missiles not in a magazine are stored as cargo. (Make you nervous to have a 50kg missile with a nuclear warhead rolling loose in your ship?)

In either case, the missiles in the turret are ready to fire, and missiles not in the turret need to be loaded, by hand, by the gunner, as they are needed. Most ships designed for missile loads have the magazine (armored or not) right next to the turrets for speed of loading.

Given the length of the combat turns, hauling a few missiles from the cargo bay to the turret shouldn't be difficult, though if you're mean you can impose fatigue penaties for hauling heavy loads on your players during an extended combat.

Similar applies to the sandcaster rounds.

 

[Tom Schoene]

Originally posted by tjoneslo:
missiles not in the turret need to be loaded, by hand, by the gunner, as they are needed.

This bit is, IMO, mind-numbingly silly. Real navies gave up on hand-loading missiles a decade ago if not longer. Even naval gun magazines are going to fully automatic weapon handling these days. I would rule that missile racks backed by magazines have automatic reloading capability.

 

[gardclan]

Two things here.

1. Tank crews still load the main gun ammo by hand. When I was in the army (and a loader for an M-1 crew) most of us could reload the gun in around 4 seconds or so from the ready rack. The standard was 5 seconds from the time that the gun was cleared of the previous round. Rounds weighed approximately 35kg for sabot, and 48kg for HEAT. I would tend to consider these to be roughly the same size as a turret missile from Traveller.

I've seen the inside of the Soviet tanks (T-72 and T-64), and I've operated their autoloader. I noted that the autoloaders were very prone to jam, tended to be hazardous to the crew (the guards were removed from the captured Iraqi tank we had to play with), and typically took around 10-15 seconds to reload a round. It did let the soviets get away with one fewer crewman and have a smaller turret though.

The T-72 was actually the export model. Its reload mechanism required the turret to rotate to the next available round in the magazine, max elevate the gun, open a hatch in the turret, eject the spent case, load the new one, and then return the turret to its former position. (or, at least thats the way our toy operated.)

The T-64 was (as we understood it) actually the superior model, and was used by the soviets almost exclusively. It had a rotating ammo rack that would move to match the turret when called for. Slightly faster, but more moving parts. Both mechanisms tended to mangle the gunner's arm if the guards weren't in place and he wasn't careful.

Our (US Army) system was simpler, actually faster, and gave you an extra crewman to help with field maintenance. But it cost us the extra space in the tank, so our tanks tend to be much bigger targets. But we could sustain a much higher rate of fire, and had an extra pair of eyeballs to search for those targets. We also had larger magazines as a result.

2. My take on Traveller magazines was that they held ready reloads for the turret's missile racks. In my mind, this meant that the turret could be quickly reloaded by hand by the gunner. In other words, the rounds are stacked within arms reach.

That being said, there is no real reason that a magazine could not also contain an autoloader. There is also nothing that says that autoloaders will not be much more fast and reliable in the future... keeping in mind that autoloaders are strictly mechanical devices, prone to wear, jamming, and breakdown.

Both methods will work. Both methods will probably completely reload a triple turret in one turn. The trade off is the tonnage. Merchants and passenger craft can't afford the extra space that an autoloader and magazine would require. Military ships can. Merchant ships can't afford to stand and fight... no armor or active defenses (other than, perhaps, sand)... a merchant that stands to fight for more than three missile salvos is in big trouble.

Just my Cr0.02.

 

[tjoneslo]

Originally posted by Tom Schoene:
This bit is, IMO, mind-numbingly silly. Real navies gave up on hand-loading missiles a decade ago if not longer. Even naval gun magazines are going to fully automatic weapon handling these days. I would rule that missile racks backed by magazines have automatic reloading capability.

Hey, this is Classic Traveller ported to T20. I agree with Darth the missile magazine probably includes an autoloader. But most merchants are too cheap to install one.

For an alternative point of view, try GT (well you have, but others might not know). The GT missile turret holds 77 missiles in an autoloader, plus the missiles have a grav drive in them, so you can program their tiny little computer brains to fly themselves from the magazine, down the hall and into the missile laucher. There's a scene to frighten passengers. The 11' long missile wandering down the hall:

"Excuse me, pardon me, I've got some pirates to go kill, would you be so kind as to direct me to the #3 port turret..."

 

[Libris]

On page 271 of THB it says that missiles displace 0.05 tons (0.7 cubic meters) and weigh a mere 50 kg. This sees an incredibly low overall density compared to current munitions.

At this density it would float in water!

Given other discussions elsewhere, mass of a space missile (in metric tons) should be in the region of 5 times its displacement in tons.

Otherwise, we are saying that the round is much the same size as an M1 HEAT round, albeit somewhat bulkier.

A mass of 250kg seems much more reasonable.

 

[gardclan]

Originally posted by Libris:
On page 271 of THB it says that missiles displace 0.05 tons (0.7 cubic meters) and weigh a mere 50 kg. This sees an incredibly low overall density compared to current munitions.
<<snip>>
A mass of 250kg seems much more reasonable.

Agreed. But I suppose that this would depend on your view of the tech. Consider that the current I-SAM's often weigh in the range of 1-2 tons, and are about 95% fuel. (a crude estimation, to be sure) If you replace the fuel and rocket motors with grav drive motors you end up with about 50kg of missile for every metric ton in the conversion.

My view tends to be that turret missiles are small, lightweight, self defense weapons. 50kg seems about right. By the same token, I tend to view bay launched birds as being single large missiles. Those should probably mass a couple of tons or so.

 

[Commonman]

I think that the referee has to decide what they want to do so that they create the look and feel for there Traveller universe. IMTU a magazine has an auto-loader and if the missle launcher does not have a magazine then once you have shot your three missles than you have to truck it down to the hold and get 3 more missles, bring up to the turrent with a grav-dolly and the use the manual loader to get missles in the rack. A very time consuming project especailly when the ship is pitching and rocking in the heat of battle.

 

[Falkayn]

Everyone seems to be agreeing that a missile magazine is there for autoloading more than the 3 missile syou start with ... so what do you do with sandcasters? Should there be a sand canister magazine as well? Or do we have to have people running around with sand canisters in their hands?

 

[Commonman]

I would say that the magazine also contain sand cannisters so, i would not consider it a problem.
Of course where do you keep the sand cannisters when you dont have a missle rack in the turret, maybve the magazine for sand is so small that it is of no consiqence.

 

[GypsyComet]

From an economic point of view, merchant ships won't install magazines because that means they expect to load them and use them. Considering that a single firing of a triple missile turret is the equivalent of flinging one of your high passengers out the airlock without getting him to pay first, most merchanters with any money sense will carry only the one, or maybe a second, salvo. All subsequent reactions to being attacked should consist of running away and deploying sand...